Soccer, Soccer, Soccer

G'day,

Well I did blog over the last weeks but the entries were either not complete or too weird so I deleted them. This is a mix from stuff I wrote over th last couple of weeks and some updates:

World cup group phase match 1

The soccer world cup is upon us and I am loving it. The soccer world cup in Australia is very different compared to Germany. The typical Australian knows that soccer exists but the game doesn't have the same significance as Aussie rules football or cricket. I remember the last cup in Germany when every second car was displaying the German flag and public life came to a hold during the Germany matches. Here public life is on hold anyway because the games are at night and I even saw two cars with the Australian flag...

Soccer is the domain of the immigrants here. Melbourne is the biggest Greek city outside Greece and we have a lot of English, Irish, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Ex-Yugoslavian, Russian and other European immigrants who brought their love for soccer with them. But for the true blue Aussie soccer is a pussy sport.

Well, as little as soccer plays a part in the public life it is nevertheless quite big in the media. And before the first Australian world cup game the media and public opinion here was kind of "the bigger the opponent, the harder they fall". Most Australian soccer fans I talked to before the game actually believe that Australia has a decent chance to get past the group stage or even win the group. I always replied that in my opinion it'll be a hard group and as I really like the socceroos I was quite sad when FIFA announced the group they have to play.

I watched Germany vs Australia with approx 25 Aussies and after 25 minutes the crowd was silent. All I have to say after I watched the German performance is: thank you Kevin-Prince Boateng for taking out Michael Ballack! This German team was the best I have seen in a long time. It might be due to the fact that Australia was not a strong opponent but still. After the first round I can say that from all the so called favorite teams only Germany played like a favorite. Spain lost, Portugal vs Ivory Coast was a lame kick, France and Italy were bad and Brasil wasn't good either. The Dutch won but it was not a very convincing victory.


World cup group phase match 2

Now that the second round is done I have to adjust my opinion a little. The dutch were still ok but the German loss against Serbia was shit. But Italy...hahaha...my dream might come through, please let them go home after the group stage. I went and watched Australia vs Ghana in the city.
Melbourne public viewing was kind of good but I have to say that summer is actually the better season for public viewing. Even though winter here is what we call autumn or spring back home but nevertheless 20+ degrees are better for watching soccer. After the first goal for Australia people were quite optimistic but when the game was over it as clear that that was that for the socceroos. It's a bit unfortunate as the Australian soccer would have benefited from a better performance at the world cup but this is also the problem. If it comes to soccer Australia is a third-world country. They are able to compete and beat other soccer third-world countries like Oman or China but if they have to play against teams from the first soccer world they don't stand a chance. It's not surprising if you watch the A-League here, any half decent team in the third league in Gemany could beat any team in the Australian A-league. The season is extremely short compared to Europe and the style of play here reminds of last millennium. Sorry my Australian friends but it's the truth.


World cup group phase match 3

Yes! Yes!! Yes!!! The fucking Italians are flying home. The highlight of this world cup. For me it is more important that the fucking Italians went home after the group stage than who actually wins the tournament. Fuck YES!!! The arrogant bastards actually thought they would win the cup and they got sent home as last of their group. Paraguay, Slovakia and even New Zealand were better. Hell, yeah! Fuck you Italian soccer, this world cup showed you were you belong! One word to my Kiwi friends: awesome! New Zealand unbeaten, that's a great efford and I hope we'll see you again next time around. Germany won against Ghana but it wasn't a great game and for 20 minutes it kind of looked as if the miracle could happen and Australia could reach the round of 16 but it was not meant to be.


World cup round of 16

One day afer Germany's last group game my jersey arrived.
I was ready to face England. What a classic and all my English friends and funny enough most of the Australians supported England. Well fair enough in the case of the English but regarding the Australian soccer fans I didn't get it. The Australians love facing England in sport (Cricket, Rugby etc) and they are ALWAYS against England which is understandable because as a former penal colony it's still great to show the former warders who's boss. But this time they supported their hated motherland. Well, what good did it do? I loved that game it was like witnessing history in the making. The highest German win against England ever and the equaliser for the Wembley goal in 1966. Of course some hopeless diehards still go on about that the referees stole Englands victory but that's just pathetic. Period.

I also had to pay the prize of having married a dutch woman
Only one person gave me a hard time but as he is a Bayern Munich supporter I could ignore his "expertise".

So now the exciting games are Holland vs Brazil (Fr) and Germany vs Argentina (Sa) and I am dreaming of a final Holland vs Germany which would also be a classic...which Germany could win...

That's all for today...enjoy the next two days without soccer, take care and cya later

Nazis vs freedom of speech

G'day,

Today's blog entry is an assembly of things going through my mind regarding the recent appearance of one of Germany's Nazi parties (NPD) on facebook and the reactions this has caused.

A little while ago I have joined the facebook group "No facebook for Nazis - delete NPD site" after I had read that the NPD (National Party of Germany) has started a facebook site in the wake of the election in North Rhine-Westphalia.

It's well known to those who know me well that even though I'm a very tolerant and generally peaceful person these character traits end when it comes to the stupid asshole fucker excuses for human beings who gather under the banner of "national socialism". Kill the whole bunch I say...

Shortly after I joined the anti-nazi-facebook-group Josara asked me how I could be for freedom of speech and against censorship on the one hand but would deny freedom of speech to the Nazis
and call for censorship in their case. Well, that actually is a good question and it reminded me of what Henry Rollins was talking about a few weeks ago when Dorje and me went to see him.

Rollins compared the U.S. model of freedom of speech to other countries. In the U.S. every opinion is protected, if you choose to believe the earth is flat you can publish books about it and if you believe the holocaust was a communist lie you are free to say so. In other countries such as Germany or the Czech Republic you get arrested if you carry books that proclaim the holocaust has never happened. Saying/publishing certain things like the old myth of the "holocaust lie" or wearing a T-shirt with the swastika are criminal offenses in Germany and many other European countries.

Well, if you think about it from a civil liberty point of view the repression of certain opinions by criminalizing them is nothing else than censorship. From this it follows that as I am against censorship in any form, I am for the freedom of speech/expression of the Nazis.

But I ain't!

I can take it even further: if you think about human rights from a humanistic point of view every human being has the right to live. From this it follows that I would grant Nazis the same right to live as I demand for myself.

But I don't!

Does the fact that I would like to give the Nazis what they want, the resurrection of the 3rd Reich i.e. put the whole rotten bunch of those stupid fuckheads into cattle wagons and give'em a nice Zyklon B shower and a last visit to the furnaces put me morally/ethically on the same level as the Nazis?

By denying them the rights I demand for myself I become ethical-morally speaking like the evil I fight?

Well, I don't fucking care. I can't explain in a logical debate why my point of view is right and their point of view is wrong. It just is.

There are no ethical, logical or moral paradoxes with which a sufficiently large ego can't deal!

Conclusion: democracy just doesn't work, same right for everybody is bullshit, what we need is a world empire with me at the top!

Well, lucky for some that we are not there yet...that's all for today, have a good one, stay safe and cya later...

Fungi, mushrooms and whatnots...

G'day,

Yesterday Josara, Buddy, Gilbert and me went to Mount Macedon (I am aware that "me" is wrong grammarwise but it sounds better than "I" and as beauty is truth and truth is beauty and grammar lies in the eye of the beholder and whatnot I choose to use "me" instead of "I").
Bush in autumn...gloomy, wet and cold...

same bush...still cold, wet and gloomy
Clouds all around...
Josara and Gilbert
Buddy and me
it got a little less gloomy while we were walking...
Kangaroo poo...
Fungi...Mushroom...
more mushrooms or fungi or even whatnots...
closeup mushies...
more mushrooms...
several mushies...different ones...
and another one...
white fungi...
brown fungi...
...you mght have guessed: mushrooms
and some more
wonton fungi...might taste good deep fried but possibly poisonous...
another wonton fungus...
yellow mushies...
brownish tree fungi...
and finally the last mushie pic...

Now, it would be interesting which mushrooms/fungi/whatnots would be edible, which are fatal and which are psychedelic. Judging from the fact that they are Australian mushrooms I reckon they are all extremely poisonous so I won't give it a try but if you wanna have a go just take the trail from the top of Mount Macedon and try for yourself.

I guess the mushies might be psychoactive and fatal, be high before you die sort of...
Flowers...
Spiderweb between the trees...
bush...
Same spot we were at the start of the walk but it cleared up a bit in the meantime
Me and Victoria..

Well once again that's all for today...have a good one, stay save and whatnot...

Picture dump...

G'day,

Today I have decided that it's time for another picture dump. So here we go
It's autumn in Melbourne now and some trees are blooming in autumn for whatever weird reason...
Strange tree flowers or fruits or whatever...
another blooming tree...
No digging here...
I'm a rebel...and I was cycling wearing roller blades whilst drinking beer when I took this picture...
In the back yard of this modern office buildings there was this old rest of a house
I like this old vs modern stuff
Flinders Street station...
Elisabeth Street, Adult book exchange...I tried to trade some of my adult books there once but they don't work that way...
The first fish I caught in Australia...tasty...
The colder it gets the cuddlier the cats become...
Gilbert...sone dogs just look extremely sad by default...
Buddy...some dogs are just idiots...
it looks soo cute on the picture but in reality Willem started biting Pixel immediately after I took that pic and it turned into a veritable cat fight...
I love that picture...relaxed menace...cuteness paired with evil...only cats can look like that...

That's it for today...have fun, take care and cya laters

The top ten best heavy metal albums of all times...

G'day,

After I've posted my top ten list of the best albums of all times I have received some comments and so I thought about other top tens (and it's actually fun to do). So today I proudly present my top ten heavy metal albums. For the sake of argument I include "hard rock" into this category so don't send me a comment like "bla bla bla is not heavy metal, it's insert-whatever-crazy-subcategory". Again the albums are in no particular order.

The band that started it all. The inventors of heavy metal, Tony Iommi, Bill Ward, Ozzy Osborne and Geezer Butler (to quote my friend Pudgey: "Every fucking bassist should be called Geezer!"). This album is a milestone, a must in every record collection.
Motörhead's Ace of Spades, some might call it hard rock but I call it brilliant heavy metal. If you don't know this album, you haven't lived a decent life, period.
White Zombie, La Sexorcisto. Well, that's Metal with Groove! Rob Zombie may not be the best director in the world but he sure put a great band together. This record is like the Misfits with balls!
Ok, true enough, Metallica has sold out. They have become mainstream and from "...and justice for all" on they have become pop. A drum-kit on wheals, James Hetfield getting sober and taking vocal lessons...argh. But on the other hand "Master of Puppets" is one f the best metal albums of all time. Honestly "Ride the lightning" is as good but I only just like Masters a little better.
"Seasons in the abyss". Compared to Metallica this is a different cup of tea alltogether. Slayer have never sold out and never will. I saw them live the first time in 1992 and they just blew me away. This is the true spirit of heavy metal, the one and only constant. The one band you can instantly recognise withing the first 10 seconds of any song. Fuck, Slayer rules!
Who had thought that Brazilians could play heavy metal before Sepultura? Well, they can and Sepultura is pure aggression. If I'm pissed off at something, I just listen to a bit of "Arise" and it gets better. This album is also connected with one of the more interesting stories in rock n roll history. The guy who mixed this album is called Andy Wallace and in summer 1991 a young quite unknown Seattle grunge band called Nirwana listened to "Arise" and decide that they want the guy who mixed that album to mix their next record "Nevermind". The rest is history. Btw, Andy Wallace mixed/produced four of my top ten metal albums...
Tool "Undertow". Ok, you can't really classify Tool anyway so I might as well sort it into the heavy metal/hard rock drawer. This is definitively their best album, later they have become a little too eclectic. I still remember fondly when I saw them on the Undertow tour in 1994 in a little auditorium at university of Enschede. 3 hours live and they played "No quarter" by Led Zeppelin. It was freaking awesome.
The first Iron Maiden album with Bruce Dickinson. One of the best bands ever and undoubtedly their masterpiece. Songs like "Run to the hills", "Hallowed be thy name" and "Number of the beast" are anthems and this album is a modern classic, a must for any record collection.
Again I'm not sure if this is properly classified as heavy metal but who gives a flying fuck anyway? It's an awesome album, groovy but hard and very very angry. I am still silently giggling when I remember my former flatmate Stippel "dancing" to "Killing in the name" in Sputnik...
Last but not least Ministry's "The mind is a terrible thing to taste". Pure aggression, "Thieves" was banned from the play list in the club I used to go when I was young as people tended to bash their heads in while dancing to this song. Btw this album is extremely good to listen to on the iPod while being at the dentist, the sounds of a dentist drill merge right into the music as if intended to be their by nature. Apart from that it's just a killer album.

Well, that was my top ten heavy metal albums, again I'm looking forward to any comments you might have ad if you are from my parents generation i.e. 50+, don't worry if you only know Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden but at least you should have heard of those two bands.

Have a great day, stay save and cya