G´day again,
Well done France! I just read in the news that the French prosecutor general proposed to ban Scientology. I have already published my opinion on religious nutcases in general but the follower of the "Church of Scientology" are amongst my favorites for the title of biggest nutcases of them all.
Well, founder of scientology was the science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard (who´s books are quite badly written even by standards of badly written science fiction) and the secret core believe of Scientology sounds like a plot out of one of his books. Officially you´ll only get initiated into this secret knowledge when you´ve advanced inside the organisation until you are member of the inner circle but it leaked some years ago: the immortal souls of some alien race are floating around on earth and if you did all the programs and courses of Scientolgy (which are fucking expensive, until you reach top level in the organisation you probably have already payed something like half a billion $$) you are ready to become kind of a host for one of them and that will unleash superpowers...yeah, right...
The "normal" religious nutcase whatever his/her craze of choice may be is a nutcase but at least they don´t have to pay money to become a nutcase, maintain their nutcase status or advance in the nutcase hierarchy (apart from some taxes in some countries but that doesn´t count in my book). But paying for that?
I mean how pathetic do you have to be to pay most of your money in order to become a follower of L. Ron Hubbard (who has -according to his biography- invented the principle of sweating in the sauna! Well, some of my finnish friends would beg to differ I guess)? Only the dumbest of the dumb of the nutcase persuation can think that religion only is worth something if you have to pay for it...
Back to the news: in France Alain Rosenberg, the founder of the french arm of Scientology and six of his co-Scientologist are on trial for organised fraud. The prosecutor general called for a total ban of Scientology as the organisation "systematically uses fraudulent means to recruit new members and rip them off". Apart from the total ban, they asked for four years in prison plus 150000 Eur fine.
I love this plain and simple approach and I take my hat off to the french prosecutor general. I wish it will work...Vive la France!
Let me end with a nice dream...why stop at Scientology? Why not charge the pope, the grand mufti, the chief rabbi with "systematically use of fraudulent means to recruit new members and rip them off", I´d applaud...
That´s it for today, honestly now...have fun, take care and cya...
Tuesday, 16 June 2009
Some picture....my life so far...from Baby pic to Rockstar...
G´day,
And another special welcome to my congregation, Hi Emily, Josara, Julia, Cord, Daniel, Andrew, Scott, Bill and Jan. Well three followers to go and then I can start wandering around, preaching and do miracles (turning full bottles of wine in empty ones would be a good one). The only drawback is that my congregation is scattered on three continents so that will be quite an effort to get them all together...
Ok, today you are in for a treat, one of the good things about being at my parents house is that I have access to old photos and I scanned in a few today. Lean back and enjoy and try not to laugh too much...
This is me when I was one hour and 15 minutes old...already complaining...
Me on the day my sister was born in March 1974...still complaining...
My sister and me having fun while the hedge was trimmed (probably in 1976 or 77). At the right you can see the back of my mums old car...VW beetle
One of the pics of my sister and me when we were in a cuddly mood and not fighting...we had quite a Bart/Lisa relationship when we were young and I sometimes feel the need to apologise...but I guess she forgave me...
Me in Denmark, summer 1978 just before I was sent to school...
This is my sister, me and Botzi our dog...I guess that must have been in 85/86...one of the rare pics of me with glasses....I was to wear them but I never did...
Between 1986 and 1991 I vanished. There are only three or four photografic evidence of me in that time. I think I viewed pictures as bourgeois and refused to appear on them which I quite regret now but well that can´t be helped...
This is my former flatmate Tom and me approx 1994 in our flat
My friend Jörg, who was the guy I lived together with when I was in Bolivia in 99/00. I guess this pic was taken in 96.
Me in a cafe in Fuerteventura in Nov 1998...funny holday on my own where I ended up illegally sharing a hotel room with two nice girls from Duesseldorf...
And now various pics of The Holy Chao
Band promo photo in 96...from the three o clock position clockwise Mark (drums), Carsten (Bass), Daniel (Lead guitar), Ingo (Lights and magic), Marc (voice), me (rythm guitar) and Sebastian (sax and keyboard)
Another band promo shot...the next day
Soundcheck for the second concert we did in Stralsund (Aug 1998)
Our very last concert in 1999 "Farewell to The Holy Chao"...was a fucking awesome time and I wish I could upload some of the stuff we did...damn...
This is the last pic for the day, Finland New Year´s Eve 2003/2004...Turbonegro, sauna and alcohol...fun times
Well, that´s all for today, have fun, take care and cya later!
And another special welcome to my congregation, Hi Emily, Josara, Julia, Cord, Daniel, Andrew, Scott, Bill and Jan. Well three followers to go and then I can start wandering around, preaching and do miracles (turning full bottles of wine in empty ones would be a good one). The only drawback is that my congregation is scattered on three continents so that will be quite an effort to get them all together...
Ok, today you are in for a treat, one of the good things about being at my parents house is that I have access to old photos and I scanned in a few today. Lean back and enjoy and try not to laugh too much...
This is me when I was one hour and 15 minutes old...already complaining...
Me on the day my sister was born in March 1974...still complaining...
My sister and me having fun while the hedge was trimmed (probably in 1976 or 77). At the right you can see the back of my mums old car...VW beetle
One of the pics of my sister and me when we were in a cuddly mood and not fighting...we had quite a Bart/Lisa relationship when we were young and I sometimes feel the need to apologise...but I guess she forgave me...
Me in Denmark, summer 1978 just before I was sent to school...
This is my sister, me and Botzi our dog...I guess that must have been in 85/86...one of the rare pics of me with glasses....I was to wear them but I never did...Between 1986 and 1991 I vanished. There are only three or four photografic evidence of me in that time. I think I viewed pictures as bourgeois and refused to appear on them which I quite regret now but well that can´t be helped...
This is my former flatmate Tom and me approx 1994 in our flat
My friend Jörg, who was the guy I lived together with when I was in Bolivia in 99/00. I guess this pic was taken in 96.
Me in a cafe in Fuerteventura in Nov 1998...funny holday on my own where I ended up illegally sharing a hotel room with two nice girls from Duesseldorf...And now various pics of The Holy Chao
Band promo photo in 96...from the three o clock position clockwise Mark (drums), Carsten (Bass), Daniel (Lead guitar), Ingo (Lights and magic), Marc (voice), me (rythm guitar) and Sebastian (sax and keyboard)
Another band promo shot...the next day
Soundcheck for the second concert we did in Stralsund (Aug 1998)
Our very last concert in 1999 "Farewell to The Holy Chao"...was a fucking awesome time and I wish I could upload some of the stuff we did...damn...This is the last pic for the day, Finland New Year´s Eve 2003/2004...Turbonegro, sauna and alcohol...fun times
Well, that´s all for today, have fun, take care and cya later!
Monday, 15 June 2009
Identity of all my followers revealed, dangerous animals and reminiscence of my youth
G´day,
And a very special welcome to my disciples, Hello Emily, Josara, Julia, Cord, Andrew, Scott, Bill, Daniel and Jan. By now you have revealed your identity but I figured you out before and I have already written this part and I refuse to just leave it out only because you have decided to publish your identity beforehand...pffft
At first I did some reasearch on the pseudonym and "Willem Parel" was a persona created in 1955 by the dutch cabaret artist Wim Sonneveld. Willem Parel´s speciality was a program on the hand-organist (haha...in a lewd way) in general and the hand organist´s sexual problems in particular. As this persona is rather unknown outside the Netherlands, so I already had the nationality of the mysterious follower. The rest was just deduction and cunning questioning, I only have two friends in the Netherlands and neither of them was a suspect so it must have been someone from Josara´s end. I knew she had given my blog address to her parents but the comment on my guitar confused me. I have to admit that I couldn´t imagine a "parent" being interested in electric guitars but apparently I am prejudiced. When I spoke about the results of my deduction so far to Josara and explained that I ruled out her parents due to the guitar comment she said and I quote: "Fucking hell, it´s my father." So again, welcome...
Today´s topic will be a little report on the native dangerous fauna of Germany with special attention to poisonous animals. If you compare the fauna in Germany to Australia in terms of danger to humans, Germany is boring, plain and simple. We only have one mildly venemous snake (which is near extinction), serveral very mildly venemous spiders and bees, wasps and hornets. The only way to manage to die from animal poison is to be allergic but actually in that case you die of anaphylactic schock, so that doesn´t count. The only real dangerous animal in the wild are the boars which became quite a nuisance over the last decade. And they attack everything. A friend of mine had to spend some hours up on a tree near the Polish border some years ago as a male boar went after him...
There are also two packs of wolves in the north-east corner of Germany but they are extremly shy and would probably not harm a humans.
This is one of the spiders, European garden spider or cross spider (Araneus diadematus) which populate our backyard (also very mildly venonous, you´ll probably rather die of boredom than of poison if she would bite you).
Due to the climate change we got some mirgrants in Germany and one of them is the Yellow Sac spider (Cheiracanthium punctorium) which came from Italy and lives in Southern Germany now. This one is decently venonous and could be compared to the Whitetail in Australia. Ah, and apparently the Redback spider has made it to Belgium and France but not to Germany yet.
I did some internet research this morning on the animals which cause the most deadly accidents in Germany and the result did surprise me indeed. The animal which causes most of the fatal accidents is Bos primigenius taurus, better known as the common cow. Well apparently the cows only provide assistance as the victims are killed in car crashes. The usual story seems to vary a little from case to case but basically goes like this. A cow or several cows decide to go for a stroll and head for a road, preferably just behind a curve or a hill. A car driver doesn´t expect 500 to 800 kg of cow to just stand on the road and the result is a dead cow, a crashed car and quite often a dead driver...well you live and learn...(obviously not the guys who die in car crashes cause by collision with cows, they neither live nor learn in that case)
Ah today it was the first time since I am back home that I visited an Aldi store and I took some pictures. The stores look exactly alike all over the world and have more or less the same stuff. Ah, Emily, please show this pictures to Lee as she should see how the Aldi stores in the motherland look like...
This store could as well be located in Prahran...
...and the interrior design is the same, too. This could be Franklin Street...
Biggest difference, Beer prices, sixpack (6 x 0.33l) Eur 1.69, which would be a little over Aus$ 3.
Later today I took a little walk and I passed a wall which triggered fond meories of my teenage years. This wall is located at the entrance to a very narrow path which went uphill behind an old cementary quite near to my parents house. I used to pass that wall on my way back from the club I spent my weekend nights in and I collected hedgehogs on my way home and released them into my parents garden to keep the vole population down. So one day the guy who owned the house to which the wall belonged painted it bright white. Well, as a teenage punk rocker there is only one way to react to a clean white wall and so I bought a can of black spraypaint and the next time I passed this wall on my way home I did a lovely anarchist´s "A" (you know, the capital letter A in a circle) there. I felt quite the rebell, let me tell you...
Well, two weeks later the wall was white again. So I got my spray can and repainted the "A". This time it lasted for almost two month. Then again white wall...to summarise the next 4 years, I decorated the wall, once around christmas even in gold glitter spray, always the same motive and it got always repainted. Then I moved to Münster for my studies and only did it twice over the next ten years but when I passed the wall today I saw that the spirit of little teenage punk rocker Jan is still living. Not the nice clear classy anarchist´s "A" but well it´s the 21st century now and the graffiti includes a black star in a circle so that´s more or less the same. Unknown teenager, I salute you, even if you might listen to some bullshit rap, keep up the good work!
That´s it for today, take care, have fun and cya...
And a very special welcome to my disciples, Hello Emily, Josara, Julia, Cord, Andrew, Scott, Bill, Daniel and Jan. By now you have revealed your identity but I figured you out before and I have already written this part and I refuse to just leave it out only because you have decided to publish your identity beforehand...pffft
At first I did some reasearch on the pseudonym and "Willem Parel" was a persona created in 1955 by the dutch cabaret artist Wim Sonneveld. Willem Parel´s speciality was a program on the hand-organist (haha...in a lewd way) in general and the hand organist´s sexual problems in particular. As this persona is rather unknown outside the Netherlands, so I already had the nationality of the mysterious follower. The rest was just deduction and cunning questioning, I only have two friends in the Netherlands and neither of them was a suspect so it must have been someone from Josara´s end. I knew she had given my blog address to her parents but the comment on my guitar confused me. I have to admit that I couldn´t imagine a "parent" being interested in electric guitars but apparently I am prejudiced. When I spoke about the results of my deduction so far to Josara and explained that I ruled out her parents due to the guitar comment she said and I quote: "Fucking hell, it´s my father." So again, welcome...
Today´s topic will be a little report on the native dangerous fauna of Germany with special attention to poisonous animals. If you compare the fauna in Germany to Australia in terms of danger to humans, Germany is boring, plain and simple. We only have one mildly venemous snake (which is near extinction), serveral very mildly venemous spiders and bees, wasps and hornets. The only way to manage to die from animal poison is to be allergic but actually in that case you die of anaphylactic schock, so that doesn´t count. The only real dangerous animal in the wild are the boars which became quite a nuisance over the last decade. And they attack everything. A friend of mine had to spend some hours up on a tree near the Polish border some years ago as a male boar went after him...
There are also two packs of wolves in the north-east corner of Germany but they are extremly shy and would probably not harm a humans.
This is one of the spiders, European garden spider or cross spider (Araneus diadematus) which populate our backyard (also very mildly venonous, you´ll probably rather die of boredom than of poison if she would bite you).Due to the climate change we got some mirgrants in Germany and one of them is the Yellow Sac spider (Cheiracanthium punctorium) which came from Italy and lives in Southern Germany now. This one is decently venonous and could be compared to the Whitetail in Australia. Ah, and apparently the Redback spider has made it to Belgium and France but not to Germany yet.
I did some internet research this morning on the animals which cause the most deadly accidents in Germany and the result did surprise me indeed. The animal which causes most of the fatal accidents is Bos primigenius taurus, better known as the common cow. Well apparently the cows only provide assistance as the victims are killed in car crashes. The usual story seems to vary a little from case to case but basically goes like this. A cow or several cows decide to go for a stroll and head for a road, preferably just behind a curve or a hill. A car driver doesn´t expect 500 to 800 kg of cow to just stand on the road and the result is a dead cow, a crashed car and quite often a dead driver...well you live and learn...(obviously not the guys who die in car crashes cause by collision with cows, they neither live nor learn in that case)
Ah today it was the first time since I am back home that I visited an Aldi store and I took some pictures. The stores look exactly alike all over the world and have more or less the same stuff. Ah, Emily, please show this pictures to Lee as she should see how the Aldi stores in the motherland look like...
This store could as well be located in Prahran...
...and the interrior design is the same, too. This could be Franklin Street...
Biggest difference, Beer prices, sixpack (6 x 0.33l) Eur 1.69, which would be a little over Aus$ 3.Later today I took a little walk and I passed a wall which triggered fond meories of my teenage years. This wall is located at the entrance to a very narrow path which went uphill behind an old cementary quite near to my parents house. I used to pass that wall on my way back from the club I spent my weekend nights in and I collected hedgehogs on my way home and released them into my parents garden to keep the vole population down. So one day the guy who owned the house to which the wall belonged painted it bright white. Well, as a teenage punk rocker there is only one way to react to a clean white wall and so I bought a can of black spraypaint and the next time I passed this wall on my way home I did a lovely anarchist´s "A" (you know, the capital letter A in a circle) there. I felt quite the rebell, let me tell you...
Well, two weeks later the wall was white again. So I got my spray can and repainted the "A". This time it lasted for almost two month. Then again white wall...to summarise the next 4 years, I decorated the wall, once around christmas even in gold glitter spray, always the same motive and it got always repainted. Then I moved to Münster for my studies and only did it twice over the next ten years but when I passed the wall today I saw that the spirit of little teenage punk rocker Jan is still living. Not the nice clear classy anarchist´s "A" but well it´s the 21st century now and the graffiti includes a black star in a circle so that´s more or less the same. Unknown teenager, I salute you, even if you might listen to some bullshit rap, keep up the good work!
That´s it for today, take care, have fun and cya...
Sunday, 14 June 2009
Some thoughts on stupidity, manliness and further ramblings
G´day,
Greetings to my known congregation, Hello Emily, Josara, Julia, Cord, Andrew, Scott, Bill and Dan (well thanks to your FB post today I could finally make the connection). Well, I guess "Willem" will remain a mystery but he/she is right, I shouldn´t insult followers even if they are annonymous as my authors vanity demands that I want to be read...ok...greetings to you too...
Ok...first thing, yes I won´t continue quoting song lyrics on my facebook. It was quite funny yesterday but I seemed to have pissed off most of my friends so I´ll refain from doing that. Fine, somebody should still explain to me how I can upload the actual songs then I´ll be happy...
Reality seemed to have overtaken my blog entry on Iran yesterday, the followers of Hossein Mussawi decided to take their disappointment onto the streets of Tehran and demonstrated first spontaneously later more organised against Ahmadinedschad and the result of the "election". Apparently it took the authorities a little time to react but then they reacted in the tried and tested way of dictatorships all over the world: club the demonstrators and arrest them. But according to "Der Spiegel"(my favorite German news magazin) the demonstrators fought back for the first time in a long time. Instead of letting themself been arrested they launched quite a couner attack and started a riot in the finest tradition of urban guerilla which took the authorities by surprise. Secret service agents in plain clothes were severly beaten and the "revolutionary guards" got stoned (well with rocks not weed). I´m not sure if that will change anything but I guess it´s a good sign that there is a large group of the iranian population which is fed up with medieval government. Funny side note: US foreign minister Hillary Clinton announced that the US will launch an investigation on the manipulation of the iranian election...yeah, right...I should think that maybe the Swiss would still have the credibility and integrety to do that but the US should first try to gain back their credibility before they start meddling with the next country but this shows again the famous blind spot the US have when it comes to their own democratic shortcommings...oh well it´s a funny old world...
This brings me to my next topic...as Albert Einstein said, two things are infinite: space and human stupidity and one of the topics which shows the infinity of human stupidity is religion. Just to clarify, I firmly believe that any human being has the right to believe whatever he/she wants, regardless how crazy it might be. Carpenters who came back from the dead, merchants who had haluzinations or whatever it is that members of the "church" of Scientology believe in (I guess it was a toad-like creature from outer space), knock yourself out. But please keep it to yourself! And please respect that other people have the right to believe whatever they choose to believe and that includes to believe that there is no head honcho in the sky telling me how to live my life.
Here in Germany the majority of people are frightend by the Islam. Since 9/11 Islam equals terrorism and especially the yellow press nurtured the general suspicion that he who believes in Allah will also bomb good German citizens. So religion is viewed as a threat but very selectivly. When I compare Germany to Australia in terms of secularity, Germany is quite influenced by christianity. Even though Germany if officially a secular state Christianity plays a major role here. The biggest political party CDU, the German conservatives, even carry the C for christian in their name (full name Christian Democratic Union). As I´ve already emphasised I don´t mind religion if they religious nutcases keep their opinions to themself and don´t try to influence my life with their insanity but apparently Christians can´t keep quiet. Right now there is an atheistic bus touring Germany (article from the english page of "Der Spiegel") in order to inform on atheisim as the atheists were not allowed to hire advertising space on normal public transport busses for a slogan "There is (probably) no God, so stop worrying and carry on with your lifes". I mean our German constitution states the freedom of believe and a Christian campaign on public advertising space is not a problem at all but if atheists call in the same rights it get´s denied with the argument that it might offend religious feelings...
Well what did happen? After the initial schock a group of christian nutcases hired their own bus covered with "Jesus lives" and keep following the "godless sinners". Last week the atheism bus was in Münster and I saw the report on the local TV news and the good people of Münster were offended. Some quotes: "That should not be allowed!", "Infamy!", "Shameless" and "As a christian I´ll pray for the souls of those poor sinners as God is forgiving...". I missed someone saying "When Adolf was still alive something like that wouldn´t been allowed..." The organisators of the bus tour get tons of hatemail and threats which again shows the ugly face of the religion of love and peace...
Well I had some fun time indeed reading the discussion boards of various christian groups on facebook which deepened my suspecion that you have to abandon quite a large part of your brain in order to become a believer. I won´t even mention how crazy you have to be in order to think that the Genesis of the bible is to be understood in a literal way (God created earth on a sunny afternoon 4004 aD). If someone would believe this in a sane society he/she would be stored away safely in a place with padded walls and an extremly long sleeved jacket. And the nutcases are even allowed to teach this delusional nonsense to children who don´t know better. But as I said, I won´t go into this...
I learned that especially in the US there are countless different versions of the bible (all official of course, I mean how idiotic is that?) and a true believer doesn´t only read one, nope, they are all true, even the bits that contradict themselfs. So there are discussions, quite fierce ones on how to interpret this or that. And people seem to have a point of view you could bend steel around until someone found the right quote from the right edition and then they all go like: "Ah, well, if it´s written...then you are right...". I took part in a discussion titled "Give me one logical reason why gay people should have rights" and tried to explain that it´s possible to have a morality without any involment of supernatural entities but Christians seem to be unable to understand that. Without a God there can´t be a moral, period. Several people found it necessary to explain that I´ll burn in hell and that I´m the spawn of satan. Oh, well...what can I say? And when it comes to God, it can´t be just a God, it also has to be the right one...nutcases...the lot of them. My proposal would be to vacate one continent and deport all religious people there and then they can sort it out amongst themself. Last believer standing gets a complimentary fruit basket and a medal. And the sane part of humanity could get on with their lifes...
In reaction to Chrises remark on my manliness I started to think about manliness in general, the local definitions and my own understanding. Well Chris, as you are playing for the other team, let me at least doubt your qualification to judge manliness. Be that as it may, you got me thinking. I consider myself pretty manly even though I use a pink toothbrush. Firstly the missing outfit in the breast department and what I see when I look down my pants are definitive a clue of -at least physical- manliness. As for the thinking aspect, the way I perceive the world is definitive male, rational-analytic as opposed to the typical female perception of emotional contexts in their outlook. Well females think it´s the other way around, that they are rational analytic and males are irrational emotional but well, they are wrong.
So I guess the only difference to the usual image of manly men is the way I approach the emotional aspects of my life. I talk about it, even in public and on the internet. The traditional male seldom talks about emotions or doesn´t talk about them at all. At least that´s what females think but hey, you are wrong again. We, as in we males, do talk about our emotions. But mostly we talk, as always, with a motive and a purpose. There is something that bothers us some way or another and then we get it out to an audience of our choice and listen to the input we get. And then we tick this issue off our list and don´t talk about it again until it bothers us again.
Well known fact: males use approx 2500 words a day, females 8000...possible explaination, general male lazyness (Why should I make an efford to say anything if it wasn´t for a specific purpose?). In my case the reason why I had to tell my emotional state to a larger audiance was more an electronic equivalent of shout-it-of-the-rooftop. I had to get it out somewhere to prevent me from blasting...lol
Ok...now I probably showed enough male chauvinism to prevent further question on my manliness, eh? Have a great day, take care and cya...
Greetings to my known congregation, Hello Emily, Josara, Julia, Cord, Andrew, Scott, Bill and Dan (well thanks to your FB post today I could finally make the connection). Well, I guess "Willem" will remain a mystery but he/she is right, I shouldn´t insult followers even if they are annonymous as my authors vanity demands that I want to be read...ok...greetings to you too...
Ok...first thing, yes I won´t continue quoting song lyrics on my facebook. It was quite funny yesterday but I seemed to have pissed off most of my friends so I´ll refain from doing that. Fine, somebody should still explain to me how I can upload the actual songs then I´ll be happy...
Reality seemed to have overtaken my blog entry on Iran yesterday, the followers of Hossein Mussawi decided to take their disappointment onto the streets of Tehran and demonstrated first spontaneously later more organised against Ahmadinedschad and the result of the "election". Apparently it took the authorities a little time to react but then they reacted in the tried and tested way of dictatorships all over the world: club the demonstrators and arrest them. But according to "Der Spiegel"(my favorite German news magazin) the demonstrators fought back for the first time in a long time. Instead of letting themself been arrested they launched quite a couner attack and started a riot in the finest tradition of urban guerilla which took the authorities by surprise. Secret service agents in plain clothes were severly beaten and the "revolutionary guards" got stoned (well with rocks not weed). I´m not sure if that will change anything but I guess it´s a good sign that there is a large group of the iranian population which is fed up with medieval government. Funny side note: US foreign minister Hillary Clinton announced that the US will launch an investigation on the manipulation of the iranian election...yeah, right...I should think that maybe the Swiss would still have the credibility and integrety to do that but the US should first try to gain back their credibility before they start meddling with the next country but this shows again the famous blind spot the US have when it comes to their own democratic shortcommings...oh well it´s a funny old world...
This brings me to my next topic...as Albert Einstein said, two things are infinite: space and human stupidity and one of the topics which shows the infinity of human stupidity is religion. Just to clarify, I firmly believe that any human being has the right to believe whatever he/she wants, regardless how crazy it might be. Carpenters who came back from the dead, merchants who had haluzinations or whatever it is that members of the "church" of Scientology believe in (I guess it was a toad-like creature from outer space), knock yourself out. But please keep it to yourself! And please respect that other people have the right to believe whatever they choose to believe and that includes to believe that there is no head honcho in the sky telling me how to live my life.
Here in Germany the majority of people are frightend by the Islam. Since 9/11 Islam equals terrorism and especially the yellow press nurtured the general suspicion that he who believes in Allah will also bomb good German citizens. So religion is viewed as a threat but very selectivly. When I compare Germany to Australia in terms of secularity, Germany is quite influenced by christianity. Even though Germany if officially a secular state Christianity plays a major role here. The biggest political party CDU, the German conservatives, even carry the C for christian in their name (full name Christian Democratic Union). As I´ve already emphasised I don´t mind religion if they religious nutcases keep their opinions to themself and don´t try to influence my life with their insanity but apparently Christians can´t keep quiet. Right now there is an atheistic bus touring Germany (article from the english page of "Der Spiegel") in order to inform on atheisim as the atheists were not allowed to hire advertising space on normal public transport busses for a slogan "There is (probably) no God, so stop worrying and carry on with your lifes". I mean our German constitution states the freedom of believe and a Christian campaign on public advertising space is not a problem at all but if atheists call in the same rights it get´s denied with the argument that it might offend religious feelings...
Well what did happen? After the initial schock a group of christian nutcases hired their own bus covered with "Jesus lives" and keep following the "godless sinners". Last week the atheism bus was in Münster and I saw the report on the local TV news and the good people of Münster were offended. Some quotes: "That should not be allowed!", "Infamy!", "Shameless" and "As a christian I´ll pray for the souls of those poor sinners as God is forgiving...". I missed someone saying "When Adolf was still alive something like that wouldn´t been allowed..." The organisators of the bus tour get tons of hatemail and threats which again shows the ugly face of the religion of love and peace...
Well I had some fun time indeed reading the discussion boards of various christian groups on facebook which deepened my suspecion that you have to abandon quite a large part of your brain in order to become a believer. I won´t even mention how crazy you have to be in order to think that the Genesis of the bible is to be understood in a literal way (God created earth on a sunny afternoon 4004 aD). If someone would believe this in a sane society he/she would be stored away safely in a place with padded walls and an extremly long sleeved jacket. And the nutcases are even allowed to teach this delusional nonsense to children who don´t know better. But as I said, I won´t go into this...
I learned that especially in the US there are countless different versions of the bible (all official of course, I mean how idiotic is that?) and a true believer doesn´t only read one, nope, they are all true, even the bits that contradict themselfs. So there are discussions, quite fierce ones on how to interpret this or that. And people seem to have a point of view you could bend steel around until someone found the right quote from the right edition and then they all go like: "Ah, well, if it´s written...then you are right...". I took part in a discussion titled "Give me one logical reason why gay people should have rights" and tried to explain that it´s possible to have a morality without any involment of supernatural entities but Christians seem to be unable to understand that. Without a God there can´t be a moral, period. Several people found it necessary to explain that I´ll burn in hell and that I´m the spawn of satan. Oh, well...what can I say? And when it comes to God, it can´t be just a God, it also has to be the right one...nutcases...the lot of them. My proposal would be to vacate one continent and deport all religious people there and then they can sort it out amongst themself. Last believer standing gets a complimentary fruit basket and a medal. And the sane part of humanity could get on with their lifes...
In reaction to Chrises remark on my manliness I started to think about manliness in general, the local definitions and my own understanding. Well Chris, as you are playing for the other team, let me at least doubt your qualification to judge manliness. Be that as it may, you got me thinking. I consider myself pretty manly even though I use a pink toothbrush. Firstly the missing outfit in the breast department and what I see when I look down my pants are definitive a clue of -at least physical- manliness. As for the thinking aspect, the way I perceive the world is definitive male, rational-analytic as opposed to the typical female perception of emotional contexts in their outlook. Well females think it´s the other way around, that they are rational analytic and males are irrational emotional but well, they are wrong.
So I guess the only difference to the usual image of manly men is the way I approach the emotional aspects of my life. I talk about it, even in public and on the internet. The traditional male seldom talks about emotions or doesn´t talk about them at all. At least that´s what females think but hey, you are wrong again. We, as in we males, do talk about our emotions. But mostly we talk, as always, with a motive and a purpose. There is something that bothers us some way or another and then we get it out to an audience of our choice and listen to the input we get. And then we tick this issue off our list and don´t talk about it again until it bothers us again.
Well known fact: males use approx 2500 words a day, females 8000...possible explaination, general male lazyness (Why should I make an efford to say anything if it wasn´t for a specific purpose?). In my case the reason why I had to tell my emotional state to a larger audiance was more an electronic equivalent of shout-it-of-the-rooftop. I had to get it out somewhere to prevent me from blasting...lol
Ok...now I probably showed enough male chauvinism to prevent further question on my manliness, eh? Have a great day, take care and cya...
Saturday, 13 June 2009
Annonymous followers, music uploads, ebay and random stuff
G´day,
And another special welcome to my known congregation: Hi Emily, Josara, Julia, Cord, Andrew, Scott and Bill. And another thing: this goes out to the two followers who I am not able to identify until now: relicah (no fuckin idea who you are) and Willem Parel (is that you Paul?): who the fuck are you? If you don´t want to go public, fair enough but send me a short message to jannevee@yahoo.com.au and I promise to keep the secret. If you want to remain totally annonymous I´ll insult you in every blog entry from now on (well, that not much of a threat but anyway).
Today´s blog entry will be an incoherent essay an whatever comes to my mind, random stuff which didn´t fit into former blog entries and I´ll start with complaining that you can´t upload music on neither facebook nor this blog. Well I don´t like it. I´d love to share some of my stuff but I can´t here. I guess if I´d manage to convert my audio tracks into video I´ll manage but I have no idea how...suggestions are very welcome...
Btw, iPod is the best invention ever, well actually it was the Sony walkman which revolutionised my listening habits but the iPod is the walkman´s equivalent for the 21st century. What I love about this device is that it enables you to add a soundtrack to your life. There are not many things better than walking through a crowd of people listening to whatever it is I fancy at that moment and feeling good. The music actually affects the way I walk and they way I look out at the world and my fellow humans. In a good mood on a sunny day...reggae and I´m smiling, bad mood => Slayer! I love my iPod...
Ebay: it took me a while to convince my parents to put their old kitchen up for auction on ebay but it was worth the efford. Only a week ago my father was going like "I don´t care if I get any money I just want to get rid of that stuff" as it seemed a little problematic for my parents to get rid of their old kitchen. If the guys they get the new kitchen from would have removed their old one it would have cost something around Eur 1000 so they wanted to advertise it in the paper...very last millenium. The kitchen is currently (2 pm) at Eur 300-and-something and will probably sell for more I reckon...funny enough, my father really got hoocked on ebay and checks it every half an hour...I´m looking forward to the last 5 minutes...lol...and will update the blog according to what happened later...
one hour to go...nothing new...still at Eur 300-something
40 min to go...nothing new...
30 min...nothing new...
20 min...nothing new...
15 min...wow what an unbelievable bid...just kidding...nothing new...
10 min...nothing new...
5 min...nothing new...still Eur 303.57
4 min...dito
3 min...well...guess...nothing new...
2 min...nothing new...
1 min...nothing happens..
and then the kitchen was sold for Eur 303.57 and I won the family game of guess-the-price with my guess of Eur 320. Whoowhoo...
Now it´s going gardenslaving again...here is one pic...
I took another pic, too with my shirt off...but that´s just for Josara...
Current events: elections in Iran
Dunno if the Australian news (apart from SBS) will cover that but Iran has voted yesterday. Despite the hopes of many Mahmud Ahmadinedschad has been re-"elected". It seems that he had learned how to win an election from his biggest enemy and reproduced the presidential elections in the USA 2004. Well done, mate, learn from the best! Right now it still looks calm on the street but let´s wait and see. As there were no independent election monitors the world will probably never know the amount of manipulation...like in the USA in 2004...
In other news, I became aware that all my serious relationships were with women who had a PhD or are completing their PhD. I don´t know if I should feel stupid or rather like a toy for intelligent females. Should I do a PhD too? Or does that mean that intelligent women have a blind spot when it comes to me? Well, I decided not to worry too much, I might not have a PhD but at least I have a tertial degree...pffft!
Animals in the garden
Eventually I was able to take a picture of the turtle that somehow migrated into my parents garden pond and lives in there since approx a year. Very shy animal that. The moment ot senses movement it vanishes and doesn´t come out for days.
It´s quite funny as it´s not a native turtle, the only turtle native in Germany is the European swamp turtle (Emys orbicularis) which looks like that:
so what we have living in the pond is an immigrant from somewhere warm(er) but the turtle obviously survived last winter (incl frost and ice on the pond).
This is one of the comrades who keep making all that noise and having sex all the time...amongst the other animals I have spotted, alas not photographed as my cell phone has a shitty cam, is a pheasant who is also quite noisy, several squirrels (the European red ones) and some cats. Unfortunately my father hates cats and shouts at them as soon as he sees them so they are quite shy. But I have already spent some very entertaining time watching them fishing at the shore of the pond...
Now I´m off to bake another bread as my parents loved my bread. This time I´m going to grind wheat grains and sunflower seeds myself and will add some Kutjera to the dough. Well that were my ramblings for the day...have fun, take care and cya
And another special welcome to my known congregation: Hi Emily, Josara, Julia, Cord, Andrew, Scott and Bill. And another thing: this goes out to the two followers who I am not able to identify until now: relicah (no fuckin idea who you are) and Willem Parel (is that you Paul?): who the fuck are you? If you don´t want to go public, fair enough but send me a short message to jannevee@yahoo.com.au and I promise to keep the secret. If you want to remain totally annonymous I´ll insult you in every blog entry from now on (well, that not much of a threat but anyway).
Today´s blog entry will be an incoherent essay an whatever comes to my mind, random stuff which didn´t fit into former blog entries and I´ll start with complaining that you can´t upload music on neither facebook nor this blog. Well I don´t like it. I´d love to share some of my stuff but I can´t here. I guess if I´d manage to convert my audio tracks into video I´ll manage but I have no idea how...suggestions are very welcome...
Btw, iPod is the best invention ever, well actually it was the Sony walkman which revolutionised my listening habits but the iPod is the walkman´s equivalent for the 21st century. What I love about this device is that it enables you to add a soundtrack to your life. There are not many things better than walking through a crowd of people listening to whatever it is I fancy at that moment and feeling good. The music actually affects the way I walk and they way I look out at the world and my fellow humans. In a good mood on a sunny day...reggae and I´m smiling, bad mood => Slayer! I love my iPod...
Ebay: it took me a while to convince my parents to put their old kitchen up for auction on ebay but it was worth the efford. Only a week ago my father was going like "I don´t care if I get any money I just want to get rid of that stuff" as it seemed a little problematic for my parents to get rid of their old kitchen. If the guys they get the new kitchen from would have removed their old one it would have cost something around Eur 1000 so they wanted to advertise it in the paper...very last millenium. The kitchen is currently (2 pm) at Eur 300-and-something and will probably sell for more I reckon...funny enough, my father really got hoocked on ebay and checks it every half an hour...I´m looking forward to the last 5 minutes...lol...and will update the blog according to what happened later...
one hour to go...nothing new...still at Eur 300-something
40 min to go...nothing new...
30 min...nothing new...
20 min...nothing new...
15 min...wow what an unbelievable bid...just kidding...nothing new...
10 min...nothing new...
5 min...nothing new...still Eur 303.57
4 min...dito
3 min...well...guess...nothing new...
2 min...nothing new...
1 min...nothing happens..
and then the kitchen was sold for Eur 303.57 and I won the family game of guess-the-price with my guess of Eur 320. Whoowhoo...
Now it´s going gardenslaving again...here is one pic...
I took another pic, too with my shirt off...but that´s just for Josara...Current events: elections in Iran
Dunno if the Australian news (apart from SBS) will cover that but Iran has voted yesterday. Despite the hopes of many Mahmud Ahmadinedschad has been re-"elected". It seems that he had learned how to win an election from his biggest enemy and reproduced the presidential elections in the USA 2004. Well done, mate, learn from the best! Right now it still looks calm on the street but let´s wait and see. As there were no independent election monitors the world will probably never know the amount of manipulation...like in the USA in 2004...
In other news, I became aware that all my serious relationships were with women who had a PhD or are completing their PhD. I don´t know if I should feel stupid or rather like a toy for intelligent females. Should I do a PhD too? Or does that mean that intelligent women have a blind spot when it comes to me? Well, I decided not to worry too much, I might not have a PhD but at least I have a tertial degree...pffft!
Animals in the garden
Eventually I was able to take a picture of the turtle that somehow migrated into my parents garden pond and lives in there since approx a year. Very shy animal that. The moment ot senses movement it vanishes and doesn´t come out for days.
It´s quite funny as it´s not a native turtle, the only turtle native in Germany is the European swamp turtle (Emys orbicularis) which looks like that:
so what we have living in the pond is an immigrant from somewhere warm(er) but the turtle obviously survived last winter (incl frost and ice on the pond).
This is one of the comrades who keep making all that noise and having sex all the time...amongst the other animals I have spotted, alas not photographed as my cell phone has a shitty cam, is a pheasant who is also quite noisy, several squirrels (the European red ones) and some cats. Unfortunately my father hates cats and shouts at them as soon as he sees them so they are quite shy. But I have already spent some very entertaining time watching them fishing at the shore of the pond...Now I´m off to bake another bread as my parents loved my bread. This time I´m going to grind wheat grains and sunflower seeds myself and will add some Kutjera to the dough. Well that were my ramblings for the day...have fun, take care and cya
Friday, 12 June 2009
Happy anniversary to my parents and welcome my ninth follower...
G´day.
And welcome to my ninth follower I have no idea who you are...if you like me to welcome you also by name you´ll have to let me know who you are...if not I´ll ignore you as I do with my sixth follower...
Today is the 39th anniversary of my parent´s wedding, so I say "Good on yer and all the best for the next 39 years!". I dug up an old picture from my parent´s honeymoon in Italy. Please note the casual way both my parents hold their smokos...lol...
Now that´s enough for today...two blog entries, phew...ok...take care...don´t kiss pigs (btw are police officers more likely to get swine flu? mmmmuahahaha, sorry) and cya
And welcome to my ninth follower I have no idea who you are...if you like me to welcome you also by name you´ll have to let me know who you are...if not I´ll ignore you as I do with my sixth follower...
Today is the 39th anniversary of my parent´s wedding, so I say "Good on yer and all the best for the next 39 years!". I dug up an old picture from my parent´s honeymoon in Italy. Please note the casual way both my parents hold their smokos...lol...
Now that´s enough for today...two blog entries, phew...ok...take care...don´t kiss pigs (btw are police officers more likely to get swine flu? mmmmuahahaha, sorry) and cya
Press reactions on the swine flu alert: differences between Australia and Germany
G´day,
And a sightly muffled "Hello" (caused by my antiviral facemask) to my congregation, Hi Emm, Josara, Julia, Cord, Andrew, Sott and Bill. Well, now we have a pandemic on the loose and it´s quite funny to observe the difference in the press coverage about it.
First let´s have a look at the de facto situation in Australia and Germany: according to the WHO´s status report from yesterday Australia has 1224 confirmed H1N1 cases, Germany has 78. And just to remind you, Germany´s population is roughy four times larger than Australia´s. And the more important part is that the swine flu infections in Australia are spreading locally, so they are not imported anymore and Australia has become the second "independent" desease centre whereas the infections in Germany were (more or less) all imported from Mexico/US.
Judging from the de facto stuation you´d think that the press down under would do a pretty dense covering on swine flu and Germany would be much more relaxed but the opposite is the case. Germany´s biggest newspaper the BILD (yellow press) titled this morning: "Swine flu! The big wave is upon us! Highest alert declared!" and they quote WHO´s Director-General Margaret Chan like this "The virus is extremly unpredictable and can´t be stopped". BILD also quotes an unnamed source from the Robert Koch institute (Germany´s center for infectious deseases) saying that fatal cases have to be expected. I most like the fact that BILD used 5 exclamation marks!
When I had a look on the internet pages of The Age and the Herald Sun (Melbourne edition) I expected that swine flu would be somewhere at the top as 90% of the Australian cases happen in Victoria but the top story in both newspapers was "Man bitten by snake in CBD". Btw I love that story, apparently a cleaner was bitten by a Brown snake (very deadly) when he wanted to throw some garbage into a dumpster just outside the Myer store. As the snake was nowhere to be found the snake expert who was called to find the animal stated that is was probably a rat who bit the guy (lol hurt professional pride I reckon) but the paramedic declared it was definetly a snake bite...so the snake is still on the loose. The news on the swine flu is hidden somewhere further down the websites and it´s more or less along the lines "No worries, AFL and other major public events will still take place...". The Age quotes PM Kev with an awesome quote:
"I think in terms of preparedness we're okay, but let's look at the fact that Australia is a highly mobile population and a lot of Australians travel internationally and as a result we've got some challenges to deal with,'' Mr Rudd told the Seven Network.
I love it, very Australian! And no exclamation mark found in any article...
Well I´ll continue with German panic and stock up my Tamiflu and wash my hands every half an hour and you guys have fun at the AFL this weekend...take care...don´t get sick and cya later
And a sightly muffled "Hello" (caused by my antiviral facemask) to my congregation, Hi Emm, Josara, Julia, Cord, Andrew, Sott and Bill. Well, now we have a pandemic on the loose and it´s quite funny to observe the difference in the press coverage about it.
First let´s have a look at the de facto situation in Australia and Germany: according to the WHO´s status report from yesterday Australia has 1224 confirmed H1N1 cases, Germany has 78. And just to remind you, Germany´s population is roughy four times larger than Australia´s. And the more important part is that the swine flu infections in Australia are spreading locally, so they are not imported anymore and Australia has become the second "independent" desease centre whereas the infections in Germany were (more or less) all imported from Mexico/US.
Judging from the de facto stuation you´d think that the press down under would do a pretty dense covering on swine flu and Germany would be much more relaxed but the opposite is the case. Germany´s biggest newspaper the BILD (yellow press) titled this morning: "Swine flu! The big wave is upon us! Highest alert declared!" and they quote WHO´s Director-General Margaret Chan like this "The virus is extremly unpredictable and can´t be stopped". BILD also quotes an unnamed source from the Robert Koch institute (Germany´s center for infectious deseases) saying that fatal cases have to be expected. I most like the fact that BILD used 5 exclamation marks!
When I had a look on the internet pages of The Age and the Herald Sun (Melbourne edition) I expected that swine flu would be somewhere at the top as 90% of the Australian cases happen in Victoria but the top story in both newspapers was "Man bitten by snake in CBD". Btw I love that story, apparently a cleaner was bitten by a Brown snake (very deadly) when he wanted to throw some garbage into a dumpster just outside the Myer store. As the snake was nowhere to be found the snake expert who was called to find the animal stated that is was probably a rat who bit the guy (lol hurt professional pride I reckon) but the paramedic declared it was definetly a snake bite...so the snake is still on the loose. The news on the swine flu is hidden somewhere further down the websites and it´s more or less along the lines "No worries, AFL and other major public events will still take place...". The Age quotes PM Kev with an awesome quote:
"I think in terms of preparedness we're okay, but let's look at the fact that Australia is a highly mobile population and a lot of Australians travel internationally and as a result we've got some challenges to deal with,'' Mr Rudd told the Seven Network.
I love it, very Australian! And no exclamation mark found in any article...
Well I´ll continue with German panic and stock up my Tamiflu and wash my hands every half an hour and you guys have fun at the AFL this weekend...take care...don´t get sick and cya later
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