Public Observations

I, and probably others out there, see things while cruising through life that I would love to comment on. Civility, sense of self-preservation and/or the futility in saying anything generally keep my mouth shut. Just once I would love to be able to let it all out.

A while back I was in a grocery store and the woman in front of me had two big boxes of trojans condoms amongst her groceries. Someone had a busy weekend ahead of them. I wonder if it was for personal or work related activity. And if it is work related can you write it off on your taxes as work related expense. Whatever the reason, someone's going to get some action, so i say.. have at it!

Unfortunately, most of the things I want to comment on are things that piss me off. Saturday I get out of my car to go into a restaurant, car next to me pulls into handicapped spot. No sticker, special plate or card from mirror indicates he is disabled. I see him and his wife/girlfriend come into restaurant and they both seem fine. Arrogant bastard, can't walk a bit farther because it is raining some? Afraid you'll melt, well got news for you ya fat fuck melting off some of you, while creating a puddle of shit would at least help you some. I could be wrong, they might be giving disabled tags to people with very small penises or suffer from mental conditions leading to exaggerated views of self importance.

Mental health is heavily influenced by how a person is raised. I hate to see parents let their children run roughshod all over them. I sat in a restaurant watching a woman, constantly threaten a child with punishment, but then do nothing when they continued to act up. Then they try "If you are really good, I'll buy you a toy later" Congratulations lady, you are the Neville Chamberlain of parenting. Nothing like rewarding someone for not acting like a little bastard. I wish it it worked like that in my life, I would love to have my boss come up and say "Hey Steve, if you would stop surfing porn sites and work that would be great, I'll even give you a raise." Doesn't work that way. Best to set that record straight early, there are consequences when you screw up. You know what I call someone who doesn't care about that point? Sociopath. Start laying down the law or when the reporter interviews you and asks you if there are any indications he would shoot a nun and sodomize cattle, don't say you didn't see it coming.

But, let's not forget, Judge not lest thee be judged, unless the other person sucks then feel free to rip them a new one.

IF.. March 17th

Okay, to take a bit of a respite, it's time to answer some IF questions. Play along at home. That means post a comment dammit, even if it's just an answer or two!

If you were given a racehorse, what would you name it?
Beef. I need to explain this one since only my people in Paris would get this one. When Dunja, Lesley and I went to a restaurant in Paris, they had a dish called hamburger a cheval. Well cheval is horse, so we thought it was horsemeat. Through charades and broken French, the waitress understood our question on it and she told us it was beef, and that was just the name of the dish. The next day when we discussed this matter with our friends, Alexandra said "Maybe the horse's name was Beef"

If you could completely remove someone's vocal cords for a year, whose would they be? Tough call. I think I am going to have to go with Bill O'Reilly, I think he's become such a smug asshole. I think this would be good in teaching him some humility. If I was still sitting in my old desk at work though, there are two co-workers who would get this vote, since they are loud and irritating.

If you had to recall the worst date you've ever been on, which one was it?
Probably my first solo date, with girl in German class when I was 16. It started out good, then we deviated from plan and decided to go to beach. Well I started off going the wrong way. In my defense I would have eventually got to the beach, it would have just been in the State of Washington. Once I got turned around, the fun started again. Nervous with first date and inexperienced driver = potential disaster. I proceded to take a high speed left turn from the center lane when I almost missed a turn. Next, I almost rear ended a truck while looking for a parking spot. Then after dazzling her with my driving ability, I decided it would be appropriate to be all over her like weird on Michael Jackson. Oh, and after I dropped her off at her house, I backed over a curb. Bring out the gimp. I didn't even bother asking for a second date.

If you could be given the complete film library of the work of a single actor, who would it be? I'm going to cheat a bit and pick one living and one past. Living: Al Pacino Past: Gregory Peck

If the United States had to sacrifice one state, which one would you give away?
Once we get friends Carroll and Biz out of Mississippi then I say cut her loose.

If you had to eat the cooking of one person you know personally for the rest of your life, whose would you want it to be?
Mom, no doubt about it. If it's a non-relative then my friend Jenny who is a whiz at making new recipes and with great presentation, like Mom.

That's it

The People vs. Whatshisname

As mentioned before, in general reality if far less interesting when compared with fictionalized accounts. Case in point, the court case that I was assigned to. One of my favorite shows is Law & Order. I knew this wasn't going to be up to par with that. Reality isn't all that exciting usually and this was a court case to determine the mental competency of the defendant, something that just usually doesn't make the TV shows.

I was Alternate #2 (out of 2) which is to say that I played the part of nipples on a boar pig... useless. I was there and did my duty though (cue patriotic music and flag waving behind me). Our duty was to determine if the defendant was mentally competent to stand trial. By the court's definition competency meant that the defendant understood the nature of the proceedings, his part in it and is able to assist his attorney in his defense. In this type of case, you don't even need beyond a reasonable doubt. It is the burden of the defense to show with a preponderance of the evidence that the defendant isn't competent

In TV Land you would have had someone who was Rain Man, some deranged look in his eyes, talking to his invisible friend, Bunny or the like. In reality though, we get a defendant who is sluggish and not very responsive and who enunciates like Billy Bob Thornton in Sling Blade. The defendant had been diagnosed as being bipolar and schizophrenic, which was to be the basis of the issue.The defendant, to be known forthwith as Ben, didn't display any unusual characteristics except occasionaly smiling or laughing to himself. Fortunately that isn't grounds enough or I would be in question of being competent (just in terms of standing trial, the rest is up for debate).

The defenses entire case was that Ben had been abused, bounced around in foster care, a drug baby and that he wasn't quite sure what the case was all about. The defense did not present any exhibits that even touched on the facts she said she was going to show. Her sole shot was to have Ben testify and show that he was slow and didn't quite understand what everything was about. Well, for one most of us could get up on stage and talk like Ralph Wiggum or the like and act like you aren't mentally sound. This guy, however, although hard to understand and frequently "distracted" in answering questions was able to use words that showed me he for one was intelligent enough to understand basic questions. There was no bombshell moment in his testimony, nothing asked by the defense to really call into question his competency. She didn't offer any expert testimony that supported their asserions either. It was like she knew this guy was bullshit, said "I'll take French Army, 1940 for 500, Alex" and called it a day.

To be fair, the prosecution wasn't exactly Clarence Darrow. She was ok, not the best speaker in the world but didnt totally gaff it. She had an expert witness though. The expert witness was a Doctor often hired to examine defendants due to his specialty in forensic psychiatry. If there are any budding attorneys out there, feel free to ask medical experts to paraphrase their credentials, especially as it pertains to the case. This guy started with his credentials at about 1972 and then went on... and on. He even included that he studies some internal medicine and OB/GYN (If you would, Dr. Sharma tell the court what your findings were after administering the PAP smear to the defendant) . So, after hearing the good doctors qualifications, he proceded to explain to us that he felt the patient was competent. A separate doctor had ID'd Ben as a "malingerer" meaning he either used symptoms of mental disorders to get what he wanted or if he had symptoms he would try to use them to get a lot of mileage off of them. The defense did get the doctor to admit that he probably wouldn't want Ben as a juror in a case he was involved with, but that was it. No mental retardation and any mental illness present did not preclude him from understanding.

The closing arguments were worthy of debates in my Intro to Communications class at Cal State Fullerton.. all the passion of a General Ed course.. yessss! The 12 jurors went in to deliberate and the other alternate and I cooled our heels in the hall. It took about 20 minutes for them to return the verdict of Competent. The judge was quite kind in thanking us for our service and apologetic for some of the delays that occured and let us go. I am not exaggerating in that we spent more time at lunch than we did at trial, and instructions given to us in the court were about as lenghty as the testimony given. So, for at least another year, or until the proper authorities catch up with me my court time is over.

True Stories

As I typed the word "manhood" in the last post it reminded me of romance novels. One day when a bunch of friends and family were sitting around at my Dad's house, the ladies were talking about who had read what romance novel. I grabbed the novel my Step Mom had been reading and just flipped randomly flipped to a page. Too funny, I glanced at middle of the page and there was this passage describing the man's manhood pressing against the woman, who was wearing some corset or something tantalizing. I had to laugh, right there I validated my preconceptions. If any of you ladies out there have read these types of books I would be interested to hear what your opinion of them are. Then again I guess I can't blame the authors, it is supposed to be escapism. A real life tale would probably fall short in romance..

George, thrusted and grunted, his pot belly slapping against his wife's. As he reached the climax his face contorted into a look best described as slack-jawed wonder. He pecked his wife on the cheek, breathlessly said "Thanks", rolled over and fell asleep. The eight and a half minutes of passion had left him exhausted. George's wife, Miriam straightened out the sheets, grabbed the remote and turned on the TV. She hoped she hadn't missed Toby Keith on Letterman

Now granted, there are definitely better stories in life than this one, but there are those thatr match this an worse. That's why we have this outlandish fiction, to inspire dreams and remove us from the usual grind we have to deal with.

The guys have similar fantasy novels. For us it's the Spy/Super Duper Special Forces guy. It's about as realistic as what apparently is in your average Romance novel. Well, I am getting tired, where's Miriam when you need her.

Commercials

From compilation shows that many have seen here, you might realize that European TV commercials are racier than what we have here in the States. Not a surprise when you consider the puritanical streak alive and well here in the US.

I did not get a chance to watch much TV in Europe to see what it was like, but I did catch one commercial that made my point. A man and woman are making out, getting hot and heavy, pawing at each other. You see the woman tear at his pants then you see his pants and boxers around his ankles. Then you hear this laughing and the couple look over and it is a Burger King bag chuckling, then the graphics flash up on the screen pushing the Extra Long burger. It was funny mainly since it just isn't something you see here much. The closest I can think of are the commercials for that "male enhancement" drug that features a man and wife in a pseudo 50's world where she is grinning like a maniac because this drug has increased his manhood.

I enjoy the "racy" commercials it brings welcome relief from the crappy infomercials ("How much would you pay for this Wonder Cooker?, well we'll also include the Vascectomizer 2000, it julienne's vegetables, cuts through cans, sterilizes your pets and is a universal remote.) or inane corporate comercials (I'm looking at you Old Navy and McDonalds's). Here's to the FCC taking their proper seat in the 3rd Level of Hell and letting us have a bit of fun.

Unnatural Selection of the Weak

In what might become a regular piece here I will attempt to discuss people who irritate me because I feel they suck and should stop taking up our valuable oxygen. These are the club-footed gazelles of our world who have been allowed to continue because the lions out there know that if they eat them they will just end up with a bad taste in their mouth and acid indigestion. They are better known as weenies, losers, dorks, douche bags, a-holes etc. My first award winner is someone I saw at Sunday Brunch, I shall call him Dudley.

Dudley is most likely in his late 40's, early 50's. He looks like Wallace Shawn http://us.imdb.com/gallery/ss/0317705/Ss/0317705/TI-015.jpg?path=pgallery&path_key=Shawn,%20Wallace
but with less charm. I first noticed him because, despite his considerable baldness, Dudley grew a long ponytail. You know, feel free to look around. How many ponytails do you see on 50 year old men, Dudley? How many do you see period? If you are trying to compensate for your baldness by growing something that looks like a permed sewer rat pelt stuck to the back of your head, it's just not a good plan.

Dudley is also a weenie of the first magnitude. He walks with a cane, which may be quite legitimate, but might also be from a real touchy bunion. While walking around the buffet, I heard him ask one of the cooks if they used milk in making the mashed potatoes, because he was lactose intolerant and it would make him ill. I stood there looking at him and thinking.. how appropriate that I am across the street from the Warner Bros. lot, this is as much a stereotype as has ever been in a movie.

Another annoying bit. He loudly calls out for the Hispanic waiter, "Senor", in a nasaly voice. Now most of us would have said, "Excuse me or Sir" since this wasn't a mexican restaurant and the waiter spoke English. No Dudley wanted to make the gent feel right at home. Then again, since Dudley only wanted him to take his plate so he could go get more, most of us would have simply slid the plate off to the side and went up without worrying that a dirty dish might disturb the next run at the carved meat.

The unabashed taint of loser on Dudley was such that if I had to admit to being impotent or knowing Dudley, I would flip a coin and if it came up in favor of Dudley I would then call for best 2 out of 3. Gentlemen, if you needed to get rid of an unwanted erection, visualizing Dudley would kill it faster than thinking of road kill, Dick Cheney or Whoopi Goldberg. So, lets hear it for Dudley, my Unnatural Selection for this week so far.

What are you saying?

I got stuck on a jury, I almost made it out of there but I got called in as Alternate #2 (out of 2), so I get to sit there for 2 days and then not even do anything. That really frosts my balls. Which brings me to the subject of the day.. sayings. I've picked up a variety of saying from many places, Dad, Grandfather, friends. Some of the sayings I've never been able to decipher, but here are some of my favorites.. Note: Not all are for the faint of heart.

Being Pissed: The aforementioned "That Really Frosts My Balls" Now I am assuming that in this case frost is frost as in extrememly cold since that would be unpleasant. The other implied meaning to frost as in put frosting on well that's something else, I mean if Natalie Portman wants to come over with some buttercream frosting.. then all I can say is call me cake. I digress.

Being Sick: Well if you just generally didn't feel well... "Feel like I was shot at and missed, shit at and hit". Of the more scatalogical sayings, if you had diarrhea then you were "Somewhere between shit and a brown sweat".

Screwing Up: Say you have a couple of people working on something and they don't have a clue.. "Looks like 3 monkeys trying to fuck a football" If someone was just screwed up totally then he "Didn't know whether to shit, throw up or go blind"

Temperature: "Colder than a well-digger's ass in the Klondike" "Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey" "Hotter than a whore's ass on payday" "I'm sweating like a pig at a luau"

Tough: "Harder than a whore's heart" "Stiffer than a wedding night dick"

Age: "My memory is short as my dick" "The only thing that gets hard now is my arteries"

Sex: Impotent? Then he's "Limp as a microwaved licorice whip" "Trying to shoot pool with a length of rope" "A woodless wonder"
Hooking up with an ugly girl/guy "Put a flag on their face and give them hell for Old Glory". Hooking up with the ugly so your friend can hook up with their good looking friend? Then you are "Falling or jumping on the grenade" ...

Well, these are it for now, always interested in hearng new ones

Europe - A Look Back

Random thoughts on Europe:

Out of Whack Prices: The 3 Euro bottles of Coke in Paris, hell I'm used to free refills at $2.00, and I am used to having about 2 refills. This was a tough one to get used to.

Funniest Thing I Saw: A Christian Youth Hostel, literally 50 feet from a row of prostitute windows in Amsterdam. Now that's what I call variety.

Funniest Thing I heard: I can't recall it all, but Grace and Etty had a wide variety of things that just cracked me up.

Best Dinner: Schnitzel and beer with Dunja and her family.

Worst Dinner: I tried something called the Daddy Burger at KFC in London when I was looking for something to grab while out shopping. It was disgusting, I am not sure what all it had on it, but I shit-canned it almost immediately. Who's your Daddy? Not this piece of shit.

Worst Breakfast: The third world continental breakfast at London Guards hotel. Crappy croissants, stiff rolls and a couple types of uninviting cereal.

Unique Dinner: Pizza with Tuna on it. It just sounds wrong, but it wasn't bad.

Most Decadent Food: Belgian waffle with pure chocolate sauce on it and ice cream... glllggghhhh

Best Rapid Transit System: Although Londoners disparege the Tube with all the construction, I liked it the best. The Metro in Paris is excelent system as well, if I spoke French it would probably be equal to London's for me.

Best Hotel Room: I liked the Ramada I stayed at in Amsterdam, it was the newest and had the best shower of all the places. My room at the London Guards had a refridgerator, and it was a good sized room so it's a very close second.

Biggest Screwup: Besides the obvious Pete Rose slide in London, it was mistakenly believing my breakfast was included with my room in Paris. Paying 13 Euros a day for 3 days for continental breakfast is brutal. Can I have lube with my croissant, please? Not bad for biggest screwup though.

The Ugly Foreigner Award: Goes to the lady who got all pissy and gave us a dirty look in Paris for blocking the sidewalk for all of 30 Seconds. Excuse me, how do you say "Bite my ass" in French

Best Moment: People always ask what was the best thing? I don't have one single moment, but hanging out with my friends whiel seeing new places is probably what I will remember as much as anything.

Best City: Again, tough to call. I think London for the pure variety of things to see. Amsterdam is great for just being comfortable in, smaller and did I mention they have legalized pot and sex all over the place?

Well, that's all for now.. gotta run

London

This is way overdue, but finally getting to it.

I got into London the 16th of Feb.

Once I got settled into my hotel I decided to head over to The Victoria & Albert Museum. The V&A is another huge museum, with a collection that includes plaster casts of important architectural pieces (apparently a popular effort undertaken during Victorian period), Japanese Armor, Furniture, silver serving pieces etc.

After a number of hours here I headed out and did a little shopping at Harrod's then I picked up some food at Marks and Spencer. My hotel room had a little refridgerator which came in handy since I was able to buy some stuff to keep in my room. Buying some stuff at M&S saved me from having to go out and spend a lot more money. I decided to walk back to my hotel, big mistake.

Walking around Hyde Park to get back I was getting beat, my right heel was hurting, so it slowed me down. Then about 15 minutes or less from the area where my hotel was I caught my toe on raised piece of concrete and did a total face plant. In retrospect it could have been much worse, I hit my face, hand, knee and probably my gut on the concrete so the damage was distributed. The worst was my left heel, which must have gotten jammed back hard when I fell. Now here I am with BOTH heels seriously strained. This was to be a problem the whole trip in London, trying to cover everything with both heels really stiff and hurting. Favoring the heels fatigued my legs elsewhere too so it just didn't go well. Enough on that for now.

To shorten this up, my next stops were Westminster Abbey, Tower of London, & the Imperial War Museum. Westminster Abbey is quite a place. Impressive design, but the amount of memorials crammed into some of the chapels made parts seem very slapdash. Tower of London has the Crown Jewels, that right there is worth the price of admission. Between the Crown Jewels proper and some of the other decorative pieces you have a pretty amazing collection to gawk at. I love armor and the collection at the Tower is quality. Be sure to check out Henry VIII armor. He was getting pretty portly when that armor was made for him, but the highlight is the cod piece, Henry thought he was packing some serious lumber. Imperial War Museum had a nice variety of vehicles and artillery. The best aspect was the discussions of the 2 World Wars by breaking them into themed rooms with uniforms, weapons and memorabillia. Nicely done.

Now we come to the REM concert. We had found out that there were supposedly 700 Fan Club wristbands sold for the Apollo show. So in talking to Lesley and her daughter Sophie at dinner the night before, we decided to get there really early to get up front. So I got there about 8:40 AM and Lesley and Soph were already there. Not much later Grace and Etty arrived. We stood out there and froze, it was windy and goddamn cold, even the locals were miserable. Fortunately I had good company out there which made it better. Other feaks arrived later, Lucy, Alexandra and many more. So we hung out, taking turns walking back to the shopping center across the street to warm up and go to the bathroom.

The people running the Apollo were just stupid as can be, they had us queueing right next to the door where people had to walk up to get tickets and enter with VIP passes so we had to squish one way or the other to make room. Then of course when it was time to go in they had a hard time keeping people from running past/over those who were in front of them. Of course I got directed to a ticket taker who hadn't mastered the fine art of ripping along the perforation so people were jumping my space. Then as I quickly hobbled into the auditorium they were yelling "NO RUNNING" my response was "I Can't fucking run, idiot". Fortunately Annabelle ,who I met in line, saved a spot for me. I was next to Matea another big fan from Croatia, she called both the opening song and the beginning of the encore, nice to have knowledgable fans next to me. The crowd there was how I pictured a "typical" European crowd. People on the floor were singing along way more than US show, and they were bouncing around. It is fun in general, but it can be annoying. I know I was getting crushed by the masses surging a couple of times not bad, but I can imagine what was happening to smaller people in rows behind me. It was a better setlist than Paris, but they still didn't vary it nearly enough. Still, great show. After the show I bid farewell to everyone and head back.

The next day I went to the British Museum, but my legs were shot and so was my energy so I didn't get to too much there. The next day.. I headed home. I really didn't want to go home, I wanted to get my legs back under me and see more of London, but another time. Overall this was an amazing trip, the next tiem I would like to have friends around a bit more, always better to share the experiences. But if not, I'm stil going back

Amsterdam

I got into Amsterdam the evening of the 13th, this was my first stop solo. As far as place to go solo, Amsterdam isn't a bad one, or maybe it is? Being solo could mean Steve:
1. Runs through most of his money on Prostitutes
2. Uses some common sense and plays it cool til he smokes a way too strong joint and then runs through most of his money on Prostitutes
3. Doesn't use common sense, has a space cake or mushroom and spends one of his days in Amsterdam having meanignful conversations with plants, variety of inanimate ojects and/or imagined friends.
4. Does #2 0r #3 and takes a header into a canal

Of course being solo means I could do any and all and noone else would know...

Fortunately, I used good sense all the way through and just smoked a mild hash/tobacco joint (more on that later) and left the hookers be. I know you all want to hear about Rembrandt's Nightwatch or Van Gogh's works... yea right.. you want to hear about the Red Light District, don't you, don't you, you filthy heathens. Good, you're in the right place.

Everything Looks Better in Red
The Red light district is several blocks long and a few blocks wide, it's hard to nail down a precise area, but when you no longer see anything related to sex you know you are definitely out ofthe area. Red Light District is comprised of sex shops, sex shows and prostitutes.

First off, the sex shops, they are everywhere. Amstedam sex shops feature DVD's covering most every fetish you can think of (and a few you didn't). Bestiality, bathroom fetishes, fisting, etc it's all here for ya, fun for the whole family. Beyond the extreme categories of DVD's, I am not sure how much different a shop would be from one here in California.

Sex shows are heavily promoted on the main drag of the RLD. Doormen outside try to call passing guys into checking it out. I think the average prices are in the range of 25-40 Euros, so they aren't cheap. I hadn't read anything complimentary about them so I didn't bother, especially being there by myself. Moulin Rouge, Cassa Rossa and The Banana Bar are the main one's. A coworker said she went to one and the guy couldn't get it up so I guess it wasn't as much of a sex show (rope trick anyone).

The other type of show is the peep show. I saw a bunch of people come out of peep show booths chuckling, so me being the inquisitive one had to go check it out. Basically you go to a small stand up booth drop in a Euro or two and a window opens and there is a woman there who is basically doing a strip routinue. However, she almost immediately came over and said, "hey baby meet me over in Private Cabin 4". I'm like.. uh yea, I know a con job when I hear one. Whatever, it was I wasn't interested in whizzing away money on that, so I bailed. I figured it was some kind of private room like they have in strip clubs for lapdances. Close. One of the cabins was open so I peeked in and there was a chair that faced a glass partition (apparently where the girl does her show) I didn't notice much else in there, except... the tissue dispenser, lol. This is where you go... ewwww. In Amsterdam, I guess you can do as you please just be tidy about it. How would you like to work there... "cleanup, Cabin 1"

Finally, the prostitutes. From what I can glean, the girls rent space, which from what I can see is a glass door, that leads into a small room with bed among other things. The girls stand or sit there looking at the prospective clients. The girls were a variety, from quite attractive to "I'm looking for adams apple and noticeable bulge". There was one black lady who was tipping the scales at about my weight, so they even had that covered. Although the majority were white, there were quite a few black women and a couple of asian. I am betting that more than a few of the white women were from Eastern Europe. Apparently 50 Euro is standard base price for "a suck and a fuck" (standard phrase from what I read) for 15 minutes. What is surprising is with it being legal, they do not do any health testing, so it isn't any safer, just more open. They see it as a personal rights issue (if we are tested, clients should be too). My theory is that there are professions that require some invasions of typical privacy if you want to be a part of it. It was bizzare walking around watching the flesh supermarket right on the street. As much fun as RLD was, there were other parts of Amsterdam to see... like the coffeeshops.

Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em
Coffeeshops are teh term for the places where you can buy and consume soft drugs, primarily marijuana and hash. There are dozens of coffeeshops in Amsterdam and apparently many of them have their own private variety of weed. From what I understand, the local Dutch grown stuff is pretty potent. Now, I never smoked pot before (yea yea I know, where have I been.) I had read a good review of the coffeeshop, Rookies, so I headed there. I told the guy at the bar I was a total newbie, not even a smoker. So, he suggested a light variety hash/tobacco joint wit ha mild variety of hash called sugar polm. I received this joint in this little plastic test tube like container so you could take it to go if you didn't finish Their menu had a about 8 varieties of pot/hash sold for 15 euros, with the amount of good varying. I didn't do too bad, I only inhaled a little fast once and almost cough my guts out. I could feel a buzz not long after I started, and as I had about 3/4 of the joint burned I could feel a strong buzz. It also felt like someone put me in a sauna, my body temp seemed to spike in minutes, I closed out and walked out into freezing weather to cool off. If I was in Amsterdam longer I would have tried something else but I had only one more day and kept it mellow, but at least I tried. You experts out there, enjoy the variety and spark up.

Art With Some Guy Who Cut His Ear Off
One of the days in Amsterdam I spent primarily at the Van Gogh museum and the Rijksmuseum. Both museums are quite nice. What was surprising is the number of works of Van Gogh I recognized from the show I saw with John and Jennifer. A large number of his most improtant works had made it to LA so I simply revisited them. The collection by no means ended there they had many more of his works as well as other artists. They had a nice exhibit of Art Nouveau as well.

The Rijksmuseum was dedicated to the culture and histroy of The Netherlands primarily shown through art. I need to look up more information on some of the works. There is a tremendous painting as you walk in, the detail of the work is amazing. If you go to my pictures it is 233 I believe. I plan on reading more on the piece and the artist I was impressed. Rembrandt's Nightwatch is here, a great work in itself, but not as amazing as some of his other works I think. Well, that is enough for tonight, I am tired. I should have taken more pics of the paintings, but photos just can't do art justie, such as the brush strokes in Van Gogh's later works, you have to see it for yourself. Good night all, more to come

Moving Along... Germany

After coming back with the nastiest damn cold I've ever had I haven't felt like doing much, but i am finally going to finish the blog. Although I am going to keep it short.

I got to Germany with Dunja, flew into Dortmund and she drove to her place. The next evening we headed to her parents house to celebrate her Dad's birthday. Had a great time with her family. Her Mom doesn't speak English (which doesn't keep her from talking with Lesley on the phone, who doesn't speak German... we're not quite sure how that all works) And it didn't keep her from being a great hostess, we had tea and cake before heading out to dinner, German pastries make ours look pretty weak here in the US. Her Dad is a character, he speaks English fine and we got along great. He specifically said that unless he says he's being serious, not to take anything completely serious. Then Dunja's brother Alex showed up as well, the man is 25 and a frickin genius, writes music and programs computers as if it were nothing.

We had a great night out, chowed on some excellent Schnitzel and drank some very good beer (Veltins). Dunja's daughter Tara joined us for a while and Dunja's future ex-husband Klaus joined us as well and it was a good time. It was good for me to listen to them speak German and try to pick out phrasing. It's been at least 14 years since I took any German, but I was able to pick up a bit here and there. Fortunately most everyone could speak to me in English "Stevie, birthday order, have another beer" Although I would have loved to drink along with Dad, I would have been face down in Schnitzel if I tried to keep up.

Tuna Pizza
The next evening we went over to Alex's place. He had this amazing studio set up in the basement of the house he rents. I will have a picture or two posted of it shortly. We went out to dinner at a great Italian place and was introduced to something new.... Tuna Pizza! Now, most of you Americans probably had the same reaction... WTF. I couldn't believe it, but I tried it and it wasn't bad, tasted like pizza with meat on it, but I don't see it being a popular item here lol.

Unpleasant Surprise
We packed it in to leave for Cologne the next day (the 12th), that evening I finally checked my cellphone ad was greeted with a message from my Step mom, Kim that my Dad was going to have open heart surgery the next day. I knew he had some irregular readings in a test before I left, but this was a surprise. It wasn't until about 3:30 AM the morning of the 13th that I found out he was ok.. the delay I later found out was that they almost lost Dad on the operating table, he had pretty well bled out and they had to do extensive work on him. ever have I been happier to be ignorant in retrospect.

Cologne
Cologne, seems to be a nice city, but the weather was windy, rainy and cold, so we didn't venture out too much. We did go into Cologne Cathedral, which is one of the great European Cathedrals. We did some shopping then met Alexandra for dinner that evening and later had some ice cream while looking at her great pictures from previous REM shows. All in all we had a nice if short visit. The following day I bid Dunja farewell, unfortunately she wouldn't be able to join me for anymore of the trip, but it was great to spend the time I did with her. I boarded a train and away I wentto Amsterdam...