The Unmistakable Cone of Ignorance

Germany has been mellow the last couple weeks…

Starting two fridays ago… I suppose  something like the 15th of June.  I was gonna go to kings and queens but ended up going out with Erich and Ester to Schwabinger 7 and Sausalitos.  Both are pretty chill places. S7 is a real laid back dive bar and Sausalitos is a bit of a cheesy Spanish/Mexican bar.  Friday nights are also half priced margaritas at Sausalitos.   Then saturday (after being woken up at like 930 for no particularly good reason other than people wondering what I was up to) I eventually got up about 4pm worked on my bikes for a bit then ended up running into some girls and going to a party. Party was alright but a tad langweilig(boring) since it was just alot of people who knew each other hanging out and since I didn’t really know anyone I felt a bit out of place. I mean I knew the people from downstairs but… not alot of the other people.  It was still a decent time but a bit hit or miss at times.  Course I’ve been making friends with more people.   Sunday was recovery.  Also I think I ended up locking my keys in my room again during the day sunday and had to climb the outside of the building.  Could’ve been saturday.  Minor day to day details always blur around for me. I really probably couldn’t tell you what I had to eat 2 days ago unless I really really thought about it.

The week went ok. Advisor got here and we started talking. I’ve started working again.   Which is good but I’m still making less progress than I should cause I’ve just been pretty tired lately.  I just haven’t been sleeping well on my bed the last few days.  Hopefully I’ll get a good night rest tonight when I go to bed in a bit.   Either way the week was pretty chill.  Went to a beer garden on Thursday and met  some more kids from the lab and ended up going to a Hardcore show with Manuel on Saturday at the Backstage.  That was last saturday and thursday.

Jesus this is rambling.

Alright last weekend:

Friday( 22/6)  Went to Kings n’ Queens , Das Keller and Garage Deluxe.  Kings n’  Queens is a really laid back punk bar.  Mostly just good volume punk rock and people hanging out talking.  Spent an hour there and also walked around the neighborhood to check the place out.  Then I headed out to the area around Ostbahnhof. This place is sorta the ‘hip’ club district.  There’s this ridiculous place called KultFabrik which is a converted factory complex with like 40 bars and clubs in it.  Not really my scene but it’s there.  Das Keller was playing the poppiest of punk and the crowd was mostly 17 and 18 year old german hipsters.  Not my thing.  Ended up leaving real fast and going to Garage Deluxe.  GD was having it’s metal night.  It was actually alot of fun just rocking out and dancing to german metal bands.  Stayed there till like 4am and road the night bus/night trams back to StuSta.  Also it turned out I lost my passport there but I ended up getting it back after the Hardcore show I went to on Saturday.

Saturday at the Backstage which is a combo beer garden/3 concert halls: Saw 3 bands there and ‘invented’ my new rating system.  Liters and Liquor.  The first 2 bands were definitely 2 or 3 Liters on the Beer scale but I wasn’t drinking much so they were just so so.  I did run in on a circle pit during the second band cause somehow running in a circle and slamming into people at the same time is fun.  The headliners were ‘Heaven Shall Burn’  … 0 L band.  Fun as hell pit.  Had a blast though the crowd was a mix of older kids(like me) and really young kids.  My only problem with young kids is they tend to swing at about my kidney height… I hate being punched in the kidneys. Left after the show and tracked down my passport.

Sunday I didn’t really do anything other than hang around.   Most of the week was spent hanging around or trying to sleep or get work done.  Work did get done but not enough.  Sleep did get done… but not enough. We went out and took one of the guys I’m here with out for his birthday Wednesday.   Plans changed midway through though and I was first person at the first plan which was a big summer festival called Tollwood by the old Olympic Park from the 72 Olympics.  Since the weather was just so so we decided to divert to a cafe more in the downtown.  I ended up wandering around the festival for a while though and got Amanda a gift.(and no I’m not telling you what)

Then I tried to find the U1 station the signs claimed was near me.   Those signs were liars… I ended up getting lost and stubbornly refused to get on the tram and go all the way to the city center just to head back out again so I ended up wandering all over the place.  Either way I walked like a good 6 miles or so I think, which is healthy, and eventually found the cafe after asking directions a few time and getting a look at a map from some other Americans.

Yesterday I spent most of the day asleep(thursday that is) and ended up going to an Erasmus party for a bit before bed but it sorta sucked so me and this guy markus just ended up heading back after getting some whiskey sours and pizza.  Today was mostly working though I ended up falling asleep for like 4 hours at 6 after eating dinner. I should go back to bed.  God this has been rambling and very directly written.  Just a fucking summary but no real entertainment value. I should start writing these things with a 3rd person narration or something.  And just add outright insane lies here or there.

Fuck it.

i have words
i shall use my words
my words tell me…

“The system you wish to solve is a hideous bitch that will consume your entire processor and 2 gigs of ram only to return ‘it cannot be solved.’.”
of course my words could be wrong
you never know with words
they’re tricky that way
like potatoes
words are god’s cruel joke

I need to stop reading warhammer stuff.  It just makes me feisty(note that e came before i in that word just like weigh or neighbor or as if there were a c…. go go english) .  Anyways beyond the point I’m just announcing my intended travel plans for July.

Berlin 4 days with Nik.

Köln for a few days again probably with Nik.

Hamburg for 2 days or so(need to figure out where I’ll stay)

Heidelburg and Salzburg somewhere near the end.

And I need to work somewhere in all that.   Germany has been mellow for the last few weeks.  Got some good ideas for work. Starting in on them.  Trying to learn Qt and Xcode but those are both going slow.  Should work on OpenGL and more matlab but I’m feeling more mathy sooo math it’s gonna be.

Also Napoleon Dynamite sucks.  Finally watched it and it sucked.

As a final note:

Happy birthday to you!

Happy birthday to you!

Happy birthday dear STEEEEEEVE!!!!

Happy birthday to you!!!

Islamic law is sooo fucked up. Iran is now trying to label all those associated in the production, distribution and manufacturing of pornography as ‘corrupters of the world’ . The penalty for being a ‘corrupter of the world’ ?? Lashings up to Death. That’s right being in a porno is gonna get you killed. Admittedly the bill hasn’t passed yet it has to go through something called the ‘Guarding Council’. Doesn’t that sound ominous… I mean holy shit… anyone who says Islam is a religion of peace must just be lying outright… It’s completely peaceful provided you adhere to every little rule or whim of random religious madmen… otherwise it’s sword meet neck time. Western religions are all fucking crazy but this is taking the cake… you had sex… and you made a tape?? To the whipping post then the hanging block with you you evil evil ‘corrupter of the world’ .

I do like the phrase ‘corrupter of the world’ though. Maybe I can get it on some business cards.

So we finally got internet in the apt working this weekend so I’ve been online more. Called a few people on skype, etc. But we had 1 switch, 1 working port and only 3 cables for 4 people. So I decide to go get a wireless router. I get a decent one for the best price the store I was at had but I didn’t shop around much cause I just didn’t give a shit about the price that much. Apparently I was irresponsible and 100€ for a router was too much… god forbid we pay too much for technology. I’m a grad student. I get paid like it but I do have a sweet sugar mama living with me sooo maybe I’m spoiled…. but I don’t care about money too much. I have enough to eat, pay rent etc… I’m happy. So I’m not taking my roommates money. It’s my router they can use it. I don’t care. Fuck it. Anyways…

Internet was good… but it’s been getting progressively slower since we got the router… not skype or IM or SSH or anything of that nature… just HTTP… Dog fucking slow… We have to use a proxy server to use the net raw… I turned it on for my whole computer while pinging google.de and lo and behold… that proxy server was cranking out an impressive 1 second of delay. What The Fuck??? I mean at first I just figured it was 4 guys sharing the port or maybe some internal router packet shaping and I tweaked with the router but…. the proxy?? So today I spent most of the day updating my system at home and then I installed Squid. I’m now running my entire HTTP session through an SSH tunnel to my servers in the states. The funny part? This is faster than using the local DNS servers…. Hopefully this trick will keep working when I get home cause I’m pretty certain I’ve been able to SSH from home to this site to upload a pic. If not… I will find a way past this slow ass proxy somehow.

I now both hate and appreciate proxy servers.

I have been remiss in my stories of germany. Too much drinking not enough blogging. Soooo….

Monday I go to Garchin and work some lord knows what else. It didn’t really stand out in my mind much till the evening. I talked to Nik for a while then I went out with the Polish guy again. We ended up getting drunk on Mohito’s and he got into a big fight with this guy he knows over this girl. Not a fist fight but just a big argument. So the evening could’ve ended better but it was fun enough. Spent time talking to some random german girl. She gave the polish guy her number but I didn’t get it. She told me I could call anytime but I don’t have her number and to be honest she wasn’t that bright or that cute but that could’ve just been the language barrier on the brightness factor. Who knows. The polish guy is supposed to send pictures of that night. I also briefly met an American studying here that night.

Tuesday: Day was boring again I don’t think anything major happened till later in the day when I remet the american living below me. Erich. Go down with Tian and we have a couple of beers with him and his friends Jo, Moses(a large black man from Cameroon) and Party Max. Hang out a bit pretty chill but not much happens.

Edit: We went to park cafe which is a sorta semi kinda beer garden but maybe not traditional enough for dinner before I met the guys down stairs.  Obatz is a cheese spread and is really good on big pretzels and kräuterquark is a really good herb spread that goes well on fries.   I think  this was also the day where Darius and I discussed the summer project plan which I need to start on sometime Wednesday or Tuesday.  I completely forgot about this when I wrote this at first.  I also talked with this guy Helmut who’s coming to the states and will be at hopkins for 6 months.  He was pretty awesome.

Wednesday: This day does not stand out in my mind. I don’t know what I did or where I went but I think I just stayed in. How boring. I know I had some beer somewhere but nothing stands out to me as being interesting. You know I think I did some work and went to be early. Maybe I didn’t drink anything. Might’ve been crashing. I know I spent most of thursday asleep with a massive migraine that felt like someone was jamming a nail into my right eye. Fucking birds wouldn’t shut up and the sun wouldn’t stop being so bright.

Thursday: Migraine breaks finally and I take 3 Excederin(1500mg pain killers) and wander down to see Erich and crew. We end up going to this bar called Manhattan which is the highest bar/beergarden in munich. Where is this wonderous place you might ask? On the roof of the building next door I love this place. Hang out have a couple beers talk to germans work on my pronuciation with some german girls who are inviting everyone and their cousin to a big drunken scavenger hunt on the 30th. I let them know I wanted to go but I don’t know the details yet and they didn’t respond to the email saying I wanted to go. Maybe I don’t get to go It’s supposed to be somewhat limited attendance. Either way the day sucked but it ended well. It was also a holiday here in munich.

Friday. This is the more interesting day this week for a number of reasons. As I said before I biked to campus. But on the ride back my rear tire blew out. I was about 1 or 2 km from the town of Garchin and the U-Bahn but I had no idea where it was and thought i was closer to Munich than I really was. 12km later I finally get home. God that sucked. Took a shower ate some food and then went to a grill out with Party Max and crew. Talked to a bunch of random people. Polish girls, canadians and lots of germans. I can’t make the CH or Z sounds right. It sucks :/ They tried to help but I still mangle the pronunciation but I’m hopefully getting better. The more you drink the better you are at german. I blame the problem on having speech therapy as a child which taught me specifically to make those sounds like an american. I tended to do what I think the germans want me to do as a child. SCHEISSE !!!!

Ended up drinking a ton and staying out to like 5. Got up and today’s been chill. Bought a new bike with shocks that has a slightly small frame and I need to fix the gear cables and probably buy a new seat post and definitely a new seat but it was 30 eur and I can’t get the rear tire off my other bike to fix it right now sooo we’ll see. But it’ll be much better for trail riding to school on. Hung out with Max and Erich and Ester today grilled some corn with them and ended up explaining my research and vision stuff to Erich. Good day. and i know I know,,, pictures someday!

Oh I almost forgot. I managed to lock my keys in my room and had to swing out around this wall between me and the neighbors balcony so I could climb in through the door to my balcony. The things you do to save 10 EUR. We also got internet working in the apt. Just need to get a wireless router since we only got the one port working

I decided to ride my bike to campus today along the river trail. This was not the best of ideas. My balls are killing me. The bike has no shocks and the trail has many many holes. I also got lost in the woods on these deer paths for like an hour which had lots of roots to jar my ass. Either way I made it to campus after close to two hours riding. I’m gonna ride the road back and just deal with traffic. God my ass hurts.
I should’ve gotten pictures along the trail but the camera was in my bag and I didn’t feel like digging it out. I’m gonna look into getting a new seat maybe.

The bike.

here’s the run down.

Friday 9pm — I go to this bar Substance.  It was chill.  Sorta like a bigger version of the Ottobar in Baltimore but with much much better beer. I just sat and watched people for about 3 hours till I got sleepy and then headed home.  Not real exciting I know but still first night out in Germany so I was just getting a feel for the land.  I tried to get people to come with me but no one came.  boooooo.

Saturday 9pm — I head to Nerodom.  Nerodom is the Munich Industrial/EBM/Goth club.  German Goths are significantly more annoying somehow than US goths.  Let me put this poetically.  When the  fat man in the black tricorner hat and floor length coat is ‘dancing’ by taking two steps forward and then two steps back with a bit of side to side action to make the whole thing an ellipse… I want to shoot myself directly in the side of the head.  Seriously German goth kids are lame.  The industrial kids were all cool but the dj’s wouldn’t play a consistent mix of good industrial.  It was like 4 good industrial songs then an hour of sythpop goth shit.  I mean I looked around and the people that rocked out to industrial the most were all sitting head in hand wondering what the fuck.  One guy liked my terrorfakt shirt so I know there is SOME good taste.  I ‘ll probably go back since maybe it was just those dj’s or maybe a different vibe that night can’t be too hasty to judge.  Though now I’m aware of the train schedules so I’ll probably leave at 2 even though it’s open till 5 on the weekends.  The fucking trains get fucked after about 2 due to stopping or construction.  I didn’t get to bed till about 630 am.

Oh I can’t believe I almost forgot.   The goth kids would occasionally line up in 2 lines facing each other.  Then all do the 2 steps forward 2 steps back dance so that when one like went back the other went forward….. WHAT THE FUCK?!?  Goth line dancing.  How lame can you get? It’s these people that make it impossible for me to not feel shame going to clubs like that with any non industrial person.  The US goths are waaaay less lame.  Still lame… but less so.

Sunday 1130am — I get woken by my roomies for breakfast since they’ve made this giant frittata which was damn good.   Eat. Nap a bit. Then I got out and get some more breakfast food.  The place I went was probably way over priced but I got a loaf of bread and a bunch of fresh citrus fruit which seems to be pretty pricey.  I was craving citrus so I didn’t mind.

Sunday 5pm  — Marianplatz some bar.  Dan, Henry, Tiffany, Tomo and Tian and I hook up and are drinking some beers just hanging out.  Then this guy Greg asks to join our table.  He’s here from Poland by way of 12 years in London.  This man is fucking great.  He starts buying rounds and shots for the table  but at that point in time it’s just me and Dan since the others head home.  He’s also got a shit ton of great ‘war’ stories from his time in London.  We ended up staying there for like 4 hours till we headed back to my apt so I could grab some shoes that weren’t open toed and head out to a club.  On the ride up we ran into some rowdy drunken tour group so we cheered along with them and were generally loud.  After they left the train this little italian guy started given Greg shit for being loud and tried to make him get off the train.  This nearly resulted in a fist fight.  But we were disembarking at that point in time so it was averted by the italian guy leaving on the train.  We then went back to the city and ended up running into the same tour group.  So we joined them cause we could and ended up at some hookah bar.  Greg’s friend in the city came out and we were generally drunken loud hooligans for the rest of the night till some jackass in the tour group tore a toilet out of the wall.  Then the tour had to leave.  I got the tour guides number and Greg’s number. Greg invited us out to London sometime and said we could crash with him.  Sooo London …    Greg wasn’t his real name but his real name is pretty unpronouncable to us poor english speakers.

So I’m sitting in the library at Garcin-Forschungzentrum(which i cannot seem to pronounce correctly yet even though I know the z should sound more like a c than a z.  Stupid american accent) waiting for the pictures to load off the camera.  I’ll need to put them into albums still but I promise I’ll upload photos soon.  Got pictures of all the stained glass in the Frauenkirche and of the Froettmanig Stadium and just some general city pictures as well.

I alternate between going out and exploring and sitting in my room watching german dubs of american shows.  South Park, Drawn Together, Grey’s Anatomy, Gilmore Girls, House, CSI, CSI:Miami, Family Guy, MTV and tons of random movies like Men In Black or Roadtrip.  So my understanding of the spoken german is getting better but I’m still sorta nervous using what little I know in public and invariably I’ve been speaking english so my mind stumbles on the switches.  I’m hoping to drag everyone out to this bar Substance tonight which the german girl who was living in my apt for a few days while I was there(really it was hers and I was the interloper but whatever) reccommended as a chill rock bar.  Tomorrow I’m hoping to hit the Munich Industrial club Nerodom.   All of that said I also really really really really really really need to finish putting my results in my qual project write up so my advisor doesn’t crucify me when he gets here on the 11th.  So I’m about to start in on that.

Fun facts before I got.  Fussball tables are called Kicker Tables here.  I’ve drank nearly a litre of beer with every meal I’ve eaten out at a cafe.  I bought Calvin und Hobbes: Angriff  der durchgeknallten moederischen Schneemutanten (attack of the deranged mutant killer monster snow goons) and Good Omens(in Deustch) yesterday to help me with learning so I’ll have something interesting to work on translating.  Pictures soon I swear.