My computer suddenly stopped working last night, I’m thinking (or at this point, hoping) that it’s the hard drive. I’m a bit devastated right now to be honest, so until the PB gets fixed, which may take a while, there might not be any updates. Not that I’ve been the most diligent blogger anyway…
Monthly Archive for March, 2006
I got back from my trip to the UK on Friday night, but because I spent the major part of the weekend catching up with my lack of sleep, this update is a bit late I’m afraid. Anyways, I had a great time in Manchester, and am once again contemplating whether moving there might be an option for me, especially since all I ever seem to do is bitch and moan about German people (ok, technically I am one of “them” – in spirit, I’m just European). This time, it wasn’t any different. Our little tale starts at the Cologne/Bonn Airport:
I’m usually flying with Hapag Lloyd Express, which is pretty convenient since it offers direct flights from Cologne to Manchester, and they are cheap if you book them wisely. Obviously, it’s lacking a lot of the conveniences my beloved British Airways has to offer, and there are no reserved seats, i.e. you pick your seat on the plane just as you would when boarding a bus. However, it goes without saying that your ticket will get you a seat. The staff won’t just say, “Sorry, this plane is full. Please wait for the next one.”
This concept is entirely incomprehensible to German people. As my spycam shot below nicely illustrates, they will start queueing about an hour before actual boarding starts – just to make sure. And notice those nasty queue-cutters at the right, going at it already. What an embarrassment.
Blog stats say you’re crazy about ‘em, so here you go 
I bought the song today BTW and the arrangements aren’t quite as horrible as I had expected, but could have been a lot better nevertheless.
I could say I feel alright
I could say I?m sleeping through the night
I could say I haven?t thought about you
About you
You have always had a way
Of seeing through the crazy things I say
Like I?m better off without you
But without you the truth is
Continue reading ‘Lyrics: I Still Burn’
I had to cancel a dinner with friends last night because sadly I wasn’t feeling too well, so I ended up watching the finale of the German take on “Pop Idol”, coyly titled “Deutschland sucht den Superstar” – “Germany is searching for the superstar”. Somewhat ironic, since the winner of the first season, Alexander Klawes, is still selling records, albeit to a very teenage and tasteless audience, and being a complete embarrassment on “World Idol”. Definitely no “superstar” here – Kelly Clarkson he is not. The winner of the second season, Elli, didn’t even make it into the charts, I do see her in town pretty often though. Winners of other casting shows haven’t surpassed the “one hit wonder”-status either, and rightly so, therefore my hopes weren’t very high last night. Actually, they were lower than Tom Cruises’s sense of humour.
To my surprise, I was greeted by a hunk of a man with a wonderful voice – Tobias Regner. I had noticed him before, but never realized he was that great. Next to him, his rival Mike Leon Grosch, local “wedding singer” (real job: mobile phone salesman. How pathetic that the makers of the show thought that wedding singer would sound more glamorous!) looked like a chubby old guy, and his voice sadly didn’t quite cut it, either. However, the girls seemed to love Mike, so I thought he would be the next Alexander Klaws. Needless to say I was quite chuffed to find out that fellow German people aren’t always as imbecile as I assumed – for once they voted for talent rather than the teen factor, and Tobias was announced the winner with 55% of the votes in favour of him.
Now I remain highly sceptical regarding the future of his career. Sadly, even casting show winners with great voices such as Kurt Nilsen are pushed into horribly tacky recordings, and suicide contracts make them hop along to the gusto of the show without letting them find their own style. Tobias’ single “I Still Burn” will be released on Friday (March 25), and according to the sound snippet on his official website, the tacky arrangements have hit again, therefore I suggest listening to his live performance of the song last night:
While pursuing my current obsession with Joaquin Phoenix, I stumbled across this oldish picture which literally made me laugh out loud. I thought “Who’s the desperate blonde in the background, trying to make it into the picture?” On closer inspection, it turns out that the lady in question is Hedwig of “Hedwig and the Angry Inch”-fame, one of my all-time favourite films. Well done, John Cameron Mitchell
Update: Thanks to Buzzy for the unwatermarked picture!
I just had it with the show. And no, it’s not because of Dana dying. As terrible as this may sound, she was never one of my favourite characters to begin with, and the bad hair and makeup jobs on the last couple of episodes took any sense of realism away for me (yep, I’m that shallow).
No, I have grown tired of the overall economy of the show. All seasons are alike – first, they start out with a heavy touch of comedy, subtle writing and brilliant, quotable dialogues. These are usually my favourites. Then drama starts to spread, the writers are trying to pack a shitload of stuff into the remaining half of the season, almost as if they’re saying, “Oops, now we’ve spent too much time being funny, let’s start getting serious IMMEDIATELY”, then bad writing AND bad cinematography gets in the way, and bam, I really could not care less how this all ends.
It was bad in Season 2, it’s gotten even worse in Season 3. Is there any couple with some prospect of happiness left? I don’t think so. Do I really want to see their lives falling to pieces – to pieces with a very high degree of incredibility? Surely not.
Please stop me in the unlikely event that I should get all riled up about Season 4. I’d better start searching for a new favourite show now. Something tells me it’s not going to be Erin Daniels’ new one.
This picture was taken under some bad preconditions:
It was taken with a Canon IXUS II which feels somewhat antique now, it was taken at night, it was taken during very heavy rain, it was taken without any tripod, it was taken while being in a bit of a hurry because the Breat Easton Ellis reading was about to start soon, AND, most importantly, while holding an umbrella that was flapping in the wind. Taken all these into account, I’m pleased with the outcome, since the Cathedral is still discernible. I took two shots, one in b/w and one in colour. While the outlines in the colour picture are much clearer, I don’t like the overall atmosphere – it’s “kitsch”, the sort of stuff you’d find on “City X By Night” postcards. Therefore, I mixed just some of the colours into the more blurry b/w. This is the result:
Went to a reading by Bret Easton Ellis (of “American Psycho”-fame, natch) which was organized by the lit.COLOGNE literature festival last night. We had a blast! This guy has the creepiest facial expressions, which even transferred to us who were sitting pretty far in the back of the venue. I think I might have been freaked out, had I been sitting closer to the front. However, Mr. Ellis is one funny and arcticulate mofo, in a Jack Nicholson sort-of-way, who is almost insanely interesting. I could have watched and listened to him a lot longer than the one-hour-reading lasted. Psycho? Not so much.
Reading from his latest semi-autobiographical novel “Lunar Park”, he had the audience, roughly 1,000 people, eating out of his hands almost instantly. At some points, it got so quiet that you could have heard a needle drop, had there not been the rain beating on the roof like small pebbles – the sound of which grew decidedly quieter as we were taken into the protagonist’s California life. Ellis himself seemed a little taken aback by the size of the audience. At one point he remarked, “There are so many Germans in here”, sounding very surprised. “Seriously, that’s the largest number of German people I have ever seen in one place” (lucky you!) – “this is one large German crowd”, during which he pronounced “crowd” in a sort of funny way which made it sound like “Kraut”, so lots of people started laughing. When he realised it, he seemed almost embarrassed – but heavy emphasis on “almost”. Just the way he was trying very hard to look mortified when passages about his sex, drugs and, errr, writing lifestyle were narrated – and almost got away with it but the smug grin on his face kept surfacing. I loved it.
In the q&a that closed the reading it was related that there is going to be a film version of Lunar Park. When asked who should play him, he replied “Vince Vaughn” after long deliberation, emphathically adding “I like Vince Vaughn.” No word on who should play his wife or son, though.
Bret Ellis talking about who should play him in “Lunar Park”
Woohoo, got this jewel of cool packaging and brilliant music in the mail yesterday. I totally love it! For just two Euros more than the normal limited edition case edition would have been, this CD and DVD set comes in a high quality book setting with fabulous artwork and photography by Nadav Kander.
More images after the jump.
Continue reading ‘"MEDS" Limited Edition Casebox by Placebo’
