Fright Knight

Recipe:

1/2 lb of high-tech toys
1 fairly attractive woman
1 hero
1 madman
a tbs of moral dilemma
a pinch of death
madness to taste

Stir well, let simmer for 2.5 hrs.

What do you get?
A fairly entertaining, much acclaimed and even more hyped superhero blockbuster.

Only this time, someone spit in Batman's soup. Him:



Don't get me wrong, "The Dark Knight" is a good movie. It's just that I would have given it a different title. Because apart from Commissioner Gordon's epic speech at the end of the movie, the Dark Knight is pretty much only second runner up in this movie. They should have called it "The Dark Jester".
Ledger's performance as the scar-faced, insane Clown was definitely one of the best I have ever seen. He was really good, and speaking from a subjective point of view, it seemed like he got way more on-screen time than Batman.

I can honestly say, I have never seen a movie, in which somebody portrayed a madman quite so detailed and with such "passion", that I actually started to be "afraid" of the guy. At first you think "Haha, funny what he did with that pen...", then after 10 more minutes, you wonder how he can be so cruel and a little voice in your head starts whispering "dude, that is wrong". After some more minutes you start feeling uncomfortable; this guy, he shows not a single sign of rationality. Halfway through the movie, you loath the guy. His very face makes you hate him, this cold, brutal, inhuman abomination of a man. And then, then you feel desperation.
How can it be that a creature as malevolent as this man, can survive for so long? Why don't they just kill him. Batman, Gordon, or somebody else, anybody really. Why do they all uphold the law and play according to the rules when he, mercilessly and without any sign of guilt, plays with the lives of countless people as if they were just toys, and doesn't care about rules? And the little voice in your head is a thundering roar of outrage and disbelief now, and it screams: "Why don't you kill him already, he will never stop if you don't!" And still, they don't.

And then you realize what the true challenge in being a good person. It`s not just to be good. And to do good and make the world a slightly better place, one step at a time. It also means you can't do bad things, because that makes you one of the bad guys yourself. And that is the real challenge. Not dodging the bullets, not keeping your identity secret at all costs.

No, the real challenge is not to become like them.


And as a side note, having seen his truly scary performance, the way he talked and licked his scarred lips was just absolutely unsettling. I can see why people believe the rumors that he spent some time in a loony bin to prepare for his role.
And I am not in the least surprised that he offed himself. I guess it's true that you become part of your role, seems like he adopted his fair share of mental problems.

Recreational Running

Heya, this post is going to be a little more personal. Up to now I mainly rambled on about random stuff, in this here post I will let you in on my life a little.

As I mentioned before, I did a BA thesis that was due January. In order to be able to focus and remain calm, I started running back in November.
Healthy mind, healthy body. That kind of stuff.
And trust me it helps tremendously. Running through the woods has a very calming, cleansing effect on me. It lets you ponder a day's events, reflect on a thought you couldn't quite finish at the desk, or just go into idle mode and run and run and run...

And it helps you loose weight as well.
Back in early December this here tubby boy weighed a whooping 87.5 kg at 1.86m.
That's 193 pounds at 6'1". Not outright fat, but I felt too heavy.
I started running seriously only after I finished my thesis, but I have been running 3 times a week now, for some time.
I started at 4kms(2.5 miles), and then went up to 6 km and today I ran a whooping 9.5km aka 5.9 miles.
And I just realized I now weigh 80.7 kg or 178 pounds.
I lost 15 pounds, without actually changing my diet at all.

I am actually quite thrilled to see this work. I have never been much of a sports enthusiast (apart from e-sports, "would you like to see my micro" nerd stuff, which I quit cold-turkey style in January), so I am surprised to see I am good at this.
My goal for now is to be able to run 15 km (9.3 miles) in one session. That's a good distance to be able to run the usual 10km "competitions" for fun with some energy to spare.

And if I can ever manage, my longterm goal is to run a marathon, at least once. Preferably Boston or New York. But I hate running on tarmac...
We'll see, for now, it's laps in the park for me.

Hetero-hate or just sloppy spelling?

So I went to the Munich Bladenight last Monday.
Yeah I know it's a week now, but I just discovered something that I thought I'd share.

The website www.s2d8.com sells these hip latex/rubber/whatever material wristbands that are oh so in fashion these days.
Only these are not for breast cancer awareness or other charity reasons, these convey your dating willingness and sexual preference in a neat colour code.
So last Monday, they gave some away for free. All of these were colour coded yellow/black. This, according to the attached business-card sized flyer, means the wearer is looking for "DATES! (Today? asap? Now?)"

Which is all I checked before tugging the thing in my pocket for later disposal in the next trash can.

Why do I come back to this now?
Well, I forgot to trash it, and found the wristband in my pocket when preparing my gear for tonight's Bladenight.
And as I was about to fling it into the my litter bin, my trained translator's eye saw this:
As I mentioned the flyer attached reveals the colour codes of the bands, with a description.



What caught my eye was the bottom explanation for the colours orange and pink.
Pink as you may have guessed means "Gay", as usual.
However apparently orange means you are a "Hetro".
Yeah that's right "hetro" not "hetero"
At first I thought it was a spelling mistake, but then I remembered I had seen it before. So I checked.
For those of you who don't know yet, there is a very useful slang dictionary out there on the web called www.urbandictionary.com that has all kinds of slang words explained.

And upon entering "hetro", what does it come up with?

"2. Hetro

Slang for straight people, sometimes used in a derogatory fashion by gay people who dont(sic) like straight people. Like homo is used by straight people to put gays down.
1. "I'm a hetro"
2. "Look at those damn hetros walking around like they own the place" "

So the question remains, is this some sort of hetero-bashing, or just a really funny spelling mistake? It is after all a website in German, and marketing people are not always known for their excellent English-skills.
On their website, they are apparently able to spell "hetero" correctly, which makes it seem like an unintentional mistake.
I also doubt many Germans notice this or would even give a shit.
Anyway, it made me chuckle and I thought I'd share it with you.


PS: All copyrights remain with their respective owners and I do not take any responsibility for any of the contents of the pages I linked to.

Idle and Indifferent?

So far, blogging is going slow on my side. Maybe my life isn't all that interesting after all or maybe I am just a little lazy, as usual.
However, methinks that is no reason to give up entirely.
Hence, I shall post at least 1 post per week from now on, and to force myself to do so, I will include a note in my calendar to remind me of it.
Could be my posts are somewhat trivial at times, but then again only practice makes perfect and who knows, I might just be able to present even mediocre events in interesting posts...
We'll see.
Fell free to scold me if I am boring.

Computer Chaos

- Hey Ben, why is there no update on your blog?

Well, the main reason for my being absent from the interweb is that my antiquity of a personal computer decided to go on strike. When it comes to PCs I favour a hands on approach and tried fixing it myself. This abomination of a machine has been assembled by yours truly over the years, by replacing individual components whenever I saw the need. In a way, just like Frankenstein, I created my own monster. And apparently, to spin the comparison just a little further, in mid April said Monster looked into the mirror and realized what an ugly brute it was.

I will never forget that fear inducing , horibble scream of his and the moment he froze up in sheer terror. Whatever I did, the beast woudl not respond, the only thign my probing fingers were able to pry out of him were repetitions of that horrible, deranged outcry of mental pain: ....."BEEEEEEP"...."BEEEEP" at every push of a button.

But this is were the similarities with Frankenstein end. When he used power to bring his abomination to life, I had to cut power to fix mine. Okay I did fish some nasty looking used pieces taken from other PCs out of their dusty graves, let's forget about Frankenstein for now.

I have been fixing my PC for years and I consider myself a pro at installing Windows and all necessary updates. Hell I am so good at it I can literally do it in my sleep (Yeah original versions of Windows can be updated, and it can take up to 4 hours from scratch to SP3 + all security updates. Not that you would know that you filthy software pirates!) Jokes aside, this time it took me 5 days to do countless reinstalls, then I went to visit a friend in Geneva and when I came back it was all broken again.

As a result I have been fighting with my piece of crap excuse of a PC for a whole month now, only to discover it wasn't his fault at all. After sleepless nights, fits of rage and more bluescreens than there are bicycles in Bejing I found the reason:
Dust - no not the kind from the Golden Compass, the ordinary household kind.
After a serious clean and reassemble, I did yell out in delight: "IT'S ALIVE!!!"
No I did not really, however, I know what Frankenstein must've felt when he turned the switch and the long dead pieces of roughly sewn together meat started to move.



- I've done you wrong old friend, you may be limping along at the speed of Forest Gump prior to loosing his leg braces, and the capacity of your CPU would make you Forest's best friend on the short bus, but it wasn't your fault. -

Random Ramblings #1

Well, for all I know, most of my readers by know think I have probably died.
One whole month and no update... but I know for a fact that one reader got an email, another I talked to on Skype...so unless there has been a sudden rise in the number of people mad/bored enough to read this blog, you all know I am alive.

So what exactly happened?
I had computer problems see above in "Computer Chaos".
But I am back now.
And this post brings a novelty into my blog. This is the first of a coupe of posts I call "Random Ramblings #n". I'm sure you geeks and nerds figured what n means in this case so I won't explain - if you haven't then either wait until you are old enough to go to school or hang your head in shame and consult your math books from highschool.
These posts will sum up a variety of events and thoughts that are important enough to be mentioned but not big enough for an individual post.

So here we go:

- I am now apparently a Bachelor. No I wasn't cast for a cheesy TV show that puts me up in a multi-million dollar mansion and lets me choose from 25 gold diggers.
I actually managed to get my Bachelor of Arts done finally. I can't really brag about how I scored good results cause I don't have all my final results yet. All I know is I passed. Let's see maybe in another 4 weeks time I will know more.
And then I will pursue my further plans of world domination...

- I also made a short trip to Geneva to visit my friends Harry and Debbie (Shit, she'll kill me if I misspelled her name) for their daughters 1st birthday. Our mutual friend Wayne also decided to buy a ticket to fly over from Wigan (near Manchester) when he heard I was coming. So we enjoyed a killer weekend in Geneva, including a mother's day cruise on Lac Leman, the huge lake that reaches right into Geneva.
Here's a pic of the birthday girl:



I thinks that's it for now, you know I am still alive, and I will hopefully be able to report some more interesting stuff soon. I might cover my experiences at the Euro-Championships public viewing places...if we get any in Munich, we'll see.

Mullet Mania or: Return of the Retro-Haircut

So I was at the "Frühlingsfest" on Theresienwiese this Saturday. This is an annual springtime funfair at the same location that the world famous "Oktoberfest" takes place here in Munich.

While strolling through the crowd I noticed something.
The mullet is making a return, and it is going STRONG.
First, a word on the demographics of the "Frühlingsfest"-crowd. For some mysterious and unclear reason this funfair is a magnet for all young Chavs, Gangster-wannabes, and other 14-18 year olds with too much testosterone in their (pre-)pubescent veins, plus an illustrious crowd of female sidekicks.

As for the mullets:
These "men" I speak of, they all behaved like Jean-Claude van Damme (It must have taken ages in front of the mirror to pull of that "Come 'ere and I'll kick your ass" jacket-drop and muscle- flex routine).
However, to the grown up eye, looking like a mini-me version of Tom "Magnum PI" Selleck minus the tash doesn't really help to look more manly when you try to pick a fight.

Seriously, 1 in 3 of all (presumably) male individuals present had a mullet haircut.
Typically, spiked hair of 5-10 cm (thats 2-4 inches for the metrically inclined) grows from the front to about halfway down the occipital cranium, where the hair continued in the form of a glorious, at least 30 cm (thats 1 foot) long, flowing carpet of hair that extents between the shoulder blades. Hence , it was sometimes hard to tell between male and female, when observed from behind.

Front view more often than not revealed a pseudo-beard, which made you wonder why the hell a 14 year old can grow more of a beard than a 27 year old. Then again, 27 year olds usually know about the benefits of a razor and don't mistake beardage for a sign of manlyness. Granted, a beard can be manly, but not when you just graduated kindergarden.

Actually the male haircuts were so alike, that I suspect some barber out there is making a killing. At the same time the hairspray industry is holding receptions for all their workers, with pools filled with liquid gold, free hookers and they are all gurgling Crystal as if it was water.
However, their massive use of hairspray to erect they manly spikes of hair, also is the greates weakness of these guys. Just imagine what a carelessly flicked match would do to a tower of tufted hair...

tl;dr:
Kids, the only guy who looks good with a mullet and a tash is - you guessed it:
Chuck Norris

HTML hassle

Right, day two of my *insert twilight zone narrator voice here*
ADVENTURES IN THE BLOGGOSPHERE!!!

As you can see this blog is painfully nondescript right now. And yes, that is a standard template I am using. However, due to my recent fascination with HTML, CSS and other means of modifying web content, I have decided to tweak this blog a little. These efforts will undoubtedly take a while - I read and write HTML slower than a toddler reads Tolstoy - but eventually my blog will hopefully have a personal touch to it.

Until then, you will have to endure my more or less interesting posts presented in this even less interesting form.

ponderings of a paramedic

As an answer to a comment that getting to save lives on the job must be nice, SA forums member Marx gave his view of his job:

"I do patch-job flat repairs, I replace fluids, I'll take your car to a mechanic. Depending on whats wrong I may even be able to fix your car - though I'd still advise you to see a mechanic for a follow up. If your car is dead, I'll hit it with electricity and gander at the starter - if that doesn't work I'll call for a flatbed.

Replace car with 'wife/son/daughter/husband/etc' and insert 'doctor' in place of 'mechanic' and that's what I do.

I'm a tow-truck driver of souls.“

blogging for beginners

Right, this is it, my first blog post. I am as of yet not sure whether I will enjoy or loathe this, hell for all I know I might stop giving a ...being interested in a couple of days.
Let's at least keep the language civilized for now.

Why should you read my blog?
To be quite honest, there is no reason. Well, maybe you are bored or have too much time on your hands, or you just think I'm funny/interesting enough to justify your reading my posts.
Wow, weird grammatical construction there. Which brings us to the next point.

"Your English is funny, are you a foreigner?"
Yes M'am! I am actually German born and raised. However I pride myself on knowing quite a bit of English, and being that guy who weirds others out by quoting English movies/books more often than German ones, I decided to stay true to myself and keep this blog in English. Except maybe for some rantings on aspects of the German culture/language that can't be translated. For those who must know, yes I am also an aspiring translator looking to take over the world. But that's a different story.

Anyways, now that you read this far, let me give you an insight into what to expect on this here blog. This blog is actually the ugly stepchild of my internet affinity, born from the unholy union of boredom and curiosity. ...Yeah, I have trouble comprehending what I just wrote there as well.
Make of it what you will, in this blog I will vent my flashes of genius, rantings of legend and whatever else I see fit. Mostly this will be random stories, quotes, and comments on observations I have made.

Well, if you made it to here, you will be glad to hear that I am finished for now.
But don't be too relieved, a new post may be coming up any minute.