Blog Quality – Family Review

Mhhh, it seems as if the extended family has found the URL to this blog

Guess, that means, I need to up my blog quality and possibly the frequency of posting as well.

BLog Visitor # 5000

Visitor #5000 to my blog has been today!! Congrats to

P Address		89.204.142.# (o2 Germany GmbH & Co. OHG)
ISP		Digifone Online
Location		Continent : Europe Country : Germany (Facts) State/Region : Hessen City : Mnster

Germany’s Next Top Model – Finale

I am not quite sure which one was the original ‘idea’ to create a TV show that casts new models, but by now each country in the civilized world appears to have one…. USA, Germany… Australia?? American Idol shows even made it to the UK… Amazing

Well, I admit, I watch the German show religiously. Also have seen the US counterpart once before, but was not impressed. Obviously, a show viewer cannot objectively judge what is actually going on during a particular project, but from the casual observer, the US show repeats, and repeats, and repeats, and repeats “you are still in the race for America’s next top model’ at least 500 million times in each segment. That does not leave much room for any type of other intelligent dialog, unfortunately. Maybe there is some sort of advertising scheme going on as to how often the same punch line has to be repeated for highest payout. Who knows. Enough of the bashing… since there are more planned seasons, someone is apparently watching the show after all. Have I actually seen any of the finalist or winners in real life ad campaigns, TV spots or magazine ads??? Who actually won? Btw, I just saw a Martini TV spot featuring George Clooney on German TV.

OK, on with the show. I am just downloading the live finale episode of Germany’s next top model. Well, it won’t be live for me. Anyway, I am very much holding myself back from googling any results yet before I have actually seen the show. Although… no, I can wait. I think I can. I am at 45% download!!

I actually enjoyed watching the show over the last several weeks. It was interesting to see where the girls would be traveling to, what kind of gigs they would try out for and some hopefully also get. In my humble opinion, the German format shows more of the actual going ons that happen during the project. While the German show also shows the inevitable chick fights and little skirmished among the girls, thank God, the producers keep those to a minimum. I find that the US show reduces all participants to chit chatting, scheming, superficial, back-stabbing weirdos… supporting a really bad stereotype the world already has of Americans.

Change in topics. Some of the challenges presented to the girls are really creative. Like the Ninja film spot or the vertical cat walking. Now, yes, I am not a model, nor am I anywhere close to the industry, so take my opinions and musings with a grain of salt. There just appears to be more than just cat walking, posing for some pictures and a clothes mannequin that happens to be breathing. I kinda like that. Gives me, the outsider, a glimpse into some other world.

The only thing that I would have a really hard time with is the eating part. I love food way to much as to reduce my caloric intake to greens and salads all the time. Heard of German chocolate before??? Or Spaetzle with dark gravy and a little piece of meat on the side? Meat, the best invention since sliced bread.

My download is slowing down at 62%. The impatience grows… The dog wants to play ball. For crying out loud, it rains outside. I have seen the billboards in LA, ha. I even saw the female razor TV spot. Now there’s some real life connection.

What I would really like to find out is whether the group of the last 10 or so girls really gets kicked out of the model world entirely. Gina Lisa has been able to pick up her own TV show on German TV. Kinda cool. More power to her! All of those girls should have killer books… and some initial contacts in the industry. Wouldn’t they be able to just do some more “go sees” (see, I am paying attention) on their own? Or would they be stigmatized as being the next top model – ‘rejects’? Somehow, I can’t believe that. What a waste that would be. They might have to start ‘over’ with the German based agencies, I would think, some of which should already know them since I am assuming those type of model scouts and executives also do watch TV on rare occasions. I could be completely wrong though…

Maybe, that should be a viewer comment to the show producers to incorporate that somehow into a final review or summary documentary… Be creative people.

Ok, my download is done… See ya.

Great American BBQ – The Ribs

Here a picture of the ribs from last night. If there only was a way to add smell and flavor to a post…. it still wouldn’t meet the taste of these ribs… if you weren’t there, you just missed out.

The ‘napkins used’ factor or the ‘degree of messy fingers’ factor have not been considered in above post and will differ from eater to eater.

Go find a BBQ event near your house and be sure to go and experience this truly unique food phenomenon. You will never look at pork, chicken or beef the same way afterwards, guaranteed!

Week 3 – Germany

Well, week 3. Been house hunting for quite a while now and not much of interest so far. Had a pretty promising townhouse, but the landlord rescinded his ‘Ok’ at the very last minute…. Almost sounds as if he was ‘convinced’ that two dogs would wreack havoc and irreparable damage to his ‘artisan’ wood floor. Well…. Talk about little kids and associated daily accidents….

Moving on. Also taking the train to my parents’ house pretty much every weekend to visit the girls. Initially, I was somewhat concerned with their speed of getting adjusted (not…), but they seem to have settled in quite nicely. No wonder, given that they are feed beef bones once a week, including the broth, as well as pig ears and other assorted ‘dietary supplements’ on a regular basis. They also do get a daily 90 minute walk… (yeah, they didn’t quite get that with us every day….), including a daily stop at one of the creeks. Regardless of the weather, the Fat one takes a bath every single time. Even if there is a sheet of ice covering the creek.

Talking about the weather. I can’t remember if this is normal for this season, but the weather does indeed fluctuate quite a bit. We have already had several days in the 50s and 60s in February, but also lows of 25 and colder, Fahrenheit that is. The early flowers are already peeking their heads out. According to the weather service, it should snow tomorrow… which would be the end of most of the early flowers.

Last weekend, I had planned to take in a little bit of culture. All prepared, even had a digital camera to take some ‘evidence’, but the weather had to turn into this awful nasty windy rainy cold something all weekend long. In fact, the wind gusts went up to 200km/hr in certain areas, including ours, causing some pretty significant damage all over. I had originally planned to board my customary train in the afternoon on Saturday to take the scenic route across the state border after my cultural outing. Starting out at the local S Bahn station, I took it to the main train station, thinking I would board my train about 10 min early and just settling in and taking a nap. Well….. 

First, I get to the platform and a different train occupies my train’s spot…. Not good. No announcements, no nothing. That train’s departure time was listed with 10 min after mine. Strange. I’ll wait. 5 min till departure time, finally an announcement. Train X usually leaving from platform 8 is now ready to board on platform 15, mine! Same announcement 3 minutes later. Train X finally leaves. Another 10 min pass. Another announcement: the train originally planned for platform 15 going to Y has been cancelled, all passengers please visit the service point for further information. By then, rumors had already spread that last night’s storm and this morning’s nasty weather might have had a more significant effect on public mass transportation than originally anticipated. Unfortunately, when I had purchased my ticket that very morning, no message or announcement had been visible on the Deutsche Bundesbahn’s website. Might have been helpful.

So we all trott inside to the service desk called service point. Already two lines had formed, about 100 km each… A handful of service personnel is trying to address passengers’ concerns while they wait in line. Poor staff. Some of the passengers had been sitting on their respective trains for several hours somewhere in the middle of nowhere waiting for the tracks to be cleaned up. One train even had been sitting for 5 hours…. I vividly remember the middle aged lady who loudly explained her plight to everyone in the entire building. Since we were all bored to tears anyway, it proved to be some rather entertaining side event. Poor staff…. Finally, it was my turn. After I had already found out that my track direction had been adversely affected by the storms (all service was suspended), I just wanted to have my ticket stamped to be eligible for a refund… The lady at the desk probably had been dealing with a huge mass of more or less disgruntled passengers already, so her mood and service committment did lack a little bit by the time I got there. Nevertheless, I convinced her that all I needed was her blessing in the form of a stamp to get my money back. I won’t go into further details about the fruitless conversation I had with her in trying to obtain a good customer service address (to mail the ticket to) and trying to convince her that the address listed on the ticket is nothing more than a business address…. required by law to be printed on each ticket. Same thing as the customary footer of each official business communication letter. Finally, I got what I wanted and made my way back to the platforms outside. Since there was no way of leaving the city, I decided to just take the S Bahn back from where I had come from.

According to the schedule, they run in 30 min intervals. I should just about come up on the next one. Get there, again, another train… The display still shows the train from 1.5 hrs ago…. strange. The wind again had picked up… My ears started to really get cold. So I waited for the next scheduled interval. Needles to say, the S Bahn didn’t show up. What else could I do than wait??? In the meantime, I had started a conversation with another passenger just as tired as I was about the ineffectiveness of the Deutsche Bahn to spread information to its passengers in a timely manner. The main train station that afternoon was a MESS…

Finally, about 1 hour later, my S Bahn finally arrives. I get on, sit down and just wanted the thing to move…. It seemed as if it took its own sweet time that late Saturday afternoon, deliberating whether it indeed would be going down its scheduled train track. 30 min later I was in the same spot I had departed about 3 hours earlier thinking I would be at my destination 80 min later…. And it had started to rain again, too.

Once at the house, I had a hot cup of tea, a little bit of food and went straight to bed. I think it was 6.30 pm. Had a monster headache, frozen ears and cold throughout. Didn’t need another flu episode…. Got up at 8 am on Sunday.