Lev says it for me...

This pretty much sums up how I feel about this topic fairly well:

He probably did!

I haven't posted in almost a month.

Nothing really new to report, except that more people need to appreciate this:

Save money. Die better. Walmart

The Craziest Thing I Ever Heard...

Recently in class here at William Jewell, one of my fellow student talked about a religious practice in some cult. That student said it was, "the weirdest thing I ever heard about."

This provoked me to think about "the weirdest/craziest thing I ever heard about." It was also religion related and came as a little revelation (sarcasm, maybe) to me. Most certainly do I believe that there are a lot of crazy people, cults, and communities out there. They do crazy stuff and embrace their crazy s*** as super awesome pastime activities. But are those crazy things (killing each other, killing their children, eating each other - get as crazy as you want, let your mind wander and I bet someone or even some group did it) the "craziest things I ever heard about?"

Nope, because the premise for this to happen is that there are a couple of kooks out there that unite to do some crazy s***tuff (I just really feel like conforming to the American censorship of language and not swear so much right now). As mentioned above, it's a given that there are some nuts out there. So, do these lunatics and their actions surprise me? Maybe the creativity they come up with new s*** to do, but that's about it. Every toddler has access to the internet and can read up all the crazy s***, nothing new most of the times. So, what are "the craziest things I ever heard about?"

I quickly (much quicker than it took me to write those last two paragraphs or it took you to read them) came to the conclusion that my motivation for many posts in this blog are due to the craziest s*** I ever heard about. It's the creationists and literal-truth-of-the-bible movement. The craziest s*** I ever heard about has to be based on more than just some few lunatics, because that might be totally out of the social norm, but - as mentioned - enacted by nut-jobs. The creationist movement is a huge movement that - in large parts - consists of fairly well educated individuals with the ability for critical though processes (when it comes to anything BUT religion). It is deeply rooted in a 21st century, 1st world country that happens to be considered to be one of the prime examples of industrial evolution ("Evolution!" Oh, sweet irony). One of the - maybe the - most powerful countries in the world.

1/3 of this industrialized, highly educated people embraces a view as "the absolute truth" that has been disproven for more than 150 years and was strongly in doubt several years before it's Episode II was even written (6th century BCE).

Ultimately I think that how "crazy" something is has to be measured not only by how much it contradicts our current perception of what a social norm is (I do think eating each other is more crazy than believing in a being that makes stuff appear. Whenever, wherever, without any proof except an old book) but also by how many people follow it.

My formula for overall general craziness of an action/belief goes something like this:

Degree of Craziness = [(Number of People Involved + Number of People Killed) * Discord with Social Norms] - Weighted Scientific Evidence that Actions/Beliefs were/are Necessary for Society

You can see how in my - I think - fairly rational formula many crazy actions quickly move towards a freakin' high degree of craziness. At first I wanted to divide by the "Scientific Evidence" factor, but then thought better of it, as most even just moderately crazy stuff would be considered "impossibly crazy" as we would have to divide by "0."

So let's test the formula with an example!

30 alien-loving cult members kill themselves on the roof of a skyscraper on New Year's 99-2000.

Variables:

Discord with Social Norms (Standardized scale of 1-10, 10 being highest discord) - Killing oneself:

7 - pretty crazy, but not excessively punished by law.

Number of people involved:

30

Number of people killed:

30

Scientific Evidence:

0 - fairly indiscernible right now, but so far I think it's fair to assume that there was/is/will be not a lot of evidence supporting this to be the way to awesomeness.

[(30 + 30) * 7] - 0 = 420

From this first experiment I would say that anything above 100 can be considered pretty crazy.

Very scientific, I know.

I will leave you with this for now. I encourage anyone and anything to try this formula and see if you can come up with interesting results, prove it totally wrong, or improve it!

Also, I encourage an exercise of the mind... looking at how crazy the "literal Christians" movement is. Don't forget to include empirical data of the last couple millennia. As soon as I have another hour to spare, I will try to write a post looking at that.

My Motivation

Haven't been writing in a while.

Am planning on two big posts that will come once I get a little more time here at Jewell... busy bee.

For all German-speaking friends, this is my motivation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdNt3hgIYuI

Westboro Baptist Church is pretty close to where I was living for the first 2 years in the U.S.

English speaking friends. You know the Church, you know they are nuts, I just felt like pointing out some extremists that take it all a little extremer.

:)

Back to my essays, papers, readings.

Quickly... and Inglourious Basterds

Yeah, I am at William Jewell College now.

So far it's going really good. Baseball and classes started of good, and so on and on and on...

I know this is not really what people come to read Blogs for. If they come at all. But also, this is not what I want my Blog to be for. So... here we go!

I watched the Tarantino movie Inglourious Basterds the other day and I really loved it. It easily surpasses most of the other movies he has done. While I think it surpasses Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs as well, it doesn't really do it very easily, and probably it only surpasses them in my own little world of movie-rankings because by now I watched P. F. and R. D. too often.

Anyways... I decided to write a quick review with a special focus on how it handles German culture and the whole "Hollywood movies + German Nazis" problems. Cause, as most of you hopefully know/realized, most of the time this simple addition is solved to "= lets shoot some fucking Germans that are really stupid and evil."

Seriously, most of the times I feel like if you want to do a movie where a lot of people get shot and it's awesome to shoot them, either make them German Nazis or Zombies.

In his newest movie Inglourious Basterds Tarantino depicts Nazi Germany and it’s people with an amount of respect and detail that I wouldn’t have expected from him or any major Hollywood production. While I greatly despise the acts of the Nazi regime, I also despise the many shallow movie presentations of the German people, the reduction of German culture to angry sounding people that really need to be shot as fast and as numerous as possible.

Nazi Germany is a topic for itself and that every Nazi should have been stopped is out of the question. What impresses me so much about Tarantino’s most recent endeavour is that he manages to connect his well-know love for gore and violence with a great deal of atmosphere and respectful treatment of Germans. The movie is based on the premise of a group out to kill as many Nazis as possible, but at the same time it involves an enormous amount of German spoken language by an impressive selection of famous and great German actors.

It is very apparent throughout the whole movie that Tarantino and his crew put great effort and man-power into adjusting the script so it would involve German culture in a great amount, not to mention the flawless German that was scripted and consequently spoken. Little details like the way Germans show the number “3” compared to how Americans do it play essential roles in the movie.

All these factors adding up in the movie make not just a great movie, but also communicate a cultural responsibility and awareness that I have rarely experienced in any WW2/Nazi movies, especially ones coming from the U.S.

The movie is by no means primary or secondary a cultural work meant to establish tolerance and understanding, but between the lines (or the pictures/sound) one can clearly see how it can establish more distinctive and multi-faceted perceptions of (Nazi-) Germany.

If you guys want to know more about what is going on with me mail me, facebook me, studivz me, reply here, yell it off a mountain.

All the stuff that I don't really feel like posting here, are just things like moving out of my apartment, a light pulled hamstring, and cafeteria food. Not very intellectually intriguing or interesting to read for anyone but - probably - my parents. Although I doubt even they would be blown away by narratives about aforementioned events.


I want to leave you with the thought that I had about how - while I really liked I. B. (watch out, I feel a long tangent coming... oooohhh, here it comes: isn't it funny how all Tarantino movies, directed by him, seem to be just two words? Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, Kill Bill, Death Proof, Inglourious Basterds. Awesome.) - it seems to me that Tarantino is unable to develop a deeper connection to characters?

I liked most of the characters in the movie a lot and they were really well played and everything. But when they died (which almost all of them in good Tarantino fashion did) I didn't really feel sad.

It really strikes me with I.B. a lot more than with other movies by him because I. B. is more about atmosphere, actors, and characters than about referencing older movies and being super awesome cool shooting people in the face yeah bitch.

If you feel like it, yell what you think off a mountain.

Leaving.

PPE (post-publishing-edit):

Oh yeah, I also made a new video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bt8isqQRiM

Proband M012

"HaHa, look, there is a doctor in the picture with you!"

I am sitting in a hospital in Cologne, Germany. I am not sick and nothing is wrong with me, which makes this scenario really weird.

I wasn’t able to find any decent jobs for the first 3 weeks here, so I decided to participate in a medical trial. It pays well and it’s totally harmless. But it still comfortably ranks among the most uncomfortable jobs I ever did (right up there with a job I once had setting up a stage and was working on building a tower in 10m height without any safety equipment).

The uncomfortable feeling doesn’t come from a imminent danger for my physical health (like pulling up huge speakers up a shaky tower) but rather it is a weird psychological strain.

Coming into this microcosm that is the medical trial world, I really didn’t know what to expect. The people that work here seem to feel overqualified for their work (really just laying catheters and handing out the pills and food at the right time) and the ones that are the test objects seem to feel shame at seemingly being underqualified for any other job.

There are some people who hide this shame behind bedazzled purple shirts and big sunglasses and others that act like they don’t need the money, showing up suited up and with a small carry-on suitcase as if they were about to have a business flight to L.A. for 2 days.
All hail advancements in medicine! - my ass.

And then there is me. Showing up here in my absolute average clothing and a backpack filled with books, my laptop, and a small ensemble of chargers [iPod, electronic clippers (why the fuck did I take them for 2 days of medical trial?), MacBook, cell phone]. What I learned too late was that they didn’t give us any clothing or towels… or for that matter anything but catheters, small amounts of food, warm carbonated water bottles, and strict limits of when to drink, eat, walk, sit.

I even called before I came here to ask what I needed to bring. “Hmm, nothing really.” Now I am spending 2 days straight in the same clothes.
Visitors only in emergencies.

On top of that, out of obvious necessity, I am currently successfully and quiet consciously ignoring my fear of needles that had me passing out in doctors office already twice in my life. But the thought of that catheter in my hand still gives me shivers and makes me cling my toes. Constant thoughts about this dreadful device along the lines of…
One wrong move and it will poke out of the side of your skin. What keeps it from scraping and poking into my forearm bone and tissue when I make a wrong move? Can this fucking doctor stop wiggling it around like a 7-year old trying to get all out of his milkshake?
… keep popping into my head.

The "catheter", or "I.V.", or shitty-ass bloodsucking device.

Talking about milkshakes… I am seriously starting to feel this whole “being sucked empty” as a very real sensation. Every hour several nurses/doctors (who fucking knows?) walk around collecting small doses of blood from all of “us” - 24 patients (all male). Although they are trying to be nice and give the impression that we are not just mere test-mice, it doesn’t change that they employ all the same moves and sentences with everyone.
“Are you feeling alright?”
“Wow, it’s getting really warm today!”
“Maybe we should lay a new catheter.” FUCK!

Also, I keep saying “thank you” once they are done taking my blood. I really don’t know why I say that. It just freaks me out, that they wiggle the catheter around, poke it in and out, push on it and pull it up. I am probably just really thankful once they are done.

It’s not all bad though, I don’t want to be all whiny about it. I get to spent 2 days in bed doing nothing but surfing the Internetz (sadly slow AS FUCK, so not really pleasurable), reading books (Augusten Burroughs - A Wolf At The Table | Great read!) and I was able to get How I Met Your Mother (Season 1-4) from my mother before I came here. So I am basically breezing through the seasons like no ones business. I think I already watched over 8 hours of Barney, Ted, Marshall, Lily and Robin falling in and out of love/beds.

A sense of a little parallel world with new friends is starting to set in. But I am not yet in love with any of the characters from the show. Which is really bewildering me. Everyone who has known me for a while knows why.

Maybe I will throw The O.C. back on my laptop next week for the second cycle of this testing.


I wish I could watch The O.C. all new all over again.
Fuck Anakin.

Yeah, that’s the thought I am leaving you with.
Yeah, that’s right!
Yeah, that’s right!

Who is more scary?

I am back in Germany. Hooray!

Still, here I am currently watching a video from a TV show called "Fault Lines."

As my theme here has steadily been religion in the U.S. from my viewpoint and from what I hear and think about I absolutely had to quickly write about this.

Here is a link to part 1 of the episode:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TME6X9LQ4y8

It is about the indoctrination of religious extremists in the U.S. military and I think it is a legitimate question to ask...

Is a world power with the largest military capabilities (by far) and christian extremists deeply entrenched in it's rows more scary/dangerous
THAN
A group of terrorizers (yeah, I just watched Harold and Kumar - Escape from G.B. again... it was on TV give me a break!) that has neither the financial means nor the amount of "soldiers" to be a real threat to a whole country? (<-- the long awaited questionmark. 2 years of almost exclusively writing english still are unable to keep me from writing irresponsible, reader-killing, ridiculously sentences like this one right here right now. Thanks for reading.)

9/11 was horrible, vicious, despicable, and totally evil.

But I am scared that western civilization is quietly accepting (or not moving against) a religious extremist movement that proclaims their way (namely evangelical Christianity) as the "right" one and the other (Islam) as the wrong one.
And that also is horrible, despicable, evil, and really fucking stupid. It's another prime example of the "black and white"-world that I have been pointing out as so dangerous in earlier posts.

This time it's really actually dangerous physically and not just a totally messed up mind set.

Maybe more later. Right now I am watching in awe and with a scaringly high amount of non-surprisedness (yeah, I can make up words. So what? I am German. We do it all the time.).


Post scriptum:
Currently I am wondering if there is a function that will enable the average reader who is sick of my paranthesis-comments to just blend them out automatically? Maybe I just invented the NEXT GOOGLE/YOUTUBE/TWITTER/FILL IN THE BLANK ______.
A giant new awesome thing that everyone will totally use all the time and I can then sell to some company like Yahoo or Microsoft or (preferably) Apple for like approx. $2.5 billion.
Maybe...?

Kevin Devine and such...

So, I am still on a family RV trip around Lake Michigan. The weather is horrific but this amazing 21st-century-embracing camping site has WiFi.

I thought I'd give you a couple of pictures and a good song/good song lyrics.

A couple of weeks ago (May 26th) my mother, Katie, Katie's brother (David), the singer of The Get Up Kids, and me attended a small (approx. 50 people) concert in Lawrence (this sentence definitely has too many brackets/parentheses). I never heard of the guy (Kevin Devine) but it was a concert and it was in Lawrence and it was 1 day after my mother had arrived, so I figured - after listening to one of his songs online - that we shall go see him. So we did.

And it was a lot of great fun. Here is a picture my mother took at the concert:


And here is one of his songs which was REALLY great live but sadly not as good on the Album and not as good on YouTube. Live he played it with the whole band and it was really good stuff.

Also, when you click this you will find lyrics to that same song that are just as good non-live as they were live (another proof to why lyrics are so fucking important :) ).

Here are a couple of pictures from our trip:

Katie and me playing a round of golf in Lawrence. What else?

At Royals vs. Tigers game

Mother and sister meet again.

Dinner in Chi-Town.

A homeless guy singing "Somewhere over the Rainbow" in a Chicago subway station.

Where The Wild Things Are


Family at Bleachers in Wrigley Field

Find Mo/Jo/Mom! We are on ESPN! Hooray.

A little bit of baseball at Wayland Academy

Cheesehead-Mo

Canoeing on Lake Michigan

So long and thanks for all the fish.



P.S.:
I found an amazing new (?) function on facebook that allows me to have this Blog published in facebook notes AUTO-fucking-MATICALLY! If that is not the greatest invention since the light bulb then I don't know what is, snitches! Facebook wins.

Dear Internets,

I know I have been kind of on and off with you in the last couple of days. But look at my dedication now!

Here I am sitting in a trailer park laundry room just to spend a couple of bytes with you.

And now, when my disappointment over not enough e-mails from mere mortals kicks in, I understand that your way of telling me that I am missed is through a list of YouTube subscription updates I can work my way through. Then I turn on my iTunes and the podcast updates seem to just flow in (actually stumble in most of the times due to bad-trailer-park-internets - you have to work on that!) and give me new pleasures.

Twitter has shown a total disregard to my existence and catching up is utopian. Facebook seems to be just fine without me (which breaks my heart after all the hours and days I spent with it). At least my fantasy baseball teams seem to have a sincere longing for my time and effort.

So, I will try betterment knowing that the future is dark as most trailer parks seem to neglect you and rather elect to live in a world of seclusion, pain and suffering.

I will bring you pictures from my mothers facebook albums, I will print out what you need me to print, I will update my status on twitter, I will update my status on facebook, I will keep neglecting my MoSpace, I will look up when the Marlins won the World Series again on Wikipedia, I will also google what the fuck these power plants at Lake Michigan are up to, I will keep my Azureus running as long as I can, I will catch up with The Onion, and now I will leave you tonight for a better tomorrow.

Good night Internets. Although I know you never sleep and always watch over me and my binaries.

Mo.