Siedlers von Berlin

Anna is our neighborhood pusher. She approaches you FIRST, as a friend. Then she introduces you into her special little world. You think it seems cool. “No harm in trying it once”, she suggests. Next thing you know, you’re spending all your money on it, cant get your mind off it, and need to visit her once a week to get your fix.



Anna was the first one from our group to play the board game Siedlers von Catan. After playing it a few times, I was addicted and have since bought the base set, base expansion, and Städte & Ritter. That was about a year ago; since then we’ve met almost every Tuesday night to play. The die hard fans are Anna, my girlfriend Ingrid, and myself.

From first impressions Anna looks like one of those ‘nice’ Russians (as opposed to those mean ones that the great Sylvester Stallone saved us from throughout the 80’s (like Rocky IV and Rambo III)). But deep down inside she is ruthless like all the rest. She has been a tyranny to the poor people of Catan with particular oppression to peaceful US and Colombian settlers. I am here to publicly announce that TONIGHT is the night. I will personally end Anna’s lengthy winning streak ... in an effort to ‘spread democracy throughout the world’.

Wookie Cookie Weekend

Some time has past since my first serious offer to work here in Berlin. I want the job, the company really wants me, so alle ist gut, oder? NEIN !!! I first need to get a work permit from the good old Landesamt für Bürger- und Ordnungsangelegenheiten. I applied for one over 8 weeks 3 days and 13 hours ago and last Wednesday they said I still might have to wait another TWO WEEKS !!!




While a wait, I have no other choice than to have fun. Over the weekend my friends and I got caught up in the Star Wars marketing machine. We made Wookie Cookies, ate Star War edition Pringles’ and played with BK Kid Meals toys. 90% of the difficulty making Wookie Cookies here in Berlin is finding the raw materials such as chocolate chips and baking soda, but after shopping at over 10 super markets we persevered and they were a great success. For the recipe click on the picture. To check out the pix from my Wookie Cookie weekend click here.

Karneval der Kulturen

Its that time of year again, time for one of the two biggest parties in Berlin. The Carnival of Cultures is a reflection of Berlin‘s cultural diversity. Check out some of my pictures to see what its all about.

May the Force be with You

I'm looking forward to seeing the final episode of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith next week. To better understand the inner thoughts of Darth Vader (and for a GREAT laugh) you should check out his blog The Darth Side: Memoirs of a Monster. A brief exerp is:

The problem is solved now, however. I crushed his trachea with my mind, and promoted Piett to command the fleet. I have transmitted to following note to Ozzel’s kin:

Dear House of Ozzel,

I regret to inform you that your son has been killed in the line of duty.

He was an incompetent, yammering boob and he will be missed by none. I have allowed the men to pillage his personal belongings, which is why we have enclosed nothing but the sole remaining item: a torn advertisements page from a magazine of midget pornography. May it shock and disturb you, and may you think of it always when you remember your dearly departed son, the ninny.

Know also that his limitations as a sub-par military professional caused the deaths of many of the Emperor’s loyal soldiers, whose funeral expenses will appear on your next tax assessment.

Sincerely,
D. Vader

The marketing machine behind Star Wars is HUGE. It can been seen everywhere from Pringles to Pepsi to now even LEGOs !!! (But I do have to admit, the LEGO Death Star is pretty cool.)

Finally, before Anakin Skywalker finally transforms into Darth Vader, I would like to suggest he read Things I'd Do If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord... for a very helpful (and humorous) look at the do's and dont's to intergalactic domination.

Death of an Ampleman

Back in the day when the GDR (aka Soviet Union) controlled East Berlin while the US, UK and France administered the West, a wall was built dividing the people. According to Darwin’s theory of evolution, an isolated species will evolve differently according to the law of ‘Survival of the Fittest’. What he did not predict is that his law applies to stop lights as well.

Today you can see the evolutionary effect walking through the streets of Berlin. If the little cross walk guy is wearing a hat, you’re in the East, where as your plain vanilla hatless ‘Ampleman’ indicates you’re in the West.



East Germans strongly resisted the idea of converting to the less interesting West German stick figures during the reunification of Germany, and as a consequence, the little man (the "Ampelmännchen") of the East Berlin traffic lights have become a ubiquitous symbol Berlin. However Ampelman nostalgia has taken its toll, and the Berlin government thinks it’s a great idea to make ALL crosswalk lights (even in West Berlin) Ampelmen. Now if you walk through the deep west of Berlin (like Dahlem) you can see Ampelmen, putting my Berliner compass into frenzy, and detracting from Berlin’s unique personality. ‘Survival of the fittest’ my rear end … all I have to say is DARWIN IS WRONG !!!

Euro Trip - Netherlands and Belgium

Ingrid and I found a cheap weekend car rental so we thought we'd make a little trip around Netherlands and Belgium. We tried to reserve a small diesel but ended up with a station wagon sucking down regular gas which costs over $6/gallon here in Europe !



To see pictures of this trip check out my Link Here. For all other pictures, check out the "My Photos" under my Links Section.

Iterative Blogging

Here are the two websites I visit a lot. Look for shortcuts to them under my LINKS sections.


I’ve been visiting Tom Simpson’s websites for over eight years. His blog has entertained, amused, and now inspired me to create my own.


You have to be a bit of a role playing geek to find it funny, but check out “The Order of the Stick” web comic

See dog Flip. Flip dog, flip!

my favorite job search tool www.flipdog.com was acquired by my not-so-favorite job search engine, Monster.com. I guess, if you can beat them, buy'em out :)