Love in the time of Flat Renovations

due to our incompetent telephone provider we've ended up with no internet at home... or home phone for that matter. Apparently this is due to change this Thursday but until then it's uni library internet for me and work internet for Jack.

Things are madly approaching boiling point in terms of our moving flats, painting walls and organising a whole pile of other stuff. Oh yeah - and I'm trying to prepare for an exam *sigh*. Except that as soon as I got to uni today we worked out that we have to actually spend the day at home 'cos some ppl are coming to change filters on wall vents. Joy! So in about an hour or so I'll be out of here.

In the meantime here's a small video we've made in the flat on the weekend...




And another thing. There's a movie coming out, based on a book "Love in the time of Cholera" - the ads for which have been мозолить мне глаза (blistering my eyes)... I mean love is something romantic and wonderful, isn't it? Is such a bloody blunt name even appropriate??? While on the train together this morning Jack and I had an immense amount of giggles thinking for alternative novel titles... some highlights include:

- Love in the time of HIV (rubbery)
- Love in the time of Bird Flu (baaagaack - chicken noise)
- Love in the time of Parkinsons Disease (shaky)
- Love in the time of Diarrhoea (shitty)
- Love in the time of High Altitude Sickness (brain popping noises)
- Love in the time of Acne (pimple popping noises)
- Love in the time of Genital Herpes
... hmm... I think that's enough now...

Adios Amogos from your Internet-less comrades in Berlinski!

39.2 GB

that's how many Gigabytes of photos we've taken since coming to Europe. I guess that actually doesn't seem all that much. The reason I know this is 'cos I'm trying to put a CD together with selected photos to show relies in Ruskiland in March. But yeah - getting distracted as usual :)

Oh and yeah... apparently I am a lemon after answering 5 questions :)

You Are a Lemon

You have a very distinct personality. And if you're not being sweet, you're a little hard to take. You're a bit overpowering, especially in one on one situations. And while you are very dominant, sometimes your power is needed and appreciated. You can liven up a dull situation, and you definitely bring a fresh outlook. You are a bit of an acquired taste, and you tend to grow on people over time. People feel refreshed and rejuvenated after spending time with you.

What Type of Fruit Are You?

Let the painting begin...

With the walls in the Wohnung mostly erected, plastered and sanded (sounds like a good party eh) the Polish labourers have moved on to Tiling, Laminating (aka Flooring) and Bathtub installing:


We in the meantime have moved on to painting, painting, yet more painting, yea gods when will it end painting:

Paul's Fault - The Infamous Proust Questionnaire

• What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
• Being stuck in a confined environment with really really really dumb people for eternity
  
• Where would you like to live?
• Where my loved one(s) is(are). But more selfishly - probably anywhere/everywhere for a little bit of time... would like to retire in Venice.
  
• What is your idea of earthly happiness?
• Being with my wonderful husband and being able to do what I want (ie. at the moment it's studying psychology)... oh and of course knowing that members of my family and my friends are healthy and happy.
  
• To what faults do you feel most indulgent?
• Judging people too quickly and forgetting that I am also only human.
  
• Who are your favorite heroes of fiction?
• Voland (the devil in Master & Margarita), main character in Hard to be God, Geoffrey de Peirak (from Angelique Marquise Des Anges).
• Who are your favorite characters in history?
• Tzarina Elizabeth of Russia (who hasn't executed a single person and changed her dresses every day), Akhenaton & Niffertitti (sp?)
  
• Who are your favorite heroines in real life?
• My Mum, Zoya, Anya, both my Grandmothers for being very kind, and all of my female friends for millions of reasons.
  
• Who are your favorite heroines of fiction?
• Anjelika from Angelique Marquise Des Anges, Queen Margo (played by Isabelle Adjani), Amelie, the little girl in The City of lost Children (Judith Vittet), too many more
  
• Your favorite painter?
• Very many - pretty much all big classics - Rembrandt, Michelangelo, Da Vinci, van Eyck; pretty much all Russian classics - esp. Vrubel, Repin, Levitan; 20th century - Salvador Dali, Picasso (esp. pink and blue period).
  
• Your favorite musician?
• phoa - well here are probably most favourite ones at the moment, where I like more than one album - Red Hot Chili Peppers, REM, Tool, Alex Lloyd, Zemfira, Rammstein, Kino, Garbage, Jeff Buckley, Beatles...
  
• The quality you most admire in a man?
• Absence of macho-ness
  
• The quality you most admire in a woman?
• Ability to balance beauty with brains
  
• Your favorite virtue?
• Ability to treat every person as oneself
  
• Your favorite occupation?
• any that helps people
  
• Who would you have liked to be?
• me
  

Cousin, cousin

Yep Anya was here with her boyfriend Juan. They arrived about an hour late on Sunday with German Wings... all the way to Schoenefeld. So in the meantime while waiting for them we consumed two beers (mainly me), a burger (mainly Jack), a packet of fruit Menthos (mainly both)... and I think we were about to consume something else when the two love birds appeared.

It was wonderful to have them here and Anya seems happy which is incredibly great to see. I skipped a couple of classes on Monday to hang around with them and overall we managed to do quite a bit. For starters going up to the Reichstag first thing in the morning... without a queue it was great. Afterwards while walking towards the Soviet Memorial we stopped at a small memorial/sculpture where an American History teacher gave us a bit of a history tour about it while waiting for his tour group.... quite fascinating the people you meet in this town. We had lunch in Chagal and dinner and drinks on Oranienstraße - a fairly newly discovered (by your humble) street which is only 20 mins walk from our place but has fantastic cocktail bars and restaurants :)

We also managed to squeeze in a trip to Zur Letzten Instanz for grilled pork knuckle, to the satisfaction of Juan, who didn't seem to get enough of it :) And one evening was spent watching Napoleon Dynamite. The guys also brought and dropped off 'Into Thin Air' - a personal account of the 1996 Everest disaster, which I speed read in two days... and in exchange Ancha took my latest Harry Potter novel...

It's good to have family here! I can't wait to be in Russia in two weeks :)

Lucky 13

That's how many days we have left to finish our renovations, move our crap, wash this rental place, return the keys... aaand I need to also sit an exam and pack for Russia. hmmm. Ahh well - it's nothing we haven't done before.

Yesterday the guys already put the floor (laminate) in the small room and I gotta say - it looks pretty nice. In the meantime Jack and I have done double undercoat in the whole place except for the kitchen, 'cos the ceiling there is not yet sanded. And today we've started painting the ceilings white. It makes such as big difference - already the ceiling and the finished floor in the small room makes it look almost livable... still - none of this feels real yet. Perhaps after we move in...

Here's a selection of photos for your viewing pleasure.


And this is what undercoating and our laminate look like in action...

Utes r beut

So in the quest for Australian Citizenship there's a few things that need to be done, these days they include a test to see what kinda true blue fella ewes really is...

In that vain I provided two sample questions:

Q: How many cans can an oversized Australian cricketer who's sister has two heads down on the flight from Sydney to London? Bonus point for his name.
Peoples answers included:

• 42
• 42 and its Boonie
• None, airport security never allowed him on the plan as he was intoxicated. Is it Booney?

The correct answer is actually a pretty amazing 52 care of David Boon [1], [2], [3].


Q: How many slabs fit in the back of a ute?
People have realised that this was a trick question and came up with some inventive answers including:

• Depends how high you stack it.
• A two seater or a four seater? Would you be wanting to do circle work in it?
• None, all the slabs are in the cab being drunk (whilst driving) at the same time.

All of these are valid points, but the correct answer would have been "Depends if its a Holden or a Ford".

Not really a surprising result given that we weren't taught any Australian history in school, ditto maths, science or pretty much anything if you went to a state school like me ;-)

Cheers and 52 beers ;)
Jack...

Eine Aktualisierung

That's another word for 'update' in German in case you're wondering :)

A couple of weeks ago Jack brought home a toy from Alex... it's a real little helicopter... that actually flies! It's made out of polystyrene and is very cool. It makes the cutest buzzing sound but it's a bit hard to control... going higher up is not a problem, but it's the going left and right that one needs to spend a bit of time training. So someone had a lot of fun that evening before having to bring the toy back to the owner... ahhh boys!





Here's the before mentioned pile of stuff that was collected at Bauhaus... The plumber has been yesterday and already put all the pipes ready in the bathroom and kitchen. The floor in the bathroom has also been smoothed out, and some other steps in the hallway. The walls are looking good, so with a bit of luck we might even be able to start painting this weekend. One unfortunate thing is that some of the tiles that we ordered for the bathroom haven't arrived yet. And so far the prognosis from Bauhaus is "sometime end of Feb"... which is annoying because it means we can't actually use the bathroom. Apparently it's something to do with these tiles being made in Italy. Farken Italians making Siesta... oh hang on - that's the Spanish... farken Italians learning from the Spanish how to make Siesta! Bastardi pigri!!! (that's the closest I can get to "lazy bastards" in Italian)...

Last but not least - here's another beautiful sunset that I photographed the other day.

Uncle Jack needs YOU!

To mitigate the chances that a change in Australian permanent residency visa requirements might have, and also to take advantage of some rule changes on behalf of the German bureaucratic machinery I'm going to try and apply for Australian citizenship, while hanging onto my German citizenship.

To successfully achieve this I need to fill out an official application (it's Germany, we have forms for everything) with a name as long as my arm "Antrag auf Erteilung einer Genehmigung zur Beibehaltung der deutschen Staatsangehörigkeit gemäß § 25 Abs. 2 Staatsangehörigkeitsgesetz" otherwise known as "Application for the receipt of a permission to retain the German Citizenship as per section 25 paragraph 2 of the citizenship act".

For this application I need to provide a list of friends and family in both Germany and Australia with whom I am in regular (sporadic, occasional, infrequent, damn-dude-that's-just-so-infrequent-its-rude) contact.

So if you'd be willing to sign up please let me know, and just in case drop me your current address and phone number.

Cheers
Jack...

PS. Can you answer these vital questions for the Australian citizenship test:

Q: How many cans can an oversized Australian cricketer who's sister has two heads down on the flight from Sydney to London? Bonus point for his name.

Q: How many slabs fit in the back of a ute?

Discovery Channel - the answer

wow - I actually got an answer from Viewer Relations... somehow it makes me think it was an automatic response:

"Thank you for contacting the Discovery Channel. We value your comments
about our network and your desire to assist us in providing quality
programming.

We received your comments about Everest Beyond the Limit and have forwarded
them to our programming department for their review and consideration. We
always appreciate when viewers like you, take time to share information
with us, and your suggestions will be given full consideration.

A reply to this message is not necessary.Thank you again for expressing
your interest in our programming.

Sincerely,

Viewer Relations
Discovery Networks

Discovery is thrilled to announce four exciting, new HD simulcast channels.
Now you can get some of your favorite networks in the clarity of high
definition. Call your local cable or satellite provider to find out how
you can get Discovery Channel, TLC, Animal Planet, and The Science Channel
in HD."

love it - 'A reply to this message is not necessary'... I should start using this as a polite way to tell someone to F^%ck Off!

Звезда по имени Солнце (A Star called Sun)

Viktor Tsoi singing in the background, the sun shining through my windows - have a look at this beautiful view! I just finished making exam notes about Big Five personality model... it's a really good day so far. Today on this happy Monday the sun is strong and the city looks almost warm. We've noticed thedays getting longer so our anticipation for summer is also growing.

Poor Jack had to get up at 5:30 this morning to meet our Polish contractor at Bauhaus (local Bunnings equiv.) to pick up all of our materials - about 40 square meters of tiles, 70 square meters of laminat, more than 100 litres of paint, one 65cm wide bathroom sink, other bits and pieces... The workers have evened out some part of the floor last Friday and they're planning to finish the rest today - meaning that they'll be able to start actually putting in the floors and laying the tiles. So far the optimistic prognosis for being finished is the 10th - this Sunday... I think this is quite optimistic, but we'll see. Sometime this week we can also start painting the walls.



Part of today was spent in a discussion about whether to lay the tiles in the kitchen straight or on a diagonal. After about 10 mins we decided on a diagonal. Really I find this quite amasing. Prior to starting this whole "buying a flat to renovate" project, I never gave a thought to all these minisculities - curved vs. straight edges on light switches, straight or diagonal tiles, red and yellow vs. yellow and blue tiles in the bathroom, shape of taps, shape of handles for taps, length of shower hose, number of programs on a shower head... and somehow when we're faced with each of these decisions it seems that at that moment in time this is the most important thing in the world. Although I'm sure in 1 year we won't even remember the other choices and everything will be fine. It's just amusing.

Here's a random sample of photos from the new flat:

‎How would you like to have a 9 inch d1ck ?

I think on this Sunday night I need to ponder a question that has be otherwise avoided on this blog - and that's a question of SPAM. I mean we all get it, we all know what it's about, but just out of curiosity I decided to have a look how many varieties of email subject names involve an enlargement of the male anatomy? Considering that all of these were in MY inbox, and as far as I know I have never had the personal pleasure of possessing a p3n!s, I really think the poor unfortunate souls that spend precious minutes of their lives creating these emails should really invest into doing a bit more research about their markets.

Maude Lebowski: "Yes, they don't like hearing it and find it difficult to say [vagina] whereas without batting an eye a man will refer to his dick or his rod or his Johnson." But is that really true? Actually I think one could do a fairly interesting psychological study on the complexes of the modern man basing research purely on these emails. And of course the linguist has immense material to study the common modern synonyms of the above mentioned male equipment. So lets have a look at this... out of a total of 141 emails that were in my SPAM folder, more than 30 were in relation to penis enlargements (I cut out any doubles below). That makes it about 20%, every fifth email!

I was going to comment on each one of these, but decided that they're amusing all on their own... here goes:

1. Freak the girls out with your gigantic SCHLONG!
   
2. Assure your masculinity with your new huge rod.
   
3. A well hung SCHLONG will get you places you've never been before.
4. Make her tremble with desire with your new huge p3nis
5. Get all the hot women you want with your new legendary c0ck
6. Carry yourself with confidence - get your new huge d1ck here
7. Don't let your love life suffer because your weener is tiny - you can put on inches with this quick and simple solution
8. Bigger baby-maker is not a dream anymore!
9. Produce erect1ons that are hard and long lasting, and not to mention the incredible gains in length
10. Say NO to tiny-sized losers!
11. Proven effect on your PE enlargement!
12. Give it to her good with your super-large c0ck
13. You have chance to become a real man.
14. Change your male aggregate size.
15. Big aggregate is the fact that all chick like.
16. More inches for more pleasure!
17. Change your sexual life enlarge your instrument size
18. Stop feel shy of your male instrument size.
19. Prove her your true masculinity
20. You have chance to become a real man.
21. Forget about the problem with your male instrument.

hmm... I really feel this requires more analysis, but somehow it's failing me now. So on this note - have a good week everyone! :)

No Shame!

Somehow after reading an article on National Geographic about Sir Edmund Hillary, who died this January I got all excited about Mount Everest. I mean, fark, I know - my ambitions are always starting off being tiny... not! Regardless.. that's all irrelevant. I dug up an article about the 1996 disaster called Into thin Air by Jon Krakauer (one of the survivors) - it really kind of puts things in perspective about this really extreme climbing. But anyway - that's not where I'm going with this.

Where I _AM_ going is the good old "Small Guy fighting the Big Guy"... namely - me vs. Discovery Channel. Another thing I dug up is a sensationalist documentary called "Everest Beyond the Limit" (you can pick it out of the show menu on the left) of which there are short clips that one can watch online. So I did. Being done in an typically American style of program-making it was still entertaining, so I ended up watching at least 10 or so clips. This is when this one came. This clip called "Kazakh Controversy" talks about two climbers from Kazakhstan who were the first to summit in the 2007 season. Apparently they were ill-prepared which resulted in an unnecessary rescue from the folks of the 'more permanent crew up on the mountain'. Aaanyway... I'm watching this and the American tour leader is winging how these guys didn't care about any advice and were so stubborn, went up the mountain and got into trouble on the descent. Following his comments comes up a short stub interview with the Kazakh guys taken while they're still up on the mountain... they're talking Russian but the words are subtitled. And what do you know - the subtitles didn't match almost a single word of what they were saying. The subtitles basically just made up a whole different story. I was really shocked. I mean it was really really false. So I decided to stand up for my fellow russian-speaking chaps and wrote an enquiry to the Viewer Relations (why do these departments always have such poofy names???)...


apparently I'm supposed to get an answer within a week... hmmm... lets see

SOBs about an interview

Yesterday I went to an interview at The Story of Berlin (SOB) for a job of a tour guide. The interview was a group interview, a fact which wasn't really specified prior... so it was a little weird when I got there. It reminded me of the good old Melb Uni days back in the end of the 1990's of trying to get into Myer for a customer-service job... checkout-chick or the like. Those must be some of the most traumatic experiences of my life - I mean I HATE group interviews. Everyone pretends to be really nice and interested in each other, except that everyone is also competing for the same number of places. And the kind of crap you got told about how wonderful working for Coles Myer really is... and how it's great to be part of such a friendly and helpful team. BULLSHIT!!!!! Can't stand corporate propaganda.

Anyhoo... this was actually one of the more sensible group interviews I've been to. The two leader ladies told us a bit about the whole deal - the job, the company, the pay, the hours, etc. Then the eight of us went around telling a bit about each other and then they tested our language knowledge... everyone had to say a couple of sentences in English, French, Spanish, whatever their language abilities were. I only spoke German, 'cos they couldn't really test my Russian and also assumed from my resume that my English is perfect. Ha! They didn't see the mistakes that are being constantly made on this blog *grins* But yeah - I was the only "native" speaker there apart from a guy who has a British Mum and a German Dad... so he grew up with both languages... has a really strong British accent, too.

This procedure took about 1hr and 15mins, after which we got given information about the nuclear bunker (this is one of the more famous features of this "otherwise not-to-be-recommended IMHO" museum) of which we would have to do a trial tour for them to be able to actually test us. This first tour would have to be done in German.... hmmmmm

I kind of assumed from the ad on the Internet that one will only have to give tours in English which is why I actually bothered to apply. So today after speaking with that lady again I had to decline coming for a trial, 'cos I don't think my German is good enough for tour guiding just yet. Mainly I just feel sorry for the poor German souls who would have to be subjected to this torture.

And so ended my second attempt at a tour-guiding...