Ohrwurm

Just Jack - I talk too much




hat tip: Maria

Not a friendly site when in an old east-German basement hospital room

That is one mean looking thing on the wall. Somehow since it's written in German it makes it more scary.
Snapped it with my cell phone.

(translation: Potential Equilization Panel - For the connection of electro-medical equipment)

Not boding well for my future sports entertainment

There are really three things I think I miss most about not living in the USA: Stores open late and on Sundays; having a car; and watching American sports, particularly college basketball and football. Fortunately the last has been alleviated quite a bit by a TV channel I get called NASN - North American Sports Network. Each year their programming has been getting better, and I've even been able to watch my favorite teams play basketball several times this year. But when they have a poll like this on their site it worries me.

Over FOUR times as many people are looking forward to the Stanley Cup playoffs than March Madness?!?! wtf? March Madness, which refers to the college basketball conference tournaments and then the national, 65-team tournament over 3 weekends to decide the national champion, is in my opinion the most exciting time in American sports. Okay, fine, I can see some people excited about hockey playoffs, but FOUR times as many? And more NASN viewers would rather watch spring training than march madness.
spring.
training.
If they start showing preseason baseball games over college basketball tournament championships I don't know what I'll do.

Fight continues against Waldschlößchenbrücke

In the continuing saga....."Construction" started a few months ago - the area is turning into dirt and machines. But the fight continues - now mostly in the form of proposing a tunnel as an alternative. A petition was sent around the city to consider a tunnel alternative to the bridge (The bridge plans include a tunnel anyway up to the river, where it will turn into a bridge). I was unable to sign because I'm not an EU-national, but they've got 20,000+ signatures....

Regenbogen statt Brücken!
-what luck with this photo

Here's the website leading the fight.

New Year's Eve in Dresden

Finally putting up a few pics. We gathered at my place and then headed down to the river for the madness. On this night there are no laws against setting off any fireworks anywhere in the city....and people did.

(click to enlarge)

the aftermath of exploded firecrackers on Alaunstrasse

By FAR, the two best times I've had on NYE have been the two years I spent it in Dresden.

Sächsische Kartoffelsuppe

I've come to realize that one of my favorite foods I've found in Germany is potato soup. I love me some good potato soup. So it's surprising I haven't tried until now to just make it myself.
A quick google search for "Sächsiche Kartoffelsuppe Rezept" (Saxony Potato Soup Recipe) provides a lot of recipes. Learning to make it "Saxony-style" will give me another nice "souvenir" when and if I ever leave here.

I made a giant pot recently.
Of course it starts with lotsa potatoes and veggies

Here it is pre-stab-mixer - one of the greatest little appliances I've got that makes quick work of 5 liters of veggies like nobody's business

I even made a time-lapse movie of myself making the giant pot of Kartoffelsuppe in my kitchen - but unfortunately my camera's broken and somehow decided to do this vignette thing which actually covered up where most of the action was in cutting up all the different veggies.
anyway:

And of course for echte Sächsische Kartoffelsuppe brauchen wir ein paar Sächsische Wiener Würstchen dazu:

Disturbing, concerning, yet not surprising.


and then on top of it things like this.

Favorite song of the moment

Old Crow Medicine Show - Wagon Wheel




reminds me a bit of driving from Texas to Virginia through NC or TN.

props to Eric for the heads up.

This is awesome

Create your own album cover.

Here are the first three I got:

Instructions here
(and just crop it to a square)
(via punkassblog)


Update:

And here's one where I cheated on the photo - one I found surfing the web. I couldn't resist. But I think the album and title came out more than perfect!