Bullescheiße

At the dragon boat (Dracheboot) regatta, one of the activities was mechanical bull riding. We watched for a while and maybe 6 adults tried it. In between, a bunch of kids did too but the host/operator knew that to get the laughs and the big crowds, you needed adults making fools of themselves. (Don't get ahead of me here.)

We were watching the proceedings from a shady spot behind the operator. He had just let two kids in a row go and knew he needed an adult. Preferably male. Preferably someone who stood out with obvious jokable qualities. As he scanned and cajoled the crowd he finally turned to me saying who-knows-what in German (probably something like "How about you scarecrow?") . I started emptying my pockets. He said something "sprecken?" and I assumed he had asked me if I spoke German. I replied "No sprecken" which is the only thing I said until I was on the bull. I decided later that he probably asked me a question first (maybe my name, like he asked everyone else) and when I said nothing he asked me "Do you speak?" And I dutifully replied "I don't speak."

On the bull, he spun me around, cracking jokes to the audience's delight. I guess he asked in English, where I was from and I tried to yell "the U.S." over my shoulder. He spun me back toward him and asked if I spoke English and when I said "yes" he asked if I was from South Africa. I repeated, "the U.S." And he joked "But not from Texas?" We started on level 2, to get the feel of things. Notice in the first picture how delighted the kids are to have a gangly American using up time on their bull.
OK. Level 2 wasn't bad. You need to stay on 16 seconds to advance to the next level. Except for the first person we saw (a woman who got past level 4) nobody had been passed level 3. And the guys that had gone were not scrawny like me...but looks can be deceiving...

Plus, look at the position. Right hand grasping firmly between the legs. Muscles tense. Total concentration. Like the geeky girl in Jurassic Park when she logs onto the Unix computer, I thought to myself, "I know this!" Check out that white-knuckle death grip I've got.

Notice the kids keenly studying my technique while other laugh derisively at the Magerjudencowboy.

Level 3 goes by and suddenly, things aren't so funny any more. Maybe Haarausfallmagerjudencowboy is for real. I even got that hand-in-the-air thing going.

At this point, the operator let me know that nobody had made it past level 5. If I could get past 4, I'd be in a tie for best of the idiots.

Cut to about 15 years ago. A few friends and I went to the local comedy club where two comedians performed. I don't recall either of their names. I don't recall anything about the second comedian at all but the first was a juggling comedian.

He started off juggling a few things and telling a few jokes. One of his first jokes was explaining how when he started juggling, his friends were impressed but quickly were asking him, "Can you do four balls?" He then explained that it took a few months to learn but he was finaly able to to do it.

His friends were again impressed but soon bored. "Can you do five?" they asked. He went on explaining how hard this was and how some guy (maybe the world record holder?) spent 8 hours a day, every day, practicing and eventually was able to juggle eleven rings at once. Still, this guy juggled 5 balls for a few seconds and it was pretty good. He went on juggling knives and axes and all sorts of things and then came the finale.

He brought out 3 bowling balls, hoisted them up and juggled them maybe 10 times. There was some applause. He came up to the mic to thank the audience when I screamed, "Can you do four?"

Personally, I found it hard to believe that nobody had yelled this before, but his less than snappy retort "Do you have one in your car?" told me otherwise.

Back to the present time.

By this point my right forearm had swelled to twice its normal size. The big question was, "Could I do 4?"

After about 6 seconds this was my position.
Alas, that's as far as things went. I did win a game for getting as far as I did. The only other person I saw get a game was the first woman.

Yahtzee anyone?

The Best And Wurst

Went to dinner the other night and sat at the bar. The guy behind the bar came over and I'm pretty sure asked what we wanted to drink. I said "Alt" as Alt is what you drink in Düsseldorf. The guy looked at me funny. "Alt" I repeated.
He questioned, "Oh, Alt?"
I relied, "Ya. Alt."
"Alt?"
Finally it sunk in. The drink Alt is pronounced with the 'a' sounding like ah. I was pronouncing it like 'all' with an added 't' at the end. This made what I was saying sound more like "Halt!" I corrected myself and asked for, and received, an Alt.

To avoid further difficulties, I ordered pizza for dinner.

Went to Köln (Cologne) yesterday. It's big draw is the Dom, an enormous cathedral that survived WWII. Cathederals aren't my big thing but it is impressive in its ridiculous ornateness. I didn't go in but considered paying 60 Euro cents to pee near it.

Another nice thing about Köln is that their beer is Kölsh which is much easier to order. I especially liked the sign on one bar that read basically, buy 10 Kölsh, get 1 free! As an educational aside, this is also known as a meter of beer, since they serve 11 of the 0.2l glasses in a meter long board.

Instead I went and worshipped at the Schocolade Museum. They actually make chocolate at the museum. Here I snagged a picture of the Oompa Loompas doing their work. They give out free samples which were sugar wafers which they dipped in melted milk chocolate (I think they use milk chocolate because of the kids and because it's cheaper.) On my second sample trip (of three) I hit the jackpot when the OL gave me the last four chocolate coated wafers she had in her hand so she could dip some more for the large approaching group. Total take for the day, 6 chocolate covered wafers.

After leaving, we went to the museum cafe for more schocolade. Deciphering the menu, I was leaning toward Käsekuchen (cheesecake). I asked the waiter if it was Schocoladekäsekuchen and he looked at me like this was as crazy as ordering Alt. I was actually hoping they might have chocolate beer but if they can't even get past chocolate cheesecake... I ended up getting the chocolate torte (which was good) and a Kölsh. Mmmm. Chocolate cake and beer.

This morning I ran 7 miles and actually saw maybe 6 other people running. A couple of the runners were wearing shorts. All had jackets on (it was around 60 degrees by that time). Very odd.

They had some dragon boat races going on along with festival food, music and activities. We went for a while and watched, ate, listened and participated (more on that in another post). It dawned on me that the festival food was really no different than their regular food. Lots of worst, bread, potatoes and deep fried treats.

And what is the deal with the fries with mayonnaise? Flavor-wise I don't have a big issue with it but, geez, why not cut out the middleman and just make deep fried mayonnaise balls or something?

I tried the currywurst. Take one worst, cut up, sprinkle with curry powder and smother in brown sauce. Serve with a piece of bread. It was not too bad...until I dropped my bread (which was covered in sauce). My lightning quick reflexed saved it from the floor...by pinning it against my shorts. Anybody know how to get a curry stain out? I'll tell you, I thought it was impossible since I have some plastic utensils that used to be blue and are now green after cooking curry with them. Bleach couldn't change them but the hand soap at the hotel appears to have gotten the curry stain out.

Oh, by the way, the "brown sauce" in the curry worst? Ketchup!

And lastly, we ran across this place which sells "Jay's juices." Mercifully, they were closed.

Coming Soon: Vaginagirl!

There's nothing like a mini Dickmann. They're just the right size to put in your mouth. I like the dark ones but they also have Caucasian and something in between for those with more exotic tastes. If you suck on one long enough they fill your mouth with a sticky white substance which you can spit out or swallow.

You can also get Super Dickmanns which are bigger (Superdicken!) and Dickmann's CocoCabana (the hottest spot north of her Vanna) and Dicke Partytipps (great for a briss!). Watch Dicke TV Spots where men, woman and children gobble Dickmanns. And don't miss the Dicker Spaß im Netz page which screams Dick, Dicker, Superdicker! and has emoticon in the upper right of the screen showing just what to do with any Dick. [warning: you may want to mute first if you are at work] [warning: this is disturbing] You know you want to click it.

What The Drücken

Most people ignored me but the ones that didn't stared in disbelief. The look on their faces told me that people around Dusseldorf aren't used to seeing people running in the morning. Two woman immediately turned to find their child before I ran past. One of them was riding a bike with a third wheel thingie for her daughter.

Partly I was out for some exercise, partly I needed to get some Euro cash. Mostly I was running down the sidewalk but I found a pedestrian path and went down it. A couple were walking with their dogs, only one of which was on a leash. The other rushed up to me and I had to stop running. I started yelling at the dog, "Nein! Nein!" The owners got him under control and I ran away thinking "Good thing I know how to speak German to dogs."

I stopped at the Deutsche Bank. They had four ATMs inside the first door. Someone was using one and when I pulled on the door, it was locked. I figured at that hour, only one person was allowed in at a time so I patiently waited. After maybe 30 seconds of waiting another person came up, looked at me strangely (I figured it was the running outfit) then pushed the door open and went in.

"Ah! Drücken!" I said. This is one of the few German words I know but it was not on the door or I would have known to push. He laughed, realizing that I must have been pulling on the door. I danke'd him and ran back toward the hotel. I think I'll keep the running down to twice a week.

Stupidity Makes Me Want To Throw Up

It's all a big scam. X-ray your shoes, no liquids, and we put up with it. Why? Because we're morons. Morons shoes being X-ray'ed by moron X-ray operators. And it's all BS.

In order to meet all those brilliant new rules I checked everything except my laptop and camera. Unfortunately, that included my meclizine and I was forced to get Dramamine from the airport store. I was a bit amazed that they don't totally rape you on the price, $2.29 for four "chewable" tablets. Normally, Dramamine is about $5 for 12 pills, I think. Worse is that Dramamine sucks and they're about as chewable as aspirin (not baby aspirin either). Dramamine only works for 4-6 hours.

Luckily it was a smooth flight so the Dramamine went untested. On the flight I had a aisle seat in the middle section (a 2-4-2 seating arrangement) with only one other person in the row. They moved to the next row up and I immediately peed on all four seats to mark my territory. After we were in the air, I put up all the armrests and laid across all four seats (still not enough space to straighten my legs but not bad). I felt it only fair to not lean any of the seats back to impinge on the people behind me. I dozed on/off for about 5 hours.

I woke, blurry eyed, realizing I had packed my contacts and glasses. I had only a 2 oz. bottle of saline and I used about half cleaning the gunk from my eyes. I figured I fix things after we got to Frankfurt to change planes.

Well, Germany, unlike the US, has figured out that I don't need to carry my checked bags through customs. I would not be getting my bags for another 3 hours, after we were in Dusseldorf.

Finally, at the hotel, I was unpacking and couldn't find my glasses. I checked the usual places, inside my toiletry bag, inside my shoes, nothing. I finally found them, in my computer bag, which had been with me the whole time. Just like I said; we're all morons.

Kiss My Big Brown Ass

Today I was almost killed by a horse's ass. I have a lot of experience dealing with horses' asses but today was new for me.

I was running this morning and after about an hour came upon two horses' asses...along with the rest of the horses. A guy was on one horse and he was also leading the other. The horse he was on started walking at a 45 degree angle (I'm sure there's some fancy name for this but I don't know it) and in doing so, blocked the entire path. He then galloped about 40 feet ahead (I'm saying galloped but maybe it was a cantor or a trot or who knows what; there seems to be more words for horse movement then the Eskimos have for snow). I assume he was trying to run the "sideways walking" out of his horse, kind of like closing Windows and restarting it to get things working again.

He seemed to have his horse under control and so I went to run by (maybe jog or trot, even lope, but definitely not sashay). Suddenly the horse turned back to that 45 degree angle and I was face-to-ass with the great beast. Fortunately for me, I did not get kicked. Fortunately for the rider, I did not get sh*t on. He went on ahead to an emergency horse pull off area and stayed there until I passed. "Sorry about that," was all I got out of it.

Then, on the drive home, I kept hearing a funny squeak. I figured it was the woman driving behind me, who apparently mistook my car for a horse and was trying her best to get in my ass. After she turned off and I still heard the squeak, I tried to figure out what it might be. It seemed worse when I hit the brakes but I could still hear it without hitting the brakes. I assumed my brakes were rubbing on the rotors.

When I got into my garage, it was still squeaking. So much for the brakes theory. Let's go with belt squeak. I left the car running and popped the hood, like I might actually be able to do something. I just wanted to try and figure out what was squeaking so when I brought the car in I could tell them something as it would likely stop squeaking as soon as I brought it in.

Under the hood, I diagnosed and, after turning off the engine, fixed the problem. A piece of Styrofoam had gotten caught up in the engine compartment and was rubbing against a belt. I don't know how it got there, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was put there by a horse's ass.

Haribo*? Nein!

As I prepare to head back to Germany, I'm looking through the TSA's list of what's allowed and what's not on a plane. Some of the more interesting items:

• Personal lubricants - Up to 4 oz. (check or carry-on is OK)
• Mouthwash or Toothpaste (checked OK, no carry-on)

Note to self: bring mint flavored lubricant as substitute.

• Swords, Sabers, Firearms, Axes, Cattle Prods, Billy Clubs, Brass Knuckles and Kubatons [???] (checked OK, no carry-on)
• Cheese in pressurized containers, Jell-O and Whipped Cream (checked OK, no carry-on)

Note to self: check on nutritional value of mint flavored personal lubricant or consider banana as an alternative. Also, check whether Easy Cheese can be used as a personal lubricant.

* - Haribo is a German candy maker famous for gummy bears. [highlight for explanation]