Züri G'schnätzlets
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Thinly-sliced bits of web-logged goodness (as I see it)
from Downtown Switzerland and beyond. |
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Thursday, October 31, 2002
Monday, October 28, 2002
Back to Dallas One of the German television stations started re-running the best night-time soap opera of all times. Yep, find me every Monday night at 10:20 in front of the ole boob-tube for the antics of the Ewing boobs. It's all over-dubbed in Germa, but that's good practice for me I think. Course, it's Dallas, so it's not too complicated. (Though more complicated than Dynasty which masquarades as The Denver Klan here.) It might be German, but Pam's still long-suffering and beautiful, J.R.'s still mean as a snake, Ms. Ellie's still trying to hold it all together, Sue Ellen's still drunk, and Lucy ... well Lucy's still Lucy. They don't try to translate certain regional quirks either - the kids all call their father daddy, for instance.
Oh, it's pretty funny to sit here in Switzerland and watch the whole bunch scoot around my home town carrying on in German. Of course the series is more than twenty years old, so it's also fun to watch the gang travel places that don't exist anymore, or pass places that didn't exist yet. Back when the Ewing Oil Building was at 2100 Bryan Avenue, the camera's keep showing J.R. and Bobby walk past the construction site for 1 Dallas Place - when it was only a hole in the ground. Hey, but wait a minute. In tonight's episode Bobby and Pam took a trip to Las Vegas, and when they got to Las Vegas they checked into the Dallas Hyatt Hotel with Reunion Tower outside the window. OK. So I've been to Reunion Tower several times, but the only reason I recognized Reunion Tower when I was in Dallas is because it's prominently featured in the opening credits for the show. You think no-one else noticed they were hanging out at home? Course, I'm still waiting for an episode where Sue Ellen stops in at a certain bar on Cedar Springs Road - for just one drink. The depressing part is I still remember exactly what's going to happen next on these shows, even though I last saw them 20 years ago. But I can't even remember my German assignment for last week. Oh! Age (or is it culture shock) does terrible things to a mind. Saturday, October 26, 2002
Watch it Wiggle No flan at this hour, but I recieved this nice thought from Mom. And I already feel better.
Snow Day! Well no, it's not snowing yet. At least down out of the mountains. But, remember that episode of Sabrina, The Teenage Witch (it had me Total-ly Verhext) where she has a terrible day at school? She turns teen menace Libby into a goat and then declares a snow day. See she can uses her Teen Witchery to actually start a blizzard. Then she storms home and goes behind her mirror into a reverse land where she becomes literally trapped in her own bad mood. Then she learns her entire school has been effected by her mood and the only way she can escape the mirror is to lift herself out of her bad mood - and cheer up the whole school. So naturally she makes a giant flan in the cafeteria. Because "everybody loves the custardy goodness of a wiggly, jiggly flan"!
I sat stewing in the theater tonight waiting for Blue Velvet to begin and I realized I was in danger of becoming trapped in MY own bad mood after my week at work. I wanted to declare Snow Day AND turn some people into the goats they are inside. Luckily, Sabrina taught me a valuable lesson; I'll try to stop the bad mood before it gets any worse. So now I'm out looking for a woggly joggly flan - it's the happy desert. Friday, October 25, 2002
Let's All Go To the Movies I've just been re-reading David Sedaris' latest memoir Me Talk Pretty One Day (buy it). It's about his experiences trying to overcome the handicap of a childhood speech impediment - only to move to Paris as an adult to try to overcome the handicap of trying to go about daily life with the vocabulary of a semi-retarded three year old Parisian. I've been trying to get my (totally cool) German teacher to read an excerpt from the book. Only so that she may have a little empathy for those of us who, like Sedaris, find it ridiculous (in German as in French) "to assign a gender to an inanimate object incapable of disrobing and making an occasional fool of itself." But she claims she is too busy ...
Other than the parts about langauage, another part of the book that resonates with me is the part about how he spends his time in Paris watching good old American movies (he says, more or less, "as video killed the radio star, it also killed the American revival movie house"). Revival movie houses dot the landscape in Zurich too (actually spurred-on in this case BY home video since, in this country of somewhat relaxed copyright law enforcement, anyone with a white bed sheet and a laptop projector intended for Power Point slides can set up a revival house). Tonight, I'm going to take in one of my favorites, Blue Velvet, (buy it ... for me ;-) at the Riff Raff, a newly renovated art/rep house. Unfortunately though, the revival houses aren't as prolific here as in Paris. So I can't think of any way I'll be able to work out a way to close a blog entry with this worthy quote-bite: "On Easter, having learned that The Greatest Story Ever Told was sold out, I just crossed the street and saw Superfly, the second-greatest story ever told." Wednesday, October 23, 2002
Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau
October 23, 2002 
linked from The uComics Web Site the self proclaimed "Best Comic Site In The Universe!"
And if you thought I made a spelling error yesterday you are wrong. I was stud-ing up on Message Driven Beans. 'Cause that's what I am: a Java 2 (Enterprise Edition) STUD!
And. I have my own blog. Tuesday, October 22, 2002
And ... Remember, that even if the Pres enhances the facts (For Bush, Facts Are Malleable, The Washington Post reported today), I never embellish a good story.
This Means You, Homer Um, I'm sitting at work, studing up on the esoteric concept of Message Driven Beans, and I just noticed that the legal disclaimer from Sun Microsystems on this frivolous bit of code used to illustrate a point reads:
You acknowledge that this software is not designed, licensed or intended for use in the design, construction, operation or maintenance of any nuclear facility. I wonder what that could be about? There's no such disclaimers for other critical applications. For example, I guess I could use this useless piece of code in the design, construction, operation or maintenance of a pace maker - or a drone airplane to deliver conventional (but not nuclear) weapons. Monday, October 21, 2002
And the People Said ... JA! If you were wondering, last month's referendum on the Partnerschaftsgesetz, or civil unions for same-sex couples, passed with something like an overwhelming 62%.
I see that it's been one day less then a month since the last time I fed you hungry readers any Z�ri G'schnatzlets. Here's some quick take out. I guess the problem is I promised you live video from Neuchatel. And then I wasn't ready with the video ... and I wanted the site to be perfect ... and then I had some pretty pictures from the Tivo-cam to show ... but I had to prepare them for the web ... because they were like too huge to download and stuff ... and then some other groovy things were happening ... but, like I couldn't really post them ... because I didn't have the perfect video yet ... so now it's a month gone by. From now on, no more grandiose promises.
Next Time: ... less perfectionist writer's block and more tasty blog. (Oops another grandiose promise!)
Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau
October 21, 2002 
linked from The uComics Web Site the self proclaimed "Best Comic Site In The Universe!"
HOME - More Tasty goodness in the
ARCHIVES
March 2002 May 2002 June 2002 July 2002 August 2002 September 2002 October 2002 November 2002 December 2002 January 2003 February 2003 March 2003 April 2003 May 2003 June 2003 July 2003 August 2003 September 2003 October 2003 November 2003 December 2003 January 2004 February 2004 January 2006 February 2006 
I've attempted to leave this blog in the state it was in early 2006 as a historical artifact, but Google broke my original Archive page. What you see above is a quick reconstruction to rebuild some archive functionality
without altering the original blog layout (or researching too deeply into Blogspot).
Original Contents Copyright 2002 - J. Stephen Holyer. All Rights Reserved.
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