polls that don’t lie

With the biggest event of the year on the line, the person everyone saw as a clear winner from the start is being upstaged in their own backyard.  No, not Obama’s attempts to upset Hillary in New York.  Much, much more drama lies in OKCupid’s (a Boston dating service) anointment of my fellow Cal alum Kyle Boller as the hottest quarterback in the NFL .  Hometown hero Tom Brady, widely expected to sweep the polls, came in a distant 7th.  He and Rudy Guiliani must share a campaign playbook.

A spokesperson within the Brady camp tried to deflect the magnitude of the poll’s results by claiming:

“I think it all comes down to the fact that most women can no longer see themselves dating Tom Brady – he’s in a different stratosphere now.”

Okaaaaay.  And Mike Huckabee is only losing because the other guys have more money.  Nice try, buster.

voting from home: it’s not just for american idol

For those Democrats living abroad who have not already obediently registered on FVAP and mailed back their absentee ballot (in which case, shame on you), Democrats Abroad, an official branch of the Democratic National Party, offers voting sites in 33 countries around the world between Feb. 5-12. If you are a registered member of Democrats Abroad (as opposed to being registered in your home town in the states), you can also vote ONLINE. Imagine the youth vote turnout if they had that for the the people watching at home? The only caveat is that you must register with the party by Jan 31, so get moving.

Also for those of you watching from home: CNN International presents the last presidential debates (AKA The Only Event In LA Unaffected By The WGA Strike), both taking place in California. Republicans on Wednesday, Democrats on Thursday, 2AM for both (okay, so technically Thursday and Friday). No whining about staying up late – like those of you who are working are going to be doing stuff on Friday anyways.

You know, if there is one thing to be admired about Republicans, it’s that they really stick to their beliefs. None of this pandering to the middle and giving up on all the issues that are important to them in the name of ‘electability’. But that being said, do Republican primary voters really think someone like Huckabee and Romney will carry the party to victory in a general election? The fact that they haven’t fallen in line behind McCain and Guiliani in droves just goes to show how true to the cause they are. Kind of like suicide bombers.

As Ted Kennedy pointed out yesterday, the top three Democratic candidates have nearly identical policy platforms. So now is the time where it’s okay to throw all the legislative analysis aside and just vote for the person you like the best. Combined with the ease of online voting, there really is no excuse. In the words of another great political figure (P. Diddy): Vote or Die.

greetings from the dark side

I’m sure my faithful readers (both of you, mom and dad) have been wondering where I disappeared to.  And for those who have also noticed a drop in rantings on the Tortureamt, you may have figured it out.  That’s right, I have rejoined the hair-brushing, non-sweats-wearing, money-earning population.  Okay, I haven’t been brushing my hair every day, but it looks like it.

And why is it that it takes the German government over three months to process my work permit, but my tax card arrives in three days?  They do know a work permit correlates directly to taxes and increased revenue on their part, don’t they?

The first of many office-related German idiosyncrasies: binders here only have two holes.  All my documents look so weak and unsupported!  They also do not have blank dividers.  You can have months, numbers, or alphabets, but no blanks to fill out with your own creation.  Talk about an unexplored market!  Forget Starbucks in Metzingen and importation of designer jeans, the new Zack-Morris-get-rich-quick-scheme is opening the biggest Staples ever in downtown Munich.  The plethora of binder dividers and file folders available will blow their MINDS.

my hero

Coming in at #3 on the Forbes 400 is none other than Mr. Sheldon Adelson.  Who?  Unlike his compatriots in the top tier such as Mssrs. Ellison and Dell, the Google duo, and the Walton Clan, he is far from a household name.  Which clearly, has inspired much bitterness hard work on his part.  But while the hotel and casino mogul, the King of Sin City, may be number three at Forbes, he’s my new number one role model for a multitude of reasons.  I list them below in hopes of encouraging everyone to become money-grubbing, ranking-obsessed republicans.

1. Perpetuation of the American dream.  A child of immigrants from Ukraine/Lithuania who started his working life selling newspapers in Brooklyn?  And while Bill Gates might play the any-college-dropout-can-make-it card, a trust fund kid from Harvard hardly carries the same motivational cred as CCNY dropout.

2.  Unlike the Bill Gates and the Waltons, his products (The Venetian, among others) are not evil.  In fact, his products rock.

3.  Unlike several other members of this list, he does not just exploit the poor and working class.  Thanks to the house advantage, he exploits the rich and middle class just as much, if not more.

4.  His wife is a physician (as opposed to model or community leader), a pioneer in drug and rehabilitation research, and close to his age.

5.  Has donated billions of dollars to medical research, education, and Jewish programs.  True, he has also given to Republicans, but who on this list hasn’t?  How else would they have gotten there?

6.  Constant improvement.  He may not be the richest, but he grows the fastest.  Between 2005-06, his net worth increased $17.5 billion, a rate of $1 million/hour.  Much of his success is due to his foresight of future trends, first in making the Venetian geared towards conventions, and later in being the first to expand in Macao, which has now overtaken Las Vegas as the largest gambling market in the world.  Thanks to his early action, he has also made more money in China than any other American.

So, to Mr. Adelson, the best of luck in making it to #1 before you die.  I fully intend to support you in this goal on my next trip to The Vegas and encourage others to do the same. 

american idols

Richest people in America

1. Bill Gates

2.  Warren Buffet

3….

 Any guesses?  No Googling allowed…

for every high…

The only real highlight of watching Harry Potter in German is the literal translation of You-Know-Who, which fluctuates between depending on whether the addressee(s) is/are singular or plural.  Leading to conversations that go:

 ”Well, when Ihr-weiß-schon-wer was in power….”

“But I thought Du-weißt-schon-wer was dead…”

That brings me great pleasure.  Also when they convert all measurements into the metric system.

Of course, great pleasure appears to be relative in Germany, as the average gleeful German is still a few rungs below the average American fast food employee on the chipperness ladder.  In fact, much as Germany appears to lack extra-small and extra-large sized clothing and shoes, it also seems to lack extreme enthusiasm or disdain.*  For example in America, a proposed activity is generally greeted with one of the following responses:

- “That’s a GREAT idea!  Let me get my wallet/fishing pole/scrap-booking supplies/grubbies and I’ll be RIGHT there!

- “Um…maybeeeee” or “That is a terrible idea.  No way” (which are essentially the same).

Given this conditioning, how on earth am I to know that “that’s not the worst idea” actually qualifies as a positive response?  In American, “that’s not the worst idea” just means that’s the second-worst idea.  It does not mean this is an enjoyable-sounding proposal that should be followed through.  The evaluation “that wasn’t so terrible” is also used to comment on any activity that literally, was not terrible.  I imagine that if Germany was to win the World Cup, after the initial jubilation (the time it takes to get to their cars and start complaining about other drivers), they would say the final game was not so terrible. 

In all the “cultural differences” reading I did before the move, I saw more than one mention of how Germans dislike the American style of business because it seems insincere.  The German himself complains about service in American bars and restaurants, claiming it’s fake and off-putting.  But I’m sure my fellow expats could support my belief that better over-cheerful customer service than that of the completely non-existent variety.  Anyways, I don’t think that proliferation of exclamation points is correlated with insincerity.  I truly believe my friendly Peet’s employee enjoyed our conversations.  If only because they largely consisted of whispering about other customers and how they were crazy.  Of course, along with greater general enthusiasm comes greater general depression and violence, but that’s why America also has Prozac and Ritalin.

*Excluding any interactions with government employees, especially those of the Torture-amt.

keys to victory

Regardless of which of the virtually interchangeable Democratic candidates walks off with the nomination, the party is looking pretty good against the feeble Republican offerings.  However, given the Democrats tendency to choke harder than a Bay Area sports team, extra precautions must be taken.  Nothing can be left to chance.  We need a guaranteed winner, a deal-maker, a closer.  Clearly, if Mike Huckabee has Chuck Norris, we need Jack Bauer.  He will get out the vote like P.Diddy AND fight terrorism.  With Obama securing the recent endorsements of John Kerry and, more importantly, Craig Newmark, I strongly suggest that Camp Hillary get on the phone with Fox if she wants to fight back. 

Plus, what with the writers strike, Jack has a lot of free time on his hands.  And if he can rescue the Secretary of Defense and his daughter from terrorists, stop the melt down of America’s nuclear power plants, recover the nuclear football, and escape capture by the Chinese Embassy all in one day, just think of all he could do to rustle up support between now and November 4.

square. practical. good

In other examples of the German leading me to the Promised Land, our other major holiday excursion was to Waldenbuch.  Waldenbuch?  Teeny town of 8,000 located 16 km from Stuttgart?  Why in the world would anyone go there?  Unless it happened to be the home of Ritter Sport chocolates, and when you are watching a N24 documentary about the company and you casually mention that it is a mere ten minutes from the home of your parents and you and your girlfriend have visited them at least a dozen times without so much as a drive by and she hits you violently until you promise to go on the next trip.

So, to Ritter Sport we went.  And although you have to make arrangements for the actual factory tour, the museum and shop were well worth the visit.  The museum includes not just fascinating facts about chocolate and the history of the company, but fillings as well!  Although smelling yogurt samples is not really what I had in mind.  But the museum also includes a model of the factory where you push a button, the doors open, a little truck comes out, deposits a chocolate bar for you, and goes back inside.  And if you look through the doors you can see the little midget stirring vats of chocolate inside!

We also learned that Clara Ritter was the one who came up with the trademark square shape.  So let this be a lesson to men that you should always take your wife’s advice.  She ended up leaving him upon discovering he was having an affair, but continued to use her idea.  So let this be a lesson to women to always file copyrights promptly.

To top off our great adventure, we purchased 2.3 kilos of assorted chocolate bars.  After spending our holiday eating a few of them, I realized I really only like the ones with nuts.  Which is a shame, since that includes only 2 of our 20+bars.  But I’m sure we’ll make another trip there soon.  Perhaps with a group of at least 10 school children so we can take a tour of the factory and be permitted to create our own personalized chocolate bars with fillings of our choice.

cultural learnings

German fact of the day: In Germany (as well as much of former Germany), New Years Eve is referred to as Silvester.  I asked around, but even the parental generation was unable to shed light on the origins of the name.  The German’s mother finally discovered that the holiday is named after Pope Sylvester I, who died on that day.  Which brings to mind the greater question of: how to people research facts like this without use of Wikipedia?

Aside from delving into name origins, the majority of our holiday was spent playing marathon games of Siedlers von Catan, AKA, the best board game ever.  For those of you who are unaware, Germany is to board games what America is to junk food – the birthplace of the modern era and leaps above and beyond what any other country can produce.  Except perhaps England and Japan, but that only applies to junk food. 

The game operates on a deceptively simple premise: build roads and cities to score points, and the first player to 10 wins.  But with endless variations and additions of pirates, robbers, camels, rivers, and islands, it’s really never the same game twice.  And with over 11 million copies sold in 18 different languages, clearly we are not the first to plot out our plans for world domination with little plastic roads. 

We purchased the original game and a “traders and barbarians” expansion pack last month and played 2-hour games daily.  Sometimes more on weekends.  But over the holidays, the German’s brother busted out his own set, complete with Knights AND Pirates AND 6-player expansion packs.  My other goal for Jan 2008 is to purchase the Pirates expansion pack and four friends to play with.  I saw Pirates in Kaufhof for €20, hopefully I can find the friends for free on Craigslist.

ringing in the new

Back from the eltern and welcoming in 2008 with an especially vigorous day of cleaning.  A common misconception is that I am a clean person, what with my adherence to the motto: cleanliness is next to godliness and obsessive organization.  However, most people fail to see the massive difference between being organized, which involves alphabetizing, color-coding, and frequent Staples purchases, and being clean, which involves chemicals and skin contact with dirt.  Neither of which I enjoy.  I don’t mind cleaning so much now, seeing as how the German loves him some chemicals with a kind of devotion most Germans reserve for their cars.  However, while it’s fun to do some dusting and then watch him do two hours of lemon-scented magic while I eat Christmas cookies, the house-cleaning inevitably is followed by recital of Clean House Mandates.  This leads to conversations like this:

German: Okay, new House Rule number 16a – shower must be cleaned with little scraper thingy and metal faucets wiped dry after use.

Me: What if the other person is going to shower later?  Isn’t that a waste of effort?

German: Okay, but the second person has to ALWAYS do it.

Me: I guess I’ll be taking fewer showers now.

OR

German: New House Rule number 18 – Dryer lint trap must be cleaned out after EVERY use.

Me: I already do that!  All the time!

German: Really?  Every time??

Me: Of course!  By the way, where is the lint trap, exactly?

What with the new year upon us, and everyone off to lose those 15 pounds and meet The One, I like to engage in my personal tradition of monthly resolutions – meeting a new One every month.  No, actually, just making a monthly resolution instead of an annual one.  I enjoy this because small tasks can truly become habits in 30 days (vitamins, flossing, letter-writing) and because you’re given 12 shots at success instead of one.  It’s a very effective system for our short-attention-span society.

So, my resolution for January is to get my work status sorted out.  And in the event that it fails, over the holidays I came up with a Zack Morris-worthy get-rich-quick scheme to provide me with income.  I cannot reveal it here, for fear that someone else will recognize it’s genius, but it was inspired by our holiday visit to the Metzingen Outlets, aka, the Promised Land.  Moses’ got nothing on the German.