fuck fuck fuck fuck

as you might have guessed, today I am FUCKING UPSET. So what happened? This morning, at around 6:30, I hear some really loud noise coming from the street in front of my building. At the beginning I thought that perhaps they were taking away the trash, then I thought that they don't take away trash on Sundays so I got out of bed and looked out of the window. And there I see a policewoman - from now on, for simplicity reasons, called "the bitch"- and a guy - we can call him "the motherfucker", always for simplicity reasons- that was putting my poor little Jean Jacques (my car) on the truck to tow it away. So I open the window and shout at them, but obviously the motherfucker and the bitch were too intent in their sadomasochistic pleasure that they didn't hear me. So I rush downstairs and I manage to stop them before they start the truck and take Jean Jacques God knows where. They tell me that they tow the car away because of the marathon, which, dear readers, passes at least 50 METERS from where Jean Jacques was parked, but Germany is Germany and when they do something they do it properly, ja. And I tell them that OK, fine, we all know that Germans need to run because otherwise they don't digest the 4 wurst mit senf they had for breakfast, and we are very supportive of sports, but now can you take my poor Jean Jacques down from the truck? Ja, klar, says the motherfucker, and then presents me with a bill of 249.99 euros. I repeat, TWO HUNDRED, FORTY NINE EUROS AND 99 CENTS. Since my poor baby was already on the truck, I didn't really have that much of a negioting power, so I had to go to the bank, get the 250 euros and give it to the motherfucker. And then, since Germany is Germany and when they do something they do it properly, the motherfucker had to go and ask around, i.e. to the bitch (because at 6:30 in the morning there is noone around, because normal people are at home sleeping without thinking that a bunch of retarded fuckers will try to steal their car), whether she had 1 cent to give me back, because, you know, after they STEAL 249.99 euros for nothing, 1 cent makes a difference (I can fly to India and get me a roti, perhaps). Then the motherfucker takes Jean Jacques down the truck, nearly crashing it on the ground and says samething in German, to which I don't even look at him, or the at the bitch, for that matter, get into my poor little baby, open the window and shout at them figli di puttaaaaannaaaaaaaaa, which means sons of a bitch (and daughters as well, because we don't want to be sexist) - I have no clue whether they understood it but at least there was the satisfaction of shouting at them in my own language.
And the best thing is, I am POSITIVE that when I parked yesterday at 2PM there was NO sign. But go explain it to the motherfucker and the bitch when you see your Jean Jacques on their fucking truck.
So, my dear readers, now I get ready because I have a flight to Spain in 4 hours. And, obvisouly, since my car is now in front of Jack's house and the Germans are running on my street, I won't even be able to get a taxi (assuming I could afford it after this morning) so I will have to carry the luggage and everything for 500m to the nearest public transportation station, among tons of sweaty people.
And, let me tell you, dear marathon runner: unless you are African, THERE IS NO FUCKING CHANCE THAT YOU WIN IT, so just stay home and let me live my life!

By the way, if you look at my post of October 2007, you see that there is a recurring theme of me vs the marathon. But at least that time they didn't steal money from me. Fuckkkkeeeerrrrrsssssss.

desperate housewife

miei cari, I am happy that you read this because it means that I tricked you with the title of the post. So now you are wondering: is the kid (me) going to reveal the latest and greatest secret of the tv series? No, because I don't watch it. But you could still come and help me clean the flat (hence the title).
That said, this week has been sort of hectic. First of all, I look at the work that I am supposed to do and it's not really a lot; still, I end up staying in the office pretty late every night - which could mean that a) I am completely inefficient b) I have wrongly estimated the amount of work I need to do c) both of the above. But this week I had a moment of great fun when I presented "how to work with Italians", people seemed to like it a lot and it was great fun to prepare it (OK, this could account for some of overtime). Apart from that, I went out every single night and slept an average of 4.3 hours per night, which could also explain why I look like a truck has just run over me and why yesterday night after talking Gaborno home I had to drive with windows down (and, may I remind you, dear reader, this is Germany so that is not exactly plesant) with music booming off my car and me singing and dancing while driving, so that people at the traffic light thought I was coming from Quarto Oggiaro (which is the Milan equivalent of Offenbach here in Frankfurt) - still, the good side effect is that the drug dealers in the railway station area probably thought I was already loaded with whatever and didn't bother me.
So what am I doing in the weekend? I have no clue, apart from having to clean the flat (invitation to come help still open, by the way).
ciaociao

engineer explains pina colada

miei cari, tonight, if the 2+ bottles of wine allow, I will share with you some insights about scaling up of liquid mixing. Sounds engineering, doesn't it? Well, kind of... So, how do you you make a pina colada ( I don't know where I can find the spanish n with the little worm on top symbol so you just have to cope with the wrong spelling). So you take 1 part of pineapple juice, 1 part of coconut cream and half or a bit more part of ron (which is rhum for those of you that you don't know that the real name is ron, like me 1.5 weeks ago) and some ice. So you look at the weird consistency of the coconut cream that you get in German stores, more like a very viscose paste than the white liquid with coconut suspension in it (the one that you can almost chew) that I saw in Mexico, and you try the recipe only for one - you don't want to throw away so much ron-. Given the promising results of the first batch, you decide to increase the quantities. Maybe some of you are not that familiar of what a batch is: a bacth is a system where you put the ingredients, mix or do whatever you have to (like heating, cooling and so on) and get a finished result, and if you want to do it again you have to follow the same procedure all over again. Basically: put, do whatever, get result - as opposed to a system where you keep on putting, keep on doing whatever you have to and keep on having result, which in engineering terms is called continuous system. So after seeing that the first batch of pina colada was good, I decided to increase to quantities to make 3 glasses. Wrong. I did not figure out that my stiring system - my little Braun thingy - was not supposed to handle so large quantities of junk. So I ended up washing myself and half of the kitchen. Shit. Well, lesson leant. Anyone wants some fake German coconut cream?

buchmesse!!

miei cari, I figured out today (or yesterday, I am getting old and confused) that the Buchmesse is this weekend and not last as I thought (as said, I am getting old...). So Sunday we will all meet at my place for brunch at 1 or something like that and then go buy a shitload of books!!!!! ciaociao

I am siiiiinging in the fog

miei cari, as you have probably noticed, I am back in Germany. So this morning I wake up, look out of the window and didn't see anything because of the fog. Considering that 2 days ago I was looking out of the window and I saw a clear blue sea, you can imagine how happy I am.
Anyway.
So what happened in Mexico? I have already told you about my encounter with the barracuda. After that, I decided that even snorkeling was too much for me and decided to just lay on the beach and get properly roasted. So now I have a very red nose (peeling) and a very red back (not peeling - yet). We also went to Chichen Itza, which is a big Maya site. This place was fantastic, and eventually I found a bookstore that accepts credit cards so I could get some junk books. One in particular was a nice piece of shit, basically saying that Mayas were a unique civilization because of the design patterns they used. And up to here it is an opinion and you can agree or not but it is still valid (and actually I liked the designs a lot, so I would also agree). The guy then starts ranting about the fact that the uniqueness was derived by the fact that the designs were taken from the patterns on the skin of snakes - he also calls it crotalic movement. And up to here it is still an opinion, a bit more bullshit than the previous one but still OK. The real problem is that he then starts arguing that because of this crotalic stuff the Mayan civilization has a much higher number of motifs than any other civilization. And, my dear, you just need to go to a mosque, a baroque church or a whatever Hindu temple and you find out that the guy most likely smoked a couple of cactuses before writing the book.
Anyway.
We also went to a natural park and while resting I nearly got killed by a treacherous coconut falling from the tree.
And we saw a really handsome guy, we started following him and we lost him, and ended up in the same club with another teenager trying to chat me up (and that made 3 of them).
And despite having 4 Spanish speaking people around me, after 1 week they were talking Italian (with Fernando nearly rapping on Caparezza) and the only Spanish I learnt was ahorita and quesadilla con queso y chiles (ahhhhh I love it!!).
So tonight I came home to do some washing and had the bad idea of buying an avocado to make a sort of guacamole. But I forgot that I am back in Germany, so the avocado was nearly as hard as the coconut that nearly crashed on my head and I dutifully trashed it.

saludos desde playa del carmen

miei cari, as you have probably figured out by now, I am in mexico for holidays. The very good news is that eventually it stopped raining so I can get tanned. Which actually means that I got told that the sun here can really be harmful so I decided to get protection 25. Unfortunately, I sort of forgot to put it on my ass and yesterday I went snorkeling, with the result that my ass now looks like the reversed Japanese flag (as Ferndando very rightly defined it). That said, and that hurting, I am enjoying myself a lot. Yesterday we went snorkeling in Cozumel, which is this island in front of Playa del Carmen. The other guys decided to went diving but to be honest I couldn't be bothered so I just went for the easy one. It was nice, even though at the 3rd immersion I was already complaining (mentally, since if you try to talk you drink 1/2 ton of water with some fishes inside) that there should be some music so that it really starts looking like the old computer screensavers. Anyway, I saw a lot of fishes, like the yellow and black ones that looked like the ape maia (or biene maia if you are german), then some super colorful ones and some very edible ones (and I was thinking that next time I come with a net and then I cook them with potatoes). Then at a certain point I saw this big fish swimming away alone and looking sort of bored. I was nearly going to go there, give him a pat on the fin and offer him a piña colada when the instructor started going away and so I had to follow. We arrive on the boat and the instructor turns at me and asks me "so, you've seen the barracuda?" And I, since I am an ignorant "no, was there one?" "sure, the big fish that was swimming alone" and there came the moment when I wanted to go back on the island and never set foot (or piece of ass, which probably given the size is more appetizing) in the water again. So, ladies and gentlemen, Alba 1 : barracuda 0. Today we went to a natural reserve and swam in some sort of lagoon. And got eaten by mosquitos, but that's another story. Tomorrow we will go to see some ruins (so that you don't think that we only swim and party, even though there would be nothing wrong with it).
Best 2 things so far:
1. quesadilla con queso are very tasty, especially when I fill them with a ton of green chiles.
2. party life in playa del carmen is quite good, which should increase our chances of getting a lot of points (I will explain this story of the points another time).
ciaociao

areolinea taca taca

miei cari. I am in madrid in the airport. Apparently i am on a charter flight, with half of spain on it... Ciao