BLOG ON SEMI-HIATUS (Sticky Post)

I have left St. Louis for job in Cologne, Germany.

This blog is in a state of semi-hiatus, as of September 4, 2018.

I’ll write posts here every once in awhile, just to update you all on how I’m doing, and my thoughts on whatever big news breaks. Our favorite doggy will chime in every once in awhile with his own guest posts. Other than that, expect posting around here to be sparse going forward.

Reading material:

My Labor Day 2018 farewell post — My final post from St. Louis for awhile, perhaps ever.

My post from July 26, 2018, announcing my departure.

The preview of my Summer 2018 travelogue that I’ll probably never get to write in full.

My long and frequently updated post on my condition and recovery — If I experience any significant progression or regression in my recovery, I or our favorite doggy will let you know, and this post will be appendaged. As of the time of my moving, my cognitive functioning has mostly recovered in full, but my physical functioning is still far from it, I’m still in a wheelchair during waking hours more often than not, and if I can stay upright on two feet, it’s for an hour at the longest, usually less.

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They Call It Clown World.

Guest post by Puggg

Yard sign calls for violence.  The area’s alderwoman and the news is concerned.  But not about the call for violence, oh no.  They’re worried about the people who may be victims of this violence.

Where’s that Honk Honkler when you need him?

Current Year Translation Service

Your Blogmeister’s German Desk

They say:  “My truth…”

Translation:  “My often-incorrect opinions, which you are not allowed to criticize, or even call out as being factually incorrect, because I have more intersectional Pokemon points than you.”

Topping Gillette’s Stupidity

Hamburg

I don’t have to buy that much food for myself, because I’m on the German equivalent of the rubber chicken circuit, except the grub is a hell of a lot better. Someone is always shoving free food under my snoot. 

Which is a good thing, because overall, by my estimation, controlling for portion size, converting metric portion sizes into customary, and converting prices in Euros to Dollars, groceries in Germany are about 40% more expensive than they are in the United States.  Realizing that Germany has the lowest grocery store type food prices in Western Europe.

What little I have to buy and buy from a box-type store, I use Kaufland, which is the upscale marquee for Lidl, and Lidl is the “other” Aldi in Germany, and in fact, Lidl expanded into the United States about two years ago.

That said, if I ever had a notion to go to Edeka, I don’t now.

Edeka, headquarters in Hamburg…of course.  The open air insane asylum of Germany.

While it’s easy for you to see what’s going on with this without me needing to translate, I’ll do it below.

Thank you.

Thank you for always being there for me.

You take care of me.

You have an intuition for the right moment.

I can always tell you everything.

And you always listen to me.

You are my role model and you support me however you can.

Thank you, that you are so beautiful.

And that you have such tact.

Mom, thanks for not being Dad.

Whatever Was, Was

Los Angeles

She was born in Cincinnati in 1922, Cincinnati of course being a big destination for German immigrants. Doris Day’s real last name at birth was Kappelhoff, “Hof” meaning yard or courtyard, Kappel being a proper place name, there are several cities by or including that name in Germany and Switzerland.

My favorite Doris Day movie, well, there’s a hint in this post. Teacher’s Pet was a 1959 movie, one of those “what the hell” romantic comedies, where Doris Day plays a journalism school professor, and Clark Gable plays an ace newspaper reporter who assumes a new proletarian identity in order to go back to school and get into her class, to pretend he wants to make a midlife career change, all because he took a dare that he could get into her pants. Even though it’s my favorite movie of hers, I’m guessing Paramount never thought much of it, because they shot the movie in black-and-white, while most respectable-prospect movies by 1959 were shot in color, including two of Doris Day’s own two blockbusters from earlier that decade: On Moonlight Bay, and By the Light of the Silvery Moon, the two late-1910s-set small town Indiana romantic comedies where Gordon MacRae was the co-star. Strangely, my favorite Paul Newman movie, The Young Philadelphians, was also a 1959 movie, and was also filmed in B&W. From what I remember watching a Newman documentary, Warner Brothers actually expected a lot of this movie, but for some reason, not enough to film it in color. And alluding to my universal social media avatar of Ward Cleaver holding a noose in front of aghast June, TYP featured two actors from the Leave It To Beaver universe: Diane Brewster, who was Beaver’s second grade teacher in LITB (and would later sorta reprise that role as the principal of that same elementary school in The New Leave It To Beaver), and Newman’s character’s mother in TYP, and Richard Deacon, who was Fred Rutherford through the entire LITB series run and once in NLITB before his death in 1984, and the butler who gave the water-smelling testimony in TYP.

One more thing: Good luck getting this song past the #MeToo movement and the Legions of the Perpetually Outraged on Twitter.

Fake & Shake.

Guest post by Puggg

Why did Channel 4 peddle fake news over the weekend about the mass closures of Steak & Shake locations in the area?  This morning, in the course of my driving around for work, I passed by three different Steak & Shakes that Channel 4 said suddenly closed.  But the first two were plainly open as I drove by them.  The third one was open, and I went in for lunch.  One of the waiters told me that they have no idea where Channel 4 got it, but they and all the not closed locations including that one had to field calls all day yesterday and all morning today from people who were worried that it was true.

Chateau Heartiste Deleted

Open thread about the matter, and also where we’ll be able to find CH’s next stop.  My bet is that Unz takes CH in.

Also remember that we still don’t know the new blogging whereabouts of Saboteur365.

Bad Timing For Lizzie

This movie couldn’t happen at a worse time for Elizabeth Warren’s Presidential candidacy.

Really, though, this movie is going to be hilarious on a lot of levels and try to make serious points on a lot of levels;  There is going to be a whole lot to unpack.  Unfortunately, most people won’t be able to grok either the humor or the serious points.

I also think that black women will eat this movie up like penny candy, while white social media SJWs will raise holy hell.