If you've been wondering where the hell FLOG™ has been, three items: (1) school just started and is kicking my ass; (2) my la\pto\p is still a tad fucked, if you can \perceive what I'-m trying to tell you; and (3) I've been working my ass off to get my Germany travelogue up. Well, now it's up. Please click that lovely link to the right, and enjoy.
This is only a test of canned HTML. Do not click below.
Sorry Blog.
This conversation was overheard in the cocktail lounge of Springfield's cultural hotspot, the Far Man (by the architecture and furnishings, a Mexican restaurant, pretending for at least a decade now to be a Chinese buffet):
SKINNY BALD MAN IN REEBOK TANK TOP: Yeah, I just got my Queensryche tickets today! 25 bucks!Now, the lyrics to "Silent Lucidity" . . .OLD FAT MAN WITH BRIMLEY MUSTACHE: Queensryche? What the hell is a Queensryche?
BARMAID: Hard-rock band from the 80's.
FAT MAN: Ah, I don't remember too much of the 80's. But if it was a hard rock band I shoulda heard of 'em.
BARMAID: They had one big hit, a slow song called "Silent Lucidity."
FAT MAN: Nope, never heard that one.
SKINNY MAN (DREAMILY): Yeah, "Silent Lucidity." I used to sing that to my son when I put him to bed.
Hush now don’t cryOkay, those lyrics are disappointing. I was expecting something akin to "Enter Sandman". Instead I discover that a crappy metal band once wrote a lullaby much more tender and less morbid than that old chestnut, "Rock-a-bye-baby". Who knew?
Wipe away the teardrop from your eye
You’re lying safe in bed
It was all a bad dream
Spinning in your head
Your mind tricked you to feel the pain
Of someone close to you leaving the game of life
So here it is, another chance
Wide awake you face the day
Your dream is over...or has it just begun?There’s a place I like to hide
A doorway that I run to in the night
Relax child, you were there
But only didn’t realize it and you were scared
It’s a place where you will learn
To face your fears, retrace the tears
And ride the whims of your mind
Commanding in another world
Suddenly, you hear and see
This magic new dimensionChorus
I-will be watching over you
I-am gonna help you see it through
I-will protect you in the night
I-am smiling next to you...in silent lucidityIf you open your mind for me
You won’t rely on open eyes to see
The walls you built within
Come tumblng down, and a new world will begin
Living twice at once you learn
You're safe from pain in the dream domain
A soul set free to fly
A round trip journey in your head
Master of illusion, can you realize
Your dream’s alive, you can be the guide but...Chorus
I-will be watching over you
I-am gonna help you see it through
I-will protect you in the night
I-am smiling next to you...in silent lucidity
Wouldn't it be just like the Greeks to prominently feature a nine-year-old boy in their opening ceremony. Tsk tsk tsk.
Concerned reader Casper Von Scuzzlelump writes:
Dear Flog,All right, so you've scoured the Autobahn and have lived to tell the tale. But lemme ask you this: surely, there were normal drivers puttering around on it. How does little Mrs. Dieseldorfer, in her '66 Volkswagon bug, crusing at 55 MPH towards the Frankfurt Walmart, contend with maniacs blazing past at three times that speed? Is the left lane reserved for speed freaks? Or is the whole thing a Mad Max free-for-all where the meek are quickly left for dead on the sidelines?
Fact is, we could really learn a lot from the Autobahn. It has a suggested and universally ignored speed limit of 130 kph, about 80 mph. But the Polizei generally never ticket people for speeding. Instead, they ticket people for failing to get out of the fast lane, for excessive tailgating, and for passing in the right hand lane.
So it all works out -- as you approach a vehicle at high speed, it moves out of the way as quickly as possible. You are expected to do the same for the BMW's that can't go slower than 170 mph. The slow lane is full of trucks and slow-moving Grandmas; the left lane is full of cars going anywhere from 80 to Mach 1, the slower ones dutifully yielding to the faster ones. It's like they've figured out that high speeds are perfectly safe as long as everyone respects everyone else's desire to go slower or faster. As a result, you see absolutely none of the two banes of every American interstate:
-the Fast & Bi-curious Asshole who weaves constantly between lanes at 100 mph, threatening to cause a pile-up every five seconds.
-the Stiff-Necked Mouth-Breather who refuses to get out of the fast lane because DAMMIT 65 IS THE MAXIMUM SPEED, YOU YAHOOS!
In Germany the former gets all the room he wants to defy physics in the fast lane, and the latter will get ticketed if he doesn't get his ass out of the way. It's freaking beautiful.
Also: no open-container laws!
I intend to have pics (& accompanying stories) from Germany up as soon as I can, but I need to replace the USB cord my dog chewed through and I can only order this cord from Nikon. I might go see if I can burn a CD from my camera later today but no guarantees. In the meantime, consider these:
FUN FACT! -- The Gideon's Bible in German hotel rooms consists only of the New Testament. That whole Moses-to-Sandy Koufax part of it? Nicht dort. I don't know about you, but that gives me the heebie-jeebies.
FUN ANECDOTE! -- Farting openly in Bavaria is A-OK. We discovered this late one night in Mittenwald, an Alpine town on the Germany/Austria border that was positively overflowing with lederhosen. We had just rumbled through a meal consisting of (a) bacon; (b) veal; (c) beef steak; (d) pork chop; and (e) a 10-inch sausage (meat unknown). While strolling through a town square so freakin' quaint it would make anybody's grandmother moist, Spc. Mike laid an enormous fart just as a clutch of elderly Bavarian fraus walked past. It was the kind of fart that had a theme and variations; hell, it had several movements. It was the sort of fart that made it loud and clear that the fartier would soon have to induce vomiting, because he had far more numerous and varied meats sloshing around his beer-blasted stomach than a non-Bavarian should attempt. Truly A-1 material.
The old fraus gasped a bit and shook their heads, clucking "nein, nein, nein" at us. We expected an unintelligible public shaming. Instead, one of them cut loose with three melodic toots of her own -- "fwoot fwoot fwooooot" right out the back end of a traditional Bavarian dress. Un. Freakin. Believable. We laughed hard, but in truth we were humbled. Bavaria is truly the match for any High Life Man.
So that's all for now. Expect a full travelogue soon. Er, soonish.
Well, I'm back. I can now check "Go 140 mph down the Autobahn in a Mercedes-Benz while blasting Electric Cafe" off the ol' Things To Do To Die Happy list. Now it is time for the Sprockets that we sleep.
Not that FLOG™ has been regular lately anyway, but if you don't hear peep from me for the next week, perhaps this will help you to understand.
I might manage a dispatch or two. Or I might not.
