White Haitians

I went out to run some errands this morning as I prepare to get everything ready for the upcoming move. Prepping the cars for sale, getting paint for the apartment, etc. At one store, I was waiting in line to pay for my stuff when the guy behind me asks me if he could set his Cokes and booze on the counter. The guy ahead of us was taking a while, and my new line buddy was carrying a case of Coke and a handle of rum. I gladly slide down to make room for him and his stuff.

He's an middle-aged black guy who I would describe as a "loud talker", but friendly enough. He's there with two teenage kids that I assumed were his kids. He sees that I'm renting another movie, and starts what I can only describe as one of the strangest conversations I've had in recent memory. Here's the gist of it as best I can remember:

Him: You know what you should see is that Benjamin Buttons.

Me: Oh yeah, I've seen it. Pretty good, right?

Him: Yeah man! I love that Benjamin Buttons! He's all "oohh oohh" [pantomimes an old man walking], and then singing up in there! 23 Psalms! This one here [gestures toward one of his sons] was watching that up in Church and laughing his ass off! Ah ha!

Me: [Startled by that reaction to Benjamin Buttons] Oh. Yeah, that was funny!

Him: [Shifting the conversation without any noticeable transition] Man, I know guys who been in the army four years and can't pass a dang-gone PT test. I can't believe that. This one guy... Hey, [directed at me] you ever heard of a white Haitian?

Me: A white Haitian?

Him: Yeah. A white Haitian.

Me: You mean someone from Haiti who is white?

Him: Yeah!

Me: No, I can't say I ever have.

Him: Yeah, me neither! This one guy tells me he's a white Haitian, and I tell him that he's crazy. I looked that shit up on Google [pantomimes typing on a keyboard, but with his arms fully outstretched and even with his shoulders], and you know what Google said?

Teenage kid: What?

Him: Said "Could not find". And if Google can't find it, than it's not a thing!

[Teenage kids and dad both break down laughing at this]

Me: Alright, see you later.

At this point, I had been checked out and left the store. But when I got home, I couldn't resist performing the same search for white Haitian that my new friend had suggested. There's about 1,700 hits for it. From what I can tell, there's a certain population in Haiti of Arab decent that calls itself "white Haitian". What's more, they do not like waiting for the bus. So why couldn't my friend find it on the Google? Dunno. Maybe he was spelling it wrong, maybe he did it a long time ago and there weren't any hits then. But I think I can safely say I'd never thought about white Haitians until today.

Family Feud

Hello friends.

I'm going to let you in a little Springer family secret: my brother and I have a feud. While some families feud over who is getting the family estate, my brother and I are at odds over who is getting a small wooden bear that my parents have at their house.

While my parents were living in Japan in the 70's, they bought a small carved wooden bear that they kept with them as they moved around and eventually settled in Georgia. This type of bear is typical of a style of Japanese folk art carving done by the aboriginal peoples called the Ainu. They are found of carving bears in a variety of different settings, often with a fish. Like so:



This is almost exactly the same composition of the carving that my parents have. For whatever reason, my brother Justin and I got into an argument when we were in school over who would eventually get this bear carving from my parents. Neither one of us was willing to concede over this bear issue and it will probably have to be resolved over a lengthy and costly legal battle. At least that was the most likely course of action until the events of this weekend.

We went to Stuttgart over the weekend to visit friends of ours who had recently moved there. On the morning that we were leaving, Jessica insisted that we go see the flea market that was set up downtown in one of the squares. I reluctantly went along, being a good sport even though I never take any pleasure in these things. To me, everything there can be sorted into two categories: old shit that nobody wants, cool shit that's too expensive. But as we were walking past the the tables of junk, Jessica spotted something that caught her eye. It was a wooden bear. The guy at the table saw that we were interested and held it up for us to see. He said that it was a Russian carving, solid wood, very difficult to make. I didn't know if he really thought that, or if he was just bullshitting us to make a sale. But I knew immediately what it was. It was an Ainu bear carving. He wanted €30 for it, but I got it for €22. Here's a picture of it, with a dollar for reference:



It was a little dusty, but no worse for wear. With a little wipe down, it'll look as good as new. Plus, compared with what comparable carving are online, I think I got it for a bargain.

Maybe the feud will finally come to an end. Unless of course the one at my parents' house looks cooler that this one.

Collaboration

Photoshopping was mine; the caption is Jessica's.



This was from last year's Paris trip when we visited Versailles.

Still Not Hipsters

There was a little excitement from a previous post that I put up when a celebrity podcaster made a comment on the entry.

I was going to respond to his comment with a pithy repartee, but with the move coming up and my work not cutting me any slack recently, I decided to take the only logical step: photoshop clown heads onto the picture.



The gauntlet has been dropped, sir!

Baby Went to Amsterdam

I have to start off saying that 50% of the reason we went to Amsterdam was so we could make a video of the kids there and put it to that song, but the other 50% was "wooden shoes." I have actually seen many people in Europe wear wooden shoes as part of their traditional costumes, including the French and Germans, but we all know they are quintessentially Dutch. So, I made sure everyone in the family got shoes while we were there. Well, at least everyone who was willing (not spoilsport Joel!).

The kids were so crazy about them! Even Ava, who has been a non-smiler lately, cheesed it up for her clog pictures:
Aidan wore his for a little bit before deciding he'd rather get naked and clop around the house with just his shoes on:


My kids are nuts.

Not Hipsters

Jessica and I have started listening to a podcast called "Jordan Jesse Go" (or alternatively "Jordan/Jesse--GO!!"). It's produced by a couple of guys, Jordan Morris and Jesse Thorn, and I believe they have a radio show called "The Sound of Young America" that may have some sort of national syndication.

"Jordan Jesse Go" is a free podcast that they put up on iTunes for subscription. Jessica found it on a fluke and we've been listening to it over the weekend. It's not bad and has it's moments. It's basically two guys riffing on miscellaneous pop-culture topics. By their own admission, their show is a "collection of distractions." They come off as a pair of late-20 hipsters who occasionally have some indie celebrity guest host.

However, I took a peek on the internets at what these "celebrity podcasters" look like and discovered this:



That's Jordan on the left, Jesse on the right.

I sent this picture to Jessica and her response deserved to be shared with the world:

H-S! Which one is which? They look so ridiculous. They pass themselves off as hipsters, but they are clearly bozos.

Bozos indeed, Jessica. Bozos indeed.

Do you like fishsticks?

If you haven't seen the latest episode of Southpark, I recommend you get on over to Southpark Studios and watch the Fishsticks episode.

It's not the best one I've ever seen, but it does contain one of the greatest single one-line jokes of all time. And it has a fantastic Kanye West video at the end.

'Nuff said.

Shout Outs

Happy Easter!

Also, a quick couple of shout outs to some fellow bloggers.

My friend Eric Y. has a annually updated blog that has a web comic on it. I don't know if it qualifies as a web comic per se, since he originally drew them back in the early nineties before the internet is what it is today. Nevertheless, he's since dug up these old strips and put them up on a blog of his. Take a look-- That Old Goat. My hope is that the surge of traffic from this megalith of a site will spur him onward to actually create some new content for the strip. For the record, I'd like to see one featuring the ghost of Natasha Richardson. You know, something light and topical.

Another friend of mine, Cory aka Bart B., has a couple of blogs out there. I'd like to draw your attention to his latest(?) one: Under the Muck. Cory's pretty good about keeping the updates fresh and content-packed. He writes about the bands that didn't quite make it in the biz. Acts that maybe had a hit here or there, but just didn't break on through to the national scene. Cory used to (still does, maybe) write for Pitchfork Media, which is a hipster music review vehicle, so he knows what he's talking about. Lots of the music over there isn't really my scene (which happens to be atonal acapella groups), but Cory makes it interesting and fun to read.

Check 'em out!

The T.I. - Numa Numa - OZone Connection

There are no new ideas. Nearly everything that you've seen, heard, or read has been done before. Let me illustrate my point--

You may or may not be familiar with the rapper T.I. I guess he's popular with the kids these days. I saw a story on CNN that he was arrested for a weapons possession charge just prior to attending a BET awards show. I guess he was trying to get his bodyguard to buy $12,000 worth of machine guns for him, since he was unable to buy them himself due to a previous drug charge. What?!? A rapper arrested for guns and drugs?? Way to break a stereotype, T.I. Anyway, I guess if the mainstream media makes your arrest national news, then you've "made it" in the business.


It turns out that T.I. has a popular song called "Live Your Life" featuring the lovely Rihanna singing the back-up hook. You may remember Rihanna from getting beat-up by her boyfriend about a month ago. Somehow, that was national news also. Anyway, I know that this song is popular because it's been playing over the speaker system at the local grocery store. Take a listen to the hook from this song on YouTube. Ok? Remember what that sounds like.

If this doesn't sound unnervingly familiar, then maybe you haven't been on the Internets very long. That hook is nearly identical to the "Numa Numa" guy's song. Remember him? Take a listen to refresh your memory:




So T.I. ripped off a fat internet star? Not quite. Turns out that Gary Brolsma (the fat kid in the video) just lifted this song from a Moldovan boy-pop group called O-Zone. For reals. But as if all this wasn't enough, you really have to take a look at the original video from this band. It's cringe-worthy enough to sit through the whole four minutes. They're singing on the wing of an airplane, for Christ's sake!


There you have it. A L.A. based American rapper gets famous by sampling an Internet YouTube star who in turn sampled a Moldovan pop band. So it goes...

Long Live the Rock

Aidan was playing around with my Guitar Hero controller today while Ava and Jessica were taking a nap. I was working on the computer, when he came up to me and said, "Dad, I'm going to turn a song on in my room and play guitar. You come in and take a movie with the camera." It was an offer I couldn't refuse.

With a little coaxing and a couple of different shots, we were able to pull of this totally sweet video. I hope you're sitting down, because this is going to rock your ass off!!!

We like to show off

Here are some pictures from the past month or so that we weren't able to upload earlier due to some pretty big issues related to our ISP switch. It's still not 100% resolved, but we can at least get online occasionally and bore you with our photos.

Here is Joel with his acceptance letter to GA Tech- I decorated the door to our apartment while he was at work:

Here is Ava eating Valentine's Day candy, hence the mess. Despite a worrying incident in January (see "Should I Be Concerned About This Type of Behavior?"), Aidan seems to like her again and made her a cute Valentine. The dog was his happy Meal toy, so that was pretty generous of him to part with it.


Before you knew it, we were celebrating St. Pat's by, uh, going to work in green shirts. Woo hoo! Good times. Aidan wore this funny outfit to daycare, and when he came home, he told me that a lot of the teachers took his picture. Wonder why...
These next ones are totally gratuitous...just nice pictures of us with the kids.


This is me at my school. We had a big celebration for Black History Month, and, despite your feelings about the necessity of such a holiday, I hope you enjoy this set that the drama teacher made. The background says, "CHANGE: A Dream Wrapped in Hope." It's ridiculously positive.



Finally, we have to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Joel, who turned 40 this week. Here he is at Rock Band practice with Aidan:

Mad Max, Australia Needs You More Than Ever!

Just the first paragraph of this story about Australian bikers "brawling through the Sydney airport" says it all.

Яolcats

Drat, thwarted so close to freedom’s sweet caress… I dreamed for but a taste of the decadent west, and now my eulogy is sung by guard dogs and alarm bells.

I found this site while drifting through the interwebs and thought enough of it to share it on here.
It's from a site called "Яolcats" that is somewhat of a parody of the "lolcats" phenomenon that can be seen on sites like ICanHasCheezeburger and others. The idea is to take Russian captioned lolcats and put funny soviet-era mis-captions under them. The site is pretty simply laid out, but some of the "translated" captions are hilarious.

By the way, the "translations" aren't real. Some of the people on the comments have either failed to realize this, or are simply being trolls. A third possibility is that they are actual Russians that have stumbled upon this English language website and are incapable of grasping the joke. Not that they would to begin with. It's a proven fact that Russians are incapable of actual humor. For example, the above picture's actual translation is something like this:

"Boxer: How should I deal with insomnia? They have instructed me to count till 10 but right after I reach 9 I immediately jump on my feet."

If you didn't squirt borscht through your nose after reading that, don't worry. I didn't think it was that great either. Plus, why would anyone want to ruin all that delicious borscht?

So maybe we've been ignoring you...

But we have lots of great reasons!!

1. I made another quilt. It is not your average t-shirt quilt, made from Aidan's old shirts and jammies. I was waiting to get some non-Spiderman materials, but I gave up and just made it. The front was 100% free- well, let's say the cost was covered by Aidan's wardrobe allowance- and the back is an old set of Spiderman sheets. The binding is from a bed skirt (which I didn't need) that came with a bedspread (which I did). I used this recycled plastic material as the batting because the fabric store here was out of Warm and Natural, my usual pick. Anyway, he really likes it and that's what counts.2. I started my student teaching! Yay! I am hella busy, but it is the final phase of my program, so I am pushing through to get this done. I am working with a 7th grade English language Arts teacher on post, whom I like well enough. The biggest part of this is that I am also trying to get my certification in Georgia (huge pain), because...

3. Joel was accepted into the Bioengineering Master's program at GA Tech!! Yay!!! We are still trying to figure out how everything is going to work, but it is pretty much a done deal that we'll be in GA in the fall. Of course, this is going to be a hectic move... Joel is allowed to leave the Army around August 8th and he starts school a week later; I need to find a job and a house and cars and daycare and kindergarten by myself before Joel gets to town. So, wish me luck!

4. We went to Belgium and Holland with some friends last weekend. It was fun, but a little hectic with six kids and six adults travelling between three countries. We went to a fun flea market in a Belgium town called Tongeren, and then ran across the boarder to a town in Holland where my friends lived several years ago so we could peek at a windmill.

Also, we are switching phone companies, so we didn't have Internet or phone for a while there... but all is good now!

The End is Near?

I saw this article on reddit, and was initially pretty depressed by the outlook for the U.S. I know, I know... everyone loves to be a reactionary, and I probably shouldn't start stockpiling rice just yet, but this constant stream of distopian predictions is wearing on me! So, I decided to read more of the article, trying to find something that would be really over the top and discredit the "trend forecaster" Gerald Celente in my eyes. It took most of the article, but I found it. The context is that the outlook will be far worse than the Great Depression, because people today are using drugs and prescription medicines, and are therefore much more dangerous. I quote:

"So, you have a huge underclass of very desperate people with their minds chemically blown beyond anybody’s comprehension."

Chemically blown beyond anybody's comprehension?? You jumped the shark, my friend. I'll sleep more soundly tonight. Zzzzzzzzzzzzz.....

WTF??

OK, I was doing, ahem, RESEARCH on amazon.com, and saw a link for a book quiz. Not really a quiz-taker, I was persuaded into taking this one. Just check off the things you have done, and it tells you "what kind of person you are." This struck me because, in the car yesterday, Joel asked what I was thinking about. "What kind of person I am," I said. Why waste my time with introspection?? Here was my answer! God, I love the internet.
So, I check off the things I have done, and this is what is says:

You are a Romantic Tree Hugging Money Manager

0% of the 35785 people who have taken this quiz are like you.

Zero???? Out of over 35,000? I find this ridiculously supportive of individualism. I will have to ask Joel to do some math on this- out of 43 items, what are the odds that someone would get exactly the same things as you? Math is so tricky- maybe that is a very reasonable number. Anyway, here is their ad. Take it and see if you are the extreme individual that I (supposedly) am... lots of zeros would make more sense.

And, as a footnote, it didn't occur to me to wonder, "Am I a romantic, tree-hugging money manager?" in the car, I was actually thinking about consumerism and some of Joel's strong views about consumption, and wondering how far down the path I think I can go with him in this respect. Yes, DIY Christmas WAS awesome... but I would also like some power windows/locks on my next car, thank you very much.

I took the 43 Things Personality Quiz and found out I'm a Romantic Tree Hugging Money Manager

***Joel's Math Update***

Jessica just pointed this out to me and wanted me to weigh in on the probability that another person would choose the same answers that you would on the 43 questions. It's actually pretty slim.

First of all, the questions are 'yes/no' types, where only a positive or negative response can be given. If there was only one question, there could be two possible ways for the test to be filled out; if there were two, four possible configurations; three questions, eight configurations; etc. etc. You can see where this is going. The possible unique ways that the test can be filled out grows exponentially with the arithmetic growth of the number of questions. If you crunch out the numbers, you'll see that for 43 questions you get 88,000,000,000,000 (that's trillions!) possible ways that the test could be filled out.

So the chances that one of the 35,000 that took the test filled it out the same way as you is almost statically impossible. And just to cover themselves, the folks that give the test tell you that "0%" scored the same as you. For this group of 35,000, 350 people would have to score the same as you to get even 1%.

Slim odds indeed.

But I'm sure you're really unique regardless.

Should I be concerned about this type of behavior?

A few days ago, Ava and I were painting with watercolors at the kitchen table. She was doing her typical abstract work that starts out as fun, colorful zig-zags and ends up being a black or brown puddle, and, to pass the time, I started painting a little portrait of her. I got a head and hair done before she toddled off and it was time to clean up. I left the pictures on the table. Hours later, as I start to clear the table for dinner, I see this:

Me: What is THIS?
Aidan: DEAD Ava!
Me: What?? Why?
Aidan: It's just a joke! Ha ha ha ha ha!
Me:... It's not very... nice... make your sister... uh, dead...
Aidan: DEAD AVA! HA HA HA HA HA HA!

Even in the middle of this exchange, you can see by my gratuitous use of ellipses that I was not sure what line to take on this. Approach #1: "Woo hoo, that is hilarious! She's like a zombie! She's going to eat your brains! Raaaar!!" This is also known as the "Joel Choice." On the other hand, I have friends who have super calm, well-behaved kids, who would never dream of doing this. I have to think they would approach the situation more like this. Approach #2: "Honey, that's not very nice. That makes my heart hurt to see you make a picture of Ava with a boo boo. Let's color this Barney picture instead." BOR-RING!
While more age-appropriate, and also morally superior, I really have to go with Joel on most of these. I really value the creativity and imagination that Aidan shows when he does stuff like this, and I know that he is just kidding around. On the other hand, I feel like I have to be the counter balance. I fear for how Aidan might turn out if he had two parents who encouraged him to pretend-kill his sister, make fart jokes, pick out his own outfits, draw on his furniture, pee outside, and otherwise vote the Joel party line. So, I make a half-hearted attempt to reign him in... some. Wait 20 years; we'll see how he turns out.

As if the weather here isn't depressing enough...

... I find this article about the sad state of affairs in the United States. I think I'm headed back to bed. :(

Winter Wonderland

Hey E'rybody.

Today was the last day of my 4-day weekend. We had the 1st and 2nd off from work, so we had some time to all hang out together. Since it doesn't snow a lot in this part of Germany, we wanted to take the kids somewhere that did. Yesterday was our first attempt, but it just wasn't in the cards. We got too late of a start out the door and then accidentally punched the wrong town in the GPS and drove the 45 minutes in the wrong direction. I had been prodding everyone all morning by being the "fun police;" not so much keeping fun from happening, but more like ensuring fun was occurring whether anyone wanted it or not. However, after we got turned around the wrong way, my fun police authority was compromised and we decided to run a couple of errands and regroup for the next day.

So we took off early this morning for the Black Forest in search of snow. We were heading for a place called Feldberg, but we knew we would hit snow before then. After about 2 hours, we reached the heart of the forest and were surrounded by beautiful snowy hills, forests, and countryside. Eventually, we stumbled into the town of Titisee, parked, and explored a little. Titisee is named after the little lake that it sits next to --here's a map with our parking place marked:


View Larger Map

It's green in that view, but imagine it all white and the lake frozen.

We bought a little sled from one of the shops and took turns sledding down the hills around there. There weren't a lot of downhill skiers there, but there were tons of cross country skiers. I don't think I've ever seen cross country skiing in person, so it was a little bit of a new experience to me. We'd be walking along the snow paths, when suddenly a couple of old Germans would silently and quickly glide past us. There was something--unsettling?--about it. It didn't stop us from having a good time sledding though. We had done a little sledding in Italy last winter, but Aidan was a little too young to enjoy it. But, he took renewed interest in it this time and we had fun running up the little hills and sledding down.

There was an unexpectedly funny moment when we went out onto the lake to slide around. It was -5 C there, so the lake was frozen solid and lots of people were out there skating and sliding around. As we arrived at the edge of the lake, I noticed a sign nailed to a tree at the edge of the lake. It said, in three languages(!), "Don't go on the lake." Below is the "ironic" picture I snapped with some of the Germans on the lake. I originally thought that this might only apply to the lake in summer, but a look at the German statement makes it clear--Entering the Ice is forbidden! What's funny about this picture is that so many Germans are clearly disregarding the sign. I'm not sure how much you know about Germans, but they are nothing if not law-abiding. There is a special joy that a German gets from following the rules, especially if they are able to correct someone else who isn't following them. So why the sudden departure from their usual law-n-order nature? Is it the cold, the snow, the winter-wonderful-ness? Who knows?



We took a lot of pictures while we were there, but here's a little montage of some of the highlights. Enjoy!

Sad Tree is Sad

Christmas time is always fun around here, but it has to come to an end eventually. Jessica took all the ornaments off the tree yesterday and packed them up for next year.

We had a real tree this year, but when I brought it home I discovered that we did not have a tree stand. I rushed off to the store, but the only place that I thought would have one was sold out. No problem; I bought a large planting pot and set to remedy the situation. A little potting soil and indoor gardening later, the tree was successfully potted. The only problem is that the pot doesn't hold the tree too well. It has a tendency to tilt when Santa's little helpers get a little over-enthused with tree trimming.

So after Jessica stripped the tree down, it was bumped from it's usual upright alignment and slouched against the back wall. This prompted Jessica to comment that this was the "saddest tree ever". I disagreed. It was sad, but not the saddest; not yet. I went to work with some of Aidan's reams of construction paper and birthed this creation:



Now that's a sad tree!

Joker Ava

Ava had jelly toast this morning for breakfast. This was the only logical conclusion:



Big ups to ICanHasCheezburger.com for the picture builder.

Oh, and Happy New Year!