For those of you I won't see today the plan is class 8 to 8, VFB kicking Man U's a$$, Irish for a one or two beer performance (hey Kath are you going on stage this week? :-) and the capper at Plus for the Asta organised party which I hear is rockin'... see you all there!

Here are the details about the Gemini trip to Heidelberg Saturday:

Saturday October 4th 2003
Leave at 8.30 am at the busstop at the Fachhochschule (Wirtschaft) and return at about 7.00 pm to Pforzheim.
Giuded tour, shopping, sight-seeing etc....
Cost approx. 15 Euros
Write an email to Kat before Thursday if you want to go

Have fun to everyone who's going, obviously EuroRoss and the other first year MBA's will not be in attendence because of the seminar all day Saturday and the lightning speed drive to Munich for the last night of Oktoberfest right after... hopefully I can catch the next event cus last Sunday turned out pretty cool.

I do not know who the dumbest person in the world was up until now, but in one swift move I have ursuped his title in a blaze of glory. Remember how last night I came home late from the bar and subsequently had to clean the wet floor from the stupid washing machine? Remember how I wondered in a joking and almost jovial way how long it would be before it would happen again? Well wonder no more.

This brainiak, known to you as EuroRoss, decided to wash all the towels borrowed and used to clean the puddle of mess last night and in a move of brilliance did THE EXACT SAME THING AGAIN! The great part is that now all the towels I need to dry up the mess are sitting in the washing machine as wet as Cher in a boys boardinghouse. Hello, my name is EuroRoss, and I am a mental retard, in fact I am an Olympic caliber retard with world titles, medals and records.

On behalf of all the bitchy girls that I have teased over the years I must ask myself: am I on my period?? :-)

Two things always totally irk me when I cum home, one is how many floors up my appartment is, it feels like I'm climing up the eifel tower! (which I have done) and the second is how utterly out of shape I have become after a month of no hockey, gross alcohol consumption and unwise food choices... time for a "new semester resolution"... ok that's over, back to the party :-)

My IBM Thinkpad rocks, I highly recommend it to those of you looking to buy a laptop or computer this semester. I will hopefully have a link put up sometime next week with the laptop research I did before making htis purchase (did I mention how happy I am with the IBM hardware, the service is a different story)... anyways another section, like the course notes and comments section, cuming soon!

Vodaphone's tech support sucks, or to be more precise does not exist. Three times I have gone to the store to fix a technical problem with my e-mail retrieval through my cell (yes I have now joined the rank and file of cell phone users, or as they say here in deutschland "handy's"), all three times the rep at the store politely tells me that Vodaphone tech support will be calling me within an hour or two, and all three times nada! I haven't been stood up this many times since high school!

You might ask why they can't they just fix the problem at the store or give me the tech line number themselves... well they don't have anyone at the store that knows how to do this, and it's a "special" (which might be a german word meaning "non-existent") number that has to call and they can't give out that number... frequent calls to the regular Vodaphone help line has been less than successful to say the least. Does anyone out there know how to use internet through cell phone infrared connection for Vodaphone??

Either I just hit a time warp or it just took me almost an hour to make "instant" noodles... huh??

I'm one of those chronic e-mailers who needs to check e-mail on an hourly basis and reply to mail instantly otherwise they just sit and grow in my box faster than my beerbelly (see posting below, again to lazy to insert a link myself, and now that I think about it that's not very fast at all I guess). So after a month of limited internet access (at best) while moving to Germany my inbox ballooned to over 200 unanswered e-mails (a new record). Now most of them were just the plethora of forwards Stevie J always annoys us with, but some of them were actually from you guys... please be patient, I'm working away at it and will soon be replying to messages within ten seconds like normal.

By the way, anyone who I have not e-mailed by tonight, I either don't like you or don't have your address (due to the crash explained in the e-mail you never received), so send it to me, and if you did get my update e-mail then please pass the word to those who did not. Thank you, for your kind help you win... nothing.

I will be posting the notes and my personal comments on our first ever MBA class (cultural management) shortly... one class down, millions to go...

Got this from a friend:

NO LINK BETWEEN A FEW PINTS AND A BEER BELLY

Health officials yesterday urged ale lovers to drink sensibly following a new scientific study which found no link between a few pints each week and a beer belly. The Department of Health in London said the study of Czech drinkers, which found that women who enjoy ale actually weigh less, was not a green light for people to binge. The study in the latest edition of the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition concluded that "it is unlikely that beer intake is associated with a largely increased waist-hip ratio and body mass index".

So where is my beer belly cuming from... aliens??

I don't think you'd be that surprised to know what half cooked chicken and cold chicken does to your stomach after 2 hours... :-(

You'd be surprised at how good half cooked chicken pieces with cold ketchup taste at 2:30 AM in the morning... maybe it's a timezone thing :-)

I wanted to post a synopsis on the first days events and more interestingly the first night's pub crawl, but I've been forced to write about something else. Note to all north american's who have it good, washers in europe (at least the cheap shitty ones found in most student appartments including mine) have a washer which require you to place a "water expultion tube" down a toilet or tub or sink or shower etc etc etc...

I'm sure you can guess what happened tonight, cumming home, water all over the place (upside was clean clothes in the washer) and a very grumpy EuroRoss. This is also not the first time this has happened... stay tuned for the more explicit postings the third, fourth and fith times this happens (as I'm confident they will).

The acedemic postings on first day impressions will have to wait until tomorrow...

Congrats to all who passed the preliminary language course test given on Friday and good luck to all of you that are writting your equivalency language test tomorrow morning (especially those troupers who still came out tongiht, Aussie, German 1, German 2, German 3, "Danish not Dutch" and "Brasilian not Veneswalen").

For those of you who are mentally retarted (Stevie J), for the hockey draft (sign in details found in an earlier post which I am too lazy right now to link to) you just have to sign into the league and order your players for the automatic online draft (which will probably occur sunday night). For those of you that have not signed up yet... sign up.

The Gemini get-together for international students tonight was low key but cool. Thanks to Kat and all others helping to organize it, and a swabish/Chicago style shout out to those that shared some happy conversation and cold drinks tonight. Lots of interesting tidbits, but I think the bulk of the excitement was the anticipation for tomorrow night's pub crawl (Mix Master Marc shoot me your e-mail and the Deutschword for this). I'm still trying to figure out if they have an informational website (of course you can always get your updates here at the EuroRoss hub), but until then here's a list of some of the upcuming events in case you didn't get the e-mail or you're an international student junkie:

28/09/03 20:00 PM
- Gemini & friends at "Schlosskeller". Schlosskeller is a pub opposite the train station in Pforzheim. it would be nice if some of you would come to this first "event".

4/10/03
- one day trip to Heidelberg, please write Kat an email if you want to take part in this trip

10/10/03
- trip to "canstatter wasen-volksfest" near Stuttgart, it`s like the Oktoberfest in Munich

- end of October or beginning of November: 3 day trip to Munich

Funny enough, I already tried to go to the Stuttgart Volksfest on Friday but I am apparently dyslexic and didn't realize that when the sign says it starts on Saturday September 28th 2003 that they actually mean it starts Saturday and not the Friday night before... must be a cultural thing :-)

I will also be posting the EuroRoss tentative party schedule soon which will not only build upon the tradition of cities and festivals displayed throughout my first month here, but will probably look something like this:

29/09/03 - Pub crawl night
03/10/03 - 05/10/03 - Munich Oktoberfest (although that seminar I wrote about earlier could put the vise on a late Friday night)
Wednesday's - Irish Pub, also known as Bomber revival night

More to cum...

I need a car...

Good luck in the marathon today Germ, I'm eating a big plate of pasta to get lots of energy to watch it on TV :-)

Added comments to the site this morning, let me know if it works or not (I used the "Blogout" utility which can be found here). Eventually I want to have it with just a name and comment box cumming up in the box... but baby steps. Who will have the first comment?? Who will leave the first mystery comment?? Who will send the first comment flamming my lame site??

So I checked out Baden-Baden today for the first time (yes german, Bonn is Bonn :-) , and although it's somewhat known as a provincial highsociety getaway, I had never checked it out on my previous european rendez-vous (somehow my personal invitation to the Deutsch high society club was lost in the mail:-). Let me just say that it won't be the last time I will be visiting. Cool restaurants, a very swank casino (Dutchman and Stevie we're totally hitting that scene swingers style when you get here, and yes you do have to wear a tie!) and very cool mountain scenery (fier danks to my new BB friends T-Mac and Freddie Mac for the grand tour!).

A little more detail on the mountain tour as it is definatly worth the trip to B-B. B-B is about a half hour south of Karlsruhe (Kars is monopoly bar place for those of you that know the story, "my red pieces will cover the earth faster than siffilis!!") situated in a valley surrounded by very large mountains (or as the semi-french say "hills":-). You can walk/drive/bike/square dance your way to the top or pay for the automatic lift (4 euros up and down). We took the lift since the VFB game was on at three and some of us were on a tight sched (3-0 VFB BAM!). At the top there's a qaint restaurant, unbelieveable view, and a sightseeing tower to boot. Today was a beautiful day and there was even paragliders jumping off right from where we were! Very cool.

They have some automatic grills up there and they'll be no stopping me from "hikeing" up there (and by hikeing I mean drive of course :-) with a couple steaks, a cooler and some cold ones for a good time as soon as my sched, the weather and my mood all cum to a consensus.

Anyways Bonn is Bonn... errr I mean Baden-Baden isvery cool and highly recommended on the EuroRoss fun meter!

It would be bad to skip the first seminar of the term... right?

Is it true that we have seminars every saturday?? Check out this link which is now updated for the winter semester:

http://www.fh-pforzheim.de/mba/e_9.htm

I think that the "semester/catagory" column indicates (oddly enough) those seminars geared towards a specific year/stream, but that still sucks as it totally cuts into my Oktoberfest weekend (as well as many VFB gamedays!!)... so it ain't so Joe!

I'm trying to add some pictures to the site from my shitty built in cell phone camera, but I think I just broke the stupid cable... infra red transfer is not something to be tried at 2 in the morning, especially since I failed in retrieveing my e-mails in the same manour for the last 3 weeks. The pictures will have to wait until another day, I'm sure you all have better things to do in the meantime... except maybe you Dutchman :-)

I hate forwards, and I hate people who send forwards with the first line "I hate forwards but I had to send this one"... but I'm putting this on the website cus it made me laugh, shout out Jules for being the first of 6 (and counting) people who sent this to me:

"My husband, not happy with my mood swings, bought me a mood ring for my birthday so he could monitor my moods. When I'm in a good mood, it turns green. When I'm in a bad mood, it leaves a big fucking red mark on his forehead. Maybe next time he'll buy me a diamond."

After recovering nicely yesturday I spent a great day shopping and parusing Stuttgart (30 mins west of here). Then we went to the berlin-mannheim DEL (Deutsch Eishockey League) game... a story on why berlin is my favorite team for another time, but needless to say that although they are currently first in the league, they desided not to show for this one despite being on the lineup card, shitty buzz.

Tonight I hit the local rink for some VERY expensive skating (5 euros for 2 hours) but it was good to get on the ice again. I shipped over my shitty outdoor skates in a big fedex box with some of my other "essentials." I have a meeting with a guy to play hockey there on a regular team, but it doesn't look good as I'm considered a "professional" player since I have played minor hockey in Canada and would have to pay a 500 euro transfer card to play here... my skills do not warrent a 500 euro transfer fee :-)

** There's a general get together Sunday night at 8PM at the restaurant attached to the train station for all the incuming MBA's put on by the gemini group. It's a good chance to meet each other before our orientation starts on Monday (at noon for the record) and not only will I be attending, but I will have a rundown of what Gemini is and does on the site sometime Monday night... but hopefully I'll catch you for a beer and a laugh Sunday.

** For now I will be marking "important" notes and events for the MBA class and site updates with the double star at the beginning. Hopefully my HTML etc skills will improve in the future and I will be able to put something a little more jazzy in... but don't hold your breath.

Wednesdays if you don't already know it are "Bomber" nights every week during the semester at the university of waterloo. I have apparently carried that tradition over the ocean with me as I have been to the Irish Pub (coincedentally a 5 minute crawl from my appartment) every week now for three weeks. This morning (or rather this afternoon as I did not even get to bed until 7AM local time) was rough to say the least. One of the very distintive points of the night that I actually do remember was slapping a hundie bill (euros) on the bar and ordering a shot for the bar... very cool to see them use every shot glass, brandy glass, and even beer glass for that matter to get the job done (2 full bottles of bailies and 2 full bottles of calua for the record). Very sweet, very cool, and a very light wallet to carry home at the end of the night... which my friend T-bone and I desided was not at 4AM as the bouncer indicated, but 7AM, so we bought some hefe and drank and "be merried" for an additional 3 hours... a very rough afternoon indeed!

Yep, just use that league number and the previous password and you'll be good... but you'll still only be competeing for second place :-)

Ok I just found out that while signing up you might need the league number... League ID# 51694... I'm checking with a friend right now...

Join our FREE (except the loss of a beer and bragging rights to yours truely) hockey poo!. Go to yahoo fantasy sports at: hockey.fantasysports.yahoo.com/hockey and order your list by the end of the weekend. Our league is called "Offensively Challenged" and the password is "TooGood" with no spaces and capitalized T and G. During the registration you'll get a note that says: "If your Team Name is obscene your team may be removed permanently"... and as I said in my mass e-mail, this of course does not apply to my league and is in fact encouraged
:-)

Ok so you found my EuroRoss page, now check back later :-)

First post!