Des Rails

Je suis partie bien à l’ heure,
J’ai pris le train,
En direction du cœur,
Pas vu le train,
Qui mène à grande vitesse,
Tu me délaisses,
Une fille de seconde classe,
A pris ma place...

Chaque fois mon train qui déraille,
Je ne suis pas de taille,
Chaque fois mon cœur qui déraille,
Et ma tête, alouette, ma vie n’a ni queue ni tête,
Chaque fois mon train qui déraille,
S’engouffre dans la faille,
Chaque fois mon cœur qui déraille,
Et la tête, alouette, ma vie n’a ni queue ni tête.

Et qu’est-ce qu’on fait?
On prendra le prochain?
Sur l’autre quai?
Nos corps ces grands voyageurs,
Roulent oui mais,
Oui mais les sautes d’humeurs,
C’est sans arrêt.

Et chaque fois nos trains qui déraillent,
Nous ne sommes pas de taille,
Chaque fois nos cœurs qui déraillent,
Et nos têtes, alouette, la vie n’a ni queue ni tête,

Chaque fois nos trains qui déraillent,
S’engouffrent dans la faille,
Chaque fois nos cœurs qui déraillent,
Et la tête, alouette, la vie n’a ni queue ni tête.

Chaque fois les hommes déraillent,
Et se livrent bataille,
Chaque fois les hommes déraillent,
Et se livrent bataille.

Et pourquoi...?
Oui pourquoi...?
Et ça cogne, et ça saigne,
Et ça sent la fin de règne.

Oh mais pourquoi les hommes déraillent?
Et se livrent bataille?
Dis pourquoi les hommes déraillent?
C’est un fait, alouette, la vie n’a ni queue ni tête,
C’est pourquoi le monde déraille?
Et est mort à la bataille.

Mais pourquoi le monde déraille?
Et ça cogne, et ça saigne,
Et ça sent la fin de règne,
C’est un fait, alouette, la vie n’a ni queue ni tête!

- Zazie

Micro Home

Small energy and space efficient homes seem to be the future rage for space challenged nations. Not too bad an idea if you don't mind a frat house style environment, of course anything can be made to seem picturesque including this shack called a micro compact home:



I seriously need to get away! ;-)

New York New York

Can you guess where we were this weekend? You guessed it, New York city! Time Square for your pleasure:



According to people in the know (Jose), the place to be to catch a soccer game in New York is "Nevada Smiths". Thankfully they not only had the VFB Stuttgart game on Friday but also a few Stuttgart fans from Germany!



Saturday night Stuttgart Stephan and I hit the town in style starting off with a bite at a German style restaurant (hefe on draft!) and then hitting an interesting show club. New York is great, everywhere you go, everywhere you look, there's a monument or famous place to see. Here's the famous cafe from the "When Harry Met Sally" movie, it just happened to be on the way to the bar.



Damn, it's been a while since I was last partying downtown NY and I certainly left it too long. Good times, good times had by all :-)

The Oscar's

While we were in New York they had authentic Oscars on display for the public to promote the show Sunday night:



The Academy always gives away a bunch of their Oscars the night before so as to limit the amount of bordom for the Sunday night televised show (they still failed again), of course some of these unsung heros never get recognized, like for instance... ;-)



More photo's from the New York trip tomorrow when I wake up from a semi-coma state (I'm talking about being tired from the trip, although it would equaly apply to the Oscars as it's boring as...!).

New York, or...?

We took an extended weekend to jaunt down to New York... but first we stopped off in everyone's favorite "Office" town Scranton!



The centre hall and monument in the city:



Scranton is for sure the party-party capital of the world but it was time to get on with getting on to New York! Nice touch with the wreaths, gotta love Scranton ;-)

Overloaded

Tons of stuff to post, New York rocks! Unfortunatly I'm a bit busy with stuff to do but I should be back on track by the end of the weekend when I leave the big apple. You might just say that I'm a little too overloaded...



Off to downtown Manhattan, tomorrow going to see the Islanders-Canadians game and then hooking up with some German transplants I met today at the pub for another night out. Sunday, well Sunday is a day of rest ;-)

Barenaked Ladies... Seriously!

Tonight we all went to the Barenaked Ladies concert. The BNL's for those of you who don't know are a famous Canadian band... great, great band! Their most famous song is "If I Had A Million Dollars" and they have dozens of household tunes to jam pack their concert. Funnily enough the last time I saw them live was also here in Ottawa during Winterlude 3 years ago... weird ;-)

Anyways two nights in a row at Corel Centre Scotia Bank Place ("the SCANK") as we also hit the sens game last night (4-3 overtime win baby!! :-)

The SCANK as it started to fill up:



The Ladies rocking and rolling:



It's hard to see in the pic below but during the line "I just made you say underwear" (Pinch Me) someone threw their underwear on stage and Steve put it on his guitar... hopefully there wasn't a brown landing strip ;-)



The Ladies like to mix in banter, dance and rap into their sets, here they toast Winterlude to the tude of "Wonderful Christmas Time":



The band goes to New York to play Letterman tomorrow, and so do I (go to NY that is!). 6AM leaving time, uh... rough. Next from the "big apple"!! :-)

Update: Holy cow! After writting this post I started checking out some BNL clips on YouTube, I can't believe some of the old vids of the Ladies from when they first hit it big! Haven't they, and us all, grown up so much since then... wow, take a look at one of my personal favs from the first album "Lovers In A Dangerous Time":



Update 2: The song that broke them mainstream (in Canada), "If I Had A Million Dollars":



Update 3: A montage of song clips from the current concert tour, check out the coreography making fun of boy bands starting at 7:20, hilarious!



Update 4: Another song from the greatest hits "Brian Wilson". Drove downtown in the rain...



Update 5: Another great some, another one of my favorites "Old Appartment":

Losing Jersey Bets

Apparently our buddy Jersey Jim hangs out with some pretty... intense people ;-) Taken from his Flickr stream, there's not much to say that the picture, and he himself, doesn't show already! Certainly one hell of a great party night!



How do you even label this kind of photo? I think I'll just go with: Santa X-mas Balls ;-)

Sunset Colours

(Copacabana sunset)

Winterlude 2007

This morning we woke up early to go into Ottawa and hit the canal and last day of Winterlude festivities (the Winter canival here in Ottawa). The sun was shinning, it was a manageble -12 degrees and the rink was in great shape. As you can see, the Ottawa canal (which is coverted into a skating rink in the winter) is just over 7km long and as the sign says just so happens to be the largest rink in the world! :-)



Here's a taste of what the canal was like today:



There's lots of events during Winterlude inluding kite-boarding/skating. Very cool, the line was too big today so I'll hit it tomorrow during a work day to avoid the crowds:



Some people enjoy the atmosphere with a free ride ;-) Heh-ya little buddy!



After working up a sweat there's nothing better than a hot chocolate and an old fashioned BeaverTail :-) The crowd agrees:



My tummy has never been happier:



On the way home it was time to indulge in another Ottawa favorite, picking up some fries from Carling St. S&G for lunch. The sign says it all: "Best In Town!" :-)



Can't wait to go back tomorrow for a regular day of skating. Winterlude is finished for another year but the rink will be going strong for weeks to come... :-)

Extras

"Extras", a followup series on the BBC from the original UK version of "The Office" is depressingly hilarious. Check it out from your favorite legal download service and discover its brilliance. A clip with a guess appearance by Bowie.

Sopranos Monkey

Sometimes advertisers get it right:



Just because of this commercial I decided to rent a car when I'm in NY this week from Enterprise... wait a minute... well at least it was a funny commercial.

Ruskies

There's alot of... well less than normal things happening to our hockey brothers to the west. What exactly is going on in Russia when one guy losses his wife in a poker game and at the same time there is an average of 15 crashes a day on the biggest highway linking St. Petersburg and Moskow.

Looks like the Americanisation of Russia is already in full swing ;-)

Marriage

Cheers to marriage, the reason we build bars ;-)

Burn The House Down

This is tragic in an astounding way:

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Breaking Nuptials

Breaking news hot off the presses: Griz and Jade are tying the knot! Congrats Griz-o-nator and soon to be Mrs. Dr. Grizczyzsnzncyn :-)

Vista

Vista is certainly here, but does it have to look so... whatever.

Was going for lunch in La Defence - Paris and all the Vista marketers were driving around in Smart cars and mopeds:

Over and Done

I knew right then it was over and done:



(Thomas Hawk)

Bring On The Beaches

It's snowing like mad today and even my 5 minute walk to work was almost worth staying at home (wussie) but one thing certainly cheers me up, the fact that my Oz dates are confirmed, March 24th to the 27th in San Fransico and then on to Oz until April 27th. That's when I'm going up the east coast of Australia with a few friends in a camper for 2-3 weeks with nothing but our surfboards and a mini-fridge full of beer.

Live your dreams...

Darmstadt Darts

The only way to follow up a great weekend in Stuttgart is to cap it with a few cold beers in Darmstadt at "the swamp" bar. The entire Darmstadt gang was there:



Any night that ends with 4am shots with the owner is a good night in my books... although my darts game needs some serious improvement!

Stuttgart and CBP

Every trip to Stuttgart, and Germany for that matter, requires a certain number of things to be done in order to really consider the trip complete. Beers at CBP (Circle Beer Place), or Palace Der Republik as it's know by the natives, is one of those things:



So after the game we strolled over to CBP, best drink and coolest atmosphere anywhere:



There's a new Sub place in town, "Fresh Sub" is it's name and it's a stone's throw from CBP. Step 2 in the plan is to feed the monster, mission accomplished: ;-)



After CBP we hit the town. Another great bar that we regularly visit stands out because you can sit on seats right up near the roof and look down on the rest of the bar. Although the ladder does require some sort of coordination getting up with your beer (German is still a rookie and can therefor be forgiven for spilling his all over the hottie next to me... or maybe that's his sly way of saying hi? ;-)

The pics are terrible in the dark (with a drunken hand) but this was the funniest hing I've seen in a really long time, 4 girls with HUGE hefe beers, the lone guy with a mini-Kirsch... trust me, that's funny!



It was a great day of soccer, beer, food and partying in one of the best cities in the world. Tomorrow we'd leave for Darmstadt again to celebrate finished thesis's, new appartments and drudge through "the swamp" :-)

Otto Blotto

This guy is "in the zone":

Controle d'alcoolémie
Uploaded by haxx666

Say It Right

Back in Toronto tonight to get our freak on, just say it right baby...

In the day,
In the night,
Say it right,
Say it all.

You either got it,
Or you don't.
You either stand,
Or you fall.

When your will is broken,
When it slips from your hand,
When there's no time for joking,
There's a hole in the plan.

Oh you don't mean anything at all to me.
No you don't mean nothing at all to me.
Do you got what it takes to set me free?

Oh you could mean everything to me...

I can't say, that I'm not lost, and at fault,
I can't say, that I don't, love the light, and the dark,
I can't say, that I don't, know that I am alive,
And all of what I feel I could show,
You tonite you tonite.

Oh you don't mean anything at all to me.
No you don't mean nothing at all to me.
Do you got what it takes to set me free?

Oh you could mean everything to me...

From my hands, I could give you,
Something, that I made,
From my mouth, I could sing you,

Another brick, that I laid.
From my body, I could show you, a place, God knows,
You should know, the space is holy,
Do you really want to go?

- Nelly Furtado

Cake And Eat It Too

What does being an adult mean? It means you can act like a child and eat cake for Saturday morning breakfast :-)

Rethink The Internet

Hungover

I thought I was hungover... until I saw a bunch of old people dancing as I took the train back to my friends house at 5:45am in the morning:



Now I realize I must still be hammered...

Dying Wishes

Nolan has a great post today on dying wishes:

It was cleaning day for the [hospital] wishing well, and the glimmering, magic water had been drained from the reservoir. In it’s place stood a scrawny, immigrant worker with a goatee, manning an industrial shopvac.

There he was, casually sucking up all of those hopes and dreams off the bottom of the fountain. The noise, I suppose, where the screams being released from their special storage place inside the uncountable coins as they went from what they thought was their final resting spot into the bowels of a dank machine.

Here’s hoping the patients whose dreams of wellness were contained in those wishing coins, fare better than the coins themselves.

Stuttgart Tower By Night

Chasing Cars In Stuttgart

Christian got in a video of last night in Stuttgart at the Snow Patrol concert:

Backpackers Aussie Style

I watch OLN (Outdoor Life Network) all the time, I just love the Pilot Guides (Lonely Planet) series of shows. They've got some other good shows on there, but mostly it's all about Pilot Guides. There is one new show though this season that has taken the channel by storm, called "Backpackers".

This show chronicles three Aussie blokes traveling around Europe for a year, alcohol, chicks, cameras and all. Before I was addicted to Pilot Guides (Lonely Planet) and now Backpackers has made OLN an all night requirement (damn I need picture-in-picture for the hockey game!). The show is awesome, go check it out, and after you do go check out the Backpackers site to vote for a "TV Weekly Logie" (television awards).



It sux because I've already watched all the episodes (some twice!) so I'll have to wait for their next tour to get my Backpackers fix. Best part of this season's show: Jag gets hammered and busts his face up resulting in 2 broken teeth, nice.

Side note: I can't wait to get over to Australia man, 6 weeks and I'm there!

Who Invited That Guy?

You remember that song on Sesame Street "one of these things is not like the others, one of these things just does not belong"? Well Stevie J gets our Friday funny in early this morning:



Stevie J, will you ever learn? ;-)

Kitten Terrors

It's Friday baby! Run to the weekend like there's no tomorrow!



Have a great weekend everyone, I'll have a cold one for ya :-)

The Price Of Knowledge

What are your skills, knowledge and experience worth? Dr. Neil relates the frustration he has when others e-mail to "just get a quick answer" from him. Of course he's talking about total strangers, not a friend giving you a ring cus he needs a hand on something. The entire post is a good read, making you wonder what exactly your knowledge might be worth (and how to develop yourself to make it worth more!), but the example he gives is priceless:

"...the old story about a railroad expert being summoned because a brand-new diesel locomotive would not start, no matter what the engineer did. After a short time studying the situation, the expert gave the locomotive a light tap with a hammer. It started right up. When the railroad received the expert's bill for $1,000, they asked him to itemize it. The reply came:

Hitting the locomotive with hammer: $10

Knowing where to hit it: $990"

Priceless. :-)

Just Another Great Night At The Butcher :-)

You knew I wasn't going to hit Europe without stopping by for a Thursday night Butcher meal in Kirschburg with the gang. Yep, just another great night at "the Butcher" :-)

The man that puppetmasters the whole evening:



The gang (pre-shots). Seven guys, one girl. Can you guess who was the DD that night ;-)



No Butcher night is complete without a cold beer at the hill, and in this case with -15 degrees celcious outside it was a very cold beer!! :-)



Next we were off to Bietigheim-Bissingen for the game (previously posted) and Stuttgart to hit the town (soon to be posted)...

St. Malo

Geez, I have like 25 unedited posts from my trip that I still haven't posted, let's continue with some pics from the French East Coast from the weekend before the Juli Dortmund concert. It was a bit cloudy but quite beautiful:



Even had a chance to squeeze some Geo-Caching in, although I can't take credit for the actual find (B-Ass to the rescue), I was however maning the GPS ;-)



Arrrr matey, me thinks a storms a brewin'!



One of the best diner party nights ever was an extravagent night out at this restaurant right on the beach all by itself. Yep got reserved middle window seating, best table in the house! (helps when you're there in the off season!), what a great night, what a great view... (the side facing the sea is all glass and out of frame)



An old coast fortress and lighthouse from back in the day. I plan to sail out there sometime:



The daily walk along the beach boardwalk to the centre city (which is a fortress village with a church in the centre shown here) was the best part of each day:



The view from my bedroom that I woke up to each day:



I say it every time, can't wait to go back...