Popes.

But it's just the price I pay,Destiny is calling me,
Open up my eager eyes ..
'Cause I'm Mr Brightside ..

So the Pope has come to the last day of his grand tour of England. I managed to find the BBC on my German TV this morning (it was a bit of a fluke because I can't find it again now, grr) and they were interviewing people who'd been chosen for his blessing and stuff. One lady said something like "Yes, he was quite holy and spiritual".

He was the Pope, dear.

As a general rule, pontification tends to work holiness and spirituality into your everyday resume.

Proficient with Powerpoint, Word, Excel and Pontification.

It must be cool but crap being the pope. Yeah, you get a popemobile and all expenses paid trips round the world, but the rest of the stuff must get a bit repetitive and contrived.

What are we doing today then? Oh, Mass. Just for a change. And tomorrow? Nuts, Mass again.

Wednesday we're having a funeral, your holiness.

Excellent! Anything else? Oh fuck, Mass afterwards ..

The shittest bit must be for the cardinals who have to watch all this in the knowledge that they failed to become nominated for Pope themselves. I like to think they're bitter about this fact. Maybe tactical voting plays a part in Vatican politics too.

Ah, shit, missed out on being Pope again! Now we have to wait another 10 years before new nominations! Wait .. if we vote for Ratzenberger over there we might be able to speed the whole thing up! Guy's getting pretty old, just gotta wait for some priest in Scotland or the States to touch a kid the wrong way, he dies of a stress induced heart attack and bingo, we're back on the scene!

Crafty buggers.

I don't know what the current Pope's take on forgiveness is though. We all know Jean Paul II forgave the guy who shot him, but Ratzy doesn't seem the same as that. Looking at his face sometimes, you'd reckon he'd at least hold a grudge.



what the fuck is wrong with the font on this post?

Max and Kat's Australian adventure, part II

Neon tiger,

There's a lot on your mind ..

And, in continuation of my last post, this is how the tour of Australia is envisioned to end. Sure, its a bit of a throwback to a mildly successful film by James Cameron in the 90's, but it just seemed to work.

The VW of the future.

It started with a low light,

Next thing I knew they ripped me from my bed,
And then they took my blood type,
It left a strange impression in my head ..

This ones for you, Katface. Our waterborne campervan, in which we will go round Australia.

Definitely.

God bless America

This is the world that we live in,
I can't take blame for two,
This is the world that we live in,
And maybe we'll make it through ..

I guess the title of this post is kind of two-fold. I suppose I'm a day late, but it's worth mentioning how odd it feels to be reminded of the events of yesterday 9 years ago. 9 years! I try and avoid bringing it up when these anniversaries come round, but the time thats passed really kinda struck me this year. I avoid talking about it because of the crappy 'terror-tourism' thats so often associated with it now.

Maybe it was brought on by something I saw on facebook earlier; at the click of a button, you can have the US flag and the words 'Never Forget' posted on your wall and the newsfeed of your friends. To me, bullshit like that is just sickening. Tasteless, number boosting crap. In the case that I saw: "I am the 866,633rd person to fly the flag in remembrance of 9/11. I hope at least 1 million will join me!"

Oh, and "No app install required". Brilliant; reminiscence is so easy these days.

I mentioned today on my year abroad blog some questionable cheese I bought yesterday which is kinda spoiling my sandwich. Normally, I'm not too fussy about budgety foods, but this one is among the worst. Still, I seem to have taken it better than this man from a trailer park in Kentucky - "A US man has killed himself after shooting dead five people, including his wife and stepdaughter, in an argument about his breakfast."

The gist seems to be that his eggs weren't hot enough. In my 3 years as a waiter, I've met some grumpy bastards. I had a woman who sent her meal back 3 times. But never have I met someone, nor have I myself felt the urge, if presented with bad food, to kill everyone vaguely associated with that mealtime.

My curiosity was piqued mainly by the headline. "Six dead after US breakfast killing spree in Kentucky". A breakfast killing spree? It would take a lot for me to be reduced to that. Dinnertime perhaps, when I was more awake and gave more of a shit about what I was eating, but in the morning? I can barely form a sentence in English at breakfast time, let alone aim well enough to kill 6 people. What a fuckhead.

Writing about that has got me thinking about the aforementioned woman who sent her meal back 3 times. Once, fair enough, twice just about acceptable, but three times? Thats placing a vast amount of trust in whoevers doing your cooking. Its a fair assumption that if you've fucked up the first two times, its not going to drastically improve after another shot at it. Thank god she didn't have a gun.

Not the one from Monty Python.

I ain't in no hurry, you go on,
And tell your friends I'm losing touch,
Fill their heads with rumours of impending doom,
It must be true ..

So since September 11th is coming round again and Pastor Terry Jones of Gainesville, Florida is set on making it National Burn a Qu'ran day, I thought I'd share my thoughts on his proposal.

If you were the head of an insignificant little church somewhere in Florida, how would you go about drawing attention to yourself. Fundraising, maybe? A door-to-door service, if pushed for ideas? No, I have a better idea. I'll declare war on Islam. I'll declare war on their holy book, and as a mark of respect for the victims of 9/11, I'll burn loads of copies of it. Ooh, and a facebook campaign wouldn't go amiss!

Pastor Jones: You're a fucking tossmonger extroardinaire.

I'm not religious. I don't read the bible. But I strongly doubt if there's a passage in there that justifies his latest idea. Granted, it's an excellent way of marketing his book, the subtly titled Islam is the Devil, but other than that, it's a bit of a crap move.

Sadly, under the first amendment of the US constitution, officials can't physically stop him. Freedom of speech or something. I support this, but I bet he'd be the first to speak out against the burning of bibles outside a mosque in the US somewhere.

He faces criticism from the White House, the US military and even the Pope, though its worth noting that these weird little American evangelical cliques rarely give a shit about what the Pope has to say. Its pretty much certain that this will push anti-american sentiment to new extremes, but this is ok because it's done in the name of the victims of September 11, and of good old American capitalism. If you have the backing of God and country, not even the terrorists can win.

His facial hair decisions are also one of the first causes for concern in my opinion.

Recent happenings

We are agents of the free,
I've had my fun and now its time to
Serve your conscience overseas ..

Ahhh, what with all the Germany goings on and rise in interest in the year abroad blog, I'd almost forgotten about this here set of ramblings. I said before that this would remain my portal for observation not related to Germany, but the fact of the matter is, because my tiny town is so out of the way, there isn't a great deal that I can report back without infringing on the other blog's subject material. There is no middle ground, sadly.

Where the mild things are will stay, naturally, and resume usual service when this year is up and Germany stops preying on my writing, but until then, expect the blogs title to live up to its name a little more: the entries on here and their frequency will be mild indeed.