Windorphins + Germans + Swedish Meatballs =

It's a LeBrookski Contest.

Say guys, do you remember when I used to write about Germans all the time? Do you miss those posts? Do you wish you had your very own German with whom to have adventures? Well, now you can, thanks to a contest going on over at Raven's blog. You can win a chance to go on a date with LeBrookski's roommate Schmidt. Brooks will even pick up the tab for dinner, provided that you eat inside an IKEA in the greater Hamburg area. Wow. It's like eBay's ubiquitous Windorphin campaign was generated just for this.

Or, if you're not interested in dating a 27 year-old German man for some reason, you can still participate in the contest and if you win, Brooksy will ship a box of random goodness (maybe Candy!) to your home. German candy is very good; ask for Kinder Country and Kinder Surprise Eggs, duh.

Also, I met Schmidt once when I was in Hamburg, so I can vouch for his quality. He seems to be a nice guy despite being confused about having two first names. When we went to his apartment it was dark, he had just woken up from a nap. He owns some very nice electronics. He has a nice job that requires him to travel to France a lot, I think he designs air planes. Yet I believe his preferred mode of in-city travel is still the skateboard. Also, he speaks English very well in that soft-spoken, sexy way that makes you question whether these people know your mother tongue better than you do.

Details about the contest here. Good luck Schmidt and Brooks. Raven, you have even more time on your hands than I previously thought.

Are You Watching?

Tonight the new television series This American Life debuts on Showtime. Are you watching? If you're like me and you don't have access to Showtime, check out this quick clip featuring the art of Chris Ware about the power of television. Slate has their review of the show here. And it looks like if you go to the show's homepage on Showtime, you can watch the first episode online. Gosh, after all that hype, I hope it doesn't suck.

Also, if you'd like to hear how some Germans are calling for a baby polar bear to be killed, and you don't want to see a foot nipple, check out Toby's blog. You have to wade through his typical moaning about grad school to get to the clip from the Colbert Report, but it's worth it. Like I always say, Germans will be Germans.

Do Germans understand the concept of pinatas?

Yes, just don't forget to factor in the six hour time difference.

We Carved Pumpkins

One Sunday night I went over to the GreatDane's for a pumpkin carving party and I brought DerMan with me because he had only heard about carving pumpkins in children's story books and wanted to see what it was all about. He had also taken a trip to Boston recently and seen some jack-o-lanterns sitting on stoops and became obsessed with photographing them, thinking them to be quite rare. The Great Dane knew how to throw a great pumpkin carving party: she offered hot mulled cider spiked with rum, snacks heavy on the sugar, plenty of candles to light up all the pumkins, prizes for the best designs and she let us make a mess of her apartment. It was lovely.












Some of the party guests asked DerMan questions of dubious intelligence such as, "Do you have Halloween in Germany?", "Do you have pumpkins in Germany?" and "If you have pumpkins in Germany, but you don't carve pumpkins, what do you do with them?" But DerMan got in a few beauties of his own. One girl brought a white pumpkin which she carved like a mummy (awesome). DerMan wanted to know how she got the pumpkin white, asking if she peeled it.




I attack the pumpkin with my usual finesse.




I didn't bring a pumpkin to carve, since I just figured I would assist with DerMan's. Also, I am terrible at carving pumpkins. Real crap. We didn't carve pumpkins growing up because knives are sharp and the cupcake children were spazzes and also my father was never crazy about getting his hands dirty. We did a lot of decorating pumpkins by other means, paint, glitter, glueing shit on, etc... Then my mom would usually make my dad carve one jack-o-lantern for the porch but we weren't allowed to help with the carving. Knives are sharp. Then some punk kid from another neighborhood would smash the pumpkin. If we were young enough, we would cry. Good times, good times.

I am skeptical, but resigned.

So I basically handed a knife to DerMan and appraised him of the steps of carving a jack-o-lantern. First, you cut off the top of the pumpkin so you can reach in and clean out the insides. DerMan surveyed the pumpkin from all sides, made his typical "hmm mmm" noises then asked if f there was a ruler so he could measure an even circle. I told him to "stop being so fucking German and get cutting."

DerMan loved his jack-o-lantern and he photographed it the way a proud father would photograph a todler in the snow. The other party guests said it was very good for a first attempt. We won the prize for best carved basketball. DerMan schlepped his pumpkin all the way back to midtown along with the candy the GreatDane gave him that he was supposed to bring into the office to share. Then he sent his photos to everyone he knew in Germany. All in all, it was a Festivus miracle.

Back When Julia Roberts Was Portugese

So, for the Labor Day weekend I had planned on going home to Rhode Island to see my pop and I invited this dynamic duo of my German colleagues to come with, because sometimes living in the city gets us all down and organizing their own road trip was not gonna happen for these guys. We rented a car and with me behind the wheel of a fawn beige Chevy Impala (and sitting about three inches away so I could actually reach the gas and brake pedals) we set out for the Ocean State. I had to explain twice that Chevy was my abbreviation for Chevrolet. Mercifully no one asked me what an "impala" is. It's a deer, right? Am I right? Der Man was bummed that I had printed directions from Mapquest, so he didn't get to navigate using the Road Atlas the Jaegermeister had brought along. All through the drive they passed the Atlas back and forth. Germans love to look at maps.

Anticipating lots of holiday weekend traffic, our plan was to stop in Mystic, CT for lunch. I had spent some time looking up good restaurants in town on Chowhound. I would have been game for a trip to Mystic Pizza if the guys would have had any idea what I was talking about. However, once we got to town, the guys were interested in actually visiting the historic seaport despite the $17.50 entrance price. I had taken a school field trip to Mystic Seaport in the 7th grade and so figured that had fulfilled my lifetime obligation on that front, but in we went.

The weather was very overcast, and the historical park was largely quiet and peaceful leaving us to climb around on big old ships and for me to explain clamming and the anatomy of lobster traps. As we were standing on the deck of an old whaling ship, Der Man said to me, "Oh, so America really does have history." It's kinda cute once you get beyond the impulse to punch him in the face. Europeans think that everything in this country is 200 years old or younger, sometimes you have to set them straight.

The photo above is an ingenious set-up framed to give you an example of German irony. See, we all work at a bank in New York. And there we are standing in front of the old Mystic Bank. Hold for laughs. I just said Germans had a sense of humor, I didn't say it was a very good one. We ended up eating at the snack bar to get out of the drizzle, but I promised to take them out for a real sea food dinner when we got to Rhode Island.