Xbox = Love

(Contains the usual amount of pace-breaking parathetical asides)

So now I have an Xbox (I've bravely decided only to capitalize the noun form) all my own, and Halo and Vice City and three controllers. I spend most of my time playing Vice City, although playing Halo against my brothers is a recent family tradition.

On Saturday we played Halo for many hours.

Josh hosted an xbox party (or, in his words, "box fest") at my house, to which a dozen of his friends (and, as it turned out, two of mine) were invited.

A large sign outside our driveway, proclaiming simply "Mittens", identified our house for his friends. All in all, 14 people showed up for a communal game of Halo. It was wonderful.

I was working until 7, so I was the last guest to show up. But I brought some pizza from work so that was o.k.

Graham, special guest Adam, and a friend of Josh's named Paul K (who may well be my other brother's brother-in-law someday, I realized later) shared the upstairs t.v. with me, in what Paul dubbed "the smart room."

(To punish Paul for his insolence, we talked about globalization and agripolitics for a bit.)

I like to think that our team held its own. We won a few rounds of capture the flag and used teamwork quite often. With our powers combined, and all that.

I know that all this probably sounds geeky and boring, but it definitely wasn't boring. (Graham, of all people, called it the geekiest thing he's done in quite a while, which I'm sure is a terrible lie.)

We got to hear the shouts of Josh's friends, our opponents, from downstairs whenever we got the upper hand… we got to pile into a virtual jeep and storm a virtual base… and all the while we got to make idle chit-chat with one another. We even all talked on the phone to Jenna, at one point.

That it was enjoyable seems so obvious that I can think of no better way to explain why.

Bleak Late Night Delving

Though I've always stood by multiplayer games (since Bubble Bobble, for the record), the implications of my rediscovered "love" for single player xbox games like Vice City trouble me.

I suspect that it's still compulsion driving me, ninety percent of the time. It's rare that I'm actually hungry, for example, but I can always eat.

Likewise with video games, television, blogging, prettymuch everthing I do often: there's a vague urge, most of the time, but nothing bigger driving those activities. More and more often.

The worst implication here is that our admittely more-idealistic hero of yesteryear, a sentimental fellow who wrote about his "last videogame" once, is dead.

Which would mean that Our Bold Hero is now merely a creature of appetites and apathy, untethered from the (for him) increasingly problematic idea of a "soul." And with nowhere grand to go, nowhere to get all dressed up for, as they say…

I've certainly become, consciously, more hedonistic of late…

It's not the only possible implication, of course. But tied to my attitude towards single-player videogames (perhaps, for you Dear Reader, a bit inexplicably), I see a new Our Bold Hero and a new war.

Not between Pragmatism and Idealism (the old war, settled in a draw at Pragmatism's behest), but between Hedonism and Anhedonia.

Perhaps there are older forces at work as well, from the old war or still older internal wars or from peaceful and dustier corners of my mind. But right now those two have the field, and I'm having a great deal of trouble telling fuzzy concepts like "desire", "compulsion", etc., from each other with all the dust my little pair of would-be gods are kicking up.

There are things, important things, which I just can't summon up the enthusiasm to care about, and there are trivial stupid things I enjoy very much and often. It's probably one of those human condition things, but it bothers me.

It bothers me more than anything else I can think of; which goes to show that I'm selfish.

By the way, I seem more sentimental here about this whole vaguelly philosophical line of thought than I actually feel at the moment. It's my slightly bombastic writing style, I suspect.

Everything is a little more sentimental when I'm writing, because I like to use a lot of longwinded words, just like all those authors I don't like do. Look at how much I wrote here. You get a silver star if you read this far.

Now imagine what would happen if I had a computer with me all the time. That's why I don't need a laptop again. Although…

I'm not daft enough to see internal struggles as battles between polar opposites, for the record. But if I had to choose (and, oddly enough, this is probably (that, or "anhedonia", is the word of the day: probably) my old friend Anhedonia talking) I'd choose Hedonism.

Then I'd start looking for something better. And with that, I go upstairs to enjoy some Vice City on my Xbox, my beloved Xbox.

Same Old?

Home.

Trying to grasp the fact that everyone has gone on living (without me!) for the past four or five months. Trying to think of good stories to tell. Trying to make Ines's Ines-y Potatoe Casserole in our oven, "as we speak."

O Brats and Schnitzel!

At Arno's (he's emptying the dishwasher, something I'm not allowed to do "until I've been taught"), typing what assuredly will be my last European blog for a long time.

It's a good occasion to wax lyrical, and I'm trying to resist that urge. Still, when I think about all the places and people I'll never see again, and of the places and people I might not ever see again (though I plan to) the sense of what I'm going to lose in about twelve hours becomes profound.

I left Freiburg yesterday morning, with a book from The Pancake Man, a CD from The Suburbanite, and a lunch which The Urbanite, looking out for me to the last, made for me earlier.

In all, I said goodbye to them and to Sophia, my flatmate and everyone's favorite Swede. My other flatmates were nowhere to be found on Saturday morning and I didn't bother taking leave of any of the other IES people. Didn't even think to, actually, until I'd already turned in my last essay (finished with half an hour to spare) and hopped on the bus back to my WG in Vauban.

I'll sum up the whole "German experience" at some later point, I assume. Time for my last meal at Arno's, as long as we're tabulating "lasts".

Suffice to say: I like Germany, and the Germans. And I'll miss what I'm losing.

And, Finally, I Start Working

A whole room of IES students frantically trying to finish their essays, and The Man in the Black Hat is talking. He won't stop talking, and he's talking about The Return of the King, which he saw last night.

I'm officially lifting my xmas moratorium on getting-pissed-off-at-people. Then I'm leaving this computer lab and going to the library, where I can work amidst silent and respectful germans.

Lost my ticket for The Return of the King. It'll turn up somewhere.

Otherwise I'll have to use my still-doubtful German-language skills to explain my situation at the theater.

In which case I hope that the employee in the box office lacks the typical German sense of protocol. I just don't want to have to buy another ticket.

On the other hand, I shouldn't have lost mine in the first place.

So then. I suppose it's time for a tedious description of my weekend. It's a very long description, and if you think your time is better spent, you're right.

That said, I'm writing it anyways, before I forget every tedious detail.

The train ride lasted eight hours, and for five of those hours the young Frenchman sitting behind me was humming/singing along to crappy-French-rap (or "frap"). It's possibly the worst music in the world.

The point here, oddly enough, is not that all the French music I heard this weekend sucked to an amazing degree. It's that, fully expecting to find the typical Frenchman lightyears removed from traditional stereotypes (like "French people are rude"), I found those stereotypes confirmed time and time again.

It could be that I was so obviously a tourist, or it could have been that I was in Paris, a huge city with a typically-metropolitan sense of entitlement and a large eclectic population in which all stereotypes eventually appear. Whatever.

After The Politician and I had settled into our room (a small affair with a sink, bunkbeds, and some unidentifiable piece of plumbing which I assume is for washing one's feet), we hit the town.

Paris is closer to Prague than London (pretentious sentences seem to be the rule today… my apologies) as far as my (untenable) "sense" of the city in concerned. It's laid out for walking and has the usual touristy shops in narrow streets, although these shops tended to sell food and not tacky crap.

I'm satisfied with our sight-seeing; I know we didn't see everything there is to see (the catacombs, for example, would have been interesting) but we saw everything that I would have regretted not seeing. We walked past the Arch de Triumph, the Eiffel Tower, and what I assume was the U.N. Headquarters.

The Modern Art Musuem on the fourth and fifth floors of the Centre Pompidou (a big glass building that looks like a huge hamster terrarium, complete with tubing) was the best of all the sights. They had works by Ernst and Magritte and Dali, strange artists who, I've gradually decided, are some of my favorites.

They also had an all-blue painting, number 11 in a series of works showcasing International Klein Blue (the Tate Modern in London has an identical painting with a different number).

Once again, I came under fire from The Politician for defending a color. Conceptual art in general annoys me, to be honest.

The Rodin museum, which as you might or might not guess is devoted to the sculptures of Rodin (The Gates of Hell, The Thinker…) was somewhat cool. The Politician has different taste in art than I do and I'm glad he dragged me there.

The Louvre, on the other hand, was not so hot. I understand that it's a good museum, but the works were too old for me. Also, the hordes of mostly-japanese tourists fetishistically photographing the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo made me a bit queasy.

Which brings me to Sunday night, not exactly your first clue that I'm not following a direct chronology. The Politician and I had a candlelit dinner for two at a nice restaurant and talked about our very separate futures. Cut to me, ordering the peppercorn steak because I don't buy/eat meat in Germany.

Cut to the next night, after our talk of founding a moderate newspaper at Lawrence but before the people down the hall started playing loud frap and got in a fight with some guy who would rather sleep.

I don't think I've ever had food-poisoning before. Never order a "medium" steak in Paris, or anywhere. Always get "well."

I always get "well", actually. I don't know why I said "medium". Nevertheless, I was sick and cold for prettymuch the whole day on Monday, and thus couldn't enjoy The Louvre or Sainte-Chapelle. We ran into some random Lawrentians at Sainte-Chapelle, which was odd.

We saw another church, of course. Notre-Dame was cool mostly because of the game Timesplitters 2, which Jonas bought and I played last year. There's a level set in the Notre-Dame and I was able to recognize most of the building (especially the stained-glass windows, which you have to break in a minigame) from the game. I felt quite cultured.

When we weren't looking at art and monuments we were wandering around town. We bought baguettes and panini and crepes (I spotted all the expected French stereotypes, but my search for certain stereotypical French dishes (read: frog legs) was unsuccessful) and had wine with dinner the first night, when we still felt like we had money.

One night (they've already blended together) we went to the Latin quarter, south of the Seine (I think I spotted where they filmed the key-throwing scene in the movie version of Les Miserables) and had a round at a bar with a live band.

As we walked in, three televisions showed Saddam Hussein, captured, with the helpful subtitle "Saddam Captured" in case it wasn't clear already. We learned that he was hiding in a hidey-hole with some guns and money and rats…

And then the bartender turned the television off, so people would pay attention to the band. I prefer pubs without bands, I think. But that was incredible.

I always wonder, when I'm separated from my usual sources of news (The Daily Show, A.L. Daily, campus gossip…) if something really incredible, unbelievable, has happened in my absence.

This was best stated by Flo, my old foreign exchange student, in the following imaginary scenario:

Airline Person: Where would you like to go?
Our Bold Hero: New York.
Airline Person: You want to go where?!?

In any case, we couldn't find out any more until The Politician bought a paper at the train station. I thought he was dead. Good for "us."

We also went to the Moulin Rouge, in Montremarte (an area north of the Seine which, I suspect, I can neither spell nor pronounce correctly). Just to the Moulin Rouge, not inside, that costs at least $200. Also, the hordes of tourists were there, and we were sick of them.

The Moulin Rouge is in a red-light district, and we were accosted by those guys on the sidewalks outside of clubs (though they weren't wearing huge placards, which was too bad). It was very seedy.

All in all, I think we got the whole Paris experience, all the high and low culture. Now to hustle over the library before I waste any more time.

But Enough About Potatoes

So anyways, I've still got three essays to write, but I've stopped stressing since I know I'll have three days next week with which to finish them. That said, I'll probably work on one of them today, on the train.

Here's hoping, at least. I'm looking forward to getting back, but dreading the work I have to do before I leave. That should be obvious, I suppose.

Called home last night, as I've done every Tuesday or Thursday for the past few months. All the IES phones went down last night at midnight, however, so I only got to talk to my dad before I got cut off.

(Which leaves me curious to know why Josh was so anxious to warn me "not to buy any Xbox stuff"… I assume he means for him, for Xmas)

I did find out, however, that because of some sort of small-business owner tax deduction my dad was able to buy a new truck (in his own words: "a black, fully tricked-out Ford") on the cheap.

I'm sure it's huge, but my dad the outdoorsman is one of the few thousand people in the U.S. who actually needs an oversized gas-guzzling vehicle. The utility of my mom's SUV, on the other hand, is much more questionable…

Which means that Josh gets the old red truck and The Deathtrap will be with me for another school year.

Ultimately, I don't absolutely need a car, but it's really nice to have one.

And let's not forget that The Deathtrap and I have a special bond based on countless misadventures and near-death experiences. Perhaps it's time for a cool bumper sticker?

Ines' Ines-y Potatoe Casserole



So that's what I ate Saturday and yesterday, using a recipe I got from one of my flatmates. A good, cheap, readily-made dish.

It's no chicken parmesian, but I'm still proud of my creation.

Germany On $1.22 A Day

(Cooking With Potatoes)



There's no better way to drain one's savings than spending five months away from home with no income. Also, I frittered away quite a bit of money last year on pointless expenses.

Watching my savings dwindle has made me, if not poor, then at the very least frugal. It's also taught me how to cook.

Allow me to explain. Thanks. I�m going to be longwinded again, so brace yourself.

Years ago, I cooked almost every day. I cooked cookies and brownies and, on several occasions, strawberry-rhubarb pie. My area of expertise (in fact, the only area in which I had any skill whatsoever) was desserts.

That�s not to say I didn�t try cooking other things. When our family, like every god-fearing family in the mid-nineties, broke down and bought a breadmaker, I dutifully made my way through the recipe book.

Those familiar with the modern American breadmaker, that spiritual and aesthetic forebear to the equally useful iMac, know its many quirks. The impossible-to-clean stirring mechanism� the strangely medicinal-looking jarred yeast recommended by the manufacturers� the tiny loaves of bread with rock-hard crusts…

Or maybe that was just me. The best I could ever do was white bread. I once made a loaf of white bread that was almost the same size and consistency as an actual loaf of bread.

The worst thing I ever made was 7-herb bread. No one would eat it, so I crumbled it outside for the woodland creatures to enjoy. For two weeks it sat on our deck: untouched.

My cool brother, Matt, showed me how to make Kraft macaroni-and-cheese (his speciality, back when our mom would still cook all his fish for him) a few times, and I managed to make it once or twice on my own.

I can also make sandwiches, juice, microwave chocolate-chip waffles (known as �waffle-chips�), store-bought pizza, and any kind of soup that comes in a can.

I can't cook. I couldn't cook. This weekend, because I was bored and because five pounds of potatoes are cheaper (see "frugal", above) than a loaf of bread, I decided to cook myself a nice hot meal. Behold:



My mashed potatoes were a delicious success. Approximate total cost of meal, including salt and butter: 25 cents. On Sunday I made mashed potatoes again (this time with an onion: The Urbanite had a few to spare), and, once more, they were delicious. On Saturday, Ines, my German mitbewohner, taught me a recipe.

It's That Time Again

Inveterate laziness or nagging deadlines: which will triumph?

When Students Pick Their Own Projects

Overheard in the IES lab:
I think you can ignore the fact that one nipple is slightly bigger than the other.

I don't know what their presentation is on (or even what class it's for…) but I'm writing my Politics report on the history of German marihuana legalization. It's actually quite interesting, which is exactly the point.

Still awaiting Graham's assuredly-more-interesting blogging paper, which I probably won't have time to read for a while yet, in any case.

I feel less than kosher leaving one of my "venting" posts up for so long when I'm actually no longer pissed off about anything at all. My apologies: you have them.

There's no snow on the ground and I have yet to go shopping (or, and this thought comes embarassingly late, to church) but, nevertheless, it feels like Xmas.

Mostly, I have Sophia to thank.

A sentence for my list of incredibly unlikely sentences: My Swedish flatmate has decorated our Wohngemeinschaft.

She's lit the Christmas lights. She's started to play Christmas music, the same mix of Mannheim Steamroller and generic covers by anynomous experts that I'm used to from home. She's baked cookies and hung some of those cookies, gingerbread with white frosting that spells out all of our names, on the wall in the kitchen.

Hot chocolate from home (Swiss Miss) helps too. I'm hoping to get one of those electric water kettles so I can make hot chocolate in our dormroom whenever I want.

Or tea, but (as my brother Matt always says when you offer him gum) I'm trying to quit. I'm already up until three most nights even without caffeine. I've decided that there's no caffeine in hot chocolate.

But where was I? (A phrase found only in the best nonfiction writing, for the record).

Ah, Christmas. Even though I'm still annoyed with many (perhaps most, several shining examples are in the room right now) of my fellow IES students, I now feel actual tolerance for the people I wanted to kill with my mind last week, instead of just "restraint".

They're just annoying, those annoying ones; they don't mean any ill will. And now that "it" feels like Christmas, I feel a strange goodwill towards all mankind. I can be petty later.

Also putting me in an unsually good mood: The tour of the Ganter Brewery we took earlier this week (probably the last time I'll ever have a beer right before class), the trip to Paris which The Politician and I have in the works, and the "It Feels Like Christmas" song from The Muppet Christmas Carol, which seems to be permantely stuck in my head. Later.