ear candy

yesterday, i made a quick stop by the marktplatz in stuttgart on my way to my class... and surprise!!! - vocal sampling was performing in the square. all acapella... all goodness. and since my parents taught me well, i am sharing with you.

cheers.

a little pre-weekend inspiration

rocks. again.

so, to understate things just a bit: things have been a little overwhelming these last few days. 

it's really quite sad, because when i get home from work and face the list of things that i really need to do - make phone calls, write emails, write more emails, clean, do laundry, exercise, go to the bank, go to the grocery store, sketch out ideas for a really important project, etc., etc., etc. - i have zero energy left to tackle anything. i have decided that i either need to significantly increase my caffeine-intake once again, drink until i feel a little more motivated, or clone myself in order to be able to start checking things off of my 'to do' list. cloning seems a little out of the realm of possibility (due to things like the financial constraints of pursuing such technology, moral issues, so on and so forth), so i am voting for caffeine and motivation-juice.

i apologize for the neglect i am demonstrating towards my blog, but in all reality, my life is utterly boring at the moment. boring, that is, unless you really really enjoy me writing about how evil autoCAD is, or about how i am perfecting my potty-mouth in several different languages.

there is light at the end of this extremely long tunnel, my friends, for i am on the brink of a four-day weekend. starting tomorrow. bring it on, baby. oh yeah.

yes... we can.

shame, shame, i know your name: another diatribe.

thank the lord! thomas l. friedman of the new york times is back. though, his recent column, dumb as we wanna be, made me want to weep for the future of america and hide for shame at the 'example' america is setting for the rest of the world. (ha. example.)

it is nothing less than shameful for mrs. clinton (and mr. mccain) to sponsor a 'gas holiday' this summer to 'ease the pressure' on people when that same gas holiday will come back to bite the american people in the ass in the very near future. the money that should have been collected with the gas tax - $0.184 per gallon - could go to research to help find a reasonable and realistic fuel source to help ease our addiction to fossil fuels. instead, as mr. friedman states, 

This is not an energy policy. This is money laundering: we borrow money from China and ship it to Saudi Arabia and take a little cut for ourselves as it goes through our gas tanks. What a way to build our country.

i grew up in saudi arabia... so i have nothing against the country. ... however, i would like for more american money to stay at home... to start helping the american people. and, i am shockingly angry at the fact that our lawmakers - the people who should have the interest of the People in mind - are more worried about lining their pockets with Big Oil money than focusing on bolstering the american economy with a home-based fuel source. i am shockingly angry at the fact that congress and our ever-so-beloved president - again with the People - have decided to discontinue wind- and solar energy credits because they couldn't grow up and use their words like grown-ups to solve their argument. gas credits stay, eco credits go. are you people serious? for shame. really... shame on the government.

i understand the pain at the pumps... living in europe has made me appreciate how cheap gas is in the u.s. (gasp. did she just say 'cheap'?! yes, my friend, she did!) ... but i have also adapted: i walk almost everywhere (added bonus - i am losing weight and getting more fit), and if the distance is too great or i am in a rush, i take a train (granted, i live in a city that actually has a functioning public transportation system, so i can actually take advantage of this... if only more american cities could actually provide adequate public transportation). most of the people here have also adapted to high gas prices in their choice of vehicles - most are compact and highly-gas-efficient. 

when i came back to the states for christmas, i was dismayed to realize that a ridiculously high percentage of vehicles i saw were large SUVs. my boyfriend (he is german and was on his first visit to the u.s.) was utterly shocked. not only were most of the cars SUVs, but a significant number of them were on gigantic tires with ridiculously large engines. no wonder, really, that so many people find themselves emptying their wallets to pay for gas. i was no exception: i drove a jeep wrangler - possibly one of the most gas-thirsty vehicles i can think of, but i also didn't drive it very much. frankly, even when gas was half the price it is now, it was too expensive to drive it much (in 2006, it cost me an average of $40 to fill my tank... which lasted a whopping 220-250 miles).

but i digress...

the point is that the gas tax should remain. the big catch is that it should be put towards research towards alternative fuels that will really help the american people in the future. a three month tax 'holiday' is not going to help... it may end up saving people enough to buy an extra tank of gas or so, but that doesn't help the fact that gas is going to keep getting more expensive... it doesn't help the fact that the american economy is going to keep getting worse until such time as we can stop putting ourselves in debt to other countries and start focusing on improving the situation at home.

i am living in europe because i can make more money here... even when i am paying over 40% of my income in taxes every month - scary but true. my family, however, is still in the states... and like most families, we are being hit hard by the rising prices and faltering economy. the solution to those major problems is not a gas tax holiday, but more investment in american technologies to solve our problems.... more investment in research... more focus on ecological technologies. i know, i know, everything is going green, blah blah blah, right? - but when studies have proven that 'going green' can help the planet and your bank account, where can you go wrong?

america needs to start being the change... and stop just preaching about it to everyone else.

woe is our new apartment.

axel and i were supposed to be able to start moving into our new apartment last night... however, the lack of heat, water, and electricity currently plaguing the location seem to be throwing a wrench in our plans. the old oil heaters that were in the apartment have been removed to make way for more efficient water radiators, however, this removal has left gaping holes in the walls. while this provides for interesting views out of rooms that should be sealed, the fact the near-freezing outdoor temperatures are now the indoor temperatures is not-so-ideal.

supposedly, all should be relatively finished - the new heaters installed, holes refilled, water turned on, and our wind-powered electricity turned on - by the middle of next week! i am really so excited about this new place - i will post images of the new place as soon as we are moved in and then again when we finish decorating - and especially excited about the fact that we will be reducing our carbon footprint significantly! green energy, efficient appliances, and i will now be living 2 blocks from my office.

as axel keeps telling me, 'we are not made out of sugar'... everything will work out just fine in a matter of a few days and then we will have an absolutely spectacular apartment with an absolutely spectacular view over stuttgart. and thanks to enrica, we have a place to stay until we have a habitable space.

cheers.

fuch yeah!

i think that this is about the funniest/most-honest/witty/hit-the-nail-on-the-head political illustration i have seen. ever.

image courtesy of Fuch Yeah.

two-and-a-half-word update (because i am too busy to think right now and will post more interesting stuff later)

mid-march snow!

calm before the storm

emma gave us quite a surprise here in stuttgart on saturday. i woke up at an extraordinarily early (for me on a weekend, anyway) 9:30am on saturday to find that it still appeared to be night. the sky was dark and foreboding... and then the wind started howling around our house. being an old house, not all of the doors and windows are, shall we say, totally sealed when closed. wind and rain started pushing their way into the house as it started to hail. granted, the hail was small, but there was so much of it that it appeared to be snowing. the wind was actually pushing the hail around in the air so chunks of ice appeared to be as light and friendly as snowflakes. (i am a sucker for snow and almost ran outside to play in it... until i took a closer look and decided that i had no desire to have my head beaten in by cold little stones falling from the sky).

stuttgart was apparently fairly lucky, given the lack of damage compared to the severity of the storm. i was actually quite amused to hear my roommate describe this storm as a 'european hurricane... only without the tornadoes'.

i just called to say 'i love you'

i am in love with these calling cards from orangebeautiful's etsy shop (btw ilu = by the way, i love you). i want to give them to my all of my friends... and by 'give them' i am thinking more along the lines of slipping them into purses/briefcases/backpacks (hopefully unnoticed), complete with some goofy picture of me with some ridiculous face... just to spread smiles around.

it's funny that i found these today (actually, i was looking at this delicious notebook that i am totally lusting over, when i stumbled upon the sweet little cards), because i was just talking with axel about how much i love to leave random postcards with funny little messages for people to find. this is one thing i am loving so much about europe - all of the free postcards everywhere with really cool pictures/phrases on them. (i actually have an embarassing number of these postcards in a basket in my closet. i think that i probably have enough stashed away to give postcards to everyone i have ever met daily for a year.)