rope. tree. fan. spear. snake. wall.

Saturday, August 26, 2006

This is my 400th post! Isn't that cool?

*ahem* la la la... *ahem*. Okay.

Happy Birthday to you!
You live in a zoo!
You look like a monkey,
And you smell like one too (but not really)!

Happy Birthday, Bro!

It's after midnight, and I have to get up at six, yay me. More feedback-feedback, because you all leave such great soundbites that get me thinking, and I almost never follow up on them, bad me.

KimberlyDi said...
Hey, a vacation is still a vacation. Enjoy the change in routine. Taking a laptop with ya?
You're absolutely right, and I'm not complaining. DrBob and I are major culture-heads, and most of our trips are such a whirlwind of cathedrals and churches and castles and whatnot that once it's over, I can't remember which was where. But: 1) kids hate that shit, and 2) where there's culture, there's usually also traffic and pickpockets, both of which make traveling with children much more trying than necessary.

So yeah. This Generic Family Entertainment Complex could be anywhere in the world, and might be a bit on the boring side, but I could do with some boredom. And the kids will be happy, I love that. Plus, being what we are, DrBob and I will probably drag the little monsters off to Venice, or at least to the cathedral in Rovinj (also, I hear there's an aquarium! cool!) at least once. So that'll be okay.

No, no laptop. Trying to go as un-wired as possible this time, because it's supposed to be a vacation. Last year I took my laptop and spent the week restructuring the entire JOB site (the job I quit in March), and while I rather enjoyed it, I kinda feel like I probably should have spent my vacation ... um, not-working. I may hunt up an internet café mid-week though, just to see how y'all are doing.

~d (tilde) said...
Amazing life you are giving your children.
You know, you're right. Thanks for reminding me. Because it's kinda true, isn't it, but I forget that most of the time. Maybe because it's not nearly as amazing as I want it to be - I still haven't managed to take Ignatz to Dublin as promised, plus I owe him a trip to Venice, just the two of us. And the Sniglet's trip to the Playmobil Funpark was canceled first by rain, and then by my bronchitis. Hm. Memo to self, get sh-- um, act together (trying to clean up my language now that I know that my niece reads this. She's three).

Also? You think this is amazing? Come visit, we'll take you places and show you cool stuff. Just ask Melanie if you don't believe me.

Song du jour of the week, probably, since I won't be back with a new one until next Saturday: um, how about the Star Trek Theme Song. The original series, of course.

Thursday, August 24, 2006

Escape

Umm, we're leaving on Saturday! For Croatia! Do you know as vanishingly little about Eastern Europe as I do? Well, what the hell, back when we paid attention to that sort of thing it was behind the Iron Curtain and we were never gonna go there (didn't you just say you went to Leningrad in 1987? Um, yes, but that's... different. Drat it, you've ruined my narrative flow!) anyway. It was also part of Yugoslavia, and they redrew all the borders (in blood, basically, but, you know, whatever) in the early 90s while I was busy being young and self-absorbed. In stark contrast to the way I am now, which is middle-aged and self-absorbed. Anyway. Croatia. It's across the Adriatic from Italy, so I guess the climate is similar.

The place we went last year was booked solid by February this year, so we had to think of something else. DrBob found this thing in Croatia (sorry, I couldn't find anything in English), which is like a Family Entertainment Complex - totally not our usual thing, but we have to do something, right? I mean, already this year we are only taking one week of vacation, which is so totally un-German that they'll probably kick us out of the country if they find out. Anyway, the kids might enjoy it.

Me? I'm gonna take a bunch of novels with me and hang out by the pool and let the sun bake all this phlegm out of my lungs. Culture, schmulture, I'm too tired to enjoy it anyway. Though we might take a ferry to Venice. Once we decide whether it will be fun for the kids or the Amazing Carnival of Complaining.

Song du jour of the day: Emotional Rescue. The Rolling Stones

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Fatigue

Well, the coughing has abated, and I don't need to spend a couple hours lying down every afternoon - well, that and I'm not allowed to. I feel almost normal, until I try to do something. Today I walked to the Doctor's office. Twice! How's that for an achievement? It's across the street from my house, why do you ask? Well, across the street and down a bit, not right across the street. Okay, probably about 100 feet from my house. What's your point?

I'm sorry this is all I can write about. Things really are this boring right now.

Song du jour of the day (hee hee hee) (via Evhead):

powered by ODEO

Monday, August 21, 2006

Hi

The soccer game was pretty fun, and I didn't pass out or anything, so that's all good.

We had houseguests this weekend. I'm sure they had a grand time watching my Bill the Cat imitation for two days. Wouldn't you love to come visit me now? Yup, still sick, and quite worried about the offspring - since they've been exposed, but don't have it now, it's altogether possible that they'll come down with it while we're on vacation in Croatia next week, and how much would that suck?

Other stuff I've been doing...


AAAahahahaha this is fun! However, Jeneane's point (in a nutshell, howcome nearly every celebrity in their database is white?) is extremely valid, and MyHeritage? If you could work on the diversity thing? Kthanks. (Yes, I sent them a real email, I'm not just hoping they'll happen by my blog.)

Also, I went and did that mappy-thing, picked up from James's blog:


create your own visited country map
I love how I get to fill in half of Asia on the strength of a weekend in Leningrad in 1987.


create your own personalized map of the USA



create your personalized map of europe

Your travel type: Culture Buff

The culture buff needs to see a museum, an art gallery, a 16-th century church every day during his holiday. When he travels he is always well prepared. He has read history books, speaks a few words of the lingo, knows about the strange habits the locals have.

top destinations:

Amsterdam
New York
Hampi

stay away from:

Tokyo
North Korea
Darien Gap
get your own travel profile

Song du jour of the day: All Over the World, by ELO! Ha!

Saturday, August 19, 2006

Yawn

Huh. Turns out, when you don't do a lot, you don't have a lot to blog about. I could tell you about my new croaky voice or the hours I spent counting the ceiling because I couldn't sleep last night, but that would be extremely boring. See, I'm bored already. So I'll just tell you about my Bad Idea, which is to go to a soccer game. Just the second half, and it's not like I'll be playing. Just watching. Everybody's been on summer break since before the World Cup, so I'm jonesing, man, and the team (DrBob's hometown team) is really good. But with the ride there and 45 minutes of soccer and the chitchat with in-laws and the ride home, I'll have to remain upright for something like an hour and a half, so I'd better go lie down for awhile. Store up some strength.

Nothing but excitement here at casa alala.

Song du jour of the day: Lita Ford and Ozzy Osbourne, If I Close My Eyes Forever (Will this Fucking Headache Go Away?).

Friday, August 18, 2006

Well, that explains a lot

It's bronchitis. Not a cold, and just waiting for it to go away was not a good plan. So now I have antibiotics and a decent excuse for having been such a slug for the last few days. A hacking, gagging slug. A slug with hairballs.

Better news: the weather is improving! We were even able to eat dinner outside yesterday. That is to say, the guys ate dinner while I snored in my potato salad. And it was raining when I woke up this morning, but now it isn't. This is progress. This is good.

Song du jour of the day: Stay Fly, by Three Six Mafia

aaaand now we're coughing.

I try really hard to post every day, because I've noticed that if I let one day go, it turns into five. And of course, it would be cruel to make you miss a day of the glamor and fabulousness of my life. Bleah.

So the glamor and fabulousness today consisted mostly of napping. I think there may also have been some laundry, but it was mostly napping. I talked to Mrs Next Door briefly over the fence - I've been avoiding her, because I didn't want to infect her with my disease, but as soon as we greeted eachother in our new-improved basso profundo voices, I knew she already had it. And she's been to the doctor, and gotten antibiotics for it, so I guess I better go to the doctor too. Apparently, this particular "cold" has been making the rounds here in OurTown, and just waiting for it to go away is not going to work.

Bleh. Tune in tomorrow for more glamor and fabulousness. And probably coughing. Betcha just can't wait.

Song du jour of the day: Strange Colour Blue, by Madrugada.

Ganked from Kelly...

You scored as Angel. Angel: Angels are the guardians of all things, from the smallest ant to the tallest tree. They give inspiration, love, hope, and positive emotion. They live among humans without being seen. They are the good in all things, and if you feel alone, don't fear. They are always watching. Often times they merely stand by, whispering into the ears of those who feel lost. They would love nothing more then to reveal themselves, but in today's society, this would bring havoc and many unneeded questions. Give thanks to all things beautiful, for you are an Angel.

Angel

92%

Dragon

67%

Faerie

67%

WereWolf

50%

Mermaid

25%

Demon

8%

What Mythological Creature are you? (Cool Pics!)
created with QuizFarm.com

Pffft. Yeah, right. Angel with hairballs.

Thursday, August 17, 2006

now we're committed

Today we went to the Notary's office. I don't actually know how to go about buying or selling a house in the U.S., never having done it - my brother is the go-to-guy on that one. So I can't really compare and contrast the two systems, all I can tell you is what happens here, as it happens. And as I understand it, since DrBob does most of the bureaucratic work. So the Notary drew up a contract last week, we read it, the Bank Guy advised us, yadda yadda you know this. We suggested some amendments, they made them, and today we and the Fishers met at the Notary's office, which here is like a business, where a lot of people work there and we saw a sort of junior-notary-intern person. She read the entire contract aloud, stopping to explain this or that point, and then we all signed it. It took hours, and I could see the others starting to nod off too. I had to squint to understand everything, so that kept me fairly alert. I also had some non-sleepy-formula cold medicine in me - what the hell is in that stuff, by the way? Because we already used up the sleepy-formula stuff (Nyquil and Dayquil knockoffs, both of them, thank you Walgreen's) (because we can both tolerate being sick when we have to work, but we tend to want to mask the symptoms so we can sleep), and I figured I should be able to sleep with the non-sleepy stuff because I was assuming they put something sleepy in the sleepy stuff, and the non-sleepy stuff is the same thing only without the downers. But it may contain some kind of uppers, because my sleep has been very very strange, and when I'm awake I'm a little loopy, whether from lack of sleep or the uppity cold medicine I don't know.

Um, where was I? I dunno, but I did find out how much our space in the underground garage will cost us (€12/month) and, that we'll just take over the house insurance and then we'll be insured against fire and burning (?), and also lightning strikes and something else, and against being crashed into by steerable flying objects. That means if an airplane or space shuttle (or a cruise missile, adds DrBob) hits our house we're covered, but if it's a meteor, we're not. I'll have to see if I can get that changed. How much extra do you think they charge for meteor coverage?

Also the Fishers gave us some photos of the house, which I will scan and put up for you when I'm a bit less of a freakshow. Have I mentioned that I'm sick? I am. I'm getting really tired of it, too.

Song du jour of the day: Crazy, by the Jesus and Mary Chain. I think I already used that one... oops.

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Two updates, one rant

Let's see, the house really did sell, and the money really did get transferred into my account, and we really did wire-transfer a little over half of it to our account here in Germany, so we are ready for the signing tomorrow - the notary fee should be something like €3500, and there are taxes and taxes and taxes to pay. Oook. But it's all going forward, and I'm excited.

I just got the tickets for my trip to the States - a week in Seattle and a week in Denver. I wish both weeks could be longer, but I learned something last October, when I was in Port Townsend for a month: two weeks is as long as I can be away from my husband and sons. After that I get really jittery and strange and can't think about anything else. There's also the moving and the kids in school and the starting my freelance webdev business and DrBob going to Spain in mid-December, so two weeks is about as long as my life can spare me. I'm still fairly excited about seeing my people.

I'm not too excited about the new security measures resulting from the terror plot that was conveniently foiled right when both Bush and Blair needed something new for people to talk about. I hope by the time I have to fly they will at least allow books on board.

Oh, also? Pardon me for getting all Language-Nerd AND left-wing AND academic on your ass, but according to the BBC, British Home Secretary John Reid said:
had the attack gone ahead it would have caused a loss of life of "unprecedented scale".
And, from the same source:
Metropolitan Police Deputy Commissioner Paul Stephenson said the alleged plotters had intended "mass murder on an unimaginable scale".
Why are these idiots holding public office? "Unprecedented"? Maybe so far this month, fuckwit. "Unimaginable"? Excuse me, it wasn't just imagined, it was done, a lot of it in your lifetime, asshole.

The English language has more words than most comparable world languages - it's an incredibly rich resource, and the reason we have so many words is so that you can find the right one for the occasion. Yes, it would have been tragic and horrible for 3-10 airplanes to crash, but using words like unprecedented and unimaginable is, quite simply, telling lies. Pretty fucking insensitive lies, too. These nitwits didn't "mean" to say that 2,996 people were not killed on 9/11, that a million or so Tutsis did not die in Rwanda in 1994, that 9-15 million people were not systematically murdered by the Nazi regime. But that is what they said.

And lest you think I'm nitpicking on some basically decent guys, let's just look at what they really meant: "Biggest hugest scariest-ever deal, ohmigod everybody PANIC!" Which is exactly, exactly the wrong approach to take with a situation like this. So, nice try, but no: two stupids do not make a right.

And nobody called them on it, except zefrank - am I the last person to find out about this guy? He's fab. And cute. I may like him even better than Ask a Ninja.

Song du jour of the day: Janine, by Soul Coughing.

comments? I love comments!

Melanie said:
Why That Is, my opinion...
Subtract 5 year old = increased predictability, less noise and stimulation.
Subtract poppa = increased choice and control???
Momma alone = more attention and patience.

That's my official consultant thinking... What do you think?
I think those are some excellent points. I was thinking you'd have to take into account the various relationships in the family, i.e. that DrBob is a lot more bothered by - um, well, just about everything Ignatz does - than I am (the same is true with regard to me and the Sniglet), but actually, now that I think of it, when he and Ignatz are home alone they report very little conflict. Relationships increase in complexity the more people you throw in, I guess.

Nate said...
Just So You Know: "Ridin' Dirty" is my suburban white-dad closet rap fan code word for "currently wearing a diaper full of poo." I love it when the older kids say it without knowing that it's from a rap song. Makes me feel like I have a secret. heh.
AHAHAHAHA! That adds a whole new element to the Sniglet's karate-dance! Thanks. I don't think I'll tell him about it, though, at least not for awhile.

samirah said...
I'm just going to give you permission to go ahead and throw out the old ass, used wrapping paper. Why? Because as far as I know you are not my grandma.
Much appreciated, thank you.

~d (tilde) said...
HAHAHA! Try cleaning out a fridge after the power has been out for several weeks-and its summer. Nevermind-not a good time! HHAHAA
I love Ridin' Dirty. They mention the 504 Boys-that is New Orleans' area code. There are a few other post-katrina refences in it.
Raindog told me to ceck out Boy Kill Boy, but I can't FIND it-can you???
Yeah, here. Very interesting stuff, worth checking out. Tell Raindog thanks, and while you're at it, you should both check out Madrugada, if you haven't already.

Song du jour of the day: Suzie, by boy kill boy.

Monday, August 14, 2006

Yum

Cleaning out the refrigerator is always a Good Thing To Do, because you find things that must be used up and sometimes the results are excellent. This time the result was chocolate zucchini bread.

Spent more time grubbing around in the basement, putting things in boxes today. Lots of things to be Gotten Rid Of, hopefully to some deserving charity, and the Christmas stuff is now ready to move to the new house. I'm one of those people that unwraps presents very carefully, so that the wrapping paper can be reused. We have quite a bit of old wrapping paper now, so could someone please give me permission to throw it away? Thanks, I'd appreciate it.

DrBob was in Munich all day, and the Sniglet is at the Oompas', so I was home alone with Ignatz. It was interesting in that it was an almost conflict-free day: he did what I asked him, I listened to his information about Bionicles and sharks, we got along really well even though we were cooped up in a house together on a rainy day. Zero fights. I need to think about why that is. Or rather, why that isn't, when either of the others is around. Hmm.

Song du jour of the day: Discover a Lovelier You, by the Perniece Brothers, from the mixmania! CD Chuck sent me. I like the song a lot, but the Sniglet loves it - that and Ridin' Dirty, from the CD that ~d sent me. Whenever either song comes on, he "dances" to it, using karate moves he learned from SpongeBob. It's pretty entertaining.

Sunday, August 13, 2006

grousing, general and specific

Right. Shaking off the Osmond-induced bafflement to try to think of something to write about.

This not-working thing is really weird. With the kids underfoot all the time and no reason to be in Munich on any particular day, every day is just like another, and I never know when it is. I know what it is though: cold, mucky, rainy. We had that two-month heatwave that was so bad, the elementary school actually sent kids home because it was too hot (schools here don't have air conditioning, because it only gets that hot about once every fifty years). The day - THE VERY DAY - vacations started, the weather broke, and it's been Seattle ever since. Except that, I hear it's nice in Seattle right now. Damn. DrBob says "I think that august is definitely broken," because last year august was sucky too.

So as you can imagine, I'm getting a lot of use out of these - remember them?

Tragically, even though I love them, now that they are bought and paid (a lot) for, I discover something even better: Drat.

Um. Wednesday we sign the contract to buy the house. Pray for us.

Song du jour of the day: Take You On a Cruise, by Interpol. Yeah, right, like we'll ever be able to afford anything like that ever again - we're about to promise somebody €250,000, people! Aaaagh! Commitment! Run away!

Friday, August 11, 2006

I... uh... speechless

I thought it was a hoax, I really did, but there's just no mistaking those teeth. It really, really is the Osmonds. I just... I... oh my God.

Thursday, August 10, 2006

today...

Dang, this is turning into a House-buying blog, only without any interesting details because they all talk funny here and I never know what's going on. We saw the Bank Guy today. We like him. He seems to like us. We have to borrow more money than we thought, because the dollar has dropped two cents against the euro since the last time we checked, and that lost us $2500 right there. Wow. But he said that was fine with him, so we get to borrow €125,000, ack. And we made some decisions about how many loans and what kinds and monthly payments and all, that I'm pretty sure I understand, but if I try to explain them I'll realize how clueless I am. Also we showed him the notary's draft of the contract and even though it's not in Bank Guy's job description, he read through it and told us what we should change. God, I love small towns.

Housework/Packing progress? None. I did a bunch of ironing today, that's all. I am the anti-Martha.

BUT (drumroll, please) my Mixmania! CD arrived yesterday! Huzzah! Now the move has a soundtrack! It totally wocks, and I = stoked. Woot. Thank you Chuck!

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

The massive moving project, part 1

First up is the laundry room, and I've been working on it for several weeks. Uh, let me rephrase that. It's been at the top of my list for several weeks, and every five or six days I manage to putz around for an hour or so. Let's hope I pick up some momentum on this, because at this rate it'll take me longer to move into the new house than it'll take to pay it off.

So today I finished the photos - over ten years' worth, and until recently they were still in the envelopes in which they came home from the drugstore. My scrapbooking days are still years away, but at least the photos are filed somewhat chronologically, in nice, stripy boxes.

The next item in the laundry room was a laundry basket full of sewing - well, patching-projects, actually, jeans outgrown by Ignatz, and waiting so long to be patched that some of them were actually too small for the Sniglet. Oops. But some are still salvageable, so I dug my ancient (how ancient? It was my first birthday present from my in-laws) sewing machine out of the attic and set it up.

Guess what? I still know how to do it! Okay I'll never be an expert, but at least I know my way around a sewing machine (thanks, Mom!) and have all the equipment I need (thanks, MIL!). And it's really kind of gratifying, restoring something with my own hands, however humble the results. My kids may be shunned by their little yuppie-larva peers for wearing patched clothes, but Ignatz, at least, wouldn't even notice being shunned, so for now I don't care.

So that's two! Two projects that I finished, or at least moved to a reasonable holding pattern, instead of transferring them, incomplete, to a new basement to languish for however long I was able to avoid them. Yay me.

No news on the car yet. I'll keep you posted.

Song du jour of the day: Wuthering Heights, by Kate Bush. I just love that song, so swoopy.

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

Things Proceeding Apace

We're going to see a tax advisor today! Who will be our "tax-guy" from now on, egad we need a regular tax-guy. Further evidence of grown-upness. Because DrBob works partly from home and I'm going to launch a freelance web-development thing this fall and I'll be working completely from home, so we can deduct the home-office bits of our house which may require a separate loan and it's all just too complicated for a regular brain. We need a properly educated one.

Once the tax-guy is seen we make an appointment with the bank-loan guy. Oh, wait, does that happen before or after the notary? Um, the notary just got back from vacation and is working on a contract. We'll have a week or so to review the draft (maybe we should get a lawyer too? hmmm) and then the signing will be on the 16th, if all goes well. At that point we hand over €50,000 and the Fishers give us a key.

Then we have several metric assloads of packing, cleaning, painting, spackling, unpacking and arranging to do, and Princess DrBob is already griping about how busy and stressed he is (as you may recall, he finished a book last month, so ever since March or so, whenever anyone asked him to do anything he said "Sure! After July." Turns out there was a lot of that, so even though the book is done (sort of) he's still up to his ears in reviews and articles and conference presentations and proposals and evaluations and translations and ack), and anyway men never do anything right (sorry, shorthand for a much longer story there), so yeah. Not only is the packing going to fall entirely to me, I have to be happy about it, because the alternative is much, much worse. But we'll pay someone to do the painting and possibly the spackling, and DrBob has got the bureaucracy and the griping covered, so it's not like my job is unfairly huge. It's just huge.

But today? After we see the tax-guy? We're going to go to Ampfing and test-drive Subarus! Whoopeeeee! Oh, and we're also going to visit the hearts of the Bavarian Kings, since we'll be in Altötting anyway.

So I'm sorry there haven't been any thoughtful posts in a long time. There hasn't been a lot of thought, is why.

Song du jour of the day: Week on the Rag, by Arlo Guthrie

Friday, August 04, 2006

a lot to think about

The new Mixmania! theme is up, and it's a corker. It's been almost five years since That Day, and I'm still not sure how to feel about it all - not only the event itself, but its legacy. So how very challenging-yet-appropriate: a music-mix for my mixed emotions. Here's what The Man Himself has to say...

Use this mix as a therapeutic exercise. As a country I think the US suffered from collective PTSD (vivid memory being a feature of that) and maybe a little group therapy is needed to put things in perspective and help us move foreward. Whatever it is we're doing as country isn't working. If the highjacker's intent was to put us Americans at each other's throats, they've succeeded.
I suggest you go read the whole thing, check the rules, and I hope you sign up.

It's a big assignment, but I've got a few ideas...

Thursday, August 03, 2006

big stuff

The sale of Mom's house closed on Wednesday. Yesterday.

Today we met with the Fishers and settled on a price of €225,000 for the house. Just a verbal agreement for now, but DrBob and I are very Klingon about our promises, so unless the Fishers back out, it'll go ahead. We'll see the tax guy on Tuesday and the notary on Wednesday. We'll give them the down-payment (€50,000) as soon as we can, at which point they'll hand over the house key.

I've promised to give somebody a WHOLE LOT of money. Augh. Is it time to freak out yet?

Song du jour of the day: I Don't Want To Grow Up, by Tom Waits.

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

Mixmania! Woo!

(Note: everything in here was true when I wrote it, but today - today, August 1st, it's drippy and gray and chilly and sad. I can't believe it.)

Well, I wish I had that We're Havin' a Heatwave, a Tropical Heatwave song on hand. We really are, even the weatherdudes are now giving morning ozone reports and advising us to keep our kids indoors from 11 to 5 or so. Yep, it's hot. Too hot even for gettin' your freak on, so I will be disingenuous and pretend that I didn't understand that interpretation of hotHotHAWT! So the mix is all about heat and the sun, fire and burning as a metaphor for teenage angst, finishing up with a few ideas for cooling off, whether your pain is physical or just psychic. Note that most of these remedies do work for either situation. Wish I'd known that when I was a teenager.

For the first mixmania! I was too stupid to think of making 2 CDs. For this one, I was too stupid to find empty CD cases for sale anywhere. I'm still looking, but meanwhile, I'm cannibalizing the ones I have, which are few anyway, and now I have all these naked CDs lying around. Memo to self: get shit together.

Anyway. The songs.
  • Feels Like Rain - John Hiatt. Okay, this one actually works for both interpretations of hot.
  • Miazis Me Fotia - Anemos. My Greek is pretty elementary, but I do know that φωτιά (fotia) means 'fire'.
  • Among the Suns - BrainStorm. Happycute Latvian stoner band. Obviously listen to the Cure a lot.
  • Time to Burn - The Rasmus. Angsty Finnish teenagers with a thing for crows.
  • Witness - Sarah McLachlan
  • Staring at the Sun - TV on the Radio
  • Rooms on Fire - Stevie Nicks
  • The Humid Press of Days - Camper van Beethoven
  • Smooth - Rob Thomas/Santana
  • Blister in the Sun - Violent Femmes
  • Shy - Ani diFranco
  • Too Hot - the Specials
  • Ancora un Minuto di Sole - Eros Ramazotti. Italian king of pop. Again, 'sole' means sun, so this is probably relevant. Not that I really understand what he's saying.
... and now the cooling-off bit ...
  • The Hippopotamus Song - John Lithgow. Yes, that John Lithgow.
  • Nightwsimming - R.E.M
  • Take You on a Cruise - Interpol
  • 60 Miles an Hour - New Order
  • Jesus Gave Me Water - Sam Cooke. See, even 2,000 years ago they knew that water's good when you're hot.
  • Popsicle - Talking Heads. So are popsicles. I'm sure if they'd been invented at that point, Jesus would also have given people popsicles.
So there you have it. Er... I hope you have it. The German post isn't um, as reliable as you'd expect something German to be, so uh... if you are my match and you haven't received it yet, please ask Jim to tell me to send you another copy, okay?

List of participants is here.

Song du jour of the day: any of the above.