What you don't know about the Dutch...

And Rick.... belongs in a Sanatorium.

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And again, here was the second place...

The fascinating Conchita Wurst tonite. Dress ordered extra from New Yawk... three hundred dollars, she said. The producers overdid the lighting. I've seen some deprecating comments elsewhere on YouTube, but generally, there wasn't all that much outrage.

Hokay... there's a winner... Eurrovision for Austria

Conchita Wurst came in second. So who is representing our fair land in Aserbajan? Track Shittaz... and yes, you read it correctly. Who will be sure that Austria lands down in one of the last places. And have to sit next year out. Of the ten contestants, there were some interesting, 'listenable' tracks that sort of grew on me, and diverse in musical style. But this?

Oh yeah, track shitters, all right. Why not skid marks? The text? Banal to irrelevant. They want everyone to shake their tushes around, because that's what they like (ooop ooop!) Idiotic, a novelty number, and, excuse the pun... assinine. We've had some winners and losers, but this time? Losers. Take a listen.

Well that was an interesting weekend....

After feeling like a fish out of water on the US/UK game site... I finally found a guild. A few ex-pats from the german one who like that much better. Met them in a group effort, and they asked me to join when they found I can more than carry a dialogue in german. The guild is small, and they are sort of cozy from northern germany. Age range mid thirties to my oldie category. They call their guild Dream Theater, and are sort of progressive... turns out it's the name of their favorite band, had never heard of it. Checked it on YouTube, and it sounded like a cross between Zappa, The Who, and AC/DC but still different. So they are my afternoon meeting and getting in touch with people people.

Late nights, when I can't sleep, which is usually, I was always ending up in a running group for anyone as long as there was space. And there I met Red from Greece, and a dutch person, and sometimes some other germans. And get called on to translate at times. Red is lots of fun.

Last nite, someone who goes by the name, 'da killer' was going on, and in those things it's always a running joke in either gaming place.. 'I'm making coffee, how do you like yours, will get you some.' So I said I didn't drink coffee any more, I'd never sleep at all. And she began listing what to put in it, vodka and rum, and gawd-awful things. And Red pipes up with, 'Are you making coffee or a BOMB?' Cracked me up, but I guess you had to be there. A while later I 'said' 'Errmm I gave half of mine to my horse. Shouldn't have done that. He keeps getting stuck in the trees.' which set them off, because there is one area where the horses really do get 'stuck' in the trees. Sometimes.

So last night from midnight to three, we went to a huge jail and had a melee killing all sorts of monsters and getting loads of points. And joking. It made it fun.

There was some private time with Red, who is really worried about what is going to be decided on helping Greece today, so it wasn't all chuckles either. I like the mix.

Doesn't mean I don't miss the people at the other place whom I 'spoke' with daily, but am finally off to a good start at the new place. And my knight is already level forty... mine at the other place took 5 months to get to 35. (there are over 195 levels, so go figure.)

And I checked out UP on msnbc, which is always interesting and provides food for thought. And otherwise heard the local pop radio mixed with the classical for news, and on the latter issue... every damned year people die in avalanches on skiing trips. Anyone wanna tell me that people are capable of learning? Every year it snows massively in the west, and people go on vacations, and the kids have a two week school break, and every year there's a period of severe cold... well, nearly every year... and then there is a slight thaw, and level 5 avalanche warnings go out. And every year, people go off the prepared slopes out into 'nature', and get killed when Mother Nature decides to let off a huge snow fart. Sometimes I think people are to stupid to learn anything whatsoever. And as we saw, there were several incidents and tragedies a day this weekend.

And it isn't just that, ignoring warnings, hey. About ten days ago, at the height of the cold front, two jackasses decided to go cross-country, ill equipped, in a place they weren't familiar with... at minus 25 degrees celcius, and they got lost. So they called for help, and help was sent.... over twenty experts looking for them. The idiots had gotten third degree frost-bite burns one in the face, even, and of the rescue team, ten had to have medical attention in the hospital. So these two dunderheads are going to get sued for needlessly endangering the rescue team, and will probably have to pay a lot of Euros in fines. I certainly hope so. Putting other people's lives at risk due to their own stupidity like that. It just never seems to improve. Then again, neither does mankind in general, so why should I even be surprised.

Anyway, there was enough distraction. UP had a good segment on men deciding on women's health issues, and I had a weird thought. ''That would be like frogs forming a panel to decide what sort of fodder horses need.' Must've been the game. I have one horse I hate to death... it won't learn anything, just like most people.

The good part of the day....

Was the local news. There was an item so good, I had to call Peter. Because it concerned someone both he and I despised. He was the former head of a local soccer team. And he was crass, and uncouth, and 'successful'. Which meant he had a mess of hangers on, your basic lower intestinal acrobats, basking in his 'glory'.

Try to think Ahnuld, but REALLY sleazy... a parvenu, and it never went away.

Well there were always rumours of graft and corruption as far back as I can remember, and he was just crass. And they finally GOT him, and he got a five year prison sentence and a 6.6 million Euro fine to boot.

I am willing to bet... ten Euros, even... that tomorrow, his most devoted sycophants are going to deny knowing him. I even called Peter with this news, he hadn't heard it yet. He was half-way cogent, and I don't know if he remembered it by suppertime, but he sure had him a moment of schadenfreude.

The bad news of the day involved General Motors.... because, you see, they bought Opel. And they aren't doing well, and now, it seems, what conglomerates did to the US... they will do to the idjits who trusted them, and all of a sudden, oh, the manufacturing here is too expensive, the unions, upteenth verse, same as the first. So there are intimations of cuts in Germany. Riiight. Union busting? Probably. Scaling back? Most likely. So they 'might' close the plant in Bochum, in Germany, and a mess of people will lose their livelihood.

If I were naive, I would think they are getting on board and bringing jobs back to the US... but being global... well there is only so far you can extend yourself, and so if you increase in one place, it will certainly be to the detriment of another. It sucks. But that's 'business'.

Today began with me getting riled... when I saw yesterday's news.

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Y'know... I think it's been about fifty years since 'da pill' became available, and I was young, and I remember people discussing it in whispers. As if it were shameful, and a moral dilemma. I thought that had been long resolved. And half a century later, WHAAAAA? Have the Rethugs become so desperate, all they have is going after women? And that aspirin crack... left me ab-so-lute-ly spitless, but hey, that's the fossil billionaire singlehandedly backing Rick Sanatorium... or whatever the hell his name is.

This is another case of Rethugs yelling about government interference in people's lives, but what they do when they get any power is REALLY interfere in people's personal lives and want to dictate morally what they cannot do, while gleefully doing it themselves. And have the government invade your most private parts literally by mandate. The hypocrisy is astounding.

And then the odious Daryll Issa held a congressional hearing about women's health issues... all because they don't like the compromise Obama reached, and whaddaya know... there were only men invited to speak.... as if they know anything about it. That's when I started yelling at the pc screen, Preciousses. All this was between four and seven in the morning, and my cigarettes were out, so I went over to get some, steamed.

And told my tobacconist what had gotten me riled. We had quite a discussion. Me: 'No MAN should ever have the responsibility of decision making regarding women's health.' And one of her better ones... 'They should turn the tables, and have men undergo humiliating exams...' I said, 'well they tried it in Texas... mandatory prostate exams... but it didn't pass, because most of the legislature were men.' She beamed about that news, believe me. It was the first time she ever wished me a nice weekend when I left. Which was the nice part of the day.

Maybe I made her day. The news didn't make mine by a long shot.

Just another vid...

Hubert von Goisern has been around for over a decade and a half. I just listened to something I really loved when it came out. His music isn't typical of what austrian pop music is.. he was more into cross-breeding traditional music with modern trends, and has always been interesting. This has hardly any text, but is so romantic and melancholy, it gets under the skin. Loosely translated: Can't you hear it?

Can't you hear it, the time going by?

Just yesterday, we talked totally differently.

The young have grown old, and the old have died (away)

And yesterday's become today, and today will soon be tomorrow.

Can't you hear it? Can't you hear it?

It takes yodeling back to what it was originally. And it isn't kitsch. So Lawrence Welk won't roll over in his grave the way he is over the one below. I hope you enjoy it.

Colloquialisms...

Finally met someone on line last night at the new place... we'd sort of just hit it off in a group. She's from northern Greece, somewhere near Thessaloniki, which they call Saloniki for short, I know. I didn't want to broach the current crisis there, having just met her, but she did, so it was ok to ask and excahange impressions of what is going down there. (She corresponds in excellent english, lest you think I got possessed and suddenly wrote in greek..)

What really upsets her and those she knows is the slant the world media put on reporting the violence in Athens and Saloniki last week, putting the entire citih
zenry in a bad light, when in actuality it was the doing of a small group of anarchists, and she said it hurts what they are protestIing against and what they want.

And we got into background causes, and Wall Street setting it off, and basic human greed that can ruin an entire country. She said they have a saying: 'you can't make a fortune with a cross in your hand.' ('Think about it.) I said I liked mine better... 'the basis of every fortune is a crime.'

It was a nice discussion. One of those 2 a.m. chat fests. I had parked my knight somewhere safe and we just rattled on. Suffice it to say, I didn't make many points last night. (smile). But it breaks up monotony.

Here's an interesting mix.... local folk meets rock, and protest in the lyrics

The occupy movement meets Tirol.

The text: Where is the place, where the devil bears its' children?
where is the place where eveything comes together?
Where is the fire, hey, where is lightning striking now?
Where is the cabin, which barn is burning down... (straw on fire)
Everyone knows that money doesn't grow in the fields.
And you can't eat it, but it burns very well. (in this case double meaning... burn=spend)
But we're burning up the wheat and the beets and the corn, (wasting it)
And if we keep going on, it will be too late. (colloquialism, your hat will burn).

There's more about people stealing money, and they should go to the devil. It's really difficult dialect.

Art imitates life. The artist is Hubert von Goisern. nearly forgot to prop him.

Bass, Treble and Woofers

Have been waiting and waiting on this post... because the local government hasn't been the swiftest in providing us plebes with what they are doing behind closed doors... or wasn't till about three days ago. A friday news dump where everyone has the weekend to figure out how to respond to it. Instead of immediately going into woofer mode if it had been the middle of the week and it would take days till all the initial misconceptions get corrected.

We used to have a tee-vee twenty years ago that was state of the art and ahead of its' time. It did things that were amazing. But as with pc's, no one used it to its' full potential, they just watched the programme they wanted to see and didn't bother with the fancy stuff, which was a bit complicated anyway.

One thing that was cool about it was that sometimes the stations would have shows on, and you could switch to the left speaker and and hear the original version. Or the right and hear the synchronised version. And for chuckles, you could get both and hear babylon. And sometimes discern that the right speakers weren't exactly giving the exact same thing as the left ones.

Speakers hell, they were towers of power.

So why would I dwell on that, you ask, as it was long ago? I see it as a perfect metaphor. Since I have been listening to a lot of radio lately when not chatting with people playing at my game. And got caught up with a lot of local things I'd just ignored.

But basically... what I see from the right speaker, metaphorically, on the intertubes is being echoed on the left speaker here, so the roles get reversed, the original and the translation. But it amounts to the same thing.

Locally, the govt. here got shaken up over the Moody's rating, and how the economic picture looks here in the EU, so they went into closed sessions, and thought up an austerity package so as not to lose their triple A ratings.

Now... we have a coalition government, socialist and (catholic) conservative. And they are sort of like the rethugs and the dems in their attitudes toward one another, but if things get tetchy, they actually comprimise.... except any time they've done it... no one likes the outcome at-all.

They were gonna 'streamline' the government, uh-huh... did the signals from the right speaker jump to the left one with a bit of distortion and static?

The result that has come out is sort of a rethugs' wet dream. Big gradual decrease in federal employees, and socking it to the pensioners. Not so much the range I'm in... I could hardly see how much less they could give and expect you to live on it... but the middle and higher range ones. With a freeze in increases to adjust for inflation for the next two years on the latter two if I understood it correctly.

And as to the federal jobs... well, the posts of people in that range who retire will not be replaced by new people, and their job loads will get dumped on the ones still working. Uh-huh...

The right speaker doing the original is sort of getting distortion signals and comes out diluted in the left one, but hell, the results are sort of the same.....

So all is reavealed in the finale, so to speak, and as the credits are rolling the left hand speaker starts going a bit off... the bass begins to boom too much, the treble becomes querulous and the woofers squeak. The bass being the right hand parties, the treble being the greens, and the woofers the progressives in the country. And we get the poor and middle class slammed, the rich paying lip service to solidarity sacrifice, but already wanting to wiggle out of that commitment, and the whole thing ends in babylonian cacophony.

I sort of like that metaphor.

Otherwise? Not much else to talk about, other than we had our usual siberian cold front, which is two weeks of what is severely cold weather for these parts. My heating system sort of can handle it, but some parts of the day it gets chilly, so hot soup and a warm bed are nice remedies for that.

Today they reported the worst is over.

My game site finally did it... kept tinkering with the programme till it crashed, and I re-installed it on Friday, but still can't get in, so am missing my daily chats with several people I have come to know and like. And it burns me, because we don't have e-mail exchange, you just assume you meet at the market place and catch up on daily stuff. That burned me. Had to switch to the US/EU version of another company, and begin all over, but turns out they have tons more features than the stingy germans did. They had stripped it down and made it five times more difficult to advance than the original... and no goodies, you either had to buy from their shop or go without. So now I can wait around a while till I can make some new acquaintances.

And oh yes... if you go into a depression and don't open your snail mail post box for 11 months in this electronic age... turns out you might miss something very important indeed. Seems I did.

I got executed and never noticed a thing.

In the form of a letter from the justice department, giving me a final court decision that I am to be executed, yup. To the tune of 516 Euros, no lawyers' costs. Which seemingly will be taken out of my bank account. Wish 'em good luck with that, hey.... I assume they'll attach my next 'double' pension payment.

So that was really 'heftig', as a friend of mine from Hannover would put it. Heavy. However, it is friggin' embarassing. Because I have no idea what I got executed FOR... I really haven't. And obviously it would be even more embarassing to call the listed lawyer and ask, 'errm... you know that court thing you filed against me? Could ya tell me what that was really about?' Riiight. No one would believe me anyway, let's face it.

The one thing I have always, always been stringent about is having all my monthly payments up to date and automatically sent where they are supposed to go every month, just to avoid that, so I can't figure what in the world was extra. Didn't buy anything, can't afford anything, so it's a mystery to me.

So my first reaction was booming bass, then sorta treble, and ended with a squeaky woofer. Watcha gonna do, hey. I'm too tired for any drama. And insomniac at present.

Whatever. The metaphor tells a story. Even if you have the two mono channels running, it's the same programme with variations. But the same programme.

Elsewise, the pop station amuses and irritates me. They have the weirdest stories of the day. I loved the one where a granfather and grandson hit nine cars in an alcoholic version of nascar and when the police caught them, both were drunk, but there was no way of telling who was driving. And as to salzburg and salzburg province... there are a mess of people driving without a license. No wonder there are always 'ghost' driver alerts on the radio. A ghost driver is one who enters the highway on an exit ramp and is thus driving the wrong way, endengering all oncoming traffic. And there is the new law requiring that if there is an accident and a traffic jam, drivers have to form a safety lane for the fire trucks police and ambulance... so the ones on the left pull left, all others pull to the right, and the emergency vehicles can get to the accident and maybe save a life. If you do not adhere to the new law... the fine is a draconian four thousand euros. So they aren't messing around. It is something new since the beginning of the year, but I find it sensible.

And otherwise... it was just too damned cold to go out. One lady did her daily constitutional walk anyway in the snow, fell, couldn't get up, and froze to death before they found her on a wooded path. She was seventy six. And so it goes. Tend to your speakers.

Da Ven... was asking me about the SOTU address...

To tell the truth, have been putting it off, because I had to digest that. Did I see it, he wished to know. Yes, I certainly did. Not that it normally means much. Congress never does what is proposed anyway.

He had a wonderful time watching the Rethugs sitting on their hands with sour faces, and I have the sneaking suspicion he wasn't eating popcorn. He probably had ice cream to go with it.

At first I thought it was just me, but I was listening and watching carefully. Although brilliantly executed, I had some trouble with some of it, especially the bending over to the gas people and saying they would go on with fracking, and opening even more oil drilling. Boy, he played both sides of the fence on the issue, and did it masterfully.

He was still trying for consensus, and managed to put the emphasis in the assertive tone to deflect the fact that he is still 'comprimising'. I don't think there is room for that. None of what he proposed is going to be worked on anyway, the Rethugs wouldn't even consider it.

So yeah, nice speech. Horrible faces in the crowd... looked like a messed up clown car in parts.

Some of the ideas were good... but bottom line? Show business.

Eurovision Song Contest....

Is wacky season. There are ten songs in the running to represent Austria, and am posting the two I like from the radio 3 station on youtube... I think the following has a real chance... even if it's more than a bit disco, but whoever she is has a good voice... and it's a real mind fuck optically. Conchita Wurst. The other is so retro, but catchy, Crazy Swing, with a multi-culti group.





And oh yes, the third I really like because it makes me smile, and want to share it with Annti... she will know why. It's cute. And he looks so dorky '50's. And oh yes... these were clips of the auditions. Since then, professionals have been honing them into super performers, and what's on the radio is way more polished. But I like the freshness of the auditions, to tell the truth.

Whelp... here we go again...

Sigh...

The only friend I have left here had to have surgery... one stent in an artery around his heart.

Can I throw a tantrum now and say I Hate Fate?`

I say friend, but am not sure.. our paths divurged so often for long periods of time... distance, mostly, personal things where I wasn't sure of any approval for what I was doing... but somehow, yes, we'd reconnect, and it was always fun, and as if little had happened meanwhile.

We sometimes worked closely and intensely together. I hung out the big English disciplinarian, polishng his papers, teaching him what I knew about how NOT to give a lecture and put people to sleep, to listen to reporters, how they punch up words, for instance. And him dragging me into a sound studio and do the english explanation of a procedure, with one sentence that was so horrible, I needed fifteen takes to get it right, a tongue twister. And the operation I was describing was... well, you need a strong stomach for it. It was for a presentation in the US.

Posssibly, my voice is still out there on that film. It was a cutting edge procedure, you should pardon the pun.

And he and his family have given me much over the years. So I was very consternated that this very talented surgeon ended up so stressed, he had to get a stent. And his wife has always sort of been the cement that kept us in touch.

As an aside, that Costa cruise we took? Peter invited them both to travel with us... but he couldn't get the time off, so she had ber best friend come instead... it was insanely funny. And his father blamed me for all sorts of things when he began having problems shortly thereafter. Which was absurd.

As a surgeon, well, there is a saying... doctors make the worst patients, but I called this evening, he sounds fine. It's raining in Salzburg... but when doesn't it. They only have 1oo days of sun per year on average, and I KNOW... I had my first bout with bronchitis there.

He sounded 'chipper' enough, which was a relief. He only got one stent. His wife said he complained that it really hurt. Peter got five in two operations. But never really complained. Imagine that. If Peter caught cold... it was the end of the world, on the other hand, and made everyone imagineable miserable. But an amputation? Nyeh... People can be hard to figure.

I had the radio on while I was messing around on line killing things and there was a lot of AC/DC, and hard rock, which made it fun optically. And I thought... wow, last time I heard this it was his fiftieth birfday bash, which was wild. Time does march on.

I hope he retires. I do. Before life retires him. Otherwise, the stress will kill him, and there are many other things I do not wish to broach here. He needs some rest. All the early carreer eighteen hour shifts, the resposibility of having to do things to post natal babies because something went wrong... that's a huge load to carry.

He had huge success, and has been a respected guest lecturer world-wide, and I do mean world-wide. I would think that stent would be a call to reconsider what his priorities are for his own health.

I noticed something different the past two calls... he has become introspective, just as Peter did when he got really sick. It was sort of chilling. Self-absorbed, I guess you would call it.

Maybe it was my imagination. But it wasn't something I would ever have wished for them, because his wife has been through much as well, and I like her very much.

Today is chinese new year, the year of the water dragon, which brings luck and happiness and wealth. They got the latter... I hope it will be the former two for them.

Annti can rest and breathe easily for a couple a days

I hope she noticed... AHHNULD is in Austria at present. This is a very in-joke.. I met her one night, and she told me we have to take him back. In no uncertain terms. Except we couldn't because he has a double citizenship, which is only allowed from the Austrian side if you've done something to promote the image of the country abroad.

Riiiiggght.

I still don't care that he became governor of Kali-Fornicating-Four-Knee-Ya.... Didn't do so well, did he...

He was all over the media, lording it over the downhill race in Kitzbühel Tyrol, which is the most dangerous in the wurrld, and takes your breath away. Crazy arses skiing down a literal cliff. Chills and thrills. And yesterday in Burgenland inspecting a very upper edge research and development facility, telling them they were all 'Stars', he was so impressed. And has wanted to promote them for a long time in his new home state.

I hope he didn't elicit any firm sneakrets from them.

What drives me absolutely bonkers is that he can't speak anything correctly. In any language. And when he visits... his dialect is so awful, and grammatically incorrect, and bo-hunk DUMBED down, I have to keep thinking... 'who are his handlers?' because he can't really be that stupid. Just 'Schmäh', as they call it... I can't explain that one.

On the other hand... looking at the rethug line up of clowns this year... maybe he IS that dumb, but can sell it. It's telling that he isn't visiting his home town. We pissed him off royally, taking his name off the stadium. Add prima donna to the list, the womaniser.

So... Annti, did the bronchial passages free up a bit? (chuckle). Ours contracted.

and oh yes... the Moldavian mystery woman...

who was on the bridge of the ship and is giving interviews... the captain wanted to show her the island, or something... gimme a break.

On profanity...

Seemingly, lots happened this week... slept a lot... my heart was hurting.

However. There was a brouhaha about Little Lily on Modern Family using the F bomb, and some discussion about it. and a lot of blah blah. I really HATE that show, btw.

Now, Lawrence O'Donnell was right in making it an item in his show, 'The Last Word'. But missed the point entirely. Or nearly.

And believe me it gets trickier per language you acquire, and profanity should be the FIRST thing you learn, in my opinion, just so you don't inadvertantly insult someone you didn't mean to insult.

I learned that lesson very early at 23, working in the olympic village, and we were still in the training phase, had lots of time, and played cards, and told jokes and one evening got on the topic of 'what is the worst thing you can insult someone with in your language?' It was very instructive. Although I found the spanish ones the most shocking... mostly involving one's mother's genital areas... don't ask. Wiped my brain immediately. We were all multi-lingual, and in college, from all over the place.

But I'd had a run-in before as senior in high school. I used a word speaking with a girl I really liked and referred to someone as a 'schmuck'. She said, 'Do you KNOW what that means?' 'Well a jerk', I said. And she said no, and that in yiddish, it meant... well we'll get to that.

I turned bright scarlet and apologised and it seemed to calm the waters, but was friggin' embarassing.

Whatever, that evening in Munich was an eye-opener... some people are very creative with insults. And I inadverdantly did it again... told an egyptian I knew what the second worst insult in arabic was, had learned it from an army brat. He looked amused. Till I said it. But I knew what I was saying, and everyone else was being very horrific with things I had never imagined before. It meant, 'You are a male prostitute.' Hey, I was just adding to the conversation, but he was very, very offended. It wasn't like I was saying HE was.

I used to know the worst in arabic.. but I sort of erased it out of my memory.

Now, the sinking of the Concordia is still daily news here... big time. And it even got on the O'Donnell show. One aspect was that the Italians are suffering from low self esteem since Berlusconi, and there was this coast guard captain who got the captain of the ship on the horn, and yelled, 'Adesso commando IO', (Now I'M in command). Then 'Get back on board, 'CAZZO'.' And he became a hero when the tape was relased.' Tee-shirts immediately popped up all over the place with that quote. They were proud of someone who took charge and was adamant. There is a political agenda to that, referring to the government.

But there was the hitch on O'Donnel's show... he translated cazzo as 'dammit'. It isn't.

It means the same thing as 'schmuck' in yiddish. It means 'prick'.

Which is why I turned beet red after saying it in front of Susan in high school, and she told me what I'd said. Looking back, I wished I had had german in high school, because 'schmuck' in German means jewelry... if you pronounce it 'schmook'. Words are dangerous sometimes, in other words, and it would behoove anyone learning a language to learn the worst immediately... just so you can avoid being inadverdantly insulting... and a good tool if you want to be insulting.

For O'Donnell to do one of his re-writes, which I generally enjoy, and go ON about Lily in 'Modern Family' dropping the f-bomb... (the kid is four years old)...and explain that profanity is part of the culture now, and it is up to parents to explain when to use and avoid it, is commendable. But nearly in the same breath on the same show not to explain an italian word or make it harmless isn't doing anyone any good. Just imagine taking your kid to New Yawk, and the kid iuses the word thinking he or she is saying 'dammit'. NOT good. He could have easily circumvented it by saying it was to do with male genital anatomy.

I hate sanctimonious censorship.

This was our ship... and don' t let the perspective fool you, it is how they look upright

It got retired last year. But have fond memories.
Standing on the top deck returning to Venice, it was like having a bird's eye view of the city and towered over any building except the campanile.... bell tower. It was awesome.

And YEAH, I can afford to be self-indulgent... it's MY blog.

Correction

Oh my! Have to correct, it wasn't in the Adriatic, it was in the Tyrhennian sea on the other side. Tuscany has coasts on both oceans, so it must have been the route to Spain, and Portugal, and the Canary Islands. Those leave from Genoa.

ABC had petulant US tourists complaining that the crew was clueless, they hadn't been shown what to do in an emergency, etc. Having ridden that line... they usually depart at night, and the boat drill is on your first day out. Because you board late afternoons, and they let people settle in. So they had departed, there was the 'gala' first night dinner, and they ran aground. I don't think that would have been foreseeable.

And lots of bitching about how they couldn't lower the life boats... errm.... if it's down like that, can anyone tell me HOW?

The pictures are misleading. There was land about 300 yards away. Too close to the coast.

I LURRVED the quote... 'It was like the Titanic... without the water.' Oh please, horrible as it is,reallah?

Just an update...the proportions of this photo don't do it justice. It is three football fields long, hey.

And just spoke with someone I know who had travelled on the Concordia... he concurs with me that the life boat drills would have been the next morning. And seeing the cabin he and his wife had is under water didn't make him exactly 'happy'.... but he's having a catheter shoved up in his heart tomorrow to get stents... maybe. So he was sort of being self-indulging and afraid, although he's a doctor. Who make the worst patients EVAH. I went through that too with Peter, so I could be reassuring. Except it is the shits. Peter doesn't remember being on our Costa Riviera... he just thought it was a terrible accident. So he is far away in his head.

Looks like the gloves are coming off....

The latest news here is that the latest move by Standard and Poor's is a concentrated attack on the Euro... a suspicion I voiced a week ago. They reduced the credit rating of several EU countries, including France, which sort of acts like an umbrella to protect the EURO.

So what are WE hearing? Oh yeah, everyone is gonna haveta cut some more on their decadent socialist lifestyles (HA), and they'll have to make even more cuts to reduce deficits.

What I wanna know now is... WHO are these people, and who are they affiliated with? Ten will get you half a dozen they are locked into the vulture rethug political thinking that they can force their friggin philosophy on, and blackmail half the world into doing what they want.

Interesting times.... I think I will do some digging.

Ironically, the other two big rating companies like Fitch and Moody's haven't made any such move either in the US or elsewhere. This is seemingly a singular attack by S and P. I am SO tired of asshole 'Murkins pushing their shit onto us. Time for a push back....

Especially when the EU countries are already doing draconian cuts to their budgets.

´Hmmm... I can't figure this one out at all....

And it probably got very little coverage in the US, but yesterday a cruise ship ran into a cliff in the Toscana in Italy. And some people died. Which is very weird to me, because I have traveled with that company, and just can't imagine how that could have happened.

This was one of the company's very large ones, with over four thousand passengers. And some very dumb people jumped overboard... it must have been a real mess. And some guy had a heart attack, of course... not hard to figure, since a lot of oldies are usually on board.

Peter booked one for us one year when he was still half-way able to do long trip... he thought. And since he got a two-for-one deal... of COURSE he invited two other people to travel with us, and share some of the 'joy'. We became sort of notorious on that cruise, but all that is beside the point.

After our wonderful trip which was frustrating because he had a foot crisis and had to stay on board, but was wonderful anyway. We always said after that that if we did it again, the ship would have to be much smaller. It was already too much like a middle sized city, although it never felt crowded.

Little did I know that one day years later I'd be on a sailboat that slept six and travel half the adriatic sea on it, with everyone pitching in and sailing it. That was even more fun.

But am digressing. Am only writing, because I KNOW that company, and I know the routes. It makes no sense to me. Their first priority was passenger safety, and one of the first things was life-boat drill... have the pictures to prove it. And in Crete, did the crew get land-leave for the day? No, they were out doing practice drills lowering the lifeboats, and it was obvious they were extremely conscientious, which was a reassuring thing to observe.

Now there is a very tricky strait when they approach Corfu, and if it happened there, I'd sort of understand how that could happen. It's very narrow, and we entered it at sunrise back then. One of the most quiet, beautiful things I have ever experienced. We had Corfu on the one side, and Albania on the other, each so close it was amazing. Some things are unforgettable in life.

However, the latest news report says it happened near an island off the tuscany coast, and the captain maintains there were underwater cliffs that were not chartered on the maps. Hmmm.. possible.

On the sailboat junket, I really learned to lurv the sonar... and there were lots of sudden shallows that might have been dangerous...

Still.. it really seems odd.

I guess shit happens to even the best.