Les enfants d'ordures

Remember Garbage Pail kids? Remember how they were such a big-ish underground phenomenon in the US? Well it wasn't just the US kids that were enjoying them. Thanks to some contacts here in Switzerland, I've uncovered a handful of FRENCH Garbage Pail kids (Les Crados).

Enjoy.

Romansch and Elmer Fudd

So there are four official languages of Switzerland. French, German, Italian, and Romansch (crazy, right?)What, you ask, is Romansch?

The Wikipedia page on Romansch is here, but in general, Romansch sounds like a language that I would have tried to assemble when I was 10 years old and playing with Legos. For example:

• buna saira - good evening
• a pli tard - see you later
• gratulazions - congratulations

Any of that sound familiar? Remotely like Italian, French, or maybe even English (okay, I'll give you English because they're both based on Latin). Microsoft is even investing in figuring out the thing so they can get it into XP as a language. They should go the Google way at the same time and go for the Elmer Fudd localization as well.

Article on Swissinfo here.
Google localization for Romansch is here.

Zurich Tram Signs

"Please refrain from being a Mexican on the tram and use your saws responsibly."

Some other things the Swiss suck at

• Pretending they don't share your banking information.
• Killing their family members.
• Thinking they can run an airline.
• Cultivating baaaaad girls - grrrowwwl.
• Spelling.

Switzerland vs. Russia

Trademark infringement waiting to happen

Mike Wong's: great food, bad choice of logo. Check out Chris Rush Cohen's blog for a good synopsis of what all the Genevois think when passing this restaurant.

Room with a view

The view of Geneva and the surroundings (including Mt. Saleve) from out my living room window.

Flickr set is here.

360 Theater in the Round

Warning: this post has nothing to do with living in Switzerland.

So one of my huge pet peeves about going to movie theaters is that there is a cluster of seats in the center of the theater that are always taken first. Get to a movie late and you're out of luck. This is, in part, one of the reasons why I don't go to movies as much (and in Geneva, you have to watch out for the V.O. asterisk on movies or else you'll be watching Jackass 2 in French the whole night). Okay - I lied. This post mentions Switzerland.

My brainstorm was having theaters-in-the-round. A completely round movie theaters in which all the seats had the exact same viewing angle -- no one craning their neck to look up at the screen or peering down from the nosebleeds. You could imagine a circular colliseum in which every seat had the same image.

Now it looks like it's possible. Unless it's totally fake. These guys have managed to create images that appear identical from whatever angle you view them at. Some YouTubers have labelled them "holographic" and others have poo-pooed the term. But think of the possibilities: theaters where all the seats have the same perspective. Grain silos across the midwest converted into multi-story movie theaters-in-the-round. Think about it!

Ironic Graffiti of the Day

"Leave Geneva clean, thank you."

Great pics on Les Murs.

Swiss Banking Myths

Ever wonder how much of Swiss banking is a myth and how much of it is real? A bank in Switzerland is doing its fair share of myth debunking by taking a look at a few movies that highlight some popular myths about Swiss banks: The Bourne Identity, James Bond, and Munich are just a few.

Take a look here.

Band of the Day

Toots and the Maytals. Favorites of the day. Check them out!

Ring o' Fire

Okay, nothing to do with Europe, but I watched "Walk the Line" last night and was reminded of the great "This American Life" radio segment by Sarah Vowell that I heard back in 2003. Great story on how the song we all have on our Ipods - Ring of Fire - came about.

This American Life 2003 archives page is here. Episode 247 - listen to the streaming audio. Fast forward to minute 47 to hear the segment.

Recipe of the Day

Although the days of lounging around in a restaurant's outdoor terrace have passed, I still need to catch up on posts about summertime eating and drinking, so bear with me.

Lychee Mint Champagne

• 1 lb. of peeled, pitted lychees
  
• 6-8 fresh mint leaves


• 1 bottle champagne or sparkling white wine

Puree the lychees and mint leaves in a food processor. Strain through a fine sieve into a bowl. Half fill a glass with the mixture and top with champagne. Decorate with a sprig of mint.

Decadent drink mixes are here.

Slow Lament

I'm starting to come to the slow realization that I have less than 30 days left on my Swiss dance card. Although I still have the majority of a month left, I'm already starting to look longingly across the lake and into the Alps. I even caught myself walking around the illuminated Jet d'Eau late at night and snacking on random cheese in the fridge. The mistral winds are developing somewhere in France, getting ready to subject the unwitting to its madness. Geneva is slowly rolling over in her brown blanket of dying, pleasantly acrid foliage.

Soundtrack of the Day:

• Let Me Down Slow, The Rolling Stones
• Tupelo Honey, Van Morrison
• In The Car, Bare Naked Ladies
• Sail Away, David Gray
• Steady As We Go, Dave Matthews Band
• Take Me Home Country Roads, Toots and the Maytals
• Gone Til November, Wyclef Jean

Oktoberfest 2006

Back by popular demand, the TripAdvisor.com remix - this time, Oktoberfest 2006.

Lederhosen

"... It naturally follows that German men, who have been wearing lederhosen for generations, would naturally be attracted to the David Hasselhoff-style of leather hot pants. That and your ass feels so suede-y."

Nipple Chafing

"... Lederhosen suspenders need to come with band aids. The starch in my shirt turned my chest into ground beef."

Explaining that 'cin cin' means 'penis' in Japanese to a drunk Italian

"... There's 45 minutes of my life I will never get back."

Bryan Adams - Unofficial hero of Oktoberfest

"... The scary thing? This passed-out mother of two sitting next to me was probably singing 'Gitarzan' during the summer of '69."

Strange cover band setlist choices

"... How did Highway to Hell become a Bavarian drinking song?"

Drunken singing and lip-synching

"... Watching gigantic tents full of people singing Bavarian drinking songs made me more teary than watching Maurice Cheeks save that little girl during the national anthem in the 2003 NBA playoffs."

Possibility for Bio-Dome 2

"... Don't tell Pauly Shore this place is called 'wiesn'. His agent might smell a comeback."

Bavarian food

"... I didn't know you could EAT kartoffel kloesse - I'm using mine as an exfoliating loofa back in the hotel."

Dirndls

"... Dirndls make ugly women look decent, decent women look fantastic, and fantastic women look like Paris Hilton. Interestingly enough, Paris Hilton in a dirndl looks like the hot daughter of Elrond - the one that went to beauty school and Tolkein decided to edit out. This is apparently the zenith of the dirndl - to look like a hottie elf from Middle Earth."

Flickr set from Oktoberfest is here.

hellaboring.ppt

I was invited to attend a seminar on Change Management, hosted by the Project Management Institute in Switzerland. PMI meetings are basically a PowerPoint orgy for PMs looking to get more CEUs (Continuing Education Units) to make sure they can actually keep the title of "PMP certified" on their CV. Depending on the subject of the presentation, it's a battle to stay awake. Usually the most redeeming part of any of these presentations is the ability to network after the event, over free drinks preferably.


The presentation was ridiculous. The presenter was American, spoke way too fast, and never answered a direct question with a direct answer. It was amazingly frustrating to sit through 30 PowerPoint slides with a look of feigned interest.


The nadir of the presentation had to be a drawing that encompassed 15 different elements on a jam-packed slide. Now I'm no PowerPoint jedi, but hell - this guy might as well have come in speaking like Ross Perot and pointing to a picture of a DNA-histone protein complex. The native English speakers called bullshit early and started to pepper questions like clusterbombs. Watching this guy dance around the answers was like watching NASCAR: you feel guilty for thinking it, but at some point in time, you just want the guy to crash and burn.


Good article on the good and the bad of PowerPoint here.
Hilarious take on the Gettysburg Address - PowerPoint remix here.

Are Europeans God-Haters?

A few times since I've been here, I've heard the quote (more or less) that, "French view religion as a cultural heritage more than a daily belief system."

Interesting article this month in the Boston Globe online about how the European culture has become "hostile" to Christianity and how conservative Catholic intellectuals are worried that secularism is "rotting public morality".

Link to article is here.

Apres-Work Activities

For the past few months, a group of fellow native English speakers and I have been getting together on Tuesday nights for the "Anglo-Saxon Swimming and Beer uber-night". Summer nights usually involved swimming in the lake for an hour and speaking in our native tongue over cheap Chinese or doner kebabs. More recently, however, it's become an opportunity for us to collectively exact revenge on the Swiss society that prizes passive-aggressiveness and taxes testosterone.

Lured out by Coronas and bad Mexican food, the inner dirty-joke telling, laundry-leaving, nothing-in-the-fridge-but-mustard-and-Altoids monster emerges. For the night, we are allowed to be the men that the Swiss despise - loud, nasty, ball-itching expats with L-cards. Alas, at the end of the night, the debaucherous monster retreats with the dying moonlight and isn't seen again for another 6 nights.

Long live ASS and BUNs, bitches.

Marienplatz - Munich, Germany

I tend to have a routine when I get to a new European city: I walk it until I practically collapse. Munich was no different. I took the 45-minute S-bahn train from the airport down into Marienplatz and found myself, again, in the tourist clusterfuck. I grabbed some roasted chestnuts (a slight improvement from the chestnuts in Lucerne) and hit the sidestreets, ducking the massive flocks of Japanese in the process. Here were my highlights from Marienplatz:

New Town Hall, Old Town Hall, and the Carillon were obviously the architectural highlights. Spent a good number of megapixels on those babies. The western end of the walking street has a fantastic fountain.

The Hofbrauhaus (across the street from the Hard Rock Cafe) had to be the biggest example of the tourist-sellout. I bought a polo anyway, just don't tell anyone.

A nice discovery was Hirmer - the 4-story men's ONLY store in downtown Munich. It rocked. It's about time that men had our own store. It was funny actually seeing women holding dude's jackets as guys tried on crap. I don't think there's a feminine equivalent for the emasculating act of a man holding a woman's purse, but at least it comes close.

I giggled as I looked at a coinstore that was trying to sell a collection of coins from 1939-1950 with strategically placed tape. See if you can figure out what they're trying to hide.

I ran into a bunch of drunk Chinese tourists and found out they can be as loud and obnoxious as American tourists.

Jumping into a secondhand clothing store, I expected to see some bad-ass German t-shirts. I imagined bringing back a handful of "Munich Junior Bundesliga" or "Ich ging nach Hamburg und ich empfing nur diesen Hautausschlag." Instead, I was greeted with a treasure trove that looked like it had been hauled out of the Goodwill in Biloxi, Mississippi. NFL shirts, NBA hats, and all of the other dreck that our American society manages to produce (via China or Taiwan) seems to be clogging the secondhand stores of foreign countries too. I don't think it was coincidence that I documented another example of English gone horribly wrong on t-shirts here.

My experience with German clothing would get fantastically better, however. Walking around the corner, I ran into a traditional German clothing store that was doing ridiculous business thanks to us tourists willing to shell out the bucks to wear lederhosen and God's gift to Bavarian men, the dirndl. If you don't know what a dirndl is, it's best not to even know. You too will be absorbed by the mysterious allure of the German attire. After witnessing hordes of not-so-shy German women trying on and exhibiting their dirndls in the store, I decided to exit quickly before some big, fat, German fist came knocking on my jaw. Round 1 to dirndl.

I dined on a handful of bratwurst sandwiches that were being sold out of a train station kiosk and finished them off with some takeout sushi. Yeah. Sushi. Gimme a break.

Exhausted and weary, I took the train back to the spacestation / hotel (near the airport) and collapsed on the bed watching the equivalent of German porno-informercials. I would have to bring my A-game for Oktoberfest.

Flickr set is here.

Munich, Germany

Ever wondered what an airport would look like if it were designed by Apple and Johnny Tran from the Fast and the Furious? Go to Munich.

Lyon, France

Hopped a train and walked around Lyon, France a few weeks ago. Lyon is a bustling, eccentric, student city with lots of great restaurants, shops, and a fantastic old town. It's easy to get around, mostly because of sophisticated, free rental bicycles that are available on virtually every street corner. The free bike trend is taking France and Switzerland by storm - not that Americans really care, because I can't imagine a lot of people would be very excited about jumping on a bicycle in the middle of a Houston or Washington D.C. summer.

Lyon is becoming known as the culinary capital of France - the city is dotted with hip, nouveau restaurants and attractive interiors coupled with good food. Shopping rocks (a.k.a. cheaper than Switzerland) and the old town is fun as hell to walk around. Walking up to the cathedral provides stunning views of the city and is well worth the sweat (although once you get to the top, you're joined by 500 Japanese tourists coming off the metro).

Flickr set is here.

Thoughts on missing your //insert mode of transportation here//

Having narrowly avoided missing my flight in Rome, I was recollecting on a situation in Genoa where I wasn't so lucky and thought I would pass on a morsel of knowledge:

When travelling by train in Europe, don't rely on the posted train schedules that are plastered to the walls or behind glass. ALWAYS LOOK AT THE DEPARTURES BOARD. This is the board that's updated on a regular basis and usually has the giant, flipping characters. Don't assume that you are on the right train by jumping on the right car that's in the right track at the right time.

A new reason for Swiss to get married

Under the current taxation system in Switzerland, a married couple has to pay tax as a single entity. In cases where both husband and wife work, incomes are added together and taxed jointly rather than individually, as is the case for couples that live together. Up to now, direct federal taxation has penalized working married couples. For example, in a couple where the man has a taxable income of SFr 60,000 while his partner earns SFr 40,000, if the couple are not married, the man pays taxes of SFr 849 and the woman SFr 284 - a total of SFr 1,133 per year.

If this same couple are married, they pay tax on their combined income of SFr 92,400 (SFr 100,000 – SFr 7,600 tax deduction) - which adds up to a total of SFr 1,969.

The Swiss Parliament has agreed, today, to allow a maximum of SFr 12,500 ($9,975) of a married couple's joint income to be tax deductible, doing away with married couple tax discrimination.

I have a feeling that Swiss visits to Vegas will be picking up in the next few months.

Article is here.

Guess where I went this weekend

Rome, I hardly knew ye

Ever wanted to spend your European weekends lazing around the fountains of Rome? Me too. But thanks to the infinite wisdom of Alitalia, I instead found myself hoofing it around the Rome airport, busting a sweat trying to pass through two passport controls behind a Roman Catholic priest who must have been wearing 10 tons of religious metal. All was made good...

Nyon, Switzerland

Some 9km north of Coppet, NYON – a major town under the Romans which has mellowed into a laconic and attractive little port – is a perfect stopover on a leisurely tour of the lake. The town, on a flattish plain sandwiched between the Jura and the lake, is spread out among fields and lawns which reach down to the water, and is backed by acres of vineyards on the gentle slopes behind. There’s a château and an excellent Roman museum, and the nearby Château de Prangins houses the regional branch of the National Museum. Stop for a while and play some checkers. And if museums aren’t your thing, there’s the option of riding a mountain railway up to the little Jura resort of St Cergue.

Flickr set is here.

Prague, Part 3

I took a taxi to Prague Castle (Prazsky hrad) and found myself with ten million of my closest Japanese, German, Russian, and Spanish friends. It must seriously be annoying to be a local during the tourist months. Attempting to plow through the major historical monuments, I lept into the St. Vitus Cathedral (Chram svateho Vita) in the corner of the footprint of the castle. Security stopped me and asked to see my "ticket". I had apparently stepped into God's VIP section ticketless and would only be able to pass if I coughed up some koruna that would invariably go to help pay for one of the priests to get some monster rims on his Opel. I respectfully shrugged and stepped aside. I am sooo b-list.

It wasn't until later that day that I realized I knew someone in Prague. He was an old high school buddy that had come over from Prague as part of the Rotary Exchange Program. Even though being dumped in the middle of Wyoming in 1994 could be tantamount to Stalinist persecution, he made the best of it and even joined the swim team. We remember him as being the only kid with chest hair. I Googled him from the hotel and sent randomly-addressed emails to his domain, hoping to get the email naming convention right. I received a call two hours later and was catching up with him and his family over beers that afternoon.

We walked to Petrin Hill, a point overlooking the city near the Castle and had a pig knee lunch at Zhlato Tygra, a tiny bar where Vaclav Havel took Bill Clinton for a beer. I departed from my friends and found myself wandering the streets of Prague like a man on a mission.

Trying to take advantage of the last hours I had in Prague, I was a man consumed with trying to see all that I could in the span of 2 hours. I stopped to glance up Ginger's skirt at the dancing building, traversed across Charles Bridge a few hundred times, set up and then cancelled a massage, drank a Pilsner Urquell, made final scores for my hottie:ok-looker ratio (17:42), and found a last specimen of badly used English on t-shirts. I dumped 1160 koruna on the cab ride to the airport, found myself virtually alone in the terminal, jammed out with the bus driver to AC/DC, and cried to myself when I plopped down in my seat diagonally across from a screaming child.


Idea of the Day:

• Follow me GPS tours of cities. This is something that I think Garmin should cash in on. A big complaint of mine is that I don't like touring around a city with the other cattle. I have often skipped big monuments or crowds to find the out of the way places. There should be a website that allows users to plot GPS waypoints in a city and provide a short narrative of their trip. Other users would then be able to download the trips (including waypoints and narratives) and skip around a city instead of constantly referring to their Lonely Planet books and crumpled maps. You could also couple it with downloadable mp3s (like tour guides) that would give you a narrative on the historic value of where you are. If you mash it with a social networking site, you could meet other people whose trips you found enjoyable or meet those people in person in the cities you were visiting.

Gratuitous Copycating of the Day:

• Orbix.cz. Any guesses as to who this website is trying to copy?

Parkour: Drink your milk

If you haven't already heard about Parkour, you soon will. Although the sport originally started in France, it's growing in popularity mainly thanks to the viral videos on YouTube and other sites. One of the guys here in Geneva is a fanatic and it's pretty much a superior temporal sulcus, just-do-it kind of deal. The photo is of him. I'm pretty sure that if I were to do it, I would look like Johnny Knoxville from Jackass.

My buddy's parkour photos here.
More on parkour here and here.
Johnny Knoxville taking one for the team here.

Davis Cup 2006: Switzerland vs. Serbia

Went to the Davis Cup on Sunday and saw the Fed kick the crap out of the Serbs in straight sets. Also clocked my first serve at a consistent 150 kilometers per hour (93 mph). Now if I could only hit a consistent backhand. For reference, we saw some players hitting a consistent 210 kph (130 mph) first serve.

Davis Cup website.

Flickr set of the Fed up close are here.

Recipe of the Day

Nougat is a confectionery made with sugar or honey, roasted nuts (almonds, walnuts, pistachios or hazelnuts are common) and sometimes chopped, candied fruit. The consistency of nougat can range from chewy to hard depending on its composition. It's a pretty common site in the candy bar aisles of stores in Geneva and is addictive as all getout.

680g (1½lb) Sugar
340-450g (12-16oz) Pistachios and Almonds
340ml (12floz) Golden syrup
235ml (8floz) Water
60ml (2floz) Clear Honey
2 Egg Whites
1 tsp Vanilla Extract

• Put the sugar, syrup, honey and water into a saucepan and cook until a temperature of 127°C (260°F) is reached or a brittle ball will form in water.
• Beat the egg whites stiffly and pour the mixture slowly into them, beating constantly until the mixture grows stiff and waxy.
• Then add the vanilla and nuts.
• Mix well and pour into a small box or pan lined with waxed paper.
• When it has cooled sufficiently, cut in squares or slices.

Random Ramblings

Great post on Prodicus about why Switzerland is so nuts. Hilarious.

Prague, Part 2

Remnants of "socialism with a human face" still exist everywhere in Prague - sort of like those "Believe" stickers in Baltimore, except the Prague version would be more akin to "Please don't be so sad". Untouched for the most part by war, the influence of Moscow on the city is clear: spires and domes, heroic Lenin-like statues striking poses, and those fuzzy souvenir KGB hats (imported from China, amusingly). One can only wonder what Praha would look like if Patton had liberated Prague instead of the Red Army. Wandering through the downtown maze of passageways is like walking through your high school during summertime: clean, quiet and echo-y, you can almost hear the chattering voices of ghosts still wandering the buffed-floor halls. It reminded me a lot of the Chicago underground (literal) shopping culture.

I crossed one of the major bridges across the Vltava river and traipsed through Nove Mesto, Stare Mesto, and down the Vaclavske namesti, or the equivalent of the Champs-Elysées for Prague. The goofy souvenir shop : nice shop ratio climbs to astronomical levels as one gets closer to this, the major shopping district of the city. The street was jammed with tourists and I spent the first few minutes becoming accustomed and claustrophic with 5000 of my closest friends as we all jockeyed for the best picture position.

I impulsively walked the streets of Prague past sunset, into the night, and found myself on a narrow street where the clear "ka-chink" of typewriter keys could be heard. I moved closer to the sound and found it was coming from the open window of a brightly-lit, second-story building: the police station. No Microsoft Vista upgrade problems for these guys! I turned the corner and literally ran into three teenagers smoking a small bong and eating FRIED McDonalds pies (they apparently still fry them here). I laughed out loud and drew very paranoid looks from the kids who scattered like cockroaches when the lights come on.

Hungry and tired, I wandered into a small restaurant that had a tiny door and loud jazz emanating from its cavernous depths. I stumbled past the bar and sat down at a tiny, 10-table venue called Red, Hot, and Blues - not anything like it's American counterpart, it is a hangout for struggling artists trying to get enough gigs that will pay for their dinner. A band called Fency was belting out versions of rockabilly and jazz classics in broken English, all while trying to pick up on a table of British tourist girls in the front. I inhaled my pork tenderloin, potatoes, and Stella Artois, listened to a few more songs, then made my way out into the light rain that started to come down. On the way back across the bridge to my hotel, I stumbled across an outdoor film festival that was playing a Bollywood film at ridiculous audio levels. I jammed out for a few minutes, then took my tired ass home.

A few recommendations to the Prague Tourist Council:

1. Get better cabaret promoters. Walking past one of the random cabarets at the end of the Vaclavske namesti near St. Wenceslas square, a promoter said "Come on in. It's sort of a nice place." Wow. Remind me never to get a marketing guy from Prague. In a city where operas and symphony orchestra concerts are promoted as aggressively as cabarets, it's important that you send the right message to win market share!
   
2. Sell out, but don't do it with KFC! Freaking KFCs everywhere! I never thought I would see Czechs swallowing the greasy-ass (but oh so delicious) chicken skins off of a Colonel Sander's breast.
   
3. Only you can prevent horrible t-shirts. I believe that Prague may be single-handedly responsible for the proliferation of tshirts with bad english. Most involve the f*ck word or funny (and nonsensical) uses of English. Where's the industry that sells random Czech slogans to Americans? Why isn't this industry bigger?
   
4. Get better casinos. I walked into a casino and amazed at how it sucked. Our casino nights during rush week at Pi Kappa Alpha were better. The sullen tourists dumped money onto the 3 roulette tables, 4 slot machines, and 2 poker tables. When I wandered through, there must have been around 6 people in the entire place. Sad, sad, sad.
   
5. Cities with a history of espionage are cool. If DC can put together an okay-version of the Spy Museum, I'm sure Prague could do better - especially since it's REALLY a hub for espionage.
   

Ideas of the Day:

• T-shirt shop for Czechs (or other nationalities) to create random t-shirts and sell them to willing Americans who like to see random foreign words on their shirts. Cafepress - time to start mirroring in .cz!
• Ipod-based currency exchanger. Trying to figure out dollar prices from koruna is a bitch. Hey Apple, give us an "Extra" on the Ipod where you can set the exchange rate, thumbroll up to a price, and see the relative value.
  

Flickr set is here.

Uh, that's user error.

$15,000 for one night in a one-star Zurich hotel? What a friggin bargain!

Ninjazz

Waking up late this past Tuesday, I sensed a great disturbance in the force. Picking up a local paper on the way to work, I saw what was creating the rift in time and space. Steven Seagal has a band. Yes, THAT Steven Seagal.

Now, I may have been in Switzerland for close to eight months, but who the hell knew that Steven Seagal had a freaking band? And on top of that, was TOURING? It appears that Steven Seagal and Thunderbox are on a European tour right now. They hit Paris and Geneva earlier this month and are well on their way to promoting their version of bluesy jazz with a flying monkey fist beat across England and Ireland. If it is any indication of how successful the Seagal brand can be, the Steven Seagal energy drink Lightning Bolt seems to be gaining market share among 12-16 year old kids who still think Erika Eleniak is still hot and have that scene from Under Siege on loop.

Prague, Part 1

A last minute flight deal and an acute onset of guilt that I hadn't been taking advantage of my time abroad prompted me to jump on a flight to Prague last Friday.

I was welcomed onto the plane by a screaming, undermedicated child. I have beliefs that the Swiss are undermedicated in general, but I will get into that later. The mother, who suffered from jaw-dropping stunning Czech features, wore an el-gigantor diamond ring which she wielded like a weapon and was able to successfully defuse the anger of the plane with her flirty smile on multiple occasions. I was notified by her child's 130db scream that we had begun our final descent.

Fantastic weather and a 1 dollar:22 koruna exchange rate greeted me. I piled into a cab that was blaring Red Red Wine and observed a landscape that looked much like Montana. Set on a plateau northwest of the city, you can actually see the curvature of the earth from the airport. Nervous that my cabbie was taking one too many random turns, I checked the signal strength on my cell phone. Images of my limp, lifeless body dumped in the middle of a Prague alley -- still on hold with the police -- flashed through my mind.

I was dumped at the Best Western Premier Kinsky Gardens hotel 600 koruna lighter. I unpacked and headed out the door, not realizing that I wouldn't return for another 6 hours.

Apparently, French women DO get fat

According to a new report, nearly 42% of the French population older than 15 years has a weight problem. Almost a third are overweight and 12.4% are obese. Extra-large clothes comprised 22% of French women's clothing sales at the beginning of this year compared with 18% in 2004.

The percentage of women buying bigger C-cup bras rose 7% to 56% between 2000 and 2005. In a related story, Larry Flynt announces the launch of a new French magazine entitled "La Badonkadonk".

Yahoo article here.

Guess where I went this weekend

Cinema au Lac

Back in August, a few friends and I watched "An Inconvenient Truth" on an outdoor movie screen against the backdrop of the sunset on Lake Geneva. It's a rocking setting - even better than Screen on the Green in DC (imho) but maybe comprable to Red Rocks in Colorado.

The movie "theater" was open-air and had a tilting pneumatic-driven movie screen that came complete with its own dramatic music as it tilted. It is built explicitly for the summer (taken down in the late summer) and looks so much more appealing than the existing movie theaters in Geneva.

We drank overpriced beer, ate a complimentary ice cream, watched the sunset (and consequently got quite cold), and felt really guilty about having ever driven a car (thanks Al). Some suggestions to Orange Cinema to make this a more entertaining event:

• Unless they're being served by midgets, midget beer isn't all that funny. Tiny .5 liter cans of Heineken are the sort of thing you expect to find in Spencers next to the sex dice and tequila lollipops.
• Even though the audience for the movie may be more "documentary-friendly" don't use the opportunity to foist a 1-hour amateur documentary on mentally-damaged (ahem, impaired) Swiss people and advertise it as a "trailer".
• Let the VIP seats go. If the jerks don't have the ability to get there when the show starts, they should deserve to be sitting in the front row or nosebleeds.
• Less talky-talk about the movie before you show the movie. It's nice that you can read printouts from Hollywood.com or the New York Times entertainment section, but we have no need - or desire - to listen to you ramble. Don't mistake the tolerance of the Swiss for an engaged audience. In fact, a majority of us in Geneva aren't even Swiss. Watch your back.
• Instead of ice cream, try better giveaways - like trial-period phone service or free phones. Hell, you're competing with Swisscom anyway - why not try and take some marketshare?
  

Link to Orange Cinema is here. Click on Al to be watch the South Park episode of ManBearPig.

Boys In the Hood - Eze / Nice Remix

Woke up quick at about noon
Just thought that
I had to be in Eze-sur-Mer soon
I gotta pack a trunk
Before the day begins
Before Calvin starts bitchin'
'bout original sin

About to go
And damn near went blind
Sun off the water in Eze
Throwin' up mad shine
We went in a bar
to take a sip
With my Casio
On the side of my hip

We walked up the city
And I shuttered my weapon
Just as I clicked,
The fools kept steppin'
We jumped in the bus
Bunch of Irish on our ride
They're front and back
Side to side

Turned up the Denon to hear
I was pumpin' new shit
By Natasha St. Pier
It was Chacun Pour Soi
At the top of the list
Then I played my own shit,
It went somethin' like this:

Promenade cruisin'
In my 6-fo'
Jockin' salopes,
Slappin' the hoe's
Train-ed it to the coast
To get the scoop
Tony Parker out there
Cold shootin' some hoop

A car pulls up,
Who can it be?
Bunch of French students
Rollin Kilo G
They roll down the window
And start to say
It's all about doggin'
That say-pay-ay (C.P.E)

Cuz the boys down in Eze
Are alwayz hard
Come talkin' like Swiss
And we'll pull your card
Knowin' nothin' in life
But the sun and cheese
Don't quote me boy,
Oh Frenchie, please...

Up in Eze
And we wanna get ill
So we hike a jardin
Where some homeboyz chill
The sun is out there
Tryin' to make us hotter
Pulled up to a bar
And drank up like squatters
Greeted with a canette and
I start drinkin'
From the pastis
My breath starts stinkin'
Gotta get some food
And start working those jaws
Before we left
I hit the nicoise

Pulled to the beach
Gotta get off of the pad
And the pebbles on my feet
Were makin' me mad
A rocky-ass beach
I couldn't believe
So I grabbed the stupid rock
and I gave it a heave

Started to rain,
Wouldn't you know?
We turned back like moles
And retreated below

We started to stand
And began to get out
We tipped like Americans
And knocked the waitress' ass out

Cuz the boys down in Eze
Are alwayz hard
Come talkin' like Swiss
And we'll pull your card
Knowin' nothin' in life
But the sun and cheese
Don't quote me boy,
Oh Frenchie, please...

For those that need more historical reference, listen to the Easy-E soundtrack here. Watch the Dynamite Hack version here (much better). To gain an appreciation of Compton 80's rap, click here.

All Your Base

Don't get it? Go here to get some edjamacation.

Roger Federer, Switzerland's Favorite Son

Out of control. Federer working his baby Jesus magic - without the Mike Honcho buttcheek spreading Magic Man magic. Fast forward to 1:22 or so to ridiculous baseline shot.

Flickr Geotagging and MS PhotoSynth

Flickr has just added geotagging to their site. I have to tell you - it's hella fun. Check out some of my photos (and all of the other Flickr community's) here.

I'm waiting for Flickr and Microsoft to team up to use PhotoSynth and Flickr geotagging to create a virtual tourism based on pictures other people have created.

Moved, Again!

Yes. I have once again moved. Which makes this the 3rd apartment I have lived in Geneva in the past 6 months. The trend, however, is generally improving. I have a 5 minute commute to work (walking), can walk to the grocery store, park (across the street), and boulangerie. Living on the top floor of a Swiss house - it's like living in the country in the middle of Geneva.

Big pimpin' at chemin du Pré-Cartelier.

Deathmatch: Verizon Wireless vs. Swisscom

How expensive is it to own a cellphone (mobile to UK readers and handy to you Germans) in Switzerland? Our investigative team aims to find out. We will pit American provider Verizon Wireless against Swiss competitor Swisscom. Both are powerhouse telecom fixtures in their respective countries, owning fixed lines as well as telecomm services. Let's see how they fare head-to-head. So let's get it on!

Assumptions:

• Our callers will place 500 minutes worth of calls a month over the course of 100 individual calls
• We will evaluate the most cost efficient subscription, as of September 1, 2006
• Zip codes selected for evaluation will be 20006 in Washington D.C. and Geneva, Switzerland.
• 50% of calls during night and weekends, 50% during daytime
• No roaming calls
• Costs will be estimated over 1 year (12 months)

Verizon Wireless:

• 450 anytime minutes = $39.99 USD
• Activation fee = $35.00 USD
• Additional minutes are .45 = (50% of 50 minutes) = $11.25 USD
• SIM card included
• Total 1-year TCO: $526.13 USD

Swisscom:

• NATEL Liberty monthly subscription = 25.00 CHF
• SIM card (initial) = 40.00 CHF
• .50 CHF /call up to a max. of 60 minutes; then CHF 0.50 for each further 60 minutes (7x24h)hour = 50 CHF (100 calls x .50 CHF)
• Total 1-year TCO: 940 CHF = $764 USD

Verdict:

Verizon. Apparently, Swisscom's profit model depends on people making short calls of less than 60 minutes. Unless you're a 14-year old girl in a new relationship with the dreamy guy at the front of the class, who is talking hours at a time? Especially if your'e Swiss?

Nice, France - TripAdvisor Remix

Hotel Mercure
Nice, France

"...I really didn't expect our hotel to be like a disco on the outside and a pimpa's paradise on the inside! It's like George Clinton and the P Funk All Stars are in town all the time!"

Cours Saleya Market
Nice, France

"...It's like a medieval version of super Wal Mart, complete with the fish department, produce, and arts and crafts. But with hookers."


Pebble Beach
Nice, France

"...Rocks on the beach? WTF? Someone said "let's go swimming" and I look like the last guy picked for the Competitive Indian Firewalking Team getting there."

The Chateau
Nice, France

"...Something is wrong with this name, but I can't quite figure it out. Ah, how about it's not a f'ing chateau?"

World Cup 2006 Celebrations
Nice, France

"...Worst party ever."

Boobs on the Beach
Nice, France

"...The world must look like a $10.99 Chinese buffet to babies in Nice."

Flickr set is here.

Zurich: Street Parade

The day started out innocently enough. Three-hour train ride from Geneva through Bern to Zurich, reading the daily paper in the abnormaly quiet train car, and seeing the regular student crowd board the train in Lausanne. Then it started. Getting off the train and onto the Zurich tram, we were witness to girls dressed in the "sexy policewoman" outfits running into a gaggle of real officers. We were there with camera in hand. It would get progressively better as the day wore on.

My friend and I walked the Bahnhofstrasse and stopped into a bar to order some cordon bleu (the size of my head) and drank beer from steins the diameter of my thighs. At lunch, a guy in a leopard-print leotard and cape walked in. Turning heads and illiciting wide grins, several patrons asked him to have a beer with them at their tables.

Now getting shitfaced in the afternoon is something I don't typically do, but when you're in Zurich during the Street Parade, you have no reason not to. Watching the massive floats blaring techno music, you could barely hear the people offering you X or Special K. The drug scene during this party is so intense that the promoters have signs saying "No Drugs, Please" plastered over all of the floats. The local authorities have taken an alternative stance: rather than think they can put a stop to all drug use during the party, they provide mobile testing vans which test the quality of the drugs and determine if it is safe to take. They don't arrest anyone. Watching the dudes with t-shirts that made no sense was amusing enough for me.

Beer coming out of my ears, we headed over to the Baur Au Lac hotel (note: everything sounds better in French, even when you're in the German part of Switzerland). Not fully comprehending how posh this place was, we stood outside the velvet rope and waited for my friend's girlfriend to come vouch for us. Like a scene out of E's Wild On, we walked into a world of caviar, champagne, and beautiful people. We scarfed down nibbly bits while trying to seem uninterested in the wildlife bumping and grinding around us. Drunk and hanging with the high society of Zurich's 20- and 30-somethings, we scampered up the stone walls of the hotel's tea garden and watched the mashup of techno, gothica, raving, and alcohol meld together in a beautiful concoction until midnight. We finished off the night traipsing through the refuse-laden streets (think Preakness-size garbage, except with Heineken instead of Budweiser) and found ourselves downing Long Island Iced Teas at Drinx Bar. Violating the age-old addage of "beer before hard", we called it an early night and slept off our fun until 11 the next day. (Post note: the streets in Zurich were clean by 7am the next day).

The next day was more sedate - Cordon Bleu (again) at AlmodoBar, go karting near the airport, and fantastic Thai food at Lily's. My last drink in Zurich ended as wonderfully as my first: singing "My Way" like Sinatra's backup singers with 50 other strangers in Acapulco during karaoke night.

Flickr pics are here.