Recently on Facebook (any collegian's best friend and time-waster) I've noticed a fairly new trend, in which various friends write 25 things in a note and tag other friends, who in turn post notes of their own. I don't necessarily have any +/- feelings on this particular phenomenon, nor is that the point of this post. I was simply curious as to the origin of this particular trend. With MySpace, such trends are often commonplace, if not somewhat expected. Why now? Why with notes on Facebook? Part of what inspired this particular blog is the unexpectedness of this note thing. To be fair, I too wrote a note about this particular topic, but in writing, I found that it is rather hard to conjure up 25 things about one's self. In addition, it raises the prickly problem I (and I'm sure it is by no means restricted to me) have with social networking sites. At what point do our private and public lives separate? Where is the line between appropriate and "over-sharing" get drawn? I found myself wondering about that as I went through my own list.
Anyway, to those of you interested in what I deemed random enough to share, here is the list in all its glory.
1. I love the word potato. And pistachio. I have no idea why.
2. I have full-on dialogues with myself (posing/answering questions) even with others around.
3. Rather unfortunate, but I am a hopeless romantic.
4. I hate sharing a bed. But I can sleep anywhere.
5. I sleep like a rock.
6. I have really random, often disturbing thoughts about things.
7. I have real issues with my weight, and cannot stand the nickname "Big Boy."
8. I would love to move back to Texas.
9. I love watching movies. I know no one else that has seen as many movies that I have.
10. I am excellent speller, and cannot stand (I mean it) when other people misspell things. Its so irrational but there it is.
11. I tend to regret a lot of things, and wish that I was a better person sometimes.
12. I wonder what people think about me, and how I get related to other people by my friends and acquaintances.
13. I wonder if I can think of 25 random things about myself.
14. I am one of the biggest nerds you could meet.
15. I love comic books (and graphic novels), and can read them all night and day.
16. Encyclopedic knowledge frequently coincides with occasionally epic failures.
17. I can sleep all day and stay up all night.
18. I love not sleeping. Its so bizarre, but sometimes I like to see how long I can go without sleeping.
19. I would like to rob a bank.
20. I am really rather secretive. I keep them well, and like secrets for some reason.
21. One of my all-time favorite things to do is to lay out on the sidewalk on really hot days and soak up the warmth.
22. I can't swim in bodies of water where I can't see the bottom.
23. I have been religious and atheistic at different times in my life.
24. I am left-footed, left-handed, and generally prefer things on the left or that associate with the left-hand side.
25. I have a coin that I regularly use to decide things.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Odds and Ends
Those of course, would be the odds and ends of my body that have been progressively freezing off. When the high for your lovely city has been hovering around 20 degrees (and that's being generous), you tend to redefine your notions of cold.
A while back, a couple of requests were made for a summary of great Belgian beers I enjoyed on my way to representing my country in the clink for a night. Here they are in all their glory (ratings subjectively assigned by my beer connoisseur buddy and roommate)
Tripel Karmeliet (10)
Orval (8)
Rochefort 10 (8)
St. Feuillien (8)
St. Bernardus
Malheur (7)
Waton Tripel (8)
Rodenbach (6) We weren't wild about this one for reasons since lost to history.
Hop-It (8)
Dominus (7)
Cuvees des Trolls (9)
Le Trappe Tripel (8)
Duvel
Kwak *These last two are probably some of the more common Belgian types and are somewhat excluded from the more elite of Belgian brews.
Finally, I would love it if some of you lovely readers would regress with me and indulge in some postal correspondence. Send me a line with your address and I will endeavor to write you post, and feel loved as my postbox is filled with things other than pizza fliers. My address here in Berlin is:
William Jacobson
Wrangelstrasse 71
Berlin, DE (Deutschland) 10997
A while back, a couple of requests were made for a summary of great Belgian beers I enjoyed on my way to representing my country in the clink for a night. Here they are in all their glory (ratings subjectively assigned by my beer connoisseur buddy and roommate)
Tripel Karmeliet (10)
Orval (8)
Rochefort 10 (8)
St. Feuillien (8)
St. Bernardus
Malheur (7)
Waton Tripel (8)
Rodenbach (6) We weren't wild about this one for reasons since lost to history.
Hop-It (8)
Dominus (7)
Cuvees des Trolls (9)
Le Trappe Tripel (8)
Duvel
Kwak *These last two are probably some of the more common Belgian types and are somewhat excluded from the more elite of Belgian brews.
Finally, I would love it if some of you lovely readers would regress with me and indulge in some postal correspondence. Send me a line with your address and I will endeavor to write you post, and feel loved as my postbox is filled with things other than pizza fliers. My address here in Berlin is:
William Jacobson
Wrangelstrasse 71
Berlin, DE (Deutschland) 10997
A Little Slice of Americana Pie
So, to start 2009 with a bit of blog bang, I thought a sweet double post would do the trick. The first part is actually blog, the other a bit of odds and ends and posting of answers to comments and things.
This holiday season, our noble adventurer (i.e. Me) was home in the good ol' US of A for some well-earned R&R. Now before you get all up in arms over me not seeing you, I need also mention I was only home for a scant 10 days, 2 of which were consumed by travel. Which, by the way, is a novel concept when one lives in Europe. My time was spent in the company of my wonderful family, with many anecdotes, adventures, and good times too numerous and of a familial nature to post here. It bears mention that I had enough pizza, burgers, and glorious tacos, burritos (I'm thinking of you Cancun) and general American cuisine to catch me up on my supposed deficiencies this fall.
However, I was slightly hesitant to post a blog, especially a travel blog, on a trip involving a return to my home country. Wouldn't it be just like going home? I spent a lot of time contemplating such a question. My problem is this: Just where am I from? Does it involve where my family lives? Where they're from or I'm from? Part of my identity is so rooted in a sort of geographic free-form that for me to not write about going on a trip to America would be counter to who I am and where I'm at as a person right now. In that same sense, after really integrating into a German/European mindset and worldview (to some extent anyway on that last point) it was utterly fascinating to experience America as someone who had never been here. I mean that in the sense that obviously I knew where I was and recognized things I knew and loved, but in a very real sense, a lot of things felt very foreign. The sights, the smells, the weather, simply everything, but particularly the land itself. Distances in California, and having places sufficiently far away to drive to, but still in the same state was simply mind-boggling! I can't understand how people come to terms with just how big America, or even California really is. Driving to my mom's in lovely but remote Humboldt, is roughly the distance from Berlin to 3 different European countries.
Anyway, to close, California and my family was great, but I must say it was quite another very odd sensation coming back to Berlin. It felt like when I left, that I had had a good time, but that it was time to get back home and in the swing of things. Which of course, set my mind in motion once again. Is home really where the heart is, or is it where we make our place, our niche in the world?
This holiday season, our noble adventurer (i.e. Me) was home in the good ol' US of A for some well-earned R&R. Now before you get all up in arms over me not seeing you, I need also mention I was only home for a scant 10 days, 2 of which were consumed by travel. Which, by the way, is a novel concept when one lives in Europe. My time was spent in the company of my wonderful family, with many anecdotes, adventures, and good times too numerous and of a familial nature to post here. It bears mention that I had enough pizza, burgers, and glorious tacos, burritos (I'm thinking of you Cancun) and general American cuisine to catch me up on my supposed deficiencies this fall.
However, I was slightly hesitant to post a blog, especially a travel blog, on a trip involving a return to my home country. Wouldn't it be just like going home? I spent a lot of time contemplating such a question. My problem is this: Just where am I from? Does it involve where my family lives? Where they're from or I'm from? Part of my identity is so rooted in a sort of geographic free-form that for me to not write about going on a trip to America would be counter to who I am and where I'm at as a person right now. In that same sense, after really integrating into a German/European mindset and worldview (to some extent anyway on that last point) it was utterly fascinating to experience America as someone who had never been here. I mean that in the sense that obviously I knew where I was and recognized things I knew and loved, but in a very real sense, a lot of things felt very foreign. The sights, the smells, the weather, simply everything, but particularly the land itself. Distances in California, and having places sufficiently far away to drive to, but still in the same state was simply mind-boggling! I can't understand how people come to terms with just how big America, or even California really is. Driving to my mom's in lovely but remote Humboldt, is roughly the distance from Berlin to 3 different European countries.
Anyway, to close, California and my family was great, but I must say it was quite another very odd sensation coming back to Berlin. It felt like when I left, that I had had a good time, but that it was time to get back home and in the swing of things. Which of course, set my mind in motion once again. Is home really where the heart is, or is it where we make our place, our niche in the world?
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