Whar's Snooker been?

Hey world...
Yeah, it's me. My last post was 5 Feb, and it was really just a video... not exactly a true blog entry, eh?
Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated... (shameless Twaining)

Well shoot, I've been busy. Starting at most recent events ... I've had a nasty cold now for close to a week. Tonight we checked out a Dirk Bleyer presentation on his travels to New Zealand. Quite wonderful! Last weekend we went to Warnemünde on the Baltic Sea for a traditional "German Wellness Weekend" (don't get me started on that "wellness" thing). We saw TINA and Annette Louisan in concert... no, not the same night, and let me tell you, not even on the same level. But both were enjoyable. My dear Sweet No was dragged out for the winter edition of the Lange Nacht der Museen, and she even lived through it.

It was my pleasure to enjoy six movies during this year's Berlinale (the largest publicly-attended film festival in the world) held right here in Berlin. My favorite, "The Yes Men Fix the World" ... and the winner for 80 minutes of wasted time in my life that I'll never get back goes to "Absolute Evil". Outside of the festival, it was my pleasure to also catch the movie "Doubt" with Merryl Streep and Seymour Hoffman. Although it wasn't the best movie I've ever seen, I did find myself thinking about it over and over in the week following. To me, this is a sign of a great movie.

Oh my! Having a cold has given me enough time to watch the entire 5th season of The L-Word. There is nothing like watching a group of hot, well-dressed straight women playing rich L.A. lesbians to put a short term smile on my face... even if it is just for the irony factor.

Within the past week I had the chance to meet up with Adam, That Queer Expatriate for an enjoyable few hours. It must be said that neither one of us was up to par, but we did have a nice conversation. Poor Adam was rather jetlagged and sleep deprived, and I was nursing a crappy cold. We met up in an area of Berlin which is often described as a "gay neighborhood". Funny thing that... I rarely get to Schöneberg, even though I really enjoy the vibe of the area.

Ugh, there is nothing so miserable as a cold that just won't go away. I've been sleeping on the couch the last week. The reason is about 50/50... half that I know I snore horribly when I have a cold and wish to spare Sweet No the irritation. The other half is that when I lay down I feel the overwhelming sensation that I will drown in my own fluids. It is even worse when I realize that most of my colds actually stem out of an allergy problem. So each night I fall asleep in an upward sitting position... it is not something I suggest for people wanting a good night's sleep or those without a healthy dose of Nyquil or a good equivalent.

Speaking of allergies... man, another reason I love the German medical system. Sweet No took a paper from my doctor outlining the fact that I have allergies to dust and the mites that live in beds and bedding and sent it to our insurance company. She asked if they would pay the cost for special casings for the mattresses, pillows and blankets. We immediately got a letter back with the news that they would actually pay the great majority of the cost and even included samples and information packets so we could pick which ones we want. Whoa! They're on the bed now... let's hope that they help me in the future... it is hard to judge when one has a cold already.

This is my first time playing with our new Geek Toy... we bought an ASUS Eee PC which is a NetBook... um, a little itty bitty laptop. The keyboard is 80% of regular size, but the shift keys are badly placed making capital letters a pain. Otherwise it is an interesting experience. We bought it to take places we wouldn't want to take a full laptop, yet we still want e-mail access. Does this make us geeks or what?

Thinking about things which are geek-like, I see that the moist boys J and Cliff have been busy thinking about the Whiney Expat Bloggers Meet-Up... or WE-BUM as Ian has coined it... Sign up here to vote on a location (cough BERLIN) and get your calendars out for a good time figuring out when to have the famously moist get-together.

In another not so interesting fact, I took over a thousand pictures since the first week in January, and managed to find and edit about ten quality images and upload them to Flickr. Here are a few from last weekend.

OK, enough of that mindless whiny babbling.
Back to your regular surfing...