It looks like someone hacked into rateyourmusic.com and replaced all the uploaded album cover images with rather silly ones. Have a look before they fix it.

I just hope they have a backup somewhere, or this is going to be a major pain.

It looks like someone at rateyourmusic.com is having a bit of fun on April Fools' day and has replaced all the uploaded album cover images with rather silly ones. Have a look before it's back to normal again.

Every time I leave the local Saturn store with an empty wallet and a plastic bag that has lots of stuff (like CDs, DVDs and similar items) inside and the slogan "Geiz ist geil" ("it's cool to be a scrooge") on the outside, I realize that

a) I am a walking oxymoron
b) that slogan is utter nonsense.

During my entire workday at university today, I did not see a single female student who had her hair dyed red with henna.

I remember that back in my student days, 20 years ago, it was almost as if you didn't qualify as a student if you were female and didn't have henna-coloured hair.

I see a definite generation change going on here.

1. What the German wikipedia has to say on Chet Baker is more like a travesty than an encyclopedia entry. I suspect that they are making their entries so bad on purpose, so that anybody with actual knowledge who happens to come across these entries will invariably feel forced to correct them. Maybe that is how the famous "self-correction" of wikipedia really works.

2. Translators. Sometimes they are a real mystery to me. Why would someone translate this:

An undated fragment of the 'Willowdale Triangle' they found caught in a tie informed them that Wobbling Rock had finally fallen on a family having a picnic.

into this:

Noch am selben Abend passierten sie das sogenannte Mattenwaager Tripodiment, welches als Naturwunder galt. Es war genau in diesem Augenblick, daß der balancirende Felsblock hinabstürzte, eine mehrköpfige Familie, welche sich auf einem Ausflug befand, zerschmetterte und fortan nicht mehr als Naturwunder, wenn auch noch als Seltsamkeit zu betrachten blieb.

3. I wonder if (1) and (2) could in some way be expressions of the same fundamental principle.

Update: I have completely rewritten the wikipedia entry. It was just too awful. Let's see how long this one lasts before someone changes it again.

There were these two people, a man and a woman, sitting at the next table, and after they had stopped complaining about the Bollywood music (what do they want, this was after all an Indian restaurant), they had this conversation, of which I understood only fragments. The interesting thing about this was not just the man's changes in sound volume, but also the subject matter.

WOMAN: And did you totally unintelligible sentence; in fact I have no clue at all what she said
MAN: Yes. A couple of totally unintelligible words. But if didn't get what he was saying I'm going to barf all over myself.
WOMAN: Totally unintelligible sentence; in fact I have no clue at all what she said.
MAN: I tell you if unintelligible words I'll barf all over myself.
WOMAN: Saying yet another thing that I didn't understand.
MAN: Oh definitely if what the hell is he saying I can't understand a thing I swear I'll barf all over myself.

In the meantime, the two doctors on the table to my right were exchanging gory details about intestinal surgery.

Just kidding. About the doctors. The guy who was ready to barf all over himself was very real, unfortunately. I don't know what exactly his problem was, but I was totally convinced that he was definitely going to barf all over himself if I did the wrong thing. Whatever that may have been. For the next hour or so, until they left, I didn't dare to move.

Apparenty there's a scientific explanation for it. But sometimes, when an unusually large amount has accumulated over a particularly short period of time, it still scares me.

I ought to do some writing. Some real writing, not like the stuff I've done recently, which was mostly filling out the tax report, writing reminder letters to people who owe me money or letters of endorsement for people who seem to be very nice, but who I still don't know.

It's weird to recommend someone you barely know to someone you don't know at all. And difficult. And don't ask me how I did it. I just hope this works out in some way.

No, some real writing, like I ought to put out Messages from the lost continent, which I would do instantly if I finally got to talk to all the people who were involved in writing it and settle the terms under which we'll share the debts or profits that will come from this project once it's out on the market. That is, if I finally kicked myself in the body part that I usually sit upon to finally get going and talk to all these people.

Some real writing, unlike the To-Do lists that I should be writing to finally get some things done.

Some real writing, like perhaps that MSc thesis I'm supposed to be working on, but am not working on because (a) other things are creating the impression of being more urgent and/or more fun, and, more importantly, (b) other people keep borrowing the books I need from the library, that is books which weren't really there in the first place and which are only there because I had them ordered because I needed them, and now everybody else seems to want them and get them and I'm the one who doesn't get them because our stupid library system allows each borrower to have each book for a full month, so I have to wait f'ing six months until I'll get some of the books, meaning I'll get them at a time pretty much after I'm supposed to submit the finished thesis, and I'm having no idea how to get to my sources.

Some real writing like the eighth and ninth short story that are supposed to be in my collection which was supposed to be out in November but which was held back because (a) I thought those two stories should really be in it and (b) I'm still not convinced it's a good idea to publish a book of short stories written in English with a publisher in Germany, but then none of the publishers in England that I wrote to found it worth the hassle to even respond to my letters, so this whole thing looks like it's delayed, like, indefinitely. Unless I finally write those stories and publish it in Germany.

And in between all this, I suddenly start buying and listening to Curtis Mayfield records, of all things. What is wrong with me?

Anyway, some real writing, unlike this rambling that's going on here at the moment, this whining without direction which, if you've actually read this far, is probably boring you stiff by now. Actually, I wonder why you've made it until this point, because, frankly, today's blog entry sucks in a major way. And that is mostly because I felt like filling some space with words, even though there isn't really anything to write about.

This is the kind of writing that I hate.
This is the kind of writing that shouldn't be published.
It's the kind of writing that, along with cat pictures, gives weblogs a bad name.
And if you find this interesting, then you're sick, or a social voyeur, or both.

No wisecrack comments please. I'm not in the mood for them and will delete them mercilessly.

This seems a good a time as any to take a break. I'll be back on 1 May.

Check the Events calendar if you want to see/hear me before that.

Original Faith Healers merchandise from 1991 which Joe brought along to the concert on Thursday.

Click the pictures above to see more photographs from th' Faith Healers concert on 20 April at 93 Feet East, London.