Gummi Farm

With all this winter, I'm in need of some sunny thoughts.

Trolli's "Milch Kuh" are cute and made with powdered skim milk. They're not bad, but they taste a bit too much like milk for me. However, they are full of calcium, and absolutely adorable.

It was hard to do much with disembodied heads, but I gave them some pig friends (from Katjes' "Fred Ferkel" gummis. No idea who he is, but he's cute and apparently also is available in bands of 4 heads stuck together (No, I don't understand, either).

Revenge Is Sweet

On Saturday, my neighborhood bath and body store had an amusing promotion...The Ex-Factor.

 

The flyer reads:

Revenge is sweet...and sometimes it pricks too.

Come to LUSH and take revenge on your ex. Disguise yourself, celebrate with like-minded people, write a message to your old flam on the back of this card and stick it on the Voodoo-Doll hanging in our window.

Free yourself from the old, and who knows who you might meet?

These little blue voodoo dolls actually are part of the Valentine's collection, and are one of LUSH's bath bombs (ylang-ylang scented). 

The description in store reads:

Ex-Factor Voodoo-bathball

Tear his arms off, hack his head off, or stab him in the heart. Then drown him, so that you also get something out of it.

On the website, the ad reads:

Well, not everyone can enjoy Valentine's Day. Especially with a broken heart, it's not easy to bear all the tokens of love around you. Put this little vanilla guy in your bath, when the heart balloons and teddy bears in the shops are just too much and watch as it slowly dissolves in water - representative of your heartache!

    

They hung the giant cardboard voodoo doll in the window, for everyone to put up their notes to exes. By the end of the day, they had collected German, Spanish, English, and the universal symbol for Lorena Bobbit.  

Some highlights:

I curse the day of your birth!!

I'm happy I got rid of you! :)

I want my innocence back!

Hello D, You have destroyed my family! Thankfully now I have someone better.

I hope you learn how to love. You won't be happy until you do!

Thanks for almost 4 year wrecked realtionship with you, P, it was hell! You are an idiot who never took advantage of the chances I gave you. Find someone else. Moron. You have had enough chances. I've found someone who I mean more to and who cares about my health and cancer. You were always the same. Moron, loser, idiot.

You stupid idiot. I hate you! The time I spent with you was a waste of time for me. I hope you have a hard life.

 
Interestingly enough, they don't all look like female handwriting! But if writing an anonymous note helps people feel better (and the store bring in customers), I say go for it!

The Fine Line between Hoarder and Expat

The world is increasingly global....I can now find some of my favorite Thai food products in the store in Germany and I can buy Cheerios worldwide. But i can't find sugar-free Jello in Germany, and my Cheerios cost $8 per box in Bangkok. While you can buy marshmallow fluff and Pop Tarts in the grocery store, most American products have a 50-100% markup in Germany and it's a bit of a craps shoot as to freshness.

Travel takes on new dimensions when you live abroad. It becomes not only a chance to see family and friends, but also a chance to stock up on the essentials.  It's an eye-opening experience to discover about yourself (or others) what really is "essential."  This revelation came to me almost 10 years ago in a Dallas Sam's Club, pushing a large cart full of dinner napkins, jelly beans, tampons, Cheerios, Sudafed and Skoal. An odd combination of things that we couldn't buy in Bangkok, or the local products were such poor imitations as to be unsuitable substitutes. But I had a list of things I and friends and colleagues needed, and "random" is the only word that captures it.

At the time, our company allowed us one huge shipment per year. I made some big orders from drugstore.com and asked my parents to box up some other things, including napkins, paper towels (non-existent there at the time), cereal, and Mac & Cheese. Dad very kindly did that and more, sending two entire flats of paper towels from Sam's and I think 27 boxes of cereal.... Those paper towels had a long world journey, to Bangkok, back to Dallas and then to Germany, where I finally used the last roll a few months ago!

It was great having a few important comforts of home, but my walk-in pantry in Bangkok was neck-high in paper towels and cereal, and boxes of shampoo, hair products, lotion, etc.

When I moved to Germany from Dallas, I was a bit wiser and packed from the start things I thought I'd need. This time it was great products like Lysol Kitchen Wipes, single-serve pita chips and Nabisco 100 Calorie Snack Packs....and lots of random stuff the movers packed up from the kitchen. Including boxes of toiletries (and the paper towels) remaining from living in Thailand.

The pita chips and Snack Packs didn't last long (Stacy's Pita Chips in Sea Salt, how could they last???), but I've found myself reversing course in the past year...trying to use up everything rather than accumulate more. I've used up almost all of the things left from Bangkok and am down to just 2 boxes of things from the move here. But still the closet has a couple containers of Lysol wipes, Dryel, Lubriderm lotion (doesn't burn on just-shaved legs!), and tasty low-carb protein shakes.

These days it's more about buying the things that are super expensive here...mostly clothes and shoes, English books, and DVDs. And only a few of the other essentials that do not exist here....Chocolate Chips, real vanilla extract, sugar free jello, cheap tissue tees from Target, those disposable toilet cleaner things, and warm clothes for the long winter. Winter hiking pants for $25 at Target or €100+ in Munich? Not much of a contest!

I've made major progress using up the stockpiles, but it's still a fight not to (over)stock up on goods while home for the holidays. There is just so much available and the prices much lower. Luckily the increasingly strict airline baggage policies and the European apartments' lack of storage space help combat that urge and keep from crossing the line into hoarder territory.

German Beer Wars: Helles Surf & Turf

 Coming back to the German Beer Wars, we move on to a promising round of Helles beers. Here we have Munich power Spaten against Weihenstephaner, the oldest operating brewery in the world and an asset of the Free State of Bavaria (yes, another reason Bavaria and Texas are long lost cousins). And then the unknown to us Hubauer Urhell vs Tegernseer, the favorite of many locals.

 

We weren't sure what to predict with this tasting...We had only had Spaten at Oktoberfest (and I used to drink Spaten Light at Stan's on Greenville!) and I'd never had Weihenstephaner. The Spaten was a typical Helles - light and drinkable, but nothing noteworthy. The Weihenstephaner, however, had more depth to it than the Spaten and was just a more enjoyable taste. Thus it advanced to face the winner of the night's other game.

Then we had the long-awaited contest...Many here consider Tegernseer to be the best Helles and the best beer in the greater Munich area (Tegernsee is a beautiful lake area a little less than an hour south of Munich). But it's not widely marketed, doesn't have associated restaurants in Munich, and isn't available everywhere. It's mainly known by reputation and word of mouth, rather than any real marketing efforts.

Hubauer Urhell was one we'd never heard of before, and it cost €0.39 for a 500mL bottle. (Most German beer here is €0.59 or €0.89, for comparison, and imports around €2). It was unbelievably cheap, so we weren't sure how it would compare with the others.

The Hubauer was shockingly good - I tasted it first (blindly, as always) and assumed it was the Tegernseer. However, then I tasted the next, and it was perfectly balanced, mild, and super drinkable. THAT was the Tegernseer. Unfortunately for the Hubauer, it was up against what likely will be one fo the top beers in the tournament. Otherwise, it would have advanced past the first round. Just bad luck to be playing against a top seed!

In the Weihenstephaner vs Tegernseer matchup, Tegernseer won the Sweet Sixteen berth. It just tasted better and was very light and enjoyable. I can picture drinking it on a warm afternoon on a patio overlooking the lake.

And for fun, we paired the Helles with a tasty (and low carb) surf and turf. Herr J found some gorgeous French lobster (the ones with no claws), filets, and made his famous feta-stuffed peppers.  Delicious!

Doggie Parking

Living in Munich makes me want to get a dog. It's a great city for being outside, and for travelling around with a dog. They're allowed almost everywhere....on the subway, in restaurants, in bars, and in stores. You can spend a lot more time here with your dog while going about daily life.

And, in general, dogs in Germany are EXTREMELY well-behaved - to the point where many people take them out without being on a leash. It always amazes me to see a dog quietly sitting in a restaurant and not trying to get table scraps. And I hear drunk soccer fans much more often than I hear dogs barking. I guess society here has somehow created a perfect set of rules here...dogs are accepted almost everywhere, as long as they are well-trained. Maybe it's that dog owners here take training very seriously (there are endless dog training schools here), or maybe it's that the bad dogs just are kept home?? Whatever is the key, it works.

Except, you can't take your dog into the grocery store or some butchers. Instead, they have a dog parking zone, with water and sometimes kibbles. This guy is patiently waiting for his owner to return, sitting calmly between the chocolates and the steak bar. Amazing.

Gag Gift Season

OK, Christmas is over.  The season of giving is gone, but that means the end of some holiday stress too, so it's not all bad.  We usually want Christmas gifts to be heartfelt and thoughtful -- hence not knowing what to get someone, the ensuing procrastination, and eventual panic attack on Christmas Eve in the mall with 20,000 other shoppers.  Luckily, other holidays & occasions throughout the year (e.g., birthdays, office events) actually can be more fun for the giver... especially when involving gag gifts.  So now that we're in 2011 it's time to prepare some prank presents for your loved (hated?) ones this year!

You know that person who loves his/her cups o' joe, yet repeatedly claim "I'm addicted to coffee, I need to cut down"?  Riiight.  This is for them.

Empty, the toilet coffee cup has a charm of its own.  But fill it with a light brown liquid and it reaches a higher plane.

The 12-ounce size doesn't discourage consumption, but think of the "plop" sounds when sugar cubes are dropped in...

For your resident Twilight or Trublood freak, forget the movie posters.  Give 'em what they think they really want: a fake IV bag with drinkable "blood".  The seller says it's "energy drink" inside (vs. fruit punch flavored sugar water?).  But do we really want to give crazy Edward/Jacob fans more energy?  Why not put cherry Nyquill in there???

Heck, make the gift a full six-pack of fake Type B!  But watch the reaction very closely... your vampire wanna-be just might enjoy the experience a bit too much.  The seller says you can heat up the product to "enhance the experience"... that's a bit scary, huh?

So fake blood is passe?  Let's up the ante a bit.  Who wants a scorpion pop!  Yup, these treats contain an honest-to-goodness crunchy arachnid inside.  Every bit (technically) is fit for human consumption, and they come in assorted flavors and scorpion species!

The seller's ad copy is funny:  "Since we believe in truth in advertising, someone at Stupid.com had to actually eat one so we could describe it properly. The boss was elected since he's the only one with health benefits. Though it is hard to describe, we CAN tell you that it DOESN'T taste like chicken."  Alternate uses could be:  fraternity pledge requirements, fraternity dares, heck, anything involving intoxicated fraternity guys.

Let's get back to a classic gift:  the wall calendar!  You can find them with adorable dogs, Ansel Adams photos, city skylines... but wouldn't your friends rather have Her Majesty's Prisons of England adorn the cubicle?  Each month has a photo of "twelve stupendous slammers including four bonus Welsh nicks".  This is, after all, "England's fastest growing industry".  Love the UK humor.

You may also choose from the more pedestrian "Best of British Roundabouts" & "The Birmingham Outer Circle 11 Bus Route" calendars (on the same web page).  Other options are the Extraordinary Chickens calendar, or the 2011 Bunny Suicides Calendar (the illustrator needs anti-depressants, I think.)

Finally, for your old buddy who thinks he's the next Tiger Woods (perhaps in more ways than one), it's time for him to man up.  It's time to tee off using camouflage golf balls.

It's a new idea on the trick golf balls that explode on impact or won't roll straight when putted.  Unfortunately, it's the most fun when used on people that find it the least funny... know what I mean?

Signs of the Apocalypse

Farmville for Dummies:

Available February 2011 (or for preorder on Amazon)

Sadly, this will probably sell a million copies. Though I didn't realize Facebook games needed 288 pages of instructions and strategy...

 Ed Hardy Crossstitch:

I'm just perplexed by this one. When I make a mental Venn diagram of people who cross stitch and people who like Ed Hardy, I just see two circles with a lot of space between them. Maybe Grandma is cross stitching Ed Hardy as a gift for the grandkids??? I just can't wrap my head around how this product works.  Ed Hardy does have some beautiful designs, but that is unfortunately overshadowed by who adopted the shirts and hats as their daily wardrobe.