votes to fulfil their most important campaign promis – turn the state’s campaign subsidies into a beer drinking orgy. Only 4220 people voted for the German Pogo Party, far too few to be entitled to state financing. But at least the guys put the pints down to put the posters up. I guess that’s democracy in action!
Too Much Red for a Brown Candidate
A cold shower before the photo shoot might have been helpful. Or Photoshop – edit, color balance. On the other hand, the worse the NPD’s posters look, the better.
Yes – to healthy food
This is one of the best campaign posters I have seen this year. The Greens definetely had the most creative advertisements, at least on the postters whithout candidates.
Britney at Songramp
A couple of days ago, I discovered a web community of singers and songwriters who comment on each others pieces. So I became a member and put some of the songs you can hear on tapsmusic online there as well. Including one that you cannot listen to here: “Britney“ – a quick song demo about a dream I had last week.
So if you’re interested in finding out what other people think of my song demos, you can check out my page at songramp.com
Update (2014): While the profile page still works, “Britney” is no longer available via Songramp.com, but you can listen to it right here!
King and Queen of… Sweden.
Finally a holiday experience that will impress my grandmother, who is, among many other things, fluent in all things concerning “European royalty.” Well, I suppose as fluent as reading women’s and celebrity magazines will get you in this respect.
So on my way back to Stockholm airport, I saw a tall guy with an earpiece standing in the middle of a road I had to cross. Then the royal carriage appeared and King and Queen of Sweden passed on their way to the annual opening of the Swedish Parliamentary session. Not sure, but it appears to be something like the “Queen’s Speech” in Britain.
Remembering what GWB’s visit to my home town had been like in February this year – remmeber, people who lived close to the place where he met with Chancellor Schroeder had to pass the entire day behind closed curtains not to risk being shot by US secret service snipers on the next building – I was mostly surprised about the relative lack of royal intrusion in people’s lives.
Where Bush had 3 motorways closed as well as airplanes diverted, King and Queen came, greeted and went to the Parliament with amazing royal understatement – despite the impressive amount of cavalry accompanying them.
Hej! from Stockholm.
Despite my still serverely limited mobility I made it to Stockholm for the first bi-annual afoe stakeholder meeting.
Too bad that only a couple of fistfuls came to Sweden this weekend, but it’s great to finally meet some of the people I’ve blogged with for two years now.
Too bad as well that I won’t see as much of Stockholm as I would like because of overly frequent foot-caused coffee breaks.
Too bad, too, that almost all of those coffee breaks are taking place in self-service coffee shops. Waiting is a apparently an activity limited to rel restaurants in Sweden…
Holding up.
Just to let you know, I’m firmly standing on the ground again – using both feet. For those who don’t know. I broke my left foot after attending a “Hooters” concert in June and had to spend most of the summer indoors, which wasn’t too pleasant. Tomorrow I’ll find out how much longer I need those “additional feet”…
News from the School.
Still laughing my head off. Got this from the Guardian’s backbencher newsletter – they did not yet feature it in the alumni newsletter ;).
Congratulations to Monica Lewinsky, who will begin an MSc in social psychology at the LSE next month. Regrettably, the option on Gender and Psychology, which includes a unit on workplace relations, is not available in the next academic year. LSE suggests “Rethinking the [Word Omitted] Body: Theories, Cultures and Practices” as a suitable alternative.
My Wicked Ways, Pt. 2
My Wicked Ways is actually one of the first songs I’ve ever written – back in 1993. Back then I did not write lyrics for the song, so I added those last year when I listened to some of my “earlier” stuff. That’s the reason for the “Pt. 2” in the title.
My Wicked Ways is actually not too wicked a song. It’s a light ballad and you can get the VST based demo as mp3 (128kbit, enclosed). Words, music and vocals by Tobias Schwarz, 1993-2005.
[audio:http://almostadiary.de/download-manager.php?id=3]Dr Deaver (2004)
Dr Deaver is a song with less autobiographic lyrics than some may think.
Actually, I think it was a friend who suggested writing a song about a chapter headline he had read in a British sex education booklet for teenagers. The headline was: “Am I wrong to be turned on by porn?”
While not printed under Queen Victoria, the booklet wasn’t in line with recent progressive trends in sexual education and so the chapter about pornography was – while somehow understanding from a medical perspective – not too enthusiastic about such material’s potential for genital arousal. It was extremely funny to read and so I did indeed decide to write a song about “a guy’s lifelong relationship with certain visual stimuli.”
Dr Deaver wasn’t the author of the booklet chapter, but the name somehow appeared in my mind while I was sitting at the piano. So here he is, with an answer for everything you always wanted to know about porn but never dared to ask. Enjoy – but not too much…
You can get the VST based demo as mp3 (128kbit, enclosed). Words, music and vocals by Tobias Schwarz, 2004-2005.
I wonder how long it will take for google to send people here because of the frequent use of “porn” in this entry… oh wait, I did not use “free”… (oops, now I did).