You can say that again

In Berlin, I saw two signs that I really enjoyed.

Wait a minute, you moisturized with text books.

Unfortunately, this ad isn't as funny as it seems; in reality it is encouraging us to spend less money on beauty products and more money to help children fulfill their basic needs.


This one is pretty self explanatory and EXCELLENT! Sorry that it's a bit blurry, but I took it with my cell phone.

You love cheerleaders!

You love cheerleaders!

This was my mantra as I tried to convince three young men to get out of bed on a Saturday morning to watch my friend Caitlin and her fellow cheerleaders at a promotional event. You wouldn't think that young men, or men of any age for that matter, would need a lot of prodding to go see some cheerleaders, but these men were no easy sell.

First of all, they're German. I believe they saw the cheerleaders as a strange and misplaced form of American culture, which they are. I however, tried to use this as its quirky selling point. Furthermore, these are smart masters student boys who like history and culture, so cheerleaders might not have done it for them quite as much as say, the Pergamon Museum for example.

Benny, Johannes, and Christian waiting for the show to begin.

In the end, however, I won. I'm not sure if they accompanied me because of the boobs and the midriff tops or if they were somehow unable to resist my feminine charms or if, perhaps most likely, they just went out of pity for me.

So what was this cheerleading extravaganza?

E-Sports Tournament

Huh?

Yeah, that was my reaction too. E-Sports are electronic sports, as in video games. And this was a tournament of the best video game soccer players in Berlin, the region, the world? I dunno. Can't really tell you. Caitlin and her troop were, however, really cheerleading, not e-cheerleading. They were there "for the men in the crowd", although I think the average age was like 11, so I guess they meant for the guys with me and the dads. Unfortunately, we had to wait for ages for the cheerleaders to go on and the whole thing to begin because Giovanni, the B-rate celebrity that was hosting this thing, was taking his sweet time getting there.

Giovanni being a bad ass on the red carpet with his cheerleader escorts.

For this picture I asked Benny to make a pissed off face. The thing I like best about this shot is the fact that we interpreted pissed off so differently but both look really pissed off. We were sick of waiting.

I think this is my favorite picture because you can just feel Christian's excitement about the cheerleaders.

In the end we went into the movie theater, listened to a bunch of crappola about eSports, saw one dance from the cheerleaders and then got the hell out of there. I managed to waste a good part of everyone's day, for which I very much hope they will someday forgive me.

Oh yeah, I got some free popcorn too. That was kind of cool.

I heart Berlin

Berlin was, as always, a good time.

The field trip (i.e., the reason for the trip) was a success, albeit a pretty silly one. I say silly because it is not only the streets of Berlin that are filled with goons, but the political foundations, international organizations, and television stations as well. We had two jam-packed days of activity, including the Federal Foreign Office, Deutsche Welle TV, the Arab League/League of Arab States, the Heinrich Böll Foundation, the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, and the IfA gallery.

I'd like to write more about the trip but lesson planning is nipping at my ankles, so I'll have to save that for later. In the meantime, I invite you to look at the few Berlin pictures that I took.

Berlin, Februar 2007

Pretty much the greatest music video, umm . . . EVER

OK Go - Here It Goes Again

Don't tell me this doesn't terrify you

Yes, it's true: these pictures are from my home. Sent to me by my dear parents, they document the stunningly terrifying Moon/Antarctica cross-over that is Wisconsin. Amazing really, since we've barely felt winter at all in Germany.

The funny thing about not really having winter is that I have begun to convince myself that I can handle the cold. I believe that the reality of the situation is another -- it's not actually that cold outside and thus I'm not freezing. No actual adjustment has taken place in my body. Most unfortunate really.


Any-hoo, I'm off to Berlin tomorrow and have no idea what my time, motivation, or internet access will be. We'll see what happens, but I wouldn't worry about it because I'm not wild about being away from the dear blog for all that long.


Goodnight my friends; sweet dreams!

who did they made the tuba

Well my friends in Mundelein, Illinois, I don't know. Your question, however, is valid: Who did they made the tuba? And yet I still wonder: Did you find the answer to your query on my blog? I would dare to say, no.

The title of this blog entry is the string of words that a person/some people in Mundelein, Illinois typed into Google and to which my blog came up as one of the top hits. And so the question is raised: How do strangers find their way to my blog. Until recently, my blog was accessible mainly to people who knew the URL. Then I got greedy and decided that I wanted more readers (more readers, muaahahaha!!!) and made the blog public. Since then a slow trickle of readers has appeared, among them our curious friend from Mundelein, Illinois. The interesting thing is that I can see the terms used to search for a webpage in google. And thus I found the search phrase "who did they made the tuba". This is how people come to my site. What does this mean about me? About my site? About my readers?

I dunno, but I'm going to bed. Thanks for all the advice about my sore bum. My almost doctor friend, Kai, totally backs you up on that going to the doctor thing. I'm going, I'm going.

How long should this hurt?

Around Christmas I fell on my bum. The situation was this . . . wait . . . this might get embarrassing fast. The long and short of it was that I fell out of my chair once and then my friend Stefan thought it would be funny to pull the chair out from under me when I was getting back up. Haa haa.

My bum still hurts.

Well, not my bum exactly, but my tailbone. Is this normal?

I looked on the internet and it said that a bruised or fractured tailbone could hurt for ages and, get this, that I should be sitting on a donut cushion while it heals. I don't know about you, but that sounds slightly demeaning to me. But who am I kidding, I'm the one writing about my bum on my public blog.

Anyhoo, if anyone has experience with such things, let me know. You've all got bums, so I'm sure one of you has bruised it before.

I'm saving my own life!

My good friends at Harvard University just let me in on some great great news: I'm saving my own life! And how am I saving myself? No, I haven't accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior and I suppose doing that only promises to save your soul, not your life. I take naps!

"A study that followed more than 23,000 people for six years showed that regular napping can cut deaths from heart disease by as much as 37 percent, providing a benefit in the same order of magnitude as that linked to lowering cholesterol, eating a healthy diet, or exercising."

And what I think I like most about the study is that it was carried out by Dimitrios Trichopoulos, a Greek scientist. The reason I love this fact is that my friend Stelios, a Greek Cypriot, is the biggest advocate of the siesta that I have ever met. You've got a problem? Stelios will advise a siesta. You just ate? He'll tell you to take a siesta? You're nervous? Siesta. It's Tuesday? Siesta. You get the point. This culture appreciates the joy and practicality of the nap.

So do something good for yourself without even feeling guilty -- take a nap!

The hidden evils of Ladie's Night

Thank God injustices like this are coming to the forefront.

Christmas Food Come to Life

After a long stretch of avid blog writing, I seem to have entered a short phase of writer's block. Well, not really writer's block. That might imply that I had some ideas but just couldn't get them on the page. No no, this is the far simpler problem of just not having any ideas at the moment.

However, this isn't your fault and you're obviously upset about it. I get comments and e-mails either encouraging me to write more or commanding me to do so. And I hate very much to disappoint my readers because it is very kind of them to read in the first place. To remedy this problem I decided to look at Maria's blog for ideas. Mainly I was looking for pictures of our weeks together that would make me laugh and think of a story to tell you. It took about 36 seconds for me to find such pictures.

The theme of today's entry, as you can see above, is 'Christmas Food Come to Life' and documents the animation/reanimation of two items of food, a cookie and a tomato. The cookie was meant to have personality--that's how we made him--but the strength of his personality and his liveliness could never have been predicted. My friends, I give you the Italian moon man.


Needless to say, we ate him last.

Our second case of food come to life is this tomato from our deeeeee-licious Christmas pizza. Now the amazing part about the tomato is that neither Maria nor I can really take credit for his creation, he just was. What is somewhat alarming, however, is how a creature that came into being through the creation of a delicious pizza would look so terribly angry. He too was eaten in the end.


So there you have it, Christmas Food Come to Life.

I knew there was something fishy about Google

The technology behind Google's great results

As a Google user, you're familiar with the speed and accuracy of a Google search. How exactly does Google manage to find the right results for every query as quickly as it does? The heart of Google's search technology is PigeonRank™, a system for ranking web pages developed by Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Stanford University.

Building upon the breakthrough work of B. F. Skinner, Page and Brin reasoned that low cost pigeon clusters (PCs) could be used to computer the relative value of web pages faster than human editors or machine-based algorithms. And while Google has dozens of engineers working to improve every aspect of our service on a daily basis, PigeonRank continues to provied the basis for all of our web search tools.

Why Google's patented PigeonRank™ works so well

PigeonRank's success relies primarily on the superior trainability of the domestic pigeon (Columba livia) and its unique capacity to recognize objects regardless of spatial orientation. The common gray pigeon can easily distinguish among items displaying only the minutest differences, an ability that enables it to select relevant web sites from among thousands of similar pages.

By collecting flocks of pigeons in dense clusters, Google is able to process search queries at speeds superior to traditional search engines, which typically rely on birds of prey, brooding hens or slow-moving waterfowl to do their relevance rankings.

When a search query is submitted to Google, it is routed to a data coop where monitors flash result pages at blazing speeds. When a relevant result is observed by one of the pigeons in the cluster, it strikes a rubber-coated steel bar with its beak, which assigns the page a PigeonRank value of one. For each peck, the PigeonRank increases. Those pages receiving the most pecks, are returned at the top of the user's results page with the other results displayed in pecking order.

Integrity

Google's pigeon-driven methods make tampering with our results extremely difficult. While some unscrupulous websites have tried to boost their ranking by including images on their pages of bread crumbs, bird seed and parrots posing seductively in resplendent plumage, Google's PigeonRank technology cannot be deceived by these techniques. A Google search is an easy, honest and objective way to find high-quality websites with information relevant to your search.

Data

PigeonRank Frequently Asked Questions

How was PigeonRank developed?

The ease of training pigeons was documented early in the annals of science and fully explored by noted psychologist B.F. Skinner, who demonstrated that with only minor incentives, pigeons could be trained to execute complex tasks such as playing ping pong, piloting bombs or revising the Abatements, Credits and Refunds section of the national tax code.

Brin and Page were the first to recognize that this adaptability could be harnessed through massively parallel pecking to solve complex problems, such as ordering large datasets or ordering pizza for large groups of engineers. Page and Brin experimented with numerous avian motivators before settling on a combination of linseed and flax (lin/ax) that not only offered superior performance, but could be gathered at no cost from nearby open space preserves. This open space lin/ax powers Google's operations to this day, and a visit to the data coop reveals pigeons happily pecking away at lin/ax kernels and seeds.

What are the challenges of operating so many pigeon clusters (PCs)?

Pigeons naturally operate in dense populations, as anyone holding a pack of peanuts in an urban plaza is aware. This compactability enables Google to pack enormous numbers of processors into small spaces, with rack after rack stacked up in our data coops. While this is optimal from the standpoint of space conservation and pigeon contentment, it does create issues during molting season, when large fans must be brought in to blow feathers out of the data coop. Removal of other pigeon byproducts was a greater challenge, until Page and Brin developed groundbreaking technology for converting poop to pixels, the tiny dots that make up a monitor's display. The clean white background of Google's home page is powered by this renewable process.

Aren't pigeons really stupid? How do they do this?

While no pigeon has actually been confirmed for a seat on the Supreme Court, pigeons are surprisingly adept at making instant judgments when confronted with difficult choices. This makes them suitable for any job requiring accurate and authoritative decision-making under pressure. Among the positions in which pigeons have served capably are replacement air traffic controllers, butterfly ballot counters and pro football referees during the "no-instant replay" years.

Where does Google get its pigeons? Some special breeding lab?

Google uses only low-cost, off-the-street pigeons for its clusters. Gathered from city parks and plazas by Google's pack of more than 50 Phds (Pigeon-harvesting dogs), the pigeons are given a quick orientation on web site relevance and assigned to an appropriate data coop.

Isn't it cruel to keep pigeons penned up in tiny data coops?

Google exceeds all international standards for the ethical treatment of its pigeon personnel. Not only are they given free range of the coop and its window ledges, special break rooms have been set up for their convenience. These rooms are stocked with an assortment of delectable seeds and grains and feature the finest in European statuary for roosting.

What's the future of pigeon computing?

Google continues to explore new applications for PigeonRank and affiliated technologies. One of the most promising projects in development involves harnessing millions of pigeons worldwide to work on complex scientific challenges. For the latest developments on Google's distributed cooing initiative, please consider signing up for out Google Friends newsletter.

So if you saw this when it came out on April Fools' Day in 2002, you're way cool. Oh wait, you forgot to tell me about it? Not cool. Many many thanks to Fabi for the heads up! Ah yes, here's the link to the original.

PS If any other blogger can tell me why the text spacing is irregular in some of the paragraphs I may well bestow upon them my eternal love.

You'll never know fear or pain like this

Dear fellow iPod owners,

I guarantee that you have no idea how dependent you are on your iPod. No idea.

Until Monday evening, I was also in the dark about my intense emotional dependency. I was at the grocery store, doing what one does there (y'know, buying groceries and listening to music), and I heard a *crackle crackle* mixed in with the music and then silence. I was immediately certain that it was the headphones. "Crap headphones," I thought to myself, "I'll have to get some new ones ASAP." I think I then added a mental "Stat!" to really hit home the urgency of the situation to myself. Later that evening I thought of going to the gym without my headphones and it instantly became clear that I could never stay put on that crap elliptical machine without either some rockin' tunes or This American Life, so I asked Patty if she had any headphones. Indeed she did and she was cool with lending them too me, even though they were the kind that go in your ear and she doesn't even know what kind of ear hygiene I have (by the way, I have really good ear hygiene). New headphones in hand, I decide a test run is in order: I plug them in, I scroll around on the strange little iPod wheel to find a song, I press play, I wait, I wait, I wait--you get the point. Nothing. I try plugging it into my speakers. Nothing. I start to shake. Stay calm, Claire, stay calm. Look for iPod box, find iPod box, look at receipt and warranty information: warranty ran out on January 3. Shaking resumes. Depression sets in instantly. How could this be? Just one year with my iPod and this is it? I felt like I had been dumped by my soul mate--how could I continue living without the iPod?

Now this is the part where most of you are thinking "Claire, you are just way too nuts about your portable MP3 player" and this is also the part where I tell you, if you are a portable MP3 player owner, that you just don't know what it's like until you go through it.

Alright, to make a long story, well, not short but less long at least, I can tell you that I eventually got the idea of restoring the factory settings and low and behold the iPod caressed my ears with its sweet sweet melodies again.

Moral of the story: To avoid immeasurable pain and anguish, make sure your iPod is still under warranty and if it is, buy the extended warranty. And just acknowledge to yourself the fact that you are totally in love with it and couldn't live without it.

The bliss of an iPod brought back to life.

A appreciative snuggly moment with the iPod.

Finally a good wine came and found me!

After almost a year of living in my current apartment and thus shopping at my current grocery store (because it's by my house, duh), I have finally located a cheap and tasty wine there. You may not know this, but Germany is a country which is filled with good, cheap wine. Maybe not as good and as cheap as . . . well . . . actually it's pretty comparable to the other European countries I've been too and far far superior to the United States. For those of you who are not from the United States, you may be shocked to learn that we pay a minimum of $7 for a bottle of wine. It is usually bad wine. In Germany, I generally refuse to pay more than 3.99 Euros for a bottle of wine, unless perhaps a really hot guy is coming over . . . then I might pay upwards of 4.99 Euros. So anyways, the point I'm trying to make is that although this country generally has an abundance of cheap, good wine, the wine buyer at my grocery store has generally proven himself to be a complete loser in the white wine department. Until today when an innocent, and very cheap bottle of Graubegunder from the Pfalz (Dad, you may sadly remember that there is almost no wine from the Pfalz in Baden-Württemberg) found me and delighted my palette with a crisp, dry flavor. It's a delightful light, white wine that will surely become a part of daily life here on the Steinlach. Thank goodness for the Pfalz!

My life, it's a good life

I know, I know, I've been ranting a lot about pigeons lately. But most of you know me and you know how I am -- I get excited. I got excited about pigeons and excited about ranting and I went with it. It did, however, finally occur to me that you might be interested in what is going on in my life and so here it is, Claire's life update.

As you may have seen in a previous post, 2007 started with a bang in Barcelona, where I had a marvelous celebration with Maria and all of our great Dutch friends. Since then, my classes at the university (all two of them!) have gotten up and going again, as have my English classes.

Although the uni stuff is less than thrilling this semester, my English classes for the quarter are very promising and I think that they'll be very fun and rewarding. Mondays I teach Business 3, which is small and not very exciting (sorry Business 3 folks!). Tuesdays I teach Business 1/2, which is a pretty large class (10-11 people) but one which I hope will be rather lively. Then Wednesdays I have the seniors, who are a beginner bunch and as the name implies, are all over 60. This class is a new one for me (the others carried over from last semester) but I love them after just one week! It's a group of just five students but they're very sweet and quite funny, so I'm looking forward to all we have to teach each other in the coming months. Then Thursdays I have the aptly names "Thursday Morning Conversation", which has been my favorite class for quite some time. This class is coincidentally comprised of just women and we have a fabulous dynamic together. We have a few new comers to the group this quarter and I'm optimistic that they will only add to our group. These groups classes plus my two privates make for a pretty intense English schedule, but I like it and it pays the bills (well, some of them), so that's a positive thing. I also get an incredible high from teaching. I don't know many people who get all wound up from being at work, so indeed I am a lucky lucky lady.

As you may have seen on the "What's Hot" List, I got a fantastic book called Stitch 'n Bitch from Sarah and have been spending quite a bit of time drooling on it. It's a very hip and very fun book about knitting with cool patterns and the key to true knitting empowerment: how patterns are made and how to change them. So pretty much all I think about now is knitting and if it were possible or not idiotic, I would quit school and become a craftswomen. That would rock.

Hmmm . . . what else is new? Well, my parents finally got Skype, which is exciting because it means we can talk on the weekends when they are in the phoneless world of the cottage. And . . . ummm . . . well, I think that might actually be about it. And it's my bedtime, so I'd really best be heading off. I hope that everyone is keeping their chins up during these cold, dark months!

Smooches!

Clueless

I officially have no idea who the 1000th visitor to my blog (since November). Said visitor was viewing my page from the Saarland and running Windows in German (yes, the truth comes out: I know these things about you). And to be honest, I don't really know if I know anyone in the Saarland. Yes, I've been to the Saarland and I know some people there, but I don't think they know of my blog or are interested enough in me to be reading it . . . so if you feel like it, 1000th visitor, identify yourself and you'll get the prize. If not . . . well, then I'll keep the prize.

Be my 1000th visitor! Win fantastic prizes!

Ladies and Gents,

I'm proud to say that we are nearing the 1000 guest mark! Well, to be honest, I imagine we've long since past it--you see I only started counting in November. But I'm missing the point here: 1000 is an exciting number! Thus, the 1000th guest will receive a pair of white cotton gloves to commemorate my Christmas fun. Think of the wonderful soft hand you will have with your bandmaster glove on and all the marching bands you will be able to direct! I can probably figure out who you are from the blog counter, but if you happen to notice the number 1000 on the counter in the lower left-hand corner when you're on the page, give me a heads up in the form of a comment!

Village of the Winged

In the comments for the last post, Maria requested that I share the movie that I made for her birthday last year about pigeons with you. What follows is the product of much love, many hours of procrastination, and months of annoyance caused by pigeons directly outside my window.





Just to explain a few things:

- Staniel is on of Maria's nicknames for me.
- I know that it should be "Alles gute" and not "gutes", whatever.
- I had to put this video on this IFilms online thing to put it on here and since yesterday, two people had watched it and gave it 3 our of 5 stars, which I think is actually pretty good.

Pigeons: To what end?

"Pigeons are gross and fairly ubiquitous in all metropoli, leading me to wonder who would buy one? You could just walk up two blocks to Plaza Catalunya and catch a gimpy one for free. But to what end?" - Maria Gruending, January 21, 2007, comment to last blog post

The sale of pigeons does indeed raise the question of why one would want one and what one would do with one when one had one. My first thought was to send messages with it. You know, the old carrier pigeons -- you could tie a note to its leg and it would fly to the desired person.

Now this thought of carrier pigeons led me to do some pigeon research and the results were alarming. Absolutely alarming. In what way alarming? The quantity, the sheer mass of information on pigeons.

The first thing I read about the pigeon didn't actually surprise me, because it is something that I became alerted to by being a German speaker, and that is that pigeons and doves are in the same family. In German, both the pigeon and the dove are called "Taube", which I find most insulting to the doves of this world, but the Germans pay my words no heedance. At any rate, their are more subspecies of pigeons and doves than I care to count and they all look suspiciously like pigeons if you ask me.

The common pigeon, which we all know (and hopefully despise), is called the rock or feral pigeon and it is native to Europe, North Africa, and Southwest Asia. By some streak of bad fortune or more likely stupidity, the rock pigeon was introduced to North America in 1606, more specifically, to Nova Scotia (a shout out to all my peeps in Canada!). And while I dislike pigeons very much, I was quite impressed to read that among the things that pigeons have been trained to do is to differentiate between impressionist and cubist paintings, although on second thought, that's really no great feat . . .

Also fascinating are the efforts to rid cities of the pesky animals. In Tübingen we have a pigeon house that is used in pigeon population control. You see, they lure the pigeons in with this cushy mansion of a place and then steal their eggs and replace them with plaster eggs. Imagine waiting weeks and weeks only to find that your 'baby' is simply made of gypsum. And considering pigeons ability to differentiate between different periods of painting, they may well be able to differentiate between real and plaster eggs. Although really, the fact that they're still living there says a lot. Either they haven't noticed or they think they've hit the jackpot -- lay all the eggs you want and no kids to take care of (they're not called kids, they're called squeakers or squabs).


Ken Livingstone, London's mayor, has issued a ban on feeding pigeons in Trafalgar Square. Brilliant idea, Mr.Mayor, brilliant! If only the animal rights activists didn't feel the need to write a musical number about it . . .

Alright, so at this point both my depths of my distaste for pigeons as well as my wealth of interesting pigeon information is coming to an end. But before we go, did you know that pigeons, like flamingos, produce "crop milk" to nourish their young? They make this "crop milk" stuff by "a sloghing of fluid-cells from the lining of the crop" which is an upper part of their digestive track -- yummy.

Which brings us back, although I'm not at all sure how, to the carrier pigeon. I left this for the end because of it's totally freaky and disturbing nature -- you know, for effect. Here, my dear friends, is a picture of a carrier pigeon.


It doesn't even carry anything! It is actually the homing pigeon that can carry important messages written on thin paper very long distances. If I were the homing pigeon I would be pretty t'ed off that the ugly carrier pigeon took the good name, but who am I to say, maybe the carrier pigeon has a superior personality to the common and homing pigeon and isn't actually as despicable as I assume.

Also, for more interesting and helpful information on animals, see my previous post on porcupines and hedgehogs. The comments after it are really fantastic as well. During the course of my research I also found this blog about pigeons -- once again, not sure what to think. Certainly someone on the other side of the debate but even though I'm a pigeon-hating extremist, I can still listen to what the other side has to say.

Do outdoor pet stores fascinate you too?

This is an outdoor pet store in Barcelona. Las Ramblas, the main pedestrian street of the city that runs from the middle of the downtown to the Mediterranean, is loosely organized into different sales areas: there's the flower sales area, the tourist crap sales area, the street performer area, and the outdoor pet store area. Actually, the outdoor pet store area is pretty much at the beginning of the street and was thus one of the first things that I saw in Barcelona. I was then and remain today completely baffled by this phenomena.


As you may or may not be able to see from the pictures, these are pretty much fully functional pet stores. They've got toys, cedar chips, fish nets, leashes, food--pretty much the whole shabang. And they have a surprisingly wide array of pets: fish, bunnies, turtles, gerbils, hamsters, etc.


And then there are the "specialty" store. I noticed that one outdoor pet store seemed to have pounced on the niche market of poultry and fowl. They had a pretty decent assortment of not only chickens and roosters, but also quails and the kind of birds that you really only think about in connection with rich British people wearing smart hunting jackets, sleek boots, and of course a hat, accompanied by teams of well-trained dogs on some kind out for a hunt on a brisk British day . . .

And then came the really and truly alarming part of the whole experience: they sell pigeons! Those dirty, idiotic birds that I do detest! Perhaps even worse than pigeons and people who feed pigeons (see the What's Not Hot list) are people who sell and buy pigeons.




So what do you think of the outdoor pet store? As previously mentioned, I'm completely captivated by the whole thing. Somehow it is just far enough outside of the realm of my known world to really tickle me.

May I remind you that buttermilk is not a sports drink?

Dear Friends,

I'm here with a public service announcement: Buttermilk is not a sports drink. Water is a sports drink. Gatorade and its electrolyte-filled friends are sports drinks. I'll even give you protein shakes if you're a body builder (or maybe just a poor student rower). But I hate to break it to you that butter milk, pictured here in its German version: Buttermilch, is not a sports drink. It's not refreshing and for all I know all that lactic acid might make your muscles more sore . . . although actually, I don't know that to be a fact or even scientifically defensible.

At any rate, I saw someone at the gym today drinking buttermilk and I was shocked and appalled. Let me repeat, shocked and appalled. As a child, my friend Sara and I payed her little brother, Travis, to drink buttermilk because we found it so revolting. He went for it. Today, living in Germany, I find that many people actually enjoy drinking buttermilk. In fact, the geoscientists that I used to work with claimed to be addicted to drinking buttermilk. It's just not right! Buttermilk is for pancakes and . . . uhh . . . I don't know what else, but definately pancakes. If this upsets you too, give me a shout out because you guys have gotten a bit lax about commenting lately and it's gettin' me down.

Man from the internet enjoying buttermilk, thus giving consumers the false impression that it is delicious and refreshing.