A Shoe is a Shoe is a Shoe

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Shoes unveil the differences between men and women. That's one of my basic beliefs.
It seems that women buy shoes because of the color, the style, because it's Wednesday or to have them prior to the other girls.
Guys have shoes for a purpose. Just for a purpose. And if a guy has more than just one pair of shoes one can assume that he has to deal with more than one special situation.
I thought about looking at things that are considered as "typically girlish" from a men's perspective and "the shoe prinicple" was the result.
Well, to be honest, I was surprised how many special-purpose-shoes I have. It's a little bit womanish, don't you think?

I added several notes to the photo. You have to click on it to see the notes on Flickr.


This photo is my contribution to the task "Guy Things" of my Flickr group "Project: Glimpse". See the group's page for more photos and infos about its weekly tasks.

Inner Humidity

Do you see the drops on the window? It's no rain on the outer surface but humidity from the inside.
The band "Queens of the Stone Age" played a few songs unplugged in a small record store in Erlangen for free. I have no clue where all the folks knew about it but the room was incredibly packed and after a while it was like a sauna. Dunno whether this was a good thing for the CDs the shop wanted to sell but I liked the short gig, though.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to come close to the "stage" and the photo above is only the blurry crop of an overhead-shot.

Poetry Slam

Finally I visited a Poetry Slam - kind of unexpected.
It's an event where everyone can enter the stage and read own short stories or poems. I just "visited" the slam - I didn't participated.
It was amazing how full the pub was - I never expected so many (mostly young) folks to be interested in such things.
The lectures ranged from short poems about catastrophes over vampire stories and rapped texts to very powerfully eloquent fictions about love.
Finally a girl from Berlin won. It seemed that this wasn't the first Poetry Slam she attended but she was very worthy. Her name was Sookee and she smoothed my ears (and my head) by piling up words so artful that I felt almost speechless with the few simple words I use in my all days life. Well, at least it showed the power and beauty of my language which is not a bad thing.
There was another girl reading two texts named "Plase don't stop" and "Please stop" that were very inspiring to me. The reminded me of my Lifeworthy-Lists. Actually I wanted to ask her whether she could eMail me the stuff but of course I missed her. Always the same.

I tried to force my friends (and one stranger) into writing some instant poems using the form of Japanese Haikus. I wasn't very successful and all I got was one Haiku from a friend and one from me. Maybe the themes we chose were too weird. The themes were "Katzengras" (cat grass) and "Marmeladbrötchen" (jam roll).
I'm not going to translate the Haikus and the stranger told us that they are extremely bad but it was fun to invent them. Probably I should stop bothering the world around me with stupid tasks.

Oh, just in case you are not familiar with Haikus: Mostly they consist of 3 lines with exactly 17 syllables in summary - five for the first line, then seven and 5 syllables at the end.


Katzengras
Möbel von Ikea
Nachttischleuchte vom Aldi
Dazu Katzengras

Marmeladbrötchen
Ein Bismarckhering
Ach - viel lieber wär ich ein
Marmeladbrötchen




It's been a while since I wrote (counted?) my last Haiku. Although I don't plan to attend at a Poetry Slam I already found myself counting syllables with my fingers while driving home. Am I a poet now?

Up the poets!

Just Add Eyes

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The sandwich of my colleague looked somewhat strange. I looked at it until I found out what was wrong with it.
It was an alligator and just the eyes were missing. Just by adding two coffee beans from the table decoration the sandwich turned into its real destination - an sandwich alligator.

In so many situations I'm aware that I'm pretty close to the core of it but I don't manage to find out what's missing to make it clear. I really have to improve my skills in adding eyes to my life.

Car Wing

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I have a water wing around the shift stick of the car I drive around with.
In Germany we say a car is "swimming" when it comes to aquaplaning and having a water wing could help then, couldn't it?

Maybe one should have some kind of water wing at hand for aquaplaning situations in life. Hopefully there's enough breath left to inflate it then.
Mmh, actually one needs both wings to make it work. Unfortunately I have only one left.

This photo is my contribution to the task "Car Interiors" of my Flickr group "Project: Glimpse". See the group's page for more photos and infos about its weekly tasks.

Sales Girl Princess

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There are working days and there are princess days.
Working days are not necessarily bad but the are, well, common.
A princess day has at least one short moment that lifts your spirit and inspires you.
Most of the time it's hard to make a day a princess day but it's surprisingly easy to help others switching their day into princess mode.

The girl on the photo was the sales girl in an accessory shop in the Main Station in Nuremberg. While shooting some photos in the shop I asked her what of the products she like most was never bought so far and whether she's waiting for someone to buy that special thing. She had no idea what I was talking about.
I couldn't believe that she hasn't a favorite product.
Then I saw that princess diadem and asked her whether she wants to be a princess for a moment. She was very very reluctant at the beginning but then the royal pride found its way out and she turned into a princess for a short moment. Just long enough to shoot a photo.
I'm pretty sure that she started to look for her favorite product right afterwards.
Hopefully she had more princess moments during the rest of her working day.

Ok then, next week has to be a princess week - respectively a prince week in my case.

Here are some more photos from my today's Digipirsch through the Nuremberg Main Station and the Underground.

Invented Family

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Having breakfast without company is usually ok for me, but not always - especially on weekends.
How about simply inventing some kind of breakfast family? I did (Photoshop helped a bit) but I only managed to create brothers.

What shall I say - they are kind of difficult and have strange breakfast habits.

Mh, due to the fact that they are clones of me, it could mean that I'm difficult, too, couldn't it?
Well, I guess I'm at least acceptable for having brunch with.

Please click on the photo to see the notes on it on Flickr.

This photo is my contribution to the task "Family Habits" of my Flickr group "Project: Glimpse". See the group's page for more photos and infos about its weekly tasks.

Panic Course

"Panisch Kurs" means "Panic Course".
I saw this poster in a pub in Nuremberg. Actually it was an advertisement for a Spanish training (=Spanisch Kurs). The first letter of "Spanisch" was covered by an other poster and it changed the meaning completely into a “Panic Course”.

How would a panic course look like?

"Hello, I'm Udo, your panic instructor."
"Today and during the next few sessions you will learn how to panic. I don't mean that whiny-help-murmuring kind of panic but the screaming, howling, jumping-for-salvation kind of rush-of-blood-to-the-head-panic."
"You are newbies regarding panic. You have no idea yet how hysterical you can be. I will enlighten you".
"Today we will discuss the nature of panic. By the end of today's session you will be able to perform a very convincing oh-my-god-there-is-a-spider-beside-my-bed panic."
"Next week we will concentrate on I-don't-have-anything-to-dress-and-today-is-the-date-of-my-life-panic".
"Future lessons will be about Titanic-life-boat-fighting-panic and iphone-big-sale-panic".
"And now I want to hear you moan! Are you ready for the panic of your life? Damn, I can't hear you. Are you ready?"

Oh, by the way: Don't panic, it's only my imagination.

----

This was my post number 500. A long way since the beginning of 2006. Many many words, a huge pile of photos and a lot more of my inside that I imagined. No idea where this leads to but it's still fun doing this blogging thing.

Hautend Castle

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Once again I strolled through Nuremberg with my camera. This time I tried to do some nightly HDR photos of the Emperor's Castle.
I really love this part of Nuremberg - especially in warm summer nights.
Well, the summer is already gone but the autumn did what the summer wasn't able to do - turning the castle into a haunted place. I almost heared the ghosts.

The light spot in the sky isn't a ghost but the light the Business Tower is beaming into the night.



Here are some more HDR photos from my today's nightly Digipirsch.

Hey, this is post #499 - the next anniversary is close.

Mind Mustard

In German there is the saying "seinen Senf dazugeben". Literally translated it means "to add the own mustard to something".
In the figurative sense it means to comment something (mostly without being asked for).

I just had a short chat with a friend and the term "Gedankensenf" (mind mustard) came up. We immediately started to think how mind mustard would look like.

Sometimes my head is so full with mind mustard that I fear it fights its way out of my head - probably through the ears. Thoughts, ideas, questions, fears - just overwhelming from time to time.
What would happen if one doesn’t let it out - would the head simply explode?

At the moment I'm grinning because my current mind mustard imagines the girl that kisses my ear right now and doesn't dare to ask whether it smells like mustard. OK, it's very unlikely but a funny thought. On the other hand she would run away after I explained that I put mustard in my ear and published the photo in the Internet.
Maybe the mind mustard should stay where it was created - INSIDE my head.


Inspired by Löwensenf Extra

Countly Loads

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I love street musicians. This one was very loud. He played "Country Roads" kind of awkward. The funniest thing was that he wasn't able to sing a "r". It really sounded like "Countly Loads" and it didn't matter at all.
That's simply Lock'n'Loll.

Bedside

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The place where you sleep is supposed to be one of the most intimate places in your apartment, isn't it? Well, then I must be a lunatic to post photos of it into the Internet.

Why do so many sleeping places look like blue Swedish furniture stores? It's really frightening.

I don't like my sleeping room much and I'm constantly thinking about how to make it more cosy. My first step should be to buy a new matress and build a platform to put it on. I don't like real beds much.

Any proposals appreciated.

The photo has some additional notes on it. You have to click on it to see them on Flicr.

This is my contribution for my little Flickr group "Project: Glimpse". The task for this week was "Bedside".

Troy von Balthasar and Tocotronic

Troy von Balthasar

The German band Tocotronic played at the E-Werk in Erlangen.
The gig was quite OK but not a super highlight.
Again the support act was more interesting for me - a very strange guy called Troy von Balthasar. He looked like a psycho and rolled around on stage.
The Tocotronic folks were a bit too pseudo-intellectual for me. Probably I'm just not smart enough for their music.


Troy von Balthasar's Footwork


Dirk von Lowtzow from Tocotronic

(Don't) Touch Me

I really think that some statements mean just the opposite than the written or spoken words.

Did you ever say "no" meaning "yesyesyes"?

Sometimes when I get "no" for an answer I ask "do you really mean 'no' or did you mean 'actually yes but please ask me three times more'?". On the other hand I do no-but-actually-yes-things, too.

It's really strange how often we behave quite contrary to how we feel.
Maybe some of these statements are just calls for disobedience.

For some reason I think about opposites or paradoxias things very often these days.

The sign above hung around the neck of a giant Teddy Bear in Frankfurt.
An old lady saw us making photos with the chalk board and the Teddy and found the idea with the opposite statements kind of funny. I asked her whether I can take a photo of her holding the "Touch Me" chalk board but she was too shy (although she was apretty cool).
But she allowed me to shoot her hand holding the board.
Do you see the shoe? The lady told me that this is her dancing shoe and that she just came from dancing. It was at around noon and she said that old persons don't dance at night but in the morning.

Could be a cool thing to start your day, couldn't it? Unfortunately I can't dance at all.