Paradissimo: From Istanbul to Constantine's Nipple

Disclaimer: This blog was written in a watercloset on the train to Freiburg.

I just returned from a trip to the Ottoman Empire, which was renamed Turkey in 1923 in honor of the quintessential American holiday, during which patriotic participants find special occasion to stuff their bellies and watch large men in tight pants pile atop one another, all in the name of thanksgiving. There, I failed to learn either of the correct spellings of Bosporus (alt: Bosphorus) Strait, but I did manage to style my hair (right: douche.jpg) and understand how a nation's location at an arbitrary boundary between continents caused it to have strategic importance, beauty, and uniqueness, just like my hair.

Monday morning we had relations with the head of a Turkish economic organization (i.e. corporation). The talk was interesting for a reason completely unrelated to the talk itself, namely that the Turkish PM had recently pooped in his pants during the Davos Conference, which brought his family great shame. Later we had another meeting where we learned stuff that we could have deduced on our own.

Afterward, we visited the Sultan Ahmed Sausage Factory. Sultan Ahmed garnered a lot of criticism for building a sausage factory that produced six types of sausage, because the only other sausage factory with six types was in Mecca. To fix this problem he invented a new kind of sausage and gave the recipe to Mecca, which is the only place where you can get those types of sausages today. Anyone up for a pilgrimage to Mecca!?

After the Sausage Factory, we got to watch a ceremonial gangbang, which is a common ritual perfomed only by men trying to feel connected to each other. The ritual began when 12 men, all dressed in robes, entered the room brushing their teeth. Sometimes they brushed their own teeth, while other times they brushed someone else's teeth. After twelve minutes, their nipples were very protrusive and they formed a circle with one of them in the middle. We couldn't really see what was happening because the eleven men shrowded the one man with their dark robes, but there was a lot of slow gyrating for 10-15 minutes and then everyone fell on their backs, shook their arms and legs in the air, while the one in the center shouted the 99 names of Allah in spiritual ecstasy. This lasted for another 15 minutes or so, with everyone bellowing the Muslim version of "woof" at the end of every name.

Stanford History XXX Initiative

The Stanford History department has recently launched a new campaign to provide students with better information about their living spaces in an effort to dampen campus-wide discontent with Student Housing, which is at an all time high. In a press conference last week, Paula Findlen, Department Chair, told the media, "We're calling it the Stanford HistoryX (XX) project. And as soon as you hear the details, I'm sure you'll agree our nomenclature is more than fitting." Using the history department's pithy human resources, as well as our precious tuition funds, the history department is building a database that tracks all previous fornications that happened in your bed prior to your arrival. "Students will soon be able to find out how many and which people have fornicated in their beds and are encouraged to report their own fornicatory experiences--including self-fornication--to the HistoryX (XX) Project," said Paula. The History department promises to expand the project to include frequency and duration statistics as soon as they can get more than ten students per year to enroll in their major.

Terror in the Stalls

The Stanford CSI Lab has finally made headway on the mysterious and highly annoying case of the 3rd Floor Men's Bathroom peeer-pooper-shower-destroyer. CSI explains they had long been sidetracked by the most plausible and likely of scenarios: uncoordinated offenses by multiple offenders. Authorities have been quoted as saying, "We were so busy pursuing rational theories that we forgot to consider the least plausible, most unlikely one!" When the removable showerhead grip was broken sometime last week, CSI chalked it up to just another douche who made a mess, left the broken piece in the shower for someone to cut his foot on, and didn't even bother to file a FixIt. But Detective Willy Johnson--who on multiple counts has been ridiculed for his blind, unwavering faith in the goodness of mankind--refused to attribute this vandalism to a simple act of human douchebaggery. According to him, "The answer was right under our noses [and in the toilet]. We just had to sniff it out [of the poop]." CSI now claims to have strongly tied the case to a single culprit: "The vast body of evidence suggests that a fixed-thumb animal, most likely a bear, is responsible for numerous incidents of pissing on the floor beneath the urinal, clogging the toilets, and most recently mauling the showerhead in a misguided attempt to operate it without opposable thumbs." Johnson will be awarded a Scooby Snack for his brilliant deduction. The CSI provided the following composite sketch for mass circulation:

Parodissimo: Not for the Faint of Heart

The doctors explained to me that the ghosts I saw were hallucinations brought on by the house beer at Sasasas, which is laced with angel dust. At first I didn't believe them, because sometimes at night, when I hid under the covers, I could hear the ghosts talking to each other. When I told the doctors, they gave me a prescription for chlorpromazine, and I haven't heard the voices since. They claim it's a treatment for schizophrenia, but I think what it really does is harden your eardrums to the frequency of ghost whispers. They also encouraged me to distract myself with work and fun time, so I decided to start a club with my friends called the House Entertainment Managers' Organization for the Restful, Relaxing, and Healthy Optimization of Interscholastic Drinking and Sex (HEMORRHOIDS). Basically, we do a little research, gather some supplies, and peer pressure as many people in the program to come with us and do our bidding on Thursday nights.

The first official took place last Thursday night, where we went out in the bitter cold with flashlights and tried to melt the snow into cool patterns by having sex in it. At first we were divided on what shape to make. Several people wanted to make a giant penis, but I thought that was immature and too self-referential, so I headed a contingent of people in favor of melting a giant unicorn. After much heated discussion and some rash words and harsher fists, we finally settled on a comprise: a well-endowed unicorn. Unfortunately, we had an extra guy, so rather than sharing, we decided to draw straws. Short straw had to choreograph. Jordie got the short straw and I felt bad for him (and also I didn't want to hook up with Kelly P) so I traded with him secretly. It started out well, but then some people got out of control and the would-be unicorn turned out looking more like a defecating buffalo. We were still proud of our overall success, and it being only 8 o'clock, we decided to head to a top-rated microbrewery to celebrate with food and beverages. The food was pretty standard but the beer was seasonal and different: they offered light, dark, lime, and fizzy flavors that you could mix sort of like Ben&Jerry's half-baked ice cream. I got a mix of dark and fizzy called a "Black 'n' Curly," but I got to have at least a sip of the entire PowerSet (you know, all the subsets of the set of beers), 15 in all. My favorite sip was the mix of Light, Dark, and Fizzy called the "White Chocolate Fudgesicle-in-my-Pantz Danz," although "El Gringo" (Lime, Dark, and Fizzy) was a close second, which had an amazing taste.

After the Brauhaus, we took the S-Bahn one stop over and chanced upon a bar called the Castle Woofenstein. Inside was a vast array of televisions, selling adorable puppies at fluctuating prices, kind of like the stock market, but more realistic. The 9 of us went in on a Brussels Griffon for EU$7.50, which seemed awesome at the time and but turned out to look like this in the morning:

Despite his hideous face, Chewbaca Nowakka (which is his temporary name until we find him a better) is actually really fun to take out on the town. He's really spunky, attracts a lot of attention, and is a great wingman. Two of us even managed to get girls at a club called Boobcookies to dance next to us on the dance floor. I'm pretty sure Chewy could see up their skirts, which will be a huge bonus once we set up the doggy-cam. All of the clubs here have really very clever names, here are some of them: Klub Sandwich, Bar None, Breakfast, and Dave Matthews Band Club.

During the days before school, so Sunday night, Monday night, Wednesday night, Thursday night, and Tuesday night, everyone has strictly enforced mandatory nap-time. The trains stop running and the club management brings out sleeping mats and blankets for everyone. Then they play music of hit artist David Hasselhoff, which seduces everyone into a swift, pleasant coma. So if you decide to go out during the week you basically have to commit to sleeping beside a dozen perfect strangers, all of whom could have been potential bedmates given different circumstances. On the other nights, so Friday and Saturday nights, the transport runs all night, but because of the HEMORRHOIDS, we've had two really long nights on Thursday so far, and will probably have many more. ;-)

On Saturday we went out again, which meant staying in and playing drinking games to Ducktales: Tale of the Lost Lamp. Hewie, Dewie, and Lewie are so awesome, you guys, it's so easy to drink when they do something awesome. Then we ended up at Club Sandwich, which, as you'd expect, has multiple levels with slices of bread in between--quite clever of them, really. One room was techno, another was hip hop, and another was ballroom dancing. Every now and then, one of the rooms would launch a club raid, which meant bringing a boombox into the middle room and challenging the other music genres to a dance-off. Team Techno started it up with Sandstorm and a hella tight synchronized raving display. But Hip HoppAz would have none of it and You Got Served! them back to the toolbox with a blitzkrieg of crunk steps. Finally it was time for team ballroom dance, who initiated the whole dance-off and therefore earned the privilege of going last, kind of like in war, when one side declares war and then gets to wait for the other side to attack them while they fortify their defensive positions. Anyway, they started off with a Lindy Hop to Hip Hop music, totally stealing the thunder of the Hip HoppAz, and then they Waltzed them right off the stage with a beautiful rendition featuring music from Disney's Swan Princess. It was in an old factory or warehouse, and the smoke didn't condense too much.

The European Club scene is very weird, at least compared to what I imagine we are used to as Americans (I've not actually been clubbing in the US). So many people smoke and drink and hit on each other, so everything is smoky and just kind of grungy because of it. Not like in American clubs, which are always fun and trendy like in the movies. People also dance very strangely. They somehow manage to move their limbs and torsos on pace with the music, as if they have reached some sort of audiobiological synchrony. Girls don't like to dance with creepy guys, which led to some very funny experiences for me, as my hair is pretty long and I think I look like a male model. One guy in particular in the program had trouble adjusting to this the first couple times we went out. So both at club Boobcookies and at Soda, he asked me if I thought I looked like a male model with my luscious long locks, to which I replied: "Absolutely I do." Then we went to the dance floor, where I kept a safe distance from the German girls, who were all giving me come hither looks. It was hilarious, just because all the girls wanted me and I was so out of their league. Good times.

On Saturday morning, a friend in the program found out that Oasis was playing in Berlin on Sunday, and even though we found tickets for only 40 Euro, Oasis only has one good song, Wonderwall, which isn't even that good after you've heard it a couple times. Then we found out the opening act was Corky and the Juicepigs, who also have only one good song, Gay Eskimo, but it's just so freakin' hilarious, that we decided to go. The concert was played in a giant stadium and after the Juicepigs, Oasis arrived on helicopters, one for each band member. We thought they were going to make an awesome landing, but instead they stayed in their helicopters and played from the air. They're one of those bands that really stand behind the acoustic guitar and don't use any amps, so it was pretty hard to hear them through the raging vortex of helicopter rotors, but I could tell from a distance that they were playing mediocre. Their last song was I Am the Walrus by the Beatles, but midway through the performance, Yoko Ono showed up and begged them to stop because if John Lennon could hear them, he'd be rolling in his grave. Then she left a small, worthless orange tree that symbolizes peace.

The week after was pretty monumental because it marks the longest I've gone without skipping class since I arrived at Stanford: one week. I'll have a more detailed blog about what happens in classes real soon (a small hint: it has to do with learning useful knowledge that will help us be successful in the future). Anyway, last night we had pretty epic HEMORRHOIDS. We decided to play the S-Bahn ring rainbow game. There are 2 lines of the S-Bahn which make complete circles around the city; there are 28 stops in a full circle, and with roughly 2 minutes in between each stop, there were a lot of colors to collect. The goal of the rainbow game is to collect as many colors of lipstick rings around your ring pole as possible. I told my host dad that we were doing this, so before I went out he made me drink a spoonful of olive oil, which he said would help me keep my flag pole firm so I could last for the whole 28 stops. It was BYOL, so the girls went out beforehand to make sure they all had different colors. Then we went around once, dropping a girl off at each stop. There were only 15 girls, so the other stops were challenge stops, which earned you major bonus points if you got a lipstick ring. There were 4 booths of 4 next to each in a little section, so us guys squeezed in there, hung out and drank.

By the time we had made it all the way around the first time, we were bored, so we decided to ditch on the game and head back to club Boobcookies. None of us were female, though, so the Cookies refused to let us in for some reason, claiming it was because we had too many guys apparently. Pshya, whatever. At that point in time, we felt a little guilty about leaving the girls hanging, so we headed back to the S-bahn and finally started the game. The girls were all a little angry though, that we took so long, so in the post-game wrap up, everyone's scores were really low. By the time it got to me, the winning count was only 4 colors, only one of which actually came from one of our girls. Apparently, he'd cleaned up in the bonus rounds, though to tell the truth, one of the rings looked drawn on. He was so proud, so I didn't have the heart to tell him that I went 16-3 with an overkill and fifteen head shots. Herr Papa was right about that olive oil...

Agent of Death of an Innocent

I was recently responsible for the brutal murder of a young deer. I was running late at night along a dark road, which is already scary enough if you're the kind of person who imagines battling mountain lions, slaying them, and then fending off the other mountain lions that converge on your fresh kill. Every time I hear something stir in the brush, I double my pace, hoping the pounding of my shoes and the power of my run makes me seem bigger than I really am. This time I heard the rustling directly in front of me so I slowed down, and sure enough, a dark form darted out in front of me. At first I though it was a small predator, but as soon as it stepped onto the road, I could tell it was a deer, young, sleek, and bounding across the road like a giant jackrabbit. Really, it looked like a giant hare, with legs built like springs. The headlights illuminated it so well.
I don't remember if I was standing or running, but the outcome was so certain I saw it happen before I experienced it. Car speeding down the road, deer hurtling towards it, just out of range of its lights. When they crashed, the deer flew 20 feet, on a diagonal, onto the side of the road. Clearly, there had been conservation of momentum, which was fortunate for subsequent cars. (The anterior chassis of my car was recently devastated by a giant dead deer lying in the road.) Anyhow, the deers trajectory had clearly been a product of both its own previous velocity and that of the speeding automobile, which had been generously delivered by way of collision. I paused my run and contemplated the car, which didn't seem very damaged, and, as if it were an autonomous entity (or contained a man inside it), very apparently slowed a little, considered stopping, thought better of it, and drove on as if nothing much had happened. I was too scared to cross the road to check on the deer, lest the same fate should be visited upon me (I'm not any more reflective than a deer). But I imagined checking on it, considering whether it was completely dead or flailing about like a rabid zombie eager to bite me. I thought that maybe I should put it out of its misery--but how? Jump on its head? What if my weight wasn't sufficient to crush its skull? What if someone saw me? These remain serious concerns.
I don't think I really felt much, except a little frustrated that the beast was so dumb. But one thing was surprising. The thump it made when it hit the car was fairly nondescript. Maybe it sounded a little like the time I decided to trot over the top of my car and put a dent in the roof. But otherwise nondescript.

Funny News from Yahoo

A crocodile measuring 1.6 metres (5.3 feet) long was run over by a car on a street in the city of Townsville on Tuesday, wildlife rangers said.

The croc lost a few teeth and suffered bruising but was receiving medical attention, they said.

Four Chinese tourists were rescued after their camper van was swept from a remote causeway in far northern Queensland into high waters, police said.

None of the group, which included a 75-year-old, could swim and they huddled on the vehicle's roof for more than an hour before being winched to safety suffering mild hypothermia.

How I Almost Won the Superbowl for the Cardinals

*Photo Courtesy of NY Times

Remember when the Cardinals got a first down on the 26-yard line with 5 minutes left and then penalized themselves out of field goal range? And then James Harrison beat the shit out of someone for no reason after the punt but luckily the Steelers had already recovered the punt by the time the refs made the call? Well, the Steelers were back on their one and I was praying for a safety or at least a stop, and then on 3rd down, when a sack seemed imminent, Ben Roethlesberger, who will one day be recruited to Wrestlemania, somehow found an open player for a first down. It just seemed hopeless so I started shouting, "throw a flag! throw a flag!" And suddenly the yellow flag icon appeared on the screen: holding on the defense, automatic safety. It's just too bad the entire Pittsburg secondary couldn't catch Larry Fitzgerald... Watching Ben Roethlesberger storm down the field was like watching the giant armored trolls bludgeon the innocent women and children of Minas Tirith with their 10 ft long beast clubs in LOTR: Return of the King.