Fab Friday Five: Procrastination is the name of the game

This one is for my friend S who's working hard on her doctoral thesis. You go girl! I feel with you.

Right now, I'm back at working for myself again which takes a lot of selfmotivation. And sometimes leads to elaborate forms of procrastination. Here are my top five activities when procrastinating:

1.) Cooking/Baking:
Rather than cleaning up the apartment I raid the pantry and challenge myself to cook or bake something delicious with what is there. Of course that leads to spending more time cleaning up afterwards... but it's well worth it.

2.) Reading
The lure of a good book (or for that matter a really bad one too) seldom fails to lead me off the path.
My latest moment of weakness. Evil twins, a "forced" marriage and a deep dark trauma from the past. Vintage Mills and Boon never fails to deliver.





3.) Redecorating
It usually starts with the intention of just a little cleaning up. Now, I have taken apart my desk and fashioned a new one with stuff I had lying around. I'm also thinking about painting a wall in my bedroom. What do you think of this color?

 

4.) Watching tv-series on my computer

I'm a happy camper since I found out how to watch American and Britisch series in the original because seriously the German dubbing? It sucks. 

Now I'm just waiting for September when the new seasons of HIMYM and Big Bang Theory come up again. 

via flickr user cherrily under creative commons license

5.) Chatting via facebook or skype
Right now one of my favorite pastimes...

It's Monday. Time for Mancandy.

I have the sneaking suspicion that some of you only drop in here on mondays. Yeah, I'm on to you. I know who you are... and since I know you, I have sometimes tried to cater to your tastes. As we know there is no accounting for taste, so if you have suggestions or requests feel free to let me know.

And speaking of taste I wonder, do most people have a "type"? (Is Hugh Jackman a type? If so, then yes, I have a type.) Or is it more the small things, the single characteristics that make someone attractive to you? Like his or her height, the color of their eyes, the breadth of their shoulders or their bra-size? From a purely physical point of view I must say its both for me. There is a certain type of guy that makes me take notice and take a closer look. But there are also little things, certain traits that make my heart flutter. 

The big question is though: Is there chemistry? No matter how close he comes to my type or how many adorable traits he has, if there is no spark, there's no future. That would even go for Hugh Jackman. Probably. If I ever met him.

And you know, that spark is largely influenced by personality. I would even argue that most of us have a certain type we like when it comes to personality. I for one do. So is the ideal guy the one that combines most of the physical and personal traits of your type? And if you can have only one, what would win? Looks or personality?

I'm not so sure. It's easy to say I choose personality over looks, but isn't physical attraction a large part of a relationship? And by saying that looks are important, I don't mean that the guy has to fit into a mainstream beauty formula. I would wager that a lot of the things I find attractive in a man are not what the fashion and beauty industry tell us to find attractive. They are not even what my girlfriends find attractive. 

It took me a long time to figure out that there is no such thing as a general standard for what people find attractive. That sometimes people find something about you attractive that you have never even considered or that you yourself find downright unattractive. But then attactiveness is not beauty. Keats may have a point. But if beauty is truth, I prefer the little lies that make someone attractive and interesting. 

One of those little things are freckles. I adore freckles, they make me melt...

So ladies (and gents) for your viewing pleasure. And because I couldn't choose. And because it's been a long time.

Fab Friday - Rainy day edition

TIt's been raining all day. The kind of rain that does not let up but only changes in intensity. The perfect weather to stay inside. Unfortunately I had to go outside to pick up my bike from the repair shop. Even more unfortunate that it wasn't done yet. Apparently my axis is broken and they have to replace the entire wheel. It'll be done tomorrow. Hopefully the rain will be done by then, too.
So now that I got home and got dry again I decided to give in to the feeling that has been screaming "Fall! It's fall!" at me all day. I made myself some hot tea and got comfortable with a sweater and thick socks on the sofa. "Muckelig" as a friend of mine would say. (The closest thing to a translation of the word would be cozy, but it is a bit more than that.)
Anyways, as it feels like it's already November I've been watching trailers of movies coming up this winter and next spring. To have something to look forward to. Here are my fab four:

Jane Eyre:



Michael Fassbender as Rochester. Rrrawwrrrr... need I say more? (Actually Mia Wasikowska has been a favorite of mine, too. Ever since I saw her in "The Kids are alright").

Pirates! Band of Misfits:



From the same guys who did Wallace and Gromit. It's pirates in stop motion animation. Yay! If that will not cure me from my disappointment with all the Pirates of the Carribean movies except the first one I don't know what will. I lurrrve Pirates and Johnny Depp almost ruined them for me. A curse upon you ye bridled, dim-witted weasle!

The Dark Knight Rises:



This one is only a teaser. And it really doesn't give much away. Come on Christopher Nolan, stop teasing us. Tell us what's it about. The suspence is killing me. But judging from the last two movies this one is bound to be good.

Sherlock Holmes 2:



I immensely enjoyed the first one. This one looks to be the same kind of fun.

Now I'll get back to my tea. Or maybe some hot spiced wine? Have a great weekend.

WTF?!? I'm back.

It's been a while. From March to July is a pretty long hiatus. In between, life has had its up and downs. Sometimes I was busy and sometimes I wasn't up to writing. Still, there were people who told me that they enjoyed my mad ramblings so I decided I'll pick it up again. And what better day than on a WTF Wednesday.

It's never hard to find strange things on the internet. One of the things that makes it such a wonderful place. And a scary one. Of course it helps to have friends who are almost as eccentric (as a partly southern gal I prefer this term to plain ole crazy) as me. Who come into the kitchen mumbling something about "naked touching in a Mormon temple". (On a side note: This paper on Mormons that D is writing is proving to be a veritable boon of WTFery.)

In other WTF news out there in the big, wide world wide web there's a duel going on between Fabio and the Old Spice guy Isaiah Mustafa. It's "mano a mano in el bano". You can check it out on their youtube channel. I'm not sure what to think of it. The first few were kinda funny but now it's starting to look like a marketing gimmick gone bad. In any case even though I think Isaiah is really hot I have to state that I'm on team Fabio. For several reasons, not the least that no one rocks his man titties as Fabio does. And that hair... All in all, he makes me nostalgic for those times when I used to read the books whose covers he so manly adorned. Usually wrapped in brown paper so that people would not judge me by my book covers. I still read trashy books, but these days I have no shame. I read any book, no matter how lurid the cover, in public. I can't say if I'm relieved or sad that there seem to be less and less Fabio-esque covers.

Also, the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest announced its 2011 winner sentence: "Cheryl's mind turned like the vanes of a wind-powered turbine, chopping her sparrow-like thoughts into bloody pieces that fell onto a growing pile of forgotten memories." Author of this masterpiece is Sue Fondrie, associate professor from Oshkosh Wisconsin. To read more gems like this, check out the winners of all categories. My favorite sentence involves a centaur and a questionable manliness.

Now I'll be waiting for a dark and stormy night to hone my literary prowess in order to come up with a suitable entry for next years contest. But by the looks of it, I don't have to wait long for said night to occur. This summer clearly deserves a dishonorable WTF mentioning. While we here in Germany are barely making it into the low seventies (actually mid-sixties seem to have been the standard so far, with dips into the fifties) it appears that my friends in the US are slowly being roasted. Y'all, I feel your pain, wish I could send you some rain, we've got more than 'nuff.

Waiting for Spring

It's monday again and March is almost over. Spring hasn't quite made it here yet, it is still not quite warm yet, at night the temperatures dip below freezing, and there is no daffodil in sight. The crocuses are out though and I have seen some brave shrubs tentatively unfolding their tiny leaves. I'm quite hopeful that springtide is coming soon as it seems to be just around the corner.
Therefore I am trying to shake off the remaining bits and pieces of the winter doldrums to be vernally inspired. Isn't that a wonderful word? Vernal. It makes me think of fresh and green things.

Here's the definition from Webster's Online Dictionary:

1. Suggestive of youth; vigorous and fresh.[Wordnet] 2. Of or characteristic of or occurring in spring; "the vernal equinox".[Wordnet] 3. Of or pertaining to the spring; appearing in the spring; as, vernal bloom.[Websters] 4. Fig.: Belonging to youth, the spring of life.[Websters] 5. Being young, youthful, juvenile, adolescent or beardless. [Eve - graph theoretic] 6. Being new, fresh or recent. [Eve - graph theoretic] 7. Being springlike or flowering. [Eve - graph theoretic] 8. Being immature, green, unfledged or sappy. [Eve - graph theoretic] 9. Being late or latest. [Eve - graph theoretic]

 So, I'll be taking out my apple-green spring coat, put a spring in my step, give the apartment and the balcony a spring cleaning, get back to my yoga practice, ride my bike, look forward to local fresh produce, soak up the sun and wait in giddy anticipation for spring to finally show up.

I'm wishing y'all a vernal time.

Equality for all

March is already in its second week and while spring hasn't quite sprung here yet, I can hear it traipsing nearer.
And I am trying to get back on track, after spending the last month either stumbling along in a right-side-hearing-impaired-due-to-a-very-persistant-head-flu-kinda-daze or subsequently hiding in the ditch beside the track. Getting back on track means also posting more on this blog. Hopefully. I'm working on it.

Anyways, since it is WTF Wednesday. Here's another treat for you: Daniel Craig in drag via the SmartBitches




Truthfully, the part that made me go WTF?! isn't so much lovely 007 in drag (dang...the man is smokin' even wearing a rather unsexy dress), but the staggering numbers of women facing violence daily. You know, sad part is, even while they are staggering they are really not surprising. I wish they were. And I wish we could get around to make this world safer for women everywhere. And fairer. And a place where men and women really are equal, because with all this patriarchal inequality crap, we're not only hurting women, but everyone.

Happy belated Women's Day everyone.

WTF Wednesday: Bad Feminism, Monkey Pee and a shameless Secretary of Defense

It's wednesday which means it's time for my weekly wtf roundup.

On the wtf-I-didn't-know-these-people-still-existed front:
Apparently the worst thing that ever happened to womankind is feminism. Yepp, you heard me. Feminism took away our rights. Our right to be wives, our right to be cared for by our husbands, our right to be paid for by our husbands. It's just so demeaning. But fear not. There are women out there fighting the evil forces of feminism. And they have written a book: "The Flipside of Feminism" by Phyllys Schlafly and Suzanne Venker.

On the wtf-monkeys-are-weird front:
Male Capuchin monkeys pee into their hands and rub their fur with urine to appear more attractive to females. Classy.


And on the wtf-this-makes-me-really-angry front:
Apparently a large portion of the people in my homecountry believe the theft of intellectual property is a peccadillo and scholarly work is useless. Otherwise I cannot explain why so many of them stand behind the thankfully now resigned Secretary of Defense who copied 70% of his PhD dissertation from sources he neglected to name and who apparently finds it beneath himself to apologize for it. Here's the backgroumd on what is going on.

Happy Wednesday.