local celebrity.

Unless I’m way off base and it turns out my blog audience is primarily 30 to 60-something year-old housewives living in the greater Chicago area, you didn’t witness the birth of my TV stardom. You see, last Friday morning I was on Windy City Live playing a round of Oscar trivia. If you don’t believe me or this awesomely informative screen grab, you can watch the video online.

Not only did I rock that bow tie, but I also rocked the questions, winning myself a stack of BluRays. What’s that? You want a run-down of the–what one would assume would be–Oscar-winning (or at least nominated) films I was awarded? Well, the bounty included the likes of: Tower Heist, Killer Elite, Real Steel, and everyone’s favorite former-boy-band-starring sci-fi adventure, In Time.

Okay, I’m cherry-picking a bit to make a joke. The (albeit old but) heavily nominated The Godfather trilogy and Love Story were also included, as well as something I’ve actually been wanting to see, Martha Marcy May Marlene, and inexplicably Lady & The Tramp. But really, guys, was there any consistent thread holding this movie bundle together besides “Walgreen’s bargain bin?”

Oh, and I guess technically Real Steel was actually nominated this year (for visual effects), but was somehow bested by Hugo. What a surprising upset that was to… no one.

But it was all worth it as 1) my inevitable journey to stardom has been set in motion and 2) the post-game drink we enjoyed was both delicious and effective. (An afternoon buzz never hurt anyone.) Can’t wait until they have me back next year to defend my title. That’s how these things work, don’t they?

february mixtape.

1. Down With The Trumpets – Rizzle Kicks
2. Helena Beat – Foster The People
3. Gold On The Ceiling – The Black Keys
4. No Church In The Wild – Jay-Z & Kanye West (f. Frank Ocean)
5. Take Care – Drake (f. Rihanna)
6. Will Do – TV On The Radio
7. Blue Jeans – Lana Del Rey
8. Es-So – Tune-Yards
9. The City – Patrick Wolf
10. Shelter – Birdy
11. I’ve Got This Friend – The Civil Wars
12. Junk Of The Heart (Happy) – The Kooks
13. New York – Snow Patrol
14. Twice – Little Dragon
15. Wait – M83

(Listen via Spotify.)

gema killed the you tube video star.

I don’t know who Gema is, but she’s really been cramping my style this week. Bittersweetly I’ll be saying auf Wiedersehen and leaving on a jetplane bright and early tomorrow morning (a.k.a. late this evening Chicago time). With any luck I’ll remember half of the things that I wanted to watch while here. Because I’m sure they were all super important, as YouTube video watching tends to be.

ich spreche kein deutsch.

Hallo und guten Morgen from the land of Heidi Klum and half of Michael Fassbender. A few notes on my first few days in Germany:

• Southwestern Germany in February = Northeastern Wisconsin in February. In short, I’ve been properly prepared for this trip. Fun fact: Tübingen is within 3º latitude of Peshtigo, so it makes sense geographically.
• On a related note, sight-seeing in winter is more fun than I imagined. As long as it’s sunny, which yesterday was, so it was perfect. Lots of pictures to come.
• I don’t think jet lag was so much a problem as the scheduling of my flight was. We left Newark at 5:30 PM (12:30 AM Germany time) and arrived in Stuttgart at 7:30 AM (11:30 PM Chicago time). So I was arriving at a time dictating that I should be waking up, when in reality I would normally have just gone to sleep. Shifting the flight back 6 hours would have made my life a lot easier, allowing me to actually sleep on the plane. That would have been time better spent than watching two highly mediocre (borderline bad) comedies: Our Idiot Brother and Horrible Bosses.
• On the plus side plane-wise, I counted a total of about 30 passengers flying coach divided among 40+ rows. You do the math. Actually, United should do the math, because I cannot fathom how that trans-Atlantic flight was very profitable.
• It irks me quite a bit that I know absolutely no German. I’m accustomed to traveling in hispanophone countries where I can impress the locals with my mad skills. Instead I’m left wishing I could tell each server, “I know two other languages besides English! I’m sorry one isn’t German. Please forgive me. And all other American travelers in general, while we’re at it.” Instead they just get a lot of danke schoens.