Rhabarber Rhabarber

Some things in life happen faster than anticipated. You innocently post first intimate information about yourself and all of a sudden someone links to your site. Alright. So maybe on the page in question my blog is not considered a full fledged blog, but only as a "bloglet" with some added grammatical errors that have since been corrected, but hey! Who am I to complain? Now I can at least link back and at the same time recommend to take a look at the very nice photographs of some North American sites shown there. I wish I had something comparable in my own selection of photographs here. Ok, so on my pictures there are usually more people, for example my wonderful wife shown right here - I have decided that maybe I should use different photos in the translated blogposts than I do in the german ones to add a bit of flavour. Flavor? As previously mentioned she's a bit more rotound than usual, what with my daughter in her womb and all.

Let me state at this point that the name finding problem proves to be a tricky one. After thoroughly studying plenty of lists that are available online we had started our own list of favourite names with about 3 quadrillion entries, which as yet we have been able to shrink to roughly 5 names. Name research is a pretty awesome thing to do by the way. In some sources you find names that are almost as euphonic as they are ornamental (if a name can be ornamental in english, please advise...). For you folks that don't speak german: there are names in the list that translate to "Door", "Armchair", "Nicotine", "Shagga" and "Stinky". These are, apparently, names that are considered common in Frisia. Truth to be told, I have to admit that I can really picture myself using that last name in the first few months when the situation allows it.

Let's get back to the shortened list of names: there is a dilemma. If we continue thinking about our choice of a name we start disliking all of them. If we would agree on a name right away I'm sure we'd find it awful once our daughter is born (funny: I find myself typing "doughter" - a name that would easily fit on that previously mentioned list of names). Then again, we really don't want to postpone the decision and the intense argument that will come with it to the moment that the little one tries to get her first meal at mommy's breast. Furthermore, there is a name on the list that we consider a possible second name (you're nobody without an initial in the US!), but then again, we don't really want to give a second name. We have different reasons, though: Madam Bigbelly thinks that a second name just raises the time needed to fill official forms - an argument I'm not able to relate to, for she's filling out all forms for me, and I don't even have a second name! I should add that when I was a kid, I found that pretty mean (my older brother has a second name). I even asked my parents if they couldn't register the name "Benjamin" as a second name for me (meaning: little brother - how sweet! As a big fan of Karlsson on the roof I also favoured the name "Lillebror" - same meaning). Concerning the dispute "second name for daughter: yes or no?", I am really against giving a second name because I don't think it's important enough an issue to justify fighting against my lovely vixen.

For a short while I had thought about using the option to post polls that is given here, such that the multitudinous readership of this orgy of pamphlets can vote on the name of my future daughter. Then I thought that this is way too Web 2.0. By the time my daughter hacks the URLfilter that I installed for her own good this way of conduct is completely oldschool. Oh well, and maybe the thought is also just a tiny bit stupid.

As a concluding remark I'd like to point to a very entertaining Wikipedia entry related to this topic.

On popular demand ... well ... only dantesoft's demand actually ... I have decided to make this blog bilingual. Not that there is much of a blog so far. Here we go with this little experiment: the official not very close translation - modulo puns - of the previous blogpost!

Let's get started

Here it is, the first entry. Before, you could find a bunch of crap about really irrelevant things in english language here. Worthless things that I have now deleted, not even I was very much interested in it.

But now there's only going to be relevant stuff! Important insights, won in an important life.

A short autobiography: Saw the light of the fluorescent tube, grew up, drove a moped, played foosball, had important discussions with important people in a sober state (sometimes half sober) about important issues in life (also called "Storm and Stress" phase), skied a lot, studied, got a diploma, a PhD, married (=now living in a dictatorship), and currently located in the United States of New York City for the sake of higher enlightenment. Main occupation jackanapes (had to look that one up), part time Mr. Clever Clogs, but other than that alright. Privileged folks know that they can count on me. The best proof is that I am even trusted to hold their beer:


To allow the so far unaware reader of this pamphlet to further follow what is to come I should emphasize that a child is growing beneath my most beloved better half's belly button (alliteration deliberately placed). Project "Brat" - but with love, please! One of the points most important to me with respect to the preparation of the childbirth was to move from the metropolis Hastings-on-Hudson to Manhattan for the child to be born in New York City. Who would want their kid be born in "Yonkers", anyway. That's completely out of the question. By the way, my suggestions to call our little american girl "Peninsula Iberica" or "Ikea" were immediately vetoed from above.