Day 80: Last Words On German Executioners

originally published March 20, 2012 Every so often, a seventeenth-century German guidance counselor would look a student over, consult his notes, and pull out the word ‘scharfrichter’ as his recommendation. For these confused teens, this was not good news. A scharfrichter, while clearly a vital cog in the twisted workings of the German government at […]

Day 76: Miller Lite – Everything You’ve Always Wanted In An Article… And Less

originally published March 16, 2012 I have not yet written an article on one of my favorite topics: great beer. Today I will unfortunately not be breaking that streak. My topic du jour is Miller Lite. I’ve only had one Miller Lite in my thirty-seven years, and I vaguely remember it being only marginally different […]

Day 72: Play ‘Em In The Dark – The Banned Video Games

originally published March 12, 2012 Those who know me know that I am not easily shocked or offended. Perhaps this is because I’ve been desensitized by our permissive culture. Maybe it’s because I am more offensive than most anyone I know (I often tell jokes in which the punchline features the word ‘poop’, so yeah, […]

Day 71: The Unmade Film – The Connie Francis Story

originally published March 11, 2012 So where the hell is the Connie Francis biopic? I’m going to skew this toward my younger readers (meaning under 50 – most of my audience is shockingly geriatric) who might not know who Connie Francis is. According to Joel Whitburn (the only true music chart historian you’ll ever need) […]

Day 70: Taking The Grand Tour – Uppercrust Or Bust

originally published March 10, 2012 I try to avoid too much repetition on this site. A couple days ago I took a meandering trip around northern New Zealand since, let’s face it, I’ll probably never do that in real life. So why am I travelling again today? Well, this ain’t your usual road trip. This […]

Day 60: Speed Niggs & The Weirdness Of German Rock Music

originally published February 29, 2012 Who says the Germans don’t have a sense of humor? Today I’ll be checking out the German indie rock scene, or at least as much of it as I can fit into a kilograph. My interest was immediately piqued by the card I pulled from the Wiki-deck today: Speed Niggs. […]

Day 50: The Deutscher Werkbund – Making Germany Prettier For 105 Years

originally published February 19, 2012 You know, if it wasn’t for those pesky uptight goose-steppers showing up in the mid 1930s, the Germans might have experienced a peerless renaissance of inventive art. As it stands, the influence of pre-Nazi German art and architecture is still impressive. Aesthetically, some of it is nothing short of incredible. […]

Day 42: Samuel Crompton Wrecked My Scrotum!

originally published February 11, 2012 If you had been lucky enough to have lived a hundred years ago, you might have been able to snag (there may a pun here, I’m not entirely sure) a job using a mule spinner. This was a large piece of machinery, invented by Samuel Crompton in 1779-ish, that spun […]

Day 33: Milly Witkop Named Her Son ‘Fermin’, Yet She’s Actually Kind Of Cool

originally published February 2, 2012 To quote Wikipedia, that fair maiden who imbues me with a zesty yolk of seemingly meaningless information every day, Milly Witkop was “a Ukranian-born Jewish anarcho-syndicalist.” So why should we care? In her lifetime, Milly was not only the reigning queen of Wrong-Place-Wrong-Time, she was also a pretty sharp rebellious […]