The New Mercedes-Benz Museum

Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz?
My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends.
Worked hard all my lifetime, no help from my friends,
So Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz?
Janis Joplin, 'Mercedes Benz'

A couple of weeks ago I joined my dear brother on a drive to Stuttgart, to meet with some of his bush taxi-friends at the Mercedes-Benz Museum. Although Mercedes-Benz in itself should already be an offence to a real bush taxi pilot it was really interesting for the whole bunch of us. Here are some pictures:

First steps...


Benz Motorwagen – the very first car with a piston engine


First touring cars...


That would be mine: Mercedes-Benz 500K


To whom do these exhaust pipes belong...?


Exactly: THE LEGEND, Mercedes-Benz 300 SL!!!

The sexiest car-front made in Germany


Hot-water rocket as used to drive cars in crash-tests


Here comes luxury: Maybach 62S. How many houses could I buy for the same money...?


If your car looks like this under the bonnet it’s a fast car

After a long and exhausting day at the museum we parted and drove back home - another 250 km with only 100 km/h on Germany's unlimited highways. But what do you want with a Toyota HZJ78...

Two Things Meme

Although I still have another meme pending I will do this as a quickie:

Two Names You Go By:
1. Mac
2. PFlight2000

Two Things You Are Wearing Right Now:
1. Sweatsuit (caught a flu...)
2. My beloved Tevas. ET once stated that I'dprobably wear them from April to October constantly...

Two Things You Would Want (or have) in a Relationship:
1. Respect
2. Humor (haven't been in a relationship for a long time, but I guess that would still be it)

Two of Your Favorite Things to do:
1. 'Flying' long haul flight on Flight Simulator
2. Cooking

Two Things You Want Very badly At the Moment:
1. Stronger medication - this flu is killing me!!!
2. Getting healthy on the spot

Two Things you did Last Night:
1. Having a very uneasy sleep with feverish dreams
2. Got really mad that again I catch a flu at the last day of my holiday - what will the bosses think...?

Two things you ate today:
1. A banana
2. Another banana

Last two people you talked to:
1. Mom - she popped in because she saw that the bicycle is still in the shed and that means I'm not at work
2. My brother

Two Things You're doing tomorrow:
1. Trying to get healthy
2. Brewing more linden-blossom tea

Two longest car rides:
1. To Würzburg and back in one day, getting my brothers first Bushtaxi (800km)
2. To Mendrisio and back in one day because the weather was to bad to stay longer (500km)

Two Favorite Beverages:
1. Earl Grey Tea with cream and sugar
2. Mineral water

Two Things About Me you may not have known:
1. Sometimes I try to imagine what it would be like to die - and who would REALLY miss me...?
2. I'm very afraid of turning fourty in two years.

Two jobs I have had in my life:
1. Liquidator for a bankrupped furniture shop
2. Messenger cyclist

Two Movies I would watch over and over:
1. Heat (NOT Andy Warhol's, the one with Pacino and De Niro!!!)
2. Ronin, because I like the actors, I like the plot, I like the car chases, but most of all because I have been to most places in the movie.

Places I have lived:
1. Switzerland
2. Scotland

Two of my Favorite Foods:
1. The ones that I cook
2. The ones I get in my favourite restaurant

Two places I'd rather be right now
1. Singapore - Chinese New Year is coming up next week!
2. At work to f***ing do my job!!!

Two people I think will respond:
1. No idea...
2. Even less ideas...

I’m not tagging anyone, but feel free to do it.

Ventriloquism in Latin means ‘belly speaking’. But this description is wrong, because it’s not the belly that’s talking. It’s simply the art of speaking without moving the lips. The consonants are produced with the tongue and the palate only. As the lips are an essential tool for speaking, there are several restrictions for a ventriloquist: He (or she) can’t pronounce the letters P, B and M. He needs to create the illusion of pronouncing these letters – otherwise the show is screwed. The illusion gets perfect when the artist uses a puppet that – in the simplest form – can move its mouth. The more complex puppets even roll eyes, move eyebrows and maybe the arms as well. If the puppets are handled correctly, the audience gets the illusion that the puppet talks. Let me give you some examples:

Paul Zerdin is a British ventriloquist who acts both alone and with puppets. In this short clip he shows how to wind up sound engineers prior to the show when he’s doing the sound check, along with some other rather nasty jokes. ‘I was a unique case at the mental hospital: I was the only patient with voices in the head others could hear as well.’


Here’s an extreme example: Kevin Johnson uses TWO puppets at the same time. To make that even more complicated he shows the audience what it’s like in dubbed movies when the actor’s lips are moving differently to what the dubbed voice says.


At last: Jeff Dunham. This American ventriloquist has several puppets he uses on stage – one at a time. Achmed, the dead Terrorist can move his jaw, roll eyes and lift eyebrows – it seems to be alive. Along with playing a conversation this is probably the most complex kind of performance for a ventriloquist – although Jeff’s jokes are a bit worn out...

The Rubber Band Gun

When I was a kid still at school I was in a clique with my brother and a friend. Our 'headquarter' was a secret room between a wall and the roof in our old farm house. A loose board in the wall was the door, and what was behind that no-one was allowed to see. Yet the room was so small that you could hardly sit upright and with three people it was already packed. We had heating, a little water tank, and whenever soldiers were in the village for manoeuvres we begged for some of their emergency provisions: We had enough army bisquits and chocolate to survive several days. We trained ourselves in rope-techniques (my brother still does theat - but on a much more professional level).

Of course we also had weapons: One was a special plug whith the wires connected to each other, in order to blow every fuse. An unimpeachable strike against our school and always a guarentee to drive the caretaker nuts. Another weapon was the obligatory rubber band gun: A 'single barrel' weapon to fire one rubber band at a time, and the rubber band would strike in an area of about two square meters around your target. We thought we could conquer the world with our rubber band guns, but as time passed by we grew up and apart.

And now I found this in a forum:



Poor little us to think we had advanced techniques...

Car Commercials in Europe

Germans have a weird way to advertise their cars. If you watch a movie on TV you’re likely to see at least one commercial for a German car. And here’s the weird thing about them: They all have the colours faded to an icy, metallic gray. Here's an example:


Have you noticed? The only ‘real’ colour was the rear lights of the car and the blue Europe-label on the number-plate. Everything else is held in different gray tones. The reason for this colour is: It looks very technical. Cars shouldn’t show emotions. They should put the viewer in a special mood. The commercial has the message: This car is the ultimate perfect machine. It has no flaw. It never fails.

The British seem to have a completely different approach to car commercials. Just look at this:


Poor pussy though... The SportKa is evil. It shows emotions. It has to. This is the British sense of humour. Wanna see another one?


Reminds me of a mouse-trap in some sense... But as we all know, birds are very intelligent. And sometimes they pay back all we did to them and then laugh.