Örks.

Have posted the Tuor painting, finally.

Have posted the next part of the travel diary, finally.

Will not post anything intelligent here anymore tonight. Will, instead, go to bed.

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( *gähn* )

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Bathos

Why are all the flags half-masted again? National mourning for the pope, or are we preparing for the End-of-World-War-II-celebrations already?

I mean, seriously. The only time that we fly flags at all in Germany are a) times of national mourning, when they're all half-masted, b) important visitors, when they're actually up, and c) soccer world championships.
At all other times, there just aren't any flags. Nope.

And this year has been a half-mast year. First, the sea quake in South-east Asia, which prompted several weeks of mourning which turned into the Auschwitz remembrance and then Bush came to Germany but that wasn't really worth dragging the flags up again so they just remained half-masted. Now the pope is dead, so we're mourning again. Next up, as I said, is probably the end of World War II. And I'm sure we'll think of something else to mourn after that.

Really, no surprise the economy is going down if all this country does is mourn.

*headdesks*

On a completely unrelated note, on Monday I went to karate practice for the first time since last October. Was half-relieved that I still remember the techniques, especially the kata (except for Kankû Shô, which we did yesterday, but I never knew that very well anyway); and half-shocked that even though I am totally out of practice, there were others (who presumably practiced all the while) who were less enduring and less precise than me. I suppose I should take that as a good sign for myself. But what the hell have they been doing? They're still just as far as they were when I last practiced, last fall. Maybe I flatter myself when I think I'd learn at least a bit in half a year, but they apparently didn't. They didn't even build endurance, or anything. Total stagnation. What the hell have they been doing all the time?
Which leads to me being unreasonably proud of the fact that I at least didn't get remarkably worse than I was before.

</ blather>

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( Trauerspiel )

</ sabbel>
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