Monthly Archives: December 2017
WTF joint
New Year’s Eve celebrations have never been my kind of thing. On December 31st, I’d much rather be in a quiet place. Like that hotel room overlooking Astana one year earlier. Or that small Chinese town more than a decade ago. Well, today I was home, and I was worried about my feet, or rather, […]
Youtuber Roy
When I went home today, someone recognized me on the train. This happens sometimes, but usually it’s when young people from China see me. Some of them know me for being part of their social media sphere. This time it was different, though. A dude appeared in front of me, and he looked very happy. […]
wear and tear
Went to the doctor today and got some news that weren’t exactly very good. They weren’t terrible either, but I am of a rather frail mental constitution, so I found myself breathing heavily, staring at a point on the wall. Then I went and had some fish in the harbor: I ate all the fish […]
a place to be
So I went to Hamburg, to the Bebelallee, which is a nice, calm boulevard in the north of the city. I did the same thing I had done eight months ago: I took my Letter Of Invitation and went to the Iranian consulate with it: And I got my new visa. Great success! Then I […]
generations
Went to see my grandparents today. There is a general sense of amusement when I show up at their house, I think it’s because of my hair and my beard. There is also a sense of relief because nothing has happened to me on the road. “When is the beard coming off?” they ask. “Once […]
jägercocoa
Being home can be boring and unfulfilling at times, but it can also be great: Here’s a thing you can do when it’s great anyway: prepare a cup of hot cocoa, then add one generous shot of Jägermeister: Tastes like gingerbread, makes everything even greater. I had an interview with Mirror Media (明镜新闻) this afternoon: […]
the greatest gift of all
There was nothing I particularly wanted. I just enjoyed being home, and I thought I could use the opportunity to go through my hard drives and my diaries and check if everything was in order. Little did I know that I was going to make myself the single best Christmas present of all. You see, […]
Merry Santa Hat
So there I was, one year after the Christmas I had spent in Tashkent, the one where I was sad and confused because the Caboose had just died. And this year, I was home: All too easy to forget that this was the one day of the year that made me want to be home […]
train pain
I seemed to have caught a cold that wouldn’t go away that quickly. But since I was in Europe anyway, I wanted to get home for Christmas. So I took my cold and hopped on a train with it. And then another train. And another train. And another train. People were running around frantically: There […]
Shit, Actually
Read an article the day before, I think it was in the Guardian, about how “Love, Actually” was a terrible movie and the worst of all romcoms. So today I decided to give it a shot: Hugh Grant, Liam Neeson, and that guy from “The Hobbit” (plus some other actors), a total of maybe eight […]
things you didn’t know you were missing
There are certain things that I can’t do when I’m on the road, and I don’t think about them very often. But as soon as I’m home I realize how much I’ve been missing them. Like having a bowl of cereal in the morning: Bowl. Cereal. Milk. Spoon. Yeah. It’s awesome.
the mushroom
I finally got the confirmation for my Letter of Invitation to Iran. While it’s apparently possible to apply for an Iranian visa without one, I like to have it ready when I go to the consulate. So I won’t have to wait around that long. And also so I don’t have to worry that much. […]
don’t hate porgs
I’m spending most of my time replying to emails and sorting through my stuff. I also just added the two Taiwanese editions of my books to the News section of my site: Then I got a cold. And then I went and saw Star Wars – The Last Jedi: I don’t want to give away […]
snow pains
Went outside to a park. It had snowed a little the night before, but by now it was almost all gone: Germany didn’t have a plan for the next legislative period. A train had derailed near Seattle, prompting the President of the United States to complain about the infrastructure (he had proposed to cut rail […]
gin and the cat
The night had turned into a night out: I ended up in a bar in the city center. The name of the bar has been lost in a stream of vodka and gin, but I remember talking to some people from the UK there. They were very sad about Brexit, and they said they were […]
ugliness
I took a little stroll outside to test the replacement camera that I had just received: Walking around Luxembourg felt good. It was a clean and pretty place. Parts of its university campus were nice to look at as well. But definitely not all of them. There was a certain Ikea-ness here and there: And […]
VR dude
Remember how I went and played virtual reality games when I was in Taiwan, but then I got nauseous from them? Well, I was invited to a VR lab in Bielefeld today, and it was amazing! They let me paint in virtual space: And paint I did: Seriously, you have to try this. It is […]
a question and an answer
Went to see my grandma today. She lives in a small town about two hours away. There were cookies, and there was tea. When we went out for a walk, we passed by these graffiti that someone had sprayed on a wall: WHY SO SERIOUS? one of them wanted to know. UGLY, said another one. […]
Slower Slap
Spent the whole day editing pictures for the new weird beard video that I wanted to make: And I realized that some of those pictures were of some pretty damn happy moments. I mean: daaaaayyyuuuum. Oh, and I wrote up another vodka review from Tajikistan for SlowerPulse. And a travel book review for BookSlap. A […]
the s-word
As is the habit of snow in this part of Germany, it had all but melted in a matter of days: It was a sad sight to behold, but Feivel and I went out anyway, and we looked around and some of us peed and pooped a lot, and we could see the grass and […]