Ve Haf Vays of Makingk Terrible Packagingk

GIVE the Germans a few weeks and they'll engineer an automobile that is breathtaking in form and flawless in function. They'll design and implement a public transportation system that will be able to dispense you within one meter of anywhere you want to go, efficiently and punctually. They'll establish a bureaucracy so impenetrable that not even God himself could navigate it. They'll invent one hundred new recipes for pork.

But packaging? That leaves them stumped. The "convenient" tear strips on boxes of frozen food shred when they're pulled. The plastic bags that cereal comes in split down the side after opening. The "open here" tab is glued to the container as tightly as all the other corners. The cling film doesn't cling. And then there's the mother of all idiotic packaging, milk containers:

In case it's not clear what the issue is here, that ring is supposed to be pulled to provide an opening. When the ring snaps, you have to use pliers to pull it off or puncture the seal with a knife.

Believe it or not, this is an improvement. Years ago, you had to lift a flap and snip its corner to be able to pour the carton's contents. Because there was no room allowed for air intake when you did this, the contents would come out in an unpredictable succession of geyser-like actions. But now that the packaging incorporates plastic (and still isn't especially easy to pour), it has to go into a special recycling container; you can't just put it out with the paper waste like you used to.

Compare that nonsense with the beautiful simplicity of this:

No plastic, pull rings, screw caps, scissors, or pliers needed. Just one unbroken motion with V-shaped thumb and fingers: press the flaps back to separate them, then bring them forward to create a spout. And how wonderfully easy to pour and shut again.

Is there a country that gets public transportation and milk carton packaging right? That's where I want to live.

These Conchords Have Flown

THERE isn't a great deal that gets me excited about television. As I was reviewing Marina Krcmar's (no, not a typo; it's pronounced Crutch-mar) Living without the Screen for the TLS recently, I found myself nodding along with nearly every reason her pool of nonviewers gave for washing their hands of the medium, ranging from its vacuity to the grasping industry behind it. That could be why our own set has been gathering dust for about six years now (not forgetting that German programming, which dubs or remakes the worst of American TV, is especially poor).

As a child and teenager I was besotted with TV. It began at a very young age with Sesame Street and The Great Space Coaster; then came He-Man, Dukes of Hazzard and The A-Team; and after that, well, it's a blur of Cheers, Knight Rider, Diff'rent Strokes, Facts of Life, Silver Spoons, Family Ties, Who's the Boss?, Three's Company, and What's Happening!! reruns until I hit college and the tube's blue glow faded from my life. More recently, when there's been a lot of hype over one show or another—Lost, Heroes, Life on Mars (UK), Family Guy, Robot Chicken—I usually make a point of watching an episode or two, only to be reassured that I'm not missing a heck of a lot. Even The Simpsons has gone so far downhill that watching old episodes for the sixtieth time is more rewarding than wasting twenty minutes on the tedious new high definition/lowest common denominator stuff.

But there have been a few series besides the occasional BBC history/nature special that have reined in my pessimism: post-2005 Doctor Who, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Office (UK), Arrested Development (this, to my mind, was television's apogee), The Daily Show (does that count as a "series"?), Literatur im Foyer, and most recently, Flight of the Conchords. This last shouldn't come as surprise to anyone who pays attention to the changing quotes up in the title bar.

FotC wrapped up—for good, it seems—last Sunday evening, ending what turned out to be a disappointingly lackluster second season on an fittingly lackluster note. When it was good it was very, very good...

Carol Brown (Choir of Ex-Girlfriends) [Season 2, Episode 5]


Fashion Is Danger [Season 2, Episode 8]


... and when it was bad it was boring.


Bret's Day [Season 2, Episode 9]


Rejected [Season 2, Episode 1]

The best episodes were those in which the action moved seamlessly from story to music video and back again (shining example: "Unnatural Love," S02E05). The unsatisfying lows were those in which the story felt as though it were wedged around whatever songs the duo happened to have to hand ("Tough Brets," S02E03), or conversely, when the songs were tacked onto the story ("Prime Minister," S02E07). Or rather, what story there was to speak of. The second season often seemed at a loss for clever new mishaps and drifted between the mundane and the ridiculous.

So as much as I hate to see one of my favorite series come to an end, it's probably for the best that FotC came to an end when it did. And though I might kvetch about its second season, I'm also fully aware that if more shows were even half this good, our TV set would see a lot more use.

Thanks for the Memories

EVERY now and again a memory navigates its way out of the dusty archives of my mind and, seizing an opportune moment of calm, usually just as I've entered some Proustian phase of somnolence, commandeers all of the emotional and sensory resources at its disposal to make me relive a particular scene from my life, often a scene of excruciating embarrassment or profound regret that had been relegated to the archives for good reason. Why my own mind would wish to afflict me in this way I can't say; my subconscious and I have never been on particularly good terms. I suppose it's meant to be somehow cathartic, a means of coming to terms with the power of the memory itself, which has lost none of its immediacy and keenness over the years, or a means of reconciling the flawed person I was back then with the flawed, albeit older and slightly more experienced, person I am today.

Last night the scene was Valencia, spring, 1996. A victim of my own fish story, I found myself in a small bar, perched on a stool in front of every single person I had met while studying abroad, shakily singing Oasis' "Wonderwall" while Chris, as I seem to remember his name being, strummed out the tune on an acoustic guitar behind me. He had arranged the gig. He had printed out the lyrics on the crib sheet I held in my trembling hand. And he, believing me to be the frontman for an emerging indie rock band called St. Proxy, was the one who had asked me to sing.

Rather than fib my way out of the event in the same way I'd fibbed my way in, I went through with it, thinking that several glasses of beer in quick succession would relax me (alas, by that point they had no desired effect whatsoever), or that the very expert hand gestures I made to the soundman to turn my mic down—down a bit more, a little further please, keep going, no, still not far enough—would be enough to keep the curtain firmly drawn over the figure hidden behind it. The averted eyes and awkward compliments I received afterwards confirmed that they were not.

The truth? There was an exceedingly shortlived band that had loosely agreed to call itself St. Proxy, and I was in it, along with Jay, a remarkable multi-instrumentalist, and Joe, a chain-smoking keyboardist with a four-track in his bedroom. As no better alternative was available, I, who no amount of Auto-Tune would ever be able to save, had fallen into the role of vocalist, bringing an inimitable (on account of choice, not talent) David Freel-meets-Morrissey approach to things. We had even put a few songs (though the title escapes me, I still remember the clunky opening line of our side one, track one: "Young boy, so frail and paranoid") to tape on Joe's four-track; Jay and I listened to them while riding around in his jeep, marveling once or twice at my inspired harmonica—yes, harmonica—solo at the end of one of the songs.

The fictional portion of the story begins with any mention of us playing live anywhere other than Joe's bedroom, or the slightest implication that we had amassed any audience outside of ourselves. These were the sort of embellishments made by one who, emboldened by circumstances, can't really see the harm in inventing such a small claim to glory, and who is supremely confident that he could never, ever be challenged and caught out. It wasn't the first time I'd made a rather sad and bumbling attempt to reinvent myself for new faces in a new place, and though I'd like to say it was the last, I have a strong suspicion the dusty archives will eventually yield some long-dormant memory that proves otherwise.

The Great Tech Sell-Off

IF YOU live in or near Hamburg and you're in need of a router, hard drive (internal or external), telephone, or any number of other computer/networking devices, then look no further. I'm slimming down my computer setup, and I'm selling off a ton of equipment at fair—in some cases, dirt cheap—prices.

I'm not eBaying or mailing any of this stuff; it's personal pickup (preferably at a café around the corner) with cash in hand.

Here's what's on offer, some with German descriptions:

HDDs:

1) 320GB / 7200rpm/ 16MB SATA Western Digital … 15 EUR
2) 500GB / 7200rpm / 16MB SATA Samsung HD501LJ … 25 EUR
3) 500GB / 7200rpm / 16MB SATA Western Digital … 25 EUR

HDDs mit Gehäuse / External Hard Drives:

4) 80GB Mac & More "IceWarrior" / FireWire 400 (x2) / mit UK-Stecker … 5 EUR
5) 180GB DigitalDrive (von digitalplanet.de) / FireWire 400 (x2) … 10 EUR
6) 500GB LaCie / USB2.0 (x1), FireWire 400 (x1), FireWire 800 (x2) / mit US-Stecker … 45 EUR
7) 500GB OWC Mercury Elite Pro / USB 2.0 (x1), FireWire 400 (x2) / mit US-Stecker … 40 EUR
8) 500GB (2x 250GB) Formac / FireWire 400 (x2) / Lüfter macht manchmal ein komisches Geräusch beim einschalten, sonst funktioniert einwandfrei … 25 EUR

Networking-Geräte / Networking Devices:

9) Speedport W 701V / 802.11g WLAN DSL-Router mit VoIP-Funktion … 15 EUR
10) D-Link DI-524 / 802.11g WLAN Broadband-Router … 10 EUR
11) Apple AirPort ("Graphite" 802.11b) Basisstation … 10 EUR
12) ATI Remote Wonder II Multimedia Funk-Fernbedienung für Mac OS X oder Windows … 10 EUR

Gratis! (oder 5 EUR Spende) / Free! (or 5 EUR donation):

13) Teledat 331 LAN Ethernet-Router
14) Alcatel Speedtouch 510 USB Broadband Modem
15) Philips Kala Telefon mit Anrufbeantworter / Knöpfe sind etw. versteift
16) Olympia DECT-Telefon / Knöpfe sind etw. versteift
17) Hama DVB-T Antenna

Above is a slideshow of the Picasa album where you can find photos of most of the devices. You can also go here to view the ad on Craigslist Hamburg. If you've got any questions, leave a comment and I'll respond as soon as I'm able.