Month: June 2004

Dogwear designer Hildegard Bergbauer, who also makes Tyrolean mountain hats and rainwear for canines, said the leather outfits were best suited for dachshunds and other small dogs but also looked good on poodles, spaniels and boxers. Bergbauer said she was inspired by the memory of dogs dressed up at festivals in her youth.

She said that when she dressed her dogs Spitzerich and Zorrolino up in mini dirndls and lederhosen, people liked the idea and thought it was a lot of fun. So far, Bergbauer has sold her costumes to dog owners in the United States and of course in Bavaria.

“They want to go to the beer garden and to show off on the Leopoldstsrasse (Munich's main shopping street) and it's ideal for that.” Bergbauer said she is thinking about extending her dogwear range to include kilts and even biking leathers and goggles for dogs riding pillion.

This is why dogs turn on their owners and eat them.

original link: Reuters Oddly Enough

So, end of weekend review.

First of all, I have the apartment all to myself – it's glorious :D It will only last a few days, but I'm going to enjoy it while it lasts. Marc was over to pick up his keys and move the first load of boxes to his room. Talked a bit, then went to Ikea with eniran. This time, prior to our departure, I checked online for stock availability.

This turned out to be our most efficient ikea shopping trip ever. We went in, found the location, ran to the self-serve aisles and laid claim to a pair of really heavy boxes. Goofed off with blue “pantoufles” in the line to wait to pay, and finally headed home. Spent the next hour or so cursing at little screws that wouldn't cooperate (favourite quote from Sara: “You don't need tools to build ikea furniture” – thank god I got tools last xmas) and finally got it up, sanded, oiled and all tucked away.

This is also the final result of all the work I've been doing in my kitchen these past few weeks :)

Once everything was tidied up (even though the place looks like a warzone and needs to be cleaned from top to bottom), I made dinner (hmmm, pasta goodness!) and then we got comfy to watch a movie. We laughed our asses off watching Robin Williams in Good Morning Vietnam. I hadn't seen that movie in ages, and I'd forgotten how funny it was.

Other good quote of the day: “You know how I told S. that I never get the munchies? You just proved me wrong. Damn you!”. Sweeeeeeeeeeeet :D

So what did I do today. Well, I woke up way too early considering the time I went to bed last night. Finished painting the breakfast nook. The trim is done, as is any required touch-ups. Good thing done, so now I'll be able to finally install the damn butcher block – as soon as i can get one from Ikea.

I spent a good part of the day chatting off and on with Tia, while waiting for a phone call from hacker_grrl to go table shopping. I doubt it's going to happen today. Crap. I need a kitchen table, and tomorrow will not be a good shopping day with the roommate madness. I'll be glad when this whole mess is done and over.

So today is Tina's birthday.

Outlook alerted me to the fact earlier this week. I sent her an ecard. I don't know why. To hurt her? To hurt myself? Why do I keep thinking about this girl? I keep looking at my email to see if she sent a reply, even though I fairly well know I won't get anything. I know she got the card. What do I expect to get out of all this?

Shit, I wish I knew.

Well, it's official, both my current roommates are out to drive me bonkers.

Marc, my new roommate, has only met Caro once. He's already afraid of her. She's always had an abrasive personality, but right just this minute, she's acting like a real bitch. She's moving out on Sunday, and has a crew of friends to help her move. That's fine. Marc asked me if he could start bringing stuff on Sunday as well. I didn't see a problem, as Annie's room – the room he's going to be taking – is already empty because Annie moved out last week. She went ballistic, saying that she didn't want a congestion in the staircase.

Now excuse me, but that's a pile of bullshit. I know you only rented your van for a few hours, but I once emptied 3 complete apartments in 4 hours with 6 people. You have 4 people, but you ONLY HAVE ONE ROOM TO CLEAR! So excuse me if I think you're full of yourself.

This one ain't as bad as the previous one, but still icky.

Had lunch with hacker_girl today, as I hadn't seen her in a few weeks. We're sitting down at Reubens and we're catching up and being silly, our usual activities basically. I'm suddenly distracted by a cute little thing wearing a red plaid short schoolgirl skirt and midriff shirt (say that 3 times really fast!). I'm only seeing her from the back, but she has great legs, beautiful tush, nice tummy and I caught sight of some decent cleavage from the side. I didn't make anything of it, but maybe 5 minutes later, the girl walks past our table to go to the bathroom. I almost choked on my coke… the woman was at least 40, if not more. That's so wrong…

Media exposure forces government to respond to hair-into-soy sauce scandal

Shanghai. (Interfax-China) – The Chinese government has shown an unusually high level of concern as a result of a bold media exposure towards a scandal in which human hair was used to make soy sauce. The government has now ordered an immediate inspection of all domestic food seasoning plants before the end of January.

China Central Television (CCTV), the state television station, first raised public worries over the quality of domestic soy sauce by uncovering a substandard workshop in central China's Hubei Province, where piles of waste human hair were found. The hairs were treated in special containers to distill amino acid, the most common substance contained in soybean sauce.

Human hair is rich in protein content, just like soybean, wheat and bran, the conventional and legally accepted raw ingredients for the production of soy sauce.

The plant, describing itself as a bioengineering company, made around 100,000 tons of amino acid daily, in either syrup or powder form, making it easier for delivery, plant workers said. They were then distributed to diluting plants in or near the province, where it was diluted with approximately ten times water, was then made into ready-for-use soy sauce and was bottled or packaged.

In one such plant shown on the CCTV program, more chemical additives were poured into the amino acid syrup and heated and stirred continuously by a worker.

The additives include one whole bag of solid hydroxide to make the sauce taste better, and bottles of hydrochloric acid to balance the acid and alkali content in the mixture in order to make it safer for human consumption. Both additives were for industrial use only, according to their packaging.

By producing soy sauce from such raw materials, the producers were said able to cut costs by half. Workers employed at the plants, however, never bought soy sauce marked as “blended” on the packaging, because that usually meant that human hair was the basic material in the sauce.

Soy sauce made from human hair is not the first low-quality food product exposed by state television, which launched a program called “Weekly Quality Report” around half a year ago. The program, which conducts investigations into the low quality of some of China's most common food products, has frequently ruined the public appetite.

In related news the Beijing Star Daily reported the Beijing government has begun closer monitoring and supervision of 14 kinds of foods, including rice, meat, vegetables, bottled water, dairy products and cooking oil due to fears of large-scale food-poisoning cases.

original link: http://www.interfax.com/com?id=5680503&item=search

Is that a rodent in your pants, or are you just happy to see me?

I just want to fall asleep on my desk. I'm braindead and completely useless to the world today. The fact that I just popped some antihistamines a while back to control my allergies really isn't helping my case right now.

I wanna go home! :(

So I had nightmares again last night. Woke up at 3:30 in a panicked daze – that's nice. Dreaming about work (no! no! the XSLT transform has to happen BEFORE the content is rendered!). Yes, I know I'm fucking weird…. Then I had another one about eniran, who was having a huuuuuuuuuuuge fight with closet-case and brown-girl, except everybody was jewish. What bothers me is that I'm having nightmares of my friends' friends, and I've never even met these people.

Fuuuck, I need a decent night's sleep. Anybody has suggestions, cause I'm out of ideas.