Category Archives: Das Gehirn

02Sep / 2024

Migbars, and old man whining about health

My recipe for “Migbars” (energy bars to snack on while climbing etc. that are healthier and cheaper than commercial ones) is nearly all sorted out. The climbers I know who have so far test-eaten them all gave positive feedback.

I remain happy with my Ford Tourneo Courier 1.0 Ecoboost although the cruise control is distracting. It is my first car with a cruise control, I like the cruise control, but it switches to “standby” if I step on the brakes or gas while using it, and I have not yet figured out how to just switch it back on, and instead must turn it off and back on instead.

I woke up today without vertigo for the first time in more than 2 weeks. I am hesitant to discuss my health, as I don’t want to be an old person cliche talking about my health all the time, but I always find trouble-shooting a PITA and it’s even more so when it is your health you are dealing with and man don’t ever do internet searches for health/illness stuff. There are so many potential causes of vertigo! Most dire! This led to me bouncing from one doctor to another, with the result that my body has passed inspection and I am street-legal for another year. It has been determined by MRI that my brain is “not clinically relevant” which sounds insulting but is good news; my ears are fine, except for the growing deafness and tinnitus, and so on.

I have been forced to monitor my blood pressure, which so far is right where it should be.

I still don’t know what the cause of my dizziness was – anyway I woke up this morning feeling fine for the first time in 2 weeks. I think it might have been a combination of the hot weather, stress, fear and panic. I was somewhat miserable and unable to go climbing, which is my main anti-misery tool lately. Anyway. Feeling better now, I think. Hope it sticks. Maybe I can go climbing again soon (as soon as I manage to convince Alpha that I my equilibrium has returned), and have a Migbar.

Posted in Das Gehirn, Metamorphosism

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25Aug / 2024

Interspecies contract

It is sometimes good for your mental health when you are able to give the wheel to your stone age side that is otherwise so often repressed in today’s society (does not apply to fascists) and so I found it liberating yesterday to go into the woods and look for some natural fibers with which to make a basket; I have no idea how to make a basket so we are talking early Neanderthal in my case (archeologists have found traces of cordage-making in 90,000 year old Neanderthal settlements but based on how easily the practice of twining fibers came to me I would guess it is earlier than that) anyway I clipped a few cattails and stripped off their leaves, which I find good for making cordage as the leaves are quite long and there are smaller bits on one side of the leaves you can strip off that are good for making thinner, almost thread-like twine that is quite strong but I do not know yet what to do with that either; in fact that is the reason I am trying to make a basket because when a friend asked me, But what are you going to do with the twine? I answered, Make a basket and so there I was with my cat-tails, wandering deeper into the woods to find some branches I could use for a frame and it felt like the opening scene of a detective show where a passerby innocently stumbles upon the first body, which I call the “Leichenfund”-scene as in, I am on the sofa, TV is on, my wife is outside talking to the kale in the raised bed and I shout to her, Honey hurry, your Krimi is on, you’re going to miss the Leichenfund! and I stepped into a tuft of grass and something cold, moving fast, wriggled up my leg, between leg and trouser-leg and I instinctively did the dance (definitely an instinct imprinted in my lizard brain, requiring zero thought) that one does in such a situation, the dance we have been doing since the days of Neanderthal fiber-gathering, probably longer, and in response the cold wriggling creature threw it into reverse and wriggled off through the grass and I thought, Lizard? Snake? and mused upon the interspecies contract whereby one wriggles, one dances, the wriggler exits stage left, no harm done and how that would benefit both species in such a way that we have both evolved to this point that we can safely go our separate ways, happy with our rapidly beating hearts and a story to tell when we get home.
I found no body, but I did cut a few branches that are crookeder and less uniform than I had hoped for for a basket but perhaps that will lend the finished product an interesting air, assuming I can produce a piece of twine to tie them together that doesn’t break when I tug on it.
Then a bee stung me in the left shoulder blade when was watering the flower bed in front of the house. My first thought was a wasp, which will sting you for fun, and not a bee, which you have to give a reason and I had given bees no reason to sting me, I am mellow with bees, I was merely watering their flowers, and I said a bad word and squirted myself in the back with the hose to get rid of the wasp, which will sting you multiple times if they are in a mood to, but when I got back into the house and removed my wet shirt I could see the stinger and its attached poison sack still in my shoulder blade and realized a bee had somehow crawled up my shirt and stung me when I leaned against the wall of the house (as an American, I am always leaning against something, this is typical for Americans, a fact I read on my phone from an article citing a CIA manual for its spies under “how not to look American while abroad” that said Americans were always leaning against something; I was leaning against the interior of a subway when I read that, but everyone leans against the interior of the subway, don’t they?) and finding itself between house and shoulder blade it felt compelled to sting, sadly, because I meant it no harm and honeybees, unlike wasps, can only sting once, and this beautiful animal died, and when I pulled out the stinger I of course accidentally squeezed the remaining venom into myself making it worse, and wished for an interspecies contract with honeybees, which of course maybe we have already and which I had violated, such as, Don’t squish us and we won’t sting you. Maybe.
Anyway. I don’t know what’s going on with the animals in my clothes lately.
Just what happens when you leave the house I guess.
Now please excuse me, I must water the yard.

Posted in Das Gehirn, Feral Living, Metamorphosism

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08Aug / 2024

First review of Ford Tourneo Courier 1.0 Ecoboost

We picked it up today and drove it home past what we later found out was a tornado and out to lunch and then I went shopping with it, more rain, and then we drove it back to the dealer to return the 2nd key from the Kia we traded in and pick up the back support pillow I forgot in the driver’s seat of the Kia.
So not a lot of driving so far, maybe an hour total. I will submit further reviews here with additional impressions as they arise.
For the moment I am enjoying the bells and whistles and electronic doodads and functions. I finally figured out the cruise control, for example, and am gradually getting used to the stay-in-your-lane function and the don’t-tailgate function, not to mention the you-are-exceeding-the-speed-limit alarm.
It also folds the outside mirrors in when you lock it, which is useful if you are someone with a tendency to check if you forgot to lock the door, because now you can see – if the mirrors are folded in you locked it.
When you turn the vehicle on, the radio comes on. When you turn the vehicle off, the radio stays on. Then when you open the door to get out, the radio turns off. I have had cars in the past that did similar things, but this is the first one that seems to do it by design and not because you haven’t found the loose wire yet.
Size-wise it resembles a Doblo, even looks more compact, but has a very roomy feel and there was plenty of room for all the nuts and dried fruit I bought at the supermarket today to make my own energy bars because energy bars are expensive!
Unfortunately dried fruit and nuts are also expensive, oh well.
Lastly, there is no CD player in the Ford, which I gather is normal now, so I guess I will have to bite the bullet and get going on a Spotify account or something.

Posted in Das Gehirn, ferner liefen, Metamorphosism

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02Aug / 2024

Hey sister, go sister

One bittersweet thing about ageing, provided you are not a complete fuckhead, is discovering things you had wrongly assumed were true i.e. things you were wrong about. Bitter because you were wrong about them, blithely so, often things that were fundamental to your world view, your understanding of the universe, and sweet because you can correct them, yet bitter because to do so you have to admit, at least (or especially) to yourself, that you really were wrong about them, but sweet because if you fix it then you are right again, yet bitter because you know the next thing will come soon enough.

It’s the Dunning-Kruger thing. The more you grow in wisdom and knowledge, the more you realize you are a bigger dumbfuck than you thought. Lately this has been (like everything else) accelerating with me. Like, during the course of my life, as time passed, I first thought I was invincible, then smart, then a sort of dumb smartfuck, then a dumbfuck, but now, god, a dumb dumbfuck, while yet at the same time knowing, or hoping, that this is the result of growing knowledge and wisdom enabling me to recognize and repair my dumbfuckery and not simply me growing increasingly stupid as I age.

Today, this morning, in the parking lot of my doctor, where we had just gone over the results of a blood test and I had been given the all-clear, or mostly-clear, I hit *play* on the greatest disco hits (CD 2 of 3) in my car’s CD player and bounced along to “Lady Marmalade” on my way to the train station when suddenly a wave of uncertainty washed over me.

Is it “gitchie gitchie” or “gitchy gitchy”? And,
is it really “ya ya gaga”?
Given my inability to understand the simplest lyrics I was compelled to perform an Internet search.
What a rabbit hole, is all I can say.
Turns out it’s basically like whatever schism led to the Roman Catholic Church/Orthodox Church deal.

For one thing, it is “Hey sister, go sister, hey sister soul sister” and not “Hey sister, soul sister” (x2)

For another thing, depending on who you ask it is either “gitchie gitchie” or “gitchi gitchi”. I was unable to find “gitchy gitchy” or any other alternatives.

Likewise, to my surprise there was a general consensus that it is “da da” and not “gaga”.

I am still digesting this.

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31Jul / 2024

doo-dad

I weighed myself and then was immediately motivated to go to the gym where I seem to have spent too much time on the crotch machine as I am now walkin’ aroun’ like a bow-legged cowpoke.

I weighed myself because I was curious how much weight Gamma was belaying when she held the rope for me in our climbing class. Quite a bit, it turns out.

We hooked her up to a sandbag a couple times, and ran the rope in a z-pattern a couple times, to assist with my excess weight, as neither of us wanted her to be pulled upwards through a bunch of carabiners if I fell.

I was careful not to fall, but still. You do all that work to help them become awesome, you don’t want to pull them through a bunch of carabiners.

Yesterday I went to a climbing shop and bought a different doo-dad to increase friction on the rope in case of a fall, recommended to me by a climbing friend to help with the weight difference.

Meanwhile, working on decreasing the weight difference as well.

And limpin’ around

Posted in Das Gehirn, Familie, Metamorphosism

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26Jul / 2024

The simple secret Big String hates

I accidentally shaved off my beard a few days ago.
This has happened before, so I was careful this time – carefully set the length with the length-setting dial. Started with my moustache because I wanted to leave the beard long, just trim up the edges.
However, the clipper protection cage is apparently how this clipper adjusts length – the dial slides the cage in and out, controlling its distance to the clipper element – and it seems to have been improperly clacked onto the clipper with the result that despite setting the dial to a moderate length, it shaved off one third of my moustache, leaving me with two-thirds of a moustache and a bare spot where the final third should have been.
I know from experience that had I tried to symmetrize my moustache by shaving a third away from the other side I would’ve been left with a rather narrow bit under my nose, a moustache that went out of style here in Austria in 1945. Yeah so anyway back to the drawing board.
Speaking of drawing board I have been looking for something to do with all the fibers in my garden so I fell down a Youtube rabbit hole of DIY twining/stringmaking tutorials.
Did you know that twine making is probably the oldest human cultural… thing? That led to everything else?
Like, after twisting some twine from the leaves of day lilies in our garden and… enjoying how soothing it is to just sit there and twine for hours while chatting on the terrace, I began to wonder what one does with all this twine. I finally found a website that had a list of things you can do. Three of their suggestions were, seriously, “wrap it around a stick, wrap it around a rock, wrap it around a seashell…”.
Did you know that the oldest man-made fibers discovered so far (and they were probably making string before this but being organic traces are harder to find) were found in a 90,000 year old Neanderthal settlement? My friends and family do! So string-making… predates homo sapiens? Or at least, homo sapiens have no monopoly on it.
And when you have all this string, it leads to other things.
You ask yourself, what am I going to do with all this fucking string? I am going to need a vehicle to move it around (invents wheel). I am going to need a bag to hold it in (invents weaving). Ack my bag fell apart (invents sewing and knitting).
Etc etc.
Actually I stumbled onto string-making while looking at basket weaving tutorials, after finding out that one harvests willow switches in the winter. So to kill time until then I started clicking videos of basketry-adjacent stuff in the right margin and the rest is history.
My wife used some of my twine without asking first to tie up the roses, I was shocked at first but I suppose that was ok, proved it works, and plenty more where that came from.
Feels nice to be out from under the boot of Big String.

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12Jul / 2024

Lunch at Altausseer See in Altaussee near Bad Aussee near Grundlsee

Today, or yesterday (I am vacationing so my grip on time is more tenuous than usual) I was served a memory from a year ago, a picture of me with a butterfly tickling my nostril at the fish restaurant at Toplitzsee, where we go every year, or have gone each of the past five years, as we have fallen in love with the lake one lake over, Grundlsee, and the surrounding mountains, and other features of the landscape etc in the vicinity; however when we hiked to Toplitzsee for more fish this year the restaurant was closed since we made the mistake of going on a Tuesday and it’s closed Tuesdays, and the second time we went it was open and the fish was good but no butterflies, only mosquitos; likewise when we (in this case my daughter Beta and myself, my wife Alpha having returned home on Thursday to take care of the cats while Beta returned here (she had gone to our house a few days prior to replace her sister Gamma as catsitter because Gamma – who had been with me at Grundlsee at the beginning – was going to Innsbruck to give a presentation at a conference, and to climb in the climbing gym there, which is said to be the best in the world) went to Altausseer See in Altaussee, near Bad Aussee, which is one town over from Grundlsee, for a hike and lunch. While walking around the lake, which is pretty and amidst pretty landscapey views, we were a bit worried whether we would get a table at the place, a rustic restaurant on the bank of the lake, it being tourist season and Friday and noon, but we needn’t have worried because the place was about a third full, if that, when we arrived and we took an empty table and that is when the fun started (the hike had been fun too, except for one stretch with a lot of biting flies) because it seemed to be… New Waitstaff Day? or something? Like first I ordered a “Loser Bier” which is a brand of beer named after a nearby mountain, it comes in a bottle which is good for taking “funny” selfies, which I have been known to do; however, and maybe fortunately, the waitress (a different one from the one who had taken my order) brought a large glass of beer (ein großes Bier) and I was like, internally, all Who is hard of hearing here, you or me? but said nothing because I figured, more beer for the same price and probably the Loser beer selfies are getting old. Then, having studied the menu I asked her what a particular burger, named after the restaurant, was, i.e. was it just a regular burger or what? and she said Yes it was a regular burger. But when my food came it was a fish burger, which I discovered later, after she had gone yet I did not mention it to anyone because 1. fish burger was tasty 2. i figured maybe the burger I ordered, named after the restaurant, was indeed a fish burger not a regular burger and the new waitress who had gotten my beer order wrong had simply not known better. Later, after Gamma and I had eaten a waiter arrived with a regular burger and said, you were served a fish burger right? And I said Right and he said, But you didn’t say anything when it was served? And I said, no problem, just give me the regular burger too and he did and I didn’t know what the fuck was going on but it turned out I had to pay for both burgers apparently because I had failed to point out their incompetence to them immediately, which had not been possible for me because as I mentioned I had not been sure the fish burger was a mistake but I didn’t want to argue and paid; if I had started complaining to the guy I would still be there complaining, wrong beer, wrong burger, right burger not very good (too much filler in the patty), unfriendly blame-shifting waiter. So we paid and left. The waitress who took my money (the 4th waitstaff member to grace our table) had not been involved in any of the mistakes so I still tipped her, a decent tip by Austrian standards but a little paltry by American standards, sort of hit the sweet spot with the percentage, small enough so that it seemed on my end that I was penalizing them for their misdeeds, while large enough that they would not notice anything. Then we walked to our car and got there just as the first raindrops fell and by the time we got home thunder and lightning and lots of rain, it was great.

Posted in Das Gehirn, Familie, Feral Living, ferner liefen

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