I, Muehlenhaus. U, Riedermaus.

Now that the World Cup is coming to a close, with two Indo-European and Catholic countries battling one another for the ultimate glory, I find myself a little confused about how to spend my spare time. I am definitely up in our office more these days, working on my dissertation outline, my European Geography class, and listening to tunes. I've also, strangely, been reading as involuntarily as I breathe since the soccer games began thinning out last week. Finished the five books of "Shogun," which weren't as good as I remembered them being -- perhaps age has made me see schlock writing better. The ending of Shogun was so anti-climactic that I was pissed I spent weeks reading the 1200 pages. Bummed out that such a great book could be spread out over so many slices of dead trees and that an ending could be so unconvincing (seriously, I think the author just got bored with the book he was writing and decided to end it), I picked up the next book I could find. It happened to be a used copy of "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time," which Birgit had bought sometime ago in the back of a Barnes & Noble that was going out of business. It was covered in dust on a shelf in the guest the bedroom. I figured I would give it a shot, because one day at the Christian Caribou, which is how I refer to the Caribou Coffee joint near my house, because it is always full of Christian therapists telling desperate housewives to stick it out with their abusive, drinking, or just lazy ass husbands, because the Lord has a plan for everyone and divorce is a sin, I saw someone reading this book and laughing outloud as he read. He didn't look insane and he couldn't put the book down either -- his girlfriend, or significant other, or Christian comarade, whatever, wanted to leave, but he couldn't until he finished the book. I wanted to suggest she get a divorce, but I thought I might be taken hostage by the Bethel therapists lingering around and the last thing I wanted to do was hear scripture! At any rate, the book is bloody brilliant and I really can't say enough about it except read it if you can in the near future. (Best book I've read in years! Hands down. Plus, the graphics in the book are brilliant!) Finishing this book in a day or so got me in the mood for Salinger, as it kind of reminded me of "The Catcher in the Rye." So I plowed through a copy of "Franny & Zooey," which had been collecting dust on various bookshelves throughout my graduate school career until this past week. It was an excellent read too -- though not as good as Salinger's "Nine Stories." It got me excited for my forthcoming subscription to the New Yorker as Franny & Zooey were originally two short stories (or long?) in that magazine back in 1955 and 1957. Having finished those books, and with no sign of the World Cup championship game in sight, I also read a really corny, terrible, boring, short, condescendingly stupid, MBA self-help book lying around called "Who Moved My Cheese?" It helped me get into the mind of corporate America, I suppose, as about 14 CEOs of various evil corporations sprinkled testimonials on the back cover and throughout the first 25 pages of the 93 page book about how the "Who Moved My Cheese?" changed their lives and how they make every employee read it before joining "the team." Essentially, this book summarizes the taken for granted nature of neoliberal capitalism better than any Nikolas Rose, Foucault or washed up, balding, prissy-voiced political geographer from Great Britain can. It's pure evil! I love dipping my toes in it.

Met with Roger, whom I'm doing a workshop with next week, again yesterday. He stopped by on his BMW motorcycle -- a beautiful machine that I would love to test out on an Autobahn or back country Canadian highway if I weren't as clumsy as Mr. Bean or Chevy Chase back in the early 80s. What? Exactly. Roger dropped off the readings I've assigned to the K-12 teachers, which I realized I haven't read in many years and need to read this weekend, which is fine, because I'm out of fiction material as noted above. Ahhh... creating my PowerPoint for this class. I'm kind of flabbergasted at how much I make my students go through in a semester. Slide-after-slide of notes on conceptualizations of Europe and nationalism in Europe and... man, it's cruel. Oh well, I know they have to learn something if they want to pass my class -- if nothing else, how to memorize PowerPoint slides. Anyway, I'm trying to lighten it up for the K-12 teachers a bit, just because it is only a week long workshop and it wouldn't be right to kill them with too much information. Right? Right!

Well, that's about it. Last night Birgit was devouring a book and didn't want to hang out, so I went and rented three videos -- Trainspotting, the Grizzly Man, and some television show that I can't stand but Birgit asked me to rent if they had it at the video store. I actually stood in the aisle debating whether or not I should lie and say I didn't see it there, that's how much I dislike the show, but I decided that would be unethical and that, if I was renting two videos the least I could do was rent her one with five crappy episodes. After all, just because I rented it doesn't mean she ask me to watch them... I hope. Also picked up a 12-pack of Pilsner Urquil, because I felt like watching videos and sipping on a foreign beer. But when I got home my neighbor Mike was just hooking up the television in his backyard to watch the Twins get slaughtered by the Rangers. So I cancelled the movie night by myself and hopped the fence with a six-pack to watch the Twins... get slaughtered by the Rangers. (It was six-to-nothing by the time I even got over there, so really we just chatted. His brother Jeff and a friend of theirs was over there too.) Came home at 11:00 and tried to convince Birgit to watch Trainspotting with me, but she wouldn't so I started it and then had to give up any chance of getting through it by 12:00.

So there are movies to watch today, dogs to take for walks today, and chores to do. I have to call Adam. Adam, if you are reading this, I apologize for not calling and thanks for the link from the BBC the other day. If you feel like watching the Grizzly Man, drop me a line. Cheers to everyone else out there too. Hi Bjorg!