Monthly Archive for October, 2006

Halloween – yet another fad?

Published
by
Richard
3 years, 4 months ago
in Boredom
. 3 Comments

Being used to bitch about people’s undiscrimating adoption of everything they are force-fed via the mass-media, I was actually getting ready to bitch about people celebrating Halloween here in Austria (as I did last year). You see, I’m a really conservative person. In Austria, you’re supposed to eat Schnitzel and maybe yodel once in a while. But there is absolutely no need for you to celebrate Halloween. After all, you don’t even know what it means, because, it’s ENGLISH. If you want to dress up, there’s a whole fucking season reserved for that from mid-January until sometime in February.

So, you may be able to imagine my distress when I started to notice that this year a lot of the stores, hair-dressers and event-managers seemed to have forgotten about their newfound darling holiday. When last year, at my local grocery store, I had to weave through shelves filled with Halloween rubbish just to reach the cashier, this year there’s nothing. No decoration, no cheap costumes, no black and orange face paint. Not even the foamy sweet stuff I actually bought last year (yeah, I know, but come on, the foam was ORANGE!!!). So, I wonder what happened. Is it the rising anti-Americanism that’s put people off Halloween? Or did the marketing hacks find out that their target demographic doesn’t actually give a shit about Halloween?

Any other Austrians here who’ve been surprised by the lack of jumping the bandwagon efforts?

Wait, let me rephrase that:

Anyone here at all? Care to comment? Use the comment form then.

In which I write about autumn and a crumbling tower

Published
by
Richard
3 years, 4 months ago
in Impressions
. 2 Comments

At the beginning of July, my most favourite anti-aircraft tower here in Vienna started to crumble. Many a people started to panic, not least because getting hit by bits and pieces of debris while sitting next to the tower in the Augarten park is a rather unpleasant experience.

Since then, they’ve been trying to patch it up, fencing off large parts of the park in the process. I went there today to see whether they’re doing a good job or not. Unfortunately, the intricacies of the building trade are completely foreign to me, so I couldn’t tell whether they are recreating it in all its glory or are about the tear it down.

I took a few photos of the tower, mixing in a few prototypical autumn shots in the process. Click here to look at the gallery of crumbling tower and autumn shots I saved to Flickr.

Paintings, free to take

Published
by
Richard
3 years, 5 months ago
in Impressions
. 0 Comments

Here’s why my district quite definitely is most avant-garde in the whole of Vienna.

Today, an artist who apparently has his studio in the building next to ours, took his paintings and set them up next to the road and inside a neighbouring building’s courtyard. While I was snapping away, documenting this event, a nice fella stopped and said that they were free to take. Now, I was too shy to talk to the artist, who was sitting somewhere in the courtyard, maybe suffering from whatever nervous breakdown triggered him to do this (or not…I didn’t talk to him, so I’m speculating), but if he’s indeed giving away those paintings, well, then he’s one cool cat.

And if our flat wasn’t already packed, I’d of course want the dirty painting.

Click here for more pictures.

BREAKING NEWS – sort of

Published
by
Richard
3 years, 5 months ago
in History
. 0 Comments

Well, here’s to me, and all the other people whose final votes brought the Greens to third place. Read all about it here (if you know German…if you don’t, look at the pictures, they tell the story too).

There are still enough people who voted for the far-right, but knowing that for the first time in history the Greens are third, right after the two major parties, really makes up for that. A bit.

BREAKING NEWS – Limbo reviewed

Published
by
Richard
3 years, 5 months ago
in History and Religion
. 1 Comment

Rejoice, Christians, for the concept of the infant limbo is expected to be renounced by the Vatican, according to a reputable source from the small Island.

In case you’re not familiar with the limbus infantium, as it was lovingly coined by late medieval clergymen, it’s the notion that unbaptized children, when they die, will be sent to a place neither heaven nor hell. Basically, limbo is like being forced to watch every episode of Baywatch ever produced – and yes, that includes the episodes produced on Hawaii – but with the sound off. By no means hell, but a tad too repetitious to be called heaven.

According to the one and only source for serious Theology, Wikipedia, church superstar Thomas Aquinas described the infant limbo as “an eternal state of natural joy, untempered by any sense of loss at how much greater their joy might have been — a supernatural joy — had they been baptized”. Meaning it’s like watching Baywatch without knowing that, had they had the chance of being splashed with holy water, they could instead be watching The Simpsons.

Now, the good people at the Vatican have decided that it’s unfair for unborn babies to end up watching Baywatch, so they will renounce the concept in the near future.

From the source:

The Catholic Church is concerned about the grief suffered by the parents of stillborn babies, which could be compounded if they believed the souls of their children were to be excluded from heaven.

And it only took them 600 years to realize. Good job.

By the way, there’s another limbo, which will stay in place. This one is reserved for all the people who lived before the advent of Christ, but still led a life of virtue and whatever you need to earn the respect of shuffling men in robes. Tough luck.

UPDATE: Is it a coincidence that this entry’s ID is 666?

the number of the beast
I think not! Here goes my chance to watch The Simpsons.

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