Scowl, Nu?

Ok, time to get off on a controlled rant here…

My wife and I made our decision to move out to Germany for work – not knowing a single person, or a single word of German, about two years ago. Since we knew we would be waiting for months for our property to arrive from the states, we decided that a furnished apartment would be best for us, and based on a mention in a Munich Found magazine I brought back from a business trip, we decided to go through Mr. Lodge.

At that time, we thought it was the best solution. They had a large selection of units, a well designed website, and they were willing to correspond with us in English. Mr. Lodge catered to expats, and that made us comfortable. Maybe a little too comfortable.

In the week leading up to our pre-move scouting trip (to find an apartment, file the appropriate paperwork) we were in constant contact with one of the principals of Mr. Lodge. We gave him a list of more than 10 apartments that we wanted to see. Only having 6 days to find and close the contract for an apartment, we scheduled an appointment to see these apartments the following morning. We were assured that we would be picked up and shown a number of places.

After flying in and getting a slight runaround trying to get in touch with our contact, we finally spoke with his colleague and was told that he was not in the office but was given his mobile phone number. We left a message on his handy and was contacted later that night. At that point, we were told that there was only one really good option still available. We asked for him to come up with a list of other options. He said that he could show us a unit that Monday. It was now Friday night. We left mid the next week. Our first, and at that point, only appointment was scheduled with only 72 hours after that to close all of our pre-move arrangements.

On Sunday, I tracked my contact down and he told me that we were set for Monday morning. Since it was pouring rain, I asked if he would, as confirmed earlier, be picking us up at the hotel. He said that there was no car available. Interesting, as when he arrived at the apartment (late), he was driving.

We liked the apartment, and feeling time pressure, moved forward with closing a contract. We paid the deposit and went through the handover. The handover was not conducted by my contact (he was “sick”) but by someone who spoke NO English, was late, and had no interest. She wrote on the form that everything was fine and got one key for the front door/apartment. The handover took less than 5 minutes. On leaving we requested DSL connectivity to be set up, and that Mr. Lodge leaves the second full set of keys, the mail key, the garage key and the location of the garage on the kitchen table. Why? Because when we moved from the states in two weeks, I would have a meeting at 9am the next morning. No second set of means my wife would be stuck inside without a way to get in, or I would be stuck if she went out.

We arrived at about 9pm on a Sunday. No second keys. No DSL. Nothing. Calls to my contact’s mobile phone were left unanswered. In a panic, I called (and woke up) my landlord who offered to come in early the next morning with a second set of keys. Luckily, he spoke English.

After that, I never talked to Mr. Lodge again. That is, until we decided to move to Cologne last month. My landlord, who I had never seen since that first day, and who I exchanged two or three emails with regarding a satellite installation, said that Mr. Lodge would do the handover back. I scheduled an appointment for the day we moved out.

That day was a nightmare. The movers horribly underestimated the amount of crap we had in the house (they said 14qm, it was 24 when packed), which meant that the 3 hour move out now took over 8 hours. We had to finish the cleaning of the apartment (I had already repainted and cleaned all of the landlord’s stuff), then drive up to Cologne because the movers were coming the following morning at 8am to unload everything at our new place. We didn’t have time to spare, yet the Mr. Lodge contact (not our original person from two years ago) didn’t show up. After 30 minutes of waiting, I called Mr. Lodge, furious. Our original contact showed up 45 minutes later and gave the apartment a clean bill of health, but noted two things: dry the window sills to prevent mold (the apartment was VERY prone to mold – not airing it out for more than a few days led to mold appearing in the corners), and clean the oven better (hell, it was in the same condition it was in when we got there years ago). We cleaned the sills and the oven to a condition better than when we moved in, and left for Cologne.

The move in document and the move out were exactly the same, except that the move out stated that we needed to clean the oven.

Our landlord came in two weeks later and was treated to mold (I warned Mr. Lodge) and some perceived minor damage. He did immediately refund half the deposit and said he was going to get a quote for additional cleaning and a few repairs, and then refund any additional monies back. I informed him that Mr. Lodge gave it a clean bill of health and told him to follow up, because if the move-out document stated no damage, he needs to take it up with his agent.

My complaint is not with my landlord. I am sure that within the next few days, I will get copies of the cleaning invoice and a further refund. My problem is with Mr. Lodge and their constant do-nothing attitude.

Contrary to popular belief, Germany is not Anti-American.

Open up most major American newspapers or turn on CNN and you’ll probably be barraged with stories of how Europeans, most specifically Germans and the French are making a national pastime of bashing America.

Well, I can’t speak for my neighbors to the West, but I can tell you first hand about the Anti-American sentiment that is running rampant here in Deutschland.

Specifically, it’s bullshit. Complete, unadulterated bullshit.

Sure, there the majority of people here in Germany believe that based on the UN findings, a war in Iraq is completely unwarranted at this time. It is also true that a good number of the Germans I have talked to are at the least severely confised by the US Government’s position and at most are in strong disagreement with its destabilizing position. But Anti-American?

To me, for a nation to be Anti-American, you’re talking about North Vietnam during the war – where Americans are singled out, arrested for no reason and killed on the spot. Well, I can tell you that I walk the streets of München with no fear of being arrested and tried for my country’s actions. In fact, the worst thing I have to worry about on the streets is someone asking me for directions in German and not being able to help them out.

Germany is not Anti-American. In fact, Germany tends to have very kind feelings towards America and its people. What it doesn’t have a soft spot for is George W. Bush, who the general consensus of people I have talked to feel is a dangerous, unstable war-mongerer. But again, they’re just stating their opinion in a rational, non-voilent discourse… and since when did that become Anti-American?

Yeah, I had something extremely witty to write about the whole subject. Actually two things. The first piece was this anti-abortion bumper sticker induced treatise on the economics of abortion that ran on for two pages but never ended up saying anything of real interest. The second talked about the failure of sex ed class for 8 paragraphs or so but for some reason I couldn't get it to really flow well. No matter what I wrote, it looked like I was apologizing for my views. Then I realized that I don't need to justify my stance. So, here it is – Avery's answer to reducing teen pregnancy.

Gays in the army. Women in submarines. Is anybody else sick of hearing the Moral Majority complain about this sort of crap?

Here and now, you will get Avery's first and last commentary on the issue.

In a so-called professional military machine where there is honor and discipline in the ranks, you shouldn't have to worry about ANYTHING happening to ANYONE in the shower or the training grounds or the battle fields.

That's the message that the United States Military tried to espouse when it first "allowed" women into the ranks to train and eventually fight alongside with male soldiers. To say that either a straight man would have to worry about the unwanted advances of a gay soldier when in combat or that a woman would allow a situation to occur where she would get pregnant, jeopardizing the safety and morale of her submarine and shipmates would then be ludicrous.

That is, unless the message from the Pentagon is just a sham and that the military can't control its soldiers and officers. So, tell me, which is it?

This sort of crap only comes up in times of peace. If, God forbid, there is ever a war that causes the government to reinstate the draft, do you think that any inductee will be asked their sexual preference? Do you think that women will be restricted submarine duty? Of course not. Then the Moral Majority would praise all of the Fine Men and Women of the Armed Forces who sacrifice so mush in this time of great need. But not now. Now the message is how anyone who is different is a threat to morale. Funny, in World War II they said the same message about blacks in the military… and sixty years later the military still stands.

Personally, if anybody, regardless of gender, sexuality, medical condition, you name it – wants to serve and defend their country – who the hell is anybody to tell you that you can't? Why is it that a gay man cannot choose to serve their country but has an equal chance of being drafted into serving their country? It's this sort of specious reasoning that is destroying the fiber of America.

Well, never let it be said that ol' Avery never did his part. Here goes a message out to any homosexual interested in serving in the military or woman interested serving in a submarine: I, Avery Glasser, being of sound mind and body, upon the re-instatement of the draft will pass along my draft ticket and number to the first candidate interested in serving his or her country. No questions asked. You can take my place on the front line dodging bullets.

And if it bothers the poor little soldiers that they have to fight alongside someone different from them and it kills morale to the extent that some politicos want you to believe, maybe this nation doesn't deserve to exist anymore.

Let me ask you this: in the year 2000, am I the only one who really cares about their job, the only one who actually likes to work? I know I've gone on about this before, but what's the deal with this new breed of people who are entering/re-entering the work force? What happened to the concept of The Boss? What happened to the slightly tense, hierarchical relationship between employer and employee? I mean, this new breed's attitude is largely one of "It's my way or the highway" – they're in control now! They call the shots! They say, "this is how I'm going to do this job, and tough titties if you don't like it."

Here's an example. If my boss said something to me, the gist of which was: "Look, you've got a month and a half's worth of paperwork here that needs to be filed and you'd better get on that because I can't find anything I need in order to do business with my clients efficiently and professionally," I would first of all be fraught with nervousness and anxiety that I was not doing my job as well as I could, or as well as he expected from me, and secondly, I would bust my ass trying to get it done tout suite. What I would not do is immediately jump to the defensive and offer up some haughty commentary on how I had already filed a few things this morning.

These clock watchers, though. They come in not a minute early and leave not a minute late and make damn sure they take 60.0 minutes for lunch – no more, no less. Does the concept of a career not exist anymore? Do people just have jobs now? What the hell happened to society? I know the American work ethic has suffered for decades now, but am I a dinosaur, or what? Does anyone else love their job?

Don't get me wrong — I'm not advocating a 7-day work week, and I'm not saying we should go back to the "yes sir, no sir, anything you say sir" type of brown-nosing, slave-esque work environment, with the powers that be storming around pointing their fingers in the air and yelling things like "You're fired, Johnson, clear out your desk!" and Johnson meekly shuffling out with his cardboard box, the sad contents of which are a dying spider plant, a snow globe and a few swiped felt-tip markers, as a somber air fills the room and everyone stops talking, stands up, and watches him leave (though wouldn't that be cool to see, just once?) — but I like what I do and like who I work with (for the most part, obviously) and I like the feeling of getting the job done, and impressing the people I work for, and if that means staying an extra 15, 30 or even 60 minutes, so be it! Is anyone else out there driven and ambitious, or did that attitude towards work disappear when the '80's were over?

I wish I could search for solidarity on the net, but what the hell would I even ask Jeeves?

"Jeeves, are there any career-minded, driven, hard-working individuals in the world who are completely fed up with working with lacksadasical, apathetic, ignorant, unworldly people who are not team players?"

Can someone please explain to me those emotionless, humorless, ethicless, brainless robototrons who do what they're told (but only what they're told), ask inane common-sense questions, don't follow through, who when 5:00 rolls around take whatever time-sensitive issues they're working on and shove them in a desk drawer because "it's 5:00 and it's been a long day!" and "why should I stay later if no one's going to give me more money/some other type of reward?" Because the reward should come at the end of the road, so to speak. Because you will prove yourself to your superiors and earn the respect of me, your co-worker. Because those silly rewards like plants and flowers and novelty coffee mugs and gift certificates only serve one purpose: to keep you where you are – an assistant position – and discourage you for asking for what you may really deserve two or three or five years down the line – a promotion. You simple-minded fools!

You can lead a woman to a job, but you can't make her think.

I have always been a big fan of restaurant reviews and food sections, being as that I also am a big fan of food and eating. Since there were more restaurants in San Francisco than you could shake a stick at, there was always an abundance of well-written and varied reviews of said eateries. Sadly, Hartford does not hold claim to being any sort of culinary mecca. As a matter of fact, last week the Advocate (the area's free weekly newspaper that is lacking in every way possible), the Hartford Business Journal (the area's, well, journal of business) and the Hartford Courant (Connecticut's main newspaper) all wrote reviews of the same place: Ichiban, which serves Japanese and Korean food. Ichiban isn't even a new restaurant, but merely an old restaurant that moved to the other side of town and took refuge in an abandoned Friendly's. So, this everyone reviewing the same place thing: weird coincidence or planned side-by-side compare and contrast exercise for Janet's amusement?

Let's just say this: the Hartford Courant review was thorough, honest and intelligently written. That said, I will now say this: to Judy and Rick Lunt of the Advocate and Stacey Webb of the Business Journal: why must you ruin my Subway Spicy Italian sandwich with everything on it, even hot peppers, by not only thinking with such ignorance and general hickishness, but actually typing it onto a piece of paper and having it published?

I'll start with the Business Journal review, as that one did not raise my hackles as much as the Advocate review did, and come to think of it, annoyed me for different reasons. Now, one would think that if you're going to make any portion of your living from writing restaurant reviews, or even if you're not making any money and simply like the idea of eating food and then writing about it, in any case, one would think that you are a person or persons very interested in food and food-related topics, wouldn't one? Wouldn't you imagine that your average restaurant/food reviewer would have a grand selection of cookbooks and books regarding the foods of many lands, and would have the Food Network marked as one of his or her "Favorites" on the remote?

Yes, yes you would, and you probably wouldn't think that they would say something like the following when writing about the Korean Stone Pot Bibim-Bap (my asides are in italics): "Again, a large cast-iron pot arrives with a filling based on sticky sizzling rice. The rice is combined with ground beef, carrots, zucchini, as well as a variety of Asian vegetables." (translation: what the hell were those green and white things?) "Surprisingly, they place a raw egg on top of this whole concoction." (the very word concoction indicates that she's finding herself not too fond of this strange, otherworldy, alien dish from a faraway universe) "I must admit, I am very leery of raw eggs and though this is considered to be authentically prepared, I quickly remove it." This is the sentence that pissed me off the most. First of all, enough with the whole raw eggs will kill you thing. While I would never wish salmonella on anyone, and know that people have contracted it from poorly-kept eggs, how many eggs do you think carry the salmonella virus? I'll tell you: only 1 out of every 20,000 eggs! The likelihood of your finding an infected egg is about 0.005% (five one-thousandths of one percent!) And, if the egg does contain the organism, the numbers in a freshly laid egg will be small and, if properly refrigerated, will not multiply enough to cause illness in a healthy person! Ha-ha!

Now that we've gotten the misconceptions about eggs and egg safety out of the way, let's talk about the other things that got stuck in my craw about the egg sentences. One word: "surprisingly." After mentioning authenticity twice in the review ("Everything is authentic", "…authentically prepared…") why is it surprising to her that there would be a raw egg on top of this Korean dish? Is it because we are in the United States, where everything is to be prepared authentically, but not too authentically, lest we let anyone experience the real way that a Korean meal should be served? Another word: "quickly." Interesting how she not only has to let us know that she will never, ever touch a raw egg, no, no, yuck, she feels that it is necessary to tell us that not only did she remove it from her dish, she QUICKLY removed it. Translation: "I think I may remember hearing something about only one in 20,000 eggs carrying the salmonella virus, but I'll be damned if I'll take my chances at a dirty Oriental restaurant, I mean, who knows what kind of health standards these people are used to anyway, right? Do they even have refrigerators in Korea?"

My web-based rebuttal: the Korean Stone Pot Bibim-Bap comes with a raw egg on top because it is served in an unbelievably hot sizzling pot, thus enabling you to stir the egg into the rest of the ingredients where it will actually cook! No more icky raw egg! It's kind of like fried rice – you know fried rice, don't you? Yes, that's right, it is what you order to go with your egg roll and chop suey! Now, if you had ordered the regular Bibim-Bap, sans unbelievably hot sizzling pot, you would have gotten a fried egg on top instead of a RAW one. How's that for egg safety, huh? Let's hear it for authenticity! Yay! Next week: Chili's Bar and Grill for some authentic Mexican Fa-ji-tas!

I'm not even going to try to figure out what the hell freeze-fried anchovies are, but according to her, they supposedly came with the dish.

The very same week, the restaurant reviewers of the Hartford Advocate also reviewed Ichiban. The reviewers, Rick and Judy Lunt, far surpassed Stacey Webb in their ignorance, trying so badly to be "hip" and "now" but failing so, so miserably. I'll abstain from making any comments about their comparison between beers of the world, stating that "Sapporo…(is) more like a Heineken than a Guiness (sic)" (when in reality it is NOTHING like a Guinness, since Guinness is a STOUT, and in no way, shape or form even remotely resembles a Sapporo.) I won't even say anything about their weird prediction that it would be a good meal because they got to use better-than-average chopsticks, rather than the "flimsy, square ones so typically found in substandard Chinese restaurants." What really chapped my ass about this review was the gross misinformation found within it. Again, you're food reviewers. Whether you do this part-time or full-time or even just once, Jesus Christ, could you pick up a reference book or something once in a while just to check your facts? Or do you think that just because you and the rest of your backwater Connecticut pseudo-alternayuppie friends agree on something that it is, in fact, correct?

Take, for example, their definition on sushi, something that happens to be a passion of mine, therefore angering me all the more to read the following drivel (my sarcastic barbs are in italics):

"Although sushi is the overall term many people use to refer to this kind of eating in general, (many STUPID people, I guess, as the term would be describing the food itself not the "kind of eating," whatever the hell that is.) sushi is actually just the sweetened pickled rice. (wrong.) The fish is sashimi. (wrong again!) And when you wrap the two together usually with nori (seaweed paper), you get sushi. (Wrong yet again, you flaming idiot.)

Are you happy, Lunts? Now the entire Advocate-reading public of the Hartford area which, for the most part, needs all the help they can get when it comes to new culture, has been force-fed the stupid-flaming-idiot definition of sushi. I, being a person who is interested in food, especially Japanese food, happen to have several books on the subject (hint-hint, so-called food reviewers), so just for kicks I flipped through one to see just how far off the mark Rick and Judy were in their assessment. Let's partake in a little bit of true or false, shall we? Just so I feel better.

1. Rick and Judy say: "sushi is actually just the sweetened pickled rice." True or False? False. ACTUALLY, actually, the rice is called sushi-meshi, and although it is seasoned with sugar, salt and vinegar, I wouldn't call it "pickled."

2. Rick and Judy say: "The fish is sashimi." Shut up. The fish that goes on top of the rice is called the neta. Sashimi is entirely different cuts of fish served alone, with no rice, often as an hors d'oeuvre with drinks at the beginning of a meal at a sushi-ya (sushi restaurant.)

3. Rick and Judy say: "when you put the two together, you get sushi." Please. When you put the NETA (NOT the sashimi) on top of the SUSHI-MESHI or sushi rice, you get nigirizushi, also known as nigiri, which most people call sushi.

So, then. The moral of our story is: GET A CLUE ABOUT FOOD BEFORE YOU START REVIEWING IT, PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD! Oh, and Judy? Next time, don't gobble up the pickled ginger in lieu of dessert, it's for cleansing the palate between pieces of fish, 'kay?