Wiiiiiiiiii!

I am currently in Vienna and staying at my brother's. He has a Wii Fit and so, after returning from a birthday party this evening (i.e. after having eaten well and had ice cream for dessert! ) I got an intro to Wii Fit from my little bro.

We entered all my info (height, age etc) and I did the balance tests and everything else and the little board worked out that my Wii Fit age is -8 years off my REAL AGE! I am at the ideal weight, ideal BMI and physically 8 years younger that my chronological age.

Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii. I really like this thing! My brother's Wii Fit age is 1 year older than his real age... and he's my little brother (he, he, he)

Merry Christmas...

from Austria....

Doppelgaenger

Today I saw Princess Diana on the bus.

She was riding backwards, wearing that People's Princess nose, blonde haircut and that unmistakable profile. She also had the customary Princess Di dark sunglasses, Princess Di beige capri pants, Princess Di black blazer, Princess Di black moccassins (didn't Di always wear beige and black and moccassins??) and... she was casually looking out the window and chewing gum - insolently (as far as I could tell). She noticed me looking and looked back at me from behind her designer glasses. Then out the window again, chewing insolently. Back at me, back out the window..chew, chew... I was spellbound.

We got off the bus at the same stop and headed for the U-Bahn station... me following at a discreet distance... and then she Broke The Spell. She stopped at a hot-dog stand to get a Wiener!!!!!!!!!!!!! IT'S SO OVER!!!!!! The gum I was willing to go along with - I mean, Diana was a funky royal who could shoot the breeze and chew the sugar-free... but a Wiener Wurstl? Even the Louis Vitton bag and the chunky, expensive watch couldn't make up for it. Sorry lady - nice try, but no cigar.

Diana DOESN'T do hot-dogs!

thanx god...you what?

Ahhhh...the joys of bearing witness to germanic youth and their obsession with a language they master with great difficulty. Why is it that English is rated as being so cool in German-speaking culture? People who do not speak English, randomly lob English words into their speech like handgrenades. Lethally unintelligible for native English speakers, due to being both unexpected and mangled by an attractive(NOT!)accent.

Didn't I look like an eedjit the time the sound 'patch' made it's way into a perfectly normal German sentence and I had to ask 3 times what that was, while my language-lobe did backflips, trying to find the meaning of 'patch' as a German word. Fortunately, a fellow English-speaker was on hand to ungarble that sound as the English word 'BADGE'. Well, who knew?

Or that time a friend offered to make me some 'hammen tex' . She does not speak a word of English so again I was at a loss to link this sound to a German word I recognised. Eventually, completely exasperated by my lack of comprehension she yelled out: 'I thought English was your mother tongue?!' Oh, you were speaking ENGLISH?? In that case, I would love some Ham And Eggs, thank you.

My favorite, for now, was a black tank top I saw on a punky-looking nose-, eyebrow- and earring infested bloke on the Vienna U-bahn . Proudly displayed across his chest in bold, silver lettering were the words: THANX GOD I'M A VIP!

[PS German speakers pronounce it vvhipp, one word. Kuhl, huh?]

McTourism

Ladies & Gents, please forgive me, but I am 'plenty' proud of my neologism, McTourism. Now let me explain...

Although we had a lovely time, I can't help feeling like we did the Mcdonald's tour of Ireland... i.e. the Drive-Thru. 17 villages, 4 towns and 2 cities in 3 days, with a coffee, lunch or dinner thrown in here and there.

"you can tick another village off the list"
"cool - what's next?"
"kilsomeoneorother - shall we stop?"
"naaaah! We can see it from the car!"
"yip... tick another town off the list. Wow - Ireland is fantastic! You see so much in such a short space of time and for an authentic experience, you only need to roll down your window and kiss a gob-covered rock backwards."

However, some(travel) is still better than none(travel). It still broadens the mind a wee bit and it certainly whets your appetite to return and spend more time in a place. I do intend to go hiking in Ireland...someday. Time permitting. When I've ticked Japan and India off my Mclist.

PS My keyboard is doing that horrendous thing where everytime you want to place the cursor somewhere in the text, it puts itself 11 characters to the RIGHT of where you wanted it to go! I CANNOT remember how to make that nasty, useless, ridiculous function Go Away... and I don't think I can use the arrow keys much longer - the left arrow is about to wear off! grgrggrgr

Anyway, where was I?
Ah, yes, well... here's a spot of news about the Hollywood Reporter. I am no longer in Hollywood because I have an acting job in Vienna, Austria. So, Hollywood is a very clean, pristine, ordely place in central Europe for the time being. Thank you for your understanding.