RWC 2007: The minnows close the gap

When I watched a rugby match for the first time the year was 1995 and the World Cup was taking place in South Africa. I didn't have any idea about what the game was about, I didn't know the rules, but I had a lot of fun watching the match on my telly. I can't even remember what game it was, but a lot of points were scored and one team was dominating their opponents.
When I watched the RWC in 1999 I had a little idea about the game and the different levels of play on the world stage. There were very good teams, good teams and teams who just can't keep up with the rest. I saw crushing defeats for smaller nations and close games between the top teams. So I noticed the huge gap between the first and the second row of rugby teams.
Then in 2003 the RWC was shown on German TV, at least some matches, and I was still able to see 100+ point matches of the big names against smaller teams.

Now it's 2007 and I am thrilled about the perfomance by the minnow teams. I was watching the Wallabies play the Brave Blossoms and I really liked the Japanese way of playing. I watched the Canucks carry a half time lead against the Welsh Dragons. I watched the American Eagles play really well against England. Unfortunately I wasn't able to see the close matches of South Africa against Tonga, of Wales against Fiji, of Scotland against Italy or Japan against Fiji. But all those matches seem to have been really great, close and exciting. And that's something a World Cup needs. Sure there's a difference in waht teams can do, but it's always nice to see when smaller nations can give a hard time to the big names. And maybe we will see an upset in a shroter time than we all expect right now.

So Wales are out of the tournament and Fiji have earned their place in the quarterfinals. I'm really looking forward to the knock out stages.

Bundesliga: Day Eight - Bayern keeps rolling, Bremen storms over Bielefeld

FC Schalke 04 - Hertha BSC Berlin 1:0
Werder Bremen - Arminia Bielefeld 8:1
Bayer Leverkusen - Bayern München 0:1
Hamburger SV - VfL Wolfsburg 2:2
VfL Bochum - 1. FC Nürnberg 3:3
Karlsruher SC - Borussia Dortmund 3:1
FC Hansa Rostock - VfB Stuttgart 2:1
Hannover 96 - MSV Duisburg 2:1
FC Energie Cottbus - Eintracht Frankfurt 2:2

Things seem to settle down a little bit as the favourites in the Bundesliga get wins. Bremen e.g. crushed Bielefeld, who were the surprise team for the past few weeks. 8:1 marks the highest home victoty for the northern side, at least that's what they said on the radio. Meanwhile Bayern seems to be unstoppable. Leverkusen were playing really well the past rounds but without their midfield ace Bernd "Schnix" Schneider ("The White Brazilian" as they call him) they went down 0-1 at home. Dortmund completely lost track after winning three straight now losing two in a row, this weekend end against Karlsruhe. At the bottom of the table Rostock seem to have found their strength beating champions Stuttgart. It reamains to be seen if this is because of Stuttgart being in a new situation where they have to play a match every three days (Champions League and Bundesliga). Schalke moved closer to the top winning against Hertha Berlin who lost their second straight match.
So the table at the top looks like this:

1 Bayern
2 Schalke
3 Karlsruhe
4 Leverkusen
5 Bremen

Karlsruhe shouldn't be up there but all the other teams were expected to climb up sooner or later. Let's wait and see how long promoted Karlsruhe will stay there.

The Gaslight Anthem says goodbye in style

I was able to catch up with the guys one more time last night when they were playing Dortmund's FZW with Turbostaat. It was great to see them again after what seemed to be a long time. We hung out before the show and had lots of fun. The concert itself was rather dissatisfying. All of the TGA's were sick and tired from a month long tour and there were some minor mistakes here and there. But it seemed that a lot of people they had met on the tour were present yesterday and this made the atmosphere very friendly. Anyway, the boys seemed to have fun and so we decided to drive to a disco after the show. Still it was a long struggle to settle on one place and so it tooks us long minutes to get everybody moving. The venue we went to wasn't that good, I was tired as hell and just kept sitting on a bench while the others were dancing all night long.

Back in Cologne at around 5 am I fell straight into my bed. So everything that's left for me now is to say: Thank you, Brian, Alex, Alex and Benny for coming to Germany and playing those awesome shows. And I really look forward to meet you again!

Bundesliga: Day Seven - Ahead of the pack

Borussia Dortmund - Hamburger SV 0:3
Hertha BSC - Hansa Rostock 1:3
VfL Wolfsburg - Werder Bremen 1:1
MSV Duisburg - FC Schalke 04 0:2
VfB Stuttgart - VfL Bochum 1:0
Bayern München - Energie Cottbus 5:0
1. FC Nürnberg - Bayer Leverkusen 1:2
Arminia Bielefeld - Hannover 96 0:2
Eintracht Frankfurt - Karlsruher SC 0:1

Of those games I haven't seen anything. Maybe because I was too busy but I just can't remember what I was doing. Oh, yes, yesterday I was watching rugby instead. Let's be honest, this goes to show that the title will go to Bavaria this year. Bayern plays consistent. Just take one out of the pack trailing behind them. Say, Hertha Berlin. They thrashed Dortmund last weekend and were up 1-0 against Rostock, a team from the bottom of the table. But just when you think things clear up everything takes a turn to the complete opposite direction. It seems that teams like Leverkusen, Schalke and Brmenen might be in it this year. I don't see Hamburg there, although a 0-3 away against Dortmund looks convincing, but the BVB was just horrible.
Well well well, seems this season just isn't on track at the moment. Downwards things look brighter. SC Fortuna Köln are in the 3rd spot in the 5th division with al chances for promotion. And they seem to play well winning the last twio matches 4:2 and 5:2. I have to go to a match some time soon again...

A Modest Proposal + Ultrafair - "Karnevalsmetropolentour"

A Modest Proposal played two shows this weekend with Düsseldorf's finest Ultrafair. We kicked off on Friday witha a show at Cologne's Bauwagenplatz, some sort of open air squat. The setting was nice and although not many people showed up the show was fun. Ultrafair were really good and we rocked as well. Kalle, our singer, even destroyed the microphone stand.
So after working on Saturday morning I was picked up by our guitarist to travel a few kilometres up north to Düsseldorf where we were supposed to play at the "Linkes Zentrum Hinterhof". By the time we got there the guys setting up the show were preparing for a little barbeque in the backyard. From time to time a few people dropped by and by the time we got up on stage a few people had shown up. We didn't really play well this time, but it was fun nonetheless. Ultrafair were great again, although their singer had some problems with his voice because he was up partying until 8 am the night before and then went on to watch a football match before the afternoon the show. The main act were the Ramonas, a female Ramones coverband who played Ramones songs on flutes. Something which might get a little boring after some time but they really pulled it off. They only did four or five songs which was completely enough to thrill the crowd. Great way to end the evening.

It just wasn't over for us yet. There was the idea to shoot some band pictures aftzer the show and our guitarist Batman thought because we have a sample of a subway on our CD we should do this in a streetcar. So we jumped on the next train that passed us and did a few shots and some more on our way back. Let's wait and see how they turned out.

Bundesliga: Day Six - Up and down

Hannover 96 - Bayer Leverkusen 0:3
Karlsruher SC - Bayern München 1:4
FC Schalke 04 - Arminia Bielefeld 3:0
SV Werder Bremen - VfB Stuttgart 4:1
Hamburger SV - 1.FC Nürnberg 1:0
Hertha BSC Berlin - Borussia Dortmund 3:2
FC Energie Cottbus - VfL Wolfsburg 1:2
FC Hansa Rostock - MSV Duisburg 2:0
VfL Bochum - Eintracht Frankfurt 0:0

This time of the year the German media usually tries to compare German football to other big nations on the continent. The main device to evaluate the position of German football in the world are the European cup competitions. And because of the poor performance of the German teams during this week it seems that the world will crumble eventually. At least that's the feeling you get when you read the newspapers. In the Champions League Stuttgart (1-2 against Glasgow Rangers) and Bremen (1-2 against Real Madrid) both delivered strong persomances on away matches against strong teams. Schalke was disappointing at home against FC Valencia (0-1). In the UEFA Cup all German teams had their share of the game. Hamburg played miserably but won (vs Litex Lovetch 1-0) just as Bayern did (vs Belenenses Lissabon 1-0). Nuremburg failed to score at home (vs Rapid Bukarest 0-0) and only Leverkusen seems to have a comfortable lead over their opponents (vs Uniao Leiria 3-1). But things look dim if you believe what you read in the press.

It seems that all the ups and downs that so many teams in the Bundesliga experienced last season came back to haunt then this time around again. Teams lose, teams win, and it's all very much on one level. Except for Bayern of course, who stormed to a comfortable win against Karlsruhe today. The Karlsruhe goal came from a mistake by Oliver Kahn though. It's really time he steps back and makes way for another goalkeeper at Bayern.
Bremen crushed champions Stuttgart sending them deep down the table (13) while Brmen themselves climb up. Schalke stopped Bielefeld sending them home with a 3-0 defeat. Dortmund lost to Hertha 2-3 who at least for one day climbed on top of the table after the lost their first two matches in the season.
Deep down it looks like the east of football Germany is going down to the 2nd division together. Both Rostock and Cottbus just can't seem to find their pace.

Documenta XII - A visit

I visited a good friend the past weekend and since she lives in Kassel I grabbed the opportunity to stroll around the art exhibition which was taking place. The Documenta is organised once in five years and because of that a lot of people invade the small city to have a look at the latest in modern art. This not only takes place in the museums but there are also installations all over the city, some even remain from former Documenta editions. E.g. German artist Josef Beuys planted a lot of trees all over the city as a work of art and Swiss musician and artist Dieter Meier made a plate which was build into the floor in the inner city which was saying that he would be standing there at a certain time on a certain day in the future. Which is what he did when the day and the time arrived. So this is Documenta and I took the chance to pay it a visit. This is what I saw...


The first thing you notice - but that might be because of the weekend - are the masses who are running around the place where most of the museums and public installations are located. Since the Documenta takes place every five years the attendance rate is very high. People stream into Kassel from everywhere, from all over Germany and Europe. Some even travel from across the oceans to see the art displayed in the museums. Now I wouldn't consider myself to be someone who really knows something about art. I stand in front of something and I have my own opinion on it but I don't feel like I can talk about the whole thing in detail. I just percieve it as beautiful or ugly. Or just "there". But there's other people who can't stop talking about what is in front of their eyes and sometimes it gets hilarious when they talka and talk and talk and they sound like a bunch of weirdos who are just trying to sound cool because they think they understand what the artist wanted to express with his work. And, you might have guessed it, there were lots and lots of people like that everywhere around Kassel. When walking past some installations or pictures I was able to overhear a few conversations. I had to surpress a loud laughter at times.
Oh, the thing in the middle in the picture on top is a poppy field, by the way. Yes, this is art as well.


So when you buy your ticket at one of the numerous shops which are located at all central parts of the city (you can get day tickets, two day tickets, group tickets and so on) you get these plans to guide you around Kassel and the Documenta. As you might be able to see the different places are located at one central place, but there are also some places which are farther outside of the city. I didn't visit those since I didn't have that much time. This should just give you an impression on how huge this whole thing is...


This is another installation. That thing you can see in the back of the picture. I guess it is supposed to be some point where you can have a view on something and this thing there is supposed to be a frame for the picture you see.
The thing in the left back is the Documenta Hall, the first museum I went into. There was a moderate queue in front and I had to wait for about 30 minutes to get in. Inside was stuff this...





Don't ask me who the artists are, I have no idea. But what struck me was that I waited for half an hour to see just one rather small room full of art and packed with people. The most fascinating thing was a room competely in bright red light with a buzzing sound. I didn't make any pictures because it was impossible to capture that experience on film. That was the only thing that was interesting there, as for the rest, well, it's art, huh?
So I moved on to the Aue-Pavillion



Located at the former residence of the local ruler in the 18th century, the Orangerie, this was rather easy to get in to. Still there were lots of people inside, as you can see here.


This was bigger than the one I've been to before, but because there was so much to see I somehow had a slight information overload. Here are some impressions.













That's just random stuff that caught my attention. I won't go into detail, just have a look and decide for yourselves. The next one's were the one's in found most interesting...


This was a room in which there were only those guitars with amplifiers. While watching them I was thinking why they all had those round things on top of the strings, but, hey, it's art, right? So while I was trying to take the picture exactly at the moment I was pressing the shutter the guitars make sounds. The round thing had a plectrum and there were capodasters so each guitar played a different chord. That sounded almost like bells and chimes on chrches. But only with a guitar sound. This was great.


The other one was a video installation which showed little asian kids being sprayed with a white liquid. Although this might sound a bit cruel it was fun to watch since the children were laughing themselves when they were hit by the liquid. I don't know whether it was milk or paint. But the funniest thing were some of the reactions by the spectators. Although you can clearly see that the children knew that they were about to be covered by something some of the audience was disgusted saying that they hope the artist will experience the same thing sometime in the future.

So, off I went to explore the location and it turned out to be a beautiful baroque garden with a channel and a lake. Here are some impressions.





The most interesting thing though for a football maniac like me was the stadium located behind the building of the Orangerie.


I went on to visit one more museum, the Neue Galerie, but that was definetely too dark to take any pictures in there. By the time I got there I was tired as hell and I just went through the rooms rather quickly. There was an interesting installation though, a movie which had Harvey Keitel reciting something, but I didn't really get what it was. But it was a huge thing, almost like a cinema.

The thing that I enjoyed more was the exhibition me and my friend went to the next day. The "Caricatura" was a display of caricatures by different German writers. Great stuff. We took a very close look at each one of the pictures hanging there. This was completely different from what I had seen the day before because each picture actually had a meaning and it was easy to understand. Well, at least most of them. There were three different rooms with lots of stuff to see. On the top floor they had a small documentation about what caricatures can cause when they are misunderstood. This was a nice way to end the exhibition.

Bundesliga: Day Five - Big clubs in trouble

Borussia Dortmund - Werder Bremen 3:0
VfB Stuttgart - Energie Cottbus 3:0
Bayern München - FC Schalke 04 1:1
Bayer Leverkusen - VfL Bochum 2:0
1. FC Nürnberg - Hannover 96 2:2
Arminia Bielefeld - Hansa Rostock 4:2
Eintracht Frankfurt - Hamburger SV 2:1
VfL Wolfsburg - Karlsruher SC 1:2
MSV Duisburg - Hertha BSC 1:2

I didn't have any chance to watch a match this weekend so I will just rely on what the press is saying. But it seems that Bayern Munich have lost the magic touch the had in the first three rounds. After winning three in a row without conceding a goal the now drew two in a row, albeit against teams which are more of their level than the previous three ones. Schalke meanwhile were abkle to stop their skid downwards, still what they need is wins. The have four draws now and just one win (no loss).
Dortmund on the other hand now seem to be rolling. They crushed Werder Bremen 3-0 sending them down to the bottom of the table. In this match there seemed to have been wuite a few very brutal fouls one which I was able to see on TV and that looked really dangerous. The Dortmund player should have been sent off. The are in good company down there though. Last season's cup winners Nuremburg are struggling as well, being only one place away from a relegation spot.
Elsewhere Bielefeld continues to be the surprising team of the season so far. They are in 2nd place once again. Also up there are Frankfurt and Karlsruhe. And Hertha BSC Berlin seem to pick up the pace a little bit as well after playing really badly during the first two matches.
The most interesting thing though is Wolfsburg. They acquired former Bayern Munich coach Felix Magath before the season giving him unlimited powers in the club. He is now more like what Alex Ferguson is at ManU than what the usual coach in German football is doing. Magath now has full control over all transactions on the player's market and is in complete charge of the team. in fact he's even holding the spot which would have the power to fire him from coaching the team. Now, as always, when a single person has so much power alone there will always be critizism. So because he has nowhere to hide when the team plays bad it always falls back to him. And Wolfsburg are really playing bad. They are on a relegation spot after losing to last season's 2nd division champions Karlsruhe 1-2 at home on Sunday. Although the team is as good as new they don't seem to play together at the moment. Maybe there are too many new players. This will be interesting to watch and I don't think that Magath will last until the end of the season.

Rugby World Cup: The gap might be getting a little smaller

So the first round of games was done over the weekend and tonight saw the start of the 2nd day of playing in the Rugby World Cup and so far there have been a few surprises along the way. It seems as if Rugby nowadays is a little bit like football on a world cup level 20 years back from now. The smaller nations seem to be able to keep up with the big names for the most of the first half. but after the change they seem to crumble because of the lack of fitness and strength. Wales was struggling against Canada who were carrying a lead to half time only to be shelled 42-17 by the final whistle. The "Eagles" of the USA were playing very well against England only to give in during the 2nd half. Samoa was holding firm against South Africa over a long time only to have their necks broken by the end. So the smaller nations seemed to have made some progress and maybe it will only be a matter of time until a few of them will break into the line of the big teams.
Tonight Georgia did well for most of the time against the "Pumas" tying them for most of the first half. They conceded a penalty shortly before the break to give Argentina a 6-3 lead. But their effort was brave and there was a sequence in the middle of the first half when Argentina was desperately trying to score a try only to be pushed back by the awesome "Georgian tractor". The players in red thrust themselves in the rucks and packs to prevent the Argentinians from scoring. It's this intesity which makes the sport of Rugby so interesting to me. The constant dynamics that keep the game moving and exciting. In the end Georgia lost 3-33, a result which might give Argentina the extra point they need to advance to the knock out stages in a group that also features Ireland and France. The strange regulations of extra points for a certain number of tries scored in a game might be the deciding factor in this pool.

Tomorrow it's USA vs Tonga, Japan vs Fiji and Italy vs Romania. Normally I'd say that Tonga, Fiji and Italy shouldn't have any problems. But with what happened over the past days nothing is certain. And that's great.

A day at the record store (I)

There usually comes a time - and it happens around every one or two months - when I just drop by at our local record store and flip through the stands of vinyl. I usually go there with the purpose of buying at least one particular record which has been on my radar for quite some time. But most of the time I buy some more, because I stuble across this one record I have been looking for for a long time. Or this other one which just came out and I just happen to have enough money to buy that one as well. So things keep piling up and I was lucky enough to escape the clutches of evenmore records that wanted to be bought. This is what I got today:

TURBOSTAAT - Vormann Leiss LP
Turbostaat fits really well into the brand of northern German punkrock which mostly is influenced by bands which featured Jens Rachut. In particular those bands would be Angeschissen, Blumen am Arch der Hölle, Dackelblut, Oma Hans and just recently Kommando Sonne-nmilch. Enigmatic lyrics, sung with a little less melody than you'd expect from the music, which sounds very melancholic. Turbostaat are one of the better epigones of this type of music and all their records mean a lot to me. Their live performances were always very entertaining as well.
Now they released their first output on a major label and it really looks like nothing has changed,. Since their last record they have been on tour with German big shots Beatsteaks who enabled Turbostaat to get their foot in the door to the MTV generation. So now they attract a somewhat different audience, which at first always is painful to fans who followed what they were doing for a long time. But in the end it's the band's decision and with records like this one they have every right to do as they please. Here we have 11 wonderful songs, a huge booklet with all the lyrics, pictures and so on. You should get this one.

DENY EVERYTHING - Fire This Time LP
Next up are Deny Everything, local heroes, as you might say. They are from Cologne and their favourite band is obviously Lifetime. It might also be Propaghandi, if you read songtitles like "If there was a god, wouldn't he make people like you just shut the fuck up?", "Apparently it's still just boys' fun" or "Pariotism is so 19th century". Or it might even be all those early 80s hardcore bands from the states who used to play this stop-and-go type of hardcore music that just kept you going and going and going. The band has been around for quite some time evolving from a rather mediocre melody punkrocking outfit which was called Morning Wood to a all out war hardcore machine with the right hand for brilliant melodies and hooks. Their live shows are an experience and you should really catch them on stange if you have the opportunity. A brilliant debut.

OMEGA MASSIF - Geisterstadt LP
Last but not least it's Omega Massif from Bavaria. The first tie I came across this band was when someone of their lineup posted a song on some messageboard. This is the heavy stuff in the vein of bands like Isis, Neurosis or Pelican. Slow, hard, heavy, like a magma stream. What I like about this type of music - and here comes the "pretentious asshole record collector" part - is the way the record is made up. A nice gatefold sleeve, all in brown and yellow colours with pictures of a town where a life has left a long time ago (hence "Geisterstadt"/Ghost Town). Yes, I know that this type of music is very popular at the moment and that there are quite a few bands playing this sort of heavy rocking stuff. But I was listening to another record by some band at the store today and this one is way better. Just the way I like it. Not the same riff for 15 minutes, but still enough monotony to make you feel very medetative. Wonderful stuff.

JDrama: The season wrap up (summer)

Well, well, well, I don't know what to make of this season. Sure, there were your usual top class series with lots of stars in the leading roles, but it seems that the big shot drama with a good story was missing this time. A bit too much humour, I think. Let's wrap it up anyway...

First Kiss
This is your typical heart warming drama in which the little sister, who has a heart disease which causes her to have an operation at the end of the summer, goes back to Japan to visit her brother who sought out to become a photographer but ended up to be a lousy assistant. Inoue Mao, who was so good in both "Hana Yori Dango" seasons, plays the little sister and she does it with style. Always badmouthing people and blabbering about all kinds of stuff which pisses people of. Ito Hideaki plays the brother who keeps her company and tries to find her a lover so at least before she has surgery she might be able to experience love for the first time in her life.
The comedy in this series is quite good but the actual story lacks something. I still can't quite figure out what it is, but somehow it just doesn't get moving. Still this was one of the better dramas this summer. (7/10)

Hanazakari no Kimitachi e
The big names drama of this season. Almost all of the male super idols were in this, I guess. The story follows Horikita Maki as she tries to get in to an all boys' school in Osaka to get close to Oguri Shun, who plays a track and field athlete who is doing high jump. As you might expect this leads to all kinds of complicated situations for the girl as she is surrounded by boys all the time. Luckily the most obvious jokes about going to the toilet or changing clothes before P.E. or taking a shower were dealt with in the first few episodes.
What's really great about this series is the cast. The crazy dorm heads with their underlings get the action going and are always in for a good laugh. Apart from that this drama was rather shallow and didn't offer much. (6/10)

Ushi ni negai wo: Love & Farm
Interesting, because this wasn't set in a big city. Set in the lovely scenery of Hokkaido this drama follows six university students who take on the adventure of spending some time of ther agricultural studies right where it matters: in a small village with lots of farms. This leads to some funny scenes were the people from the city can't quite keep up with the rural life, but the story still shows the problems the rural population faces today. The cast is wonderful with lots of familiar faces and the six students were cast very well as well. Tamayama Tetsuji plays the leading role as a farm boy who went to Tokyo to get rid off his rural heritage but eventually comes back to help with his parents' struggling farming business. I really liked this one because of the different setting and the unusual topic of the story. (8/10)

Tantei Gakuen Q
Yet another manga adaption and you can really see that this one was done on paper first. It's a typical crime comic story with six young detectives trying to solve difficult cases. The whole series looks rather cheap and I wonder if it really has cost a lot of money. The special FX don't look very expensive. There are soem nice jokes but all in all this one is rather disappointing. Well, maybe I'm not the target group as this looks like it is aiming at school children. (4/10)

Hotaru no Hikari
A bureau mid 20s drama about a young woman who is liked at her company by her colleagues but leads a completely different life when she is at home. In the office she is smart and efficient, at home she likes to drink lots of beer and hang around in her trainers. Suddenly her boss moves in because his wife left their home and so both of them have to cope with each other for the next few weeks. Ayase Haruka plays Hotaru, a "himono onna", a dried up woman who just isn't fit for love anymore. She falls in love with a co-worker but is totally puzzled and just doesn't know what to do.
A funny and smart comedy with very good actors, one of my favourites in this season. (8/10)

Yama Onna Kabe Onna
This one was absolutely hilarious. Now in Europe veryone is making jokes about the obsession of Japanese man with female breasts, but I never had imagined that they would make a drama series out if this topic. The story shows the life of Aoyagi Megumi (Ito Misaki) who works in the handbag section of a huge department store and is the ace seller there. At one day she gets a new co-worker, busty Mariya Marie (Fukada Kyoko), who wins over customers with her natural charm. This leads Aoyagi to think over her complex of being flat-chested, a topic that surfaces every now and then during the course of the series.
I really liked this series and not because it had this sexual undertone. Ito Misaki was wonderful and the rest of the cast was so great that it really was a pleasure to watch this. (8/10)

Katagoshi no Koibito
A "30 year old women gets her midlife crisis" drama which centres around two friends, one of whom just recently married the ex-boyfriend of the other one. Yonekura Ryoko and Takaoka Saki play the two friends who seem to do everything together although at some points you'll get the impression they can't stand each other. But when tough times come they get their act together and help each other out, be it problems on the job or the husband having an affair. In all this chaos enters a young student who ran away from home to get away from his over anxious family.
I really liked the rants both women let go in every episode, they just can't seem to stop. This actually is very funny and it has great actors as well. The sidestory with the young boy who ran away from home seemed to be a little bit out of place, but apart from that this was a really good drama series. (8/10)

Yamada Taro Monogatari
Two members of Arashi starr in this series which tells the story of poor student Yamada Taro (Ninomiya Kazunori) who goes to an elite school in which he enters a special class for outstanding students. There he meets Mimura Takuya (Sakurai Sho), a very rich guy who soon gets behind the secret of Taro. But he never really made a secret out of where he comes from or what he is doing, it is more that people assume that because of his good looks he must be very rich. Which is what his classmate Ikegami Takako (Tabe Mikako) is thinking. She always says that she will only marry a rich guy and so she is very surprised when she finds out about the living conditions of Taro...
This is a very lighthearted drama about a poor family who despite all misfortune and need never gives up hope and always tries to lead a life with dignity. (7/10)

Juken no Kamisama
A "God of the Exams" who helps rather hopeless students with their entrance exams for there preferred school is ust what little Hiroshi (Nagashima Mitsuki) needs. He wants to follow his friend into a well known baseball school, but his grades are way too bad to get in their. So he gets his father to get him the so called "God of the Exams" who garantuees that every student of this "God" will make it through the exams of the school. It turns out that the "God" is a middle school girl named Sugawara Michiko (Narumi Riko) who is very arrogant. She takes charge of Hiroshi's life immediately after arriving at his home. Will he make it through her rigorous training camp?
Another school based drama with some well known faces, but this didn't really get through to me. Maybe it's because I haven't seen so many episodes yet because some of the subtitles are still missing, but this hasn't really been convincing. Good still. (6/10)

Sushi Oji!
This is a hilarious story about a sushi chef turned martial arts master who has a fish phobia. Sounds carzy? It is. Domoto Koichi of Kinki Kids is the maing character Maizu Tsukasa, who travels around teh country to find out more about the secret art of sushi making martial arts. This seems to be another rather cheap drama filmed in style of the 70s Eastern movies but they managa to do it really well. The episodes are all funny and the actors seem to enjoy themselves as well. You might need a special kind of humour to get into this series, but once you're in you just can't stop watching. (7,5/10)

* Spring 2007 Wrap Up

Euro 2008: Still a close race in most groups

Yesterday's qualifier for the Euro 2008 was kind of a boring event. Sure, the German national team was playing way better than their Welsh counterpart who seemed to be very inexperienced without retired Ryan Giggs and released Craig Bellamy. The first goal was superb. Hitzlsperger winning the ball in midfield, Kuranyi taking it up and carrying it to the right side, then passing the ball just at the right moment to Klose who with his first touch scores the leading goal. This is football the way I want to see it. Fast, strong, technical, great.
But after this ther came nothing. Germany scored another goal on an error by a Welsh defender, but that was it. Of course there were a lot of players missing on the team (e.g. Lahm, Frings, Ballack, Borowski, Schneider), of course the 11 players on the pitch never had the opportunity to play with each other before. But one could expect a little bit more effort against a team from Wales who just couldn't keep up with the German strength. Well, Germany are now 8 points clear off the third place in their qualifying group and with only four games to go it sure looks like they will be at Austria and Switzerland in 2008.
It's a different story for a lot of other European football super powers. England came away with a 3-0 win at Wembley against Israel, a match they had to win no matter what. But this result will count for nothing if they can't keep up their momentum against Russia on Wednesday. The Netherlands won 2-0 against Bulgaria at the AmsterdamArena, but that also didn't look very convincing. In the top game of yesterday's qualifiers Italy and France played a scoreless draw at Giuseppe-Meazza-Stadium. A tense match but the result leaves Italy in third place in their group trailing 2nd place Scotland who won against Lithuania. One of biggest surprises would be Turkey only drawing 2-2 against Malta which leaves 2002 World Cup 3rd place Turkey struggling to qualify. Spain also drew against Iceland and left points in their race against Sweden. Still they are in 2nd place, on equal points with Northern Ireland.

Rugby World Cup: The favourites take action

After yesterday's upsetting result in the opening match when France lost to Argentina the top favourites of New Zealand played their first game against Italy. Now taly have recently been enjoying some success in the Six Nations tournament although I guess you could still label them a 2nd rate team. The All Blacks had no problems with them whatsoever crushing them 76-14. The 2nd half of the game saw the Italians get a little grip on the ball though with the All Blacks looking as though they were trying just to hold up their lead. Man of the match was Doug Howlett who scored three of the total 11 tries.
Next up were the Wallabies against the "Cherry Blossoms" from Japan and anything but a convincing victory by Australia would have been a surprise. So you have to give credit to the Japanese team when they held the Australians in check over the first few minutes. But then they gave in and lost terribly 3-91. This leaves Australia as one of the top prospects for the trophy. I was surprised they still have Gregan, Larkham and Mortlock in the squad but their performance was really good so although they might be a little older they still seem to have the skill to control the game. The best player in this game was Rocky Elsom who scored a hattrick, the fastest in World Cup history.
The toughest match came third today when England played the Eagles from the States. England are the defending champions and they had quite some problems with a very compact and fierce American team. It was only shortly before half time when England scored a couple of tries and got ahead of the USA. The 2nd half was much closer with the Eagles even scoring a try themselves in the end of the game. The final result was 28-10 which shows how close a game this was. England might have found a replacemnt for their injured super star player Johnny Wilkinson who almost single-handedly won the title during the last World Cup with his kicking skills. His replacement Olly Barkley had quite a few nice scenes in today's match.

Tomorrow will see the last of the big five, South Africa, start their campaign. The Springboks will be up against Samoa. The other games will be the Welsh Dragons against Canada, Scotland will face Portugal and Ireland will take on Namibia.

And now for something completely different: Rugby World Cup 2007

The Rugby World Cup kicked off in Paris today with the opening game between hosts France and Argentina. A highly anticipated match between two teams who are both in so so called "Death" Pool A along with Ireland. With only the top two teams advancing to the quarterfinals there will be at least one big name out of the competition after the group stages. And also will the 2nd place team face the winner of Pool B which most likely will be the All Blacks from New Zealand who were on fire for the past few years and are the ones to beat in this competition.
The expectations were high in France and their team, "Les Bleues" could not live up to that. The "Pumas" from Argetina held the in check for most of the time. Only for the minutes after half time was France advancing and looking for a try. But the Argentinian defense stood firm and prevented the strong French offense from scoring a try. In the first half Argentina controlled the game at will and was able to score a try after a huge error from France when "Les Bleues" were on the attack. So the World Cup has its first surprise on the opening day. Although it wasn't really surprising that the "Pumas" won, since they did so in four of the last five games against France. Maybe "Les Bleues" would have done better had they only played with their star player Sébastien Chabal right from the start. (France 12 Argentina 17).
Tomorrow will see the All Blacks (against the "Gli Azzuri" from Italy), the Wallabies (against the "Cherry Blossoms" from Japan) and the English (against the "Eagles" from the USA) take action in their pools. With one contender already struggling it will be interesting to see how they will do.

Great days in a row.

Honestly, the past few days have been the best in a long time. I had so much fun spendingt ime with the guys of The Gaslight Anthem who we had the honour to play with on monday. We talked a lot after the show, I then met the guys on tuesday to give them a short tour of the city which they seemed to have enjoyed. And then yesterday I spent the evening with them watching movies, going to a bar and talkeing and talking for hours and hours. I left at 5 in the morning with a smile on my face. This is what punk and hardcore mean to me. Meeting new people and just communicating with them. Broadening your own horizon by listening to their stories and opinions, getting new perspectives on different things, just having a good time sitting together somewhere. This is what you need every now ad then to remind yourself of why you're in this whole thing for such a long time. I know it happens every now and then, but you never know who you'll come across. And when you meet such nice people like Alex, Alex, Brian and Ben you know that it was worth the wait.
I really hope I can meet up with those guys again on ther stay here in Germany. And if not I'm going to fly over there some time in the future to have Ben and Alex teach me some Baseball techniques.

And thanks to those guys I'm listening to Bruce Springsteen all the time now...

The Gaslight Anthem + A Modest Proposal @ Blue Shell, Cologne

Our second show since our two year break and this was was a very good one. It was set up by the local college radio station KölnCampus and we were scheduled to play with The Gaslight Anthem from New Jersey, a band I never heard of before. But when I was listening to the songs the had on their Myspace site I knew we were in for a good one.
Great thing about this show was that I was able to go there on my own two feet, the "Blue Shell" is in walking distance to where I live. So I arrived there at around 6.30 pm and met up with my guys. We soon were introduced to the Americans and after some small talk the guys were putting up their stuff on stage. The only thing different was that we had to stay inside an allowed range of noise. So we were not allowed to play louder than 103 db. That was good for some laughs during soundcheck because the sound guy was running around with some device where he could see how loud we got.

Well, things worked out, we were all set and ready to go out and that's basically what we did. We rocked the house. A lot of our friends showed up and created a very nice atmosphere. Although we had minor problems with out of tune guitars we pretty much got through with our set without any huge mistakes. Which isn't normal for us, but this was the 2nd time in a row. Maybe we are really getting a little better after all these years. We even had people screaming for encores. Although that might have been our friends who just wanted to be nice to us.

The Gaslight Anthem then took the stage and those guys rocked. Their singer Brian is playing the same Fender Telecaster model as Bruce Springsteen and when Batman pointed that out to me I had to admit that he was really right when he was saying "That guy is playing that guitar for a reason". They really sound like a punk-fueled version of Bruce Springsteen. Great stuff. Wonderful melodies with an edge. Raw, yet beautiful. And they are wonderful fellows. I had the chance to talk to Brian for a long time after the show and I was in the city with the guys today as well since they had a day off. Great people. They are on tour through Germany for the next month. If you get the chance, go see them. You won't be disappointed.

06.Sep.2007 20:00
AZ (Ger) Aachen
07.Sep.2007 20:00
Lintfabrik Kontich (B)
08.Sep.2007 20:00
Area 51 Skate Park (NL) Eindhoven
10.Sep.2007 20:00
Bosporus Grill (GER) Münster
12.Sep.2007 20:00
Zucker Club (Ger) Breman
13.Sep.2007 20:00
Nexus Braunschweig (Ger)
14.Sep.2007 20:00
Störtebeker Störtebecker (Ger), Hamburg
15.Sep.2007 20:00
secret show not available
16.Sep.2007 20:00
Schaubude (Ger) Kiel
18.Sep.2007 20:00
AZ Conni Dresden (Ger)
19.Sep.2007 20:00
K4 Nürnberg (Ger)
20.Sep.2007 20:00
Alte Mälzerei Regensburg (Ger)
22.Sep.2007 20:00
AJZ Bielefeld (Ger)
24.Sep.2007 20:00
JUZ (Ger) Mannheim
25.Sep.2007 20:00
KTS (Ger) Freiburg
26.Sep.2007 20:00
Juha West (Ger) Stuttgart
27.Sep.2007 20:00
Cafe Cairo (Ger) Würzburg
28.Sep.2007 20:00
FZW Dortmond (Ger)
29.Sep.2007 20:00
TKELLER Gottingen (Ger)

History in the making and it's time for bed

Sometimes it is really frustrating that Baseball matches are shown so late at night over here. The Red Sox were playing the Orioles yesterday and their starter was top prospect Clay Bucholz. I've seen him pitch once during a start with the PawSox, but I missed out on his major league debut. So I was kind of excited to see what he will be like on the pitch, but it turned out the expectations couldn't have been higher. He pitched a no-hitter in his 2nd major league start and I wasn't there to see the final three innings ebcause it was already 3 am in the morning and I was tired as one can be. But it was interesting to wtch the game evolve, the excitement of the crowd was rising and rising with every out.
That's the strange thing though. I still don't get how the score the plays. There was one Orioles player who got on base after he hit the ball but that wasn't a base hit because another guy was out because of the play or whatever. Well, as I said, it was very interesting to watch and the newspapers over there seem to be going crazy because of this, especially in Boston, of course. Listen in to the live commentary and take a look at all outs of that game on MLB.com

Bundesliga: Day Four - back to normal

Werder Bremen - Eintracht Frankfurt 2:1
Hertha BSC Berlin - VfL Wolfsburg 2:1
Hannover 96 - VfL Bochum 3:2
FC Energie Cottbus - 1.FC Nürnberg 1:1
FC Hansa Rostock - Borussia Dortmund 0:1
MSV Duisburg - Arminia Bielefeld 3:0
FC Schalke 04 - Bayer Leverkusen 1:1
KSC - Stuttgart 1:0
HSV - München 1:1

So we are back to normal in the German Bundesliga after we had three rounds of surprises. All teams at the top of the table lost today, the big names all won. Bochum, Bielefeld and Frankfurt were cut back to size in today's matches. Dortmund and Bremen won. The only surprising result would be Duisburg's win against Bielefeld.
In yesterday's evening game Schalke and Leverkusen played a 1-1 draw which leaves both teams in the middle of nowhere. Heck, some writers even say that Schlake is off to a bad start. C'mon, we only had four games up until now and Schalke hasn't lost a single one of them. Let's face it from this angle, huh?

But maybe they are all too concerned with what's happening down south. The Munich star ensemble takes action tomorrow against Hamburg, a match which might come a few weeks to early for Hamburg since it looks like they are starting to roll. They advanced to the Uefa-Cup on Thursday in quite impressive fashion (winning 4:0 at home against Hungarian Honved). The other Sunday game will be the southern derby between Karlsruhe and Stuttgart. Their rivalry is so heated that when Karlsruhe was promoted from 2nd division lasts eason they were singing "stuttgart - sons of bitches" at their promotion party at the city hall. This caused some stir down there. Stuttgart should win this though, especially since they have Mario Gomez back in their line up.

UPDATE:
So Bayern lost their first points at Hamburg today which only goes to show that even a great team with lots of individual talent can't win every game. I was only able to watch the first half, but that also didn't look like Bayern was the dominating team. In fact it looked like they were playing just as strong as Hamburg did.
Stuttgart lost to Karlsruhe and that will be hauting Stuttgart for the rest of the series, I guess. It's a derby, it's a rivalry, so you don't want to lose that game.

A little trivia: today Eintracht Frankfurt made European football history by fielding Takahara Naohiro and Inamoto Junichi and thus being the first club in European football to have to Japanese players on the pitch. Yes, folks, this is what German media is talking about. It's all about the records.