Extra, Extra: Read All About It

After a slow start to the week, it has suddenly taken a turn into blogworthy territory. First, the bad news: We lost on Saturday. We played great for 3 quarters and had a few tough possessions, a few bad calls, and a few mismatches we couldn't fix in the fourth and ended up taking the L. There is no excuse and we definitely should have been able to hang on for the win, but that's why they play the game. I don't want to go into too much detail because it might upset me. As you can tell from this and that, the papers did not want to talk much about it either. I think I had around 10 points with like 16/17 boards. We were still a little upset that night and did not do much, but whatever dude, life moves on.

And move on, it did.... On Sunday, we not only discovered one of the greatest shows in recent memory - The Tool Academy (Matsuflex, Tiny Tool, and Shawn are legends) - but we also had a VERY traditional German meal with our land lady. It was interesting to say the least. It began with us sitting around the couch in a dimly lit family room, sipping beers and freshly squeezed orange juice with the man in the house (huh?) and ended with some epic battles in darts. In between, we had zee German meal.

Although I must admit that the mashed potatoes were extremely tasty and scrumptious.. yum yum yum.. the rest of the meal was more interesting than scrump-diddly-umptious... First, the other side dish - sauerkraut. Now, I am not a big sauerkraut guy, but I definitely felt it was necessary to eat as much as possible so as to be polite to my lovely hosts. It was pretty tasty (I mean it was OK) and I am sure for all you sauerkraut lovers out there, a traditional German 'kraut would have made your day, but everyone has their own tastes, and 'kraut has never made my taste buds tingle with delight.

The main dish of the night is known as "eisbein." Wikipedia describes it very well here, even commenting on what the side dishes usually are with this meal. Man, wikipedia is so SMART. Now, eisbein is pig leg. It looked to me as though this pig leg was hacked off by some sort of large butchering knife and placed in an oven or something. The outside skin of the meat was so crispy it was nearly impossible to cut with a steak knife. Our host described this outside portion as her favorite part, almost like a potato chip, except harder to chew.

Me: ehhhhh, the outside was not my fave as it was solid as hell and full with fattyness. I ate most of my eisbein without gagging or doing any of my other standard maneuvers which used to plague the Goldsmith dinner table during my younger years (I was a bit of a picky eater).

After dinner, we had a lovely little orange, gelatin type cake thing... yes, that is the best way to describe it, and, I must admit, it was quite tasty. As we were about to leave, we got swindled into sitting down in the living room again and than challenged to some darts. Obviously, I was down and we ended up staying for probably another hour after the meal. It was a great time and definitely something any self-respecting German-American who lives in Germany should experience in his life... ONCE... at the most...

This dart game lead to some chatter between the housemates and somehow forced Marko into challenging me to a dunk contest. This dunk contest took place last night. I will now go into my alter-ego sports reporter and shamelessly hype this contest (video will be coming shortly thanks to the ever-so-talented Trevor Wittwer).

THIS JUST IN: BIG NEWS FROM WERNE, GERMANY

In a historic move, Marko "the Serbian Sensation" Filipovic has challenged Matt "the One-Legged American Vet" Goldsmith to a slam dunk competition. This contest will be hyped as "McSnack presents: the 2009 TV Werne Slam Dunk Contest." (In no way does McSnack represent or serve McDonald's affiliated cuisine, bringing pea soup, currywurst, and other strange German specialties to the foreigners of Werne every Monday and Thursday.)

In an epic battle of bitter rivals, Filipovic has challenged Goldsmith to something much larger than even he could understand, reminding many spectators of the Rocky vs Ivan Drago fight in Rocky IV or even the movie Miracle, chronicling the 1980 US Olympic hockey victory over the Soviets.

Marko "the ex-Yugoslavian, ex-Serbian-Montenegroan, current Serbian" Filipovic is a young, 21-year-old talent with immense amounts of potential, a 6'10" frame, and a naive outlook on life. Don't worry though ladies, he is not like most Serbians, and still chooses to cuddle as frequently as he can. He hopes to come to a town near you as soon as possible, currently studying hard so he can pass the SAT's and go to college in the States.

The much wiser, far more experienced Goldsmith is a wily veteran full of big ideas and high hopes. Matt "the One-Legged Wonder" Goldsmith aka "Peg Leg," aka "the Jersey Jumper," aka "I-will-take-reverse-lay-ups-and-lefty-hooks-all-day" is hoping to bring the American style of showmanship and pure, uninhibited, Nascar-esque power to all of his dunks. He describes himself as a crowd-pleaser with "a few tricks still up the old sleeve."

With a rivaly so ingrained in history, the "McSnack presents: the 2009 TV Werne Slam Dunk Contest" will surely be one for the ages. My early prediction: mark one more down for good ol' Amurica.

Video to come soon...

- MFG

Clip of the Week!

Ok, this week's clip is an oldie but a goodie. It is a clip of a bunch of "gamers" playing World of Warcraft (a computer game) online. They are strategizing and deciding how to attack the next level. I guess they talk to each other using headsets and are like in a group who consistently play together or something. I dunno, but, all I do know is, the only one I would want to hang out with is the infamous Leroy Jenkins and you can see why for yourself.



Hope you enjoyed it!

- MFG

Clip of the Week!

Don't you go thinking I forgot... I am sticking with my clip of the week plan until someone tells me not to.

This week, the clip is of a young boy after getting a tooth pulled. This clip has been flying around the internet in the past few weeks and I am sure some of you have seen it already, but it is a great one and worth another look. Besides the absolute highness of the kid, I feel the Dad really improves the clip by asking juusssst the right questions... Enjoy!



- MFG

Amsterdam.. Check Please

First off, I am in absolute awe that the things that are legal in Amsterdam are legal in Amsterdam. The place is absurd. Saying that, I will go over the weekend's events with as much details as I can, but to truly understand what it is like in Amsterdam, you have to go there at some point in your life. I highly recommend it. It is not only a city with great history and friendly people, but those damn Dutch know how to chill out with the best of them....

As the long-time readers (haha) may already know, I absolutely love European cities with rivers going through them. In comes Amsterdam, the city with the most bridges in all of Europe and with canals all over the damn place. I was in river-through-the-city heaven. It is most definitely a beautiful place. This is especially impressive due to the fact that it straight poured throughout our visit without putting the slightest damper on our weekend events.

After some issues at the airport, my mum finally arrived Friday in the early AM. When I say early, I mean early, like 6 in the morning. We hit copious amounts of traffic on the way to Holland but finally arrived at the hotel and settled in. Trevor, T, and Marko went to their hotel, which was hilariously dirty, and my mom and I took a nap before venturing out into the city. For some strange reason, we were very motivated that Friday and saw both the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh museum before dinner. It was intense to say the least. The Rijks was an art museum but also had alot of information on the history of the Netherlands as a whole which I was digging. As soon as we walked in, there was a serious replica of a Dutch East India Trading Company ship that was made a long time ago. Of course, my immediate thoughts went straight to Captain Jack Sparrow and the glorious crew of the Black Pearl.

Don't get me wrong, I love museums and history and such (wow, I am a nerd.. damn you Amherst!) but, I feel like there is no place in the world which induces daydreaming about weird ass stuff more than a museum. You walk through checking out famous paintings, punching in numbers so that you can listen to your audio tour, and immediatley upon seeing a large famous painting such as my favorite from the Rijksmuseum and their most famous piece, "The Night Watch," I wondered how the hell Rembrandt got all those people to pose for long enough to paint that ish. I imagined the little girl in the painting getting antsy and Rembrandt attempting a million different ways to make her stand still like when a 4 year old gets his/her photo taken for the family christmas card. Or, maybe he did it from memory and all my rambling daydreams were for nothing. Whatever the case may be, my daydreams can make any museum a little bit more interesting. I found myself secretly wishing my mom had made a scavenger hunt for the museum like she did when I was a youngster. A tactic I most definitely will use with my future fam, not only to keep the young ones interested, but because I am a large child inside a large man's body.

I definitely dug the Van Gogh museum too. It kind of went through his life like a biography which made it more interesting to me than just looking at his paintings. It also turned into a bar during our visit which never hurts the cause. That night, momma G hit the hay early and I ventured into the streets of Amsterdam to meet the other roomies. We went out, and it was great. We made friends with a Dutch bartender and drank some local brews and met some crazy Englishmen having a bachelor's party. In addition, many a prostitue tapped on their red-lit window and said, "Hey, big fella, you want a good time?" in broken, Russian-accented English. I tried to get a picture of some of the red lights, but every time I took one it would inexplicably go a bit blurry. It is like the prostitutes have power over the weather a la Storm from X-Men. Here is my best shot, however. Surprisingly, alot of them were quite good-looking (must have been because it was the Friday graveyard shift cuz I heard some horror stories about the old day shifters), but they scared me. Nevertheless, I am glad I have a beautiful girlfriend (shout-out one time!).

At the end of the evening, I walked back with the guys to their hotel before beginning the solo mission back to my own hotel. The walk from their hostel to my hotel was essentially a straight walk following a single canal. In my state, in the wee hours of the morning with a rainstorm coming down, I found it extremely difficult to follow my soggy hotel map and got severely lost. This journey reminded me of my famous walk towards UMass (I was not trying to walk towards UMass) in the early weeks of Sophomore year at Amherst, except, I could not call Andrew and ask him to pick me up on Lincoln Ave. I finally found a place I recognized and got home safe.

Saturday was a day of Touristy events. Me mum and I went on a bus tour of Amsterdam with a stop at a diamond factory followed by a lovely canal tour. It was a great way to see all of Amsterdam and I took maybe a million pictures. You can see all (most) of the pictures from the weekend here.

Saturday night was basically the same as Friday minus the whole getting lost thing. Sunday, I showed ma the Red Light District cuz she just had to see it. I quickly realized the difference between Friday / Saturday nights and Sunday mornings. After viewing a small sampling of the Sunday morning shift, I had a bad taste in my mouth that finally went away around Wednesday. In addition, my eyes stung for a couple days, but I have finally recovered from the horror that is Sunday morning in the Red Light District. I am now doing my best to black out those Sunday memories, but, alas, luck is not on my side and those visions have been seared into my memory until the end of time. So, now, I'm praying for the end of time (Meatloaf fo' life). Haha, no, Amsterdam was great and a visitor must take the good memories with the bad. In my opinion, this weekend's great memories far outweigh any of the nasty/ugly ones because all the nasty ones were absolutely hil-arious.

Final opinion: I recommend a visit to Amsterdam to anyone in the area. It is absolutely worth it and will definitely be a trip you will never forget, whether you want to or not. Much love.

- MFG