Monthly Archives: January 2016

The Weekend Guess #90

I present to you the ninetieth instalment of the Weekend Guess.

Eine Gedankenblase mit dem Schriftzug "The Weekend Guess" auf blauem Grund und in einem braunen Rahmen

What is the Weekend Guess?

Up to three riddles formulated by me that are puns and wordplays on the answer itself I put on here for my readers to answer.

Why am I doing this?

For no apparent reason, just because I consider the idea to be funny.

What are the questions about?

Everything I can think of I guess, so far the things you had to figure out were song titles and bands, movies and books. Currently it’s random topics ranging from the stuff before and whatever I feel like asking about.

What is your part in this?

You can try to figure out my riddles and see if you can manage to get behind them and understand what I am describing.

What is in it for you?

So far: Nothing, but the knowledge that you managed to unlock one of my silly riddles.

Let’s start with the ninetieth set of questions

I am looking for the name of this movie:

A reluctant medic struggling with his new animalistic patients

Leave your guesses in the comments below and I can see if my questions are too easy or to hard to figure out. I will give the correct answer with the next instalment.
Have fun figuring it out! 🙂

Solution for last weeks Weekend Guess:

Frozen

fruehstuecksflocke of course guessed this correctly. Congratulations! 🙂

PoiSonPaiNter

On the Road: Of Angel Chicken Wings and other oddities

Or (some of) my strangest travelling experiences

Those of you who follow my Blog for a while now, have probably read some of the tales falling into this category, but when I saw the Blogparade by Mit Kind im Rucksack (With Child in the Backpack) on ferngeweht, I simply couldn’t resist to participate and give you a little overview about mine and add a few I haven’t managed to write about yet.

I don’t know why, but it seems like on every journey I take – be it short ones or longer ones – something strange – or rather, ridiculous – is bound to happen, so this will only scratch the surface and I’ll mostly focus on the stuff that happened recently that I haven’t written about yet.

Sometimes these things happen, simply because the whole situation is strange to begin with.
Like when Breagit and I spontaneously decided to take a two hours train ride to Berlin, just to get some bread. Other times they happen because of the people involved, like that time I had a midnight chat in the back of my car at a Festival. Or when Black Kat and I went to a The Other (Horror Punk) concert at the Weekend of Horrors only to exit the hall into bright sunlight.

Sometimes there are other reasons…

Lost Direction

Whenever I drive somewhere for the first time and take someone with me, I always assure them:

„There is a high chance that I will take a wrong turn at some point.“

And I’m usually right.
It takes me a few times to remember a route, but when I do it’s not hard for me to follow it (or recognize it even years later), but when I use the sat nav I don’t always realize if the turn I’m taking is the right one.

But I’m good at that without proper navigation, too.
Two years ago Janzy and I went to Ireland for Halloween (I know, still lacking a travel log, I’m working on it) and for our first day we rented a car to get to our B&B in Navan and continue from there. Unfortunately my sat nav did not have maps for Ireland so we had to focus on manual maps, which wasn’t easy as the highways were a bit confusing, it was dark and we really had no idea where we were.

At some point we simply drove into the town/village Sword – and yes, that is really its name – and looked for someone who could help us. On our way we saw a few children dressed up for Trick or Treating and finally found an electronic market that was still open.

So we went inside and asked for directions to Navan.
The shop assistant was quite confused about our request and right away asked us: „What do you want in Navan?“
Well, we had our B&B there, so there was that…
Luckily he could give us easy to follow directions as it was somewhere close to his own home and after way more hours than we had planned we finally made it there.

Navigating during the day then worked way better and we didn’t have any troubles finding Newgrange and Tara, but back in Dublin something else was lost to us.

I don’t know how many times we walked up and down the O’Connell Street looking for the Hard Rock Café in the alleys on either side of the road, but for some reason we couldn’t find it.
Towards the evening, we’d partly given up the search, but still occasionally glanced into an alley, we went down the street again and lo and behold, there it was, mocking us with it’s bright name-sign as we approached.
It’s probably one of those buildings that you can only find when you’re not looking for it…

Strange Stops

With travelling comes taking breaks and some of them are more intentional than others.
Besides having a whole Youth Hostel nearly to myself (report follows) or staying at a Hotel that turned out to be Motel (same here) there were a few other accommodation surprises over the years.

Like that time Feuerflügel made arrangements with a friend of hers so I could stay there and totally forgot to tell me the guys name. Or the first time I decided to sleep in my car, because rain had soaked my tent and pretty much everything in it (see midnight talk-link). Or that time when I barely slept at all because of the location of the Youth Hostel (soon).

But accommodations aren’t the only stops.
Festivals are a great source for unintentional breaks, especially if you wait about five and more hours to enter a Festival ground that’s only a few kilometres away and people start running into the fields beside the road to relieve themselves (report later).
Or when you have to take a stop to wait for a Ferry because your sat nav decided it would be more fun to take that route instead of the bridge beforehand … (happened to me twice, guy-name link + Metalfest 2012).
Or you take a break on your way back from a Convention at a resting place called „Brocken View“ (The Brocken is a mountain in middle Germany), but it’s nowhere to be seen.

Sprachfasching (Word-messes)

Those who know me personally, know that sometimes the things I say don’t really make sense, but I’m not the only one suffering from that syndrome. Quite a bunch of strange words or discussions were created during my travels.

I told you about the Pony with Horn and the Spaghetti Fish and other things said during that particular Wacken, but I have yet to tell you about the (titular) Angel Chicken Wings.

During InGenius‘ and my visit to Stockholm we discussed a lot of things. Plans, stories, ideas, writing in general and how many wings Archangels in general and in particular in Supernatural have.
While we were in the greatest Book Store I’ve been in so far, I incidentally picked up a book about Angels that said that the Archangel Gabriel has in some sources 152 (or 146 or something like that) wings.
When I mentioned it in a later discussion, we imagined how so many wings would fit on a body and got to the conclusion that they had to sit on things like hands and feet as well.

At some point InGenius commented:

„You could make a lot of of … Angel Chicken Wings from that“

We laughed about this and discussed it a bit further (how would one make Angel Chicken Wings in a SPN setting?). Incidentally SPN itself made a joke about frying an Archangel in the episode Changing Channels, well and there is always Grace‚ Celestial Poultry, so it’s not surprising something like that comes up at some point …

Anyway, somehow we then got to the discussion about strange signs.
In my early days of travelling, when we explored nearby towns back in my school days, I once came across two arrow-signs, hanging directly below each other, reading:

„Lunch Specials: 5.XX DM“
„Funeral Services“

And yes, they pointed in the same direction …

When InGenius then told me about a sign that offered you:

„Second-hand Coffee to go“

when you read it the wrong way, I totally lost it and had to sit down for a moment, in combination with the Angel Chicken Wings this was just too much for me …

It’s in the genes…

Now, you’ve read a few strange stories, but long before I paid much attention to anything – or existed – there already were a few things that I’m told on occasion.
Contrary to what I grew up with, my parents travelled quite a bit before I was born and have many stories of getting lost while picking mushrooms, visiting bone houses and what not, to tell.

But there is one thing, I’d like to use as the final story of this post:

One time my parents and grandparents were driving with my grandpas Trabi (Trabant) and my grandma yelled at them from the back-seat:

„You guys keep looking straight ahead now.“

And proceeded to change the elastic band of her underwear right then and there. >_<
Doing weird stuff while travelling seems to run in the family …

For more stories about my travelling check out the On the Road-Category. 😉

Hope you had fun reading this

PoiSonPaiNter

The Weekend Guess #89

I present to you the eighty ninth instalment of the Weekend Guess.

Eine Gedankenblase mit dem Schriftzug "The Weekend Guess" auf blauem Grund und in einem braunen Rahmen

What is the Weekend Guess?

Up to three riddles formulated by me that are puns and wordplays on the answer itself I put on here for my readers to answer.

Why am I doing this?

For no apparent reason, just because I consider the idea to be funny.

What are the questions about?

Everything I can think of I guess, so far the things you had to figure out were song titles and bands, movies and books. Currently it’s random topics ranging from the stuff before and whatever I feel like asking about.

What is your part in this?

You can try to figure out my riddles and see if you can manage to get behind them and understand what I am describing.

What is in it for you?

So far: Nothing, but the knowledge that you managed to unlock one of my silly riddles.

Let’s start with the eighty ninth set of questions

I am looking for the name of this movie:

Not thawed

Leave your guesses in the comments below and I can see if my questions are too easy or to hard to figure out. I will give the correct answer with the next instalment.
Have fun figuring it out! 🙂

Solution for last weeks Weekend Guess:

Dogma

No one tried guessing, so I can’t congratulate anyone. 🙁

PoiSonPaiNter

The adventurous Life of Stan the Desert Cactus

It’s been almost a year since a held the Raffle for my 200th post (by now I have more than 300…) and I know I said the winners would receive their prices within six months, but then stuff happened and it didn’t work out.
This story was the price for the second place and DarkFairy won it back then (the other two winners never claimed their prices) and wished for a story with the title „The adventurous life of Stan the Desert Cactus“ (or rather „Das abenteuerliche Leben von Stan dem Wüstenkaktus“ as it is called in German – the story will be in German as well, I don’t know if I get around to translate it). Even though I do think that I had the draft for this story done within the time frame, I never got around to finish it. But as it is Fairy’s birthday today, I thought I might as well keep the story until now and give her the story she wanted as not just a price, but a present as well.
So, Happy Birthday, Fairy and have fun with Stan’s adventures!

Das abenteuerliche Leben von Stan dem Wüstenkaktus

Heute war mal wieder einer dieser Tage, an denen nichts passieren wollte, aber so sicher konnte man sich da nie sein.
Die Sonne schien von allen Seiten erbarmungslos auf mich herab; sogar vom Wüstensand wurde sie reflektiert.
Bei solch einem Wetter wagte sich kaum ein Lebewesen aus seinem Versteck und über der Wüste lag ein tiefes Schweigen.
Nur die Hitze flimmerte über dem Sand, sorgte hier und da für Spiegelungen aus weiter ferne und hin und wieder huschte eine kleine Eidechse an mir vorbei.
Sie waren vermutlich auf der Suche nach einem der unzähligen Käfer, die sich in den Dünen verstecken und erst raus kommen würden, wenn die Sonne etwas tiefer stand.
Diese Tage zähle ich zu den ruhigen Tagen und ich bin froh, dass es auch solche gibt.
Die Spannung anderer Tage hält man nicht permanent aus, zumindest ich nicht, denn an den hektischen Tagen habe ich kaum einen Moment um durchzuatmen.
Da war zum Beispiel das eine Mal, als eine Karawane direkt an mir vorbei zog und dann in meiner Nähe Rast machte. Sie waren unterwegs um sich in dieser Gegend anzusiedeln; so hatten es mir zumindest die Strauchkugeln erzählt. Von ihnen wusste ich auch, dass diese Ansammlung von den nicht-Büffeln mit ihren hohlen, befüllten Häusern und hellen Zweibeinern ‚Karawanen‘ heißen. Eine merkwürdiges Wort für ‚Herde‘ wie ich finde.
Die Strauchkugeln hatten auch gesagt, dass die Hellen die Rötlichen, die sonst hier immer entlang kamen vertrieben und töteten und auch die Geier erzählten mir so etwas, aber von dem was ich von der Karawane sehen konnte, waren sie auch nicht viel anders als die anderen. Sie schienen besseres Werkzeug und andere Felle zu besitzen, aber ich finde die Federn der anderen hübscher als den Kopfschmuck, den die hellen trugen. Fell über Fell zu tragen erscheint mir einfach unglaublich unpraktisch zu sein.
Ich wollte den Strauchkugeln und Geiern immer nicht so ganz glauben, wenn sie mir Geschichten von den Hellen erzählten.
Bis zu jenem Tag.
Die Karawane war schon mehrere Monde weiter gezogen und der Tag begann wie ein ruhiger Tag, aber dann fühlte ich eine heftige Vibration durch meine Wurzeln aufsteigen; viel heftiger als die Karawane, die nur sehr langsam an mir vorbei gezogen war.
Eine Staubwolke näherte sich von der einen Seite und aus dieser Richtung kam ein Knallen, das ich noch nie zuvor gehört hatte. An der Spitze der Wolke erkannte ich einen Federträger auf einem nicht-Büffel. Sein Körper war voller rotem und weißen Wasser und jeder Menge Schmutz. Er keuchte, wie die Geier nach einem langen Flug, und stürmte weiter auf dem Felltier.
Hinter ihm öffnete sich die Staubwolke und drei weitere Gestalten auf nicht-Büffeln kamen hervor.
Es waren helle Zweibeiner, die lange Stöcke in der Hand hielten, die diese schrecklichen Geräusche verursachten. Immer wenn es knallte entstieg einem der Stöcke eine Rauchwolke und der Federträger duckte sich. Mehrere Knalle folgten und plötzlich fiel der Federträger vom Vierbeiner und blieb einfach liegen, während das Tier weiter rannte. Die anderen Zweibeiner hielten an, einer von ihnen stieg ab und stieß den Liegenden mit dem Fuß an. Als der Federträger sich nicht rührte nickte er den anderen zu und stieg lachend wieder auf sein Tragtier und sie rannten davon und überließen den Federträger den Geiern.
Als die Vögel schließlich kamen, rief ich einen von ihnen zu mir und er landete vorsichtig zwischen den Stacheln auf meinem Arm. Er erklärte mir, dass die Hellen das zu Hause der Federträger wollen und sie deshalb jagten, aber sie aßen sie nicht, sondern vergruben oder verbrannten sie; manchmal ließen sie sie auch einfach irgendwo hängen oder liegen, sodass die Geier fressen konnten.
Es war kein schöner Anblick ihnen dabei zuzusehen, auch bei den Büffeln nicht, die manchmal durch diese Gegend rannten und einer von ihnen fällt um und bleibt liegen.
Immer wenn die Federträger die Büffel jagten und an mir vorbei trieben, hatte ich Angst, dass sie mich umrannten, aber auch wenn bereits ein paar von ihnen an mir hängen geblieben sind, so hatte mich bisher niemand komplett umgerissen.
Es war dennoch jedes Mal wieder aufs Neue ein regelrechter Nervenkitzel.
Schrecklich war es auch, wenn von den Federträgern jemand erschöpft und ausgelaugt ein Stück von mir abschlug, um von meinen Wasserreserven zu trinken.
Es ist sehr schmerzhaft und schwer den Verlust wieder anzusparen.
Glücklicherweise passierte das in dieser Gegend eher selten, auch wenn die Hellen es mittlerweile auch gelernt haben – wie auch das Jagen der Büffel -, aber sie haben zu viel Angst vor meinen Stacheln.
Aber es gibt auch schöne Momente.
Wenn zum Beispiel der Regen fällt und meine Blüten aufgehen und um mich herum der Wüstensand grüne Flecken bekommt.
Das ist immer ein schöner Anblick, den ich jedes Jahr aufs neue herbei sehne.
Aber nach Tagen voller Abenteuer bevorzuge ich Tage an denen mich nur die Strauchkugeln, die Eidechsen oder die Geier besuchen.
Das ist dann doch wesentlich entspannter.
I hope you liked it!
And now I can add writing something from the perspective of a Cactus to the list of odd perspectives I used so far… (The others being an Enter-Key, a Medlar, a Leopard [Page 32] and I think something else I can’t remember right now – not sure if I can count Squirrel and Treetroll here, though – all stories again only in German)
PoiSonPaiNter

The Weekend Guess #88

I present to you the eighty eighth instalment of the Weekend Guess.

Eine Gedankenblase mit dem Schriftzug "The Weekend Guess" auf blauem Grund und in einem braunen Rahmen

What is the Weekend Guess?

Up to three riddles formulated by me that are puns and wordplays on the answer itself I put on here for my readers to answer.

Why am I doing this?

For no apparent reason, just because I consider the idea to be funny.

What are the questions about?

Everything I can think of I guess, so far the things you had to figure out were song titles and bands, movies and books. Currently it’s random topics ranging from the stuff before and whatever I feel like asking about.

What is your part in this?

You can try to figure out my riddles and see if you can manage to get behind them and understand what I am describing.

What is in it for you?

So far: Nothing, but the knowledge that you managed to unlock one of my silly riddles.

Let’s start with the eighty eighth set of questions

I am looking for the name of this movie:

Two fallen Angels trying to get back to Heaven by using a loophole, but are stopped by an unlikely descendant and her side-kicks.

Leave your guesses in the comments below and I can see if my questions are too easy or to hard to figure out. I will give the correct answer with the next instalment.
Have fun figuring it out! 🙂

Solution for last weeks Weekend Guess:

Superman

fruehstuecksflocke guessed it correctly, so congratulations and thanks for the introduction to the Birdplane (Go check out his comment on the previous Weekend Guess to find out more!)!

PoiSonPaiNter

Weltenwanderer – Reading Night (Lesenacht)

Tuesday is usually the day for the Reading Together, but as I haven’t participated in that for quite some time, I thought I’d simply post this collection from the Reading Night over at Weltenwanderer from the last Christmas night instead.

What is a Reading Night and how does it work?

It’s basically different people picking up a book to read in a set amount time.
If the invitation is sent from a Blog that usually involves answering question throughout the session.
In this case Aleshanee invited us to join in a reading from 8pm to 1am on the 26th December 2015 „To let Christmas wind down with a good book…“.
I answered the question that night on my Facebook (and subsequently Twitter) Account and now you can find them collected here as well (All questions are obviously translated from their German version on Weltenwander).
Note: Everything in []-brackets is added/changed after the original posts.

Question 1:
What are you reading today? Was the book a Christmas Present or did you have any books under the tree? If so, which ones? How many pages do you plan on reading?

Tonight I’m reading „The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide“ (to the Galaxy) [by Douglas Adams] that collects all five novels and an additional one. It wasn’t a Christmas present, it isn’t even my own copy…I borrowed it from [Nazgul] back in 2014 and wanted to finish it back then for [BiblioSmiles‘ Summer Book Challenge – that I haven’t finished yet], but so far didn’t get around to do it.
So here I am trying to read as much as possible! 😀
[As I somehow didn’t answer that: I didn’t get any books for Christmas]

Question 2:
Which protagonists from your book would you have liked to invite for your Christmas celebrations? Or would they have demolished the whole feast? In which place or land are you right now in your book?

 I’m not that far into the book, but from what I remember from the movie would I probably not want any of them [participating in] our Christmas celebrations. They’re either too pessimistic [and that says something, as I am quite the pessimist myself] or too weird… >_<
Demolishing would also be a good point, as they’re currently trying to get rid of planet Earth – which is where I am currently. Somewhere close to London on Earth. 😀

Question 3:
Do you like your book up to now? Describe it with 5 adjectives 😀

Yes, I like the book so far, though in my head I keep comparing it to the movie-version (the one with Martin Freeman as Arthur Dent)… But I guess that can’t be helped if you watch the movie before you read the book >_<
extraterrestrial, confusing, detailed, footnote-y, bureaucratic

Question 4:
Do you like the cover of your current book? Is the cover important to you or do you not care about it at all?

As this book is a special edition the cover is rather simple, but nice, though it does remind me of a bible. Which it probably is to some people, I suppose. >_<
I discussed this before in a Reading Together, so I’ll simply quote the short version and you can read the long answer in the link:

It depends.
If I look for a certain book then it doesn’t matter.
If I’m just browsing through the book store my attention occasionally gets caught by a cover. If the blurb then fits what I like to read, it is highly likely that I will take the book with me. If not it’s just put back where I found it.

Question 5:
You’ve certainly looked through the other Blogs a bit… was there a book for you amongst them? Or do you know one of them that you can recommend? Would you recommend your current book?
And…are you already sleepy? 😀

 To be honest: I haven’t managed to read much at the other Blogs…I’m glad when I [manage to read] a few pages in my own book, as it feels like I simply don’t move forward. Though I’m not sure why that is (distractions, font, language?)
Well, I feel like not recommending the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy would be blasphemy, soo…
And yes: The eyes are practising for sleep-mode…

Finale:
How far did you get with your book? Have you managed to read „enough“ for today? Will you continue to read or are your eyes already closing themselves?

With a little cheating of adding 14 minutes to the 1 o’clock end I managed to at least get to page 100. For five hours of reading this seems like no pages at all – that’s usually my page count or one[-one 1/2] hour – , but I guess as in a different font and format this might be page 150-200, [plus] the fact that I got side tracked a lot and the book being in English I let it slide and simply accept it as such. At least I started at all.
I read enough in a way that I now go to sleep and rest my mind and eyes and finish the last pages of the first part afterwards.

Additional Notes

Regardless of the earlier statement have I not picked up the book again so far, but I will continue and the plan is to finally finish the whole thing before Towel Day, so, maybe that’ll help. I also wouldn’t mind to participate in another of this nights, even though it is exhausting, but at least I got something done. 😉
Have you ever participated in a Reading Night?
Would you like to?
Let me know, maybe one day I’ll host one myself. 🙂
PoiSonPaiNter

The Weekend Guess #87

A new year, a new guess. As part of the Nerd-Week I present to you the eighty seventh instalment of the Weekend Guess.

Eine Gedankenblase mit dem Schriftzug "The Weekend Guess" auf blauem Grund und in einem braunen Rahmen

What is the Weekend Guess?

Up to three riddles formulated by me that are puns and wordplays on the answer itself I put on here for my readers to answer.

Why am I doing this?

For no apparent reason, just because I consider the idea to be funny.

What are the questions about?

Everything I can think of I guess, so far the things you had to figure out were song titles and bands, movies and books. Currently it’s random topics ranging from the stuff before and whatever I feel like asking about.

What is your part in this?

You can try to figure out my riddles and see if you can manage to get behind them and understand what I am describing.

What is in it for you?

So far: Nothing, but the knowledge that you managed to unlock one of my silly riddles.

Let’s start with the eighty seventh set of questions

I am looking for the name of this character:

It’s not a bird, nor a plane, it’s…

Leave your guesses in the comments below and I can see if my questions are too easy or to hard to figure out. I will give the correct answer with the next instalment.
Have fun figuring it out! 🙂

Solution for last weeks Weekend Guess:

Mort

Unfortunately no one tried guessing, so I can’t congratulate anyone. 🙁

PoiSonPaiNter

What the nerd heart desires: Nerd Stores

Lies auf Deutsch

As sixth part of the Nerd-Week you get a special overview over a few nerdy stores here in Germany, that you enter with a laughing and a crying eye and leave with an empty wallet and filled bags. Find out what there is to discover!

Fantastische Welten – Fantastical Worlds

A potpourri of things awaits you in the Fantastischen Welten in Rostock, that’s not just something for Manga-friends, no, especially Card Gamer, Roleplayers and Table Tops Player get their money’s worth. Besides weekly Events for Magic the Gathering and Force of Will, tournaments for Yu-Gi-Oh! and others are regularly fought out. A visit is worthwhile either way, even if you just use it to sit on one of the 32 playing seats and preventively intimidate your future opponents with your gaze. 😉

Gandalph

The Gandalph can be found in three different places: Flensburg, Kiel and Rendsburg [and Lübeck], where you can stock up on (Board) Games, Manga and Books from different genres, miniatures/figurines for Table Tops and even more. There is simply a huge range, that invides you the spent an evening in the store.

Grober Unfug – Monkey Business (?)

As we already are talking about more than one store, let’s continue with the Grober Unfug in Berlin that you can find twice there. The main store is in Mitte, a small branch in Kreuzberg. Both have a huge selection especially of Comics and Comic-Merchandise. Those who want to complete their DC or Marvel-collections or want to discoverer something smaller are at the right place. Especially great is that both stores participate in the Gratis Comic Tag (Free Comic Book Day) and simply are a great place to go (Note: On that day the branch is usually quite cramped if you want to check the shelves, but it is doable). And if you’re lucky – as I was on GTC two years ago – you might meet a Berlin celebrity (Bela B.) who is looking for new reading material as well. 😉

Otherland

Let’s stay in the vicinity of the Grober Unfug-branch in Kreuzberg and walk a bit further to the Otherland-book store. Specialized in Fantasy and Sci-Fi there is a lot to discover here, as besides new releases, you’ll also find (used) classics in the shelves (and boxes) and a nearly as large a selection of English literature (e.g. by Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett). But still not everything. The Otherland hosts reading sessions and other events and the well informed team can certainly help you with your search for new reading material.

Neo Tokyo

Let’s change the specialization to Japanese Media. The Neo Tokyo – in Berlin, but also in Munich – have a large assortment of Manga and DVDs for popular/famous series from the different publishers, but also a few less known ones. Special in their range are the offers of Merchandise, clothing and (Japanese/Korean) Music, that you don’t find that much throughout Germany. Those who want to complete their series or want to take a closer look into Japanese Culture are at the right place. If I remember correctly you could even buy a Bento in the Berlin store.

J-Store

Fit for that as well is also the J-Store that you can’t only find in the Capital, but also in Hamburg. The variety is similar to Neo Tokyo, but you can always find something in one store that you can’t find in the other. Especially Artists can buy a few things here and fans of Youth Culture can take a picture in a traditional Photo Booth (purikura).

Comic Planet

With the Comic Planet another branch-store is added to the mix. You can find it in different cities: Osnabrück, Münster, Rheine and Duisburg. With different events (tournaments, theme days, …), a large range of (sometimes rare) Manga, Comics and Trading Card Games, as well as a lot of space to play the latter depending on the branch, it has a lot to offer.

Comic Galerie – Comic Gallery

The second proper Comic Book Store I ever visited is the Comic Galerie in Kassel. Many great things can be found here that will greatly improve your life, uhm, I mean: They have a wide range of Comic Books and Manga, but also a large assortment of Specialist Literature, Artbooks and Rulebooks for Pen&Paper– and Table Tops-Systems and additionally many interesting Events that go from game-demonstrations up to tournaments.

Pin-Up

My very first is Pin-Up Comic in Cologne that seems unimpressive from the outside, but hides actually worlds of wonders. With a complete range of German Graphic Novels, Frankobelgian Comics (Asterix & Co.), as well as a huge selection of US-Comics and an extensive Comic and Magazine antique shop everyone can find something here.

Nertaku

Specialized a bit differently is the Nertaku in Dresden that tries to combine the interests of both Nerds and Otakus and that not just in their name. Beside a large assortment of Game- (Super Mario, Minecraft, Final Fantasy, etc.) and Mangamerchandise (and volumes) they also offer stuff for Cosplayers, as the owners dabble in the Cosplaying scene as well. Additionally they also sell Alpaca plushies.

Zeitgeist

How does the saying go? Save the best for last, if the Zeitgeist in Koblenz is indeed that you’ll have to decide for yourself. DarkFairy, who showed me this store would certainly think so. 😉
Either way is there a wide range of different Comics, Manga, (Board- and Card) Games, Table Tops equiment and also various Merchandise (especially Manga/Anime figurines, but also stuff for Doctor Who and others), that you scarcely find anywhere.
But I do not want to keep one last, special goody that SaJaehwa and I discovered on our weekend trip to Stockholm (obviously that’s in Sweden not in Germany, but it still needed to be added to this list), from you:

Science Fiction Bokhandeln

As I mentioned here on Tuesday, did we more or less stumble upon the Science Fiction Bokhandeln by accident and when we went inside it was hard for us to leave again. The wide variety of English (non-fiction) Books, Comics and (Original-) Manga, as well as the huge selection of Merchandise you don’t get that easily in Germany, where simply too tempting (Mean info: You can order through the web shop via credit card…).

But enough now, don’t want you to go into a buying frenzy. 😉

Those someone else think that Comic Book Stores are as mean – if not meaner – as Book Stores, as you hardly can leave them without taking something with you?
Did I forget your favourite store?
Let me know!
Have fun checking them out!

PoiSonPaiNter

Disclaimer: I didn’t get paid for writing this, I simply wanted to share my experiences with different stores I’ve been at.

Re-Wri-Day: Webcomics

As fifth part of the Nerd-Week you get another Re-Wri-Day, because as I recently did with my Supernatural Summaries, did I put my first post for THE EXTREMIS REVIEW about Webcomics directly on my Blog as well.

ReWriDayWhat is the Re-Wri-Day?

Inspired by EdMooneyPhotography’s Re-Work-Wednesday and based on the fact that my writing style for this Blog has changed over the past years, I kind of created my own version of this.

But why the strange name and what does it mean?

I’m awful when it comes to puns and I couldn’t help myself but to turn re-write and Friday into one strange word: Re-Wri-Day. Sorry…
But in conclusion: These posts are supposed to be always published on a Friday, but not necessarily on every Friday, just the Fridays when I feel like editing an old post beforehand.

And what am I doing with this?

I am taking my old posts from the beginnings of writing this Blog or just former posts and read them again to see what things I can change or add. They wont necessarily be actually re-written, but some changes will be made.
In the Re-Wri-Day post I’ll also give you a couple of thoughts on why I had chosen the topic and stuff you might be interested in.

So, let’s have a look at the page I changed: Webcomics

I really enjoyed writing this post, as it is one of my favourite topics to talk about. As I discovered more and more Webcomics throughout the year(s) I’ve decided that I want to pick this up as another series to introduce people to stuff I read.

For that I changed the original post a bit like giving it a different name and changing some of the lines.
I would have liked to include one of my favourite Nichtlustig-Comics as well, but I didn’t hear back from the Copyright-person, so I won’t include it here and only link to it. If anyone is interested: Nichtlustig just finished a successful Kickstarter campaign to animate the Comics as a Cartoon series. Congratulations for that!

Anyway, I still have to figure out how I want to present the upcoming Webcomics, but I guess we’ll see what I come up with, when I get around to put some more thought into it. 😉

PoiSonPaiNter

Knights of Badassdom

As fourth part of the Nerd-Week I present to you a review for Knights of Badassdom. You can’t compare it to Mara, but it’s nerdy, so it fits the theme. 😉

I first heard about this movie when we watched the Wacken 3D movie in the cinema and they showed the quite epic trailer. Still, our local cinema did not even play it, so we couldn’t watch it on the big screen.

Last year, when I was in Cologne with Unmei for our visit to the Harry Potter Exhibition we had some time to kill and spent that – amongst other places – in an electronic retailer where my eyes fell upon the DVD and I couldn’t resist taking it with me.

What is it about?

The official poster

Joe just broke up with his girlfriend so his friends Eric and Hung decide to kidnap him and bring him to the LARP-battle Fields of Evermore. The newbie LARPer is at first utterly unable to cope, but upon seeing female LARPer Gwen and hearing what would be in store for him, he at least decides to give it a try. When Eric tries a ritual on Joe in his attempt to finally level up his character and uses a real spell book, instead of the in-game ones, he ends up summoning a Succubus from hell.

Now they have to find a way to get rid of it before it kills every participant …

The watching experience

While watching I was torn between laughing, trying not to think too much into what was happening and wondering what the hell was going on…
Fast cuts make it hard to follow the Demons‘ activities at times, jumps between rarely introduced characters don’t really help either.

This movie plays a lot with stereotypes, but in a fun and not insulting way and that’s refreshing. It also comes along with a pretty cool soundtrack – if you like Rock/Metal – and a quite epic boss battle …

Still, I feel the need to mention: Watch with care if you’re not a fan of splatter, as a lot of people get torn to shreds throughout the movie.
I don’t mind that kind of stuff (heck, I went for Pizza after District 9 …), but some things were quite disgusting.

The characters

As it is common with Horror movies there is not much time spent on actual character development. They are introduced and someone rises up to the challenge of defeating the big bad. In the context of this movie that’s not a bad thing, as it does focus more on the jokes and action.

Seeing as this is a movie about LARPer/LARPing you also get a look at different types of characters within the game, but the focus soon diverts from that and you rarely get any nods to their in-game characters.

Though it still felt as if every character had something unique about them. Everyone is enthusiastic about the world of Evermore in their own way. Though describing them more would take away the fun of getting to know them through the movie.

General Opinion

Please don’t take this movie serious, I’m not sure it even does so itself.

It’s fun to watch and has some quite good gags and as I said the soundtrack is pretty cool, but that’s about it.

The storyline, while different and probably innovative, isn’t really followed through as it is buried in crude jokes, splatter and male fantasies.

Don’t get me wrong, I did enjoy the movie as a whole and it’s a great way to shine some much needed light onto a much disregarded sub-culture, but you simply shouldn’t focus on the little things, because then it gets pretty frustrating.
And to be honest: Supernatural’s Larp and the Real Girl did a pretty good job at portraying a similar storyline without those things mentioned above…
(Or if you are more a fan of Pen&Paper make sure to check out Zombie Orpheus Entertainment/Dead Gentlemen Production’s The Gamers movies, where the whole „stay-in-character“-thing is used way more often and in quite hilarious ways)

Stuff I’d like to add

Apparently the version that got released was not the one the director Joe Lynch created, but a re-cut from Wade Bradley, after internal differences. So maybe that’s why it had those issues I mentioned. Unfortunately can I only give an opinion for this version and don’t know what the difference between them is…
So, simply see for yourself if you like or dislike this version.

PoiSonPaiNter

© For the poster belongs to its rightful owner.