GERMANY
Today I helped a girl in the 12th grade prepare a presentation and a handout for tomorrow. She made me curry and sticky rice with a side salad and gave me a snickers and a 6 pack of Corona. I've travelled to nine new countries this year and I still think that reward's gonna be the highlight.
I'm watching a great deal of telly recently. I lamented on facebook last week the curse of continued repeats of everything on German television, which can range from the same film 2 consecutive weekends, all the way to the same film twice in the same evening.
What I am enjoying is Spongebob Squarepants, which is one thing that simply hasn't suffered from being translated. Apart from the title; here it's Spongebob Schwammkopf, or Spongebob Spongehead, which makes me laugh every time I say it aloud.
Last night I went through all 400 channels just to see which ones I receive and which I don't. Disappointingly all the British channels are blocked, but I do get Al Jazeera.
The best thing after Spongebob, Family Guy and American Dad is the German version of Candid Camera or Just For Laughs.
The victim on last night's episode was a 50-or-so year old receptionist in a surgery, who also doubled up as an assistant for the doctor. An actor in makeup playing a doddery, eccentric old gent (called "Mr. Kovak" or something similar) came in for some kind of scan. After 5 minutes of getting the guy to lie on the scanning bed, during which the guy kept getting back up, telling the nurse about his pen and generally just causing innocent doddery old person trouble, the woman (getting stressed out) manages to get him under the scanner and tells him she'll be back in 5 minutes.
While she's away, the actor leaves the scan bed and just leaves his clothes where he was lying, and the production team turn on a smoke machine. The woman comes back in to the room, now full of smoke and realises the guy has gone. Getting even more stressed out, she starts calling the guy's name, looking for him behind cabinets, under the bed, everywhere. The doctor (another actor) arrives and tells her to sit down outside for a second.
While she's out of the room, the production team bring in a chimp wearing the old chap's T-shirt and just let it wander round the scan room. The doctor leads the woman back in, and obviously she's visibly weirded out by this point. You couldn't write this stuff - she leans towards the chimp and says, tentatively: "Mr. Kovak?" It was as good as the Jeremy Beadle prank with the alien.
I thought it would end here, as the woman was freaking out and running her fingers through her hair and asking the doctor how it could have possibly happened, but the finish was just fantastic. A third actor comes in, also in old person makeup, and tells the woman that she's Kovak's wife and is here to pick him up after his scan. The woman looks at the 'doctor' for assistance, but he doesn't say anything. The perfect finish - the woman takes the 'wife's' hand in hers and says, very slowly, deadly serious "We think he's turned into a monkey".
I don't think I've laughed as hard this year as much as I did at that.
Today I helped a girl in the 12th grade prepare a presentation and a handout for tomorrow. She made me curry and sticky rice with a side salad and gave me a snickers and a 6 pack of Corona. I've travelled to nine new countries this year and I still think that reward's gonna be the highlight.
I'm watching a great deal of telly recently. I lamented on facebook last week the curse of continued repeats of everything on German television, which can range from the same film 2 consecutive weekends, all the way to the same film twice in the same evening.
What I am enjoying is Spongebob Squarepants, which is one thing that simply hasn't suffered from being translated. Apart from the title; here it's Spongebob Schwammkopf, or Spongebob Spongehead, which makes me laugh every time I say it aloud.
Last night I went through all 400 channels just to see which ones I receive and which I don't. Disappointingly all the British channels are blocked, but I do get Al Jazeera.
The best thing after Spongebob, Family Guy and American Dad is the German version of Candid Camera or Just For Laughs.
The victim on last night's episode was a 50-or-so year old receptionist in a surgery, who also doubled up as an assistant for the doctor. An actor in makeup playing a doddery, eccentric old gent (called "Mr. Kovak" or something similar) came in for some kind of scan. After 5 minutes of getting the guy to lie on the scanning bed, during which the guy kept getting back up, telling the nurse about his pen and generally just causing innocent doddery old person trouble, the woman (getting stressed out) manages to get him under the scanner and tells him she'll be back in 5 minutes.
While she's away, the actor leaves the scan bed and just leaves his clothes where he was lying, and the production team turn on a smoke machine. The woman comes back in to the room, now full of smoke and realises the guy has gone. Getting even more stressed out, she starts calling the guy's name, looking for him behind cabinets, under the bed, everywhere. The doctor (another actor) arrives and tells her to sit down outside for a second.
While she's out of the room, the production team bring in a chimp wearing the old chap's T-shirt and just let it wander round the scan room. The doctor leads the woman back in, and obviously she's visibly weirded out by this point. You couldn't write this stuff - she leans towards the chimp and says, tentatively: "Mr. Kovak?" It was as good as the Jeremy Beadle prank with the alien.
I thought it would end here, as the woman was freaking out and running her fingers through her hair and asking the doctor how it could have possibly happened, but the finish was just fantastic. A third actor comes in, also in old person makeup, and tells the woman that she's Kovak's wife and is here to pick him up after his scan. The woman looks at the 'doctor' for assistance, but he doesn't say anything. The perfect finish - the woman takes the 'wife's' hand in hers and says, very slowly, deadly serious "We think he's turned into a monkey".
I don't think I've laughed as hard this year as much as I did at that.
