VKSP #1: No idea what the fyook I’m doing. 2005/11/11

Okay.

I can't believe I'm doing one of these things...after heaping so much righteous scorn on those who did.

They say these are like diaries. I've seen some that are super-masturbatory (not sexually intended). Let's hope this doen't end up in that pile.

So I'm in Berlin. I live here. I got busted today for having a clock radio. Now see, sometimes I go and start to like living in Germany, and then at that very moment I get smacked in the face by...let's call it Deutschtardation.

It was at about 3:30...a knock comes at my door (and I've been instructed by the girl from whom I'm subletting NEVER to open the door but who knows, maybe it was a candy-bearing wizard or something, which would have been way sweeter than what happened). As per usual, the BBC world service was BLARING from both radios, the one in the bedroom and the one in the kitchen...to achieve the surround sound britishness that I so crave.

Let me explain, briefly about GEZ. It's this bullshit scheme by which you are required to register every machine that recieves AM/FM/UHF, etc, etc waves...and then pay for the ever-fucking privelege. A TV...just to have it in your home...costs EU 17 a month. A radio, regardless of if it's sole purpose is to wake your ass up in the morning in order to go to your job for which you pay over half of your salary in taxes to support the lazy German underclasses (and artists), costs EU 6 a month.

So. I bought my radio, as it were for EU 2 at a flea market. According to this system, I need to now pay EU 72 a year for the honor of keeping it in my house.

I fought with the GEZ guy for a while. He saw Cathrin's TV and wanted to charge for that too. I dared him to even get the fucker to work. He tried, tried, failed, and then said he'd be fine just charging for my radio. I said I'd throw it out the window right in front of him if he'd like.

He said there's also a penalty for throwing a working radio out a window in Germany. I asked him if that were still true should it coincidentally fall from a window while lodged in the throat of a GEZ guy.

Deutschland, Deutschland über alles...

Laters y'all,

Lydia