Good morning dear EU community,

I’m sorry I’ve been kinda absent here during the last few days. I’ve been awfully rushed to get everything together before flying over to Berlin. My flight leaves in a couple of hours and after I’ve arrived to our office in Germany you’ll see a whole lot more of me here (and I’ll finally announce the winner of the Friday game) since blogging and running around naked with Mike, Maïa and Guillaume is really the only thing I’m flying over for.

Well, not really but I’ll have loads more time to dedicate myself to laFraise during the 7 days I’m spending in Berlin. ^_^

Hiiiiii dear Australian readers! The exhibition CUPCO IS GOD is opening next Tuesday and we really hope than one of you will send us pictures of the event! It will take place at Damien Minton Gallery, in Redfern. 61 Great Buckingham St, until December 22th. It looks awesome. I want to be theeeeeeere. 

(Uh, are you not all from Australia? Really? Then you just have to check cupco' blog and website, sorry!) 

As a big fan of Steve Buscemi, I really liked the movie "Reservoir Dogs"… even if it's a bit too violent for me ("I'm not a girl, not yet a woman"… hey… why am I singing like Britney Spears tonight???). What is cool with this new t-shirt is that the violence is only suggested. Which is fine for me because, if I can confess something here, I'm really ill at ease when I see for example this design. Gandhi and Jesus were violent men in comparison with me. So Reservoir Colors is just perfect :)

Reservoir Colors is good for your health !

Hey, did you ever notice that Gprod had a blog !

Cute! Shawn Blanc gives on his website four different wallpapers for your iPhone and for Christmas. I'd like to have it on my computer: if it could remind me NOT to buy all my presents the last day, my life would be much easier. *sigh*

working from home is mostly ok. Then again, on some occasions it's a real pain on the backside.

… if I could have had a different life, if I was doomed to be a blogger, if I will ever enjoy washing the dishes, if after Germany I'll try to live in another country, if I'll… if I'll ever stop asking stupid questions!!

Wonderland is in the shop, how do you prefer? Normal or longsleeve? 

And say hello to Presse, one of our greatests designers! 

If you’re an active reader of the laFraise EU blog you probably already know that my life hasn’t lately been going quite the way I hoped. That’s life though – you don’t always get the jar of double chocolate cookies and a glass of cool milk you want. We all have our own ways of dealing with disappointment and sadness. Mine’s to turn it into creativity; when I’m in a million little pieces the way to glue them back together again is to paint and write about it.

Last week I opened a personal blog at onneaetsimassa.fi (translates to “searchingforhappiness”) and will try my best to write a long post a few times each week. Unfortunately it’s in finnish so this entry really doesn’t carry too much informational value unless you speak my native language. Still wanted to share this with you though.

So far I’ve covered issues like “48 beers later”, “A stupid stupid man” and later on this week I’m going to write a post titled “The 5th Anniversary of being an asshole.” There's also archived material like "The scent of a woman", "Oh, my beard - I miss you so" and "The sad hymn of a successful young man" available - some of which are nearly 8 years old.

On Wednesday I’m travelling to Berlin for a week and will discuss with Maïa if it’s ok or not to post that kind of stuff also in here. Most of the stuff I write outside laFraise is pretty edgy - shocking or offending anyone really isn’t my goal here. :)

Being a bit of a geek I’ve got to admit I really enjoy IRC-quotes. For the less geeky people; IRC is pretty much the first thing there was to chat over the ‘net (back in 1994 when I started chatting it was also just about the only option) and loads of people still use it. In many ways it’s far more convenient than all the other options combined.

There are quite a few websites with a massive amount of IRC-quotes out there. Reading little stories of the daily lives of total strangers is a cool thing to do. Some of the conversations are just plain funny, some are inspirational, some display the kind of happiness I wish to find myself… Well, all in all they usually cheer me up anyway.

At the first glance people these days have pretty damn fat wallets. Loads of cash, huh? Nope – just an endless stock of plactic cards. Credit cards, all kinds of licences and identification cards, bonus cards for shops and restaurant chains, library cards, VIP member cards, organ donor cards… You name it. It seems like there is a plastic card for every little thing.

If I ever get a chance to visit hell (I'm trying to avoid making it a place of my permanent residence in afterlife) I'm pretty sure the first thing I'll notice is that it's made of plastic cards. Sure, in a way they're convenient but we've long ago reached a point after which they're mostly just a major annoyance. It's handy that you don't have to carry cash around but it's plain irritating that where ever you go they're going to ask for a card.

”Do you have our bonus card?”

”Nope.”

”Would you like to have one?”

”Nope.”

”I'll make you one anyway.”

It's no use trying to explain that you're already swimming in a sea of cards – you'll get more of them anyway. Most of them are of no use at all (it's not very likely that you're visiting that pizzeria 200km away from your home ever again anyway) and just fill up the wallet. Most ”VIP cards” are funnier than a grizzley bear pushing cranberries out of his ass; some clubs offer a special entrance for their VIP members but how VIP are you anyway when every other guy in the line has the same damn card anyway?

Bonus cards to convenience store chains are whole another issue. If you actually have a wife and a minimum of six kids in your household those may do you some good (and you'll need every bit of help you can get since you're already in deep shit for not understanding the basic concept of birth control). Then again if you're single or it's just you and your girl- / boyfriend doing the shopping you'll end up getting maybe 20 euros each year for giving up the right to shop anywhere you please. 20 euros – well, I guess getting a case of beer once a year ”for free” is worth doing all your shopping in a specific chain of stores. Then again, maybe not.

With a few dozen little pieces of hell in your wallet it's also next to impossible to remember which card is for which store. These businesses are also doing a great job with making you feel guilty if you actually forget to use their card when buying stuff. ”Ah, you bought something from us and just remembered you've got our card? Too bad. It's already in a register and I can't really change that anymore. You just lost some points that would entitle you to get free stuff from us.” Yup, free stuff that is pretty much worth nothing at all. What the hell for would I need that that bathroom towel with your logo printed on it anyway?

It's insane. By the year 2015 I'm sure there's a company that only makes backbags for consumers so they can carry all the cards they ”need” with them all the time. Be sure you use yours or you'll end up not getting that piece of shit for a keychain you been promised after you've bought 3000 euros worth of crap you don't need either from a certain store.

I'm off to get myself some more plastic cards. In a bit I can build myself a house out of them. Well, at least for my cats.

During the weekends you hear all kinds of stories. Usually in the middle of a night from a drunken person and sometimes it can be pretty hard to actually understand what the story was all about. Listening to all kinds of word salad made me come up with a list of words that are pretty hard to combine in the same story. Guess what? That’s exactly what the game is all about.

The words / phrases you need to include:

Ukulele, submarine sandwich, space shuttle, spare tire, India, strawberry, Liverpool, Christmas, bonjour and bourbon.

Fully fictional, laFraise related, long, short, weird… Make anything you want out of it. You have until Sunday midnight (GMT) to come up with a story – the lucky winner will be selected after that and receives enough brouzoufs for a t-shirt from our selection (shipping included).

Have fun!