clunky

I don't like the sound of pianos. Or at least, I often find myself not liking songs which have a regular acoustic piano (or a digital recreation of that sound) as the main musical instrument. I'm not sure why; the sound of the keys sounds sort of unpleasant to me. Clunky. Muted. Old-fashioned. The sound of each key decays too fast.

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It seems that ucky isn't a word? Hmm. To me, yucky conveys bad-tasting food. Icky conveys dirt or contamination. Ucky conveys some other general unpleasantness. I suppose I should use the word 'unpleasant' instead.

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Nearly every time I use the self-checkout at Kroger, I have my 2 cloth bags with me. After swiping my Kroger card, I always select the option to "Use my own bags", and I always put them on the top shelf. They always weigh the same. Considering that, you'd think that their system could be smart enough to remember that about me, and allow me to continue checking out, rather than EVERY SINGLE TIME giving me the "Someone will assist you shortly" message and making me wait for an attendant to come and verify that my bags are really empty, and I'm not trying to steal anything. Grr.

Several times during each check-out, I also get that "Please remove the unscanned item from the bagging area. Remember to always scan each item" message, even though I *do* make sure that each item has scanned successfully before placing it in my bag. I also get "Please put back the item you removed from the bagging area" fairly often, even though I haven't removed anything. I ignore these nagging messages, and continue scanning.

Yeah, Kroger's computers think I'm a crook. Whatever. It doesn't stop them from sending me coupons.

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SC Congressman-Elect Joe Cunningham Clenches an Historic Win

The Charleston attorney and ocean engineer narrowly defeated first term state house representative Katie Arrington, making him the first democrat the first congressional district has sent to congress in nearly 40 years.
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One of the key issues Cunningham’s camp was able to capitalize on is offshore drilling. He made it clear he was against it while pointing out Arrington supported the president’s decision to lift the ban. The first congressional district runs along the coast from Charleston to Hilton Head and several republican mayors endorsed Cunningham over Arrington on that issue alone.

Here in my district 6, the Democrat incumbent (since 1993) Jim Clyburn won re-election with 70% of the vote.

Little Oktoberfest

I came across this old flyer in my things a while after posting about the Little Oktoberfest that used to be held by the American military housing area in Munich. The flyer is from the last year I lived in Germany, 1985.



Text Transcription:

Postwurfsendung
[ image of Fireworks ]
Traditionelles 29. deutsch- amerikanisches
"Kleines Oktoberfest"
in der amerikanischen Wohnsiedlung am Perlacher Forst LincolnStraße
BAYERISCHES BIERZELT
mit erstklassigem Musikprogramm täglich bis 23.00 Uhr
Täglich großer VERGNÜGUNGSPARK ab 13.00 Uhr
Ice Cream, "Hamburgers", "Hot Dogs" und andere amerik. Spezialitäten

15. Juni, 17 Uhr ............. Eröffnung und Bieranstich
20. u. 27. Juni, 14-19 Uhr ... Familientage mit erm. Preisen an allen Fahrgeschäften
23. Juni ..................... Erstmals in München Tagesfeuerwerk
29. u. 30. Juni .............. 15. Internationale deutsch- amerikanische Wandertage
.............................. (Start und Ziel im Bierzelt)
30. Juni nach 22 Uhr ......... Großfeuerwerk

Straßenbahnverbindung: Linie 27 bis Endhaltestelle Schwanseestraße, dann 10 Min. Fußweg, S-Bahn
Linie 2 - Haltestelle Fasangarten - Parkmöglichkeit nur an der Lincolnstraße

vom 15. Juni mit 30. Juni 1985
Veranstalter: Amerikanischer Verband für Freizeitgestaltung, München


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My memories of the fest, in general:

In content, it was rather similar to the State Fairs they have here in SC every year. There were food booths, rides, games. There was a beer tent, but I don't remember much of that.

I remember there was a wall, maybe part of a building, on the outskirts of the area, where the men who had drunk too much beer, went to piss.

There was a dunking booth.
I think there was a test of strength game, where you'd hit down hard on something using a sledgehammer, which would cause something to lift up high based on how hard the hit was. Maybe when it got to the top, it activated the dunk. Or maybe the dunking booth was a different game, throwing a baseball hard at something. Maybe I'm getting memories mixed up.

There were the kind of games where you throw balls at a target, to try to win a prize.

They sold blocks of American ice cream in in box containers. I remember the Neapolitan flavor, stripes of chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry. The same stuff the we could buy in the military commissary. There were other American staples like hamburgers and corn on the cob - a lot of Germans came for the food.

They sold German Dampfnudeln, as mentioned in my other post.

One time, on one of the rides that spins you around up in the air and back and forth, around and around, my head slid off the side of headrest, and the momentum of the ride was so strong, that it was a hard struggle for me to pull my head back into place against the headrest. It was scary, but I think I was too embarrassed to mention it to anyone. I still wonder if that incident is why, as an adult, I find it hard to lean my head back to look upwards at tall things. My neck gets tired and achy very quickly when doing that. Or maybe my neck was weak to begin with.

One time, I went on a ride with my mom, which I wouldn't normally go on due to my fear of heights. The kind where 2 people are locked into a cage-like thing with 2 seats, and it gets pulled up high, and then the cage is spun around head-over heels a few times. It looked sort of like this Zipper ride, though I don't remember the whole thing rotating like that one. Maybe it did. Regardless, it was scary.

https://www.muenchenwiki.de/wiki/Little_Oktoberfest
http://munich-greeter.de/en/2014/07/amerikanische-geschichte-in-muenchen-teil-1/