German Advent Calendar with Spirits

Have some fun giving this one away! This one is filled with 24 mini liquor bottles.

My adult daughter asked for one, but I left her with clear instructions not to open its TĂŒrchen (little door) in the morning, as one would usually do. 🙂

 

10 Ways to Recycle Beer

The other day, the topic of our lesson turned to recycling in Germany. I mentioned that Germany was one of the first countries to recycle vehicles.

Then, there was the moment of surprise, when I mentioned some of us Germans even recycle our expired or half-drunk bottles of beer. Well, this does not happen too often around our home… Just enter Maria’s Beer Balcony in the search engine, click on images, and you will know why.

Franconian beer

But when there is half a bottle of beer left over, we can use it for the following:

Beauty:

  • To give your hair more volume, after shampooing, rinse it with beer.
  • Use it like hair spray – put it in dispenser and spray your hair with it. No worries, once it’s dry, you won’t smell like beer.

Household:

  • Polish your wood furniture with a small linen towel soaked in beer.

Gardening:

  • A bowl of beer in your garden, will keep your snails at bay. To keep ants and bugs off your terrace or balcony, also fill a small dish with beer and add some sugar. In this case, you can also use alcohol-free beer.
  • It makes a great fertilizer. Mix beer and water at 1:2 and add it to your plants. Best for green plants only.

Cooking:

  • Add some beer to any kind of gravy or broth.
  • Some brush the BBQ meat with beer before putting it on the grill.
  • Marinade your BBQ meat in beer.

Indoor plants:

  • Big-leafed indoor plants such as the rubber plant collect dust. Wipe it off with a beer-soaked cotton ball.

Home remedy:

* Catching a cold? Drink some warm beer before going to bed. For a better result, add some sugar to it. This will help kill bacteria and induce sleep.

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From a nutritional viewpoint, beer ranks highly in the food and beverage chart. It is also vegetarian.

9 Interesting Facts about the English Language

For students and teachers of English:

* The longest word with only one vowel is ‘strengths’ (a nine-letter word).

* There are only four words ending with -dous are tremendous, stupendous, hazardous and horrendous.

* The oldest word is ‘town’.

* The longest one-syllable word is ‘screeched’.

* The longest word with all the letters in alphabetical order is ‘almost’.

* The only two words ending with -gry are hungry and angry.

* The longest word without the main vowels is ‘rhythms’.

* The dot on the top of the letter ‘i’ is called a tittle.

* The most commonly-used word in conversation is ‘I’.

Quote of the Day

He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.

– Immanuel Kant –

Kritik der reinen Vernunft (Amazon.de)

Crowdfunding for a University Film Project

Guest post: The makings of the film Reflections with Broken Edges – by Ina Fischer (1st AD/Casting Director)

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Three years ago I graduated from Frankfurt International School (FIS). In three months time, I will have finished my Bachelor of Arts degree in Film & Television Production.

Time has become somewhat of a “wibbly wobbly” concept, as Doctor Who would say. Not long ago, it seems, I was fretting about my Extended Essay. Now I am working on my final project for university – a short film that was ‘commissioned’ (minus the financial aspect) by my course’s professors over the summer.

I came up with the story for the film around this time last year, while writing yet another reflective essay and listening to my iTunes in the background. Joshua Kadison’s song The Bubble Man started playing and, although I had listened to it a hundred times before, I suddenly started seeing the story of the song play out in front of my eyes. Kadison’s story-telling abilities are unique – one of his albums is quite fittingly titled Troubadour in a Timequake – and as such, the American songwriter is a great inspiration for human conflict, emotions, and distinctive characters.

The Bubble Man tells the story of an unnamed narrator who walks along Venice Beach and sees an old man blowing bubbles. The old man has promised himself to love the world the best he can, mesmerizing young and old alike as the giant bubbles float toward the sun.

I wanted to get to know this old man more. What kind of people does he meet every day? What do the people on the boardwalk think about him? How does his motto of loving the world influence others?

This bubble man, shaped by time and children’s smiles, appeared almost magical to me – as though he has been stood there on the boardwalk for decades, with generations of kids chasing his bubbles. Children grow up with this kindhearted figure, eventually taking their own children to see the bubble man.

I really wanted to tell the story of the bubble. That is how Charlie and Reflections with Broken Edges was born.

In life we take some things for granted, and it is only when they are gone that we truly appreciate the impact they have had on us. Set in the beautiful Lake District, Cumbria, the film tells the heartfelt story of Charlie Marshall. We follow his life from his early childhood, as he visits the bubble man for the first time, to present day fatherhood. One day, he discovers that the old man has disappeared. Finding him terminally ill in hospital, Charlie has to come to terms with losing a lifelong friend. With new-found perspective in the wake of his loss, Charlie begins to reflect on his life.

Reflections with Broken Edges is a poetic, magical film about friendship and trust, about attempting life each day with a smile.

And you can help make it happen by visiting our IndieGogo campaign page: www.indiegogo.com/Reflections-With-Broken-Edges. Any support is greatly appreciated, as we strive to make this the best graduation film yet.

Update received via e-mail on 16 Feb 2012:

The official title of the film will now simply be ‘Reflections’.

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