Thanksgiving + Black Friday!

I think it is safe to say that this weekend is the most American weekend of the year. Consumerism and Capitalism all over the place!

No really, the Thanksgiving-weekend is more than insane. But insanely awesome. The entire table is filled with so much indulgently delicious food, you don´t know where to start - so just put EVERYTHING on your plate at once! If you do not feel so bad about yourself that you want to crawl up in a fetus-like position and cry in the shower for hours, you obviously did not eat right.
Thanksgiving is there to celebrate one thing, and one thing only - how far a society has advanced. The sole reason why it exists is to make you feel superior to the rest of the world, by shoving as much food down your throat as humanly possible, without worrying at all about the misery in the rest of the world.... fantasmic!

Omnomnomtastic Turkey!

But endless availability of delicious food is not the only way to kick the rest of the world´s ass, there is also the issue of materialism - and that´s what Black Friday is for. The best way digest the half turkey you just ate is to sit back and scan through 3pounds of special Black Friday advertisement papers to look for the most insane deals. Every store opens at 12am, midnight... and don´t think no one´s going to be there.... people wait in line for hours. Hours and hours. Or they just camp outside for a day and have Thanksgiving dinner in their tents, since the number of available Flatscreen 50'' HD-TV´s for under 300$ is limited. Just like the number of XBOX360´s for 130$.
1 or 2 deaths during Black Friday are considered normal... really, people get into arguments over who got the last video-camera or whatever to a point where they pull guns at each other. Or just beat each other up. The news talked about a guy pointing his gun at other people, and a woman pepper-spraying her way towards the doorbuster-deals.
And don´t think you´re not going to buy anything, just because you´re not looking for anything specific... i have no idea where my 200$ went - the Blu-Ray DVD´s where under 5$ each, so i guess the rest went to clothes and such. It was more like a treasure-hunt than it was shopping. Which made it kinda adventurous.

And hey! After loosing quite a good amount of money, what would be the best place to got to next? Right, a Casino! But some of the great Manitus up there seems to like me for some reason, this awesome giant Indian Casino kept throwing money at me. Just after we got there, i put 2$ into this 'Miss Kitty'-Slotmachine, pushed the button, and got 20,40$ out of it. After just one. single. round. Awesome! On we went to the Black-Jack table, and here´s where we got really lucky... mostly due to the nice elderly couple at our table, we all made a nice profit, even though the 'losing and winning' went back and forth for quite a while. But thanks to them for explaining to us what we were doing there!
Feels good to walk out of Casino with 40$ extra in your pocket :)

All in all, this weekend just kicked ass big time.

...and this was just a third of the line infront of this Target store. 

I didn´t participate in any war, but it couldn´t have possibly been worse than was going on here.

A nicely glowing tree in a nice park in Milwaukee :)

I SURVIVED THE MILWAUKEE SHOOTING!!

You know how people always tend to make fun of silly stereotypical things they see only on TV, but it never happens in real life? Well, before i came to America, people were making fun of things like getting robbed all the time, people shooting each other in the streets and how everybody´s got a gun and so on. Well, yesterday, on November 11th, such a thing actually happened - or at least as close as i would want it to happen.

Me and a friend were just all casually strolling through Milwaukee, minding or own business and totally not thinking about being involved in a shooting at all. Went to Grand Avenue Mall and had some Chinese food at Panda Express (was okay, 5/10, but then again, all Chinese food kinda tastes the same, because everything is covered in the same kind of sauce, and they always put... oh, wait--) in the afternoon. When we got out, more and more police cars were speeding in one direction, and we were all like 'Maaan, poliiice! Watcha doin??', while they were screaming pulling the finger at people who wouldn´t let them run past them fast enough.
Then we went around the block and saw how all of the police cars gathered in front of this building - and none of them parked their car accurately AT ALL!! They just stopped right in the middle of the street, jumping out of their cars and running behind said building, armed with shotguns. Not even kidding. So, something was going on on the parking lot behind this block. While i was happily taking pictures, some policeman were closing off the entire area with crime-scene tape, while one of them came barking at me, hurrying me to the other side of the street. Some random pedestrians were talking about a gunfire and a dead body at this point....
So then we went to the other side of the building, were we could see into the alley leading to the parking lot where whatever happened happened. While more and more policeman were arriving, we could see people gathering in a circle, trying to reanimate someone. We kept watching the scene for a while, then took off again, right when the FOX News broadcasting van arrived. By this time, a helicopter was hovering in the sky above us. On our way my back, my friend was calling her mom ("You are WHERE?! AAAAHAHAHH!!!") to see if this was on the news yet, as we didn´t really know what was going on at all. It was.
So later that evening, we found out what exactly was going on, but see for yourself:

http://www.fox6now.com/news/witi-20111111-officer-shoots-suspect,0,4910852.story

Some guy apparently thought it to be a good idea to rob the bank down in the Mall where WE WERE EATING our SEMI-DELICIOUS Chinese food! AT THE SAME TIME when we were in there!! We didn´t really take any notice of what was going on a few floors below us, but it´s kinda funny to think about this. So it seems to be that this was shot by a police officer about the time we got out of the mall, and was just freshly dead for a few minutes when we arrived at the crime scene. Huh.

So yeah, turns out America IS a dangerous, criminal place of evilness, where you can´t even enjoy some Chinese food without having a bank-robbery and shooting going on around you! Not that it isn´t hard enough already to really enjoy Panda express without any dead bodies...!

Oh, and for anyone who says 'pics or it didn´t happen', here ya go:

Da crime-scene, yo!

That guy yelled at me for standing around in a crime-scene. Wait... I WAS STANDING IN A CRIME-SCENE!!1

Over there´s were that guy was shot... =/

15 minutes after receiving two bullets to the chest, you don´t  really need ambulance anymore... ah well.

SIX FLAGS!!!

One of the best ways to spend the Halloween-weekend? At Six Flags Great America!
What a fantastic fun place! And what dumb people work there :D
We might have actually cost this amusement park more money than they made of us.... not only did we win free tickets (which usually go for 60$) by simply ordering a meal-combo at Subway here on campus, i also managed to get a free 12$ fried-chicken and fries basket by just showing the employees of the food-booth the recipe of my roommate. 'What did you order Sir?' - 'Uh, fried chicken stripes with fri...' - 'Here ya go.'
....Tehehe :D

Then again, more than half of the rides we went on had technical problems. One while we were waiting in line, one while we wanted to line up for it but were send away due to difficulties, and the other one (the gigantic free-fall tower) while we were right on it. Going halfway up, being stuck there for a few seconds, going down again. After riding that thing the way it´s meant to be ridden, we couldn´t get out of our seats - the safety-thingy wouldn´t open. But only our seats were broken; all the other people could get off and walk away - great! And of course, 'this has never happened before'... yeah right, Mr. safety-guy...

In between, we went to see a hypnosis-show... funny, and impressive that it did really work. My roommates girlfriend volunteered, and it completely got her. Fortunately for her, the Medium only made the guys undress.

But besides from riding the Merry-Go-Round three times in a row by simply hiding behind the center pillar where to crew couldn´t spot us, the best thing was probably riding the "Raging Bull" two times in a row. Going there just a few minutes before the park closed, the waiting time of normally around 90-120min was cut down to only 15min - for two rides!! We just didn´t leave and jumped into the last ride for the day, as only half the seats were taken. Most awesome, longest, fastest rollercoaster i have ever been on. That thing is mad :D

Reeeeeally awesome day, and even for as good as free. Thanks go to the all the dumb people working at Six Flags for free chicken, for letting us cut in line, letting us ride the attractions multiple times in a row, and for not being able to operate rides correctly that could get you killed - you are awesomely under-qualified :D

Vertical Velocity - This was a fun ride =)

The Raging Bull.... just look at that Monster! It is HUUUGE! And to the left; the wonderfully malfunctioning Giant Drop.

Having fun at horse riding!

Get on my horse, this horse is amazi... wait, what the fuck is wrong with my eyes? Was i on dr... oh. That explains the paranoia i had on this horse. But really, look at that thing. It IS a crazy horse.

Humans vs Zombies

Diary of a Survivor

Day 1: Great – my roommate has already been infected. Now i got to sleep in one room with a zombie...

Day 2: - Roommate managed to acquire a cure, turned back into human. Went out to hunt some zombies - was turned into a zombie again.

Acquired melee weapons again, found in the woods.

Day 3: "The roads are safezones" ....yeah, except for that ONE SMALL PART that is NOT a safezone. Thanks! Turned into a zombie today... but fortunately, only for 20min! Much appreciation to the human twin of the zombie who infected me. Get zombified by one twin-brother, receive cure from the other - Ha!

Day 4: Damn! - Had i just seen this before... was turned into a Zombie today. Again. And again, it was a bit unfair.... anyway, i wouldn´t have survived the day either way. How do you know you got good friends? When about 7 people wait for you, hidden at the dorm entrance for 2 hours. Yes - Only. You.
I am sorry your wait was no use, i would have loved my brain to be eaten by you guys.... especially the tree-zombie was a surprise.

Day 5: Epic final battle, last mission for the humans - they didn´t make it. All survivors will slowly turn into zombies now...

...So, what can i say? This is an simply AWESOME game. Parkside has offered a load of activities so far, but i think is tops them all. It is just so much fun to be always on the watch for zombies, to team up with others humans, to escort someone safely across campus and of course, to go on missions, with zombies chasing after you. This has to come to Germany. No excuses.

Chinatown

Chinatown, Chicago!

A place filled with loads and loads of cheap little plastic and porcelain thingys - all the shops look like storerooms of warehouses, seriously! Also, a bunch of great food places, and way more authentic then what we call 'chinese food'... although i don´t think that they serve food in china wearing communist military clothing as they do here....
Also, the slogan of this entire part of Chicago should be 'you break, you buy'. It´s everywhere.

Oh, and in case you always wanted to know this; a dried Seahorse is 9$.

Milwaukee~

Auf nach Milwaukee!
Größte Stadt Wisconsins, the "City of Festivals" - Heimat des gößten Musikfestivals der Welt (Guinness World Record 1999), Dutzenden von Brauereien, Geburtsort der Harley-Davidson, Standort des berühmten Milwaukee Art Museums!

Vergangenes Wochende ging`s dorthin. Von der Stadt hab ich zwar nicht allzu viel gesehen, dafür konnten wir aber das wunderbare Milwaukee Art Museum (MAM) bestaunen - hier leider nur mit eingefahrenen Flügeln; bei gutem Wetter breiten sich die Schwingen des Gebäudes aus - googelt es!

I love my schedule

This College is awesome.
My schedule is awesome.
My classes are awesome.


MON & WED

8.00 - 10.45 : 2D-Design
Drawing and listening to Bob Marley

14.00 - 16.45 : Illustration
Drawing and listening to Classic

17.30 - 20.15 : 3D-Design
Doing some cool  3D-stuff

TUE & THU

14.00-16.45 : 2D Animation
Drawing, Animating and watching Disney Movies


.... I love this place.