Tonight I went to see the Padres play the D-backs. They were down 8 to 0 but almost came back. The game ended 8-7. Now they are only 1 game out of first place. I went with Annika and Matthias, a friend from Berlin. It was his first baseball game but he quickly caught on. By the end of the game he had all the basics down. He goes back to Berlin on Saturday.

Even though they lost ,it was the most exciting one I’ve seen this year. We were seated behind the left-field wall.

Yesterday, Josh left after a short visit here in San Diego. He came over from Atlanta to do some interviews for design jobs. This was the first time we had seen each other for a couple years and also his first time on the west coast.

He arrived late on Tuesday after driving down from Redwood City, where he was visiting another friend, and interviewing for a job in LA. First thing we did was get a Little Caesar’s $5 cheese pizza and go to the park to eat and chat. The next day we went to Ocean Beach where we had to wait about 2 hours for the marine layer to break-up during which time we strolled along the main drag and eventually onto the longest pier on the west coast. Once the sky was clear, we discovered that the water in the Pacific is freakin’ cold this time of year. After forcing ourselves to get in, we quickly turned back. We had to be satisfied with just sunning ourselves on the beach.

For lunch we went to the best and one of the cheapest mexican places in town, Pokéz. This place is awesome for anyone but it gets plus points from vegetarians and vegans for thier great tofu and veggie options. I got a Chimichanga and josh got a Tofu Burrito. We ended up splitting them. After that we visited Waid and soon thereafter went to bed.

The next day Josh had an interview at a really snazzy design firm in Santa Monica so we got on the road at 7am so there would be no chance of him being late for his 12pm interview. While Josh was in the interview, I walked around The shopping area and ended up spending most of my time at Barnes and Nobles reading up about universities, majors and other school related stuff. Once we met up we headed to Venice Beach which turned out to be really cool. They have a very interesting bunch of street performers there. Unfortunately, when we where leaving Josh backed into a sign. But he has insurance for the rental car so it should be no problem; just a couple small scratches.

On Friday we were both a bit tired so we just hung out and surfed the net for half the day. For lunch we went to Pokéz again. It’s that good. We eventually decided to go see the Padres since we had nothing better to do. We walked to the park which takes about an hour from South Park. on the way Josh a six pack of beer that he wanted to take into the ball park. A couple weeks the folks at the gate had said nothing when I brought in a can of Root Beer so I though it’d be ok. Well, after buying our tickets, we went to the security checkpoint were the lady found the 6-pack and refused to allow the beer in. Josh was upset and said something like, “I just paid 30 fuckin’ dollars!” I took the beer and told here we’d drink a couple then come in. Of course, my intention was to go try our luck at another entrance. Well, the guy at securty checkpoint #2 was an old, probably, retired guy. He acting like he was checking the bag and let Josh through. We chuckled a little once we were through. We then chuckled alot when we found out that the free hand-out that night was a cup. So now, Josh had his beer and a cup to drink it with.

Surprisingly, Josh really liked the experience of the game. Our seats were in the upper deck on the right side. On that side you get a great view of downtown. To get Josh to go to the game I had to really stress that going to see baseball doesn’t have to be about the game. After the game he agreed. Actually we rarely watched the game. Just to the right of us there was a group of kids who were acting up. The two idiots of the group provided everyone with some laughs. For over half the game they had been play fighting and smoking. While “fighting” the two guys got entagled and ended up falling 2 rows into some empty seats. The guy that was sitting in front of them, who was already annoyed, just flipped out and started screaming. Once the guy as finished and turned back around the kids, along with most everyone else, all laughed under there breath. The two idiots decided to smoke another pair of cigarettes. The screaming man got out of his seat to look for security. At this point the group decided to leave the area and that was the end of that.

Other Josh’s obsessing over a small scratch on his rental car, I thought the visit went quite well. Now I’m here all alone again. But only 2 days till I restart my studies after 9 year break.

Tonight I went to a Padres vs. San Francisco game and while the game itself was very eventful, even more eventful was the dispute that came about after the guy sitting in front of me semi-shouted out, “Go Home Homos!” in response to some Giants fans chanting “Let’s Go Giants.”

The dispute started just after the go-home-homos guy’s friend was yelling out “STEROIDS!… BALCO!…etc.” extremely loudly at Barry Bonds about 15 times and caused a guy next to me to quite aggressively tell him to stop the yelling. Well then the steroid-yelling guy stated his rights and mentioned that thing about living in a free country and all. Well, I took this opportunity to tell the go-home-homo guy that I found what he said to be much worse and that it was offensive. He said “Sorry, if I offended you” and I said he probably offended more people than myself. So after the 2 other guys got finished everything simmered down and the guy who told the steroid-yelling guy to stop left.

A while later the two guys go on and on about how everybody around us, shouting anything at all, should just shut up. This was meant sarcastically of course. Eventually, I remarked (which I probably could/should have refrained from) that I think it was more the way he were yelling and the repetitiveness of it that ticked the guy off. –I was REALLY annoyed too but I’d have probably never said anything.– Well, he took the repetitive thing and ran. “The guy with the popcorn is repetitive. He should shut up.”, “The people over there are repetitive. They should shut up.”

We somehow got talking again and I mentioned that the only reason I got into it was that I took offense to the “Go Home Homos!” remark. During the little discussion about whether “homo” is offensive, the go-home-homos guy brings up some guy’s name that I’m not familiar with and repeats, “You don’t know who so-and-so is?” disbelievingly a couple times. I tell him I may not know the guy because I’ve been outside the country for much of my life. He asks me, “where I was?” and I reply, “Berlin.”

He rares back with his eyes widened, as if he’s gotten me now, and blurts out something to the effect off, “Germans fucking burn people over there!” Taken aback I tell him that Germans, including my wife, would take offense to that, being that we were on the subject of offensiveness. He then said something to the effect of “Your wife burned 6 million people in gas chambers.”

At this point I took out my still/video camera which actually helped to intensify the encounter because I simply had to get this stupidity recorded. The steroid-yelling guy says he doesn’t want to be filmed and I tell him he’s in public and I have the rights in this country as he had taught us earlier. He then precedes to tell me to “Go back to Germany and kill some people.” and then insult my wife, which I was later told by our self-appointed mediator, was an attempt to start a fight. Being that I haven’t been around aggressive people in at least decade I didn’t detect this intention. Looking back at the video it was very much an attempt to start a fight. I later explained to them that a fight with me would be the other guy hitting me, me falling and me being hurt.

It basically goes on and on in circles with the “mediator” talking about how I started it (which could be true if you think people shouldn’t object when people say blatantly offensive things) and that the go-home-homos guy was only responding back to an insult by the Giants fans. Our “mediator” claimed that an opposing team rooting for their visiting team in a home stadium is an insult to the home-tea fans. Therefore, insults such as “Go Giants”, “Let’s Go Giants”, “Come on Giants” warrants counter insults such as “Go Home Homos!”

Basically, the three were against me and our “mediator”, who wasn’t there when the “Homo!” comment was made by the way, got the others to apologize and then demanded that I do the same. I didn’t, due to the fact that they were suggesting I apologize for objecting to the “Go Home Homo!” comment. I should have apologized for taking out the video camera, though. I wasn’t thinking about that at the time because it had long been turned off. The camera was a little much and if you guys are reading this, I do apologize for that. And no, I’m not putting it on the net.

I guess the question is if one should even say anything when someone says such things. I think one should. The way I judge it; if you can’t say it to someone’s face, it’s a pretty good sign its insulting and offensive. When this is based on race, sexual orientation, religion or similar it becomes a societal issue. That’s my justification anyway.

Now to answer the question of whether “homo” is offensive; according to these links, “Homo” is very much offensive. “Gay” or “Lesbian” (for women) are preferred and “Homosexual” is acceptable.

One of their arguments was that “homo” is the equivalent to “black”. Of course, I dare say you’d here anyone call out “Go Home Blacks” without hearing some objections. This is explained well here.

True, gay people aren’t widely hated. But fear of a way of life that is foreign to a large part of this country plays a huge role. A lack of understanding prevents empathy, which is why homo doesn’t have the same taboo attached to it as “wop,” “kike” or “chink.”

As an aside, I found it very odd that during the steroid-yelling guys attempts to make me a fighting man, his tactic was to ask me if I liked to suck cock, take it up the ass and so forth. I seems to me that being that the whole point of me saying anything in the first place was to fight homophobia in my own little way, that that wouldn’t be very effective. Doesn’t the fact that such “insults” are used to make “real men” fighting mad show how ingrained homophobia is?

These guys are basically good guys and I know that. I heard quite a few things about George Bush I would agree with, for example. My one insult was that I called the guy an asshole after the “Wife burning Jews” comment and the other guy too, I think, after his insults. The justification of this I’ll leave as an exercise to the reader. Everything got really heated, extremely stupid things were said and my bringing out the camera probably made things worse.

I’ll end by listing things we agreed on:

1. The Padres should’ve won.
2. Bush is an asshole.
3. Germans gassed ~10mill people.
4. Barry Bonds juiced.
5. Food is way too expensive at the ball park.
6. We probably don’t want to encounter each other again.
7. There are homosexuals in San Francisco.

By the way, The Padres lost in the 13th inning. Bummer.

On Sunday I installed Ubuntu 6.06 (Dapper) at Sprachenatelier Berlin e.V. a small language school in Friedrichshain. It took all night and I’m still not finished. Someone had installed a Tomcat server that was serving a custom jsp app. Having never installed tomcat nor having ever developed Java Server Pages and only finding out about it when I arrived I didn’t have enough time to do all the other thngs plus learn about tomcat and install jsp apps. So I installed Ubuntu on the 4 “student” computers and left the 2 office computers for some time in the next couple days. On Monday in the comfort of my own home I learned about Tomcat and I had everything running in an hour or so. I also wasted a good amount of time ridding the single duel-boot Windows install of viruses and spyware.

I’ll do an Ubuntu 6.06/Tomcat install how-to soon. No, really… I promise.

On Tuesday Annika and I packed a picnic and went to the Fan Mile to watch the Germany vs. Italy match. Of course, Everyone knows the outcome of that. I was so looking forward to the penalty shoot-out. Oh well. May Italy suffer a humiliating defeat in the finals. They are such whiners; falling at the slightest touch. I’m hoping Portugal wins it all now.

I watched a report on TV this morning that showed the South Korean fans cleaning up their own mess after the match against France in Frankfurt. They actually bring there own bags and once the place starts emptying they get to work. That’s pretty impressive. Someone should tell them however that the city clean up services in Germany are darn good. For example, during CSD in Berlin the BSR comes directly behind the parade and everything is clean before the parade ends.

Last night Annika and I went to the Adidas Arena to watch the Italy vs. USA match. The Arena is made to look like the Olympiastadion in Berlin and holds about 10,000 people who can watch the action on 2 not-so-big screens. The Arena is located on the lawn between the Reichstag and the Kanzleramt and just a few blocks from the new main train station (Berlin Hauptbahnhof.) It was actually quite nice there. You get a more stadium-like feeling than at a normal viewing because the supporters play off of each other better and of course there was the “wave”.

We left just before 11pm. The area looks really impressive at night. Makes me feel homesick when I think about leaving Berlin next month. I’m of course American but I’ve lived here since 1999, met my wife here and this feels like home. I’m not sure if San Diego will feel like home but I’ll give it a try. Annika’s really looking forward to move anyway.

The new Berlin Hauptbahnhof is really going to change the city I think. It is aready impressive to look at and has turned an area that had been dead since I arrived into a quite pleasent place to hang out along the river while seeing the sights or preparing for a journey by train. In the next couple years a lot will change for the area just to the north of the station, I think. It will probably turn into a Fisherman’s Wharf type thing but I I guess every major city needs one of those.

Oh yeah, the match ended in a 1:1 draw. There were 3 red cards though.

Annika and I watched the match against Germany and Poland last night. We watched the match in the Kulturbrauerei‘s court yard (3 EUR, no outside drinks allowed in.) The place was full and we had a nice place right in front of the big screen. The match was one of the most exciting matches I’ve every seen. It’s right up there with the 2005 Champions League final; not as amazing but just as exciting.

Unless you actually watched the match you’re probably wondering how a match with a single goal could be so exciting. Firstly, the match was against to neighboring countries that share an often complicated history. Second, two of Germany’s strikers were born in Poland and still speak Polish at home. Third, a loss by Poland meant that their tournament would be practically over and a win by Germany would almost guarantee advancing to the next round. Lastly and most importantly, the Germans had so many great chances to score that as the match went on the suspense built and built till finally the only goal of the match fell in injury time, sending the crowds that had gathered throughout Germany to just explode in euphoric celebration.

On the way home along Schönhauser Allee, the street and side walk was filled with people celebrating. I think that goal did a lot to make the atmosphere even better than it already is now. The World Cup is turning out to be really fun. I hope it continues to be so.