Nintendo thumb 18.06.07

jozi. trying to find super exciting things to write about in this here urbis is like trying to suck fillet medallions in a mushroom sauce through a straw. but every now and then a residue of steak breaks through the firewall and so spawns my taste for the eventful.

this is a story, a true story about a pair of boots, a pair of timberland boots.

i bought a pair of timberlands-sawft and leathery to the touch, cheese griller rugged underneath and with a shiny orange dot emblazoned with a tree. these skones would work harry potter magic through the snowy climes of finland, to the harshest of russian landscapes. i was now to test them under super extreme conditions in the dry rockyness of africa, rahh.

dring dring the blinger did ring.jingles was on the otherside inviting me to the drakensburg. friday rolled through and i cut the day in half.
we rode in one car- jingles, tijen and me, i felt good about it. 'al gore, let's talk carbon credits?'

the hilly hills of the drakies enveloped us with its open arms.
i unravelled my smurf pj's, shoved my chimpmunk cheeks full of marshmellows, warmed me gulliver at the open fire and viewed the Texas Chain Saw Massacre, all this in our thatched bungalow. i wanted to draw straws but they were too high.

the sun arose as an egg yolk and i saw Leatherface in my spilled milk.
it was hike time, and my boots new it.their rubbery soles grasped on every surface making a leach to a blood clot look like a pimpled, bespectacled harry potter sucking his forearm for kissing practice. these leather-upper skinned boots were amphibious cutting Thorpedo-style through lakes and streams up rocks and past savanna, it was dry but i couldn't smoke it. the crags,they were sharp, they were splintered-i was wearing run-flats. they knew my every move, they had intel inside.the icey wind turned my Aero chocolate cold and me into a milky skinned, red cheeked pommy. but thank goodness, my toes were safe from frosts bite.
the grunt of the man-eating baboons did little to scare my boots for they, like the goddess of speed, are nimble. those apes weren't gonna get my pastrami sarmy
hiking for 8 hours, dehydration is as common as 10 dollar monopoly money.a human in need of a kidney would do well to retrieve mine after i flushed those pie-fillers with 3 litres of H2O, some from the taps others from the sweet streams we waded through.
i could not have asked any more of my kickers.
on that rocky mountain i was introduced to a black cat peanut butter bar- peanut butter should only be found on toast. there at the top of the world with my heart clinging to my rib cage I found myself nibbling a peanut butter bar at 600 feet above sea level with the ever chirpy kev. Clearing my sticky palate, looking back at the footpath we'd carved, thinking 'gees i wish i was watching currie cup rugby now, oh wait, not really.'
but then we reached 900 feet, my lungs heaved under the strain of thin, fresh oxygen and fear kicked in. Me and my flashy kickers stared death, that's D.E.A.T.H, in the eye. and then death, or was it heights, ate me like a jelly donut, leaving the centre for last. it was time. the front of the mountain saw the back of me. i skidded down, my pants soiled.
'i came here to conquer you, but you drop kicked me like Naas Botha's boot to a pap rugby ball.'
this pair of boots trekked the second highest peak, but they didnt give a sh*t for being second best, the prom queen was still mine.

wow i left the drakkies feeling groovy and high on my own supply.
that experience and the landscape have clung onto me like a fat kids jam smeared fingers.

ey all my friends-androids an imagined
be cool, stay cool and keep reading cos watching telly'll turn your eyes square.

the dan, russian bear hunter master swordsman and the carbonated water in a fizzy drink.

tony soprano 20.05.07

Oh crikey, it's been a couple of months.
Like a ray barb through the heart I've been energized into exploring the landscape that is South Africa.

I witnessed over-grown 18 year olds, looking like chickens on steroids play in the local easter rugby festival at st johns college- a college, immaculately designed on a ridge dividing Jozi into north and south.

along with lil mikey razzo, i experienced the wrath of inebriated small town folk, loaded up with booze, skimmed stones, rode rough quad bikes till our jeans stood up on their own and ate hake in the trout fishing capital, all in the wee town of dullstroom.

I let my golf game slide a slippery slope and instead got sunburned like a gas- torched peppadew, suffered lex lutherian megalomania on crushing termite mounds, was confronted by large man-munching gorillas and soiled myself at the prospect of bumping into one of a gazillion indigenous snakes as featured on the snake chart of South Africa, kicked my kit off and plunged toes first into the string of pea-pod like pools and allowed the gushing Lipton's ice tea to wash the red dust off of my parched African lips. This was all in a day on a hike with the lyrical Jingles, the Chuckles chocolate ball that is kev and a peach, dijan, in the red earthed, rocky landscape of the Magaliesburg.

Li'l dan and I traversed every Spar and every petrol station that Roodepoort has to offer to navigate our way to the Roodepoort botanical gardens. There we saw the lesser spotted black eagle and her two eggs, and were denied the right to toss Frisbee.

And then just as I thought the bloodied graze on my knee that was my nature experiences was about to clot up, along came this past weekend.

Alice, invited me to lecturer Heinrich's, Thabaphshwa. It's a massive farm set betwixt the hills of potgietersrus, spotted with wandering cattle. the camp we crashed at, 'kanniedood' is a hut perched on the rocky face of an outcrop, isolated from humanity, electricity, pizza delivery vans and jehovahs witness knock-on-door conversions.
It was only two days so we needn't forage for fruits, nuts and berries. It was all carnal, grr, raah. The undulating landscape was our bedroom, the cool breeze was our ventilation, a bamboo screen was our lavatory protection, the roar of baboons our morning call and the sunrise our eggs, sunnyside up.

I barbequed chicken like no Nando's slave could. the big bird lay flat pack against the grided fish grill, and simmered over a low coal as I punished my windhoek draught and lemonade. I was keith ffloyd.
Gazing upwards, the African evenings are a wonder.
The night skies are a sensual, gorgeous Claire Forlani in a, glittering, sequened, turquoise evening gown.
Shooting stars blitz the heavens, is it a bird is it a plane or is it kulula.com? everyone is an astronomer when the stars come out-the 'milky lane' was splendid in the autumnal sky.

The final day left us without water, and monkeys on the rampage. We were in a situation in which 'we coulda died.' But my pig skinned water bottle was my swiss army knife.
I'm still getting to grips with nature. I do believe I'm a city boy, but I think beneath the chocolate coating, the sprinkled almonds and the nougat, lies a caramalised nature lover.

Anyhoo all my fans, Albert Einstein once said, 'life is like a bicycle- In order to keep balance, you need to keep moving.' Johnnie walker confirmed this.

Stay cool, be cool
The dan Ger, russian bear hunter, master swordsman and soon to be action figurine. safari khakis sold separately.

paper cut 28.04.07

29 the of april was a wee man-eating two-tone bee to a sticky koeksuster.
Like a geologist scrubbing rocks, and picking cavernous caves, so I've been searching the crusty cracks of this sprawling megalopolis to expose my serotonin.
Christie, a wee lad who I worked with in londres strums the lonely bass in his rock band called 'Bonsai'. Bonsai are gathering fame not from being picked, probed and clipped by mr Miyagi, but rather by their lyrical, sunny side up expression of afrikaans rock.
I hadn't seen the kid in a well rounded 8 months. He was gigging with his lads at back2basics- a live gig venue splashing out greasy grub on wooden décor. It's as cheap as east London chips, but lively as a punctured lung. It's perched just left of the energized centre of the cbd at the far end of the bowling lane that is over looked by johannesburg's two premier universities. One as liberal as a hooker and one formerly governed with an ironic fist.

Bonsai belts out rock in the trekkers tongue-afrikaanse. I hadn't been exposed to much of this genre of rock, rather close to a doughnut's worth. this was the eve that the radiation that is afrikaans rock would turn me from a green banana into a ripe one.
This Bunch of good lads, the guys that'd invite you over for a barby on a Sunday and share their smokes, dressed in Sunday's premier best, got me jumping and foaming at the mouth. Although the lyrics were alien to me, I was there to greet the wee li'l green men with open paws.

Foto na dans,the main act, robed in black skinny jeans with jewels breaching the boundaries of zippers, were bigger than the stage. Trying to fit these four pimpled skinny teens onto that raft of a stage was like trying to squeeze a t-bone steak through a straw. Their groupies were everything they weren't-blonde, sexy, lolly pop sucking sweet apples ready for the winter harvest. The lead with, a popsicle stick of a body and an oversized cotton ball for an afro, lead his charges into afrikaaner rapture. This was no boer vs british, it was the fight for the royale cause of rock n roll, Afrikaans rock.

The raggedy rag doll trumpeter, keyboardist and squealer, flung his mopped melon so hard I thought it'd pop off and bowl him an impressive 360. His blood shot eyes raged in fury, and bulged out of his head. Their industrialized rock made the iron ore manufacturing process look like a chocolate bar purveyor. These dudes were poets clad in cast iron battle armour. frenzied, their energy exhausted carbon monoxidous rage.
My Afrikaans is like the part population of iraq-sheeite, but I needn't 'praat die taal' to dig these dudes.

It was a cracker of an eve in which I had too a revelation. My new choice of brew is Windhoek. Sorry amstel it was all you my friend but then you shoved that blunt rusty meat cleaver through my heart.
stay well , be cool all my far flung, short sprung friends. from the scratchings of a Dan Ger ous lad.ole ole

rubber ties never break 23.03.07

I dropped back into jozi and all is pretty cool. My lungs have adapted to the altitude and my blood has cooled down. my toast pops up after 3 minutes, gently toasted to a fine crispy crisp. The peanut butter melts just like I like it-from the centre outwards to the four corners of the crust. I munch my corn flakes just before they get soggy and the coffee takes 2 and a half sugars to leave its drinker sweet. I walk to the tv room and all is fine. I continue thinking of the next opportunity to do some scratching, I feel that no time can be wasted. Yip, it's true, the Big Cheese holds the griller, the George Forman griller, and when He wants us grilled, He 'flicks' the 'on' switch. So I need to take every opportunity that falls me merry way.
A round of golf cancelled, the key to my office so fat it couldn't fit into the key hole and hillary rodham clinton's autobiography. This was the borsht of Sunday morning the 16th and it was only 8.30 am.
The 14th hundred hour had rung its chime and Berger was waiting at the haloed gates of the home of Transvaal cricket, the Wanderers cricket stadium-a fortress of invincibility. A form of cricket has engrossed the masses in these parts and I'm not convinced, it's gross. It's called pro 20/20. 'You call that cricket?', I enquire. Pro 20/20, is a feckin abomination of the old age imperial game of sticks, bats and balls. It's an absolute corrupt form of a gentlemanly game. Vissie calls it 'soek and moer.'-another name for garden cricket.But I loved garden cricket-grass burns, broken windows, grazed knees, WWF aggression, red juice drinks breaks, neighbourly meetings and ball searching sorties. But even this form of the game didn't have a time restriction. One had to grind out an innings, or bowl a consistent line and length taking into consideration the mole hill just off leg stump. Only at the fall of the sun when ball sight was restricted or your mom called you in for toasted cheese snack-wedges would the game be called off. These were real concerns. Pro20 20 you have nothing my friend.Aside from the 'cricket', the day was a ripper, for as berger explained it, 'it's the only time jo'burgers get out in public and consume loads of booze'. It's our sandy beach and we love it. The game ended and I walked home numb. Instead of killing bob woolmer, maybe they should have beaten the guy who invented 20/20.
Back in jozi, I tend not to breach the ten kilometer radius that surrounds my house, largely cos I find all that I need is within the 'golden circle'-fresh milk, oven baked bread, my place of work, the tv remote and my mom's spaghetti bolognaise.
Anyhoo Saturday rolled in like Hymie and Abe's Sunday morning game of bowls- slow, dry and not much room for action replays. But then I spoke to Tal about Saturday night. tal had exhausted me while eating a dry mint icing cup cake, about the fact or non fact that there is loads of sheeite to be done in jozi. one just needs to be the carrot top from CSI New York to find it.He'd been gnawing on my left calf, chewing it to the bone demanding that I head off on one of his rendezvous' and so, short of my calf catching gangrene, I obliged.
The venue was the Red Room. it's red 'cos the lighting is red(I noticed the energy saver light bulbs, niice), the 80's Carpeted wall is plush red, the ceiling is, well, red, and I wore a red Tee. and it's a whopping 30km out of my 'safe zone'. Thank goodness I didn't need a schengen visa for this excursion, I just needed a tank full of cream soda-unleaded Iraqi jet fuel. My Toyota tazz was going to take me to the far ends and beyond.
The red room probably once featured as the dining hall/ bar of the road side s*x motel in which it sat with its cheesy terracotta tiles, strip timber ceilings and wooden bar tops. It's tacky and stuck together with chewing gum, but that's rock n roll, and I love it.It's a rock, indie venue stuffed like a meaty blintze with tagged teens, leather pipes and greasy metal junkies. The music ranged from the 'scream-your-lungs-out-of-their-ribbed-cavity, to the slow melancholy of radiohead, to the bash-your-melon squeals of pearl jam. I sat alone propping up the bar, sucking on one of the last locally brewed Amstels ever, awaiting Tal, the craziest yid I know and his side kick, robin's, (no not batmans' robin) imminent arrival. The Prodigy mix was spinning and so we wiped the parquet floor to a polished amber glow with our slides, jumps and moonwalks. It was a sickly tiring experience. I quite enjoyed the journey to the unknown and hope to do it again.
Well my friends far and oh so wide, ill leave you with a cracking quote i saw on the side of the road on a johnnie walker advert.'i'm a slow walker, but i never walk backwards.' abe lincolnfrom the scratchings of a content laddan, middle name GER

dip a ouma 21.01.07

as is customary with our action hero,no journey is as easy as two minute noodles.

i didnt enjoy sleeping on a sweat,kotch and snot stained heathrow couch,nor did i enjoy sleeping on a leather lounger in schipol airport,nor did i find it pleasant not showering for 2 days. nor did i find it pleasant missing every connecting flight that id booked, nor was it true that sheremetyavo 2 and sheremetyavo 1 (moscow airports terminal) were within walking distance and nor was it a dream missing a day of my tour to russia. for those 2 days the only solace i got was reading albert einstein's biography in an aiport toilet cubicle.

the russian airline dropped us skidding on the frozen runway safely. like a furry moth to a fluorescent light, so the greasy taxi drivers were drawn to me by the glint of my smile. having parted with loads of my US dineros, i was driven in a car built pre-yuri gagarin's orbit and dropped in the safe hands of a 3 star hotel.
St petersburgh is straight out of a james bond movie, i was now in russia and i was full of love.
st petes wasn't white with snow, but Mars dusty. she's large,rather large,with vast boulevards wide enough to accomodate a tank, a missile launcher,mig fighter jets and ten thousand troops side by side. the boulevards are lined with buildings stark,edgey, intimidating and brutal. i was a bumbling idiot,shivering at the knees.
the nevsky prospekt is her primary artery, it left my blood pulsing at the beauty of russian woman, what with their icey blue eyes,porcelain smooth skin and a seemingly unknowing awarness of their powers of attraction.many most adorned in furs,and furry hats. PETA wouldn't dare be flashin naomi campbell in these parts.she'd be shot,gutted,strung up to dry and woven into a pair of snow boots.
the icey cold of russia is surely intimidating. the cold is made colder by the harsh environment that russia is.
i visited the winter palace and its guilded interiors,walked on a frozen lake,shat a load but i was safe.i avoided indoors as much as possible,i needed the frosty environment to burn my withereing dry skin,i needed to feel russian.i needed to allow my long johns to play an active roll,they didnt. i criss crossed the city on foot,covering as much as a poppy seed on a hamburger bun. the massive river throbbing through the city was frozen stiff,the ice flaked like a wedding cake. it was awesome.

pskov a once trading port at the confluence of a number of rivers, took boiled bay leaves and beat the living blood outta me,heated me to 80 degrees celsius and dumped me into a frozen lake.where im sure i dislocated my arm having slipped on the ice.i was no eric roberts screaming, 'pop it'. but i sure couldn't feel myself after that. we certainly did over kill on the cathedral front,but joy came to me as i slid down hills,drank rusky vodders,munched russian naartjies and punished russian bears...uh i mean beers.
we hit a rusky club real hard. after heading to the bar more than 5 times i was awarded a chuppa chup.it was the dream gift to keep my drool in me and not on my blue suede shoes.
the pechory monastry is alongside estonia. we snaked its under ground cemetry,i wasnt scared, cos i dont ssee dead people.

me and the XL chuppa chup i bought boarded an over night train to moscow. i was in a cabin with our rusky guide, my chuppa chup and this other rusky. so i figured i'd pull out my best russian and start chatting. so im struggling with the word zdravstvu..zdrasv, then he belts out, 'i speak english.' gsus i felt like a bit of a left over burnt chop on a sunday barbeque.

moscow is a far more globalised city than the quiet st petes-it's bustling, energised, and frikking freezing. this city too is so huge if id walked it im sure id be a midget by now,wearing myself away. their underground is efficient,negotiable and rife with pigs. each station is unlike any other.the decoration is detailed,the spaces vast. the trains-wooden ply and leather. the network is in the 30's,its in the past, and i was loving it.
saw an ice hockey match,didnt know my a*s from my elbow regarding rules and stuff,but if millions of americans dig it, it must be alright.
i stumbled and slid on the black slate stoned iced red square and saw lenins embalmed body.was the red granite monolith housing the body russia's answer to madame tussauds?.
i peeled the veneer of most moscow post cards and revealed the tangible,fairytale of the detailed onion domes and magnificent colours of st basils cathedral. it left me in tears.

moscow is full of wealth.it was like a showroom of ganster vehicles, louis vuitton, bentleys and my weary levi's jeans. it constantly felt as though i had someones eyeballs plastered to my back. i didnt know what i could photograph,or who i could stare at. the intimidation factor felt huge, left me uneasy like an egg fried in a non-teflon pan.

so its not very often that wrigleys gets you in trouble. but again surprisingly the fresh mintyness of the wrigleys bead did a hulk hogan bear hug on me,threw me against the ropes, slapped me in the face,then had me in a hold on the floor as the 3 count was called and left me shouting, 'mommy'. it was along side the Kremlin that me and katya were nabbed by the po-lice for exchanging the cool flavoursome wrigleys bead. all of a sudden those russian blood filled veins sewn throughout my body,sank back into the depths of my nervous system trying to look oblivious.
the pigs demanded identification and after like 20minutes they begrudgingly let me be. bastardos

gorky park, sounds a little dorky but it was an organic ice skate park.ey i dont do ice skating,so i watched the russian antics from behind the can of Baltika 7,its a russian brew,rather tasty,it warmed my blood up like alphabet noodle soup.

unfortunately the only bear i saw was the unshaven me in the mirror,scary,real scary.

got my a*s from behind the iron curtain by flying home via amsterdam. i was treated to a flight in a fokker 50. its a dutch designed 50 seater turbo propelled plane. i sat window seat. ive never been in a plane with propellers so i had one or two safety concerns. i just hoped that the kotch stained seat infront of me was no indication of the rippin ride i was about to venture on. it turned out really cool,probably the best flight experience to date.

most of my journeys have been driven by the lure of architecture,this journey to russia was an exploration,it was a journey of discovery-scratching away the shrouds,the heresay.
russia seems to run parallel to the western world. seldom did i see points of intersection between the two. she appears as relevant to any place in europe that ive seen although operating a wee bit differently. i will return someday to exhume my russian roots.

hope you all enjoyed the last of a series of european adventures.stay well my far flung friends.until another day in the sunshine tossing frisbee barefoot.
the dan russian bear hunter,master swordsman and soon to be action figurine,russian blood sold separately.

ps when eating this email it might contains traces of nuts.

play mobile 21.12.06

having been stuck to the sticky dirtiness of the over night train seat,i awoke with glued eyes in madrid,spain. i headed to my hostel, it was properly grosse, damnit . but after a kip, a dry croissant, and cawfee in a plastic cup,madrid and i became nearly buddies.
my usual buttered moonwalk left me in the city of madrid. my heavy boots weighed me down as i lugged my battered weary body through the large boulevarded landscape and past stately white buildings, skirting red light districts, plazas, city centres,sunday markets scrapping my jersey on walls, all without a hint of recognition. ive never felt more alone,although i was riding Han Solo.
allthough as pap as an over used tennis ball that's done its rounds in garden cricket, i did manage to unearth one of the greatest art galleries id ever been to. it was the Museu Nacional Centro De Arte Reina Sofia. jean nouvel added an add-on which was fire engine red,my kinda red. it wasn't the architecture that left me flashing my pearly's but rather the art.the surrealists left my face screw ball, dali left me scratching my nose on my knee and picasso left me patting the bull i never had and the geometries of josef and annie albers left me on the straight and narrow. the architects Legoretta and Barragan commended the Albers,and the shivers raced at knots down my spine. shawowee

like sand through the hour glass so monday the 18th was a day of my life. unlike a sunny-side up fried egg,it began in a bus. a dry cheese baguette added the excitement and arrival in a wee northern city called Bilbao simply was the gift the tooth fairy gave me for that 3rd incisor i lost on the log ride at gold reef city. bilbao is basque country, this was not the spain barcelona nor madrid offered me. the home region of eta and the master piece that is frank gehry´s guggenheim museum left me mute,for english they dont speak.
the best way to understand the nature of local inhabitants is to rendezvous with them after sunset.and so im walking in an easterly direction and thousands bedecked in red and white scarves, in the other. with my Moses super powers i simply could not part the ocean. so in a classic case,of 'cant beat em join em' me and my flashy adidas' did a pirouette baryshnikov woulda gaped at and followed the hoards. to the home of atletico bilbao the piece of drift wood that i had become, settled.there was a party and i hadnt rsvp'd, mind you i hadnt as yet been invited. so i bought my invitation and settled in to watch spanish premier league football.the bar coded red and white strip of athletic bilbao had mountains of bird seed,bird seed that the supporters crack with their two front gnashers and spit for-wards, to climb. the supporters were an active bunch,smoking and grilling hash browns under the nostrils of pigs, shouting the names of pizza,puta for instance.it was a donut for each side. i think bilbao came out the better for it.

at the end of the boulevard it sat. frank o gehry, on a coffee-ring-stained serviette had scratched his tin foil 25th century masterpiece, and there it was before me. its titanium skin shiny shimmery,and more glossy than the gazillions of publications it's emblazoned. i had pitched tent in bilbao for 3 days,and for 3 days i oggled over this thing. it cannot be classified as building for other than a front door it holds none of the characteristics of building. i circumvented this building a million times,i climbed beneath bridges-my fear of heights couldn't hold me back, i climbed on bridges, and went long and came in short to photograph it. its cavernous bowels forced me into spelunking, touching, feeling, riding every obscure surface. its sheathed in splintered glass,sand stone and art so large it dwarfed me. this thing blew me away,blew me outta the rice paddies that are the principles of architecture and left me sprawled, unconscious and dazed.
my final day in this fantasmagoric city saw me walking through the streets of the old town. there i bumped into about 3000 people cueing up for a cupla hogs on the spit.the blood-sausage-wrapped-in-a-tortilla stains on the city dwellers would take more than OMO to cleanse them of their joys. for some reason the whole town just didnt pitch up to work that day.they drank and munched and wore green scarves. it was weird, 3rd nipple weird.
bilbao was a total surprise.i ventured there for a piece of architecture and what i found was frodo's shire.

a day arrived,it stuck me on its back, and galloped me into San Sebastian.i dont know what the hell san sebastian was other than a beautiful town,rusted landscape art,crazy humans swimming in the sea and a tennis club named Wimbledon, but a hard court version.

and so like bubble wrap in the hands of my sister, what was going along as the perfectly planned vacation,went pop.i had built in 4 hours to do a 20 minute journey to Bilbao airport. price for the journey:1 euro 20,time to airport without glitches:20 minutes,what happened to chaito:priceless.on the bus front the dot matrix read AEROPORTO, now i aint no spaniard, but that means airport to me. when i said aeroporto to the driver he replied SI,now i aint no spaniard, but that means YES to me. with backpack on back i squeezed through the bus aisle like mashed animal through a mincer. that was clue one that this bus wasnt going to the airport. clue 2: the bus driver charged our hero 3 euro. clue 3, the road signs pointing to the airport were facing the other way.and finally clue 4: after 45minutes i again asked the driver if this bus was taking me to the airport. his head swinging my way and with a look-ma-no-hands action he said, 'no no',and so did the 20 or so fellow passengers. it was an hour to the next city,an hour back. my driver drove like a bat outta hell to get me back to the bus station. it was a riot.i chased and hunted the airport bus down and to it i arrived with time to spare. oh and did i mention there was a 4 hour take-off delay?

oh folks what a journey it was,what a piece of architecture and what a life i live. hope alls well my far flung friends.stay cool, stay fresh, keep walking.yours in home made custardthe chaito man,russian bear hunter,master swordsman and action figurine who is billed to compete with the Playstaion 3 for the hearts of kids.

so come on folks,if the pakistani cricket team can scratch,then why the hell can't you, SCRATCH
http://scratchingsofdan.blogspot.com/