First things first and for all that are curious about what yesterday's mystery picture depicts, I will offer some clues. The size shown is neither far far away nor super up-close. They are inadvertent ramifications not intentional creations. They come when it is hot and linger. So we move on to...

**** Edible Curiosities of the Day ****

Some ideas are better than others and other ideas just fall into the middle ground of indecision that leaves only personal opinion as the deciding factor. The question that begs to be answered here is "Are they as tasty as they are healthy?"

Another quandary food found on the bus was these pocket coffee's. Hmmm, it is a chocolate treat with a liquid coffee center. I am not sure who designed these things but that really does not sound like the optimum combination of ingredients to be tossing into my pocket while I work

In carrying on with the examination of diversity in edibles theme, here are few more as we head into roadie Wayno's world. Our first items are a palm full of natural snackable raw coco flanked by a split fresh vanilla bean. Both are key ingredients in making the fresh home made mint chip ice cream you see in the back ground

Though generally considered 'non-edible' our next item on the list is Gibby from the awesome band Butthole Surfers on stage singing with Mike Watt and the Missing men.

Finally, I mentioned Italian white truffles, well here I get to hold one

and if you were wondering, you too could own a gorgeous stinky white glob like this for a mere $ 420 US, I am sure you will agree that it is just chump change for a mushroom.

**** End Edible Curiosities of the Day ****

On to the bus we go after the show and overnight to Zurich Switzerland. The good news is it is not too far away. That bad news is that rumor has it that we drove off at 2 am and we will be shoved off the bus at 6 am. The pre dawn ejection always screws the day up, let's just hope the hotel is nice.

The debating whether to sleep or stay up,

Dave Rat

My two favorite food countries on earth, so far, are Italy and Mexico. No disrespect to the other countries intended and many fine foods abound the planet but darnit, the food here is so good! One of the key aspects of attaining world class food quality is having to have the ultimate selection of the finest of fine. For those of you out there who have an affinity for the hard salami, check out this sausage party!

And may as well pick up a little cheese as well,

Oh boy look! What kind of kid doesn't dream of getting a christmas basket with a hoof sticking out?,

And while we are on the subject of kids and cute little things, check out this adorable little snack,

Why mess around with Playboy Bunnies when you can take home a real bunny? Check out those cute little that bunny booty's! Yummy?

So, like I was saying, the food here is truly awesome, though depending on your eating habits, you may have to be a bit careful not to bite into a culinary landmine, as there are some adventurous eaters here. Most importantly after and before and during those delicious meals, do not forget to indulge in an endless string of the little micro coffee's

that I am pretty sure they invented them here. I love that this entire country seems to radiate an appreciation for all things pleasurable. Fast cars, fine food, fashion and runway models to name a few. Possibly one could say it is to an excess, maybe to a point where finding hardworking focused local roadie crews is a bit of a challenge between their mid day wine, coffee and cigarette breaks, maybe there is close to anarchy on nearly every road as driving in lanes and staying off sidewalks are just recommendations.

but finding a great coffee and an awesome meal is never more than a block away. Whether the shop is actually open is another story. Plus, right now it is truffle season and from here come the best of the best, the Italian White Truffle. Though they are stinky little buggers they are also intoxicatingly desirable to those that enjoy them. I have acquired the taste for them and taste them I did on pasta at an amazing restaurant called Torre del Mangia (Stop # 37 on the Dave Rat tour of Europe).

Guess what we are going to do tomorrow. We are going to do a rock show!!! Hurray!

The very full and over-coffee'd,

Dave Rat

How about some holiday cheer in a German village? And if my home state governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger can refer to places like San Diego and and San Francisco as "towns and villages in cowleeforneeeah," I guess Frankfurt can definitely qualify as village, even if there are five million humans running around in the general area. So, for a change, Scott and I set on about the town to adventure and see what we find. Village? What a silly notion

Deciding what type of food to eat was tough. Hey Scott, what kind of food should we eat in Frankfurt? Well, even though we forgot to eat hamburgers in Hamburg, it looks like Frankfurters in Frankfurt is a go

More importantly though, if you are ever out this way, they make something called Gluhwien

Red wine, served warm, cinnamon spiced and I highly recommend it in anything less than high quantities, unless you like waking with a headache the size of Texas or so I was fortunately warned by Scott. Mmmmm, yumm! So we ate, drank and shopped

for useful items

That could come in handy. Another fun thing to do if you ever are out here is to avoid parking illegally. They don't mess around. This truck pulled up along side a 'mis-parked' car and we spotted it just getting airborne. By the time I got my camera out and snapped the pic it was on the truck and a few seconds later it was gone, truck and all.

**** Roadie Card Series #1, Card #3, Dave Lee ****

My goal for now is to present the 'Serious Six' consisting of roadies Scott, Dave Lee, Tracy, Chris Warren, Lyssa B and me. Hand selected by seniority which for some strange reason seems to also parallel the high eccentricity levels as well. I am not really sure if Peppers collect eccentrics or create them but either way, here is our next lovable roadie seen here studying the ways of modern pirating

And of course no good trading card comes without stats

Funny stuff? I think maybe I should print some up. Ha ha, I still have more surprises in store, not sure what they all are yet but some I do!

**** End Roadie Card Series #1, Card #3, Dave Lee ****

The loving Euroland,

Dave Rat

IHYIMHAMYL!

Day 182 - Nov 21 - TV and Stuff

First thing in the morning everyone headed over to the BBC. One thing that is really important about doing TV stuff is to maximize the amount of time that you spend waiting around. Actually this show was pretty tightly run and had a just a short eight hours of time slop plus another two spare hours just in case. The combination of extra helpings of spare time and the fact that my importance was minimal there, with Andrew onboard covering the recorded audio portion, my adventure for the day took me elsewhere and over to tomorrow's gig at the Roundhouse. Anyone want to take a guess at what shape the Roundhouse is?

This recently refurbished historic venue was home to shows by many rock greats like The Doors, Hendrix and the fateful gig where some punter threw Frank Zappa off the stage pretty much breaking the Zappa for a while. Very cool, how excited am I to be back in London doing the acoustical equivalent of the baby sister of Earl's Court? Round House, round, hmmmm? Sound bounces a-round in the merry-go-round of sound. If my mental calculations combined with years of experience serve me correctly, curved surfaced are really good at taking all the sound that hits them and focusing it into a central area. As I learned from Earl's Court, London does have a fondness for embracing acoustical nightmares as rock venues, so there is a good chance that this will be right on track.

Speaking of tracks, take a guess about what the 'Roundhouse' was built for originally. Did you ever have a 'Thomas the Tank Engine' train set? Ever wonder how trains turned around? Well, for the non-locomotively inclined, they used to, maybe still do, build round buildings with a rotating floor that the train would drive into and be spun to travel out on any one of the numerous tracks. These train-engine-spin-buildings were called roundhouses and later could be retrofitted to double as a legendary rock venue.

After waiting as long as I could in hopes of hearing the new sound system, I finally had to move on to the next adventure and off to BBC to meet up with the rest of the crew, hey, check out this car:

We don't have those at home. And a 45 minute cab ride that consisted of about a thousand zigzag turns across the traffic filled city

landing me about 5 minutes shy of perfect timing:

Have you ever looked upwards in a TV studio? Holly crap, ceck out at all that stuff up there!

Look, They put lights on those scissory things that you see with a boxing glove on them in cartoons!

I have been getting requests for more info on roadie Daniel's mysterious monitor world so I will take on that project soon in the form of attempting my first interview. Not sure when, but soon. In the mean time, he can be seen here wielding his sword.

Behind him you can see Manny has been lost to the black side of the berry as he is going through the early stages of crackberry addiction. And as our work day comes to a close, look what I found:

The not overly excited about tomorrow,

Dave Rat

Today I get to jet far far away. You know the feeling of anticipation, stomach butterflies and excitement that makes time fly and adds momentum to your life? Just the thoughts of far away journeys, leaving it all behind and the curiosity about what will happen in distant lands can make the doldrums of life vanish. Well, I don't feel any of that, at least not yet. What is on my mind is "Oh boy, the sheer thrill of hauling 3/4 of a million pounds of gear through gray cold wet trudging European winter." Though the tour does culminate in the amazing and beautiful city of Stockholm, full of life and beauty, it is currently basking in darkness.We will be arriving there within two weeks of the winter solstice, the festive naturally occurring shortest day in the northern hemisphere. The day of depression that every major religion has plugged in a holiday to inspire clustering humans to celebrate. What this means to us roadies is that we will be in Stockholm when there is about five hours of daylight and the sun rises sometime after 9AM and sets before 3. Well at least it will be freezing cold. I should probably bring a jacket.

Now that I think about it, though, I love Sweden. Vikings are kind of like furry pirates with horns on their hats! Did you know that in Sweden they dug a big old viking boat out of the mud in bay and put it in a museum? The whole17th century ship is huge and is in near perfect condition. I guess some 'king guy' wanted the biggest boat ever, had it built spending way too much money and then they paddle it out into the harbor and it sinks. Too big, oopsy daisy. Imagine that, some dumb ass guy wanting to build the biggest toy he possibly can. Oh, and that reminds me, pretty soon I get to go play with the big huge sound system, hurray!!

Here is a booty shot of that big boat called the 'Vasa'

And here is the dreaded start to a Euro morning I have ahead

And the misery of a past Euro eve

And a giant spider in Bilbao Spain, where we are not going this time

The determined to enjoy the adventure,

Dave Rat