Fans of the Netherlands soccer team, on their way to Germany for the ‘06 World Cup, printed thousands of t-shirts that read, “Give me back my bike.”

The Dutch are known bike fanatics, and my time in Amsterdam over the past weekend, did nothing to disprove that preconception. But the fan t-shirts were in reference to the indelible history of Europe.

For after WWII ended, and the Germans were retreating from the Netherlands back to Germany, to get home quicker, many German soldiers stole Dutch bicycles.

It’s estimated that tens-of-thousands of bikes were taken this way, and the Netherlands won’t let Germany forget it. Fans were especially excited for a possible Netherlands-Germany match where they would be able chant a famous Netherlands’ cheer.

The cheer is, in Dutch, “Give us back our bicycles. Give us back our bicycles.”

The two teams didn’t get to play each other.

But that didn’t stop the Dutch from behaving, well, badly, in Germany.

(Second flickr link thx: maxbisschop.)

In today’s must-read and must-hear pieces, blogger and NPR contributor Xeni Jardin exposes the real truth: the Internet isn’t a big truck, and it’s not even a series of tubes; it’s a bunch of hotels, like One Wilshire in downtown Los Angeles.

And secondly, my favorite show on KCRW, The Drop, well the host of that show is DJ’ing the Oscars this year, and the New York Times caught up with Liza Richardson, to ask her about the job.

My only complaint about the article is the lede, where reporter Monica Corcoran decides to (totally unprovoked, mind you) pick on my current hometown:

Every performer has a different definition of a tough crowd, from comedy clubs in Berlin to the buffet-obsessed folks aboard a cruise ship.

I got to watch a lot of movies last week.

It was the Berlin Film Fest, or Berlinale as the locals call it, and it is the largest film festival in the world in terms of attendance - 180-thousand tickets are sold over 10 days of movies.

But its now also one of the three-biggest festivals in terms of deal-making, alongside Cannes and the American Film Market in November. Years ago, it used to be one of the big marketing tools used, to push for an Oscar.

But as the Academy Awards became a more expensive and bigger financial event, Berlin became little more than a cog in the awards machine. Which took a way a bunch of its political cachet as well.

Wanna hear more?

Okay, its been far too long since my latest photo posting (let alone my last blog), so here is a quick link with my newest set of 20+ photos from work and life in Berlin.

Germans are skeptical of football (American football, that is), to say the least.

They love their Fußball, but aren’t all that excited about the american adaption. I’ve even had to defend the name; as in why is it “foot”-ball, if there are only two players on the team (punter and placekicker) who actually kick the ball. I had no argument to fight back with, except to simply say that football (the American kind) is way more fun to watch.

This past Sunday, that is Super Bowl Sunday, proved that point to the extreme. While I was up in the middle of the night watching the biggest, most lucrative sporting event in the world, most Germans were asleep, tired out from the Handball World Championships.

Yes, I said Handball World Championships, as in Olympic handball — not middle school recess handball. And on the front-page of Monday’s sports sections here? Yep, handball. Not football.

And not only was I one of the few TV viewers watching the Super Bowl, I also had to sit through the game comments, ‘auf Deutsch.’

And yes, I agree, handball does look like a bunch of grown men running around in their pajamas on the Boise State smurf turf.

Flickr thx: hammerhammer.

The Los Angeles Times, in the sort of local story it can run with, carried a story on the arrest of a wookie-costumed man on Hollywood Boulevard Friday.

Reporters Andrew Blankstein and Bob Pool were lucky enough to be the ones to cover it, and covered exactly as they should, going high up with:

The incident — witnessed by Superman and other impersonators — is the latest clash outside the landmark cinema between visitors and performers dressed as movie and cartoon characters.

… The whole thing has the creators of the “Star Wars” character shaking their heads.

“The street performer doesn’t have any affiliation with Lucasfilm,” said company spokeswoman Lynne Hale. “Nevertheless, we are disappointed that someone dressed as Chewbacca would behave in this way.”