rm -rf /&

I knew it! :D

2008-04-21T21:15:00.000+02:00

The Big Fat Quiz

Performing Arts

Includes: - acting - singing - performance art - dance You are an outgoing and sensitive person who needs an outlet for your creativity. Your negative aspects may be being stubborn, bosy, or too competitive. You would be great in a career in the performing arts, because you need a way to express yourself through movement and speech.

Click Here to Take This Quiz
Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.

Answer 16 simple questions and see where your interests really lie. This is my result. Whether you have the talent for the job or not is a totally different question! Link -via Geek Like Me

autogenes Training...

2008-04-21T16:52:00.001+02:00

"Ich bin schlank, ich bin schlank, ich bin schlank, ich bin schlank...".. traurig dabei nur, dass man sich das selbst regelmaessig sagen muss. Trotz eines BMIs, der mittlerweile unter 19 liegt... zwar nur knapp, aber nun ja...

Oh so true, so true.

2008-04-03T22:47:00.001+02:00

just listen to the lyrics. Very true.

Finally.

2008-04-03T21:20:00.002+02:00

Ha! i finally found some harmonies for the first two bits of a new song I am working on... it started all a bit odd because i insisted on having the melody going via g#d#c# etc. so, with my limited knowledge of guitar chords it was simply impossible. transposing them all by 1 (i.e. a-e-d etc) made it a lot easier. However, now I am relying on the most basic chords (e, a, C and such). What can I say, great bands do that. And when I learn more chords, I surely will make use of them, too :)
Now I just need more text. and a chorus :D

And another song...

2008-04-03T20:11:00.002+02:00

that i'd like to get your attention to: "Drunk without Drinking" by Buck 65. Currently I even feel like "What am I putting myself thru this crap for?
Feels like I'm standing on top of a trap door
Lost at sea, tangled up in golden hair
Scavenger-hunter my life is like a folding chair" (excerpt lyrics) (have a listen on last.fm)...

Zoom - Kick - Persuasion - Tech

2008-03-27T23:13:00.002+01:00

I am going to learn how to play the banjo someday. I simply have to. I have been reminded of this by a song called "Blood of a Young Wolf" by the artist Buck 65. You might call him Hip Hop, but i refuse to do so, because I associate "Gangsters" with Hip Hop. With Buck 65 I simply associate "I would". Hire him to write lyrics for me, I mean. He's like a poet who supports his words with beats and other instrumentals. And some turntable-action as well. I can assure, if you have heard Blood of a young wolf you haven't heard "his music" per se, pretty much every track is different. For the better or for the worse, depends on each track and each to their own etc.
When I saw him live just recently (for the first time, as well) I certainly enjoyed it quite a lot, but there was something I had to get used to: he moves like he's got Autism or Asperger's. Judging by his words the latter might just be possible (and is in a way a good thing), but if he danced like that in the crowd I doubt he would have got a prize. However, it was charming somehow. And he certainly is rather handsome (how do all the other musicians get rid of their spots and I am still stuck with them at the age of almost 23?? hmpf.)
Well. I should get back to my own lyrics again, I guess. (but seriously, I would.)

update

2008-03-19T19:49:00.002+01:00

after some more issues with the update stuff i finally resolved it:

in the registry you can set the default installation path for third party programs (games and such) in HKLM/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion -> the value is something like "C:\Program Files" or so. I changed mine to D:\... which wasn't recognised by the programs i wanted to install but apparently by the windows update service. because when i changed it back to C... it worked all fine again. Stupid windows.

IDE, S-ATA, Windows on 32 or 64 bit and "new computer woes"

2008-03-18T13:37:00.004+01:00

Actually... it all kind of belongs together.

A little while ago my computer decided to stop working. For why, i don't know; i think it is a mixture of a motherboard getting old (and out of shape), my former USB hub which nurtured the computer with power (I used to think it was supposed to be the other way around but way, you live and learn) and a general dislike for S-ATA drives which started to develop. So a few days before I went on holiday I ordered a nice custom-built PC which was done the day before I departed. But since i had a lot to do i decided to just quickly check if it's working or not.

Which it wasn't... turned out that the USB hub is jealous enough to prevent it from working, too. God knows, why. Ah well. So two weeks later, when i got back from the island I wanted to install my computer. About which I thought: "mweh, two days of installation but then it'll be fine"... yeah... first of all i spent about a week with assembling / installing and mostly fixing my brother's new computer (=my old one); then I managed to get to my computer. There I spent about a week with installing XP X64 3 times a day because just after the fresh installation it would say "disk boot failure. insert system disk ..." ... oh great. I finally resolved that by unplugging the IDE drive. I should add that I have 2 IDE drives (HDD and DVD) and 2 SATA drives (both HDD). The installation was supposed to go on the new SATA drive, because the old ones are... well, old. But apparently Windows never quite managed to handle the MBR properly, it always put it on the IDE drive and looked for the NTLDR ond the IDE drive as well. or so it seems. Basically, after unplugging the IDE drive, the installation worked. Even when i plugged the IDE drive back in.
Drivers were a different matter. the nforce 560 chipset is simply too new for XP (either one), so I had issues even discovering what xp meant with "unknown device"... (even the unknown device software didnt help much).
At some point, due to the lack of 64bit support, i was thinking about moving to 32 bit XP. Which.... gave me continuous blue screens of death while attempting to install the (correct) ethernet driver or, after i managed that somehow, in the boot process. Sooo... back to X64. where now most drivers are installed neatly, i refrained from installing windows live messenger so far (the current release is a bit buggy, as the two other desktop computers in our household prove with vista and Xp x86)... i also installed a couple of updates... windows updates. But now it appears that I am unable to install any other updates. It just stops. No error message, nothing. Its all fully downloaded - even redownloading won't help - but it won't budge.

For once... if it just started working nicely for once I would be so happy.... But i see this as a nasty way to get customers to use vista, by making it so utterly hard to integrate newer hardware in an old operating system... hmpf.

HameKomi/Neves

2008-03-16T21:56:00.000+01:00

The package says Hamekomi Lucky Puzzle. It is a puzzle game, alright. The menu says "Neves". Possibly they couldn't be bothered to decide on a final title before the release. For playing through the levels, you basically tap on the screen, move, flip or turn around little pieces to fit in a shadow which represents a form or figure of some kind. There are two main emotions you get when playing the game: "Yatta!", or "Yessss!", when you managed to complete a puzzle very quickly, or grumbling and utter frustration, where you might call out (or whisper) words that should not be repeated here.

Gameplay:
Once you start the game for the first time, you are greeted with a tutorial, which explains how to play the game. So basically you learn how to tap the screen a little. The irony in this compulsory - but thankfully short - tutorial is that the controls are very intuitive. So you don't actually need to go through them in order to grasp what you have to do. But, as said before, the tutorial is very short.
You control the entire game with just the stylus, so even when you try to navigate through the menu with the d-pad it won't work. You will catch yourself a few times trying to choose an option with the "A" or "B" button, which will do nothing. This is a bit of a minus, but you get used to that eventually.
As for the difficulty... well. The whole thing is based on the ancient Chinese tangram games. So there imagine a rectangle which is cut into pieces and with these you have to "build" a number of different forms. There is no exact difficulty level. You might find the first puzzle itself quite challenging, but then you will see many many that are exceedingly easy to solve. Then there are more toughies again. The bad thing about this is that there is no constant rise in difficulty. The good side is that they give you a break from always difficult puzzles and allow some happy moments with easier ones.
You can freely choose from the puzzles inside each room and level, so as soon as you unlock the set, you can solve whatever you want in there. And also there are different playmodes, such as the main one, in which there is no time limit and no "step" limit, the mode in which you have to solve the puzzle within 7 steps and the one where you have to complete it within a certain time.

Graphics:

It is a puzzle game based on little bits of paper, what do you expect? It's 2D, but has nice colours.... it doesn't look crap or pixelated and it is ideal for its purpose.

Sound:

See above, the music doesn't really matter. It accompanies you while playing the game. It doesn't get overly annoying though, so you can decide yourself if you want to listen to it or turn it off. The latter doesn't hurt the gameplay.

Verdict:

All in all it is a fun game. And it captivates you very fast. Not only you, but also everyone who you might ask for help when you get stuck somewhere. There were times in which I even didn't see my DS for ages because of that game. The fact that you HAVE to control it with just the stylus is a bit of a downside, as well as that they always provide the same set of pieces. There are many different kinds of tangram out there, so they could have at least included the classic one if not more.

8/10

+ loads of different puzzles
+ various difficulty levels
+ ...which are mixed

- lack of d-pad control can be annoying
- always the same tangram pieces
- which aren't even the "standard" ones.

back to life

2008-03-11T12:09:00.004+01:00

I haven't been here in quite a while, and this has got many reasons. Some of which are university-related, some of which are tech-related and as hukl himself said recently, if you have something to write then you usually don't have the time to write it down. And when you do have the time (this is my addition now) then it doesn't seem blogworthy anymore.

So there I am, getting off my own bum and finally posting something again; the guy behind the matoushin blog (assuming Matoushin really is a guy ;)) sort of inspired me with a number of his posts to revive my blog again. So what happened? That i will press into other, separate posts. What's gonna happen?
Well, I am kind of in the process of making a review site for DS games, I guess meanwhile i may just as well post my reviews here for a while. Also some other rants are going to happen. I was even considering to post my latest findings related to my studies here, but I won't risk posting wrong stuff here, otherwise i might be held liable at some point. What i will add again though are the horrors my computers put me through sometimes. They possibly don't like me because I put them through mean things like a windows/linux dualboot in 64 bit.... so yeah, lets hope this blog will stay alive for a bit longer this time ;)

Kokia - Chouwa Oto

2007-10-20T02:44:00.000+02:00

One of the most impressive voices I have heard lately. Also, listen through it, the rhythm and the harmonies are quite cool...

2007-09-06T11:05:00.000+02:00

It is difficult to say anything constructive. Pavarotti is dead, finally his cancer got him. Rest in peace.

Terrorism in Germany. (laugh now.)

2007-09-05T16:10:00.000+02:00

As some of you might have noticed, various countries in the world are currently trying to introduce new laws that allow them even more surveillance - be it with CCTV, phone, internet or a microchip planted into your bum next time you go to the hospital ("the latest form of contraception - now also for men" or something similar). Now, you can hold up the panic from 9/11 for just so long, after that nobody believes you anymore, which means you have to find a better justification to set up your "private-shower-cams"-site.
Now, I think that the whole London Underground bombing foobar stands a chance of having been real. Because there was a number of injured people. Or, if it was (part of) a plot by the government, then it was to scare the shit out of people once so they wouldnt have to do that again, only show the possibility. After the bombings they removed all bins from the underground stations, but apart from the station entrances didnt add any cctv. So far so good. Still there are vending machines that sell sweets - in plastic packaging which need to be thrown away; but didn't littering have a fine? So are you supposed to carry your own bin bag with you all the time? Also, when they say that CCTV is a massive help for fighting crime (which it isn't though), why didn't they set them up in the places that matter? Like, on trains? I dont mind being filmed on the train/tube, because if something happens there, you can actually see the person who did it, rather than guessing based upon who carried a plastic bag that looked like Mickey Mouse. Or who had a beard that looked like "terrorist". However.
I'm not talking about the USA plotting their own justifications. It is well known they do.
Contrary to what I hear from many people, I believe that the last "failed" attacks / attempted terrorist attacks in Great Britain were nothing but strategic fake. (and anyways, if you want to live safely, dont live in a capital city, even if it is just the financial capital city).

For years, there hasn't been any of those so called terrorist attacks that have been dangerous for any other people. Nobody got injured, and they usually "caught" those people "right before" they did it. And usually just by pure accident or incompetence. Now, the thing in Glasgow was different, you might say. Yepp, it was. But really, which criminal organisation sends their *smart* people to do the dirty work? It is like with the radical right-wing people (or all extremists): The smart people sit in the back, while the stupid people (sorry) do all the dirty work because they can be easily told to do so. Now, why would a doctor bomb himself? Maybe because he was a stupid doctor because he didnt think of the fact that you cannot run into an airport building so easily, seeing that they are constructed in a special way (planes might crash into them) since decades? Or the other thing with the liquid bombs which are the reason for the stupid drinking restrictions on airplanes:
a) several scientists have proved that you cannot this easily make a bomb on an airplane without standing out.
b) it would have taken ages, loads of smell and fire (and thus smoke)
c) you can buy all "dangerous ingredients" after you have passed the security check and still make your so called bomb.
d) last time I was taking potato salad with me. Brand new, factory sealed. Wasn't allowed to take it, because due to the yoghurt dressing it was sort of solid-liquid. Sure, I'm gonna bomb you with my food and NOTHING ELSE (i didnt have a lighter or any other ingredient on me at that time)....

And now they have found the three terrorists in Germany who have LEGALLY bought some chemicals and before they could do anything else with it, these chemicals have been exchanged with, lets say some water (it was something else), so they couldnt even sue them for having built bombs. Also there wasnt any definite plan. which is even better. Now you are generally suspicious, rather than, as it used to be, innocent until proven guilty. These guys might be back into freedom in a while, however, in my opinion they wanted the effect right now to introduce the national trojan horse, which is heavily debated (they want to send emails with the program and expect the people to be dumb enough to open the attachment. As if the "terrorists" wouldnt be clever enough...) the abuse possibility is so great, and this is what is going to happen - they will abuse it for everything else, but only after it is legal. As they have done with the lorry highway toll, originally it was "noooo, not for criminal records", and now they try to chase criminals with a system that doesn't work.
Besides the trojan horse (which will definitely be used to sniff out file sharing software) they want to introduce a 12-month-data-saving (detailed connection data is to be saved for a year) etc etc etc.

This is so ridiculous.... currently Sweden looks really attractive. Or Andorra. Does Andorra go through the hassle of all this? Probably not, they are not attractive enough for terrorists. ;)

Don't touch that shop.

2007-08-15T10:49:00.000+02:00

I mean. Seriously.
A little while ago I bought an m3 adapter for the DS on divineo.de. Like a year ago, when it worked perfectly well (fast delivery, good support). However, this time it took them till thursday (ordered on Saturday, so it should have been processed on Monday) and I had to call them 3x until they actually sent it (or claimed to have sent it) on Wednesday. Ever since it is absolutely impossible to reach them:
they never respond to any emails sent (5 of them by now) nor do they pick up the phone. Which brings up the assumption that nobody is at the shop. Or that it is just a pseudoshop. However, you dont only get a "free" signal: every now and again you get a busy signal....

Then again, that signal might be caused by another annoyed customer trying to ring them...

I am super angry, and i wont ever - EVER - shop with them again...

well done, mr warren

2007-08-12T14:19:00.000+02:00

Postsecret, i think everyone of you knows it, is an ongoing art project where people send in their secrets on mostly very creative postcards. It is always a nice surprise to see the secrets that are on, and that have been there (hint: use an rss reader so you can reread older secrets, too). However, the page is so popular that you, to say it with neatorama, have to live under a rock to not at least have heard of it once.

PostSecret is actually something where I keep asking myself: why didnt i have this idea first? Ah well, too late now I guess. But props to Frank Warren for all that. One day I am going to get his books (which are a little costy though).

schnief

2007-08-04T01:20:00.001+02:00

Sehr niedliches Flash-Video zum Thema Lebenseinstellung...

BET - Read a book

2007-07-11T13:44:00.000+02:00

This is a rather funny video clip of some, i guess, underground? rap song... it is quite funny (as are the lyrics!)

Final Fantasy Advent Children....

2007-06-16T20:27:00.000+02:00

...thing.

I think it is nice. and the song is, after having heard it around 5 or 6 times, kinda addictive. At least you dont forget the For-Elise-tune ;)

Child at heart.....

2007-06-09T02:18:00.000+02:00

There is a big disadvantage to still being a big child at heart...
you are just as stubborn (and slightly bitchy) when you get tired... and it is very easy to be upset or angry. not overly helpful, but... oh well. just wanted to point that out.

Für die Kurzweil :)

2007-05-11T11:22:00.001+02:00

Also, manchmal stolpert man ja wirklich über großartige Dinge im Internet.
Fangen wir mal an mit einer wirklich nett gemachten Erklärung des Lebens im Powerpoint-Stil:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWWKBY7gx_0

Sound needed.

Kommen wir aber zu den Dingen, die zwar "safe for work" sind - an und für sich. Kein Ton, keine Gewalt, keine Anzüglichkeiten. Aber in nem "open plan office" sollte man vorsichtig sein - Lachkraempfe nicht ausgeschlossen!

Als erstes hätten wir da alte Weight-Watchers-Karten. Interessieren würden mich die Rezepte an sich schon, wer will z.B. nicht eine Inspiration Soup essen?

Oder den Rosy Perfection Salad?

Es lohnt sich wirklich, sich da durchzuklicken und auch die Unterlinks zu betrachten :) Letztlich erklärt sich auch einfach, wie das Prinzip dieser WW-Karten funktioniert: man probiert einmal und hat sofort keinen Hunger mehr. Fertig ist die Abnahmekur. Andererseits, man weiss nich, was drinsteckt. Außer "Geliermittel" und "getrocknete Zwiebelflocken".

Hier eine weitere Sammlung an Rezepten.
Außerdem noch ein paar Bücherscans..

Ich glaub ich sollte auch mal mit sowas anfangen, immerhin gibts bei mir zu Hause auch etliche... amüsante Kochbücher.

wuff

2007-05-08T15:41:00.000+02:00

Ich hab kürzlich von Ben ein Stöckchen an den Kopf geworfen gekriegt. Nachdem die Beule wieder zurückgegangen ist, hier nunmehr die Beantwortung des Ganzen.

1. Ein Film, den Du mehr als zehnmal gesehen hast …
Der 90. Geburtstag. Eindeutig. Wobei "Dinner für Brot" das mittlerweile abgelöst hat. Auch dazu: Bambi meets Godzilla, ein tiefgründiges und sehr emotionales Video über zwei Tiere, die unterschiedlicher nicht mehr sein können. Das zu den Kurzfilmen. Spielfilmlänge: "I am Sam" und die ganzen Disney-Kindervideos von früher (ich sag nur: Susi & Strolch), Das letzte Einhorn etc.

2. Ein Film, den du mehrfach im Kino gesehen hast.
Matrix. Weil ich nämlich jedes Jahr zu den "Paket"aktionen gegangen bin - am Ende warens dann drei mal Matrix 1 :D

3. Nenne eine/n Schauspieler/in, wegen dem/r Du eher geneigt wärst, einen Film zu sehen …
Sean Penn, Kevin Spacey; Michelle Pfeiffer, Gwyneth Paltrow, Drew Barrymore, Uma Thurman

4. Nenne eine/n Schauspieler/in, wegen dem/r Du weniger geneigt wärst, einen Film zu sehen …
Allesamt, die schon so zu schmalzig wirken. Oder sich viel zu sehr gehen lassen, dabei aber rumpöbeln als wären sie die Imperatoren von und zu.

5. Ein Film, aus dem Du regelmäßig zitierst …
Life of Brian, Die Ritter der Kokosnuss, BritComs

6. Ein Film-Musical, von dem Du alle Texte der darin gesungenen Songs auswendig weißt…
Err.....

7. Ein Film, bei dem Du mitgesungen hast …
A Prairie Home Companion von Robert Altman. Wirklich großartiger Film - und sein letzter.

8. Ein Film, den jeder gesehen haben sollte …
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas!
A Prairie Home Companion; I am Sam und noch diverse andere

9. Ein Film, den Du besitzt …
2046

10. Nenne einen Schauspieler, der seine Karriere nicht beim Film startete und der dich mit seinen schauspielerischen Leistungen positiv überrascht hat …
Johnny Depp - der hat ja mal als Sänger angefangen.

11. Hast Du schon einmal einen Film in einem Drive-In gesehen?
Gibts sowas noch?

12. Schonmal in einem Kino geknutscht?
Ja. In: "Der schmale Grat". Weil der Film zu langweilig war, als dass ich hätte zuschauen wollen.

13. Ein Film, den Du schon immer sehen wolltest, bisher aber nicht dazu gekommen bist …
Etliche. Aber ich kann keinen Titel nennen. Weil der Grund für das "nicht dazu kommen" ist, dass ich mir den Titel merke bis kurz vorm Release und ihn dann völlig vergesse.

14. Hast Du jemals das Kino verlassen, weil der Film so schlecht war?
Der obengenannte "Schmale Grat" dauert ja so knappe 3 Stunden oder so - nach 1.5 Stunden war dann die Nebenbeschäftigung auch zu doof.

15. Ein Film, der Dich zum Weinen gebracht hat …
I am Sam. Immer wieder. Und wieder.

16. Popcorn?
Gern. Mittlerweile auch mit Butter und Salz, aber eigentlich lieber mit Zucker :)

17. Wie oft gehst Du ins Kino?
Einmal im Monat?

18. Welchen Film hast Du zuletzt im Kino gesehen?
Meet the Robinsons! (ganz toller Film. Wirklich. :))

19. Welches ist Dein Lieblingsgenre?
Sone tiefgreifenden Geschichten wie "I am Sam" und "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon". In der Videothek stehen die mittlerweile unter "Der andere Film", und nichtmehr unter "Drama"

20. Was war Dein erster Film, den Du im Kino gesehen hast?
Irgendein Russischer. In Russland. Ich weiss noch wie das Kino aussah (weil das war ganz klasse), aber nicht, was das für ein Film war... außer dass es ein Cartoon war.

21. Welchen Film hättest Du lieber niemals gesehen?
"Verrückt nach Mary". Ich find ihn nämlich immer noch nichtmal im Ansatz lustig.

22. Was war der merkwürdigste Film, den Du mochtest?
Ach, da gibt es einige :) Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

23. Was war der beängstigendste Film, den Du je gesehen hast?
The Grudge. Konnte ich auch nicht zuende gucken.

24. Was war der lustigste Film, denn Du je gesehen hast?
*schäm* Borat gehört dazu. Ja, er ist lustig.

So. und wem werf ichs nun an den Kopf? Och ich würd mal das Träumerlinchen nehmen und den Hotelblogger. Wobei dieser selbst entscheiden darf, in welches Blog es soll.

MadTV - Politische Meinungsaeusserung und Beinahe-Religionen

2007-05-08T13:04:00.000+02:00

Vielen Dank an Martin für das Video :)

Warum nicht Paintball?

2007-05-04T09:39:00.000+02:00

Also ich bin dafuer, dass die ganzen Gewehre und was es nicht so alles im Militaerwesen als Waffen gibt, gegen Paintballausruestungen eingetauscht wird und dann koennen die sich damit beballern. Tut auch weh, is aber nicht lethal. Also, ich hab auf youtube schon froehlichere Videos gesehen. Wobei, manchmal fragt man sich.... abgruende etc.

Immer dieser Bundespraesident!

2007-05-02T12:17:00.000+02:00

Wie manch einer schon mitbekommen haben duerfte, studier ich mehr oder minder fleißig Jura. Den Plan, die erste juristische Pruefung (frueher: 1. Staatsexamen) schon im 6. Semester zu machen, gab ich auf, als bemerkbar wurde, dass die Idee, die im Studium vermittelt wird, der Grundgedanke von der Pseudo-Demokratie etc., meinen Moral- und Weltvorstellungen völlig zuwiderlaufen. Man mag ja meinen, dass man seine eigenen Ideen im Studium halt zurueckstellen sollte, um Formeln zu lernen und die Sachverhalte da reinzupressen. Das stimmt ja auch soweit und ist nur bedingt problematisch. Schwierig wird es, vor allem im Bereich des Öffentlichen Rechts, wenn es um die Auslegung geht. Denn von der Zulässigkeit abgesehen, die schön schematisch ist aber nur einen Punkt bringt (oder 2, selten mehr), geht es in der Begruendetheit vor allem darum, Diskussionen zu führen.
Aufbau ist dabei zumeist: Formelle Verfassungsmaessigkeit eines Gesetzes und danach die Materielle Verfassungsmaessigkeit. Formell: Auch oft schematisch, dank der Foederalismusreform vielleicht nicht immer, aber egal. Materiell sieht die Sache dann wieder anders aus. Ein Beispiel:
In der heutigen Repetitoriums-Sitzung ging es um das Rederecht des Bundespraesidenten. Kurze Zusammenfassung: Um einen wirksamen Schutz vor Terrorismus in Deutschland zu haben, muss das dts. Militaer auch im Inland aktiv werden. Konkret sollten dazu Luftsicherheitsaufgaben betrachtet werden. However, alle in der Bundesregierung waren dafuer (einmal jubeln); allerdings kritisierte der Praesident in einer Rede dieses vorhaben, indem er kurz von der abgesegneten (durch die BReg) Redetext mit den Zeilen: "Die Bundeswehr habe mit ihren Aufgaben am Horn von Afrika und in Afghanistan bereits genug zu tun. Alles andere wuerde die Armee ueberfordern. Außerdem ist der Einsatz von Armee im Inland aus guten Gruenden stark beschraenkt."
Die Bundesregierung hat sich nun darueber aufgeregt, dass sie nicht "gefragt" wurde, und der Praesident es sich nicht herausnehmen duerfe, sowas zu sagen.

Das sollten wir nun pruefen (zugunsten der BReg). Maßstab war Art. 58 GG, nach dem Anordnungen und Verfuegungen von der Regierung gegengezeichnet werden muessen. Eine Rede ist weder das eine noch das andere. Dann wird auf den Zweck abgestellt, den diese Regelung hat, und dass sie keine Anwendung haette, weil der Praesident eh kaum was machen darf. Also muesste man die beiden Stichworte zusammenfassen und ausweiten, um festzustellen, dass der Praesident ja seine ganze Politische "Macht" über die Reden entfaltet. Und die Regierung nun ganz ganz scharf ein Auge drauf werfen muss, was er denn sagt.
Was ihn - meiner Meinung nach - zu dem Schoßhuendchen der Bundesregierung macht. Er ist aber dazu gehalten, neutral zu bleiben (was wir dann "im Sinne der Bunderegierung neutral" zugeteilt haben), so dass dies - in einer Demokratie als Volksvertretung etc. - eigentlich danebenginge, weil da keine Neutralitaet, sondern Parteiergreifung für die Bundesregierung ist.

Wie dem auch sei, irgendein Jurist, der auch Lehrbuecher schrieb, sah dies auch so wie ich, wurde aber in die Mindermeinungsriege verdammt und wird in den Vorlesungen verspottet. Grandios. Im Uebrigen hat der Praesident dann doch noch seinen Willen gekriegt - wie bei Al Capone und der Steuerhinterziehung - weil der Bundesrat dem ganzen nicht zugestimmt hat (aka. nicht reagiert hat).

Noch so ein moralischer Konflikt fand uebrigens damals bei meiner Schwerpunktspruefung statt. Haben glaub ich auch einige mitbekommen. Der zu lösende Fall (Strafrecht) befasste sich mit einem Arzt, der einer Schwerkranken, die unter großen Schmerzen litt, Schmerzmittel gab, die (laut Nebenwirkungen) auch lebensverkuerzend wirken koennen. Hat mal jemand sone Nebenwirkungen gelesen? das ist grausam, was da so alles drinsteht. Und auch ne Tomate kann lebensverkuerzend wirken, aber egal. Jedenfalls starb die Patientin dann ein paar Wochen frueher als "erwartet" (aber einige Monate nach der Schmerzmittelgabe) und man musste den Arzt einer Totschlagspruefung unterziehen. Alles, wirklich alles (objektiver Tatbestand war ja noch okay, aber subjektiv - Vorsatz) widerstrebte sich mir. Was dann zu 8 Punkten abzug gefuehrt hat. Egal. Der Arzt ist dann wegen Menschenwuerdeschutz im Notstand rausgefallen, aber trotzdem. Wenn ein Arzt mir Schmerzmittel gibt, ist sein Vorsatz wohl selten, mich wirklich zu toeten. Oder nicht?

ARGH, dieses Studium macht mich fertig!

What age do you act?

2007-04-17T22:13:00.000+02:00

You Are 14 Years Old

Under 12: You are a kid at heart. You still have an optimistic life view - and you look at the world with awe.

13-19: You are a teenager at heart. You question authority and are still trying to find your place in this world.

20-29: You are a twentysomething at heart. You feel excited about what's to come... love, work, and new experiences.

30-39: You are a thirtysomething at heart. You've had a taste of success and true love, but you want more!

40+: You are a mature adult. You've been through most of the ups and downs of life already. Now you get to sit back and relax.

What Age Do You Act?

told you. i am a big kid at heart

School group. Percussions.

2007-03-26T11:51:00.000+02:00

i so love that.

Web 2.0 in 5 Minutes.

2007-02-16T09:57:00.000+01:00

Heyho,
yesterday while browsing the web i found a pretty cool video which sort of explains Web 2.0 in less than five minutes.
The cool thing about this video is, that it was actually just a response to a different video, explaining it in 7.5 minutes (or so), but with really talking and explaining stuff. I have to say, i prefer this way of putting it a lot.
The guy is an assistant professor for cultural anthropology, and this subject keeps getting more and more interesting. Reckon i gotta see if i can get me a few books on that topic. :) But anyhow, just watch.

Let go.

2007-01-28T21:20:00.000+01:00

First of all: i really hope, that this is not going to happen. I am happy with what i have, and i dont want to lose it anymore, or be stupid enough to run away myself.

However, there is a song, that constantly makes me shiver. And brings tears into my eyes.

So i guess, it is about time to discover some songs by a band called "lunik". I've known them for quite a while, but barely mentioned them since they make something you would call "pop". I think they had some sort of a hit in Europe with their song "Static". And i can only agree that "static" isnt one of their best songs.
However, i would strongly recommend you to give the song "Let Go" a proper listen. The singer has a very gentle, soft and beautiful voice (and she is rather pretty herself, too :))
Plus: i was going to go and see them. But, unfortunately i cant anymore, i will be in England then, so i gave the ticket away to my friend (actually it is still lying here, but she is going to get it).

My eyes were closed when I ran away from your love
And you asked me to return
It took a while to see that you're the one for me, it took too long
'Cause you were gone
Every minute every hour I long for your touch
I know now it's true - I just wanted too much
I try to move on, try to enjoy being free
But a love thatbig can't be forgotten easily
And in the night I see your face
And now I know I can't replace you
But I try to let go

You're happy now, it seems to be easier with her
First I was hurt, now I'm sorry sorry that I couldn't give you the best of me
I wasn't good enough to make you happy
I'm tempted to fight but I wouldn't be fair
No it wouldn't be right now that you've found your place
It's hard to accept 'cause I know deep inside
A love that big shouldn't be left behind
But after all that was - I still love you
And all I want is the best for you
Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be me

Gotta let you go, gotta let you go, gotta let you go, gotta let you go
let go, gotta let you go, gotta let you go, gotta let you go

Sometimes I dream that one day you will tell me
You want to give us another try
And make them real - all the dreams and plans we had
A family with you by my side
But after all it's just a dream

Dadadada... gotta let you go, gotta let you go, gotta let you go
Let go, gotta let you go, gotta let you go, gotta let you go
Let go, oh I gotta let you go, I gotta let you go, I gotta let you go
Gotta let you go, gotta let you go, gotta let you go

My eyes were closed when I ran away from your love
And you asked me to return

(created by Lunik, all rights reserved etc etc)

Macht, bitte zum Arrivals' Terminal...

2007-01-22T11:02:00.000+01:00

This article will be all about a German word and a fun encounter with it, so there is no use in posting this article in English.

Ich war ja wieder weg. Die, die Bescheid wissen, werden sich denken, warum bzw. wohin. Wie dem auch sei, als ich am Sonntag wieder landete und so durch die letzte Tür ging, die die Normalsterblichen von den Fliegenden trennt, musste ich doch schon amüsiert vor mich hinlachen;
man kennt doch diese Typen, die mitm Schild bei den Arrivals stehen um entweder Vorname Nachname oder Herrn/Frau Sowieso abzuholen.
Nun stand Sonntag auch einer dort. Nur einer. Und der hielt ein Schild in der Hand, auf dem einfach nur stand:

Macht

Vielleicht sollte ichs ja auch mal so versuchen. Wer weiß, ob die Weltherrschaft nicht so zu einem kommt...? :D

Nanosleep.

2007-01-18T15:37:00.000+01:00

Seit zwei Stunden sitze ich jetzt hier mittlerweile. Habe nasse Füße, mein Mantel ist bestimmt auch noch nicht trocken. Und wird auch nicht trockener, wenn ich wieder nach Hause fahre. Seit zwei Stunden beobachte ich nun den Baum, der vor meinem Bürofenster steht. Und sich nicht bewegt. Zwei Stunden Ruhe. Der Ticker auf Spiegel Online überschlägt sich mit Meldungen, die was mit "Kyrill" zu tun haben. Im Übrigen ein sehr schöner Name. Vielleicht sollte ich meine Tochter nicht Celica, sondern Kyrill nennen. "Schatz, wir haben dich nicht nach einem Auto benennen können, weil der Name des Sturmes schöner war". Da freut sie sich bestimmt. In anderen Gebieten werden Fussballspiele abgesagt, schwanken Fernsehtürme (gleich um die Ecke), angeblich zumindest, heben Anhänger ab und gibt es Todesopfer. Das erste.

Und ich schau weiter den Baum an, dessen Zweige sich nicht bewegen, oder sich maximal ab und an ein wenig wiegen. Ansonsten ist nix. Ein paar Kilometer weiter oben (gen Himmel, nicht nördlich), rasen die verschiedensten Grautöne über uns hinweg, was wiederum aus einem Cartoon stammen könnte, der gerade an der Stelle bedrohlich wirkt. Zu wirken versucht. Denn die Kräne zeigen auch absolut keine Anzeichen davon, dass sich irgendwas bewegt. Alles ist still, bis auf den Himmel ganz weit oben.

Ich glaube, ich lasse heute abend mein Fenster offen und lausche dem Wind. Wenigstens angeklappt kann mans doch lassen. Und sich vorstellen, wie man mit dem Partner angekuschelt im Sicheren sitzt, sich von der Gefahr da draußen (ists denn eine? Hier zumindest?) überhaupt nicht beeindrucken lässt.

Der Kran bewegt sich jetzt übrigens. Hin und her. Er dreht sich, nach links, nach rechts, im Kreis herum, ohne seine Last vorn abzulegen.

Irgendwie erinnert mich gerade alles ein bisschen an Neon Genesis Evangelion. Wenn die Leute evakuiert sind, und man nur noch wartet (der zweite Kran dreht sich gerade) bis der Angriff auf die Angels tatsächlich durchgeführt wird. Speziell in der Folge mit dem... Würfel der sich in die Hauptquartiere hineinboren will. An der Stelle müssen die Kinder ja auch ne ganze Weile warten.

Ich glaub, ich spiel nachher Final Fantasy. Nachdem ich meinen Koffer gepackt habe.

Kein Killerspiel. Not a killing game.

2007-01-16T12:50:00.000+01:00

Disclaimer:
Weil mir das ganze doch etwas zu Herzen geht, wird dieser Post mal zweisprachig sein.

Because this topic is something i really care about, this article is going to be in English AND in German.

Heute auf Arbeit wurde ich von einem Freund mit den Worten begruesst, dass er gehoert habe, die beiden Jungs, die kuerzlich ihre Eltern (oder so?) ermordet haben, haetten Final Fantasy VII gespielt und daher diesen Mord begangen.

Dies kann man an diversen Stellen nachlesen:

RTL News: Die beiden Schüler spielten offenbar das sogenannte Killerspiel "Final Fantasy".

Bild: "Die als freundlich bekannten Gymnasiasten haben das Computerspiel „Final Fantasy VII“ nachgespielt. Darin kämpfen auf einem fiktiven Planeten „Gut gegen Böse“." (is ja noch harmlos)

GameZone (kritisch dazu) "[..] hatten die beiden Schüler ihre Tat geplant und dabei das "Computerspiel Final Fantasy VII nachgespielt"."

So isses also, Final Fantasy, in dem man auch des Öfteren mal so Beschwörungen wie die "Ritter der Tafelrunde", "Leviathan" und "Shiva" herbeizaubert.

Fragt sich nur, obs vielleicht daran liegen koennte, dass dieses Spiel in Deutschland nach ca. 10 Jahren immer noch in den Top10 der besten Spiele haengt, zumindest bei den User-Rankings. Kann ja wohl nicht sein, dass ein Spiel so lange erfolgreich bleiben kann.
Zumindest duerfte es jetzt erstmal noch ne Weile dort bleiben, die Leute sind ja neugierig, was das sein soll, was da soviel Aufruhr macht.

Für all diejenigen, die nicht wissen, was FF ist, oder speziell FF7, die machen sich bitte hier schlau: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_VII

Es handelt sich hierbei um eine komplexe aber auch witzige Geschichte, verpackt in einem Rollenspiel mit suessester Klötzchengrafik (in den Videos aber umso bessere Grafiken), in der man selbst einen, aeh, gebeutelten Helden spielt (zusammen mit einigen anderen Figuren), und versucht, die Welt vor dem Bösen zu retten. Die Bösen töten natürlich, aber ganz ehrlich, das tun sie in etlichen Filmen, Serien, anderen Spielen auch. Es ist auch nicht so, dass die Geschichte sonderlich real scheint, im Gegenteil, schon allein das Gros der Monster ist eindeutig dem Fantasy-Bereich zuzuordnen.

Ich bekenne mich ausdrücklich als Gamerin. Als extensive Gamerin ausserdem. Und ich spiele auch verdammt gerne Final Fantasy. Wenn jetzt jemand "Crysis" o.ä. verurteilen würde, Schuld daran zu sein, könnte ich zumindest nachvollziehen, woher die Gedanken kommen, weil das Spiel auch gerade damit wirbt, sehr realitätsnah zu sein.
Aber wenn in Deutschland durch die Medien wirklich alles verdammt wird, was nicht nur "schöne heile Welt" ist, und evtl. auch aufm Index landen sollte (ich hör nicht auf, FF zu spielen!) dann machen die sich selbst den Absatzmarkt für Unterhaltungselektronik kaputt und ich bin umso weniger unglücklich über meinen Wegzug, der da kommen wird.

Ich staune nur über die Hetze die da wirklich von mehreren TV-Sendern UND Zeitungen gleichzeitig betrieben wird. Hat noch niemand was von objektiver Berichterstattung gehoert? Oh, Moment. Wir sind ja in Deutschland.

When i got to work today, a friend of mine sent me a message, greeting me with the words that he has heard Final Fantasy was being called a "Killer Game" (killer games are, in Germany, the reason why all murders, committed by people under 25, actually happen), in the context that this game caused two 17-yr. old guys to kill their parents.

If you can read German, then you can find the articles there:

RTL News: The two pupils apparently have been playing the killer game "Final Fantasy".

Bild: "The pupils, known as friendly guys, have replayed the game "Final Fantasy VII". There, the good side is fighting the evil side on a foreign planet. (which is harmless)

GameZone (critical point of view) "[..] the two students planned the crime and replayed the Computer Game "Final Fantasy VII" by doing so."

Thats how it is, Final Fantasy, the game in which you sometimes keep casting summons like "Knights of the Round Table", "Leviathan" and "Shiva".

I wonder though if one reason might be that FF7 is still one of the most successful games and in the Top10 of the best games (user ranking OnlineWelten). A game shouldnt be successful this long.
Well, for the time being it will remain this successful, since it got a lot of attention. If you dont know, what FF7 is, look there: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Fantasy_VII

I am an excessive gamer. And i utterly love playing Final Fantasy. So if someone called "Crysis" a killer game, i would sort of understand where they were coming from, because they actually advertise with how close their game is to reality. But FF is so far from the real reality that it is just OBVIOUS that it is a fantasy game.
But, when in Germany the media keeps condemning everything which is not "brave new world" and puts stuff on the "index" (meaning to forbid that; i WONT stop playing FF!), then they destroy their own market for entertainment, and i am even less sorry about moving away in the nearer future.

I am just surprised by the massive baiting done through several TV stations AND magazines/newspapers against games, series, movies etc. Has anyone ever heard of objective journalism? oh wait. We are in Germany. Forgot.

Happy New Year! ...and all that jazz.

2007-01-09T11:17:00.000+01:00

Yeah, i know, it's been a while since i've blogged the last time. Mid-december? :) So, an update on what happened:

- christmas
- new year's eve
- university started again.

Too quick? Well, what shall i say. On the first christmas day (being 25th of december, and by the way, we get our presents on the 24th :P) we went to the thermae in Templin, near Berlin. It was refurbished and partly redesigned, so it freshly opened on dec 24th (i think). We were all really looking forward to this, but oh my gosh! Cables were sticking out, they didnt have any "Pommes Frites" for the kids anymore (at all!), the pools - and the floors in general were full of concrete powder and sand... plus when you went to the outer saunas then you got a really bad surprise when taking off your shoes before the sauna (you dont take the shoes inside the sauna. develops dangerous gases. So you morons from the gym near me, take that advice and leave your shoes outside.) because the ground was ice-cold -- surely not too healthy for the kidneys etc..
And the water is still not warm enough for me. Then again, my hands manage to get even colder while being warmmed up. But still. (though, that is nothing new, used to be like that before the renovation too).
All in all it was a very ambiguous trip. On the one hand it was really nice to be there again and go swimming there, and we liked it. On the other hand the general condition of that thing (also the new layout of the sauna area - there are two places where you sit and your back is heated through some bits of hay - of course you do that naked - which used to be in the quiet room, now you are being exposed to the whole cafe; the dressing rooms are "somewhere" hidden etc etc) was soooo disgusting, that it was a real downer to the whole trip.

The next day already, after a quick to the hospital, i was on my way to England. Royal Leamington Spa, dig that. It turned out to rain for the whole time of 9 days which i spent there (yahey), sometimes just slightly, which was alright, and sometimes heavily - like when we went to Sainsbury's, 30 walking minutes away. Even my otherwise waterproof coat started to wet through, causing wet shoulders etc.
But well. i got to see some bits of Wales (a rainy Newport and a skateshop as well as a not-rainy but wet Cardiff and a pub ;)), of which i have to say the countryside is really gorgeous, even in rainy times. cant wait to see it again in the summer :)
Anything else to say about that week?
Well.
a) The Exorcism of Emily Rose was alright, but not more than that. Not scary in the slightest, no really shocking moments, and well _I_ felt bored.
b) Saw I + II were also not as horrific as i expected them to be, aside from the guy cutting his foot off. Couldnt watch that, somehow i really dont like watching people crippling themselves voluntarily.
c) Night at the Museum was good fun. Ben Stiller does a good job there, it is a very nice family film and kept us (old enough :P) entertained too.
d) 21 grams. One word: awesome. Sean Penn for the win!
e) same applies to I am Sam (my lord, he is so... cute...) still my personal favourite. sometimes you dont know whether to be slightly put off, to cry or to laugh.
f) Borat - if you are not easily offended, go, watch this. It is so painful that it is funny again :D
g) Amores Perros - those who like 21 grams, snatch or other films like that should really see amores perros. it surely is a very long film (around 150 minutes), but it is worth it. Definitely one of the better films i have seen.
h) Jesus Camp - crazy stuff. it is a documentary on extremely religious people who can make children cry and act very weird. Go, see it.
i) Neon Genesis Evangelion is still cult.
j) Serial Experiments Lain as well - for Geeks like me :)
k) Paranoia Agent is just slightly less creepy than Lain, but fun, too. :)

So, we have been watching loads of films and/or series. And not been outside much, aside from usually 2 or 3 hours of walking around and/or go shopping, eat out and whatnot. And that we have only done to burn at least SOME calories from the horrendous amount of crisps we've eaten. Did you know that there are 26-pack-multipack bags from Walker's? I mean. 26 packs.... it contained Cheddar flavoured crisps though, which are awesome :)
All in all i am extremely happy that i went there, but im not going to post any further details on the trip.(only that british airways is cool :D)

Well, and now university and work have started again, so everything is back to normal... i guess :)

"'Nein' zur PKW-Maut" -- yeaaah, right.

2007-01-09T10:49:00.000+01:00

Jaja, alte Nachrichten, eigentlich schon keine News mehr. Aber aus irgendeinem Grund wurden sie nur in einer Quelle (auf die ich jetzt nicht gerade stolz bin, aber meine google-news suche hat nichts anderes gebracht und die originalnachrichten hab ich in irgendeiner Papierformzeitung != Kurier gesehen)...

http://www.berlinonline.de/berliner-kurier/print/berlin/153971.html :
"[..]Abschied [..] von Fahrten innerhalb des S-Bahnrings. Der Bereich wird ab 2008 zur "Umweltzone". Und dort ist eine Maut fällig: 10 Euro im Jahr. [..]"Wer ohne Plakette erwischt wird, riskiert 40 Euro Bußgeld und einen Punkt in Flensburg", so Dittmar. Ab 2010 sind auch Benziner ohne geregelten Kat und Diesel mit roter (Euro-Norm 2 oder 1 mit Rußfilter) und gelber Plakette (Euro 3 oder 2 mit Rußfilter) ausgeschlossen. Die Regel gilt auch für Touristen."

Na denn, gut nacht :)

(auch wenn 10 Euro/Jahr noch gehen. Aber letztlich isses wiederum nur ein vergleichsweise kleiner Fahrbereich für den die berappt werden muessen. Und wer weiss wann die teurer werden.)

Update:
von ner genauso guten Quelle ( http://www.bz-berlin.de/aktuell/berlin/070107/staub.html, jaja, ich sprühe heute nur vor zuverlässigen Quellen):

" Um die Fahrverbote in der Umweltzone kontrollieren zu können, brauchen wir eine Kennzeichnung der Fahrzeuge, die fahren dürfen. Die Plakette wird etwa 10 Euro kosten. Sie gilt bis zum Lebensende des Fahrzeuges. Damit decken wir lediglich den Herstellungspreis und den Verwaltungsaufwand ab. Letzten Endes ist die Plakette ebenso ein Ausweis wie der Führerschein, der ebenfalls etwas kostet.", Zitat Hoff.

Vermutlich also, entgegen dem Artikel des Kurier (*schuettel*) keine Jahresgebühr, sondern eine einmalige Gebühr, bis man das nächste Auto kauft?

Auch gut: "Berlin steht zudem mit seiner Forderung, ab 2010 nur noch "Euro-III-plus-Partikelfilter- Fahrzeuge" in die City zu lassen, alleine da." (Quelle: BerliNews)

MoPo: ""Die Plakette wird etwa 10 Euro kosten", sagt Marie-Luise Dittmar, Sprecherin der Senatsumweltverwaltung. "das ist eine einmalige Investition. Sie gilt dann solange das Auto fährt.""

Also wird beim Kurier wieder heißer gekocht als gegessen wird. Trotzdem keine schlechte Einnahmequelle, wenn man die Menge der Autos in der berliner Innenstadt bedenkt... ;) und dann kommen noch die Touris hinzu.... etc

Cuter than pretty much everything...

2006-12-18T22:18:00.000+01:00

go there: http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/catsong.php

it is rather old, so some of you might already know it, but it is sooooo cute that i thought i'd just post it up here...

2006-12-17T18:48:00.000+01:00

Singing Bird

2006-12-17T01:20:00.000+01:00

This thing is actually a flash animation, but i honestly cant find the original source of it anymore.... if you know it by any chance, please, make sure to tell me - it's just hilarious :)

The Amish Deception Thing

2006-12-15T16:57:00.000+01:00

Since the page with the story of the Amish abuse is currently down for maintenance, Here the direct link to the (long, but worthwile) story of an Amish family:

http://www.amishabuse.com/chapter1pg1.htm
Check it out if you have time on your hands, it is still rather shocking to read what happens without other people noticing...

Old news, apparently

2006-12-15T16:38:00.000+01:00

As it seems (goodness, i am slow sometimes) the video of the Jesus Camp is a little bit older... and the camp shut down:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003365311_jesuscamp08.html

"The summer camp featured in the documentary "Jesus Camp," which includes scenes with disgraced preacher Ted Haggard, will shut down for at least several years because of negative reaction sparked by the film, according to the camp's director."

Well... was to be expected, sort of...

Jesus Camp

2006-12-15T15:44:00.000+01:00

Thanks to Ben i have seen this really disturbing video. it is worth seeing though. There are two kids that play a major part in this video: Rachel and Levy.
Rachel is one of those kids you actually want to take away and brainwash her in a way that makes her forget the current brainwash. Big sympathy for her, she is already rather freak-ish, I wonder how bad it will be later on in her life.
Levy, the boy, on the other hand, is a different matter. Actually I sympathise with him. Yeah, he had to hold this preach etc etc, but he did it quite well, and I assume that, as long as you dont touch any religious matter talkwise, you can get along with him very well. Though hearing him say that when talking to non-christians something would be missing makes me feel sick again. Anyhow, it is an interesting flick - oh and i can also recommend actually clicking on the videos to see the comments, some of them are rather interesting...

Apparently someone started to bitch and caused youtube to remove the videos. if you happen to find them, feel free to note me :)

A chair is NOT a cool christmas gift.

2006-12-14T17:27:00.000+01:00

Money and gift certificates have a really bad reputation regarding their use as christmas presents. Quite frankly, opposed to the general reputation, money, as a piece of paper with the same value but much more restrictive, gift certificates would be on top of my wish list right now. Normally i love reading good, intriguing books, and even more i love getting new gadgets for my pc or laptop - or for gaming. But if someone absolutely has no idea on what to get me, i am fine with appropriate gift certificates. Considering the fact that i mentioned that i'd quite like getting a wii, upgrade my computer or get a PS2 probably gift certs would have been the best options.

Today i got my christmas present. I was playing the piano when my parens rang the door, asking me to come down since they already had my present, but because it was so heavy and huge they couldnt hide it and wanted to give it to me today already - after i helped them carrying it up. I dashed down, hoping for... i dont know, hoping for the wii :) (but i think that one isnt really heavy) and when i arrived downstairs i saw two huge packages with... chairs.
I got a god damn chair.

And because it was a relatively expensive chair (well, we're not rich, so dont think of a diamond chair ;)) and because they said it this will be my only gift.

I think, it is about time (next February, early enough before my birthday) to tell them, that i dont want any pressies anymore. You anticipate so much, but.... well, my brother usually gets what he likes, game boys, now a nintendo ds, loads of lego, some electronic stuff........ the only electronic device i got was a mega drive II back in the days and a tiny TV for it. And Final Fantasy VII, but i had to pester my parents for years to get that. Oh and a mini-stereo, but that was about 10 years ago, too. Aside from that count watches, pullovers, clocks, perfumes, make up etc to the list. And coats. Loats of stuff i am not interested in the least. Instead i have to buy everything that is technical myself. And selling the gifts? You dont do that.

So, any alternatives? Yes. Telling them to stop giving you stuff for christmas. and birthdays of course, too. Because then you dont expect them to get something cool. And the disappointment is MUCH smaller.

a friggin chair....*grumbles*....

Nice Reflex-Zones

2006-12-14T11:19:00.001+01:00

Yeah, right.

2006-12-13T22:55:00.000+01:00

Note: this is the EU/German version of a rather well known online game... MMORPG more precisely.

EU. GERMAN.

Aquarium

2006-12-13T17:33:00.000+01:00

Before my trip to the hospital i went to the zoo and aquarium, because my dad and I have won 4 tickets to go there. So i took my mum, brother and his friend there on a sunday to see what happened, since we all havent been there in quite a while.

Unfortunately i got bored of it very quickly, we have an animal park somewhere else in the city, which is much better, because you can have strolls around and it really is more of a park than a collection of animals, whereas the zoo just seems packed...

anyhow, i will just let the pictures speak:

Yepp, animal pictures. again. as if you have never seen any in your life ;)

What a fun night.

2006-11-06T11:23:00.000+01:00

Saturday night i went to see Borat... a very recommendable movie btw. My friend and i went there for the prime time show, but as it turned out it was sold out already. But we gladly took the chance to go and see it in the late evening (10 pm). When we got the tickets, S. has seen a friend of hers, M., standing there too, and we went there to chat him up. Them actually, because he was with a friend, W., from Birmingham. Since they wanted to see Borat as well we asked them if they wanted to go to the late night show with us. M. was quite eager to do so, but W. kept complaining and complaining... whyever. At least he thought i was English, which was quite cool. Well. He also never smiled (apart from one situation), never got to the point but always tried to get all attention to him.
So, we thought about what to do to kill some time... S. and I decided to go to McDonalds and get some milkshake (we are just girls that need something sweet every now and again ;)) and M. didnt mind too much, whereas W. started to complain again how much he hates fast food places, fast food in general etc etc etc. gosh.
as we arrived at Mac and got our milkshakes the guys decided to head back to get the movie tickets and we went upstairs to drink and chat. Since W. was bothering me all the time before (he can talk quite a lot, usually just to show off how cool he is... moron) S. and I were gossipping quite a bit about how bad W. was and about... uh... other things. *grins roguishly* when the guys came back. Guess what W. had in his hands? A big pack of Dunkin Donuts. But fast food is shit, eh? The most annoying thing was his "listen listen listen listen" for aaages until we were not really interested anymore and then he really started to complain. And usually he even then never got to the point or just said something as interesting as "i had noodles and salad"... i mean... whoa. that surely is extremely important.
So well, after Mac he wanted to go to the casino. Us girls tried to convince him of it being a pretty bad idea but he was so keen on going there... well. S. and I went on a walk around the buildings, talking again. Then they got out (we were waiting first and they didnt see us at all, which was quite funny :D) and W. went on complaining to me about how bad it was and that they lost money and all that.
Back to the movies he noticed that our seats were not together. "boo". and he insisted on sitting together for some reason, whereas S. and I were glead about having the rest from him, and the film was quite awesome, as said before.

Oh, by the way, if you dont know english too well, then dont friggin go and watch the original version of a film if you need everything translated! Morons!

Outside again he was standing at a table, arms folded, looking dead serious... but as i greeted him with "Hey there, happy one" he smiled! yes! a real, genuine smile! one would have been able to believe that! and asked me about my favourite parts of the film (most funny parts) that no one else laughed about for example. We agreed that we loved the hinting on the Koran-thing, but then he kept nagging me for more scenes. Which i couldnt tell, just had the overall impression... There he was, sulking. but when i asked him, he couldnt name me any scenes either...

Back to the train (took ages to get there, thanks to W.) the cultural difference between English speaking countries (Americans are the same, really). M., S. and I were chatting in German for a moment, but it was really of no interest for W., so it wouldnt have changed anything if we talked in english. but it was a bit quicker for the other two to do it in German (I dont mind either, really) so well. In the train W. started to diss M. quite badly because he was talking in german.

Something along the lines "I am your guest, so you dont f*cking talk in German while i am there! That is just rude!" blablablablabla.. and he kept going on, getting louder and louder, while i started to build up some explosion material too... tried to have a go at him (because if we were visiting his country he would require US to speak english there because we were guests and had to fit in etc.) which he countered with "Who are you? Who are you? Who are you?" blabla (i asked him back).

If we werent in a train i would have started to show him his limits properly, but i didnt want to go down to his level on the train. In a quieter location, yes. On the train, no. But the other passengers were amused... Understandably.

Gosh, was he arrogant. I am sure he easily gets violent too....

Settling a score.

2006-11-06T09:41:00.000+01:00

Disclaimer: to avoid revealing too much specific information on certain persons, i will call them A, B, C etc...

As some of you might remember, i'm doing martial arts. and as some others might recall i switched my teachers a little while ago. Now, in my opinion things only work out when you combine them, otherwise you are highly biased regarding the main aspect of the whole thing. While my former main teacher, A, minimises things as much as he can and tries to limit the teachings to a single form. This bit also sucks a little, because you dont get to choose "your" form. even if it doesnt matter too much in the end, everyone has his or her preferred form, and I quite like being able to choose. On the upside though when doing tui shou we learned to do it free-form. without any certain boundaries. which pleases me a lot.
so the new teacher, B, is trying to focus on teaching you a few more forms, so you can pick in the end, even if he does it in a certain order.
So, even if he is quite arrogant regarding his abilities (in my opinion you can be proud of having won some competitions, although he, if i recall correctly, never actually has won any, just got some good placements) you can learn quite a lot from him.
What pisses me off even more are those he calls "assistants". With one exception (the only problem with him is his posture, but at least he knows his flaws) they all think their abilities are so friggin great that they sort of forget they suck.
why they suck?
well, lets have a look at C for instance. She really thinks her MA abilities rock. But for example a big no-no is to have a hollow-back. noooow guess what she has, extremely...?
And she keeps talking about energetic aspects of that MA, but hell, no. Not her. She talks too much about things. And when she is supposed to _TEACH_ all she does is care about herself and mind her own business (like just practicing her own forms for the whole lesson). Even if you have a competition going on, you can still learn on your own, in your free time. Dont need to leave people, who pay for lessons, by themselves.

Not criticising to leave some by themselves and taking care of others, sometimes you cant do it differently. But she wasnt even doing that, instead she took out her mp3 player, turned it on an practiced. When D came in she was doing the same with him, but altogether still didnt care about the students (D is an assistant now too). Oh, added to her arrogance she claims to be overly spiritual. C'mon girl. get some sense.
So, lets head on to D. He did some Karate, and he usually does some fancy acrobatics these days... his posture is overly correct, he thinks he is using the whole energy bit as well (i mean, hello? i have been doing this for quite a few years now, and the whole chi bit is not too constant still... sometimes things work quite easily, but some days it takes loads of concentration to get at least a little bit usable. then it is not more than the last 5 minutes i can train properly. but he "use" Fajin throughout the forms, even when he just arrived to the lessons (late as usual). And his spirituality combined with an alternative lifestyle etc... horrendous. He is rather handsome, and i fell for him for a bit, but quite frankly he's just getting on my nerves these days. What should i do? Probably im going to ignore him and just get better.
Same regarding E. overly spiritual. He is one of those you expect to go to india for a while to find "God". Or gob, for that matter. He cant decide what sort of spiritual healing course he should do now. And he stinks. I mean, really. he does. As if he never has heard anything of deodorants. And educationally speaking he is a loser. As are F. and G. The only exception is H, but unfortunately i dont see him very often.
I highly respect A and H, even if, eventually, it felt as if A tried to slow me down quite a bit, i respect B, but the others i do not respect in the slightest.
Oh, there is someone else i like quite a bit in the course, but he is just an "ordinary" student. no assistant or anything. So it doesnt count.

Maybe i should switch again. Find another teacher. Someone who gets my true respect, meaning that it doesnt vanish after few months. *pissed off*

Oh and another reason for being pissed off is that B only strongly supports C - G, not so much H... for whatever reason.

(D has been doing this MA for little more than half a year now, and he knows 3 or 4 forms already. eh?)

Eskobar Gig@Magnet, Berlin - 1.11.2006

2006-11-02T19:52:00.001+01:00

So i went to the eskobar gig last night, in Berlin :) I arrived about 50 minutes too early, but that actually was quite cool, because so i could take a picture of this wonderful thing:

AND sit down next to the monitor box on the stage. Yes, that's right, there was no fence, nothing. i could even climb on the stage if i wanted to. But i didnt - couldnt be arsed to do so. So within the remaining time until the gig was supposed to start i basically just sent text messages, played games and whatnot, just to kill time. Didnt bring any money with me (should have, because i should have got a CD by Cabezas when i could) so there was nothing else to do.

Then the first support band stormed the stage - Nice Boy Music - four guys from Hamburg playing some sort of BritPop, relaxed Rock, all that

't was a bit difficult initially, because, you know, the audience in berlin is a little bit difficult. Too much music around here, people aren't easily impressed, they just stand around, barely smile... I was dancing a bit, but since i took the photos i couldnt do that too much.

The bass player decided to smoke on the stage (as did some of the guitarists that night too), but about 5 minutes later he needed a new string for his bass. serves him right - but the smoke itself looked quite nice in the red light.
Nice Boy Music played for about an hour - in the first moment i was fearing that my ears were going to fall off (the short "test"tunes on the guitar hurt a lot) but it turned out to be alright, as long as they didnt cane the drums. Because then it was pure pain. But that only happened twice during the whole evening, so who am I to complain? :)

So yeah, Nice Boy Music, a band from Hamburg, worth checking out: Myspace-Page with some audio examples. Although they sound much better live. :)
Oh, if you wonder why my pictures are so red'ish: i didnt use the flashlight, because i dont like doing that. But there were three girls who kept spamming with flash light photography, it was soooooooooooooooooooo annoying. And that girl was always smiling so overly cute when she took a picture, as if she wanted to get one of the music, regardless which one.
However.
Next on stage (after about 15 minutes break) was Cabezas.
Patricio Cabezas is a spanish guy who came to Sweden when he was around 10 years old, and well, add Spanish fire to the fact that Swedish people must have some weird hormons in their cereals, making them awesome musicians, and you got Cabezas. Together with Daniel Gidlund, who he formed the band with, he managed to create some really nice layers of music, with only two instruments: voice (twice) and guitar (twice). In the aftermath i am sorry that i didnt take some money with me, since i should have bought the CD.

You can find some of his tracks on MySpace again, although they are not as minimalistic as the stage show: Clicky for the page. Still very pretty, i think. Both of them have really nice voices, and high skills regarding their skill to play the instruments. And the arrangements... they are gems.

So, yeah, it was an amazing gig, even if extremely short - they played for about 30 Minutes, just 6 or 7 songs, including a cover (i think it was Blue Suede Shoes. but then again it was some sort of a ballad. so please, dear readers, correct me if i'm mistaken).

And then... 15 minutes later the masters of disaster. Eskobar themselves coming on stage, right in front of me :) but, oh what a surprise, Cabezas playing the bass with Eskobar? i really didnt expect that. Cabezas and the lead singer of eskobar were all quite a bit shorter than i imagined they would be, but i guess size isn't everything. Daniel has such a crystal clear voice that always makes you dream away.. they started off with "Big Sleeper", which already prepared the assumption that they mixed old and new songs... and indeed, they played 20 songs, from all albums they have released so far.

Although the show was not as soft as one would have expected from the album, you really could consider that as rock. However, i can only say that i enjoyed it, post up some more pictures and some videolinks... (i recorded fours songs).

More pictures on my flickr stream

And the videos:
Eskobar - Whatever this town
Eskobar - Persona Gone Missing
Eskobar - Real Life
Eskobar - Love Strikes

Targeted Achievements.

2006-10-24T09:30:00.000+02:00

It's been a while, i know, and i have been horribly busy. Didnt even play FFXI, my otherwise favourite game, in quite a while. However, I did quite a lot of sports, to lose some weight.

Even if it might sound rather obsessed, I will give you a short insight into the whole dilemma.

When i was a bit younger, and still on the pill, i gained so much that i ended up with 72 / 73 kg which made me look like a pig. I am 178 cm tall (that is 5'10"), i know that you will most likely say "wha, but that is still totally slim" and so on - believe me, i was not. And it felt horrible. So I did some sports -- and achieved nothing. Even if I kept eating a bit less than before (I changed nutrition and i did quite some sports, but it didnt help). As sad as it might sound, the only times when i managed to get rid of some was during my bulimic and my anorexic times. Usually the bulimia followed the anorexia, because i like food and cant stand not to eat anything at all, so it looked like the better option. Despite all those talks about "you get the calories immediately after swallowing down the food" etc. I got down to 67 with that.
Then i managed to control myself and get back to normal, plus - I dont know how, but I somehow got down to 60. Yay, this is where i liked myself most. not less, not more. However, then i went to the USA for 10 days, and believe it or not, gained 6 kg. It really is true what they say about the size of the food there. Unfortunately i never managed to get rid of it, just keep it, until i got to the hospital for the jaw surgery. Since you are basically just allowed to eat soup, and later mashed potatoes and yoghurt (which you need almost an hour for!) I lost enough to get back to the 60s and felt awesome.
Then the real food came again, and with it the weight - now i'm on 64 - 65 again... it is unbearable. Whatever I do (loads of sports) it seems to not work at all... Probably because i sometimes have to eat in the evenings, due to my full schedule during daytime.
So my goal is to get those 4 - 5 kg down by the end of this year, the latest. Rather sooner than later....then i need to get something else done (nothing bad) and everything's good.

And also i apparently fulfill every bit of the AAD(H)D checklist from the english wikipedia website. Worrying? Yes, but only because someone listed the characteristics of my life without letting me know first. But it'd also explain the eating habit obsession (see the german wikipedia). It also explains why i keep being in some sort of emotional distress when i get pre-surgery-narcotics... like what happened last year (see previous post).
So, i have never seen a doctor about this. And i am most likely never going to, they would just laugh at me anyways. And hey, why be fixed when it is so extremely awesome to be a free spirit, even when you get heavy mood swings and are highly disorganised? You breathe in life, you are more sensitive than most people, you learn many different things because most things interest you... actually everything does, it is just a matter of how well for example the articles you inhale are being written.

Why is it good for me to know that it might be AADHD? I can tell the nurse in the hospital in december to not give me this pill.

Singalong.

2006-10-13T09:23:00.000+02:00

Go, try it! http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2387173299273855247&q=loituma

Nuapurista kuulu se polokan tahti jalakani pohjii kutkutti.

Ievan äiti se tyttöösä vahti vaan kyllähän Ieva sen jutkutti,

sillä ei meitä silloin kiellot haittaa kun myö tanssimme laiasta laitaan.

Salivili hipput tupput täppyt äppyt tipput hilijalleen.

Ievan suu oli vehnäsellä ko immeiset onnee toevotti.

Peä oli märkänä jokaisella ja viulu se vinku ja voevotti.

Ei tätä poikoo märkyys haittaa sillon ko laskoo laiasta laitaan.

Salivili hipput tupput täppyt äppyt tipput hilijalleen.

Ievan äiti se kammarissa virsiä veisata huijjuutti,

kun tämä poika naapurissa ämmän tyttöä nuijjuutti.

Eikä tätä poikoo ämmät haittaa sillon ko laskoo laiasta laitaan.

Salivili hipput tupput täppyt äppyt tipput hilijalleen.

Hilli gotte hilli gotte hilli balle hilla hilli gotte hilli gotte hilli bamba

jalli golli jalla dalli dulli jalla tilli talli tilli talli tilli tanda.

Halli dulli jalla tilli dulli dalla tilli tilli tilli tilli tilli tilli dalla

halli dulli tilli talli jalla dijalla tilli dalli talli dalli helanda.

Rimpa diralla ribi dalli ralla rumpa dirumpa ribidambu

janka rinka rip tabi dabalan tulli tulli rallan tibirandu.

Ja zup zob baridik bari gon lan lik barili lan diz dan du

la libidabi dala rup ba di rubi ra gan buri kan buck aja gidi gan gu.

Rak zuki za ja ribi da bidin la biriz dan din lan den lan do

a birik kapita barik bari baribiribiribiris den den lan do.

Jaba dillas dillan de ja do adabedabedabe dubedabe du ja bum

badis dan din las den lan do badake dake dake du du de ja do.

Siellä oli lystiä soiton jäläkeen sain minä kerran sytkyyttee.

Kottiin ko mäntii ni ämmä se riitelj ja Ieva jo alako nyyhkyytteek.

Minä sanon Ievalle mitäpä se haittaa laskemma vielähi laiasta laitaa.

Salivili hipput tupput täppyt äppyt tipput hilijalleen.

Muorille sanon jotta tukkee suusi en ruppee sun terveyttäs takkoomaa.

Terveenä peäset ku korjoot luusi ja määt siitä murjuus makkoomaa.

Ei tätä poikoo hellyys haittaa ko akkoja huhkii laiasta laitaan.

Salivili hipput tupput täppyt äppyt tipput hilijalleen.

Sen minä sanon jotta purra pittää ei mua niin voan nielasta.

Suat männä ite vaikka lännestä ittään vaan minä en luovu Ievasta,

sillä ei tätä poikoo kainous haittaa sillon ko tanssii laiasta laitaan.

Salivili hipput tupput täppyt äppyt tipput hilijalleen.

Why..

2006-10-09T03:54:00.000+02:00

why is it always during the oddest times of day or night that you
actually really need someone to take you into his or her arms and tell
you everythings gonna be alright? Usually when you cant even call anyone
and at least ask that person to say so?

I already wrote this article once more, a bit earlier. but opera started
bitching, so i am assuming it does not want to have the rest published.

One thing though.
I assume you know that before you have a surgery under general
anaesthetics you usually get some kind of pill to calm you down and to
prevent emotional stress because of fear (of what might happen). Did you
know that on some people this pill has the opposite effect? Meaning that
you basically go through an emotional hell?
Next time, i will decline taking that pill... it felt like .. all
emotions being let out at once, being so overwhelming - so scary - that
you just cant help but cry. A LOT. Severely. The nurses had quite a bad
job with calming me down, i dont know why they havent just put me to
sleep - i was on the table already anyways! (which made it no better.
but hey, i have seen the inside of the surgery room :))
The surgery this year (December again I reckon) will be very similar.
And about as dangerous, they can (for some reason, since they wont break
my skull this time) damage the same nerves, they can screw up my teeth,
etc etc. Even if it will be shorter and sparing the lymphatic drainage.
Ever had one of those? They are bearable - until they have to be
removed. My doc did it without removing the vacuum first.
those 20 seconds felt like 20 minutes, believe me ;)

But apart from that.. i am a very tough and strong girl. Honest.

Lightbrix

2006-09-29T11:22:00.000+02:00

This basically is a cool version of Blinkenlights just that it adds the ability to change the light intensity upon touch. Check http://www.hehe.org/lightbrix/index.html for some more text as well as a video :)

Some more contemporary art

2006-09-28T03:03:00.000+02:00

I am too tired for writing any texts. However, check out his portfolio on http://www.michael-latimer.com/
If you fancy some tees, then go to http://www.lowercaseindustry.com/ and check out his products... no i dont get any money, even if i would quite like to have the Medium CrossOff Tee .
On the other hand, i still wanna have this shirt as well :D gotta see about my new job! :)

2006-09-27T20:26:00.000+02:00

You know him. I know you do. This is the Vitruvian Man by DaVinci. Now, imagine this picture being used in Biology classes do demonstrate the location of human organs.
Apparently the lecturer makes her students even draw the picture into their sketchbooks as well, so they can sort of "live" the idea.... go to this page and scroll down a little

Time Curtain

2006-09-27T19:19:00.000+02:00

http://www.sonerozenc.com/index1.htm
Ever wondered what time it is when you passed through a door in your flat?
Well, now you'll know :)

3D Commercials

2006-09-27T19:04:00.000+02:00

This time i dont mean the kind of commercials that have a giant football sticking out of a building. Actually, it is just the ordinary kind of street ads you are used to, simply going around a corner and implementing this into the whole design. Quite cool actually; for more pics, please click on the picture below:

(Street) Art 2.0

2006-09-27T18:33:00.000+02:00

I bet you all know the kind of streetart that involves Graffiti or chalk, right? or some sorts of statues and all the likes.

So, it is time to move on and find a new fancy style of street art which is even sort of legal (partly), so i want to present you a short but sweet list of new ways to make streetart:

a) Arty Bike Lanes - this one is actually legal in this case, the court ruled that this particular guy was allowed to continue designing bike lanes
b) Reverse Graffiti Art - This seems to be legal as well, oh and it is sort of my personal favourite. Despite him advertising UK Big Brother which many people seem to dislike (me too, kinda, but he does his own stuff this way too), it is kinda cool to make graffiti by simply _cleaning_ the buildings... you know, it is like little children writing stuff with their fingers on dusty windows. And if you wanna remove it, just clean the rest of the building.
c) LED Throwies - Okay, this i kinda expensive. And sort of lame. But it is definitely legal (because easy to remove), and furthermore if you wanna pimp your own home then just go for it :D (the surface has to be ferromagnetic in order to hold the throwies)
d) Glowing fabrics - Thank Philips for this gorgeous invention or well, development. Not exactly street art as it is, but you can surely make some with that... just imagine the possibilities...!!!! :)

Site Feed, old posts, new fun :)

2006-09-27T18:22:00.000+02:00

As you might have noticed (or not, since i tried to keep the same layout - MIGHT change it. but that is subject to free time) i switched the blogger software to Blogger beta. It doesn't only offer labels, which are probably something like tags, but also comment feeds etc.
Does anyone ever use comment feeds? and are there feeds that actually merge the entries and comments?
Oh, please update your site feeds if you are using an RSS reader. you can find the feed address on the bottom of this page....
If you want to read through my old blog:
you can find it here, i probably wont update it though. The Site feed for the old blog changed to http://lost-in-cold-fire.blogspot.com/atom.xml ...