It was a bright cold day in April

Twitter et al

2009-06-10T12:46:00.001+02:00

It's sad, but these days I can't even concentrate long enough to write a blog post! I am on Twitter, so, you know, you can follow me there. And one day I'm gonna sort all this blog mess out...

2009/04/22 14:33

2009-04-22T14:31:00.002+02:00

Doing some errands: Proof-reading a document for Sarah, writing e-Mails, cleaning up.

2009/03/02 5:30 AM

2009-03-02T05:30:00.003+01:00

I deleted my Twitter account ages ago, figuring that I can achieve the same thing through Facebook status updates and still reach about the same people. And then I have this blog, and this phone (or "pocket pc", which should totally translate to "Taschenrechner") to tell the world (you know who you are) what I'm doing at any given moment. Like, "Watching tivoed news and Family Guy while drinking strawberry tea", adding "in bed".

no sleep

2009-03-02T01:52:00.004+01:00

(I'd write on the other blog, but it's the middle of the night and I can't be bothered to translate my thoughts into German right now.)

Sleeping is not an option right now, which sucks, but not as much as it used to. The Internet has long taking the business of distraction to levels television could never match, and that's all I need, really. Distraction.

Well, no, it's not all. The one thing I need more than distraction is control, of course, and even my distraction has to be a controlled one.

First I have to take control over why I can't sleep. Because the default reason (compulsive, graphic thoughts about me dying) is — literally — the worst thing I can imagine.

So I turn on the lights, get something to eat, make a cup of tea and place myself in front of the computer. If it's getting light outside I might go out and photograph, but usually I just check what's new in Reader, chat with people in other time-zones (or people that also can't sleep) and eventually resort to watching some DVDs or downloaded shows.

I used to keep myself awake at night long before I had to. During the last few years of school, I hardly slept at all, and I considered that to be a good thing. The less rested I was, the better I was, at least in areas I deemed important. I was funnier, wittier, had more self-esteem, was more... successful. To feel that way nowadays I have to be either hung-over or spend three months in a mental clinic.

I'm probably over-simplifying things. But, hey, it is the middle of the night.

Blogging

2008-12-04T21:58:00.006+01:00

I keep forgetting that I have this (English written) blog. Not that I get around to writing anything for the German one, but still.

Anyway, last night Jon Stewart had Arianna Huffington on. As is the case with most topics, his thoughts about 'blogging' align almost perfectly with my own:

Of course, I'm in a very differen position than Stewart, not having my own tv show and all. As to "Write what you know", I actually would very much like to do just that. I can imagine some people might be interested in my illness, its treatment and my dealing with all that. Sadly, writing about it - writing about anything, for that matter - would require, well, discipline. And that's a little short around here at the moment.

Still, to take some advice from the likes of Huffington and Andrew Sullivan, blogging should not be like writing a novel. It should be more like corresponding via e-mail, or text messaging even.

With that in mind (and I hope I will keep it in mind), maybe I'll start blogging about some of this more serious stuff. Not that anybody's still reading this site, anyway...

Google's logo for Velázquez' birthday

2008-06-06T13:45:00.002+02:00

Awesome! Another great work by Dennis Hwang!

What a Kant!

2008-06-04T16:05:00.003+02:00

So, I had a huge argument with Marcie (American, born to a German parent) about the pronounciations of the words Kant and cunt.

Disclaimer: I'm talking about the American pronounciation. So none of that British coont business!

To my German readers (all of them?): Say both words out loud.

Kant.

Cunt.

Hear a difference? I sure didn't.

I was sure the two were absolute homophones. But Marcie strongly disagreed.

And so did the IPA: They list Kant as /kant/ and cunt as /kʌnt/. I dismissed this, and Marcie's claim, based on the assumption that Americans just don't pronounce Kant correctly. I was assured that I wasn't mispronouncing cunt by the list of rhymes the Wiktionary gives: blunt, hunt, stunt. In my head, they all have the exact same vowel sound as Kant.

She argued that I don't hear the (tiny, she admitted) difference, because the ʌ sound just doesn't exist in German. Naturally, I wasn't convinced by that argument, at all.

So, how would we settle this? By hearing each other say the words out lout, of course. Skype to the rescue!

Well, turns out Marcie was right. The difference is small, but distinguishable. Although now I can't even recreate it anymore. So I don't really feel like I lost the argument. Chalk this one up to errors of measurment...

Great graffiti artwork in Mainz

2008-05-25T17:57:00.004+02:00

I was in Mainz on Thursday, and while walking around the city with my brother, I noticed this awesome piece of art on this little shack-thingy (which has some kind of science-y, 'immisions measuring' purpose).

Click on the pictures to view the bigger versions. It's worth it!

Pizza

2008-05-22T01:44:00.003+02:00

I've had a lot of (good) pizza in my life. Until recently, the best pizza available was served at the Turkish kitchen of the tennis club house in Usingen, but since they're no longer in business, my old friend Andrea of Mainz' Zum Bierkrug (which is the worst name for an Italian restaurant, ever) steps up to the plate with this one.

¡!

2008-05-16T20:28:00.001+02:00

I'm in Mainz, for my niece's baptism tomorrow. I wish my Spanish was better, as half of the family is from South America.

Fire!

2008-05-16T02:07:00.003+02:00

I was on my way home. When I saw the two big, red fire engines drive into my street, I thought, huh. When they passed me, but suddenly stopped, I thought, oh. When they backed up and I started to notice the smoke coming out of my building's driveway, I thought, Did I leave the oven on?

I didn't. But the guy living on the ground floor did (he's the one not wearing a fire fighter uniform). He was making French Fries, he told me.

I didn't actually see any flames, just some smoke and a lot of fire fighters. Too many, it seemed, as the fire wasn't really that bad. Certainly not to justify two trucks on the scene.

That's about all the damage. Well, that and what I can only describe as the smell of home-made popcorn in the stairway that's gonna be there for a few weeks to come.

360° Hattsteinweiher

2008-05-14T16:23:00.006+02:00

Make sure to click on that image to get the full-sized version.

I returned from a four-day-weekend in Usingen last night. Yesterday morning, I got an e-mail from a fellow flickr-user about a photo of the Hattsteinweiher I took with my cell phone once, a picture that I never really liked.

So I went to the Weiher once more and took some shots for a new, certainly bigger, possibly better panorama, which you can see above. Unfortunately the few minutes I was there were the only ones in the last four days that had any clouds, so the light isn't perfect, and as you can see on parts of the water it even started to rain a bit.

But it's still a nice picture, maybe more so if you actually know the place and spent as much time there as I did.

Not like this.

2008-05-07T18:56:00.005+02:00

This is a perfect example of what kind of person I don't want to be, and what kind of setting I don't want to be in.

I realise that I describe myself as an artist more than anything else, and I love and dwell in culture. But not like this. Not this kind.

Seriously. It's just silly.

There's a place for these things, and it's not in public. These 'poetry jams' are not advancing the art, nor are they advancing the artists, if there should ever be any at those events.

Art is its most beautiful in its most private. Take away the latter, you diminish the former.

Afterthought: You might as well replace private with intimate.

Annotated German Top 20 (2 May 2008)

2008-05-06T13:02:00.004+02:00

I used to do this occasionally in our private Usenet years ago... (Yes, we had a private Usenet. Didn't you?)

Madonna - 4 Minutes
Not the worst thing Madonna ever did, although like most of what Timbaland produces this does get pretty annoying pretty fast.

Duffy - Mercy
At first I didn't have any opinion on this one at all, then Nik told me how much he hated it. I gave it another listen and since then I've really grown to like it.

Ich + Ich - So Soll Es Bleiben
Horrible. This band has outstayed its welcome a long time ago.

Mark Ronson - Valerie
Decent track from an album that has better ones.

Schnuffel - Kuschel Song
Never heard it, I'm assuming it's terrible?

Yael Naim - New Soul
Bland enough to not switch stations when it's on the radio, but that's about it.

Leona Lewis - Bleeding Love
Fantastically cheesy, probably unintentionally bad background "music". The voice gets kind of annoying after a while, though.

OneRepublic - Stop And Stare
Yawn.

Scooter - I'm Lonely
Never heard it, but I know it's terrible.

Stefanie Heinzmann - My Man Is A Mean Man
Annoying. I don't think I have ever listened to the whole song.

Moby - Disco Lies
If this is the song he did on Conan, then... I don't remenber it at all, so it probably isn't very good.

Lützenkirchen - 3 Tage Wach
Never heard it, or of it.

Die Ärzte - Lasse Redn
Not bad, especially now that I've heard the Lasse redn/Funky Town mash-up.

Mariah Carey - Touch My Body
No.

Madcon - Beggin'
Ultra annoying.

Dr Stay - Don't Sweat That
Never heard it.

T-Pain - Low
This is just bad.

Ida Corr - Let Me Think About It
Never heard it.

Der W. - Geschichtenhasser
Never heard it, doesn't sound like something I'd want to hear.

A Fine Frenzy - Almost Lover
It's okay. It's playing too much, though.

Dr. No-Good

2008-04-30T17:11:00.003+02:00

Are all doctors giant douche-bags, or just the ones treating me?

Macro: Skull earring

2008-04-29T13:38:00.003+02:00

This teriffic skull earring is only about 5mm in size, making it a perfect 'model' for me to practice some more macro photography. You can see that the detail my camera produces is not very good at that level, but I'm still satisfied with the results, given the object's size.

O horrible, O horrible, most horrible!

2008-04-27T21:47:00.000+02:00

Here are our Hamlet costumes. Sarah and I made the skulls, crowns and sword out of papier-mâché (we even made the paste ourselves!), adding a few creative clothing choices. Cheap, yes, but we liked it, that's enough.

Bonus: Unnecessary Photoshop treatment:

With all my imperfections on my head:
O, horrible! O, horrible! most horrible!
(Ghost, The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark)

I'm seriously wondering how I ever managed to win all those Photoshop contests!

Priceless

2008-04-26T23:15:00.002+02:00

Shakespeare-party photos follow. Making the costumes (especially the props) was a lot more fun than the party itself. Not to say anything against the party, though. Its mood just wasn't our's, I guess.

Pool shots

2008-04-25T13:28:00.000+02:00

Took these a few weeks back in Usingen. Mostly practice shots (practicing photography, not billiards...), but I particulary like the macro photographs of the cue and the chalk.

They got him, too.

2008-04-23T20:26:00.005+02:00

15 years after he released it, 11 years after his death, 6 years after ER used it in one of the most emotional scenes of its entire run, 4 years after it played over the closing credits of 50 First Dates and 2 years after it was performed by Ted's a capella group on Scrubs, Israel Kamakawiwoʻole's version of Somewhere Over The Rainbow seems to have finally arrived on pop radio.

The next logical steps will be appearances in commercials, excessive use as background music in all kinds of tv shows and the unevitable dance remix.

Well, it was nice while it lasted, Iz.

Merely Players

2008-04-22T20:07:00.000+02:00

So, I have just been invited to a Shakespeare-themed party this Saturday. Although not compulsory, showing up in costume is encouraged. Now, I like to think that I'm a pretty creative guy, and I like The Bard as much as anybody (athough I have to admit that I like reading about him more than reading him), but in practical terms, I'm just not good at costumes.

Still, I'm compelled to come up with something. Ideas I have tossed around in my head already include a toga (well, a white sheet, anyway), cutting down and carrying around tree limbs, and Hamlet.

Dressing up as Hamlet wouldn't be too hard:

Dress all in black, tighter fitting black pants paired with a looser fitting black top fit the part best. For an even more authentic looking Hamlet costume pair a white collared shirt with a looser black tunic. (source)

That's easy. Most of the props (belt, boots, dagger) should be easy to get/make, too. But the skull? I could try to craft one with papier-mâché, I guess. Or just print a photo of a skull onto cardbord... I don't know.

Any suggestions?

Trier Daily Photo

2008-04-20T17:58:00.004+02:00

I finally seem to have kicked the photographer's block and started taking photos that I actually like again, so the next logical step was to re-open Trier Daily Photo (feed) for business.

So last night, around 22:15, I headed outside to catch some of those artificial light reflected on wet surfaces shots that I like so much, and I thought the Kaiserthermen would be a good place to start.

But actually I started on the way there, when I noticed this bench and the wonderful way the lights from the street cast shadows on the path I was standing on. I took the photo on a relatively small tripod (maybe 40 cm / 16 inches above ground), which is a good compromise between the ways I usually shoot (either using my bike's seat as stand or directly from the ground using a mini-tripod). I like to be near the ground in photos, but I don't want it to dominate the picture. With the bench-photo, I considered cropping most of the ground to move the bench away from the (geometrical) center of the image and have the trees featured more, but I decided against it because I really like the way the ground looks in contrast to the background.

I did, eventually, get to the Kaiserthermen. But that's a story for another time - and another photo...

A few photos from my cell phone

2008-04-19T20:00:00.003+02:00

Who says graffiti have to be works of art? Or make sense? I found this near the Karl-Marx-Haus in Trier, and let me just say: Any hood that welcomes someone called "Schnully Bully" is not a bad hood in my book.

This was taken out of the window of my sister Anne and her husband Luis's apartment on the 2oth floor of a building in Mainz Lerchenberg. The same building that my father used to live in more than a decade ago. I remember taking walks around that lake when I was a child.

My mother noticed this one while preparing dinner and wouldn't dare ~~cutting it up~~ breaking it!

This sentence no verb.

2008-04-19T14:25:00.004+02:00

Talk at the breakfast table this morning: A book, by some French guy, entirely without verbs! And with a real plot, too, not just random sentences. Weird, huh?

But why such a thing? Just for effect? Probably a difficult, if not boring novel.

"The Road" by Cormac McCarthy

2008-04-19T11:22:00.003+02:00

I bought The Road in early February, shortly after David Plotz endorsed it on the Slate Political Gabfest. I had never read McCarthy, or seen a film based on one of his works (which has obviously changed since the release of No Country for Old Men), but the way Plotz described the setting and tone of the novel intrigued me. And I was rather disappointed with the book I had been reading at that time (Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner), so my hopes for The Road were high.

I am an incredibly slow reader. I take weeks, sometimes months to finish a novel. That's (partly) because there is a very narrow window for me in which I get around to read. I am constantly surrounded by music, video and text, and it takes some effort to let all that go and concentrate on one thing only.

Not so with this book. I went through The Road in record time, fully captured by the narrative, always wanting to know what happens next. McCarthy's writing is minimalistic and sparse, but at the same time the most moving and powerful I have ever read.

Highly recommended.

Who needs an iPhone ...

2008-01-18T19:22:00.001+01:00

... when you have a WAP-flatrate? I have had one for over three years now, and it just keeps getting better and better. Or can you do all of the following things with your phone?

Read and write e-mails.
The mobile version of Gmail has gotten so good over the years that sometimes I'll use my phone to check for mails even when I'm in the vicinity of the computer. There is also a Gmail Java application available, which is much more comfortable than the version for mobile browsers, but the latter works really well on its own, too.

Chat.
I can use my phone to chat via ICQ, AIM, MSN and Yahoo! Messenger. Not all at the same time, and not as comfortable as on the computer, but it has come in very handy a number of times, and can be a nice way to kill some time.

Upload photos to – and look at photos on – Flickr (or Picasa).
I take at least one photo per day with my phone's camera, and being able to upload them directly to Flickr saves me a lot of time and trouble. And Flickr's image search often times yields interesting results that differ from those of a Google image search (which, of course, is available for mobile browsers, as well).

Read or watch the news.
Of course I can read any website I want, news or not, through Google's WAP-proxy. But if I want to get up to date on the news or search for a certain topic in multiple sources, there's always Google News for mobile phones. And if that still isn't enough, or if I'm too lazy to read, I can even watch the news, the Tagesschau for example.

Facebook.
It's bare-bones only, no external applications or any other fancy stuff, but it does a very good job with what is there. I can update my status, read and write messages and wall posts, search for people, look at my contact's profiles and photos, and groups and events are in there, too.

Google Maps
I just recently installed the Google Maps Java app on my phone, and it's amazing. You've got satellite and map view, you can search for places and businesses, and you can get driving directions. Simply amazing.

Watch videos from YouTube (and MetaCafe, whatever that is).
No, I'm not talking about the craptacular official YouTube mobile site that lets you stream a few number of selected videos in poor quality (poor even for YouTube's standards). The way to watch (and save) any YouTube video on your phone is ByWiFi, which converts the Flash videos to the 3gp format and lets you download or stream them.

... and lots of other cool stuff: Google Reader, train and bus schedules, Wikipedia, Google Calender, movie listings and much, much more.

IMDb Titles by the Numbers

2006-06-19T16:02:00.001+02:00

After looking at the names yesterday, here is a list of the first titles on the IMDb, based on their id number.

Carmencita (1894)
Le Clown et ses chiens (1892)
Pauvre Pierrot (1892)
Un bon bock (1892)
Blacksmith Scene (1893)
Chinese Opium Den (1894)
Corbett and Courtney Before the Kinetograph (1894)
Edison Kinetoscopic Record of a Sneeze (which has got to be my favourite movie title of all time; 1894)
Miss Jerry (1894)
La Sortie des usines Lumière (1895)

While these are all early efforts of film, the oldest title in the IMDb is Roundhay Garden Scene from 1888 at #392.728. The last title as of now is Ático from 2000 at #815.755.

There are roughly three times more names in the IMDb than titles.

Complicated Pastiche

2006-06-19T13:22:00.001+02:00

From the Wikipedia-page of Avril Lavigne's "Complicated":

In terms of chord sequence, "Complicated" is a masterful pastiche of several classic hit songs patterns. The acoustic guitar is tuned down a whole step so as to avoid the common sound of these chords in G. Instead, the song is in F major and this was likely more fitting for Avril's voice. The introduction is a strummed vi-IV-I-V which returns as the chorus with different rhythmic accents. The verse of the song employs the I-vi-IV-V sequence associated with hit songs of a bygone era while the prechorus exploits an angsty IV-vi movement which suggests grunge: IV-vi-IV-V. Finally the chorus arrives with that satisfying vi-VI-I-V.
(Emphasis by me.)

O...kay. If whoever wrote that could maybe, I don't know, write songs for Avril Lavigne that would actually deserve a description like that, the world would be a slightly better place.

Oh, and don't ask why I was reading that page in the first place. It's complicated.

IMDb Names by the Numbers

2006-06-18T20:49:00.001+02:00

Sorted by their respective "id number", the first people on the IMDb are

Others include Groucho Marx (#50, with his brothers somewhere in the 500,000s), Rowan Atkinson (#100), Lili Taylor (#666), porn star Tom Byron (#1,000) and IMDb founder Col Needham (#1,000,000).

Addendum: As of this moment (12.30 CET, 18 June 2006), the highest listed number is #2.287.127, which belongs to Luis Selgas.

Dreamer

2006-05-26T00:16:00.001+02:00

I was just browsing my Last.fm artist's page (what? you don't have one?) where someone (I'm guessing Lesley) has gone to the trouble of adding the following artist description:

"A talented, original, sweet, nice, and completely adorable dreamer who sees love letters hanging from windows that are really Tibetan Prayer Flags."

I like that. Can I put that in my résumé?

Star of David

2006-04-27T15:17:00.001+02:00

A window shaped as the Star of David on the Synagogue in Trier.

More clouds

2006-03-28T18:03:00.001+02:00

Green Peugeot 306

2006-03-23T22:54:00.001+01:00

Whenever I tell people about the car I used to drive, a green Peugeot 306, I want to show them a photo of one so that they'd know what it looked like. But I could never find any good ones. So when I was at Jessy and Ben's today, looking out of the window onto the street, I saw this green Peugeot 306, and I took this photo. And I'm using the term green Peugeot 306 a lot here, so that maybe in the future, when someone is googling for images of a green Peugeot 306, they'll actually get a decent result. This one, a photo of a green Peugeot 306.

Oh, if you have a blog and nothing better to do, link to this post using a text like "A photo of a green Peugeot 306!".

You can use the following HTML:
<a href="http://hateweek.blogspot.com/2006/03/green-peugeot-306.html">A photo of a green Peugeot 306!</a>

Google will like that.

Goerge Thorogood dit it, too!

2006-03-23T14:55:00.001+01:00

I have way too many blogs... I keep forgetting about them! Well, not TDP, but the others.

In all my years of reading, writing, hearing and sometimes even thinking English, I have very rarely had the oppurtunity to actually talk in English, because, you know, there's no one around to talk with. A few years ago I used AIM to talk to wiggie, but after only a few seconds we had to end the call because he fell into a coma. Or something.

Well, now there's Google Talk and Skype and stuff like that, and it actually works on my crappy computer, so last night I "called" Marcie and realised that I can't pronounce the th. Oh, well, I can't say most of the stuff I want to say in German, either, so it's not that bad.

What kind of mental disorder do you have? (Part 3/10)

2006-03-11T22:43:00.001+01:00

I will write some things that are not answers to surveys later. But for now...

21. If you have ever tried cocaine, did you find that it helped you focus and calmed you down, rather than making you high? This explains so much! No, seriously, I never tried it. But that's basically the same effects that Ritalin is having, calming people who have ADD while doing the opposite for those who don't. Interesting.

22. Do you change the radio station in your car frequently? Well, yes, but that's because radio stations suck most of the time.

23. Do you wear out your TV remote-control switch by changing stations frequently? See above.

24. Do you feel driven, as if an engine inside you won't slow down? Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

25. As a kid, were you called words like, "a daydreamer," "lazy," "a spaceshot," "impulsive," "disruptive," "lazy," or just plain "bad"? Yeah, I guess so. But aren't all kids?

26. In intimate relationships is your inability to linger over conversations an impediment? Who writes these questions? There's no way I can answer this question with either yes or no and not make it seem like I have an "inability to linger over conversations"!

27. Are you always on the go, even when you donÂt really want to be? No, not always. Most of the time, maybe.

28. More than most people, do you hate waiting in line? No, actually I hate people who hate waiting in line. What's so important in their life? Of course I don't like when I have to wait longer than what seemsnecessaryy, but that's normal.

29. Are you constitutionally incapable of reading directions first? Sigh. No, I am not these words.

30. Do you have a hair-trigger temper? Since I don't really understand this question (nor the German translation, "Sind sie eine Mimose", I'm gonna have to say no.

The score so far: 16/30. I'm losing interest in this.

What kind of mental disorder do you have? (Part 2/10)

2006-03-08T00:54:00.001+01:00

11. Do you find that you undertake many projects simultaneously so your life often resembles a juggler who's got six more balls in the air than he can handle? As Thorsten pointed out, yes, I do. I would still say that I'm having troubles to "get things started" despite of that, though. It's a different thing.

12. Are you impulsive? That's totally dependent on my mood. Sometimes I can be very impulsive, and usually that works out good for. But other times it's hard for me to do anything impulsive.

13. Are you easily distracted? Yes, very easily.

14. Even if you are easily distracted, do you find that there are times when your power of concentration is laser-beam intense? I wouldn't use that term, but yes, sometimes I can be. But it's not easy.

15. Do you procrastinate chronically? Yes. To the point that I don't get anything done at all.

16. Do you often get excited by projects and then not follow through? Yes, sadly. I'm actually a little surprised that I'm still so excited about the photo blog. Maybe that's because it demands something new every day and thus keeps me interested.

17. More than most people, do you feel it is hard to make yourself understood? I don't know about other people, but I would say that it's hard for me to make myself understood, yes.

18. Is your memory so porous that if you go from one room to the next to get something, by the time you get to the next room you've sometimes forgotten what you were looking for? No, it's not that extreme. But I do have to really force myself to remember some things.

19. Do you smoke cigarettes? No.

20. Do you drink too much?. No. Not in general.

The score so far: 13/20

head in the clouds

2006-03-06T22:10:00.001+01:00

When I was a kid, I was fascinated by clouds. I loved them so much that I thought it would be a cool idea to photograph them and have some kind of archive of cloud photos. All the beautiful different kinds. White, puffy ones, menacing dark ones and everything in between. I loved the idea that no two clouds are ever the same, how they are all so beautiful in their own unique way. How so complex variations can form from such a simple thing.

I had forgotten about all that, but it came back a few days ago when I was stuck inside (with the foot injury) and noticed the amazing clouds outside my window. This is one photo I took, I will post another one on TDP.

What kind of mental disorder do you have? (Part 1/10)

2006-03-06T18:00:00.001+01:00

A popular feature on weblogs are surveys. "Which Friends' character are you?", that kind of stuff. I don't really like those.

Another kind of survey I don't like but was confronted with a lot recently are the kind that therapists give their patients to determine their generel... gee, I don't know... somethingorother. They give you a list of either yes-or-no or 'rate this on a scale of -5 to 5' questions to determine if you're depressed, phobic, agressive, paranoid or insecure. (I am all of those things.)

And now that it looks like the reason I am like that is ADD, I get surveys for that, as well. This one has 100 questions and the very scientific "the more questions you answer positive, the more likely it is that you might have ADD".

I'm going to answer the survey ten questions at a time for this weblog. If I feel I should comment on a question (or an answer) I will do so.

1. Are you left-handed or ambidexter? Yes. I write with my left hand, but I do other stuff with my right that regular lefties don't.

2. Are there cases of substance abuse, alcoholism, depression or manic depression in your family? I'm gonna say yes to that. Although probably no one is aware of it or would admit it.

3. Do you have mood swings? Yes.

4. Were you considered an underachiever in school? Now? Yes. Inefficient and counter-productive. Now? I do think so.

5. Do you find it difficult to start things? Oh so very much yes. I would say this is one of my most serious problems.

6. Do you drum your fingers a lot, tap your feet, fidget, or pace? I am doing all of these things right now. So that's a yes.

7. When you read, do you find that you often have to reread a paragraph or an entire page because you are daydreaming? Yes. That's one reason why I haven't read the book that the good doctor told me to read three weeks ago. (And where this survey is from.)

8. Do you tune out or space out a lot? Not alcohol-related? No. Pretty sure about that.

9. Do you have a hard time relaxing? Sometimes. Probably not often enough to answer this with yes.

10. Are you excessively impatient?. No.

The score so far: 7/10

Closer

2006-03-06T01:12:00.001+01:00

This is awesome. She should read that out loud and record it and send it to me.

The closest I ever came to writing about sex was when nothing had actually happened:

"As she lay in my arms she turned her face towards mine, touching my cheek with hers. I felt her warm breath on my mouth. Her eyes unmistakably asked if I wanted to kiss her. And God knows I wanted it, but I told myself to take things slowly. So instead I held her hand a little stronger, pressed my body a little tighter against hers. And she responded in the same manner. This felt good. This felt right."

(bruchpilot webdesign, 9 March 2003)

This was my only night with her. I later learned that she wasn't looking for anything serious, just something for one night. She would have saved me a lot of heartache if she had just said so.

Outing

2006-03-03T09:55:00.001+01:00

It appears that this little side project of mine has gotten some outside attention lately, which is nice, but it also means that I should figure out what the hell this blog should be about.

The obvious choice, of course, would be to make it about me. I have been reading the old bplt-archives[1] again recently, and I miss just about everything I did and wrote and thought and felt back then. And it looks like finally the heavyload of what's on my mind is shifting from Sarah, who I ~~love~~ like (as a friend...), to things I may just be able to write about here. Some things good - TrierDailyPhoto is really taking off and I finally seem to have found something to do with my life (photography) - and some bad things - I now have a medical excuse ("Adult ADD") for not getting anything done.

Three years ago I decided for myself that 2006 will be good. So far, it definitely brought a lot of change. And change is good, right?

[1] For anyone not knowing what "bplt" was: Wait a few days. I'll explain it at lengths soon.

Tiberius is on top (the Forum)

2006-03-01T07:37:00.001+01:00

See a close up of what might just be Tiberius at Trier Daily Photo.

Reunion: Retold

2006-02-27T12:30:00.002+01:00

I think it was early January, I was just waiting in line at the bakery next door, trying so very hard not to forget what it was I was sent there to get, when my phone rang, unknown number.

"Hello?"
"Hey, Sebastian, this is [unintelligible] from the [incomprehensible]."
"Aha."
"We want to do a grade school reunion. Do you want to come."
"Uhm, yeah, of course."
"Do you remember who I am?"
"Uhm, yeah, of course."
"Good. We'll send you an invitation."

I stare into blank space for a while, until the baker-lady interrupts me, asking what I want to have. I answer with staring some more, trying to sort out my thoughts. I take a few Nussecken.

A month later, I had enough time to get excited about the reunion. But I didn't, and I wasn't. In my mind, I had lost or stayed in contact with my classmates for a reason. So expectations were low, which was probably a good thing.

It was awesome. The atmosphere was one of the best I had experienced in a long time. Everybody got along instantly, there was no forced feeling about it at all! Everyone was extremely nice. I enjoyed talking to people like Inga and Oliver, who I literally hadn't seen or heard from in 13 years!

It was fun to see how people had changed. At first I didn't recognize some, but the more we talked the more I started to remember. And although only 13 of the old class showed up, those were just the right people.

I'm looking foreward to seeing some of them again when I come to Usingen next time.

Reunion

2006-02-21T17:49:00.001+01:00

If I could just relax a while and sort out my thoughts, I would write about the class reunion we had on the weekend. And I hope I will, too. For now, let me just say that in my review of 2006, this will be the top thing of February. Right after January's trip to Paris.

Hold your Head up

2006-02-11T21:43:00.001+01:00

I used to get rejected by girls all the time.

But now I'm not even trying anymore!

"Timothy", really?

2006-02-06T19:58:00.001+01:00

Ah, Jimmy Fallon is at it again. After the - ahem - mildly entertaining US remake of the French "Taxi"-franchise (I'm still mad the third film isn't called "Taxi Taxi Taxi", by the way), he is now going to star in and as "Timothy", a comedy about a 30-ish man still living with his parents, much to their chagrin. (I always wanted to use that word.) The film is based on the 2001 French comedy "Tanguy", which Sarah and I watched when we were in Paris last month.

I didn't understand everything (Sarah translated most of it for me, though), but I found "Tanguy" (which is pronounced more like "laundry" than like "tan-guy") to be very entertaining. The comedic performance of André Dussollier, who plays Tanguy's father and who I instantly recognized as the narrator from "Amélie", especially stood out.

Knowing that a French movie won't be successful outside of France if it doesn't have big names like Jeuneut or Kassovitz in the director's chair or recognizable faces like Reno, Depardieu or Cassel in it (seemingly, films with Christian Clavier, who I like very much, are only considered for international release if he's paired with either Depardieu or Reno, which is a shame, since "L'Antidote" looked really promising), I even thought how much I'd like to see a well-spirited German remake, although I couldn't think of any good German actors/comedians around 30 that could pull it off. I still can't.

But a Hollywood remake? I don't know. Not to bash Jimmy Fallon, he was great in Almost Famous and I like some of his SNL stuff, but his feature comedy rolls just didn't do much for me. Also, the title character in "Tanguy" isn't the comedic center of the film, it's the parents. So casting a comedian as "Timothy" might not be the best idea. There's no word on who will play the father yet, and that's really the most crucial part. Well, we'll see.

Suck it, Dickens!

2006-01-31T12:09:00.002+01:00

The American Book Review has a list of the 100 Best First Lines from Novels, and the title of this here blog comes in at number eight! Also note that "Catcher in the Rye" is listed higher than "David Copperfield", which reminded me of "London Calling" topping "Elvis Presley" on the Rolling Stone's List of 100 Greatest Album Covers.

I have read only three of the books on the ABR's list, which is a shame, I guess, but I have several unread books around that all made the list, so once I've finished the two I'm currently reading (Sartre's "Nausea" and Joey Goebel's "Torture the Artist") I know where to look for inspiration.

How to hide your e-mail address from spambots

2006-01-22T07:17:00.001+01:00

Download Squad had something on ways to hide your e-mail address from spambots the other day, which made me wonder why people would go to such great lengths (using an image file instead of text or even letting people enter a code/phrase before showing the address) when there's a much easier way to avoid spam. And no, I'm not talking about substituting AT for @ or anything like that, which is nothing more than an annoyance on the user's side.

You just have to use html-encoded characters.

On my site Trier Daily Photo, which has become moderately popular in the last few days, so I'm assuming the spambots are all over it, I give my e-mail address clear for all to see. Only that I don't.

The exact line of code I use is this:

<a href="mailto:s.nebel+tdp&#64;gmail.com">eMail</a>

which directly translates to this:

eMail

If you hover over that link, you will notice that your browser (and subsequently your e-mail client, as well) automatically converts the html-encoded @ to @, a feat that spambots apparently can't master. Users can use the address without having to change or deobfuscate it, while spammers don't even recognize it as an e-mail address at all.

I've set up a filter in Google Mail that labels all mails sent to s.nebel+tdp, even spam, with a special label. So far, no spam has been sent to that address. And I have been using the same system on other websites to the same result.

Good timing

2006-01-21T00:34:00.001+01:00

np: Noir Desir - Le vent nous portera

... and CD WOW! just let me know that they've finally shipped En Public et En Images. I had just about forgotten that I ordered that.

Oh, and I just saw fireworks out of my window.

Vasistas

2006-01-15T14:42:00.002+01:00

I'm assuming this is what "Schwach & Sinn", a pub near St. Paulin (shameless plug), would look like after half a dozen Kristallweizen. I wouldn't know, I only had one when we went there on Wednesday. "We" would be, in this case, Sarah, Barbara, Yannick, Thomas, Cecile and another Sarah. Whenever we go out with our new found French friends I regret not having learned the language. (This is certainly one of my resolutions for '06!) They all do a terrific job of speaking German, though, which I'm guessing is one of the most difficult languages out there.

One interesting thing we talked about was the influence of the French language to German and vice versa. While there are a lot of expressions we 'borrowed' from the French (some of them, like creme de la creme don't even make sense to them), the only example of a German saying in the French language was vasistas, which got its name from German soldiers pointing at it, asking "Was ist das?" (What is that?).

So, what is vasistas? I'm not entirely sure. It's either a certain kind of window or a certain part of (a certain kind of) window. Definitely something window-related. I think. A Google Image search for vasistas gives you some vague idea. The Wikipédia article says something about it being a window "generally on ground level", while LEO translates it as "Oberlichtfenster", a term I haven't heard before, but 'Ober-' suggests a rather high-level construction.

And then, to confuse us even more, Barbara throws in that 'vasistas' can also refer not to the window, but to what you see when you're looking through the window. Or something like that.

What strikes me as odd here, is that, apparently, the French don't have a word for it, either. (Else they would have just said what it is when Germans asked them, "Was ist das?"!) I think they're messing with us! There is no vasistas! It's all a big conspiracy!

All Right!

2006-01-13T01:09:00.001+01:00

Until today, I have never owned a band/musician t-shirt! Not because I didn't want to, I just always thought if I waited long enough, somebody would give me one as a present.

Finally, the wait is over!

What a great way to start the new year! Thank you, Sarah!

Pumba Libre

2006-01-06T02:45:00.002+01:00

Okay, I know it's only five days into the new year, but today was, without a doubt, the best day of '06, so far.

In Ept

2006-01-05T00:08:00.001+01:00

And here it is, the first big patsch¹⁾ moment of '06:

I'm just watching last week's pilot episode of In Justice (which is actually the second episode, the real pilot will air this week, thank you ABC) and I didn't get the double-entendre of the show's title until I saw it spelled out in the credits. Ahh, Injustice! Yeah, very clever. Good show, though.

1) patsch: German, onomatopoeic, describing the sound of the flat hand hitting the forehead

Lots Plants Cheap

2006-01-04T14:25:00.001+01:00

Last night I watched the original, 1960 version of The Little Shop of Horrors (which you can download - legally - via Public Domain Torrents) and it's one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time. From all the non-sequitors and malapropisms to Jack Nicholson's brief but memorable appearence (and film debut) as a masochistic dentist's patient, I was laughing all the way through.

I also finished the seventh season of the X-Files yesterday, so now I've caught up, dvd-wise, with where I stopped watching the series on television. And I was surprised how many good episodes this season had, but maybe my judgement was clouded by bad dubbing or the general mistreatment that German television seems to apply so often to quality programming. I didn't like the cliffhanger, though, maybe because I know that Fox Mulder won't be back as a regular character in seasons eight and nine. So I'm not really inclined to buy or watch those any time soon.

Then, just before going to bed, I caught the beginning of The Rules of Attraction, which I saw once in the cinema and once when it came out on DVD and would have watched again if it wasn't in German, so if I still have any money left at the end of the month, I'm buying the DVD.

And speaking of that, two DVDs I ordered right before New Year's Eve arrived yesterday, too, Before Sunrise and Before Sunset. I'm waiting for Sarah to come back at the end of the week, though, so that I can watch them with her.

8.5k

2006-01-01T23:49:00.001+01:00

As my brother Alexander reminded me this morning (and I checked, using my incredible Excel skills), today I am exactly 8,500 days old. This would of course be an excellent excuse for celebration, but we covered that department with last night's New Year's Eve extravaganza pretty well. So tonight I'm going to sit back and relax, watch a few X-Files episodes and take care of all the left-over food.

Mark your calendars though, on 9 February 2010 I'm having a little 10,000-day-party at the Holopad. Nothing big, just a few people and 'droids over. Hover-parking will be available, food will be ~~replicated~~ provided. But tell me if you'd rather have Soylent Green or chicken for the main course in advance, so I can plan ahead. Thank you.

Early Nineties. Left shelf, second row, right half.

2005-12-31T16:11:00.001+01:00

I just rearranged our DVDs. Chronologically.

Gmail Mobile

2005-12-30T01:05:00.001+01:00

I was back home for a week, and since my parents don't have anything computer-like in their possession, I had to use my cell phone to go online. And, like I said, I have no problem with that. Well, except that the mobile version of Google Mail won't work entirely as it should.

It still doesn't, but at least I found out (by accident, no less) how to read mails, after all. I don't know why, but instead of selecting the link (i.e. subject line) automatically, I have to 'scroll' to the right first. Strange enough, this issue only effects the links to individual mails. Others (like 'Compose Mail' or 'Sign out') behave just fine.

I still can't write (and thus send) a new mail. On the respective page, I can enter recipients and a subject, but nothing more. No means to write the message body, no Send button.

Ah, well, at least I can read the Daily Wikipedia article on the bus now.

Extending Firefox, Pt. 2: The War on Clicks

2005-12-19T08:51:00.001+01:00

After using my re-installed version of Firefox for a few days now, I'm beginning to miss some extensions I had installed previously. And I'm not even talking about Abe Vigoda Status here. These are mostly little fixes for things that annoy me, so nothing essential, really. Just a way to make browsing the web more comfortable.

Disable Targets For Downloads could not have a more descriptive name. All it does is prevent an empty tab to open when you click on some links that prompt a download. That's one less thing to click on every now and then. Hooray!

Ever had to Restart Firefox? Maybe after installing a new extension? That's, like, what? Three clicks? You can do better with this extension! (Even more so when you disable the confirmation dialog box.)

And while we're cutting down on clicks, doesn't it bother you that when you use Google Image Search and click on a thumbnail, you don't just get the image you want but rather the whole damn website it's on, along with a frame sitting on top of it with another thumbnail you have to click on? Google Images Re-Linker to the rescue! This takes you from the search page straight to the image. Another victory in the war on clicks!

Last for now is something that most of you probably won't need but I find highly useful: Screen Grab! It can take screenshots of either the browser window, just the visible portion of the page, or, and that's the fun part, the entire website (like this). Think of the possibilities!

Useful fact: Did you know that when you have a URL copied into the clipboard and don't want to go through all that pasting into the adress bar and pressing Enter or clicking the Go-button hassle, you can just middle-click (or center-click, as I like to call it) on a tab and the site will load immediately? I just found that out by accident. Isn't that something? (Note that this obviously won't work if your Firefox is cafoobled to close a tab when it's center-clicked.)

Portable Life

2005-12-17T16:51:00.002+01:00

I'm in Mainz for my father's birthday, so right now I'm using his laptop, running Portable Firefox and Portable Gaim. On the train I used my cell phone to browse Wikipedia, read my eMails* and google lyrics to songs that I was listening to on my (portable) mp3-Player.

I hardly use my mobile phone for its primary purpose (that would be calling people, although watching the ads on tv suggests otherwise) anymore. Last month's bill showed under one Euro of telephone connections, so the biggest expense is the 5 Euro wap flatrate, but that is worth every cent. I read news on the bus, look for directions and train schedules on the road and look up just about anything that comes up in a given conversation that needs clarification. (Recent example: Upon hearing my name one of the French students remembered the word "Nebelstreif" from Erlkönig. We weren't sure about who had written that poem (yes, I know, that is sad) - my guess was Goethe, the others outvoted me, saying it was Schiller. Turns out I was right, but I really wasn't sure about it.)

* Well, at least looking at the subjects, since clicking on (and reading) them doesn't work.

Firefox: Reinstalled

2005-12-16T18:30:00.002+01:00

When I first got my own computer (a DM 2,000 laptop, later to be exchanged to a desktop pc) I would format my hard drive and re-install Windows every other month. Not because the old installation was broke (although sometimes it was) but because I just like a fresh start every now and then. Also I'm someone who tests out a lot of free- and shareware, and a clean Windows would require me to take only the good programs with me and lose all the junk. And you can accumulate a lot of junk in a month, believe me.

Nowadays I've gotten a bit lazy when it comes to re-installing Windows (and the XP installation process isn't nearly as fun as 95 and even 98 were) but with all its extensions and stuff to recafooble, Firefox is a good substitute. That, and for some reason my current installation crashes every time I do anything.

So I just de-installed Firefox, deleted the Firefox directory (why's there still so much stuff in there after I removed Firefox?) and started up the good old Opera (which I still have a hard time getting used to) so that I can document and comment on what's about to happen:

Installing Firefox.

The latest version is 1.5, wich I had running for a few weeks and basically was pretty happy with, although I noticed some compatibility issues with my extensions, and then there was the aforementioned crashing recently.

"It is strongly recommended that you exit all Windows programs before running this Setup program." Yeah, well, no. Opera and Winamp are existential right now and not to be shut down. Has anyone ever read a license agreement? I always scroll down to the bottom before clicking on "I accept", because I have the slightly paranoid feeling that somewhere in the program, some little flag will go up if I don't.

"Custom" setup, for the experienced user, it is. But all that gives me is the option to install "Developer Tools" and the "Quality Feedback Agent". I always used to do that in the past, thinking I might actually use them some day, but today I'll pass.

After some quick file copying and registry registering, Firefox is installed. That was the easy part. Now off to:

Recafoobling Firefox.

Starting Firefox for the first time immeadiately confronts me with something annoying: Google.de. In German. I'm running an English version of Windows, I have downloaded the English version of Firefox from the English Mozilla site. Just because I'm living in Germany doesn't mean I want my software to be speaking German to me. So let's see what we can do about that.

Tools, Options, General. First of all, I want my home page to be blank. I don't like my browser to be loading some page, no matter which one, right after I started it.

Privacy. Not much to change here. The highest risk to computer security sits in front of the keyboard.

Content. I shut off the warning that alerts me when "web sites try to install extensions". Let's face it, when I click on an .xpi-link, I want to install an extension. And it's not like malicious extensions can just self-install without me noticing.

Tabs. I'll install an advanced tab-extension later, but for now I don't want the tab bar to go away when only one (or less) tabs are open and I don't want to hear a warning when closing multiple tabs.

Downloads. This, too, will be advanced via various extensions, but I'd like to be asked where to save files instead of just dumping them in some folder and I don't want the Download Manager to appear. Ever.

Advanced. There's the no-good language configuration. I just remove whatever's in there, it doesn't seem to effect my browsing anyway. Well, maybe it does with ads, but I won't be seeing much of those when I'm finished here.

After quickly removing the Mozilla links from the Bookmarks Toolbar and adding a few new engines to the search bar (Flickr, IMDb and Wikipedia) it is time for:

Extending Firefox

I'm starting with the popular extensions. I am going to install one extension at a time, restarting Firefox and, if neccessary, configuring the extension, just to be on the safe side.

First up there's FlashGot, which works nicely with download managers such as GetRight. I disable things like "FlashGot selection" or "FlashGot all" from the context menu, because either they don't really work or (more likely) I don't really understand what they're supposed to be doing. But it's still a valuable extension for its integration with GetRight.

Among my favourite extensions are Adblock and its companion, Adblock Filterset.G Updater. Together they eliminate an estimated 75% of all advertisment from the web, and it's easy to add most of the remaining 15% to the filter. This is one of the the things I miss most when going online with some other software or on another computer. How do people get anything done with all these annoying ads showing up all the time?

Hate Internet Explorer as much as you want, sometimes there's no way around it. (Like, when somebody is using \ instead of / when linking to images). But there's no need to start IE on its own when you can have it embedded in a Firefox tab with IE Tab! This extension is clearly built for developers and not the mainstream user, but if you know what you're doing, it can be very helpful.

Tabbrowser Preferences is one of these extensions I use since day one, and I'm not even sure what exactly it does anymore. I thought that Mozilla may have incorporated its features in Firefox 1.5, but it doesn't look like it, so this is a recommended install. Trust me, whatever it does, it does it good. A quick look at the preferences shows that it comes already-well-cafoobled, no need to change anything here, at least not for me.

If you're not already using del.icio.us you should definitely try it out, and either way, the del.icio.us Firefox extension is one I wouldn't want to miss. Tagging websites (and finding them again later) has never been so easy.

Time for some Google extensions. First of all, the essential Google Toolbar. This one has plenty of options, so it's worth looking into the configuration. The features I like (and have present on the toolbar) are the PageRank display, Search Site, I'm Feeling Lucky and Image Search, Highlight and Word find, BlogThis! (I haven't used it yet, but I know I will someday!) and the Up and Page Info buttons.

Is there any reason not to use Google Mail? I can't think of one, and the Gmail Notifier is a nice little extension that, you guessed it, notifies you whenever new eMails arrive. If you're using multiple Gmail accounts, Gmail Manager might be of interest for you.

Colorful Tabs is one of those things you don't really need, but once you're used to it, you don't want to be without it. All it does is give each tab a differen color, so that it's easier to distinguish them without all that boring reading and such.

I use GetRight to download large files, but for small things or documents I just need to open, not save, I like having the Download Statusbar around. I run it in Mini Mode and it's really much more pleasant than the built-in Download Manager.

Well, that have been ten (or nine-and-a-half) Firefox extensions, this should do it for now. I can think of some more I'd might install, but those are mostly for entertainment purposes, so you don't really need them.

Update: Extending Firefox, Pt. 2: The War on Clicks

Hate Week

2005-12-16T00:01:00.001+01:00

I just spent way too long figuring out a name (address) for this blog. Of course such obvious choices as nebel.blogspot.com or clevertitle.blogspot.com were taken years ago, posted on for a few days and then abandoned.

So I turned to my amazing collection of classic and contemporary literature, full of works by names like Wells, Swift, Twain, Milton, Chaucer and Orwell. Well, okay, I only have about ten books, and I haven't read most of them, but these are some impressive names, right? Anyway, Orwell's "1984" I did read (and enjoy) and its first words are "It was a bright cold day in April", and a few rows below that "Hate Week" is mentioned, and now that's the name of the blog. Don't try to read anything into that, though.

Fun fact: The 762nd through 767th decimal places of Pi are all 9s. That's six times. One of the few people I actually own more than one book of, Richard Feynman, wanted to memorize all the digits leading up to this point, so that he could end reciting them with "... nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, and so on."