The Kinks are class! :)

During my stay in Belfast I walked past (okay, i rested in front of) a music shop, because i felt dizzy and had some health issues yet again (i really should see a doctor about this), and while i stood in front of it, i heard some fancy tune coming out there, the song being "Sunny Afternoon" by The Kinks.
Since I have been listening to them already every now and then, and because Virgin Megastores had some sort of offer going on (and i am a student, so 10% off, whooooho! :))  I actually bought a double CD by them... and "Second Coming" by The Stone Roses, as well as "Forever Delayed" by the Manic Street Preachers.
Now that I finally got back home, I managed to get the content on my ipod, so I will hopefully have a pleasant time tomorrow working in the library.... really have to get the essays finished. The trip might have sucked, especially considering that it was my annual holiday, but the fact that uni started there again, gave me some kind of motivation to finish my stuff over here too.

But university life seems to be quite different over there. Can't say it definitely though, because i haven't been inside visiting the lectures. Should have. Should apply for some uni time abroads. Like... Erasmus. Maybe LL.M.... on the other hand i dont see it happen yet though, because i am slightly bound to Berlin thanks to all my jobs *sigh* oh well :)

The Kinks - Sunny Afternoon

The tax mans taken all my dough,

And left me in my stately home,

Lazing on a sunny afternoon.

And I cant sail my yacht,

Hes taken everything Ive got,

All Ive gots this sunny afternoon.



Save me, save me, save me from this squeeze.

I got a big fat mama trying to break me.

And I love to live so pleasantly,

Live this life of luxury,

Lazing on a sunny afternoon.

In the summertime

In the summertime

In the summertime



My girlfriends run off with my car,

And gone back to her ma and pa,

Telling tales of drunkenness and cruelty.

Now Im sitting here,

Sipping at my ice cold beer,

Lazing on a sunny afternoon.



Help me, help me, help me sail away,

Well give me two good reasons why I oughta stay.

cause I love to live so pleasantly,

Live this life of luxury,

Lazing on a sunny afternoon.

In the summertime

In the summertime

In the summertime



Ah, save me, save me, save me from this squeeze.

I got a big fat mama trying to break me.

And I love to live so pleasantly,

Live this life of luxury,

Lazing on a sunny afternoon.

In the summertime

In the summertime

In the summertime

 

Irish..... "£&*^%(!

northern irish people, please dont take it personally - hell, take it personally - are about as reliable as their weather. which is not at all.

I really should have gone back to manchester as i have wanted to for quite a while (but never actually planned)....

although the guy i was meeting here did spend some time with me (some as in a little) i cant say that this is one of my best UK/GB trip....

gone for a week

hey,

i wont be posting for a few days because i am spending some time in belfast...

see you!

Elevator, German Train Services and Emergency Services.

Last night i got stuck Stuck in an elevator.. do you actually know how much that sucks? Actually
it wasnt so bad. I got my Nintendo DS with me and kept playing Mario Kart for QUITE a while.
Meanwhile i rang the emergency services multiple times, with the built-in interface (bad bad bad bad soundquality), and with my phone. Same reactions all the times:
me>> I got stuck. In an elevator. Any chance to get outta here?
Service>> Have you tried choosing another floor?
me>> Uh. No. There are just three buttons here: 1. Up/Down; 2. Alarm; 3. Open doors. But i did try buttons 1 and 3 a few more times. Plus the elevator was going at incredible 1 cm/minute before, so it might take hours to get down even if i would get it to work again.
Service>> Okay. Where exactly are you stuck?
me>> $Station_name, i think there is only one elevator, havent ever been here before.
Service>> I see. I am going to try and see what i can do and then i will call you back.

At this point the service lady from the built in box just cut the connection, but the phone chats went on
me>> Cool. Thats what the lady said earlier too.
Service>> Oh, you called already?
me>> Yeah, like... 20 minutes ago.
Service>> What did the person say then?
me>> That they'd call back.
Service>> And they haven't?
me>> Nope...
Service>> Thats bad. What is your callback number anyways
me>> $number
Service>> Okay, I will see what i can do and call you back then. Oh, one thing... please dont be nervous or panic.
me>> (Wondering what that was all about since i was definitely calm throughout the whole phone talk) Yeah sure. I'm not nervous anyways.
Service>> ah, well then.. still, dont panic.
me>>..mhkay, ttyl.


Oh btw, none of them called ever again. But at least i got a pleasant view over the station, because i got stuck just when there were 20 cm left of the upper entrance, and many more meters to the lower one. When the service person finally came to get me out he said he could only get the elevator down, so it took 20 - 25 more minutes to finally arrive downstairs...

Windoze Shmindoze...

You know what? I have Windows too. At least on my desktop computer which is standing around mostly for gaming.
So yesterday i installed the latest version of Daemon tools, which, after a bit of hassle, started working too. I set up four virtual drives (only for a few moments, as it was planned), to smoothly install something which contained many CDs and then simply mount the necessary image and kick the other virtual volumes. That's for the plan.

In reality i wanted to burn all the images on a DVD and then mount them from it. I got the DVD and i got the virtual drives activated.

Afterwards the hassle started: although networking worked (i played ff11 later on), i couldnt access the DVD drive anymore. aaaalright. So i mounted the images from the hard drive and installed the Software on my external drive - shouldnt have done that, so i am going to reinstall it on my internal hard drive after moving a huge package of other data - and... it didnt work. The software i mean.
This part i figured this morning, by simply turning off Daemon Tools but leaving emulation on... that was easy  :)
What was much more worrying was, that networking didnt work this morning either.

Admittingly, a whole bunch of software relies on the system partition. Next time i'll make it 20 GB, not just 10 for stuff like this. so i freed 2 giant folders: \Local Settings\Temp (i mean... it is Temp - Temporary! shouldnt do that much damage?), which was 1 gb, as well as the quarantine folder of my virus scan tool, another gb freed.

After several reboots yesterday it still worked, so why doesnt it work today? And how are you supposed to update Ethernet drivers, when neither the ethernetbit nor the cd drive work, apart from the usb-stick option (got no other usb stick than my ipod, and that one is just a pain right now).

Currently i REALLY think that my devices strongly dislike me. No other explanation than that.

Plans? Oh well, i uninstalled a big bunch of software - including the daemon tools, will restart, see, if at least the dvd drive works again, and then reinstall stuff bit by bit.

*sigh*

I got a stick! yay! :)

Yay, so finally i got a stick which came to me as well.... so, what should i do with it?
First: answer the questions engraved into the stick... it's a German thing, so i will post the original questions in brackets after the translation.

1. Where or well, how did you get this stick? (Wo hast du das Stöckchen her?)

The Hotelblogger (German Blog) passed it on to me. And i surely gotta add his current blog address to my linklist... :)

2. Which three technical attainments could you never live without? Please elaborate. (Auf welche drei Errungenschaften der Technik möchtest du nie verzichten? Erkläre bitte auch, warum)

Agreeing with the Hotelblogger I could never ever live without the internet - i met too many cool people through it and, what can i say? it would be a shame if i had to give up talking to them. Oh, and dont forget all the cool videos.
Along with the internet, the invention of computers was most important too...
And, regarding that i am with the Hotelblogger again, book printing. The amout of monks needed for writing and copying the schoolbooks nowadays... horrible.

3. Would you spontaneously do a bungee jump? Why?? (Würdest du spontan einen Bungee-Jump machen? Warum???)

No. Absolutely not. Because i am afraid of heights, and because i am a sissy.

4. Why did you not want to have a stick? (Wieso wolltest du kein Stöckchen haben?)
That is not fair! I waned one!

5. Where have you been on your last holiday, and why? (Wo warst du zuletzt im Urlaub, und warum warst du gerade dort?)

Last year I have been to England.... for my actual holiday to Manchester - because it is cool. (On my next holiday I'm going to Belfast, because it is just as cool :P)

6. What would you consider as a redundant invention, and why? (Was ist für dich eine überflüssige Erfindung, und wieso ist es das?)

I replace the "invention" with "discovery" and then i'd say cigarettes. Because sometimes you really wonder if people have no common sense, for example smoking in an amusement park and blowing the whole stuff right into the little ones' faces... or mine.

7. shiny, trimmed or natural? (Blank, gestutzt oder Natur?)
wtf?

8. Who'll be the next victim? (Wer wird das nächste Opfer?)

Hmm. first of all Rohstoff. Then the Dreamergirl. Mathis. And Debbie. :)

I feel dizzy all laid back and I'm too blind to see
What's going on outside my lonely window

The past few days, after my arrival back in Berlin, have flewn by in a numb business. From work i had to return back to work (i get additional money for it though, so it is not as bad) and it keeps me going on.
I would never have thought i would miss all the guys as much as i currently do. Hell, i have no one to poke, no one to tease, no one to flirt up with in a fun way here at work....  

I was dreaming 'bout times, times that are gone
Times when I lived alone in my own land called ochrasy

So i still try to stay in touch with everyone from the team (at least those i got the business cards from), but so far only very few people have replied - lets wait for the next days to pass by, and there is the TGS some have to go to - those bastards (since i cant go)  :)  and then life will be the same as usual. Some working, some learning, some essaying, some playing... training, reading... and loads of those things. The weather - being dull as it is - just shows how it feels. 

That place was everything to me
The world I made it up you see
It's all there in my fantasy

One of the guys said that it was quite depressive yesterday (first day of work). I agree. But you have something to look forward to. Which I do.

This world is full of misery, the anger is too big to see
That's why I had to dream this dream

So what am i gonna do now? Ill kick the users out of the pc lab and then go out to drink something with a friend of mine.
Will continue my log about the GC when i come back later tonight.

Cheers! :)

Games Convention 06, Day 2

Hi there, it's me again. Being extremely tired.

So today was the first day of the Games Convention, only open to press and qualified visitors, and it was... empty. But lets start from the beginning.
We got up and met in the lobby (later than we were expected to, well, at least the guys). There we noticed that volunteer no. 5 was missing. The very same, who was going out last night. She was feeling sick - INTERESTINGLY she was feeling fine during the concert later on tonight.

The GC itself... well i think i had pod duty. Actually it was my day off today, but since Alex was told to cover Stephanie's shift i agreed to help him out a bit so he could wander around too (was his day off as well). I was handing out flashing necklaces and promotionale DVDs of the game, explaining how it works, and announcing tours which never took place. Our location wasnt in the same hall as the ones from Sony (Playstation), EA or Microsoft, so we lost. I am very eager to see what happens tomorrow though :D I was flirting up with some of the guys (well, mainly Martin, Jesus/Anto, Bobby and Phil - a little bit)...

at some point Anto took me to a Pong-Exhibition (gotta take photos of it tomorrow) and, one thing i want to mention is the PainStation. Over 18s only. You put your hand on a metal plate and are to keep 2 buttons pushed down with your left hand. Your right hand moves another button which controls the bar. When you lose you will notice different fields popping up, either "Speed" (quite obvious what that means) or red, yellow and blue.
Red meant that the metal plate underneath your left hand was gonna heat up quite a bit. Yellow: your hand is in an electrical field (which is scary :D).
Blue: there is a small whip which keeps hitting your hand highspeed.

THAT WAS FUN! :D


Anyhow, the GC was cool, but the opening concert was much cooler. Uematsu-San was great, but to be honest, for me the best part of it was the keynote-presentation by Will Wright about the Next Generation Programming. Funny, fast, refreshing. I adore his style, i hope as soon as i can connect to the internet again you will be able to watch the video on youtube or google mail.

After the concert we went out to get something to drink... and now im tired and about to go to bed. Night!

Games Convention 2006 - Day 1

After having packed the whole suitcase last night I was about to repack the whole thing, since i kinda got the feeling that all technical toys i decided to take along were exceeding the capacity of the suitcase i was bringing along.
So the big question was, which clothes to unpack in order to make room for the ccamcorder.

I started writing this log entry while being on the train, and this battery really sucks. The system shut itself down after only few minutes so i could only finish the first paragraph. Anyways, it is 12 or 13 hours later now, so i already have got my room, met my colleagues and finished my first working day, which mainly involved doing the very work small taiwanese children usually do. Ripping apart 20 000 little plastic bags was the task of today before the rehearsals started. And those were very confused. Yes, not confusing, they were simply out of order.

About my colleagues: we are five volunteers and some more staff members.

I. Staff members (those i still remember :D)

a) Saori
Saori is a young Japanese lady who absolutely doesnt look or sound Japanese. When she speaks it though it is extremely cute. Lively woman, one of our two coordinators. :) Always good for a chat, but i think she has some sort of fake uber-friendliness that normally involves complimenting people even though you dont mean it that way. i hate it. And, for all of you who might wonder why i am bad at accepting compliments: THAT is the reason.

b) Michel
Our second coordinator and by now a pretty good friend of mine. He was rarely present today though (well at least for us) and since the other stuff doesnt matter, nothing else to say here.

c) Jesus
Italian guy. A big flirt. Fire in his eyes. Do i need to say anything else?

d) Phil
I dont think i have much to do with him, but i've been chatting with him every now and then. Goodlooking Japanese guy (very short though), who is addicted to beer. I dont think we will have much contact with him though, workwise.

e) Bobby
Our GM. I love him :D

f) Martin:

QA. One of the few German staff members (Michel and Steph, g), being the others) who is into IT and cool to talk to, once he has warmed up a little. I like his presence.

g) Stefanie

German lady. Introduced us to our first tasks, ripping apart the plastic bags. You can joke around with her very well :D


I know i cut it short. But to be honest, it is now just about 11 pm, i am trashed and just about to fall asleep. :P

II. Volunteers

a) Daniela/Dani:
Short, very lively girl. Smoking though :/ listening to metal, joking around a lot and probably the one who im gonna party with on Sunday. 22 years old, playing a few level 75-jobs on FFXI (forgot the Server though - we are all on different worlds) and the one who was hyping the whole thing a bit too much. But one person was worse. And i mean MUCH worse.

b) Primosz
The most hysterical guy. basically screaming about everything we got and will get. I will describe more detailed what we got and will get a bit later. However, i think he's gay. dont mind, but i am curious if he is, since i wasnt able to really make that out.... pretty cool too, but sometimes a BIT annoying with hysteria.
23 years old.

c) Stefanie
The oldest among us. Has a daughter and an Irish (RoI) boyfriend who is a singer and won some talent contest.
I dont like her too much though.
39 y/o.

d) Alexej
DAMN, he is cute! :D With his 19 years he is the youngest among us (a puppy!:D) and, unfortunately quite short, but nice to chat up and have fun with. He came MUCH later than we did though, so we initially were a bit pissed.

e) Me.


Goodies...
So far we got 2 badges (a Final Fantasy XI badge, the VIP badge), a blinking necklace (people kept staring at us when we drove back home), we took some more necklaces with us *coughs*, a trial DVD, and three t-shirts which we are supposed to wear while we work there. But since we're just gonna work for 4 days we all try to spare one and get "Staff" and our Char-Names imprinted on it... well they wanna write it on the shirts, but i'd prefer printing it on them, if at all. not sure if it fits. We might get mousepads too, and maybe a poster with one or two more or less important signatures.

My day off is gonna be tomorrow, so i'll try to collect as many goodies as i can with my colleague (Alexej).
Oh i dont have any wireless network here. So I'll most likely post the whole logfile up once im back at home...

anyways, im gonna shut down now... well, transfer the pics onto the laptop and then go to sleep. im tired and we will have to get up at six. mweh.

Sugarplum Fairy - Left, Right, Black, White - Lyrics

Standing in the shade of your love
I gotta pick myself up
Gotta find my way back there
Dirty roads I'll make you feel clean
'Cause I know what you mean
Gotta get it on downtown

I got shown I have a grudge on your generation
I will shout aloud, every heart will stop
I got love, got hate, left, right, black, white temptations
And you see more around

Right side, shake it over to your left side
We can have it all by nightfall
If you really dream you better believe it

Black, White, bet you'll never be an outside
Leave it all behind at midnight
If you really dream you better believe it

Left, right
Black, white
Left, right
Black, white

Running down the alleys of town
Can I see all, am I blind?
Will I ever figure out?
Falling from the edge of my down
Why can't I get you some
Of myself falling down

I got shown I have a grudge on your generation
I will shout aloud, every heart will stop
I got love, got hate, left, right, black, white temptations
And you see more around

Right side, shake it over to your left side
We can have it all by nightfall
If you really dream you better believe it

Black, White, bet you'll never be an outside
Leave it all behind at midnight
If you really dream, you better believe it

Right side, shake it over to your left side
We can have it all by nightfall
If you really dream you better believe it

Black, White, bet you'll never be an outside
Leave it all behind at midnight
If you really dream, you better believe it

Left, right, shake it over to your black, white
We can love you all by nightfall
If you really dream, you better believe it

Left, right

love, happiness, whatsoever.

And another friend of mine is just about to happily stumble into a relationship. It's okay, i am happy for him.

Just cant be arsed to have it for myself. The so called needs bugger me about every 8 - 10 months, and then i can either ignore them (since... oh well, doesnt matter), or just get it done for having my inner peace for the next few months again.
And even if someone might have raised my interest - doesnt usually last for more than 3 or 4 weeks at most currently. usually i lose it after the first meeting.

somewhere in this wide world there might be someone who is really made for me. Who knows. I dont care. I just hop back to my "i prefer being by myself" attitude. (still gotta check the irish lads though ;)) less troublesome, less expensive and less annoying.

Unfortunately there are only very few people who think like me and spend their time with their new lovers. Understandably. I act likely in the first 2 weeks, or well, till i get bored. Still sucks. (until i see the "next man of my dreams" ironically, i guess *laughs*)

btw: the new stuff Jan Delay and Mando Diao have been releasing kicks ass. Totally different genres, but still very good.

I hated the new single from Jan Delay first, but after having heard it the 5th time i do enjoy it a lot. :)

Threats, threats, threats

on a skate-forum i regularly go to there is a discussion on the latest events in london, meaning the bombings-to-be... well, obviously, since it is a UK-forum. the funny thing is that someone said that they werent aiming to cause loads of deaths cos then they could have just as well targeted a huge, crowded stadium. I guess at some point he was right. Even when it looks better to have an explosion in the air than in a stadium (scnr), they most likely know about the high security standards in london, if they really wanted to bomb airplaines they could have done that from ....uh, certain other airports.
So, he said they wanted to cause fear and panic. Makes sense, they definitely managed to arise the question "who is where and when next? and how?"
And to constantly keep up the terrorism discussion.
The suspected culpist always being the middle east.
Which causes aggressions against that area.
And justifies the war against terrorism going on.

So, basically with a few well placed terror threats you can make sure that you can keep this war going on (especially since bush has to take care of him being reelected again - and what works better than fighting terrorism (with terror)?) and being supported. When Blair & co. are convinced to help the terror-fights in the middle east (again) then it is time for some threats in other countries who are against this war, to get their support.

Usually i am not too much into conspiracy theories. But for *some* reason i also start believing that the united states might really be responsible for one event or the other....

Cigarettes and Alcohol

I dont drink any alcohol.
Nor do i smoke.
I dont mind when people smoke in my presence, but i dont like it either.

I dont like kissing smokers.
But recently i was kissing someone who smokes... and who drank some beer... and that suddenly reminded me of those.. times back then (with a certain person in particular actually - who was a much better kisser :))...
i usually prefer to not kiss an ashtray. but... oooooh, currently it just makes my knees feel weak... and then, on the way back home, still having that very taste in my mouth... *dwells*

The good thing about windows...

I dont like windows usually. but it has some good sides: when it comes to languages you dont understand all the important shortcuts still work and the icons are unique. this makes work much easier when it comes to finding out the Mac-address of a chinese, french (i dont speak french) or arabian laptop.
(though i know, the commands are the same on a *nix and mac system too. but still! for lazy people and those who dont know anything about computers windows is alright....
still laughing about this noise filter thing though) :)

Must have lost it...

now this is quite ambiguous, whenever i seriously wanted to hook up with someone they either dont react anymore (well, they hardly do, but if so they are really flirty) or absolutely dont want to go out with me. usually it was easier to get them started... gha, this makes me crazy...!