-_- to whom it may concern -_-

Sensitive Google

2008-06-07T12:46:00.002+01:00

German: www.google.deFrench: www.google.fr
Italian: www.google.it
British: www.google.co.uk

Jealousy?

2008-06-05T15:26:00.006+01:00

(source: www.spiegel.de)

Deutschland - Polen 1:0 (Neuville 91.Min), 14.06.06

Hit the Road Jack

2008-06-04T18:44:00.001+01:00

Ken Leeeeee

2008-05-29T14:52:00.001+01:00

Down Home Shakedown

2008-05-28T10:39:00.001+01:00

What a Match!

2008-04-11T09:59:00.000+01:00

Bringing Down the House

2008-03-27T10:33:00.002Z

Ben Mezrich's brilliant book "Bringing Down the House" made it into a movie ("21") which will be released in April this year:

Eternal Moonshine of the Simpson Mind

2008-03-18T17:24:00.001Z

From a great Simpsons episode is saw the other day with brilliant references to "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind".

Soulwax Interview for the BBC

2008-03-13T18:05:00.001Z

Metal meets Jazz

2008-03-10T10:57:00.001Z

This is an interesting combination.
Last.FM link.

How Mario sees the world...

2008-03-09T23:57:00.000Z

click!

The Front Fell Off

2008-03-07T13:15:00.002Z

RSC Anderlecht - FC Bayern Munich 0:5

2008-03-07T10:53:00.001Z

Where are the Belgians in the department...

Brian: 2, Chris: 0

2008-02-29T17:46:00.002Z

Damn, finished his PhD earlier and can play guitar better too...

“For the last nine months I’ve done nothing except slave over my PhD, which is now written up, thank God. But there are times when you really want to give up. There are times when you go, ‘Why on earth did I take this on?’ ”

Lost America

2008-02-29T13:35:00.001Z

(Picture is taken from http://www.lostamerica.com/)

Citroen - Unmistakeably German

2008-02-27T08:51:00.001Z

24

2008-02-25T23:42:00.002Z

We just finished watching the 6th season of 24 yesterday. Great stuff. Here are two essential 24 links to bridge the time until season 7 (2009):
BauerCount
and
The Jack Bauer Facts

Passed out, surrounded by terrorists and nerve gas, and handcuffed to a table leg, Jack Bauer laughed to himself and said, "I have them right where I want them."

If everyone on "24" followed Jack Bauer's instructions, it would be called "12".

There's one only shift when Jack Bauer works for CTU: the graveyard shift.

"You don't know Jack" is a blessing among terrorists.

Jack Bauer does not let women on top during sex, Jack Bauer never fucks up.

Jack Bauer once killed so many terrorists that at one point, the #5 CIA Most Wanted fugitive was an 18-year-old teenager in Malaysia who downloaded the movie Dodgeball.

The Black Eyed Peas were just The Peas until Jack Bauer heard their music.

Jack Bauer is the 'i' in team.

Jack Bauer's action figure has slept with more women than most men.

...

Bored in the Office?

2008-02-25T23:35:00.001Z

Check this out!

Star Wars according to a 3 year old

2008-02-24T23:51:00.000Z

The Great Trafalgar Square Freeze

2008-02-23T17:39:00.002Z

This is a kind of response to the "Frozen Grand Central" in New York organised by Improv Everywhere. Nice idea!

DJ Yoda vs Star Wars

2008-02-21T00:54:00.001Z

Thanks for the hint, Andy :)
http://www.myspace.com/djyodauk

Every breath you take Every move you make...

2008-02-19T17:30:00.001Z

...

Forbidden Places

2008-02-19T09:32:00.004Z

http://www.forbidden-places.net/

Today, we have a total of 67 documented urban explorations through approximately 1675 pictures on 4 continents...

The Avalanches - Frontier Psychiatrist

2008-02-16T11:21:00.000Z

Forget about RyanAir...

2008-02-12T09:44:00.000Z

Useful on Monday Mornings

2008-02-04T09:09:00.000Z

William Tell Overture meets The Drums

2008-01-31T12:46:00.000Z

12 Days of Christmas

2007-12-17T14:10:00.000Z

The Beat That My Heart Skipped

2007-12-12T13:17:00.000Z

Really like this song... and the beard is quit impressive too ;)

Shall I get one for the scooter...?

2007-11-28T21:45:00.000Z

The outrageously politically incorrect adverts from the time equality forgot

2007-11-28T18:59:00.000Z

Nice collection :)

Remember, remember, the month of MOvember

2007-11-27T14:26:00.000Z

If you walked around our department these days, you will have noticed the increasing amount of facial hair, moustaches, to be more precise. No, you're not back in the 70's. We're all participating in MOvember. Movember is an organisation devoted to raising money for men's health charities.

How does it work? On day 1 (Oct, 31st), everybody clean shaves and then grows a moustache during MOvember (the month formerly known as November). This is the fun part, as you will see in the pictures. However, the whole idea is to raise funds for The Prostate Cancer Charity.

So, I would be really happy if you sponsor my moustache by donating a small amount to fight prostate cancer. To sponsor my Mo (moustache) and fight against prostate cancer please go to http://www.movember.com/uk/donate and enter my registration number which is 120299.

Thanks for your help!

Randomness

2007-11-02T14:04:00.000Z

When I do coding work and need to figure out something, I usually stare into space for a moment instead of looking at the screen. When I just did that a second ago, I found myself glancing at the flyer on my desk advertising the "Bloomsbury Blues Brothers Show" on November, 8th. I was still thinking about whether or not it's worth going, when my music player started to play "She caught the Katy", the intro song of the original Blues Brothers Movie... weird. Maybe I should go...

Guess the country...

2007-10-23T13:00:00.001+01:00

Many sandwich shops around here import Coke from countries all around Europe, Asia or Africa. Usually, you can't read what's written on the can unless you chose Turkish or Albanian as a second language. Today, we had a little discussion about where a particular can came form. Since no one had the answer, each of us put 50p and had a guess: Portuguese, Albanian, Macedonian, Croatian, Afrikaans or Romanian. We googled for the text on the can to find out the language. Thanks to globalisation, Andy won his lunch money back with Albania ;)

Yet another social networking site

2007-10-22T13:15:00.000+01:00

Ok, maybe a bit different from the rest. Link

Gold Ol' Mario Bros. Times

2007-10-19T11:36:00.000+01:00

If you ever played Super Mario Bros. you know the feeling... :D

Modern Technology

2007-10-19T11:07:00.000+01:00

It's unbelievable what's possible with modern technology...

It's the Latency, Stupid

2007-10-18T11:19:00.001+01:00

is the name of an article by Stuart Cheshire that I found quite interesting.

Two Rooms, Glass and Twins

2007-10-17T13:18:00.000+01:00

Take two identical bathrooms separated by a glass window plus two twins. What a cool idea! Thanks for the link, Andy.

Clean up your code before you leave for the weekend

2007-10-16T16:21:00.000+01:00

Yes, very important. Otherwise, you return to work and find your program behaving in a really weird way, requiring you to spend some time to figure out why. Especially, when you just wanted to try something quickly on Friday and then on Monday forgot why and more important that you put

for (int i = 0; i < 1250; i++){
...
}

somewhere in your code. Took me about 20 minutes to find that loop and another 10 to remember why I put 1250... damn it ;)

Kubuntu Problem

2007-10-08T21:16:00.001+01:00

I had a problem with Kubuntu Linux earlier this week and just wanted to share my experience, because it took me a couple of hours to figure it out.

Kubuntu was starting normally and showed me the login screen. When I typed in username and password, the check went well, the login screen disappeared and then for 1-2 seconds nothing happened. Then, suddenly, the login screen came back. Didn't matter how often I tried, even rebooting didn't help.

First, I thought I screwed up the settings when I logged out last time or that the update did something bad, but after reading lots of forum posts I found out that my disk might simply be full.

I stopped kdm with: /etc/init.d/kdm stop
and started KDE again: startkde

The messages appearing on the screen said that several files couldn't be generated. So I checked how much disk space was available: df
and found out that 0% free space was available. Great.

After removing some stuff, I finally could login to KDE again. Too bad, there's no warning message at the beginning, when you try to login.

If you think, your lunch was big today...

2007-10-08T14:51:00.000+01:00

... you should check out this and this! I wonder, who has to do the dishes? ;)

The Hives - New Album

2007-10-08T14:28:00.000+01:00

In case you like rock from Sweden, you might find it interesting that "The Hives" will release their new album The Black and White Album in a weeks time. Here's my favourite song (from an older album):

and here's the new single:

Fancy your own X-Wing Fighter?

2007-10-06T17:50:00.000+01:00

A long time ago, in a garage in Santee, California, a group of slightly insane rocketeers decided to make a flying scale model of the X-Wing fighter from what is arguably the best movie ever made, Star Wars.

Read the story here.

What a punch...

2007-10-05T14:39:00.000+01:00

Mike Tyson would have been proud...

This happened after Celtic Glasgow scored the winning goal against AC Milan (2:1):

I already hate this day...

2007-10-05T11:54:00.000+01:00

Tried to login to my machine this morning and it wouldn't let me to. After installing some updates yesterday, I can't login to KDE anymore great! The cycle: "reboot - start windows - read tips in Kubuntu forums - reboot - start Kubuntu - try them out - reboot" is really annoying!

On my way to uni with the scooter, I suddenly heard a noise that sounded like a little machine gun. I looked around for the next 30 seconds in order to identify the source of the noise until I realised it's me. First, I thought it's something to do with the engine, but when the driveability changed as well, I stopped and found a big metal spike in my (flat) back tire. Fantastic! Should I mention that I replaced the back tire a couple of weeks ago?

So, what's gonna happen next?

Death Star Canteen

2007-10-01T23:40:00.000+01:00

I don't understand...

2007-10-01T15:20:00.000+01:00

... why healthy, young people take the lift for one floor? Even worse are the people that go from the 1st floor to the ground floor! Why?!?

The Ballmer Peak

2007-10-01T15:16:00.000+01:00

What's the correlation between alcohol and programming skills? Check out the Ballmer Peak.

Trade Malware Protection for Privacy?

2007-09-26T15:20:00.000+01:00

Slashdot reports that the new Firefox 3 includes an interesting malware protection feature.
"As we were discussing, Gran Paradiso — the latest version of Firefox — is nearing release. Gran Paradiso includes a form of malware protection that checks every URL against a known list of sites. It does so by sending each URL to Google. In other words, if people enable this feature, they get some malware protection, and Google gets a wealth of information about which sites are popular (or, for that matter, which sites should be checked for malware). Fair deal? Not to worry — the feature is disabled by default."

Handy C++ Compiler Errors

2007-09-20T16:58:00.000+01:00

I love 'em!

This handy error:

node.cc: In member function ‘virtual void Node::initialize()’:
node.cc:14: error: no match for ‘operator=’ in ‘((Node*)this)->Node::neighbours = (((const std::allocator&)((const std::allocator*)(& std::allocator()))), (((std::list >*)operator new(8u)), (->std::list<_tp,>::list [with _Tp = Node*, _Alloc = std::allocator](), )))’
/usr/lib/gcc/i486-linux-gnu/4.1.2/../../../../include/c++/4.1.2/bits/list.tcc:120: note: candidates are: std::list<_tp,>& std::list<_tp,>::operator=(const std::list<_tp,>&) [with _Tp = Node*, _Alloc = std::allocator]

... simply means: You forget a "*", idiot!

I didn't know the Wii was so much fun...

2007-09-16T13:44:00.000+01:00

The Dark Tower Movie

2007-09-08T16:57:00.000+01:00

Every now and then, I do some research on a potential Dark Tower Movie. In case you don't know, The Dark Tower is a 7-book novel by Stephen King written in almost 25 years. I really like the books and highly recommend you to read 'em. However, King himself doesn't like the idea of a movie.

I've always resisted that idea because movies have a way of freezing characters and places in the audience's mind whereas in books everybody has their own different idea of, for instance, how Roland or Susannah looks but if you do it as a movie, immediately that kind of gets frozen in place and you say 'Oh, Billy Bob Thornton is what Roland Deschain looks like.' Or you say 'Brad Pitt, that's what Eddie Dean looks like.' You know what I'm saying, or you can say 'Calla Bryn Sturgis from Wolves of the Calla looks like maybe the Universal back lot', and I've always resisted that. The issue with The Dark Tower books is there's so much story, so many incidents, that it couldn't be done in one movie alone. It would have to be done at least as a trilogy the way The Lord of the Rings movies were done or it would have to be done as a TV series, probably on HBO because of the violence, the way The Sopranos was done. I haven't entirely ruled that idea out but for the next two or three years while the books have their initial run, I think that if you want the story of Roland, you'll have to get it at your bookstore rather than the local movie theater.

Last February, King apparently changed his mind.

Remember last week when we told you that JJ Abrams might be directing an adaptation of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series? Well it looks like this rumor is true...

The other day, I was googling again and found this trailer on youtube:

I was really excited until I found out it's a mock trailer... :)
Here's another one (that clearly says at the beginning that it's a fake trailer).

Google Video Top 100

2007-09-06T22:59:00.000+01:00

I was checking the Google Video Top100 the other day. There used to be a lot of funny clips. Having a look at the Top20, I would say that has slightly changed... ;)

What's the worst location to sell your new lip-gloss line?

2007-09-06T11:57:00.000+01:00

You're right, an office full of computer scientists. Nevertheless, it just happened that a beautician was around trying to sell a new make-up line. Do I have to mention, that she wasn't that successful?

Time to practice your guitar again...

2007-09-04T11:33:00.000+01:00

Get your guitar out again and play!

My Journey with VirginTrains

2007-08-23T21:08:00.000+01:00

I booked train tickets to Edinburgh online over one month ago and chose the "post it" option instead of picking them up from a FastTicket machine. When they hadn't arrived at the beginning of the week (departure was Friday @7am), I called up the VirginTrain call centre. They told me to call again the day before I travel.

Alright, I did that and of course this day they had technical problems and always asked me to call again two hours later (several times that day). Since I don't have a landline number I had to call from my mobile and spent almost 10 quid on that. Several times they suggested to buy a new ticket and then send it to the refund department. I checked the price and the ticket was up to 160£ already. And who would give me the guarantee that I really get the refund?

After calling them up another two times, explaining that I don't have the money to spend another 160 quid on new tickets, they finally managed to send a fax to the station in order for them to issue replacement tickets. I asked the guy if I should collect the tickets from Euston Station since VirginTrains is located in Euston, but he said: "You depart from King's Cross, so we'll send the fax to King's Cross. Please wait for at least two hours to set things up."

It was already 6pm and my journey was the next day at 7am. So I waited until 8pm and walked to King's Cross Station, where GNER is located. They had received the fax, but the lady told me that she can only issue the outbound tickets. For the return ticket I could either ask the ticket office in Edinburgh or go to Euston Station where VirginTrain is. Really!? -_-

So, back to Euston Station, where the surprised Virgin guy was complaining about the lazy GNER people at King's Cross. "That's typical for GNER. They could have easily done it.." At least I got the tickets.

It took only over one month, about 10£ quid worth of phone calls, several hours waiting, calling and walking between stations to get these tickets. Never, ever will I choose the "post it" option again. Why don't train companies issue e-tickets?

That felt good...

2007-08-23T10:26:00.000+01:00

Seeing Germany win against England in a pub in London felt great.

After winning the last game in the old Wembley Stadium and the first in the new one, I hope, I don't have to read about the 1:5 defeat from 2001 for at least a couple of weeks :) Wow, I just found out, you can order the DVD online for just £16.98...

More exercises needed...

2007-08-21T18:54:00.000+01:00

After four weeks of no sport at all, I played one hour indoor football today. This can be quite exhausting after one week in Crete, enjoying the Greek food policy: lots of meat and if it's not meat, deep-fry it, and then another couple of days at home. I really can't be blamed for my bad shape, can I?

Ok, and here's the best penalty ever...

Ribery vs Schulz

2007-08-21T10:10:00.000+01:00

It's great to see him play for your team :D

Spider Pig Trailer

2007-08-01T00:03:00.000+01:00

Wouldn't a spider pig movie be great?

Found this "Spider Pig" Trailer on youtube...

Skype's Timing

2007-07-30T12:03:00.000+01:00

It usually takes a while until Skype changes the status of contacts from online to offline and vice versa. Today, Manish passed my desk saying: "I've to go, I see you guys later in the afternoon" and walked out the door. As soon as the office door closed, a Skype message popped up: "Manish has gone offline". I was impressed!

Spider Pig, Spider Pig...

2007-07-29T23:33:00.000+01:00

does whatever a spider pig does,
can he swing from a web?
no he can't, he's a pig
look ouuuuuuut! he is a spider pig

Just went to the vue to see the movie. Ingenious!

Grow a Mo!

2007-07-27T17:33:00.000+01:00

(source: www.spaced-out.org.uk)

Movember! What a genius idea!
So we can all look like Mike from Spaced... :D

http://www.movember.com.au/

Finished reading...

2007-07-24T18:16:00.000+01:00

Finally, about 88 hours after the world speed reading champion Anne Jones turned over to the last page

Speed reader and Potter fan Anne Jones was one of the first to finish the book, reading more than 4,000 words a minute...

I finished reading the last Harry Potter book "... and the Deathly Hallows".

I'm glad, I managed to avoid reading about the ending beforehand. So many websites, news articles or radio shows out there that spoiled it for many people. I haven't visited any news sites apart from sport for the last three days. I would have been really pissed off, if I had read about it!

Of course, I won't spoil it for anybody. Read the book or, in case you haven't, start to read the series! It's worth it...

A beautiful morning needs...

2007-07-10T13:56:00.000+01:00

... a car standing on your foot. Happened to me this morning while I was waiting in a car queue with the scooter. A woman rolled forwards and stopped the car on my foot. Although, it didn't hurt, because not the full weight was on my foot, it was enough weight to keep me from pulling away my foot. I was just afraid that she might roll forward again, so I tried to advise her of the fact that she was standing on my foot by knocking on her engine bonnet, but still it took some time until she noticed me and rolled back (before that she was just staring into space which was a bit scary...). Good thing, I wasn't wearing my white shoes... ;-)

I wanna go to the seaside

2007-06-19T17:11:00.000+01:00

The video isn't very exciting, but the song is really nice...

Lost?

2007-06-16T14:31:00.000+01:00

I'm used to people asking for directions like "Where's this pub", "Where's that club", etc...
The other day I was walking back from dinner when this guy approached me asking: "Dude, where's North?" Either he was completely lost or he just wanted to avoid asking for the real direction since guys don't ask for directions ;-)

Doing everything wrong

2007-06-14T09:31:00.000+01:00

Unfortunately, the LondonSkate was canceled yesterday due to some rain. We went to Hyde Park anyway to practice the parallel slide which was really fun and it also went quite well.
After one hour of torturing our wheels we bought some pints from a local petrol station and found some benches to sit down in a quiet and peaceful garden, next to a church. Around 9.30 the park warden came along saying: First, you'll have to leave, the park is closing. Second, it's not allowed to drink alcohol in here and third, skates are not allowed either.
We have to remember to bring a dog next time ;) However, the warden was quite friendly and of course we apologised for doing so many things wrong at the same time. The way back was a bit tricky, cause it rained a lot and the pavement became very slippery.

Here's another video of the parallel slide, keep practicing!

Passwords

2007-06-11T11:18:00.000+01:00

I already received a couple of mails from one of the email systems I'm using insisting on a password change, because they expire after x days. Fair enough, I agree that one should change passwords every once in a while. Considering the other 47 passwords I have to memorise, I tried to slightly change my old one...
-> Password's too similar to your old one, please try again

Fair enough, would have been too easy, change it a bit more...
-> Password's too similar to your old one, please try again

Damn it! Let's just keep the last 2 letters then...
-> Password's too similar to your old one, please try again

-_-, maybe I can use the one I had used before the current one?
-> Password has been in use already!

I give up, I have to come up with a new one. Let me try the UNIX pwgen tool for that. This program generates passwords using numbers and lower and upper case letters such as Eetaish8, eeF0chah, eiHaiL9t or gooThai6. You can't find them in a dictionary (-> no dictionary attack!) but they are still quite memorable.

Ok, let's try one of them...

-> Password does not have enough symbols / lower upper case / numbers

Gosh! What are we protecting here? It's still about email, right?

Sigh, I will include two symbols like !, % or $. Of course, there's no way I can memorise this, so I have to write it down and stick a post-it next to my keyboard! Ok, kidding, but I think annoying systems like these make many people do exactly this!

Time to improve your braking skills!?

2007-06-06T13:37:00.000+01:00

Damn, I 'd really like to be able to brake like this... :)

Astronomy Picture of the Day

2007-06-06T13:29:00.000+01:00

A friend of mine sent me this awesome picture which was published in the Astronomy Picture of the Day Series by the NASA. Check it out!

LondonSkate again

2007-05-30T22:47:00.000+01:00

Due to the all the rain during the last weeks, lots of LondonSkates got canceled recently. Also today the weather was quite bad, but in the evening the sun came out, so Bruno and I went to Hyde Park to meet all the other skaters for the LondonSkate. Today's route was fantastic. It's called Shopper's Delight and goes along Oxford Street, Regents Street, Piccadilly, Trafalgar Square, Parliament Square up to Chelsea were we stopped for 15 minutes (to have a pint :)
The route is one of the fastest (I think), the road surface is mostly smooth and the music was great too. I really enjoyed skating today, it's my favourite route so far. Check it out: www.londonskate.com

Read the story line carefully...before!

2006-12-15T17:42:00.000Z

A couple of days ago Max asked me if i wanted to join him and some friends to see a play called Rock n Roll at the Duke of York's Theatre. I said "Yeah, sounds good". I didn't even bother to read the story line or any other information about the play because the name "Rock n Roll" sounded promising enough to me :)

The play won the "Evening Standard Theatre Award 2006". Ok, I didn't like that. Usually, when the newspapers like a movie or play, I don't like it and vice versa. I also found it a bit odd that 90% of the audience was 55+. Ok, I have to admit, I was expecting a musical until the first minutes past, although I couldn't figure out where they put the band ;)
The only rock music you could hear was during the scenes (years) when they played an important songs from this year (not the whole song though).

Anyway, although I didn't understand everything the play was quite good. Back home I tried to find out more. Let's see what wikipedia says :

The play is concerned with the significance of rock and roll in the emergence of the democratic movement in Eastern Bloc Czechoslovakia between the Prague Spring of 1968 and the Velvet Revolution of 1989. Taking place at Cambridge University, England and in Prague, the play contrasts the attitudes of a young Czech Ph.D student and rock music fan who becomes appalled by the repressive regime in his home country with those of his British Marxist professor who unrepentantly continues to believe in the Soviet ideal.
(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org)

Ok, next time I ll check before, even if the name is great. :D

Allergy Advice

2006-12-01T10:47:00.000Z

Eating my cornflakes this morning, I had a look at the milk bottle:
"Allergy advice: contains milk!". Wow, I didn't know. I wonder if it's just stupid bureaucracy or did someone really sue them for not putting it? I think the advice should be bigger, you can hardly read it... ;-)

We love to queue...

2006-11-30T10:16:00.000Z

Ok, I don't, but apparently all other people like to form queues. I am not suggesting to jump the queue, I hate when people do that, I 'm talking about situations when queuing can be avoided. One example: a traffic light with two lanes: in 9 out of 10 situations you will see all cars queueing in one lane, while nobody is using the other lane. Why?

Another example: We went to see 'Casino Royale' yesterday in the vue in North Finchley (I really enjoyed it, I think Craig is a much better Bond than Brosnan) . We were thinking of buying online, but they charge you 60p booking fee per ticket, so we thought 'screw it', should be alright Wednesdays. But no, there was this amazingly long queue, damn. Hang on, why is nobody using the ticket machine? Let's try...

"Please choose the film!"
Beep
"Please choose the amount of tickets!"
Beep, Beep, Beep
"Please pay with your debit/credit card!"
Beep (You didn't even need your pin.)
"Thank you. Take your tickets and enjoy the film."
Total amount of time: 20 seconds.
Estimated queuing time: 20 minutes.

So, I think there's no other explanation, people love queuing!

Proud Sponsor of Camden Council

2006-09-14T19:18:00.000+01:00

Well, I decided to pay my ticket, because I didn't want to risk to pay 100 quid. I probably should have complained though. I am really annoyed by this. So have a look around, there must be some park bench named after me...

Paying is very convenient www.camden.gov.uk/pay (new bookmark :p) Really nice page., a bit like amazon.
"Which payment would you like to make?"
Fuck, I don't want to pay anything, I didn't do anything wrong.
But obviously this option wasn't displayed.
You even have a shopping basket. I couldn't believe it. Ok, you can pay your council tax and stuff like this as well, but it felt wrong for paying a parking ticket. Do you want your ticket wrapped in gift wrap paper? That's 2 quid extra...

Watch out...

2006-09-14T00:23:00.000+01:00

Camden parking attendants might fine you if they don't like the colour of your scooter! At least, I don't know why I got fined today. I arrived too late today to get a parking space in front of UCL, so I had to park in Malet Street. There is a parking bay for motorbikes, which was nearly full already, but I found a small space at the end and I squeezed in there. I exactly fit in there. When Ettore said: "Hey, we can move this scooter here and then you can fit in here.", I replied: "Nah, that's fine. They won't fine me. It's alright. It perfectly fits." Ok, the next time I say something like this, please slap me in the face.

I left office at 11pm and I was very happy to get the gap between two raining phases. When I locked my bike at home, I found the notice. "We had reasonable cause to believe that the following parking contravention had occured: we don't like your face, the weather is horrible today and we are a bunch of grumpy man who like to fine people to annoy them!"
Ok, it didn't say that, but it should have. It said: "Not parked correctly within the markings of the bay or space."

I have 28 days to pay 100 pounds. 100 quid !!! I can't believe it. But then my heart made a little jump: there is a discount. You pay only 50 quid, if you pay within 14 days. Hooray. Thank you, Camden. Service charge not included I guess...

I love deadlines...

2006-09-10T10:46:00.000+01:00

... I like the whooshing sound as they fly by (Douglas Adams).
Haven't written anything lately. Two reasons. First, nothing really stupid happened to me, second I am very busy writing up my thesis at the moment. Deadline is the 29th, so I hope, that I don't hear the whooshing sound :-)

I am really thinking of de-restricting my scooter. I was overtaken by a bike, and I mean bike not motorbike. Ok, we were going downhill, I was already going 60 km/h and he was a really sporty guy (wearing lycras :o) , however, it really hurt. What made me feel a little bit better was that I overtook a Porsche Carrera two days later. Ok, it was in a long queue going 10 km/h but it's the overtaking event that counts, isn't it?

Band practice tomorrow, I really enjoy playing in a band again. I don't think we'll ever make money out of it, but it is great fun. We agreed to practice three songs currently:
Knocking on heaven's door by Guns N Roses
Better do better by Hard-fi
Song 2 by Blur
Guns N Roses' "Appetite for destruction" was the very first music album I ever owned and Song 2 really reminds me of the time when I was 16 and started to go clubbing. Music always reminds my of the time and place where I heard it first. I should have "Soundtrack of my life" :-)

Ok, back to work now, I can already hear the whooshing...

number-plate-man retired

2006-08-22T00:39:00.000+01:00

Finally, my scooter is fixed, yeah! I don't have to wear my number plate on the back anymore.

Ok, I have to start at the beginning. In the night 15th/16th July some wankers tried to steal my scooter. They dragged it about hundred meters away and tried to open the lock and the steering lock with a huge iron bar. Although they didn't manage to break the lock, they caused a lot of damage to the scooter like twisting the handle bar, breaking the seat lock and the most annoying part: they ripped off the number plate including the attachment for it.

I called the police and they recorded the attempted theft. The next day I called the insurance to report the incident and they sent me the claim form and asked me to do an estimate at a garage.
The garage faxed the estimate and I sent back the claim form on the 21th. First class to speed up the process!

So far so good. Took several phone calls the week after until they finally processed the form and the cost estimate from the garage. Another week later they asked me to bring the scooter to the garage again so that an engineer can have a look at it. This was the 1st of August when I remember it correctly and another 5 quid for me taking the tube to uni and back...

The most annoying part was to get the insurance to fax the repair authorisation to the garage. In the week starting from the 7th I called the insurance several times a day, everytime talking to someone else and telling him all the details. The music in the waiting loop is really crap. And then you have dialogues like:

me: "I brought the scooter to the garage last week and your engineer had a look at it."
she: "Alright, give me a sec."
5 min later...
she:"Was it an attempted theft or was the bike actually stolen?"
me: "-_-"

And all the time I was driving around with my number plate sticked to my back. People sometimes started conversation at a traffic light like:
"Dude, you have a number plate on your back!"
"Really? I didn't know. Thanks!"

Finally, the insurance faxed the authorisation and the garage could order the bits and pieces. The appointment was scheduled for today.

Of course the police stopped me yesterday (!!), even using the siren. They asked me why I was wearing the number plate on my back and checked my driving license, road tax and insurance. Clearly, they hadn't seen someone like me before. One of them made a call starting: "I have a stupid question, I have someone with a number plate on his back here...". Apparently it was kind of alright, since it was clearly visible. However, they didnt fine me and just asked me to get it fixed asap. I told them that I ll bring it to the gargae tomorrow anyway. Don't think they believed me ;-)

Anyway, after a lot of weird looks, random conversation at traffic lights, one guy taking a picture of me and be stopped by the police, number-plate-man officially retired :-)

una vacanza italiana

2006-08-19T13:39:00.000+01:00

This week, Andy, Selma and I visited Ettore and Elisa in Italy for a few days.

My journey started on Monday morning at 2am after 2 hours of sleep. I had to go to Stansted using three different busses including some time in Kentish Town. I really hate to hang around anywhere with luggage in the middle of the night. I met Beppe in the bus to Liverpool Street and we arrived way too early, so that we had to wait for about an hour for the Stansted bus.

We arrived at about 5am at Stansted. Never saw the airport so crowded at this time. With the new security measures, the hand luggage was reduced to a transparent bag with wallet and passport in it. Looked really stupid. No liquids were allowed and you had to take your shoes off at the security check. Must be great to work at the security check these days with people taking off their smelly shoes.

With three hours delay (because our plane spent the night at Luton) we left Stansted. Although we had the theory that airlines distribute small children all over the plane to annoy everybody equally, our flight was pretty quite. After two hours we arrived in Bologna Forli. A really tiny airport compared to Stansted, 4 planes a day, but I like that.

Luckily, with Beppe we had an Italian speaker and he managed to get us to the train station and into the train to Ancona. The train was really packed, because one of the most important Italian holiday called Ferragosto was one the 15th. We had a chat with an Italian/Canadian woman who told us things about the cities we were passing. The train track is built along the coast, very nice.
At some stop, people came in and left again after one minute. Then our "guide" discovered that they took her wallet. So she had to leave the train to talk to the police. Not a nice expierence :-(

Elisa and Ettore picked us up from Ancona and one hour later we arrived in Tolentino where we met Ettore's parents and grandparents. In the afternoon we had a nice walk through the city. Parts of it reminded me of an old Counterstrike map called "cs_italy". I know, I know, that's geeky, but look for yourself :D
In the evening we had our first tasty Italian dinner followed by home made cake to celebrate Andy's birthday. Actually, there was always cake, but at this time I didn't know that :D

The next day, we got up early to get to the beach in time. Since it was Ferragosto we expected it to be crowded. The place was called Portonovo, really nice beach, but have a look at the pictures. Of course, coming straight from the office, I got a really nice sunburn ;-)

To cool down, we spent the evening in the mountains with food, wine and live music. Yes, great place Tolentino, beach and mountains very close. Very convenient.

Wednesday, we visited Ettore's other grandparents in the mountains in a place called Croce (hope that's right, Ettore) They showed us a parts of the village and also how they make their own wine. Of course we were invited for cookies and wine :-)
We spent the rest of the day driving around in the mountains and relaxing at a lake.

In the evening we had yet another dinner and and amazing chocolate cake. Don't know what the technique is called to compress chocolate so efficiently, but I was suprised that there weren't any satellite cookies in its orbit...

Thursday was already the last day and we planned to take the train around 4pm. So we had some time to do a bit of shopping to bring some Italian food and wine back to England. After some time in a supermarket we visited a winery. Although with our 4 bottles of wine we probably haven't been the biggest customers, they invited us to have a look around. So we got a free tour and saw how the first grapes were picked and processed and also the huge barrels in the basement.
Afterwards it was already time to say goodbye. We took the train back to Forli and from their with one hour delay the plane to London Stansted. Of course, upon arrival in London it was raining :-(

I really enjoyed my time in Italy. Great fun and tasty Italian food (A LOT ;-) Having a grandma that used to run a bakery is really dangerous. Especially, when she's producing the same amount of cakes after retirement. But now that I am back, I miss cakes after lunch and dinner...

Thanks Ettore, Elisa and Ettore's (grand)-parents for these lovely days. I felt very welcome. The only thing that has to get better next time is my Italian :-)

Shit, a motorway!

2006-08-07T20:42:00.000+01:00

I am proud to present another story of me getting lost on the scooter. Max, Erdem and I had an appointment at 7pm at Bell Lane, North-West London (here) to have a look at a rehearsal room for the band. Ok, no problem, I own this huge A-Z map, so quick look at Google map and a highlight it in the map. Tottenham Court Road, Marylebone Road, a lot of traffic, terrible but normal at this time.

Here, I realised that I left the map on my desk. Great. However, I had the picture in my mind. Turn right at Brent Cross shopping center, easy, right? Unfortunately this junction was much bigger than on the map with at 17 possibilities to turn off. Of course, I took the wrong one, the North Circular. Big road for a scooter with really everybody faster than me which was quite scary. I was about here, when I first called Max and told him, that I've no clue where I am. The problem with this big roads is that you can't turn easily. I knew I was totally wrong, but you have to drive and drive...

It some point I managed to turn aroud and took the North Circular back. Then I made the biggest mistake near here. Instead of staying on the North Circular I ended up on the M1 towards Luton. Did I say that the North Circular was scary? I was wrong, the motorway M1 is. I realised immediately, that I am totally wrong, but you're not I allowed to turn and all I could do was hope that there was a junction soon.

After 20 really scary minutes later (maybe less, but it felt like 20) I arrived at a Service Station near here. I was really glad, because I could buy some petrol and ask for help. I just hoped that there was a way back to London that didn't include the motorway. The staff at the petrol station was very friendly and directed me back to London using the A41/A1 which is still a big road, but not a motorway. Eventually I arrived here and from there I knew where I was. Phew!! It was already quarter past eight and I was just to be alive, so I decided to head back home. What a ride!

I learned two things:
1) Never be too lazy to go back and take the map
2) I need a faster scooter ;-)

The Missing Screw - revisited

2006-08-02T22:42:00.000+01:00

Hooray, I finally managed to fix my skates. I know, took some time, but after the last screw disappointment I was kind of unmotivated...
I looked up a hardware store on the web and was thinking if I should give them a call before going there, but then I thought, "Are you selling screws?" is a stupid question, it's a hardware store. When I arrived there, the shop was shut down. Of course! Next time I'll call. Luckily, next door there was a similar shop, but they didn't sell screw. However, the guy behind the counter was very helpful and drew a map for me to get to a bike store called "bike fix". And I had luck, they had the missing screw. Yeah!! Spent 20 min in the shop to fix it (was a bit tricky) and they girl provided me all the tools. Very nice, although she thought I was Dutch ;-)

On my way back, I passed the Post Office near Russel Square station. That made me realise that I (or men in general) never pay attention to their environment. I was looking for a Post Office this morning and ended up near Oxford Street. The one in Russel Square I passed for about 5 month nearly every morning when I arrived with the tube and it's much much closer!! Damn.

Unfortunately Londonskate was cancelled today due to the rain. As we were already in Hyde Park we decided to skate a bit. Nice skate-stroll through the park including getting lost near Kensington. We skated through Kensington Palace Gardens. Nice street, many really posh and expensive houses there.

Are we lost?

2006-08-01T20:46:00.000+01:00

I was invited to a BBQ party on Saturday evening so I met Stef and Max at UCL at 5 pm to get some stuff from Tesco for the party. Spending about 15 min deciding if we should bring beer, wine or spirits we went for spirits and wine. Took another 15 min to choose the right vodka. With the cheap one you can only clean your car and risk to become blind. Too expensive and no money for meat left... After we chose one, we dropped it. Of course after we paid it, but the lady at Tesco was quite nice and gave us another one.

Since Stef doesn't like the the Tesco wine selection, we had to walk to oddbins. 15 min walk from Tesco, just around the corner. Heard that quite often... Anyway, we walked around the area of Marylebone High Street and I have to admit, it's a really nice area with lots of shops, restaurants and bus. We took the Jubilee Line from Bond Street to Cannary Wharf station. Nice view there. Out of the tube with the station 10m behind us, Max' first question: "Are we lost?". "Yes, indeed, we have absolutely no clue where we are, let's light a bonfire and have the meat right here!" ;-)
Finally we arrived at the party, which wasn't that easy. We had a map with street names, but the street had no names. The bonfire suggestion came up more than once. The party was really good. Many people there and everybody brought meat and drinks. Actually, we wanted to take the last tube back, but then decided to stay longer and go by bus, because we had a great time.

Guess we left at about 2 am and walked to the next bus stop to wait for the D-whatever. Busses starting with a letter don't have the best reputation in terms of reliability I was told. We waited fot quite a long time (at least it felt like this). The bus was for Trafalgar Square and passed Londonbridge. After about 15 min without a sign of the bridge I asked the driver: "Are we near London Bridge?", "bla grrr bla grr!", "I see, so I get off next stop then?", "bla grrr bla grr!". After this inspiring conversation, I found myself at 2.30 am at a bridge that clearly wasn't Londonbridge. I could spot the Tower, but very far away and my stupid brain told me that I was eastbound from the Tower, with Londonbridge westbound which of course wasn't true. However, with this distance in my mind, I took a cab to Londonbridge. Still a long ride, but not as long as I expected it. Stupid brain! After I waited 30 min for the 43 bus I spent another 45 min in the bus before I finally arrived at home. What a journey! I hate taking the bus when I had drinks.

19,53 £

2006-07-30T16:50:00.000+01:00

I was at Saintsbury's to do some shopping yesterday. After the cashier started scanning my items I realised that I forgot to draw some cash before. Ok, actually I thought there was enough left, but apparently I invested to much money in pints on Friday. However, I checked and had 19,32 £ in my wallet. Hmm, not too much. Quick check, yes, another 21p in my pocket. That's 19,53 in total. Shit. I didn't have my credit card with me, only my German debit card and they always charge me for using it here. After the cashier scanned the last item I saw the total sum: 19,53 £. Not kidding! I should have played lotto this day!

TfL hates me

2006-07-28T10:53:00.000+01:00

I decided to use TfL this morning to have some pints this evening after a long week. Two options: walk five minutes and take the bus for 1 £ or walk for 15 minutes, pay 2 £ and take the tube. The bus usually takes ages in the morning, so I went for the tube. I topped up my Oyster Card, walked 15 minutes to Bounds Green Station and waited 15 minutes for the Piccadilly Line to arrive until they announced that the there's currently no service. Great! So out of the station again, hopefully they didn't charge me for my joyful time in the station!
I was not in the mood to walk 20 minutes up to Muswell Hill again, so I took the bus. I tought as I wanted to spend 2 £ anyway and they (hopefully) didn't charge me, I can spend the money on the bus. When I touched my Oyster Card on the reader in the bus, I could read that they did in fact charge me for this fantastic stay in the hot, smelly station. 1 quid! Grrrrr. With the bus from Muswell Hill to central London I spent 3 quid in total for a journey of about 90 minutes. Of course that's quite good concerning money/minute, but that's not what I was looking for!

Not a fucking problem

2006-07-26T10:35:00.000+01:00

On my way to uni this morning, a motorbike and a car collided slightly but not too bad. The car driver got out of his car and the guy with the dismounted. Then they started to shout at each other.

Bike: "You were using your fucking mobile."
Car: "Your fucking motorbike hit my fucking car."
Bike: "Fuck blah, fucking blah mobile"
Car: "Fucking bike blah, fuck blah."

After exchanging several arguments, all including at least two forms of fuck, enough was said and the problem was solved. Both guys continued driving.

2006-07-24T23:56:00.000+01:00

Just want to recommend some bands. I was at a gig Saturday evening with Max and Steph at ULU. Unfortunately not many people around. The bands were quite good though and the guy, who announced the bands was fantastic. Whenever the bands had to rearrange he played some songs on his guitar together with a excellent beatbox performance. Great. I quite liked the first band called "Rotating Leslie" and the last one called "Officer Kicks". So check them out!

Afterwards we went to "Maison Touaregue", a Moroccan restaurant/bar in Greek Street. The bar downstairs is open until 3 am. It's quite cozy, you can sit on a sofa and smoke the water pipe and listen to some sort of 80's/90's disco music, which honestly is a bit out of place. I would appreciate some music that goes with the sofas and the water pipe ;-)

Flash Gordon around

2006-07-21T17:51:00.000+01:00

I was outside in front of our building with Mo for short break, when a man drove by with his bike. This guy was wearing lycras and we were complaining about that. What's the point in lycras other then showing your balls to everybody around? Anyway, Mo was pointing at him and saying something like "why the hell is he wearing lycras?" when a grumpy old man passed by and muttered: "Yeah, sick! Fucking Flash Gordon, isn't it?".

Road Holes

2006-07-19T10:25:00.000+01:00

Going by scooter is really convenient in London. The only thing I hate: road holes. I am not talking about the small bumps, I mean the ones where a small kid can easily fit it. It's ok if you can spot them early enough to avoid them, but if you're right behind a car they appear suddenly. This morning I hit a road hole that deep, I couldn't see the sunlight for a sec ;-)

What would Chuck Norris do?

2006-07-18T20:12:00.000+01:00

You probably know the webpage Chuck Norris Facts, right? Some time ago I ordered a t-shirt with saying "What would Chuck Norris do?" at the front and my favourite Chuck Norris fact: "Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits." at the back.
I was wearing this shirt on Saturday while shopping in Muswell Hill. After I left Saintsbury's and passed a cafe a man was running towards me. He asked me to turn around, because the front of the shirt made him curious. After he read the back he burst out laughing, said thanks and went back to his cafe table. I had to laugh too and was so distracted that I forgot to remove the lock through the wheel of my scooter. This made leaving the place quite hard ;-)

Deutschland Dankt

2006-07-11T00:54:00.000+01:00

Malte Münchert and Andre Doerk, two web-designer from Berlin try to collect one million personal "Danke" (thank you) messages, print them out and send them to the German football team.
If you want to leave your message visit

Great idea, I can just say "Danke" for attractive football and a great atmosphere that changed Germany and I guess also the way other countries think about Germany.

London or Rome?

2006-07-11T00:36:00.000+01:00

A great World Cup has ended. We watched the final match at ULU and went to Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square afterwards. Crazy. For a moment I didn't know if I was in London or Rome. So many Italians (maybe some fake Italians too, that just wanted to party ;-)
People were celebrating with auto and or scooter parade, jumping in the fontain at Trafalgar Square and nearly took over the National Gallery. Great atmosphere. However, the one in Rome was probably still better, I guess :-)

Football Hates Me

2006-07-08T11:48:00.000+01:00

I think I'm done with football. Germany kicked out by Italy, my sweepstake team Portugal kicked out by France. That means I am broken-hearted because of the Italians and bankrupt because of the French. That's it with watching football.

We usually play football in Regent's Park once a week, but we haven't played for a couple of weeks. Last Thursday, we played again and I stepped on the ball and twisted my ankle. Damn. My ankle looks like a tennis ball now, so that's it with playing football. Football hates me these days...

Devastated

2006-07-04T23:31:00.000+01:00

What can I say? It was a great match, both teams played very well.
However, I am devasted now. A goal in the last minute of the extra time. Horrible. The last time I felt this way was when ManU scored twice in the additional time during the Champions Leaugue Final in 1999. I can't believe Germany is out. At least, I can spend more time on my thesis now.
However, I am really proud of this German team!

On my way home with the scooter, I was waiting in front of a red traffic light, Elisa & Ettore next to me. On the other side there was a guy on a motorbike. He asked us, if we were Italian. I told him, they are and I am German. He tapped me on the shoulder and said: "I am sorry man." :-)

Now I'll support my sweepstake team. Go Portugal, go go go!

Totally nervous

2006-07-04T18:16:00.000+01:00

Less than two hours left until kickoff and I am already very nervous. I can't concentrate on work anymore and I am absolutely not hungry. I always feel the same way before an exam, but this time I enjoy it :-)
I hope Torsten Frings will play in the final on Sunday...

JAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

2006-07-01T12:27:00.000+01:00

Ok, that's it. Actually, I can't write more to explain my feelings about the match yesterday, but I'll try. For me it was thrilling, exciting and I probably lost two years of my expectancy of life.
For people not Argentinean or German it might be a bit boring at the beginning since there weren't lots of opportunities to score. Both teams defended very well and didn't make many mistakes. You could feel the respect they had for each other. However, I was very very tense and I had to stand up, because I was too excited to sit down.
Germany didn't manage to win against a "big" team since October 2000 when Didi Hamann scored the last ever goal in the Wembley stadium and they won 1:0 against England (yeah!). Since then, a lot of draws, not to mention the terrible defeats against England (1:5) or Italy (1:4). That really hurt ;-)
After the 0:1 the team showed a great will and came back. For sure, I am not objective, but I think that the game was well-balanced. If you don't agree, feel free to leave a comment ;-)
A win in the penalty shoot-out is always a lucky one, but it's hard to beat Germany in shoot-outs. Talk to an Englishman about this fact ;-)
However, now that they won against one of the best teams in this World Cup, I am really optimistic that they can make it.

Money Saving Tip #1 - London Busses for Beginners

2006-06-30T13:07:00.000+01:00

A normal bus journey in London is 1,50 £. If you pay with your Oyster Card it's 1 £, and if you use the bus off-peak which means after 9.30am, you pay 80p.
Since there are two World Cup matches today and it's Friday, I decided to take the bus today and have some pints tonite. So why not going after 9.30 am and save another 20p?
You can take the 134 bus from Muswell Hill directly to Central London (for 80p). So far, so good.
When you get into the bus, make sure that the display says: "134 Tottenham Court Road" and not "134 Muswell Hill Broadway". Otherwise the bus driver will ask you to leave at the next stop and you pay 80p for 200m and another 80p for the remaining journey. Grrrrrr.

The Missing Screw

2006-06-28T20:36:00.000+01:00

Couple of weeks ago I started skating with LondonSkate. Every Wednesday skating two hours through London. Last time I lost the screw that is fixing my brake. As I wanted to skate today, I tried to fix the brake before. So I tried to find a skate shop. There is one next to Marble Arch tube station called the Club Blueroom.

For the first attempt I took the scooter and tried to get to Marble Arch. The thing in London is, you are never allowed to turn in the direction you need. If you need to turn left, you are only allowed to go right and so on. Really annoying. After 20 minutes I got lost and decided to go back which took me another 20 minutes,

So I decided to walk to Tottenham Court Road station and take the Central Line to Marble Arch. After 5 minutes I found the skate shop, but they couldn't help me. The suggested a hardware store around the corner, but it was already closed. I didn't want to spend more money on the tube and decided to walk back and looked for a shop in Oxford Street that sells screws. Nothing. No screws at all. Carrying my rollerblades around, no screws and all the people in Oxford Street... You probably know the feeling when you are already really annoyed and people in front of you change the direction three times in two seconds or just stop moving, I really hate that.
After all, I spent more than two hours for a bloody screw with no results. Eventually I just removed the whole brake and practiced to skate without brake.

Thunderbolts and Planes

2006-06-28T20:24:00.000+01:00

On my flight back, the plane was struck by a thunderbolt. There was a big bang and I could clearly see the thunderbolt. It was a bit scary but I was relieved when the crew didn't panicked. A few minutes later the captain made an announcement that the instruments were still working and that planes are designed to cope with thunderbolts. Even a Ryan Air plane ;-)