Liebe Leserinnen und Leser,
ich wollte nur kurz mitteilen, dass Lars hier anscheinend nichts mehr Neues schreibt, weil er ununterbrochen seit Tagen schon vollkommen in der virtuellen Realität gefangen ist und dort neue Freundinnen und Freunde gefunden zu haben scheint, mit denen er spricht, Geschenke austauscht und sich verabredet. Also los, wer von Euch vermag ihn zu befreien?
Archive for 2003
Neverwinternightabsorbiert
Wednesday, September 10th, 2003Exploring the online realm.
Monday, September 8th, 2003Yesterday I played Neverwinter Nights for the first time on an online, guild hosted server. It has been a very good and interesting experience. People there (there are usually about 3-10 people online in the setting I am playing in) are quite eloquent, funny and charming. Of course they are, because they are all Mac users! The guild (the Avengers of Coramir) recruits itself from the Mac Neverwinter Nights forum, where I have lurked for the last year or so.
If anything virtually interesting happens, I’ll inform you through the virtual hyperspace. Allez les Internautes!
Could it be better?
Friday, September 5th, 2003It took me a while but now I have seen 8 Mile, directed by Curtis Hanson (who also directed Wonder Boys and L.A. Confidential) and featuring Eminem. I was positively surprised by the funny and witty dialogues. Luckily, there are no special effects and stuff like that – instead it’s a good story with good characters and, of course, lots of good music. Even if you’re not into HipHop or Eminem you could like the soundtrack. There is room for passion and some sex (‘we’ have Kim Basinger and a really gorgeous Taryn Manning in this movie). Fans of sports movies can breathe the same exhilaration they experience before and in Rocky’s final fights when Eminem enters the stage for rap battles against the bad guys. The ending is quite open and un-Hollywoodesque. I definitely recommend this movie, even if the user rating on IMDb is only 6.9 of 10. Check out the trailer.
Could have been sooo much better.
Thursday, September 4th, 2003Yesterday we went to see Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (deutsch: Fluch der Karibik) with a party of seven people. It has a great, gorgeous, wonderful introductory scene for Johnny Depp – if your character is introduced with such a good scence once in your career as an actor, you can be very proud. All in all, Johnny Depp’s character, Captain Jack Sparrow, is what makes this movie live. Without him, there’s not much ado. I sorely missed drama, romance, fear and anger. The movie remains pretty shallow 95% of the time: If dramatic situations arise, Walt Disneyesque solutions are presented. By this I mean that a potential crisis is usually resolved by resorting to bland comedy, using flat jokes and effects. It’s a pity. I am sorry to report that the ending is not very convincing – I did really identify with many of the characters, I would have been ready for great romance, a cliff hanger, anything. *sigh* Nonetheless: I liked many of the gorgeous pictures and ideas in this movie and if you like the genre, if you like Johnny Depp or Legolas a.k.a Orlando Bloom then: watch it and enjoy. Check out the trailer.
I like it.
Thursday, September 4th, 2003The worst part of the declining temperatures is the growing anxiety which I feel before turning on the cold water in the shower. *brrr* But otherwise it’s great: I can wear my favorite jacket again, we had some gorgeous rainbows over the last few days and sleeping is even more attractive.
Lektüreempfehlung.
Thursday, August 28th, 2003Im Urlaub habe ich die Lektüre von Fabian. Die Geschichte eines Moralisten. beendet. Fabian ist ein kurzer, von Erich Kästner geschriebener Roman. Hat mir hervorragend gefallen – es war mein erstes nicht-Kinderbuch von Kästner und ich bin gespannt auf weiteres. Insbesondere für Leute, die eine Beziehung zu Berlin oder eine Faszination für die ausgehenden zwanziger Jahre haben, empfiehlt sich dieses höchst angenehme und kurzweilige Buch, in dem sich sowohl sehr komische als auch sehr tragische Elemente finden. Eine Besprechung des Titels gibt es auch bei die-Leselust.de.
Skin Cancer risk now dropping again.
Wednesday, August 27th, 2003I’m back in Berlin again. The sky is cloudy and the temperatures are perfect again – around 22 °C. The vacation has been long enough to produce some longing after the city, the balcony and dear friends. It has also been long enough for me to get a real sun tan. Haven’t had such a tan since I worked on the island, I guess. Come and visit me, before I am a pale academic again.
Had a lot of fun and time for relaxation, reading, musing and playing croquet (see this entry).
On Vacation.
Saturday, August 16th, 2003Just a short explanation and reminder for those who don’t know: I am still on vacation in France. I’ll get back to updating my blog when I come back. Right now I am surprisingly happy with being offline and without mobile phone reception in the French countryside.
T3 preview.
Thursday, July 31st, 2003Ever got involved in the car-rental-price-comparison business?
Wednesday, July 30th, 2003Don’t. It is a morass that could easily swallow your sanity.
*sigh*
Wednesday, July 30th, 2003It had been time. I’ve been away from Choriner Strasse, away from Berlin for almost three weeks. As I’ve realized, this is pretty long, especially if one spends most of the time in Darmstadt. It is quite refreshing to be back and watch the capital crowd moving through the streets and flaneuring below our balcony.
The real holidays are almost there (I’ll be gone during most of August). However, actually being here in Berlin can be relaxing too. I would never have believed that I would say that seven years ago, when I was living in quiet Kiel ;-)
Offline until Monday.
Saturday, July 26th, 2003Another wedding… This weekend Kerstin, Christian, Maja and yours truly will be celebrating the wedding of Jascha and Sabine! Later today we’ll introduce Chr and Maja to one of the local Biergartens here in Darmstadt – at least if they arrive before nineish. There seem to be some heavy traffic jams on the way from Berlin to Darmstadt. Poor them. Hopefully, it won’t take us too long to get to Tübingen tomorrow. Perhaps we’ll drive through the Odenwald. As we all know, the shortest way is not necessarily the fastet…
Hmpf.
Wednesday, July 23rd, 2003Gestern waren wir in Bruce Allmächtig. Der Film hat berechtigterweise nur eine Bewertung von 6,5 von 10 möglichen Punkten in der IMDb, ich würde ihn sogar noch schlechter Bewerten. Warum? Weil ich eh kein besonders großer Fan von Jim Carey bin und weil der Film eine so unangenehme individualistische Ideologie verbreitet. Bruce wird mit göttlicher Macht ausgestattet. Was tut er damit? Nur Dinge, die sich und sein privates Umfeld betreffen (und dabei noch die gesamte Umwelt in Mitleidenschaft ziehen und nahezu anarchistische Verhältnisse herbeiführen). Nachdem er damit konfrontiert wird, sieht er sich völlig außerstande, diese allgemeinen Probleme zu lösen. Natürlich geht alles gut aus, doch auf dem Weg zum Happy End in Zweierbeziehung und Angestelltenverhältnis verlangt Gott von Bruce noch ein Gebet zur Anerkennung seiner Macht. Erst betet Bruce für den Frieden auf Erden; dieses Gebet lehnt Gott jedoch mit den Worten ab, das sei ja allenfalls ein gutes Gebet für eine Misswahl. Derart zurechtgewiesen betet Bruce dann schließlich nur für sich beziehungsweise für seine Exfreundin. Ergo, sei nicht am Gemeinwohl interessiert, da kann man als einfacher Mensch eh nichts machen. Lebe Dein privates Interesse und es wird schon alles Gut werden. That’s the way the cookie crumbles.
Nichts desto trotz gibt es einige lustige Szenen in dem Film, die sollte man in Form von Trailern und Clips konsumieren und sich Zeit und Geld für einen anderen Film sparen.
Updated to Blosxom 2.0.
Tuesday, July 22nd, 2003Today I updated from version 2.0rc5 to version number 2.0. Not a lot of code was changed, so I guess there shouldn’t be any trouble for you. If something is not working correctly on your browser/machine, please tell me.
There’s another minor technical detail to report: finally this blog actually validates as correct HTML 4.01 Transitional. As inquiring minds might have found out there was one incorrectly tagged post at the end of the queue which falls out with the posting of this entry. Yay!
It’s too darn hot.
Monday, July 21st, 2003I want to apologize for the absence of posts during the last days. Right now my weather app reports 36° C. Kerstin and I are living a vegetable’s life here in southwestern Germany. However, yesterday we spent a very nice and refreshing afternoon at the Griesheim outdoor pool. After languishing a bit more here in the Arbeitsraum in Darmstadt, we’ll probably be back to the pool with a big *sigh* later today.
After that we’ll have a tête à tête barbecue with lots of cold beverages on our balcony… Hopefully we’ll have a big thunderstorm soon, things are really drying up. Especially those supposedly greyish and squishy things in my head.
What are you doing to cope with the heat? Any refreshing tips and strategies to offer?
35° Celsius?!
Wednesday, July 16th, 2003Das sagt die Wettervorhersage für morgen. Kerstin, viel Spaßbei der Anreise im PKW… Ich war gerade im Woog (d.h. im öffentlichen Badesee hier) und werd mir nun mit einem meiner Mitbewohner zusammen eine Pizza gönnen. Bisher hatte ich noch keine einzige leckere Pizza hier in Darmstadt – vielleicht wird’s ja die Premiere, der Laden ist uns jedenfalls schon mehrfach empfohlen worden. Ich werde berichten. Und schwitzen.