Friday was hot, sunny and perfect for Munich beer gardens, 2 hours after waking up we were at the new Allianz Arena (Bayern Munich's new stadium and host for the opening World Cup 2006 tournament match).



After cruising by the stadium we picked up Leo and got down to business, straight to the English Gardens:



We decided that it was too hot at noon to go hiking through the foothills to Andechs so we stopped for a beer in the shade to wait for a later afternoon departure, Leo's trying his terminator look here...



...and his "leave it to beaver" look here: ;-)



The place was packed, of course, long weekend here in Germany:



Well after meeting one of Leo's Russian friends at the Chinese tower place (and having a few more masse) we decided a change of view was in order. At this point hiking was still on the bill officially, but a pitstop at the SeaHaus for a beer before leaving would soon demolish those plans:



As we were driving downtown for some din-din (the Andechs hiking plans totally discarded at this point) we saw this guy stumbling along in the grass and actually collapse and pass out right on a lawn downtown, if I could have gotten my camera out sooner I'd have one of the funniest videos of all time! Keep in mind that it was only 9:30 pm at this point!!



Throwing a penny into the wishing well for luck, yes my wish came true...



...I wished for a great ride, and got one ;-)



Grandma hadn't been to germany before so we totally had to do the obligatory Hofbrauhaus for a beer. As always tons of drunken tourists, polka music and fat waitresses with bigger arm pipes than Hulk Hogan serving up to 10 Masse glasses at a time. Our buddy Martin (who's a shaggin good salsa dancer now) joined us for a round.



Time to ride to the next stop:



Um... ok drinking since noon large 1 litre masse sometimes mean that you end up with strange photos on your camera the next day that arn't really easily explained. This would be one of those times. At least a 9.5 for the synchronization.



Scheiderweisse is the best weissen :-)



Um, walk like an Eygption? Actually practicing my moves as we were off to meet Martin at the Salsa place:



I was drunk, she looked hot at the time, I made a mistake, I'm ok with that ;-)



I wished for one and got two rides ;-) Notice the hiking clothes still in full attire as we totally get lost trying to find the Salsa place:


After nearly getting thrown in the slammer we decided it was time to put up or shut up, back to Leo's for some REAL Russian vodka:



And as always, all good things must eventually come to an end:



That's the weekend folks, in a somewhat mixed posting order, still waiting for the pics from Leo/Martin and Grandma. Let's just say getting up for strategy class at 8am was not pleasant, although I was only 10 minutes late despite being so tired that I actually got on the wrong bus for the first 3 stops!

Looks like the week's goal is to hit thesis hard, get the case materials for Strategy class on Thursday completed (if you want a digital copy of the notes then pitch in 10 euros and they're yours, saving you the 55 euro charge!) and get ready for another great summer weekend in Germany!

Quick update for any who want to join us, tomorrow hockey at the tennis courts 5:30, Quiz night at Irish at 10pm, Wednesday night we're doing a group running training session 8-9:30 then probably out for a coffee/beer, Thursday busy, Friday beer garden 20 minutes outside Pforzheim (on good authority that this place is the best beer garden this side of Baden-Wurtemburg!, karlsruhe gang it's only 10 mins for you to get there so if we could hook up then instead of on Sunday my liver would most appreciate it!), Saturday strategy class all day, Stuttgart circle beer place afterwards and maybe a capper at crazy cool beard guy place. Drop me a line if you're around for any of that and we'll hook up. Until then, safe travels everyone!

A great long weekend started with beers at Irish on Wednesday (of course!) and then advantage grasping Baden Baden tour in the sun on Thursday. Starting off with the castle:



A little picnic lunch:



Wow, the view was exceptional, of course my cheap little digi-cam does not do it justice:



Maybe this movie does it better justice.

The entrance for what could be an afternoon of hiking in the mountains:



Halfway up the mountain there was an inground stream tap, litterally people would pull up in their cars and fill up hundreds of jugs of water to take home, the water was so pure and cold totally awsome to quench the thirst and heat of the day:



Rocking downtown for some ice cream and sightseeing:



The man-made stone river system was tres-cool:



Cooler - the "trinkhalle", change in plans :-)



The hefe masse glasses were HUGE, here compared to a typical half litre glass, but who's glass is which?



Ah klare, mystery solved ;-)



The Baden gang topping off the afternoon:



With Baden-Baden hit hardcore and diner time BBQ the day was complete, next up Friday Munich...

Well hello there, it's been a slow posting weekend and you'll soon find out why, tons of pics to get up which suits me just fine working away on the patio with the nice breeze and cold weekend capper hefe :-)

Last night we headed on up to monument hill for BBQ and beers, of course I forgot the camera but this photo's from last Sundays BBQ, looks like this might be a regular thing this summer :-)



Afterwards we headed over to Palm Beach for the game (damn you Bayern Munich!) and some more pops:

What was with the patio closing at 11pm? Apparently they don't wanna shell out the extra cash for the late night licence so they shut down the patio WAY too early for my taste, too bad cus it was awsome outside after the hot sun went down!

More on the Baden-Baden and Munich trips shortly...

I'm not sad today at all, in fact very little could make life better than it is now, but I've been thinking about things lately and also come across some interesting entries that I want to share with you:

Some powerfull food for thought from "Talking Story":

"A lie not spoken aloud is still a lie, and it still hurts someone or something in some way... lies are never totally hidden and tucked away: in some way they affect someone’s health and spirit. Living with lies will kill a person’s ability to completely share their own aloha with others."

Those you love and care about will know when you're not being honest with them, just as you know when someone you love isn't being honest and true with you. A terrible feeling.

This leads me to this story I recently came across that I totally identify with:

TAKE HOLD OF EVERY MOMENT

A friend of mine opened his wife's underwear drawer and picked up a silk paper wrapped package:

"This, - he said - isn't any ordinary package."
He unwrapped the box and stared at both the silk paper and the box.

"She got this the first time we went to New York, 8 or 9 years ago. She has never put it on. Was saving it for a special occasion.Well, I guess this is it. He got near the bed and placed the gift box next to the other clothings he was taking to the funeral house, his wife had just died. He turned to me and said:

"Never save something for a special occasion. Every day in your life is a special occasion".I still think those words changed my life.

Now I read more and clean less. I sit on the porch without worrying about anything. I spend more time with my family, and less at work. I understood that life should be a source of experience to be lived up to, not survived through. I no longer keep anything. I use crystal glasses every day. I'll wear new clothes to go to the supermarket, if i feel like it. I don't save my special perfume for special occasions, I use it whenever I want to.

The words "Someday..." and "One Day..." are fading away from my dictionary. If it's worth seeing, listening or doing, I want to see, listen or do it now.

I don't know what my friend's wife would have done if she knew she wouldn't be there the next morning, this nobody can tell. I think she might have called her relatives and closest friends.She might call old friends to make peace over past quarrels. I'd like to think she would go out for Chinese, her favourite food. It's these small things that I would regret not doing, if I knew my time had come.

I would regret it, because I would no longer see the friends I would meet, letters... letters that i wanted to write "One of these days".

I would regret and feel sad, because I didn't say to my brothers and sons, not times enough at least, how much I love them. Now, I try not to delay, postpone or keep anything that could bring laughter and joy into our lives. And, on each morning, I say to myself that this could be a special day.

Each day, each hour, each minute, is special.

---

I highlighted those sections to provide emphasis to what I believe we all should be doing, taking advantage of every moment, life is just too short, our time is just too limited to be wasting. Seize the day...

Today is so awsome, sun shining bright, holidays starting tonight (this afternoon for me!) and everything seems to be going good - can you tell I haven't been able to take this smile off my face all day! :-) :-)

Here's some funnies to go along with this great day:

Can't get out to the new Star Wars movie? Well head on over to Store Wars! Of course if you wanna see some funny online vids then Marta points us to Weebl, hours of enjoyment there! (just click on "episodes") Of course my favorite is La Linea since I remember watching it just before going to bed as a kid, and by "kid" I mean "when I was 24"... and by "just before going to bed" I'm refering to "8:30pm".

Got this link and pic from Boing Boing, what happens when new expressions arise from old sayings? Well old cartoons get funnier:



Today we've got afternoon pops in the sun, diner with the Champions League final and the cap Irish all-nighter. It's good to be alive! :-)

The long weekend fast approaches, lots of plans, correction: "ideas" for the weekend, unfortuneatly nothing I can post as they're a surprise for Grandma (my friend from Paris) who's cuming down to visit. It all starts off at Irish late tomorrow night (she arrives sometime after 12, don't worry we've got staff pass tomorrow night so I don't expect to crawl out of there before 7 or 8 am) and then we're off Thursday, catch me around or shoot me an e-mail if you're interested in joining us for the weekend festivities.

Until then, just thesis and bummin around the net:

A cool video of drawing characters, does anyone remember the name of that old French cartoon with the line drawing of the guy with the big nose?

Think Different.

The Credo, Motto and service basics of the Ritz-Carlton, customer service principals at its best.

Television on cell phones/portable devices... the next revolution is coming... or maybe it's aliens, quick put on the tin foil hats so they can't read our minds!

Aussie pointed me to this, I'd seen it before but reading it a second time really made me realize what an idiot President and CFO of Pepsi Indra Nooyi is: "the five major continents to the five fingers on her hand -- with the U.S.... being the controversial middle finger and Africa the often-ignored pinkie". Remember in school when we all learned about the continent of the "U.S."? Fucking retard, NORTH AMERICA! Not to mention she later had to apologize for leaving Antarctica and Australia out of the analogy... maybe those continents are thankful for that!

Some more South Park cartoon fun, the Paris gang:


I got this one from someone who shall remain nameless... I can't believe I'm even posting it:

Why do witches not wear any underwear?
Better grip on the broom!!!

Oh my, time to get back to thesis if that's the crap I'm putting up! Hockey today at 5:30, everyone's welcome to come test their skills! Or maybe I should just go enjoy the afternoon sun :-)

Yesturday we decided to hit Irish and watch the last of Bundesliga soccer for the year and then off to BBQ in the less than perfect weather (but the gazebo totally saved us!). Although I've been deralick in my picture taking duties of late I did manage to squeeze one off of us coming down from monument hill afterwards:



Thesis works going strong in advance of the vacation weekend, which of course starts Wednesday night in Irish :-) Good luck to everyone finishing off their work, I feel your pain!

Today's smile:

"I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is called a disgrace, that two are called a law firm, and that three or more become a congress." - Peter Stone

Thanks to everyone who came out today! Between the movie, my huge bucket of popcorn, stiefel time (without crappy Krombacher this time!), Irish pub darts/pool and everyone together watching my VFB boys get trounced at home to the evil empire Bayern Munich (embarrassing!)... a pretty good time. On the other hand, Star Wars 3 sux. Well it doesn't suck but it didn't live up to the hype, or at least to my childhood fantasies of how good it would be.

It also sucks that I forgot my digi-cam... again! I never was much of a camera guy, but I've gotta stop forgetting it all the time!

Tomorrow is a new day, and if it's not raining [it's supposed to be according to the internet forecast, which means it probably won't ;-) ] then we're having a BBQ starting at 4 (where I can try out some simple grilling techniques). Come one, come all. BYOB, BYOGM (grilling meat).

No camera pics from today so I'll post the lean, mean grilling machine that's very similar to the 25 Bauhaus black coal bowl BBQ I bought last summer ;-)

Why do my legs feel like they are on fire? Could it be the hours and hours of hockey we plan every day? Could it be getting lost and subsequent 4 hour walk? Could it be the ninja kick to the face of activity? Who knows, but it feels great :-)

Some Saturday morning webtoons:

My two second review of "Science, Not Art" edited by Jon Turney and written by 10 scientists from varied fields is that it's a semi-interesting look at the lives of an academic. The insights are few, the format of the book (journal entries) is obsolete in this form with the emergence of blogs and you can basically skim through the book in less than 2 hours. All in all worth taking a glance if it's lying on the coffee table in your dentist's office, but not worth the 11 bucks I paid.

The Germany Garden Show in Munich... planning since 1998?? Sounds... well I'll go check it out next weekend before I totally bash it, pre-eval = sucky sucky.

In "I can't believe they didn't think of this before" news, hot dogs and hot dog buns are now to be sold in packages with the same number, revolutionary!

Segway tours of Amsterdam, wonder if you stop by and "coffee" shops on the way ;-)

A site showing people crying while they eat... you really can find anything on the internet!

Gadling does it again, this post on getting paid $75 to be a groin kicker, sounds like a great career path for me!

Gotta get ready for Star Wars today! Yippee! :-)

Wednesday couldn't sleep so I decided to go for a long walk to check out some of the city I'd never seen before... well the long walk turned into a VERY long walk when I got lost and ended up one city over. It was nice walking through 3km of forest in the middle of the night, reminded me of the Wizard of Oz when they're going through the scary forest and meet the lion. No lions Wed night, but I did find some cool pubs out there so last night we decided to check it out. There's something about a country bar with Indian pics on the wall, German only speaking waitresses, American flags all over the place and fur on the benches (no joke) that just make for a great atmosphere.

Look outside, Friday night is going to be awsome! We're off to the "Kupferhammer" beer garden for lunch and basically the day, thesis will have to wait, life calls!

Everyone who's interested in blowing off responsibility and taking a break with us is more than welcome, we've got beer, cards and sun :-)

I'll probably end up like this today, who is this guy anyways? ;-)



I love this online commercial for O'Reilly's Irish Pubs: "Life sucks, have a pint". Well O'Reilly, I think I just might!

Update: I can't believe it but I just realized that we actually went to their Amsterdam location! Some of you might not remember that night ;-) Space muffins rock the casba!

Thesis, thesis, thesis. Oh and web too: :-p

Go check out a hilarious take on Bloggers by the increasingly popular John Stewart. Oh my, here's another one, great stuff!

Google Easter Egg (a mini program inside a program usually inserted by developers that is humourous and has nothing at all to do with... the program, ok not my best explaination but you get the point). Putting "french military victories" into Google and hitting the "I'm feeling lucky" button (which takes you directly to the #1 website for that search) gives you the following:



Here's what Google's up to this year... or at least what they SAY they're up to ;-)

Domi's South Park character:


Starting a new biz and need a logo? For $25 (US) have these guys do one for you!

Many of my friends are starting to get married and even buying houses (congrats Jules!) and having babies (congrats Julie!) . Here's a cool site that shows the rising and fall of the popularity of baby names over time.

Here's a much funnier post about that guy who killed himself off the Eiffel tower in Paris I wrote about a couple days ago.

We should be de-militarizing the world, not arming it, starting with policies to avoid creating cold war like situations in space.

While most of us graduating MBA's are looking for jobs, I doubt many of us are this desperate to get one.! funny enough, I think I know some guys who would take the opposite reaction, "ok you're not giving me the job, but can I tak eyou out anyways?" ;-) Marta got that one in :-)

Hockey on today for 5:30, same place, same time, same good times :-)

Just stop what you are doing and click this link. Seriously. Aussie gets in the daily funny, unbelieveable! :-) :-) :-)

Seems like everyone's trying to fight off a cold the past couple days. Last night we decided to check out Quiz night and Kenny was pretty much telling us the same thing. The good news: I got the highest score on quiz I've ever had! Headcolds good for the IQ? :-)

Staying indoors while it rains and nursing a cold does have one advantage, lots of thesis done, lots of web stuff:

I'll definatly be checking this stuff out next year when I go to South America/Antartica! Easter Island too! More cool stuff on the island here. Maybe I'll be able to post a picture on this site, pictures of people taking pictures :-)

Morgan Spurlock (the guy from the "Supersize Me" movie) is starting a TV show where he does other social activities one month at a time. Interesting.

A great post demonstrating the value of your employees and their interaction with the customer. Man do I love Disneyworld! Placing higher value on customers and customer service is just starting to take hold in the industry, Germany has a universe of improvement in this area to explore in comparison to other countries! Of course rants like this by high profile Bloggers do not help the company image or sales.

The last line of this post says it all: "I wish I was a non-drinking, anorexic vegetarian. Life would be so much cheaper."

Daze Reader has an interesting post on the business side of the porn industry (EuroRoss will see a huge bump in hits now that I've written the word "porn" twice in this post). The best part of the article... how they keep referring to the "talent", sounds hilarious to me for some reason :-)

This is wild! An ant colonie that builds a big bug trap, click the video link to watch it in action.

It's not the idea, it's the execution!

Leadership Rules from Jack Welch (via "A Sabre Geek"):

1. Control you destiny or someone else will
2. Face reality as it is, not as it was or as you wish it to be
3. Be candid with everyone
4. Don’t manage, lead
5. Change before you have to
6. If you don’t have a competitive advantage, don’t compete

Some great anagrams here.

I'm so ready for a new laptop, this one is great and I love it (IBM ThinkPad) but I'm dying to try out a tablet PC and a performance boost from my current PIII configuration is long overdue. End of the summer is the timeframe, but maybe I should wait for the un-announced ThinkPad Tablet to be released before buying? Drool...

Marketing constantly gets more customizable. Of course there will always be promotion snafu's like this, and to quote the title "this IS stupid!"

I wanted to check out the "secret" tunnels underneath Paris city when I was there but the frigging thing wasn't open until May. Dang it, next time. At least I won't be trying this!

It's amazing to me that during a time of coming together in Europe, with the joining of numerous countries to the EU block, that there is an increase of this stuff in Germany. Boggles the mind.

My favorite RSS aggregator NewsGator Online is about to get better (they acquired FeedDemon), of course I still had some suggestions for them! (comments section).

A great quote from Sam Ruby via Scoble: "if you don't get your hand slapped at least twice a year, you aren't pushing the boundaries hard enough."

This post on how to minimize abandoned online shopping carts hits it on the head. As my comment on the thread states, the worst is when you have to go through 10 thousand login and other steps before they tell you how much the total price is with shipping and charges, brutal!

Note: My list of Star Wars entrants has to be in by Friday morning, e-mail NOW if you are coming to the Saturday showing!

Your daily smile, complements of the Stevie-J-myster:



Enjoy the sun today everyone, hockey 5:30 is on!

Sat night we went to meter beer place, ate roast beef and spetzle, and drank the night away. It was also the night that I was known as "Sven Lidstrom"... don't ask :-)

More from the web:

A great post from "A VC" that can actually be applied to almost any plan or project that isn't living up to intermediary results:

"What you have to do in these instances is check your assumptions behind the five year plan. Are they still correct? You need to make sure that the external factors are temporary, not permament, and they can be overcome. And you need to deal with the internal execution issues quickly and correctly."

The best places to go in Montreal, I like the "best bartenders" and "best places to have sex" sections... delicious!

Thanks to Marion Flohr at Ritter Sport chocolate for getting back to me with calorie info on their chocolate, looks like I've been slamming down 520 calorie chocolate bars at a rate of 4-8 a day, fantastic.

One thing I totally hate about Europe as a whole is that they are about 15 years behind North America with smoking laws, smoke is EVERYWHERE! It's brutal, they've got smoking vending machines all over the place (so children can get cigs anytime they want), there's no such thing as a "No Smoking" section in restaurants, and basically you smell like a chiney no matter where you go (the school cafeteria is BRUTAL, I walked in for 1 minute to buy a coke and smelt like Marlboro for the fucking rest of the day!). Anyways, as much as I hate how smoking is everywhere here, there's no way that I think that companies should be able to fire employees for what they LEGALLY do on their own time. You can ban smoking from the work environment, but you can't discriminate against people for legal activities they pursue on their own time.



We were just tlaking about this the other day, reminising how the TV show "Wonder Woman" probably gave alot of us our first boners when we were younger :-) Love it when she uses her "magic lasso" to ensnare people, draw them in and make them tell the truth. Of course the "invisible jet" was such a cheap production copp-out. (pics from Engadget)



A sad but well written post that I think we can all relate to in some way.

Here's an interesting post on a form of internal innovation. Similar to the 20% rule of innovation (give your employees 20% of their time to work on projects entirely of their own choosing), this company has a "Hacking Day" where everyone, individually or in groups, works on ideas they've been saving to see what the results are. I wonder if something like this would ever work or even be allowed at a traditional large company?

Kasparov on the similarities of Chess and business.

Robin Williams is a great actor, just look at his varied background of roles. I think "Good Morning Vietnam" is one of the funniest movies of all time, pretty amazing since it deals with some pretty tough issues! What's your favorite RW film? Looks like I'm going to have to download... err "legally rent" the movie "What Dreams May Come" tonight :-)



This is hilarious, look at the reason this race car driver crashes (the slow motion reply is at the end). Look at this guy cut off a bus and even more amazingly keeps on driving away!!

How to brew beer in your coffee pot. This could provide for some interesting morning wake up calls! This study suggests that beer could be more damaging to women than men.

Canada's getting the World Junior Hockey Championships every three years now that a new agreement has been reached :-) Understandibly other nations were not to happy about this (it will mean less opportunities to have the tournament in their countries) but they couldn't deny the success of the tournament in Canada (breaks a record for attendance AND profit every year it is held in Canada!). Personally I hold this Christmas time tournament as one of the biggest events of the year! Go Canada Go!!!

Thinkgeek, geeky gifts for geeks. A site that lists ghost towns in Canada (abandoned towns). Check out how rich you are compared to the rest of the world. Closed off stations in London's subway system. Play the "anti-Bush" online video game. The "Human Clock", photo's for every time of the day. I liked this one:

Of course you could just tell the time with this one instead. Or maybe time is just an illusion? Either way I certainly waste alot of it playing table hockey! Doug and Bob Mackenzie, two great Canadians and table hockey players for sure! :-)

It's too bad Canada lost yesturday, but the Czechs deserved it, they had a great tournament. Congrats on the silver boys, we'll get em' next time! :-)

Can't wait for Star Wars, 5 days and counting...

STAR WARS EPISODE III

We are going to be watching the new Star Wars Episode III!!! To guarantee that we can get tickets in the opening weekend we've decided to rent out the theatre, this way we'll be assured tickets and they'll be cheaper than normal (usual price is 7.50 euro's, we're getting it for 5). Everyone is invited but there's only 50 seats available, first come first serve! In order to reserve your ticket you need to send me an e-mail or see me in person, first 50 people guaranteeing their 5 bucks are in.

Who: Everyone's invited, first 50 people.

Where: Corso Kino, Hauptstrasse 6, 70563 Stuttgart-Vaihingen (not Vaihingen-Enz!).

When: Movie start Saturday May 21st, 1pm. Everyone who needs a drive or is driving others needs to meet at the FH parking lot at 11:45am, leaving for Vaihingen at 12 sharp! (late comers will be left behind sans-refund!), or you can meet us directly at the theatre at 12:45pm.

Cost: 5 euros, people with a car that drive at least 4 other people will get in for free, if you have extra spaces in your car please let me know, I will fill up the cars on a first come, first serve basis so there is no guarantee if you offer to drive that I can fill up your car for a free ticket. Similarly if you need a ride also let me know and I will put you in one of the cars.

What else: We will be watching episode I and II on Friday night, free for everyone.

What else 2: The movie is 2.5 hours long (including the previews) and a bunch of us will be going out downtown Stuttgart for the evening for a bit of a pub crawl, everyone welcome.

Hope to see you all out, may the force be with you! :-)

Need some laughter in your life? Check this out:

Two funny engineering jokes from Michael Williams, the first is here, the second is below:

"A pessimist says the glass is half-empty. An optimist says the glass is half-full. An engineer recognizes that the glass is simply too big."

But if you want to see something really funny, check out this online commercial for Burger King, the "subservient chicken" where you can tell the chicken what to do. Must... stop... typing... dance... :-)

Of course you can also just look at this pic :-)

Have you ever eaten 10 slices of toast and peanut butter in one sitting? I just did.

Have a great trip in Tunisia Grandma, hopefully your 1:40am arrival and subsequent 2 hour trek into the middle of nowhere so you can sleep in a tent (so much for saving money on that "deal" gettaway!) works out better than drunken hill rolling ie. you actually come back! ;-)

On your mark, get set...



Go!



Ready to come back up:



Oops, blew a tire ;-)



Drunken hill rolling races are the best!

When trying to get over a bit of the flu there's nothing better than a day where you get all fresh groceries, get lots done on the thesis, play two and a half hours of road hockey, watching hockey on TV (Canada won today) and being totally exhausted and ready for bed at only 10pm.

What a great day... thanks to everyone I could share it with.

(from Gadling)

If Prinzenbar was as good as last night every night I'd definatly be rocking over there more often. Busy, but not too packed, and if you were there then I'm going to give you a compliment because it was the best assembly of cool, interesting and hot people that has been there in a long time! We also were able to round up a whole bunch of people for today's hockey game, which by lookig at the sun is going to be amazing!!

5:30 at the tennis courts, cum one cum all!

Sometimes a song can say something better than you could ever put into words:

Jack Johnson - "Sitting, Waiting, Wishing"

Well I was sitting, waiting, wishing
You believed in superstitions
Then maybe you'd see the signs

The Lord knows that this world is cruel
I ain't the Lord, no I'm just a fool
Learning lovin' somebody don't make them love you

Must I always be waiting, waiting on you
Must I always be playing, playing your fool

I sang your songs, I danced your dance
I gave your friends all a chance
But putting up with them
Wasn't worth never having you

Maybe you've been through this before
But it's my first time so please ignore
The next few lines cause they're directed at you

I can't always be waiting, waiting on you
I can't always be playing, playing your fool

I keep playing your part
But it's not my scene
Want this plot to twist
I've had enough mystery
Keep building it up
Then you shooting me down
But I'm already down

Just wait a minute
Just sitting, waiting
Just wait a minute
Just sitting, waiting

Well, if I was in your position
I'd put down all my ammunition
I'd wonder why'd it take me so long

But the Lord knows that I'm not you
And if I was, I wouldn't be so cruel
Cause waitin' on love ain't so easy to do

Must I always be waiting, waiting on you
Must I always be playing, playing your fool

No, I can't I always be waiting, waiting on you
I can't always be playing, playing your fool

The web is my playground:

One of my current favorite sites is Gadling, a site devoted to adventurers. Here they touch on an issue that I've thought about since high school, how our perceptions of the world would be different with our world maps having been "upside down" (since there is no way to really know which way is truely "up" in space). Freaky just looking at it!



And while on the subject of adventure, I love lists of "things to do before I die", they're great and I've been meaning to put together one of my own, although my moto of living life one day at a time like it was your last serves pretty good, but a little long term planning never hurt anyone (I really want to go to Sicily and Antarctica soon) and it's kinda fun reading about some of these things. Here's one example of a list (I think I've gotten #21 down and still working on #27), and here's another more travel related list. I also like this list of ten things I've learned in life.

A cool online site with word games, I scored only 13/20 on the SAT one the first go round, brutal! Of course if you're into word games then you can waste hours playing "Guess the Google". Here's a site with every sentence Bart Simpson ever wrote on the blackboard during the Simpson's intro.

This is frigging hilarious! Fainting goats! I need to go change my diaper now...

Some biz stuff: Seven habits for business success, some of which are followed in this case study of Jones Soda. Here's some lessons to be garnered from the case via Marketing eYe. Here's a good listing of 5 major marketing mistakes. It's all about execution, idea's are a dime a dozen. A great quote from "Venture Chronicles" on joint ventures: "not being able to effectively measure performance against combined expectations is a huge barrier to success right from the start". A great customer oriented post. Finally the "Marketing eYe" has got some pointers on using the "AIDA" (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action) system.

Looking at the prospect of dreaded salary negotiations? A listing via "Master of None" of free online salary information tools. Of course Sam's list of "Things that are more enjoyable than looking for a job" might also shed some light on the situation:

1- Hitting my head on the wall, because it feels so good when you stop
2 - Eating lead paint chips
3 - Statistics homework
4 - Cleaning the house (this one is debatable)

Actually #4 is what I do to avoid looking for a job, or work on my thesis... actually I guess I blog to avoid the thesis ;-)

The UK is setting up a 1 to 15 million scale model of the solar system. Tourist trap.

Buy your dream date with Carmen Electra!

When you're feeling down there's nothing like having a good chocolate bar :-) Here's a site that looks at the history of chocolate bar wrappers.

Getting paid to shop? It's true. These two lines are the same size? It's true.

You can do almost anything over the Internet, even hunt animals! (well except in California)

What is the value of your MBA? What if the program was completly wiped and built from scratch? Innovative! Or what about skipping the MBA altogether and just reading a bunch of books? I've read Moneyball and eBoys from this list and both are exceptional reads.

There's baseball in Germany?? Anyways the post also has a link to free live Radiohead songs, very cool.

This site lets you build your own South Park character, here's my depiction of Ross in South Park:



A bunch of us went to go see "Kingdom of Heaven" last night, on the 4 catagory rating scale that I use:

1 - Amazing movie; worth seeing in theatre's and buying the DVD/VHS/etc.
2 - Great movie; worth shelling out the $12 to go to the theatre to see it.
3 - A rental; don't bother spending the $12 but good enough for a Sunday night rental.
4 - Crap; Don't go.

Kingdom of Heaven weighs in as a "rental", I had thought this before going but a bunch of us were jonesing to go to the theatre (haven't been in ages) and the Tuesday $4.20 special was too good to pass up (as was the MONSTER popcorns we got!).

Just to finish off my thoughts about VE-day and also our hike a couple weeks back let's take a closer look at the Pforzheim war memorial. The Pforzheim Monument remembering the bombing and complete destruction of the city over 60 years ago consists of 5 triangular pilars on the top of a hill made entirely of rubble from the buildings:



Each pillar has three sides, the first with a picture of what a particular spot in Pforzheim looked like before the war:



After the bombing:



...and after reconstruction:



In addition a second corresponding pillar is placed for each of the 5 at the location it depicts in the city:



The monument remembering those that died (almost a third of the entire city population in one night):



Peace everyone.

FYI gang: party tomorrow night at Prinzenbar called "MAIlight" (free entry, $2 becks) and another at Hagen-cheese Thursday night. Party like in Paris funky style :-)

My body is sore all over. Two and a half hours of hockey yesturday did me through, what a great day for hockey! It's also becoming apparent that we need to schedule more regular games since the German's playing tennis and basketball that we recruit to get more players for our games are starting to become hockey converts :-) "When do you guys play?", "When's the next game?", "Do you guys always play here?"... it's starting a hockey wave over Deutschland!

So if you're looking out the window you'll know that of course we'll be playing again today, 5:30 everyone invited, just bring your running shoes (all the sticks etc are there, until Aussie breaks them all that is!). In fact we're going to schedule hockey pretty consistantly from Monday-Thursday at 5:30, if it's raining (not just spitting little drops but actually raining) at 5:15 then the game is cancelled (this is the general rule). Of course there's no such danger of rain today so get yourself active and come play some road hockey!!

Just a note to the timidly shy, most players have never held a stick before, plus after just a few games you really start to get the feel for the ball/game. You'll be making shots like this in no time!

Of course not all is well in the world of sports. Ray Allan's attitude epitomizes everything that's wrong with professional sports today. It's a problem in all sports, even in hockey, but I've noticed a distinct rise in Basketball and the NBA specifically over the last ten years. I wonder why it's more prevalent in Basketball (or is that an illusion?), but either way this kind of attitude is disgusting. And no Mr. Rome, he is not right, the spirit of the Olympics is about passion for competition not enumeration. This is why in hockey for the Stanley Cup playoffs (a dream for all young Canadian's to win) there tends to be a discrepency with the performance of many non-Canadian players from their regular season production. They just didn't grow up with the passiona and dream of capturing the cup, for them it's just a foreign based championship, for Canadians it's one of the greatest possible achievements.

While I'm in a patriotic stint I might as well post a pic of my buddy's brother who's over in Asia right now watching the Rugby finals, "Beaver Fever" is right!! :-) :-)

The OEDILF is a website trying to index a limerick for every word in the English language, some of them are pretty cool, here's one for the word "Affection":

"The objects of young men's affections
Have looks often far from perfection,
But love hides all flaws,
Each one's perfect because
It's a matter of heart (and erections)."

:-)

And speaking of "hiding all flawes" in the limerick, this commercial stupified me, absolutely stupified me. I watched it 5 times. One the on hand I'm wondering if marketing like this actually works, and on the other I can barely stop myself from sheading a tear... especially the grandmother one... woah, that commercial really hits hard.

Working hard on my thesis today trying to conceptualize and structure some of the material I've already assembled. In the words of a wise old man (Aussie):

"It's either you the writer slaving away on the structure or the reader is going to suffering through a poorly organised paper trying to read through it. I say, Pass on the pain."

You are so right, "pass on the pain" :-)

Yesturday was VE-day (Victory in Europe day), thank you to all the troops, civilians and events that helped end the war. Of course the most important day/holiday of the year to me in which I go to the cenotaph and also to church is November 11 (In North America we don't really celebrate VE-day, we celebrate Nov. 11 "Rememberance Day" which is the day of the end of the first World War). Starting Nov. 1 you can donate to the vets and get a "free" poppy to wear which shows respect for those who fought and died in the World Wars (also Korea and Vietnam for Canadians). On Novemeber 11th there is a big service in all cities at the cenotaph (a momument with the names of the people who died in each of the wars from that city) and a minute of silence at 11:11am (the end of the war was on the 11th month, 11 hour, 11 minute). To those that put their lives on the line and sacrificed more than I can imagine for my freedom and the freedom of people around the world, I say thank you.

This quote says it all:

"Happy Mother's Day, Mom. I wasn't an easy kid to raise, but somehow you helped me turn out okay. Thank you for helping me make more wise choices than not. I love you!"

When you're eating great meals:



Filled with the colours of life:



And rocking to hockey games:



Nothing could be better... kudos to those in my life that help make it happen.

Update: Thanks to everyone on the team, you were all there for me Friday and Saturday when I needed ya most for something with invaluable importance to me, a tough pill to swallow and I vented a little on the board, I appologise for that although I doubt the darts really cared that much ;-) It's great to know I can count on you guys, I hope you know how much I appreciate that. Next round on me eh ;-)

What a great business joke (spooged from "Marketing eYe"):

A shoeshop owner was dismayed when a competitor selling similar shoes opened next-door to him, displaying a large sign proclaiming:

"Best Deals"

Not long after he was horrified to find yet another competitor move in next-door, on the other side if his store. It's large sign was even more disturbing:

"Lowest Prices"

After his initial panic, and concern that he would be driven out of business, he looked for a way to turn the situation to his marketing advantage. Finally, an idea came to him. Next day, he proudly unveiled a new and huge sign over his front door. It read:

"Main Entrance"!

Last night we wanted to take it a bit easy and ratchet our beergarden/pub crawl plans down to a more somber one beer and the hockey game. Dangerous. Ever notice how those "one beer" nights turn into the biggest benders?? Beers, shots, darts (we made an awsome new game, "3" is the new bullseye eh!), failed attempts at pool, pizza and 5AM crawl home... what a great "beer"! :-)



We also got onto the new Pforzheim web-community page Goldtown!

Three years ago today Monaco, to the lyrics of Dario Gand:

We sailed over seas
Searching for the missing key
Unlock a new world harmony



Climb the highest mountain range
Then we took the longest train
Looking for our perfect refrain



I hear voices beneath the sky...
The sky...
The sky...
The sky...



Hidden rhythms in the rivers run
Blinding beats in the desert sun
Hear them today, play all as one



The distant voices in the far off sky
Led us to the elusive prize
Even today, we testify



I hear voices beneath the sun...

I did actually get some work done in Paris, here's some pics from inside the heavily securiterized Senat where the conference was:



It took us over an hour to get in through security, and once it started it went until very late at night, but totally worth it:



Of course the public area outside the Senat is probably much more interesting for everyone ;-)



Back to work today, thesis needs completing so I can hit the next trail....

Getting some thesis done and occupying my mind online:

How Microsoft is looking over their shoulder at Google, well duh.

A great promo for Creative Commons work (click on the "Get Creative" link). I've been meaning to get one of those symbols on my site... and now I finally got to it :-) Also updated my book list which has been neglected lately, but after finishing a bunch and starting a bunch more I thought it was time. Also updated my Amazon Wishlist hint hint ;-)

A timeline counter online, the green line is the current time, the red line is when I will finish my thesis ;-)

A different type of money shrinking than what's going on with my bank account ;-)

Connan doing what Connan does best, here he's making fun of a fictional German game show which is only funny because of how truly it reflects the culture here.

Eliminating the time between release dates of a movie in theatres, DVD and Television Pay-per-View. Interesting. Movies are about to get another kick in special effects, temporal frame manipulation. Cool. Even cooler, the Mac beer tap: (via Engadget)



Who says British humour sux? Well it does, but this doesn't! Kylie is a cutie eh!

Not sure if I can follow a Kylie post with this, but here goes. Ever wonder what Canadian's do with all that time and snow on their hands, pretty much the same as they do in Laramie :-)

A great line from Dan Sherman "If you ain't remarkable, why?"

This photo, spooged from Gadling, pretty much sums up more than words why someday I will travel to the Artic (of course Antartica is first on the list), enjoy your Friday night everyone:

There seems to be a little bit of confusion, the Munich trip is for NEXT weekend, leaving Friday May 13th, not tomorrow. Tomorrow we will have road hockey at the uni tennis courts at 5:30PM and then (after showers) hit the town.

Cum one, cum all!

Nothing wrong with a little Palm beach and Irish pub to kick off the weekend :-) A rainy Thursday holiday though (happy father's day in Germany everyone!) on the web: Aussie would also like to point out that today is 05/05/05... your retarded! ;-)

Super cool, super fast pizza's, cooked en-route to your house!

The movie theatre we like to go to at home is 15 minutes away and on a 18 minute advertising roll. If there's a movie that we know won't be busy (not a new release that week) then we'll use the start time of the movie listed in the paper as the time to leave the house and we always get there in time for the start. Those evil bastards!

Here's a site with a list of Star Wars sounds... I changed my laptop boot-up sound to Darth Vader "What is thy bidding... my master" :-)

Basically our favorite restaurant in all Darmstadt (greatest service quality in Germany by far!) moved outside of the city last year and subsequently has died :-( Thanks for the great times Giannis.

After the intro when the girls come out from behind the tippi in Indian clothing (well I guess not real Indian clothing) I almost peed my pants with laughter!

Why girls should date a geek instead of a smoothy :-)

Love kids drawings, there's something "real" about them, anyways here's a site where a class of fourth graders all draw literal interpretations of idioms. Go check it out!

Wanna make money on the internet? Sell T-shirts.

An oldie, but goodie:



Sun's breaking through, gotta get some road hockey in, for anyone that gets this in time Hockey at the tennis courts 6PM!!

Munich here we come! Here's the e-mail that we just sent for those of you not on the mailing list:

Hey gang!

We’re off to Munich! Everyone's invited! So get on the party train and join the fun!

When/Travel/What:

For people leaving Friday - taking the train, we’re using lander tickets (23 + 24 = 47 euros per 5 people = 9.50 euros per person) we meet at Pforzheim train station Friday May 13th 7:15am (train leaves at 7:30am) arriving in Munich Hbf at 12:03pm (meet us there if you are driving). Check into the hostel, then downtown for sightseeing and some beers at the famous English garden (Frisbee and soccer on the lawn) and later that night hitting the downtown hardcore (Hofbrauhaus, etc).

For people leaving Saturday we will meet you at Hbf at 12 noon for our hiking tour to the monastery brewery Andechs (http://www.andechs.de/index_main.asp). For those that don’t know they are an extremely old brewery that make their own beer and have an excellent traditional German feast including amazing schweinshaxen:



staying there for diner and then back downtown late for Murphy’s irish pub crawl.

Sunday we’re going on a boat tour of the Starnbergsee (great view, 10 euros) and sightseeing.

Return on Sunday - leaving Munich 5pm (weekender ticket 28 euros for 5 people = 5.50 euros per person), arriving Pforzheim 9:30pm (people going by car can leave at any time of course).

Hope to see you all there, shoot us a confirmation e-mail by Friday 5PM if you are coming (Friday or Saturday) and if you are driving or taking the train with us.

Friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, sisters, brothers, countrymen, grandma’s, grandpa’s, cousin’s, nephews, nieces, even Gerhard Schroeder will be there!!

Leave the dog at home ;-)

Hitting the thesis hard again today. At this rate I'll for sure be done by... 2007 ;-)

Links from todays non-thesis related travels:

Surprisingly this idea is not used very often, bringing in your customers to help tell you what can be done better. Are integrated CRM solutions really that rare in business today? Getting a different point of view is probably one of the most important aspects of any business that hopes to survive. Of course branding also has a lot to do with it... but as you all know I still believe Leadership is the number one execution necessity ;-)

I love how for every real world event there's a Lego replica... and now there's Gummy bears too with depictions of the seven deadly sins.

A great interview with Bill Gates by Engadget. (part 2 should be up soon) I also saw this while browsing around Engadget, wow this would have been awsome by the pool when I was a kid, imagine playing Nintendo outdoors in the pool with that sucker! Imagine the cool hot tub parties!

Has EU enlargement been good for the traditional powerouses of Europe? With EU constitution elections fast approaching this is definatly an interesting topic. I've got to agree with some of the commentors on the article, you can't judge the success of something so large scale after just a few years of implementation.

Busted T's score big, Slacker Manager is read by thousands of people, figure this wow customer satisfaction event was worth the measly $7 they would have gotten for the expediated delivery? You betcha! ...and we definatly need more cowbell! (refer also to previous SNL skit post)

Well I finally got around to resizing and posting the pics from my trip to Paris last week, of course since I've been chained to my desk "supposedly" working on my thesis ;-) Anyways there's a ton of pics so I'll be putting most of the scenery/nightlife ones now and a couple others in later posts (and some there's no way I'll ever get to)... I hope you enjoy these pics as much as it was to be there!

The view from Domi's new appartment, sweet!





A fountain in one of the downtown gardens that's famous for looking like the pond is slanted (the effect doesn't show well in this picture):



There's Smart car advertisements everywhere in Paris, I liked this one with horse ears and tail:



Finally time for the first beer of the day! We checked out a place Domi's been eager to show me for a while called "The Frog and Princess" that actually have a small chain and brew their own beer. Her recommendation was well founded, the atmosphere was great, the food was excellent (I got the clubhouse and was pleasently surprised) and the beer was awsome. We tried all 6 types of brew they had (a pitcher of each) and I had a second of the Ginger Twist which was my personal fav :-) The only drawback was the same for everywhere in Paris, the price of food and beer is insane, but this is across the board for everywhere and at least you can get a pitcher deal on most nights here so if you're in Paris, go check it out!



Domi, Matt and me acting a little retarted after a few cold ones:



The bakeries/cakeries were amazing, I couldn't go half an hour without popping into one of those great shops to pick up some fresh bread or chocolate:



Someone put a kleenex to protect his dignity... hilarious!



On Saturday we went up to the big famous chapel (and I totally forget the name, and totally don't care) to lay on the lawn and enjoy the sun:



The view from up here was amazing, this picture does not do it justice at all:



Um, we couldn't find glasses, plastic or otherwise, and desided we didn't have any dignity to lose, so we bought a bunch of bottles of wine, had them open them right in the store and drank out of the bottle. You should have seen the looks from horrified Frenchies (nevermind that I was the only non-Frenchy out of the 4 of us!) as they walked past and the cheers of encouragement from passing travellers!



Two bottles went down in like 30 minutes flat, we needed to restock. The guy at the counter was smiling pretty wide as he asked us "you want me to open these ones right away too?"... "Oui merci!" :-)



Sun + Alcohol = Hunger, Crepe = Solution:



We toasted both marrages that were going on:



4 more bottles... it was a great afternoon :-)



We're lushes, but we're loved anyways :-)



The night was amazing [I've got video's that must remain unpresented for the safety of the viewer :-) ] and the next morning we were totally hung over and maybe still a little drunk:



Thanks guys for a great trip, can't wait until later in the summer for Round 2!! :-)

Do-be, do-be, do. Htting the thesis hard today, of course a few other things have flown across my screen as well:

I haven't seen if this has aired yet, but it's frigging hilarious what gets put on TV these days: "Finding the fastest sperm"?? You've got to be kidding me! Only in America... er... in Germany. Reminds me of one of the funniest Jackass skits ever when all the guys go to a sperm bank and compete on who can "deposit" sperm the fastest as well as who has the largest sperm count. Hilarious!

Newsgator does it again, although they didn't have the feature I was hopeing for (scrolling of posts from multiple blogs instead of having to click each individual feed), they responded to my inquiry in an amazing 20 minutes flat!! That's CRM in action! Well done Newsgator, thanks for the reply Ronnie.

Companies walk a fine line when taking a position on political issues, take a look at the current controversy with Microsoft when they pulled support from a legislative bill which even provoked an internal e-mail from CEO Steve Ballmer to the entire company.

In the era of the knowledge worker why do we need to be chained to our desks??

I recently heard the expression "going Jesse" and wondered what the hell it meant. Like most expressions its origin is a little shady, but this site serves up a decent explanation: "...was used to mean someone very energetic and active".

An interesting idea: "Could the US have bought its way out of the Civil War?" but I also think there's no way. They make some good points, but don't forget about the presures from industry which booms in times of war.

A restuarant in Taiwan with "toilets" as its theme, pretty wierd-funny.

Goodbye X-wars, it was fun but it's time to move on...



Some student stole his professors laptop after class one day, here's what the prof had to say the next week that would make any undergrad scared shitless.

This is absolutely hilarious. You've got to feel for this chick, some chick forgets the words to the American anthem during the opening of one of the pre-tournament games between Canada and the US and then tries to come back to sing it (I don't want to ruin it for you, just watch to see what happens).

Poker night tonight, hopefully papa-Ross will be raking in the bacon, oh yeah, all in baby!!

We are all old. Today we decided to play some road hockey and work off some of the Saturday night alcohol... I think the lot of us will be sleeping well tonight! By the time we made it up to SeaHaus Beergarden to cap the afternoon with a frosty, you could literally hear our muscles crying out in pain. We are all old ;-)

Hot as H-E-double hockey sticks today but the night couldn't have been sweeter, perfect weather so we decided to finish off the meat from Saturday's BBQ on Kepler terrance:





Us with our sore muscles and fat bellies :-)



As the sun went down so too did my eyelids... time to rock home.



A couple small vids from the Friday night Stuttgart Springfest:

Country Roads, take me home
To the place I belong
West Virginia, Mountain mama

Take me home, Country Road 1

Take me home, Country Road 2

Sunny day + BBQ + Beers = Good Times Eh!

After a terrible day on the pitch for the VFB boys and everyone else who isn't a Bayern fan [oh yeah and Bochum sucked too ;-) ] we got it into gear by hauling the BBQ up the monument hill for some food, al-cool and scenery. The hike up the hill:



Caught stealing some vegies while Karlsruhe downs some sweet meat:



Chin-Chin, not that guy with the friggin' shades again!



Did someone see a sasquatch??



Fucking sweet viewpic... give us a smile eh BFG (broken finger guy):



This is how you throw a dart eh... Selva eye of the tiger... Aussie stoned AGAIN!



Irish darts can always cap da nacht:



No Apex to this post, but the next weekend's only 3 days away with the Thursday holiday ;-)