Berlin Blogs

Today is the first day of my employment at a wonderful company called KO GmbH. KO GmbH provides services around software dealing with office documents, notably KOffice. I'm excited to have found such an inspiring job working in Free Software.

At the KOffice 2009 Sprint in Berlin last June, I got to meet many of the KOffice developers and was impressed by the productive atmosphere. In my job at KO, I'd like to help KOffice become enterprise-ready, by which I mean, that I want help the KOffice team make a reliable and flexible office suite.

My role in the company is software architect. The business cards Tobias Hintze, our CEO, sent me just say 'architect'. That inspired me to spend some time on this first workday to pose for a picture that goes well with a dEUS song about Buckminster Fuller, the architect after whom the buckyball was named.

Listen to 'The Architect'.

Das Event ist schon zahlreich in den angrenzenden Blöcken erwähnt und verlost worden und wenn ich mich auch nur ein klein bisschen frei machen könnte, wäre ich morgen (02.07.09.) schon allein wegen Boys Noize dabei. Sonst noch so: The Subways, Crookers, Esser, Amanda Blank, Shir Khan.

Der Startschuß fällt gegen 22 Uhr und dann gibt's mindestens 501 Minuten lang Programm.

Tickets gab es nicht nur zu gewinnen, sondern auch zu kaufen. Zum beispiel bei koka oder in den Levi's Stores am Kudamm, Neue Schönhauser oder im Alexa.

02.07.09 / 22 Uhr / Astra

Two days of KDE Wiki Meeting are over. Danimo, Frank, Lydia, Dominik, Milian, Thorsten and me met in Berlin with the goal to get some more structure into the KDE Wikis and provide a plan for the future, where to put content. I'm happy to say that we accomplished this mission.

While we have TechBase for high quality technical documentation for a while, and the corresponding UserBase for end-user information since last year's Akademy, we were still missing a proper place for community content, especially for content which is mostly community internal, of more transient
nature, or just not finished yet. The idea to create a dedicated Wiki for this community content was floating around since a while, and now we created it at community.kde.org.

To make it clear which content belongs where, we created a mission statement, which gives clear guidance about which Wiki serves which purpose. You'll find it at wiki.kde.org in a few days. The basic idea is that userbase.kde.org provides end-user information, techbase.kde.org contains high-quality technical content for third party developers, distributors, and system administrators, while community.kde.org acts as a collaboration space for the community.

Actually community.kde.org already existed. It contained the charter of the community working group. But to keep things short and to the point we decided against creating another base, but go with the logical and short community.kde.org domain. The charter of the CWG will find a new home on the KDE e.V. web site.

With the creation of community.kde.org we can also shut down at least two places where community content ended up due to lack of a proper home. We'll shut down the old Wiki, which was available under wiki.kde.org, but whose content wasn't that well maintained, and which didn't fit too well in KDE's infrastructure because of technical reasons. We'll also move all the pages which piled up under the Projects directory on techbase, but in almost all cases didn't really belong there and also didn't match the quality requirements of being polished content targeted at technical people who aren't necessarily familiar with the community. Most of these pages find a proper home on community.kde.org, though.

In addition to the general cleanup and structuring we also worked on some improvements of the existing Mediawiki installation. Danimo replaced the OpenID login UI by a much more usable version, Milian finally managed to get rid of the annoying horizontal scrollbars inside the page on code samples, and we also discussed some more improvements, like the intensified use of templates and the introduction of a way to rate and classify documents on the Wiki to indicate their quality and make it more obvious what needs more work.

As a side track, we had an interesting discussion with some Tiki developers. They have an amazingly powerful and feature rich system, which would
be able to solve some of the problems, we still have with our Wikis, such as translation infrastructure. For now we decided for the sake of consistency and simplicity to stay with the current Mediawiki installation, but maybe Tiki is an option in the future.

Working on the Wikis was fun and satisfying because we got some concrete results, which will simplify maintaining KDE web content in the future. But besides all the work we also didn't forget to relax with a great dinner at a Chinese restaurant at Berlin-Adlershof, enjoying a great buffet, including cheese cake for dessert.

Thanks go to the KDE e.V. and Qt Software for supporting the meeting.

Diese Woche steht voll im Zeichen der Mode. Medial kann man sich nicht dagegen wehren. Fashion Week, Premium und auch die Bread & Butter ist vor Lauter Erfolg in Barcelona wieder nach Berlin gekommen.

Fleißige Bloggerinnen erstellen dazu Guides und treffen sich und vorfreuen sich auf Models in Kleidern gucken, Piccolöchen schlürfen. Und vielleicht auch ein paar Veranstaltungen drum herum, fernab vom Bebelplatz mitnehmen.

sa. 11.07.2009 / 23:30
icon, cantianstr. 15, prenzlauer berg
>> recycle - berlin’s finest drum’n'bass

d.kay (brigand / bingo / at)
bome (monstabash)
randy & reger (40 fever)
mc mace (recycle)
white mc (recycle)

www.recycle-berlin.de
www.iconberlin.de
www.myspace.com/recycleberlin
www.myspace.com/iconclubberlin

Nine Inch Nails haben Industrial zum endgültigem Durchbruch verholfen und geradezu massenkompatibel gemacht, wobei sich letzteres vielleicht nicht unbedingt wie ein Kompliment anhört, aber schon ganz gut die Tatsachen beschreibt, wenn deren Songs im Finale von Germany's Next Topmodel zur Untermalung laufen.

Könnte aber auch den guten Geschmack der dort zuständigen Redakteure bezeugen.
Auf jeden Fall darf man eine gute Show und krachende Soundkompositionen erwarten, wenn Trent Reznor im Rahmen der »wave goodbye« auch nach Berlin in die Arena kommt. Es gibt noch Tickets für um die 44€.

Di 30.06.09 / 20 Uhr / Arena

My first attempt at a Photo Friday entry. The topic was debris and I could think of nothing better to signify debris than the leftovers from a party.

The party represented below was the La Fête Nationale française à Berlin - which celebrates the storming of the Bastille prison in 1789 and the first major event of the French Revolution.

Every year Berlin celebrates the removal of the monarchy and beginnings of a democracy in France with a party on Pariser Platz, located directly in front of the Brandenburg Gate which also happens to be the location of the French Embassy.
More pics from that day.

See more entries or participate yourself by visiting Photo Friday.

The idea for my participation in Photo Friday came from Headbang8 over at Deutschland über Elvis. Thanks man.

Die Berliner Dub und Cover Band Tiger HiFi tritt mit dem »Dub Club« seit neustem in die Rolle des Gastgebers. Heute Abend, im Lido: »Tiger Hi Fi makes the masses come together.«

25.06. / 21 Uhr / Lido

• Date: Saturday,June 27th 2009, beginning 18 pm
• Location: c-base, Rungestr. 20, Berlin-Mitte

On Saturday, the Ubuntu Berlin Team invites everybody to participate in our third LinuxTag-Barbecue. We will provide free food (also vegetarian), and drinks are sold at the bar. c-base is a famous computer club right in the heart of Berlin, near Jannowitzbrücke.

To get there you can take the S5 (direction Strausberg), S75 (direction Wartenberg) or S9 (direction Flughafen Schönefeld), all three are leaving from the station “Messe Süd”.

c-base is located by the Spree river, near station Jannowitzbrücke:
http://www.openstreetmap.de/karte.html?zoom=17&lat=52.51298&lon=13.42012…

We’ll have a great time there and DJ Marcel Bien and myself spin the turntables that night.

Thanks Canonical, Ubuntu Deutschland e.V. and c-base e.V. for supporting Ubuntu-Berlin with this event!

If anyone were primed to love Jim Jarmusch’s new movie, “The Limits of Control,” it should be me. Since the late 90s when I first encountered his films (first in an overwrought review of “Dead Man” by music critic Greil Marcus in an online column that no longer exists anywhere online) I’ve followed his output closely. Mutual Jarmusch admiration was one of the first things I remember having in common with Berliners when I arrived in 1999. It so happens that they love his movies even more over here. That’s not entirely surprising as more often than not his movies are European art house styled with pulp characters of modern day American mythology—lonesome travelers, taxi drivers, junkies, drifters, losers, seekers, wanderers on the borders of society.

Also, I should mention that Jim Jarmusch comes from Cleveland, Ohio, the “mistake by the lake” as southern Ohioans snarl (that city’s once toxic river recently came back to life after notoriously catching fire in 1969). But I claim it and I became even more tribal about the Buckeye State after I came to Germany, realizing that Ohio means nothing to most Germans, even though it has more Germans than practically any other state. So, I constantly remind people that Jarmusch is “from Ohio” when they mention one of his movies. It’s annoying, but I can’t help it. I’m just proud of the guy. But back to the movie…

The trailer came out a few months ago and it looked great. I was excited. Isaach De Bankolé as a stoic be-suited badass wandering around southern Spain—through the gorgeous back streets of Madrid and Seville—like a spy or assassin, always ordering two espressos, a soundtrack featuring Boris and Sunn O))). It had to be the greatest Jarmusch movie ever—but it wasn’t. In fact, it might be his worst. Yesterday, I walked out of the Kino, the same where I saw “Ghost Dog” ten years ago, thinking “what was he thinking?”

Today, I had the same question in my head. But it had a more positive spin this time around, as that confounded movie had wound itself around the dendrites of my brain. It was beautiful. The music was beautiful. It’s aura was dreamy and quiet and totally meaningless. At first blush, it doesn’t seem to be about anything. There’s no real narrative, unless a well-dressed guy traveling around, practicing tai chi alone in his hotel, always ordering two espressos at a cafe, trading matchboxes with random, nonsense-babbling strangers while collecting tiny messages from those matchboxes (repeat seven times) counts as a narrative. It’s funny: I normally don’t even need a movie to have narrative. But this pushed to me need one, to grasp for something like… meaning. And so now, twenty four hours later, I think I’m getting closer to that meaning and it has something to do with Buddhist existentialism, nothingness, the struggle between art and commerce, life (of course), internal dialogue versus external dialogue and the meaning of meaning itself. Which is to say that I still have no idea what this movie is about. That is frustrating because I’m sure it really is about some very specific things. Artists usually hate explaining their work and I can’t blame them. The art is the explanation.

David Lynch wrote recently in a book on his ideas that there’s a single Bible verse that contains the core idea for his movie “Eraserhead,” a confounding and incredible movie that no one has quite cracked yet (and Stanely Kubrick’s favourite). Lynch said he’d never identify the verse, which is, I think, both admirable and annoying.

Robert Schuster interviewt Harald Welte auf dem Linuxtag 2008.

Links:

* Video http://www.vimeo.com/2081264

* Blog von Harald Welte http://gnumonks.org/~laforge/weblog/

* GPl Violations http://gpl-violations.org/

* Robert Schuster  http://blogs.fsfe.org/robertschuster/

Hello and welcome to another round of TeePee Talk... OK, so not really. Bonus points to the person that comes up with THAT quote from a movie. (No cheating, I know the Interweb is a wonderful thing... but you know that you won't sleep at night if you do a Boolean search and come up with it.)

I'm kinda digging the Random Tuesday thing, big thanks goes to the UnMom for starting me on it. Now go over there and see how it's SUPPOSED to be done.

Has anybody else been fascinated with what is happening in Iran? Corrupt government hedging on dictatorship steals election and the people get pissed. Makes me harken back to the days of Al Gore v. Bush in Florida. You can bet your ass that there aren't any Mullahs decrying the "hanging chad". Where were the American protests about that event? Was I blissfully unaware of the public outrage?

"Mama don't take my Kodachrome away!"
The Eastman Kokak Company announced that it is retiring its famous film in light of declining customer demand in an increasingly digital age. Sales of the film are just a fraction of 1 percent of the sales for the company. 74 years of production! Whew! Think of how many of your family memories are on Kodachrome film.

Today on my way to work I caught myself humming Christmas songs... um, yeah.

Also on my way to work I managed to sail through three streetlights. YES, they were green, and that was the unusual thing; normally I get caught behind the red on each one. Isn't it wonderful when a random coincidence such as this happens? You almost feel as though you've been given a gift. My gift this morning felt like it shaved five minutes off of my commute.

Last weekend was the first part of the week long Gay Pride celebrations here in Berlin. The Motzstrassenfest is a two day street festival which I wait for every year. There is nothing like 400,000 gays and lesbians getting together to party. Everything goes and I really love it!

The thing which strikes me every year is that while the more "colorful" of our compatriots get more attention, the average homosexual is just like everyone else. As I wound through the streets taking in all of the humanity it struck me that these people aren't any different from straight people, they are simply trying to get through life the best that they can. Who cares if they love someone of the same sex? I've seen plenty of sex kink in the straight world... enough to say with some authority that taking a whip to your wife or having her wear a french maid's costume during sex games strikes me as a fine line from what gays and lesbians are shunned for.

That said, there is something about seeing a drag queen chomping on the business end of a pretzel in the shape of a giant penis to really put a smile on my face. Sorry no picture, I was in fear for my life if caught... she was at least six foot five inches tall before the stiletto heels, I hope that you will forgive me.)

Coming back to the public outrage I was considering with the "hanging chads"... It puts me in mind of the latest round of fiery protests here in Berlin. The radical left is taking out its anger and frustration at the government and anyone who has money by torching cars and trucks throughout the city. (some more pics here) Over 150 (check out a map of the locations... simply staggering) have been charred since the beginning of this year.

All of this was supposedly ramping up to the big Squat Tempelhof Airport demonstration which took place last Saturday. (more pics) They are protesting the city's decision to allow the construction of luxury housing on the grounds of the recently closed historic Tempelhof Airport.

If you know me well, you will know that I actually live close to the now quiet Tempelhof Airport. If you know me even better, you would assume that I was chomping at the bit to head down to the demo to squeeze off some shots to share with you. Sweet No would have had none of it, so I didn't even begin preparations. She was nervous about me attending a peaceful rally against the financial crisis a few months ago... and these boys were going to attempt crawling over the police force and an eight foot barbed wire fence and another police force to get onto the airport grounds. I didn't think I had much of a chance of getting away with that one.

This weekend while Sweet No is gallivanting off to one of the local lakes for a little underwater time, I will be whooping it up with a couple hundred thousand people down at the Gay Pride Parade, or CSD as it is known in Germany/Europe (CSD for Christopher Street which is where the Stonewall Riots took place). Can't wait!

Zum Abschluß ihrer Ausbildung geben die Fotografen des Lette-Verein eine Ausstellung zur Schau. Bis zum 4. Juli im Humboldt Umspannwerk: 26 Fotografen, ca. 250 Werke.

Humboldt Umspannwerk / Kopenhagenerstr. 58 / bis 4. Juli

Freshly bought here are some very good new trance tracks:

Oceanlab - I am what I am (Lange remix): While “Lonely girl”  just came out as the next single, this track is available on the remix album. By far the best remix/song on that album. Another quality mix by Lange whose releases are always addictive masterpieces.

Joe Garrett - Afterglow (Temple One Mix): To clear it up - Joe Garrett *is* Temple One. I got no idea why he used his real name for this production, it is in the same style as his other tracks. Maybe because it was released at a different label.

Gareth Emery - Exposure/Metropolis: These tracks came out simultaneously and it is difficult to judge which one of them wins. I’ll give the prize to Metropolis though.

Borat was in Berlin yesterday, sort of.



“It's hard to see what part of the German nationality Baron Cohen was attempting to illustrate, unless it was nudism.”

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Logisch.

Es scheint, dass sich die Berliner Version der Fête de la Musique immer mehr etabliert. Mehr und mehr Leute auf den Straßen, in bestimmten Gebieten tauchen immer neue Konzertorte auf, ob angekündigt oder spontan. Ein paar Fotos hierzu:

According to the Siegessäule: "Der Initiator des erfolgreichen Kiss-Ins vor der Eisdiele Dolce Freddo in Schöneberg (siegessäule.de berichtete), ruft am nächsten Samstag zu einer angemeldeten Demonstration in Kreuzberg auf. Anlass ist ein Vorfall in der Nacht vom Samstag, 6.6. auf Sonntag 7.6.: Ein schwules Paar wurde in Kreuzberg von einem Wirt mit einer Stange attackiert. Das Paar rief die Polizei, die eine Anzeige wegen gefährlicher Körperverletzung und Beleidigung aufnahm. Die beiden jungen Männer hatten sich demnach vor der Kneipe des 38-jährigen Inhabers geküsst, dieser kam heraus und sagte, er dulde dies nicht vor seinem Lokal."

The Kansas City Star published the fascinating eight-part series A Good Exit: Leaving Iraq by Matt Schofield, who travelled to Baghdad, Berlin, Istanbul, Leavenworth and Washington. Matt was kind enough to seek my expertise as well. In fact, the article U.S. and Iraq need more help, less indifference from Europe starts with some quotes from yours truly:

The Germans don't care. The French don't care. The Dutch don't care. Even the British, who had been the staunchest ally of the United States inside Iraq, now seem to believe that what America broke, America bought.

"Iraq isn't on our priorities list," explained Joerg Wolf, editor-in-chief of the Berlin-based Atlantic Initiative, a trans-Atlantic think tank. He noted his opinion was based on a recent survey of 250 European policy experts. "The belief is that this is now a U.S. problem, and the U.S. has to fix it."

But Wolf and a growing number of European policy experts believe this is a huge mistake. "The fact is, if Iraq turns south, there are major consequences for Europe."

The above mentioned survey was actually conducted in September 2007 and included responses from 14 policy analysts from ten European countries, but interesting and still relevant nevertheless: Here are the links to the survey's three parts:

1. European Analysts Want America to Stay in Iraq

2. Europe Should Help, But Not Follow US Lead and

3. Premature US Withdrawal Would Threaten Europe.

Voilà un moment que je travaille sur une installation que j'ai appelée murmur de Berlin. J'utilise divers médias, audio, vidéo, photo. Comme c'est un projet de longue haleine, j'ai commencé à en présenter des parties. Et l'une d'entre elles a été nominée lors d'un concours artistique organisé par la ville de Berlin. C'est très flatteur, car le jury est costaud. Mais si je parlais mieux allemand j'aurais compris que mon travail serai exposé, quelque part dans la mairie, et j'aurai fait en sorte d'être présent au moment de l'expo, mais voilà je suis parti faire le tour de la roche Sanadoire, manger des millards, du pourassou et je rumine cette méprise comme le ferais une Salers à Chomadou. Me verrais-je un jour ?

Beautiful German of the week.



Because somebody has to admire them.

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Logisch.

Thanks for following our blog of Berlin.

We are now living back in the US.

The Daily Show writers are ridiculously good. (They were, after all, poached from The Onion, the funniest fake news prior to the common era.) Did you see last Thursday’s show? They don’t allow full episode embeds any more (apparently) but if you go over here you can watch the whole show, which you should! at the very least from the 5:24 mark, in which a BBC reporter attending a post-election party in Berlin says he even saw a clown who painted his face all blue. It gets better (and worse) from there. Seriously funny.

Weather, pollution and vandalism may take their toll…



But the artists – and the subject matter - will definitely do the rest.

„Work began Tuesday to repaint Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev's passionate kiss with East German strongman Eric Honecker on the longest-surviving stretch of the Berlin Wall.“

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Logisch.

Let's take another ride on this Random Tuesday thing. The Un Mom will probably be surprized to learn that I'm joining her randomness a second time in a row, hell MY Mom would probably be astounded to know that I'm actually doing one of these "joining" things twice... well, if she read the blog that is.

Would you drive around with a car that had been vandalized to say "fAg" and "u r gay" in red paint? Erin is doing it, and girl... you go! I love how she's turned something horrible and stupid into a possibility to start people talking.

Reminds me of my own days of driving a really cool limited edition, available on the Internet only, Vapor New Beetle. Imagine a paint color that was such a light shade of blue that a great majority of men saw it as white, and lots of women stared affectionately as I passed. No kidding, it was a conversation starter for sure. There were MANY times that I was approached by people and asked to settle an argument about exactly WHAT color was my car. You can see pictures of my scale model of the car. Oh, and let me tell you... if I had wanted to be a pedophile I would have had my chances. MY GOSH people, teach your kids that having a cute little car does NOT mean that you should run up to any stranger and ask for a ride. This happened more times than I think should in this day and age.

Erin's story makes me think about how I had a rainbow sticker on all of my vehicles, yet as far as I can tell, I never had any vandalism. This could be caused by one of four three things, an open-minded simply educated town, really great luck, lack of skinheads in my city, or idiot thugs so stupid that they didn't know what it symbolized. Nice thought, eh?

Oh my gawd, has it really been 40 years since the Stonewall Riots? If you're clueless as to what this is, don't worry, way too many gay people don't know either. It was what can be thought of as the start of the Gay Civil Rights Movement. 40 years and we're still fighting for the right to have the same legal status as straight people? Makes me sad people.

I have always wanted a rainbow peace sign as a tattoo. Donations are accepted, and any donations coming in AFTER the fact can go toward my hospital bill when Sweet No finds out.

Lest you think this blog is going to be ALL LESBIAN - ALL THE TIME, let's move on, shall we?

Snooker has been feeling under the weather. Nope, it is not entirely because of the ... oh let's just say it... F*d up weather here in Berlin. April was summer with temps reaching slightly uncomfortable warmth, May was spring again with cooler temps than April, thus more like what May should be, and June... June has been like November or something. Cold, rainy, windy and just generally unpleasant doesn't make Snooker very happy you see.

The Germans say that there is no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing. But hell, shall we throw out there that it is IMPOSSIBLE to KNOW what will happen in the day's weather by checking out the weather forecasts. One radio station says that it will be sunny until around lunch, then get more cloudy and rain by dinner time. The next says that it will be sunny all day and rain all night. The TV weather says that it will rain all day long, but clear up overnight. In reality it was sunny and warm all day and clear all night. I'M NOT KIDDING, THIS HAS HAPPENED TO ME! Unless a Berliner leaves the house everyday with an umbrella, sunglasses, a light coat, a heavy coat and special water-proof shoes... they should plan to be unprepared for what could possibly happen.

OK, back to being under the weather. Something happened to me on Saturday morning... my throat started to tickle and my internal thermometer turned off. (don't you just HATE when you KNOW you're getting a cold?) I didn't get a fever until Sunday, but I could tell by the fact that I always felt cold or always hot that something more than allergies were going to be messing up my life soon. All the "ward off a cold by taking our special, slightly expensive medicine at the first signs" didn't help. At this point I've been away from the office for two days, notice I didn't say "off work", just not physically at the office... there is a significant distinction. But the heavy load has passed, and my boss has officially given me the OK to be sick now... YEA! Still love working with her though.

Isn't that some crazy shit that's going on in Iran right now? Ah... I love the voice of dissent.

Being home all day has reminded me of the unfair life I lead. Do you KNOW what my cat does all day long? He sleeps, he eats, he poops. I get up at the crack of dawn and make my way to work, put in a full day of slavery cleverly disguised as contributing the the Gross National Product to bring home the bacon so that I can pay for the comfortable roof over his head, feed him the crack-like product which is known in my house as LAMB WHISKAS, and for the ultimate thrill... clean his shitter! Oh yeah, twice in 24 hours he deems it OK for me to caress him like the king he is. Now I ask you, which creature is higher in the intelligence ratings?

Watched two episodes of "House" tonight. Um, I think I like "Monk" better. Man, I'm not a doctor, and I just feel stupid after watching 39 minutes of House's arrogance. Oh, and if I were a patient and had to undergo treatment (which have the chance to be worse than the disease) for two diseases before he finally figures out what is the source of my ailment... I think I would be PISSED! It is just like I wouldn't want to be Jessica Fletcher's friend, you know, from "Murder, She Wrote". Simply knowing her or knowing someone that knew her was as good as a death sentence.

Movie club... I've decided to bastardize the book club craze and try out a movie club with the same basic premise. Our most recent version was a "classic night" where a group of people got together and watched "The African Queen" with Bogie and Hepburn. Afterwards we sat and chatted about the movie and what we thought. I think the next one should be picked out to polarize folks, perhaps "Doubt" with Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman would be a good choice. Aw shucks, if we are willing to incite a riot, maybe we'll just supply a bunch of wine and watch "Mama Mia" then dance and sing until we can dance and sing no more. Anyone have thoughts of the perfect movie club movie? Anyone? Anyone?
(get it? movie reference - bonus points to the first person that figures out what the H E double hockey sticks Snooker is babbling about.)

OK, enough. Peace out!
I hope nobody minds typos and strange sentences. My night time meds are catching up with me and soon I'll be blissfully unaware that the world exists outside of my dreams. Thus, no editing! Hey, is that random or WHAT!?

And still don’t, actually, the Berlin Wall, I mean. It’s time for another documentary about an invisible wall that used to be all too visible here a few years back but that was then and this is now so lights, camera and lack of action anyway.



Actress Tilda Swinton will be biking along the same ex-Berlin Wall route she and filmmaker Cynthia Beatt took ten years ago when they filmed the wall that wasn’t there then, either. This Gesamtkunstwerk (total art form) will then be put together in a piece to be called “Cycling the Invisible Frame.”

Whatever. But if I were her I would take it easier on myself and travel along what used to be the Berlin Wall on what used to be a bike – and take a car instead.

“The title refers to the fact that most of the wall has been torn down, though many Germans still speak of an invisible wall in the minds dividing east and west Germany.“

Kommentare auf Deutsch? Klar.

You’re involved in Free Culture? You want to get your music, video or picture out to millions of people? Check out the Ubuntu Free Culture Showcase!

Every Ubuntu Karmic CD might include your piece of art. Participate!

Vergangenen Sonntag hatten manniac und ich ja die Chance eine überaus geschätzte “You Tube”-Celebrity kennenzulernen. Für die älteren unter euch: Das ist das was man früher Beatmusiker nannte.

Tom Milsom, alias Hexachordal. Der ist nicht nur ganz drollig anzusehen, sondern ist überdies ein talentierter junger Musiker der großartige Texte in einer Geschwindigkeit singen kann, die ganz erstaunlich ist. Er spielt hauptsächlich Ukulele, ist aber auch auf den meisten anderen Instrumenten zuhause und hat zudem einen Faible dafür seine Songs mit kuriosen 8-Bit-Sounds zu spicken. Kurz es lohnt sich in seine Sachen reinzuhören, die Texte zu lesen und seine Videos anzusehen. Und nicht nur weil er dort bisweilen mit anderen YouTubern herumknutscht. Er kann übrigens auch zeichnen und macht bisweilen ganz herzzereissende Songs über gestorbene Katzen, zu denen er selbst die Videos animiert:

Milsom war in die Hauptstadt gekommen um vor seinem unabwendbaren und geburtstagsbedingte Ausscheiden aus der Teenager-Gemeinschaft noch einmal einen etwas zu erleben. In diesem Falle Sightseeing und sich einmal die Stadt anzusehen, die schon wieder vereint war, ehe er überhaupt ihre Trennung mitbekommen hatte. Und natürlich beguckte Tom sich mit seinen Freunden Andrew und Paul pflichtbewusst all die Mauermahnmale, die man als Berliner noch nie gesehen hat, weil man theoretisch immer hinkönnte.

Spontan hatten manniac und ich ein Treffen vorgeschlagen und verbrachten so die bessere Hälfte eines wetterwindigen Sonntagnachmittags mit drei Briten in Little Berlin, begutachteten das Mauermahnmal, gestanden beschähm ein, dass wir wichtige Kirchen der Stadt noch nichtmal dem Namen nach kannten und wurden von Tom aufgeklärt, dass unsere Ostampelmännchen wie Männer mit gewaltigen Erektionen aussähen…

was nicht ganz von der Hand zu weisen ist, aber auch verrät wie sein Gehirn arbeitet. Nach einem ausgiebigen Cafebesuch, bei dem Tom sich durch die halbe Cocktail-Karte probiert hatte und nicht veröffentlichungsfähigen Klatsch aus der YouTube-Welt zum Besten gab, entstand schließlich dieses Foto.

_{v.l.n.r: Batz, Tom, manniac (der machts ich doch kleiner!) und Paul
Andrew ist leider nicht drauf, denn der hat fotografiert.}

Tom hat seinen Geburtstag mittlerweile hinter sich und ist trotz seines “boyish looks” nunmeher im Kreise der Twens angekommen. Wenn ihr ihm über dieses schwere Schicksal hinweghelfen wollt, dürft ihr gerne auf seiner Homepage sein Album “Awkward ballads for the easily pleased” bestellen. Da freut er sich.

Und ich frage mich immer mal wieder, wo die deutschen YouTuber bleiben, die einen so richtig beeindrucken…

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Vergangenen Sonntag hatten manniac und ich ja die Chance eine überaus geschätzte “You Tube”-Celebrity kennenzulernen. Für die älteren unter euch: Das ist das was man früher Beatmusiker nannte. Tom Milsom, alias Hexachordal. Der ist nicht nur ganz drollig anzusehen, sondern ist überdies ein talentierter junger Musiker der großartige Texte in einer Geschwindigkeit singen kann, die [...]

Je progresse en Allemand. C'est-à-dire que les gens n'ont plus besoin de passer par ma copine, qui va traduire, pour me demander quelque chose. Je progresse en compréhension de l'Allemand parlé, mais le lire ou m'exprimer, c'est une autre paire de Griff. J'ai suivi des cours intensifs, je demande à mes amis de ne plus m'adresser la parole qu'en Allemand, rien n'y fait. Je dois être obtus. Et encore, je ne parle pas de l'accent. ROTFLOL.

Continue reading "Abstürzen" »

Sent from my mobile

The current release of MySQL shows the problems free and open source software projects face that put business first and community second. Michael “Monty” Widenius critizes in his Blog the current developement model of MySQL and recommends not to use the current release 5.1 of the database system.

The reason I am asking you to be very cautious about MySQL 5.1 is that there are still many known and unknown fatal bugs in the new features that are still not addressed.

Monty points out problems stemming from having a company taking the lead in the development of a free software system - cause they need something to sell fast. In this article I am supporting the view of Monty and discuss his views in regards to Freifunk and LXDE. I believe communities must take the lead in order to make and keep a project on the bleeding edge, however, we should work together with companies (like FON.com for Freifunk or ASUS for LXDE) and exchange resources. Both can profit. In the end open and free community projects are all about cooperation.

In his blog entry Monty gives some reasons why the MySQL development department again got a quality problem with the release. Problems are ranging from the fact that MySQL 5.1 was declared a release candidate to early (because of commercial reasons), to focussing too much on new features rather than on quality (because of commercial reasons), to involving developers that are not experienced in developing database systems (Mario: Maybe because they do not come from the community?), to not keeping the development open for testing and participation of the community and more.

As I said in my talk at the MySQL users conference, I think it’s time to seriously review how the MySQL server is being developed and change the development model to be more like Drizzle and PostgreSQL where the community has a driving role in what gets done! (http://monty-says.blogspot.com/2008/11/oops-we-did-it-again-...)

What can we learn for the free software and other open source projects here? The consequences are clear. Projects that want to stay on the bleeding edge of technology with quality code and widespread support must put the community first.

In the projects I participate - e.g. freifunk, LXDE, FOSS Bridge - I always work hard to bring the community together, make the community grow and keep and foster it. And this is not always easy. There are different expectations of people involved, different goals and outside circumstances change and have positive and negative effects.

For example, even though the Freifunk community was in the spotlight many times in the last two years, it seemed somehow stagnating. We had put a lot of resources to rebuild the website and foster more exchange, but with the broader availability of broadband in some districts in Berlin for example the motivation of people to participate to get constant Internet access became less. Additionally new business models seemed to draw people away from freifunk to something that seemed easier to use and offer many things similar to Freifunk. However Freifunk is more than mere exchange of free Internet access. The idea of Freifunk is to build a local network - the public space in cyberspace, but we did not have the tools easy enough giving everyone the chance to build the local network with the limited resources, especially time!, that people have.. but we are getting there with simpler software and easier to use devices.

FON.com received different reactions in the core groups of the global Freifunk community when it started, ranging from refusing any connection with FON to trying to ignoring it. Some welcomed FON and their involvement. FON pays some of the core OpenWRT developers which is the base of the Freifunk Firmware and it offers new hardware, that can also be used by the Freifunk community. Personally I do not mind working together with FON. As I see it, we have to be pragmatic and everyone has to make a living and the Freifunk community could profit from the involvement of FON and other companies. I would like the decision if people from the community work for and with FON left to the person him/herself. At a recent meeting in Berlin, I have discussed this a bit with Martin Varsavsky. Martin actually asked me how FON could work together more with the Freifunk community.

We should be clear here though. FON and Freifunk are two very different things. FON is a company that labels its participants (actually its customers) community. Freifunk is a community with many different people - students, engineers, scientists, free and open source activists, people who want Internet, people who want a truly free network, people using it for their business, people working for development cooperation and so on. People have different motivations to participate in Freifunk - interest for technology and development, Internet access, interest in new ideas and projects, inspired by idea of freedom, a way to make a living. These people would not participate if Freifunk was a commercial operation. I remember the saying of some ¨Money destroys the community¨. It is formulated in this regard, I believe.

Still, we should not be absolute here - meaning - we should acquire resources and money for the community -> for conferences, events, hardware for developers, funding for projects etc.. Based on my experience of the last years, communities need resources. We should study successful models of communities that have achieved to channel resources to the people really working on it. Associations, Foundations and similar organisations are very helpful here as they keep things transparent and offer newcomers entry points. Also companies that would like to support projects have it easier to talk to someone from the community if there is a working organisation set up.

During recent months I have seen more activity in the Freifunk community again. With the new OpenWRT Firmware Freifunk will have many features which we want for years. I am always talking about the fantastic things we can do in local networks - new usage cases and sharing of content in your local environment, community radio in schools, universities or simply your backyard. Local networks are different to the Internet as cinema to TV. Felix Fietkau and John have presented a development version of OpenWRT to a group in Berlin recently. The new OpenWRT will offer plugins that will let us store content directly on the nodes. With router devices offering USB connections now everyone can have their small webserver at home. We can have a local Web 2.0. With devices connected to sensors like thermometers we can have live feeds from all over the city, the country and worldwide. I do not want this local Web 2.0 called after a company, a device or anything else. We call this FREIFUNK. A global local = glocal network open to everyone - to the public and to companies.

Companies are always welcome to join development and focus on their business models. However, Open Source, Open Infrastructure and Free Software Projects like Freifunk and LXDE or Open Content projects like Wikipedia have a roadmap that is following long term goals instead of short term profitability. And people are engaging here not just for monetary reasons, they have much broader motivations and they are inspired by the freedom the communities offer. This is why communities are more powerful. Companies simply cannot compete with this in terms of human resources and motivation. In order to grow and sustain free and open projects and the communities though we need to work together in our different fields and we need companies that engage and support the communities.

OK, so you're wondering WHAT is so funny about this...
You might have to click the picture to see it full-sized to get what made me giggle so much. Perhaps a bit of back story would help. In all of Germany I bet there are 300 such trucks on the road, thus it is strange to see them at all. Let alone a Dodge Truck, normally they are Nissan. Then compound that with flat black paint (no shiny stuff). Heck, I can't even remember seeing flat black on ANY cars without counting 70's American muscle cars.

But what is so cute about this HUGE truck (something we don't see too much here in Germany) is the license plate. The "B" is seen on every car registered in Berlin, but the "IG" is just classic.

Oh, and the guy who slid out of this thing... he was all of about 5'2"(160 cm) tall, weighing 100 lbs (45 kg) and had a chip on his shoulder like he had something to prove.

(common sense says that if I have to explain the joke, it probably wasn't funny anyway... but DAMMIT, I giggled for half an hour... maybe it was a location joke... you know... you had to BE there)

And just because it is SOOO KEWL:

Kinda fun thing this Random Tuesday Thoughts. I found it through Blogging Mama I believe, which took me to The Un Mom who actually hosts the thing.

Since I felt like being totally random today it seemed a great time to try this out.

At lunch yesterday a friend said that she doesn't like blogs with too much personal information. I know blogs like this, where you get to read the absolute minutiae of someone's life. In some ways for me it can be a bit disturbing. In others it makes me feel closer to them. Either way I don't think I've ever done this with the Snooker blog, in fact while reading afterward sometimes it seems a bit impersonal... eh fuck it, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I can be personal, but just don't want to get THAT personal. Maybe I should try this personal thing... eh? As far as I know there has never been a direction with the Snooker blog. So hey, I'm random... get it?

This morning seemed perfect to ride Mimi the Vespa even though the sky looked grey and icky and the hit or miss parade (weather forecasters on the radio) talking about nasty weather for my ride home tonight. Aw heck, ya only live once... and I like living it with fresh air! Who cares if there are little water spots on my face shield... it helps to clean the bike! This morning we (yes, WE... Mimi and I... you got a problem with that?) went up onto the bicycle lane again, passed about 3 km of cars which were at an absolute standstill and giggled the whole way! Nobody tell Sweet No, OK?

Tonight I'll have a blogger dinner with Adam who is coming to Berlin for a quick visit along with Yelli and her Scientist, and never forget the cute and cuddly (he probably wouldn't appreciate this terminology) Baby Bird!

Last weekend was the birthday party of my Mother in Law. They had a big shindig complete with enough Italian snackies to feed twice as many people as attended. YES, I had my fill of antipasti and then some.

I had a lovely time going from couple to couple laying down my shitty German and seeing them try to understand. Nah, actually it wasn't too bad. Somehow or another I manage to have decent conversations with folks even though I must admit to having a lot of trouble understanding accents. One guy is from Freiburg and OMG! WHAT language is that!? It is very much like someone from a northern city in America trying to understand the babble which is the language spoken in New Orleans.

Really it shouldn't be too bad for me, I have an Austrian friend (and we all know THEY don't really speak German) and a Saxon friend (and she even ADMITS that she doesn't speak German). But that Freiburg accent always throws me for a loop.

My boss is out of town again... and I love it. Of course it sounds bad to say this, but when she leaves, I finally have time to do all the back work which never seems to get done when she is within eyeshot. She's a great gal though, and I really like working for her.

On top of regular work duties I also edit all English texts which go out to more than five people. The hard part... we use mostly British English.
Oh yeah, let's have the American speak a different language for work.
How in the world did we get to the point of the Brits and the Amis spelling so many words differently?
Favorite vs. Favourite?
Center vs. Centre?
Meter vs. Metre?
Catalog vs. Catalogue?
How did we get to spelling Medieval differently? Mediaeval
Program vs. Programme
Traveling vs. Travelling
We won't even get into the whole language pattern differences and how this confuses me.

Let me just say this... I NEED a haircut. My bangs are now hanging to the bottom of my glasses. It has gotten so long that there is no longer any shape. One of my colleagues wants me to go all girly, but dammit, I'm a dyke. We have special hair needs!

Cliff wanted to get his traditional (I'm away from home haircut) when he was in Berlin but never got it done while here, I wonder if that has changed since getting home.

Looking onto my Google Calendar I see that Thursday is "Corpus Christi". WTF is Corpus Christi? Some goofy city in Texas gets its own day? I want BERLIN day! Yeah, yeah I get it. I'm sure it has a religious connotation, but it can't be TOO religious or Germans would have the day off!

Speaking of calendars - I am sooo geeky that I have the perfect calendar set up. Sweet No and I share an online calendar through Google Calendar. Totally cool because at a glance I can see her schedule and mine and know if what I'm preparing to schedule will have a conflict with something she already has. Then we take the geekiness up a notch. We link Google Calendar with our Outlook Calendar... but it doesn't stop there. THEN we sync our Blackberrys with our Outlook. Is that geeky or WHAT!?!

Speaking of all things GEEK... I am in love with a camera. You might question that someone could seriously be in love with a camera, well the answer is yes. Ladies and gentlemen I am ready to move away from the simplicity that is the Nikon D40x and get into something really complicated. Nikon D90. BUT before she went to Egypt in April, my Sweet No bought a super duper underwater camera along with kickass light system and funky arm set to hold it all together. Just this past week she added to this kit a huge wide angle lens which cost more than my D40x AND my first two lenses put together. Ahem. This effectively means that our budget for such equipment is shot to shit. Prepare for the unfair angle. She uses this camera ONLY for underwater shots which means that she pulls it out twelve times a year maximum. I on the other hand, take pictures every day, 10,000 in the first year of ownership. Where is the love!?!

In the past two weeks both ZZ Top and The Eagles were in town but I couldn't go to either one because of scheduling conflicts. Sometimes life sux.

OK, I think that is enough for Random Tuesday madness.
Your Disobedient Servant
- Snooker

Chicago Rose takes us on a tour through the Shepard Fairey Opening Exhibition @ Merry Karnowsky Gallery.

La parole est chantante, les gens s'apostrophent et se tapent dans le dos. Ils s'approchent du comptoir et commandent un espresso ou un ristretto. Ils le sucrent, tellement que le café se transforme en sirop, et le boivent d'un coup. Ils posent bruyamment leur monnaie sur le bar, pour que le serveur sache qu'ils ont payé et s'en vont aussi vite qu'ils sont venus, avec un Ciao! sonor. Ce n'est pas à Rome mais à Berlin.

Continue reading "Espresso !" »

"The White House views the chancellor as difficult and Germany is increasingly being left out of the loop," is the conclusion of a good Spiegel International article by Gregor Peter Schmitz and Gabor Steingart. According to them, the "Washington of Barack Obama" considers Merkel's policies "as hesitant. And when it comes to economic matters -- particularly after the experience in battling the financial crisis -- they don't feel she has much expertise."

The label "difficult" is attributable to Merkel's refusal to allow then-presidential candidate Obama to hold a speech at the Brandenburg Gate last summer. They also found it rude and impolitic when she didn't accept an invitation to meet with the newly elected president at the White House in April, despite that fact that both sides had been able to find time in their schedules for a meeting.

Reuters' chief correspondent Noah Barkin, however, puts the blame for the non-meeting on Obama.

The Spiegel article continues to quote two experts on Merkel: According to Dan Hamilton, director of the Trans-Atlantic Center at Johns Hopkins University, German "checkbook diplomacy" is currently experiencing a renaissance. And Stephen Szabo, head of the Transatlantic Academy in Washington, is cited: "France is in right now. The impression is that Germany isn't really of much use at the moment. (...) Paris is no replacement for Berlin in the long-term. (...) The Americans will need the Germans again in their dealings with Russia. After the German elections a new era will begin."

Chancellor Merkel is "agonising over a series of slights (perceived or real) from Obama," opines Reuters' chief correspondent Noah Barkin (HT: David)

First came the message from Washington that Obama might not continue the regular video conferences Merkel held with Bush. In the end the White House came around, but it took two months to set one up.

Berlin also got the cold shoulder when Merkel tried to arrange a trip to Washington ahead of a G20 meeting in London at the start of April. Messages from Berlin with proposed dates went unanswered for days until Merkel’s team abandoned the idea completely, an official close to her told me.

This week came the latest signal, at least from Berlin’s perspective, that the Obama team is not taking German concerns seriously. The rescue of Opel, the German unit of U.S. car maker General Motors, has become the central theme of a slow-to-get-started German election campaign that pits Merkel against her Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier. A misstep on Opel and Merkel’s bid for a second term could be doomed. But when she called an “Opel summit” for Wednesday to try to save the car maker, her ministers were shocked to see only low-level representation from the U.S. Treasury — a crucial player in the discussions.

One of my favourite things about boingboing and its idiosyncratic writers is their collective fixation on zombies. It’s there, for instance, where I learned of Berlin’s Zombie Walk last year. I wish I would have thought of the zombie haiku contest, which had its winner(s) declared today. I also get to dust off my disused ‘haiku’ tag. For the record, my pick was…

Zombie chicks are cool
So nice to find a girl who
wants me for my brain

Here I sit looking out the window of the 22th flood of a massive upscale apartment complex in the Chaoyang district of Beijing contemplating things in the way you do when looking out a window. This view differs from the same view I saw early this month—when Yuhang’s gracious friend put us upon our arrival in China—in that the apartment building constructed to the left is at least five stories taller than it was three weeks ago. All last night I heard the music of construction, a distant concrete mixer working its wide and pleasantly grinding roar through the night and, earlier, looking out the window again, flashes of welding at different levels into the wee hours, leading me to think they really do build around the clock here. Observing this gargantuan city right now, I’m not sure that it’s heard about the financial crisis yet. The air is definitely better than it was two years ago. I’m not sure what kind of black magic the government used, but it worked. Olympic Fever is still going strong, one year later. The local brew and Olympic sponsor, Yanjing Beer, is still proudly putting out cans stamped with “Beijing 2008.” The subway TV stations broadcast NBA games. Speaking of subways and just another amazing statistic about the construction mania in Beijing, there are now, count ‘em, 12 sleek subway lines compared to just two when I was here in late 2006. Now that’s what I call development.

Dairy Queen, along with myriad other American fast food chains, has entered China bigtime. Can’t really blame them for completely skipping the German market, though it would be nice to have access to an Oreo Blizzard from time to time in Berlin. The Green Tea Blizzard is selling well here.

I haven’t had a lot of internet time unterwegs in China and when I did have it, it was used for more pressing matters, like making travel connections and getting information—you know, the original purpose of the internet. Though, we fly back to Berlin tomorrow and I’ll hopefully be able to sit down and put some thoughts and photos together. I’ve got over a thousand of each. It’s been an incredible time. I’ll have to tell you about it sometime.

sa. 30.05.2009 / 23:30
icon, cantianstr. 15, prenzlauer berg
>> recycle - berlin’s finest drum’n'bass

lynx (soul:r / uk)
bome (monsta bash)
wan.2 (breakbeatcity / hidden hawaii)
mc mace (recycle)
mc lomax (recycle)

www.recycle-berlin.de
www.iconberlin.de
www.myspace.com/recycleberlin
www.myspace.com/iconclubberlin

--- LobbyControl hat verdeckte PR-Aktivitäten der Deutschen Bahn unter Ex-Chef Mehdorn mit Propaganda, "No Badge"-Arbeit bzw. Astroturfing aufgedeckt. In einem "Untersuchungsbericht" (PDF-Datei) heißt es:

Während der Auseinandersetzung um die Privatisierung ließ die Bahn von einer Agentur verdeckte Pro-Privatisierungs-Propaganda durchführen. ... Die Deutsche Bahn AG bestätigte am 28. Mai 2009 in einer Antwort auf unsere Fragen die verdeckte Public Relations (PR)-Arbeit. Beauftragt wurde demnach die Lobby-Agentur „European Public Policy Advisers GmbH“ (EPPA), das Auftragsvolumen belief sich auf 1,3 Mio. Euro. Innerhalb dieses Auftrags beauftragte EPPA nach schriftlicher Auskunft der Deutschen Bahn wiederum die Denkfabrik berlinpolis e.V. mit PR-Maßnahmen. ...

Als zentrale Plattform diente eine separate Webseite, die Berlinpolis einrichtete: www.zukunftmobil.de. In der Selbstdarstellung gibt sich die Webseite als neutrales Informationsportal ... Am 22. Mai 2007 veröffentlichte Berlinpolis eine von Forsa durchgeführte Umfrage, die gezielt nach den Vorteilen einer möglichen Bahnprivatisierung fragte – aber nicht nach möglichen
Nachteilen. ...

Eine weitere Initiative, die plötzlich im April 2007 als Stimme pro Bahnprivatisierung auftauchte, war die „Initiative Mobil in die Zukunft“ mit ihrer damaligen Webseite meinebahndeinebahn.de (nicht mehr aktiv). Als offizieller Ansprechpartner fungierte ein gewisser Daniel Kornauke aus Dresden. Die Seite sprach sich vehement für die Privatisierung der Deutschen Bahn aus. Ende April 2007 tauchten in verschiedenen Blogs oder Foren z.B. des Tagesspiegel ähnliche Kommentare auf, die die Privatisierung der Bahn befürworten und auf die Webseite meinebahndeinebahn.de verwiesen. ...

LobbyControl hat außerdem Hinweise, dass in die Öffentlichkeitsarbeit von Berlinpolis zur Bahnprivatisierung auch die Firma Allenbach Media GmbH Berlin einbezogen war. Auf ihrer Webseite schreibt sie als Selbstdarstellung: „Mediengerechte Aufbereitung, Darstellung und Vermittlung von gesellschaftlichen, politischen und politiknahen Themen sind unser Kerngeschäft. Zu unseren Kunden zählen Abgeordnete des Bundestages, der Landtage und des Europaparlamentes, die Bundeswehr und die Initiative Neue Soziale Marktwirtschaft (INSM).“ Auch Berlinpolis wird ausdrücklich als Referenzkunde aufgeführt, aber zu einem anderen Thema, nämlich der Gesundheitsreform.

Cela faisait près de deux ans que je n'avais pas organisé de Grand Concours. Je voyais dans les commentaires que ça vous manquait, alors voici la première édition de 2009. Comme d'habitude, il suffit de dire dans les commentaires où cette photo a été prise et, comme d'habitude, ceux qui ont deviné reçoivent un de ces magnifiques fonds d'écran qui ont fait la réputation de notre maison. Attention, il s'agit de nouveaux fonds d'écran de la collection 2009 ! Et les gagnants sont...

Continue reading "Concours - Karneval der Kulturen" »

Gutgelaunt ins Wochenende:

Cause we hate what you do and we hate your whole crew, so please don’t stay in touch…

Danke an Malcolm für den Linktipp!

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Gutgelaunt ins Wochenende: Cause we hate what you do and we hate your whole crew, so please don’t stay in touch… Danke an Malcolm für den Linktipp! Verwandte Artikel Skandal: Homosexuelle unterdrücken Christen (8) Schwul oder schwuler (8) Terminator: Schäublation (3) Little Britain: Tom Milsom in Berlin (3)

This past weekend Sweet No and I were visited by Cliff & Sarah of Regensbloggers and Adam of That Queer Expatriate. All of this was celebrated with Berlin local, Yelli and The Scientist of 50% of My DNA.

It was lots of fun to wander around my chosen hometown with people who were willing to explore it with me. I get great pleasure out of seeing others enjoy themselves, and this weekend was no exception. On top of that joy add the experience of chatting with interesting people, enjoying their stimulating conversation, and Adam iPhone fact-checking everything. Although I jest here, I did find the instant access to public transport possibilities quite valuable.

This weekend had me thinking about some things I hadn't considered in a long time. One of those was how "German" I've become in my four plus years here. Things I now take for granted as an Expat who has adjusted, are still slapping others in the face. These folks are still taken aback when a Germ is rude in the grocery store or pushes them out of the way on the bus. I on the other hand am ready to fight them back and manage to somehow be fine and drop the anger within moments, just like the Teutonics.

In the beginning of the weekend I found myself hesitating at red lights with no oncoming cars, eventually willingly going along with the crowd of Expats as they crossed at the red, then soon realizing that I was leading the pack to break the law, pausing only when I realized that there were children witnessing (a major no-no here in Berlin).

I've found myself in an international company which helps me in many ways. Expats from other countries make good friends because they are going through the same thing. Most of the Germans who work in this company have lived and worked in the rest of the world as well, and have had their eyes opened, thus making them more willing to consider friendship than the "never left my home state" Germans.

My new-found addiction to good cheese and fresh bread is strong and sometimes fascinating to a girl who grew up on Wonder Bread and yellow "cheese" slices in individual plastic sheets. But after talking with these folks, I see that this is by no means my experience alone.

The next realization was just how lucky I am to have my own German living at home as a "go to" for questions. Not only the "How do I fill out this three page piece of German bureaucracy at its finest?" situations, but also the "What is it about the whole German idea of sauna culture?", and "such and such called me an 'Ami' as though it was a dirty name... what does that mean?".
(For those needing help, the German bureaucracy nightmare is second only to America... with much less helpful people guiding you through. German sauna culture is basically "nudity is cool, get over it". And an "Ami" is a German nickname for American - with the same tone as calling a German a Kraut.)

Unfortunately the next realization was that my percentage of the German language understood and processed is getting embarrassing when compared against the percentage of my life spent in Germany. Cliff has had a long time love affair with things German, so he does not really count, but other people, short timers, have demonstrated better understanding of the language, and that just makes me feel bad. To make matters worse there is the guilt that I LIVE with a native German speaker, one without accent, I might add. Pure laziness on my part, I suppose. I guess that it is time for me to get my ass back into a learning program.

Been reading:

Germans wake up to extent of Stasi's reach - I think this is going to take a while to heal. When a person learns that they've been spied on by their friends, neighbors, even husbands and wives... this is a hard invasion to just forget about.

Gay marriage battle to return to Calif. ballot - Damn this is irritating, but expected. The vote was quite legal, the people have spoken. I guess this is what it takes to get a complacent group of people off their asses and willing to fight for a cause. Too bad there is no Harvey Milk type person for everyone to rally around. Is there no one with the guts to stand up and fight?

Who says Germans are not grateful to the United States anymore? Currently there is an architectural photo exhibition in Berlin featuring cultural buildings financed by the United States during the Cold War. The exhibition and website is called Geschenke der Amerikaner ("Gifts from the Americans"), which is in German, but includes a few good photos.

Absolut ideale Wetterbedingungen für die Kaffeetafel des Bündnisgrünen KV Berlin Mitte. Unter anderem haben sich Claudia Roth (Bundesvorsitzende) und Ramona Pop (Abgeordnetenhausfraktion) angesagt. Zahlreiche Kuchen wurden verputzt, Kaffeekannen gelernt, Ballons und Windräder gingen über den Tisch.

Rik Rides Brandenburg. From Birkengrund to Königs Wusterhausen. My sister and I took a short trip just south of Berlin.

Aujoud'hui, 23 mai, on célèbre deux événements importants : la Saint Didier et les 60 ans de la Bundesrepublik Deutschland. À cette occasion le Martin Gropius Bau a mis en place une exposition assez incontournable, pour peu que votre intérêt pour Berlin ne se limite pas à vous faire prendre en photo devant la porte de Brandebourg.

Continue reading "Soixante ans, soixante oeuvres au Gropius Bau" »

La bombe atomique a détraqué le temps dans les années soixante. Et comme si cela ne suffisait pas, de nos jours, le réchauffement climatique nous menace. Mais ça, la fraise allemande, elle, s'en fou. La fraise allemande s'éclate.

Continue reading "La bonne Fraise" »

En vélo, je me fais doubler par tout les cyclistes, jeunes, vieux, hommes, femmes, mamans avec un bébé devant le guidon, un énorme sac à dos et tirant une remorque avec un autre bébé et quelques kilos de courses (lait, bières, briquettes pour le chauffage, oranges bio...). Mais me faire doubler par un type qui a une roue de moins que moi, c'est la honte ! J'ai honte.

Continue reading "A vélo dans Berlin" »

The US embassies in Berlin, London, Brussels, and Paris still lack ambassadors. President Obama is taking his time to screen all candidates after the trouble with the nominations of various secretaries. It now seems that he would like to announce his choice for all four embassies prior to his visit to Germany and France on June 5-6, 2009.

"The Germany posting looks to be going to former investment banker Phil Murphy, national finance chairman of the Democratic National Committee, who's oft credited with turning around the party's fundraising operation, " says Washington Post columnist Al Kamen, but does not write much about Murphy. Spiegel (in German) has more information about the first (and positive) reactions from Germany to these "targeted leaks." Murphy used to work for Goldman Sachs in Frankfurt.

And Murphy is also on the Board of Directors of the US Soccer Foundation (HT: David). His knowledge of soccer will help him to win friends in Germany and improve German-American relations to unprecedented levels. At least, let's hope so.

For many of us Trance listeners, Chicane used to be the fundamental artist who not only was one of the creators of this style but whose music, especially his first albums still belong to the best ever released in the electronic music genre. Sadly, Chicane changed his style radically, a lot of releases were basically pretty ordinary  pop music pieces that fit perfectly as background music in grocery stores. Now, there is hope. A remix of an old Sigur Ros song named “Poppiholla”  sounds just fantastic as you can discover when going to Chicane’s home page. The track starts right away.

When the Soviet Union cut off all land links into West Berlin in 1948, the United States, Britain and France launched the biggest airlift in history to keep 2.25 million residents from starving. 11 months later Stalin gave up. Last week Berliners celebrated the 60th anniversary of the end of the Berlin blockade.

According to the BBC:

Thousands of people, including dozens of American, British and French veterans, attended ceremonies at Berlin's recently closed Tempelhof Airport on Tuesday to pay tributes to those involved in the unprecedented effort. (...) Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit said. "We will never forget the victims who fell for the freedom of our city," he added. "You laid the cornerstone for today's trans-Atlantic relationship. It was a logistic, humanitarian masterpiece that is... burned in the memory of the city."

Related article on Atlantic Review: Famous Berlin Airlift base Rhein-Main is closed

Sans vouloir vous commander, vous devriez allez faire un tour à la galerie Wilde. Vous y verrez "New Works", une expo d'Evol.

Continue reading "Evol - New Works" »

Erneuter Europawahl-Stand am Potsdamer Platz. Dieses Mal hat sich Prominenz angekündigt. Reinhard Bütikofer, Spitzenkandidat der Bündnisgrünen für das Europaparlament. Kaum ist er da kommt die Standbesetzung nicht aus dem Staunen heraus. Unglaublich, wieviel Infomaterial ihm von den Passanten abgenommen wird. Man fotografiert sich mit ihm, unterhält sich, möchte Autogramme. Wenn all diese Leute uns auch wählen, können wir uns auf ein ordentliches Ergebnis freuen.

En ce moment le paradis est à Berlin : Il pleut la nuit et le soleil brille dans la journée. Cela rend les plantes, contentes et les gens... gentils.

Continue reading "Le printemps" »

Une pluie fine tombe sur nous, à laquelle se mêlent de grosses goutes chaudes, elles rebondissent de feuille en feuille et s'écrasent sur le sable, soulevant des corolles de poussière. Dans l'air, un parfum de terre humide et de bois mouillé. À chaque impact, un son. Un rythme se créé. Nous suivons Alony.

Continue reading "Alony au Babylon‎-Mitte" »

"Knutschen bis der Wirt kommt" "Kiss until the owner comes" was the motto of the gay and lesbian protest against an ice cream dealer in Schöneberg. Police estimate the crowd at the "Kiss-In" at about 1000. About 50 pairs kissed demonstratively in front of the ice cream shop. The owner, who wishes to remain anonymous, had told two women to get away from his shop because they were kissing nearby. Those demonstrating want more tolerance and called to boycott the shop. After about an hour, the ice cream clerk shut the shop as the crowd applauded.

sa. 16.05.2009 / 23:30
icon, cantianstr. 15, prenzlauer berg
>> recycle - berlin’s finest drum’n'bass

the godfather of drum’n'bass:
grooverider (prototype / metalheadz / uk)
bome (monsta bash)
n’dee (recycle)
mc mace (recycle)

www.recycle-berlin.de
www.iconberlin.de
www.myspace.com/recycleberlin
www.myspace.com/iconclubberlin

I feel like I’ve been getting married all week, as this photo might suggest, though tomorrow is the event, the official wedding party, regarded in China as the once-in-a-lifetime occurance more important than the wedding itself (which technicall already happened in Sweden last year anyway). Family members and family friends are coming in from all corners of the country. I’ve even got a few family representing the Perry corner as my sister Rebecca, with her bf Jorge, flew in last night from South Korea, where they live now, conveniently right over the border. That didn’t keep them, as the lone Americans on the plane and potential flu carriers, from getting thrown into quarantine for over an hour and inspected with all kinds of fancy laser-guided medical equipment. But they made it through eventually after explaining that they haven’t been in the States for more than a year. Rebecca said it was a surreal experience. Our neighbors in Berlin, Uli and Martin, are here as well. They just arrived last night from Harbin via Beijing via Doha. I’m pretty happy they made the effort to get all the way up here in the great north. Martin certainly had no problem mixing in last night, sampling the smooth but hard Chinese spirits known as bei-jiao (white alcohol) at dinner, leaving him just enough (ok, a little too much) social lubrication to give him the determination to learn majong from the circle of chain-smoking uncles in the hotel staying across the hall from my sister. I hope he’s alright today.

The run-up to tomorrow is getting exciting and nerve-wracking in equal measure. With aunts buzzing around the house, preparing the dragon clothes, dinners to attend and Mandarin speeches to practice, eating seemingly constantly in between (the Chinese believe in their three squares), it’s been busy. But first off to some Chinese breakfast at the hotel across the street where my sister is staying and then a bit of Daqing sight-seeing. Tonight is the official pre-wedding dinner at which I will be expected to toast, so that should be interesting for everyone. If I manage to speak clearly enough to differentiate the word mother from the word horse, I’ll consider it a success.