« January 2005 | Main | March 2005 »
I have become a member of Fan Club Nationalmannschaft. This step is necessary to prepare my mind for the upcoming Confederations Cup and next year's soccer world cup in Germany. Also, I have just pre-ordered two tickets for the game Netherlands-Germany in August this year. The venue is not yet defined but Oranje will loose and Naturelich wants to be there...
After two days of learning in Brussels, I have just returned home. Now, I am very much looking forward to some relaxation during the weekend. And of course some washing and ironing for the upcoming week in Basel.
Outlook for the first actions on Saturday:
Two packages with new goods are waiting for pickup at my post office. I need some milk and something to real to eat. Thus, I have to get up early tomorrow and shall lay me down to get some sleep...
While sitting in the business lounge at Basel airport I finally find a few minutes to update this blog. I have been on customer-site in Basel today. I arrived in Hotel Europe and had to notice that I forgot my laptop's powercable. What a pity for the internet addict. Now, I could not update the blog yesterday as I needed all the cell power for today's workshop.
Thus, I was forced into watching the Champions League games. Bayern Munich won 3:1 against Arsenal London! Although the first half was rather lame, the second half made up for the first 45 minutes (I missed the first goal due to flight connections). A cool result and maybe we will see more of Olli Kahn in the next round of the tournament.
The flight to Brussels is leaving right now. Maybe I will have access to the net from there. A colleague of mine will bring the missing power cable so I hopefully won't run into any additional trouble on Thursday. Wish me luck...
Osnabrück's Felix Nussbaum Haus (architect Daniel Libeskind) currently exhibits Nussbaum's works within the context of paintings of other artists of his time, e.g. Paul Klee, Max Beckmann and Pablo Picasso. Nussbaum, who was born in Osnabrück 100 years ago (December 1904), is Osnabrück's most famous artist. The city celebrates Nussbaums anniversary with a special exhibition Zeit im Blick.
We went there with the entire family. Since we were already familiar with the architecture we fully focused on the art. The paintings are grouped by subject and give an interesting contrast. Self-portraits depicting helplessness voiced through the medium of art, the cohesion of family during the Nazi regime, etc. A very very remarkable exhibition which has seen more than 20,000 visitors already. Highly recommended!
Naturelich has just added a few new plugins to improve this blog's feature set. MT-Amazon is used to retrieve Amazon content in this blog while BookQueueToo is used to manage a media list and keeping the status of what I am reading up to date. These tools are really cool, although they do not seem to work Amazon Germany. I have not yet found time to read through all the documentation. But if you have any information on how to configure these tools for Amazon Europe/Germany please leave a comment. It would be highly appreciated!
American taxpayers are made aware of the fortune the government spends on the war in Iraq. This initiative is sponsored by CostofWar.com.
Please note the sarcasm in my post (category assignment!)
Also, I think reducing it to a monetary figure (whatever the increase) does not suit the topic either. I mean there are people dying on both sides!
Tonight (at 22:00 hrs!) I am up for a Badminton match at Cosmo Sports with a friend of my colleague's. I have not played the game in a looong while but I am looking forward to it. A little bit shaky though, as I will loose terribly. I just hope to be able to hold the badminton racket. Naturelich shall see. The next badminton session is already scheduled to start in early March (but earlier at 19:00 hrs)...
Naturelich has ordered FIFA worldcup tickets. After a long decision process, I have decided to go for a team-specific ticket (TST) . Guess, which team I would like to follow? As an optimist I chose to apply for a 7 game TST-ticket. Now, we have to wait until the organization commitee informs the lucky winners...
Keep your fingers crossed!
Naturelich is very excited about paintings from Stefan Hoenerloh. They are very dark paintings however clear and concise in structure. They seem to be real, reflect a scene that every one of us has inside of their heads. The large buildings in a cityscape. However, these images are not real. The originate from the artists imagination and bear wonderful fantastic titles, like At the Right Side close to the Picture: Il Tempietto Farnesina or The Acceptance of the Inherent Lies in Everything. Cool stuff. I am still worrying whether these images would be too dark in my living room. I do not want to get depressed by these paintings, but my living room wall could finally use a decent piece of art. Hoenerloh definitely qualifies!
Seen today on Google!
Schalke's players applauding their fans after the game
Schalke beats Wolfsburg 3:0! This gets Schalke 04 closer to Bayern Munich and the German football league is going to be more thrilling over the next few weeks. Wolfsburg played terrible, clearly outplayed. The game was excellent, the atmosphere in the stadium (Arena auf Schalke) absolutely stunning. Great experience!
Try to leave the Dark Room at Woolythinking.com
The Scala Choir & Kolacny Piano Duo concert in Cologne's E-Werk was wonderful. They played most of my favorite songs. Scala had decided to give the gig, although Stijn Kolacny could not make it. Nonetheless it was a great event. The playlist (in a different order, but this is the best I can remember):
I was hoping they'd play two particular songs: Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit and Wolfsheim's Kein Zurück. But unfortunately they did not -- baaad luck... Maybe next time?!
Scala means very honest music, very lively music, very true music. Steven Kolacny announced a new album to be published later this year containing songs in German language only. Although I am German - and since they are really successful here - I would still love to hear more and more English stuff. I think it is more important that the song fits Scala and not the language it is in.
Oh, and yes, the choir was supported by Kryptos Quartet. They had an absolute magnificent cover version of Bohemian Rhapsody. It was a-m-a-z-i-n-g! I loved it!!
Additional support was given by a band from Bruges called Galope. Their lead singer joined in for the song Eskimo- he has a magnificent voice...
Coooooool! What a season! The tention in 24 is unbearable this season!! Just when you think that there is some light at the end of the tunnel, and in the last few minutes of this eighth ep everything seems to turn out good and Jack Bauer is going to save the country yet once more THE BAD GUYS KILL THE ONLY LEAD CTU HAD IN THE LAST 5 seconds of the ep! I HATE THIS!!! Argggggh..... Can we pleeeeeeeaaaaase make this a daily show???????
Due to a mis-configuration in the blog's config section users were not able to leave a comment. This has now been fixed (I guess). It always helps to RTFM. ;) Look who is talking, here. To comment on this site you need a Typekey account which allows you to comment on zillions of other blogs (powered by Movable Type). The policy is that comments are moderated in order to avoid spam and other illegal activities...
I have just arrived in Basel. The great news is, this hotel has a wireless LAN access, a Swisscom mobile hotspot. 30 minutes at CHF 9.00 enable Naturelich to present some live action pictures with my camera's nighshot functionality. In addition the hotel offers in-room tea & coffee which saves my life. Naturelich is always anxious to sleep as long as possible trying to avoid breakfast as often as possible. But enjoying a cup of tea or coffee in the morning is really cool.
Tomorrow I will be on customer site, enjoying a wonderful workshop. Same duty on Friday, just a different customer. I have to go now: halftime-break is over and the soccer match Germany vs. Argentia in DÜsseldorf (wish I were there!) continues. Go, Germany, go!!
And off we go to Basel again! If I new enough PHP, I could program a repeating entry in this blog which gets published randomly every once in a while. I keep travelling to Basel so very often that this program would probably be telling the truth 80% of the time.
As a novelty I will be staying in Hotel Europe, part of the BâleHotels hotel chain. My regular "residence" was fully booked, so this was the next best opportunity. Next week, Basler Fasnacht will start - Basel has always been one week "behind" German carnival. In 2004, I was present during Morgenstreich which was an exciting experience. Unfortunately, I will not be able to make it this year. The city is too crowded and too loud for anyone to work.
Something for our younger German speaking friends out there: Spreeblick blog contains a wonderful article about three smart guys which have been very successful with Jamba...
Carnival's Rosenmontag in Germany! The entire region goes crazy during carnival. Naturelich not me. Naturelich visits Cologne but to relax in Mediterana! It has been a very relaxing experience. Highly recommended for carnival!
I have finished reading E-Mail an alle by Matt Beaumont. The book is sooo cool. It is written in a very extraordinary style: everything via e-mail. The book is staged in the London office of advertising agency's Miller Shanks. The company relies heavily on their lower level creative artists while managers are abundantly fighting among themselves. This is just like real life. Ego-centrics, power-play, vulgarities - they are all depicted in the form of e-mails. And this makes the book very interesting. This totally hooked me up! You can read an e-mail rather quickly - it is short, it is precise. You get anxious about the recipients reply. Triggered by this concept the books draws you in deeper and deeper and you just cannot stop reading. I finished the book in a few days. It was really fun - there were a few instances where I burst into loud laughter. A very enjoyable book...
The luxuries of life can be so beautiful!
As seen in Lisbon 2003...
Today, Metallica's Some Kind of Monster has arrived. The double DVD contains an entire DVD with features only:
I have bought some nice beverages for tonight, when this living room will rock and roll, baby!
Today, Naturelich is leaving for another short trip to Basel, Switzerland. Business, business, business, projects, projects, projects... Back on Friday...
The ticket sale for the 2006 FIFA Worldcup in Germany has started. Please wish me good luck on getting a team specific ticket for the new world champion, the German team. Imagine: defeating the English team in the finale in Berlin with 3:2! Or defeating the Dutch team with 6:1! This would be a dream become reality...