Yearly Archives: 2007

Xmas Time is Stressful Time

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Vienna two weekends ago. Detroit last week. Two Christmas parties and three private dinner events in the seven work-days I was in Frankfurt these past two weeks. And on top of it all I caught a really bad flu. (My nose is actually hurting from being cleaned so much.) Today seems to be the first day I have really any time to do “personal” things again. It’s weeks like these that I notice how old I have become.

I did catch up with my email, finally; if you sent me something directly and didn’t get a reply… then the malign email gods ate it. Please resend!

Three Movies

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Watched three movies on my way to Detroit.

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer: Not the worst movie I ever watched, but hardly a piece of art – or even very original. If you’re a guy, the blond female lead will keep you watching because quite honestly she’s very cute. Watchable.

Rush Hour 3: Crime comedy action movie with Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker. Boring story, action scenes were okay. I think the only reason I did not hate this movie was Jackie Chan who’s pretty fun to watch even in his old age. Chris Tucker should be banned from making movies, on the other hand. Most annoying actor ever. They threw in a lot of France-bashing, which was just stupid, and the plot was the most predictable I’ve seen in a long time. (Hint: When you think “oh this guy has got to be the evil villain” you are correct.)

Transformers: Oh, where to even begin. This movie SUCKED. Bad. Not so much the premise, giant robots slugging it out is always a good thing to me. The plot was contrived and stupid, but it wouldn’t have been a huge problem. No, what got me was all the small, tiny errors. For example Air Force One almost certainly doesn’t look like a huge bunker from the inside. I have been in an empty 747 cargo plane and it’s not that huge. The defense secretary states that the US is on “Defcon Delta”. Defcon levels are numbered 1-5. I guess they feared that the average dumb audience member would have said “Gee golly, Defcon One sounds kinda low”. Idiots. And don’t even get me started on the portrayal of hacking in the movie. Only watch Transformers if you’re a fan or if you are stuck on an airplane for nine hours and have nothing else to do.

Back from Detroit

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I am back from Detroit. Got home, dropped my bags, passed out on my couch, slept six hours, despite having slept at least 3-4h on the plane (a record for me). Woke up to find my throat was sore. I am afraid I caught a cold during this trip.

The Corey & Joel live show was pretty good, you should grab it when it’s available for download next week. I am not on the show, just a spectator.

Departure was delayed by 1h because the Department of Homeland Security guys had to re-check every passport. Germans were allowed to just pass through. US citizens had to explain themselves: Why are you leaving the country? How long will you stay? What do you do for a living? Well, and the Arab looking people and the semi-cute Nigerian chick got searched.

To add injury to insult, I had to fly Economy class. Flying business class is something I will really miss. At least I had a really good seat on my way to Detroit. And the cabin crew was really great too. But I do have to talk to someone about the economy class breakfast. Bah!

Nanking

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When people in Europe think about World War II they think about Hitler the Holocaust. When Americans think about World War II they think about Pearl Harbor and about Hitler and the Holocaust. But there was just as much evil and suffering going on in East Asia.

Nanking fell to Japanese troops on December 13th, 1937. For the next seven weeks, the Japanese conducted countless atrocities against the Chinese population of the city. It is something that people in Europe and America, who have lived in comfort and relative peace for the past 60 years, can’t fully appreciate.

Princeton has a photo gallery about the crimes. Some Japanese still deny that anything happened here, but, as they say a picture is worth a thousand words. A warning: Many of these images are extremely violent and disturbing. Proceed at your own risk.

I hope that people will understand that wars, no matter where and for what cause, always cause great suffering to people who have done nothing to deserve it. That was the case hundreds of years ago, it was the case in 1937, and it is still the case today.

Vienna For Ten Hours

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I am back from Vienna – I went there to meet my dear friend, Anna. Arrived an hour late, at 12:00, due to a broken brake on the airplane. Helped Anna with her luggage and then we went out on the town, doing a little bit of sightseeing, had lunch, the usual bits.

Vienna is actually pretty nice, they really dressed the city up for the holidays. Of course it’s hard to get a thorough look at the city in such a short time. Still, I had a really good time, and it was very nice to see Anna again after all these years.

I went back to Frankfurt at 7pm – Hotel rooms for the night were ~200 Euro, and since Anna went back to Moscow at 10pm anyway there wasn’t really a point in staying.

A Tale of Two Cities

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I was at the airport’s regional train station the day before yesterday, waiting for the subway home. When it entered the station, I heard a short discussion behind me. A somewhat older man, slightly Indian-looking, asked a woman for directions. She pointed to the ticket vending machine, and turned to enter the subway.

The man looked still lost.

“Where do you want to go,” I asked him.

He showed me a piece of paper he was holding. “To this hotel,” he said.

I looked at the paper and it listed an address in Frankfurt.

“I don’t know this hotel-” I began. Then I noted something.

“Wait a second,” I said. “This hotel is in Frankfurt on Oder. That’s in East Germany. You are in Frankfurt on Main. It’s the wrong Frankfurt.”

“But I have to get to this hotel, is it far?”

“Well, it’s in East Germany, near the Polish border. Very far I’d say – at least seven or eight hours with the train.”

“But I must go to this hotel, because I already paid for six nights.”

I didn’t really want to argue with him. After all, what do I know about other people’s plans? By now my subway had left, too.

“Well, this station is just for the regional trains, the subways. There is a long distance train station too; just follow those signs.” I pointed them out to him. “But follow me.”

I led him up the stairs, and brought him to the ticket office of the German train company.

“You can inquire about the train schedules here, and also buy tickets,” I told him. “They’ll be able to show you where to go and so on.”

“Very good, thank you,” the man said.

“No problem, Sir, you’re welcome.”

I went back down the stairs, just in time to find out that the next subway would have ten minutes delay.

Two Frankfurts

Just remember, people: When and if you go to Germany, and you want to go to Frankfurt, make sure you get the **right** one.

  • Frankfurt/Main (Main is the name of the river, not the English word “main”) is in western/central Germany
  • Frankfurt/Oder (Oder is a river, too) is in eastern Germany, on the Polish border.

With apologies to Mr. Dickens for abusive use of his book title. :-)

Bye Bye iBook

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Today is a day I have to say “Goodbye”. My trusty old iBook and I are parting ways. It’s not really tough, because I haven’t used it in several years. But I bought it in September 2001, took it with me to Tokyo, read all the news about 9/11 on it, and then took it with me when I moved to Frankfurt a month later. Memories. But the iBook will serve a good cause: A co-worker will give it a friend who will in turn take it to Rwanda. There my little iBook will hopefully help someone browse the web to study, write his or her homework, and maybe communicate with the rest of the world. In other words, it’s going on a mission of charity, and hopefully someone down there will enjoy working with it.

Bye, bye, iBook. Maybe I will some day buy your younger brother, the MacBook.

What's the Dog-Ear?

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Because my anglophone readers will wonder: The dog-ear in the upper-right corner is a protest against a new data-retention law our government passed on November 9th: Basically, they decided that all communication connection data must be retained for six months. This includes phones, mobiles, email, text messages, and so on. And in the case of mobile phones, they will also log the location. This is being done regardless of suspicions of crime. Germany is now a surveillance state.

A lot of people will say: **But I have nothing to hide!** However, this is incorrect. **Everybody** has **something** to hide. Obviously, most people do not commit crimes, but is that really all there is in one’s life? Maybe someone cheated on his husband or wife, or likes to smoke pot. What about watching porn movies – or calling phone sex lines? A lot of people do that, and few of them would admit to it in public. Using your company phone to make private calls? It’s all documented now. Maybe you like to appear as a rough-tough macho in public, but enjoy folk music in private. Maybe you got really drunk at your last birthday party and made a scene – something you may not wish to become publicly known.

And then there are all the possibilities of misunderstandings, when these huge databases will be searched and used.

Finally, we should have no illusions that this will be the last law of this kind. Banking confidentiality is already history. Our biometric data – photos, fingerprints – are being entered in government databases. The police has started to automatically ID cars. And our interior minister Schäuble has a whole bag full of other ideas. This must not happen.

It saddens me to no end that Germany, the one nation that you would think should know better than this, has implemented this horrible law. There are only two hopes now; our President may refuse to sign it, or the superior court could stop the law. And the dog-ear links to just that initiative.

I hope this clears things up.