Just so everybody knows, my sis just flew over the big pond again, this time for an exciting internship in Boston. You can follow her trip (three months! Boy, do I envy her!) on her blog.
Archive for the 'USA' Category
It amazes me from time to time how quick things change. My little brother, who I could hold in my hand and his head would rest on my forearm eleven years ago, will tomorrow take his first flight alone to visit us here in Hamburg (which, by the way, is an awesome thing – Lufthansa has a service that takes great care of alone-travelling children – they even have special lounges for them with toys, computers and staff, and a stewardess brings them safely to – and from the plane).
On a totally unrelated note, we went go-carting today, and it was loads of fun. Did two 10min-rounds indoors and one outdoors… it is just great being able to drive like you normally only can in the realms of a gaming console!
Now we will open the weekend with a farewell dinner for Hanno, who’ll be going back to the US tomorrow. Just right on the occasion, due to a political party meeting in his hotel, there is about one thousand one hundred demonstrants (100 right wing people, and 1000 left wing counter-demonstrators) surrounding the place, which means he cannot leave on foot, only through the nearby train station, and has to undergo severe security checks upon returning to the hotel. That will sure give him a story to tell back home 
Blogged with Flock
Luck is…
* torrent downloads with over 200kbps (for the geeks, that is)
* a good english band that lets you freely download all their music and allows further distribution and broadcasting as well: Steadman
* shaving without cutting (goodbye, goaty!)
* a friendly word from the lady behind the counter at the gas station whenever you stop by
* watching a movie that inspires you
* dancing to the music on your headphones on the street without caring who looks and how you look like
* smelling the fresh air after the rain
* getting in contact with long lost friends
* realizing that your family is great
* meeting people that value your ideas
* getting an email with a poem that was written just for you
all that happened to me today – no wonder I feel soooooo good!
You wonder why there are Google Ads on the FloHomebase now? Then you have not read the last post! Shame on you!
While I was frustrated with my hosting company for a short outage of the database server this morning at 3am, I applied for Google Adsense, and this morning I had a confirmation in my inbox. Which tells me that they definiteley accept anybody who is able to fill in a correct email address and click the send-button, but who am I to complain. So here I am, running Google ads – I think they fit in nicely without disturbing too much. I signed up there in the first place to Kill Bills Browser, but here’s the bummer: The nice Google campaign to switch to Firefox is only available to Adsense members from the US. Which, of course, I found out after telling them I live in Germany. No luck here… luck for you, I guess, because otherwise you’d already have a nice but little warning on top of the page if you happen to be so unfortunate and run Internet Explorer, telling you to get your a** up and get firefox.
It’d be nice to be able to pay my incredibly high bill for this website with the Google Ads (hey, 8 bucks!), but I doubt it. Feel free to click the ads, it won’t hurt, but I won’t cry if you don’t.
You remember my beloved sister complaining (better: stating) that I turn out to be quite geeky on my blog that is supposed to tell family and friends what I am doing in far-far-away USA, and not what cool software to use or which podcast to listen to? Sis, you might have a point there. I think about splitting things up into a private and a tech part, so that everybody gets what he or she wants. I am not clear about the final structure, though – new domain name? Subdomain? – so give me some time to get it right. Beta might be available soon.
Another thought that crossed my mind was starting my own podcast. No, not a tech related one. There is enough good stuff out there. Plus, this might really push my geekiness over the edge 
I am thinking about something entirely different. It would be in German, I guess, ’cause if I did a podcast in English I am pretty sure the only comments I would ever get would be “your accent is funny!”. Nah, thanks. The concept is only an hour or so old, so this idea qualifies as “deep alpha status” (means you’d have to crawl into my head to see the project progress). I have to find a catchy name… new website… this is fun!
I might need a cheap microphone first of all.
This is it for now, thanks for reading my thoughts (?). See you later!
technorati tags: Google Adsense, Kill Bills Browser, floho
Did I really see that? My database was down! Just the minute I wanted to write a post! Unbe-f***ing-lievable! Not that anybody would care, but still.
I thought the best way to end the day would probably be putting some words out for you. What has happened today? Aaah, not that much. I discovered that it is totally impossible to watch US television without going mad. I thought the program/advertising ratio in Germany would be bad… was I wrong! I also discovered that my body seems to build up some resistance against fastfood… even thinking about another visit to Sonic this evening made me kinda sick. Threw in one of my new multivitamin tablets to make myself believe this would make up for the lack of real, fresh food on my menu.
Akamai, one of the worlds biggest provider for high-scaled data transmission (like streaming the WWDC keynote from Steve Jobs) has got an interesting site online: It is the Net Usage Index for News. What this basically does is measuring the amount of visitors to the numerous news websites hosted by Akamai per minute worldwide. Updated every five minutes, you can see how many people in total view news sites online, either worldwide or by continent. You can also see the difference from the medium traffic in percent. This is sort of a global-scale measurement for interest in news – the more people looking up news, the more likely it is that something important is going on. Akamai also offers nifty looking Widgets for both Dashboard (Apple OSX) and Konfabulator (Win & OSX).
Oh no, I am tech talking again! Ok, enough of this now.
I have seen two movies today that I can not recommend:
- Me and You and Everyone We Know:
Slow, disturbing, little interesting. No real beginning, no real end. Deserves being called “indy” through and through, but that is the best I can say about it. - The Complete Guide to Guys:
The offspring of the same named book, this is a collection of little situation-based scenes that shall describe the behaviour of guys in a funny way. Well, it made me laugh a few times, and it had the inevitable “oh yeah, that is so me!”-moments. But unfortunateley it is just not well done at all – there is no choreography, there is no style.
Another useless fact of the day: The pool here at Whaley’s Mill is not heated. Dang!
I’ll be back to you soon.
UPDATE:
Damnit, the database was down again when I wanted to get this post on air. Kept me up another hour now. Wrote complaining email to the hosting company (in a friendly tone) which will be read long after the error occured. Why can’t Skype dial to FREE telephone numbers??? Signed up for a Google Adsense Account to participate in the freaking attempt of ExplorerDestroyer.com to get all IE users of the world to switch to Firefox. Listened to all available podcasts of 43folders.com. Go to bed now.
technorati tags: Akamai, Net Usage Index