weekend celebrity update

Spent the weekend in vienna - shopping, climbing mountains around the city (Grinzing), catching up with friends. Met the complete Mainz Football Team at the airport including trainer Jürgen Klopp jumping the economy queue on Friday and the Canadian indoor hockey team (finished Nr. 9 at the World Cup in Vienna) on their way back from Vienna to Frankfurt this morning so I decided to have a celebrity theme today.


So let's start with Thursday - the Vienna Opera Ball (Opernball). This Ball is the biggest official ball in Austria - with most of the government present, together with all kinds of artists, intellectuals, showoffs, etc. If you are rich and / or famous, you should go. There is full coverage on TV also. Normally it does not get too much coverage outside Austria unless some trashy celebrity comes and visits - there is a guy called Richard Lugner, who owns a huge construction company in Austria and he invites "stars" to the ball to show off his fortune. He is also called "Mörtel", which means something that fills the gap between bricks when building a house. He is like 70 years old and has a wife of 40 or so called "Mausi".

Anyway - so Mörtel and Mausi have invited people of smaller or bigger calibers over the years. I remember Pamela Anderson, Sophia Loren (sometimes they actually manage to get a real celebrity with style totally embarrassing themselves when they figure out who booked them), Sarah (Fergie), Farrah Fawcett, Geri Haliwell (scary spice), Grace Jones (who totally trashed a Hotel room in Vienna that Mörtel had to pay for in the end) and this year it was the one and only Paris Hilton. Part of the invitation is normally an hour-long meet-the-fan session in the Lugner City, which is a big shopping mall in the not-so-elegant part of town. I don't think any of these celebs is aware of what awaits them there. This year Paris got lipsticks thrown at her (click here for the video on youtube). She looked better in the evening at the Ball though.

Also Britney shaved off her hair. It seems that in a moment of craze she went amok and just did it. I am not sure if I feel sorry for her or am starting to like her. There is something about this picture I like.

diversitysn't

I took the bus from Darmstadt after work to go to the airport to go to Vienna. Normally the bus needs about half an hour to get there. We go via the highway, everything under control, the usual Friday crowd to the airport - some business-people, some tourist-looking people, some others. We take the A5 normally and we notice that trucks passing by honking at us - strange. Then the bus takes an exit to a gas station, the driver stops and gets out. No message, nothing. He gets back in, takes his mobile phone and gets out again. No message, nothing. The clock is ticking. Then he talks on the phone for some minutes, people start getting nervous, gets back in and tells people that the bus cannot go on because some door is open and he cannot close it. So there will be another bus in 20 minutes.

Needless to say I am not very relaxed at this moment - and so is the guy behind me. So before I can think about it, he is already calling a taxi. So I ask him if I could join. Sure, he says. Another 2 people ask and we are leaving the bus. Some more people make some more calls. Here comes the funny part. The diversity of the people on the bus surfaces. Some people stay on the bus, some get off.

The 4 of us are waiting for the taxi to arrive. A blond girl with an Ipod and a shiny mobile phone gets picked up by a huge Mercedes first (papa-driven I assume). Two backpackers go around the gas station and begin to ask every single driver if they go to the airport. They eventually get lucky and board a small Peugeot. Finally also our taxi arrives and we get in. The ride to the airport is fast and it turns out to be sponsored by accenture as the guy who called the taxi works for accenture and is going to expense it of course.


It's funny how a mix of people gets dissolved in a crisis and people revert back to what they really are.

f***ing stefan raab!!!

I just watched The Truman Show - and thought that i actually managed to escape valentine's day - and now there are stupid couples kissing on the stage in TV-Total and Stefan Raab is singing one cheesy song after another - a kind of Knutsch-Song-Megamix.

I am going to bed now. And by the way, the blog color is back to normal.

aus.
schluss.
basta.
buonanotte.

I choo- choo- choose you :-)

I found pics of my all time favourite valentine cards from The Simpsons. I think they are great.




... other than posting these two cards and the nice pink background on my blog, I am looking forward to totally ignoring this wonderful event. Happy Valentines Day Everybody!!!

3 weird things

... happened today on my way home

1.) Ghost train: I went to the train station in Darmstadt - there were no delays shown, no trains at the station but all the platforms were full of people. Then my train got canceled only to arrive 10 minutes later without any warning. It was a bit weird boarding a train to nowhere just because it arrived at the same platform the original train was supposed to arrive...

2.) A Disturbed dog: I got off the train in Frankfurt and started walking towards the underground when I saw a woman walking with a dog - the dog stopping and peeing. Problem was, the dog was peeing on a young girl's leg!!! Needless to say, it took the girl quite some time to recover from the first shock but then a heated discussion started. People stopped to watch but they settled it so quickly that there was no mud fight unfortunately. What a disturbed dog ...

3.) Hooligans: Sitting in the underground a weird looking business guy got in at the European Central Bank. He had very strange round glasses. The next stop - Römer - some 5-6 guys got in - first I thought they were hooligans but my second thought was that they were actually going to check our tickets. The weird guy must also have had the same thoughts so he tried to get out of the train acting like he just forgot to get out - but he was pushed back with a loud "can I see you ticket please?". Basically the more disgusting and scary / strange a group of 5-6 people on the underground look like, the more likely it is, that they are actually there working for the train company checking tickets. This other time I was being checked by what I thought to be a group of 6 mentally challenged sweaty fat people. In the end I thought I could have saved the guy as it was after 19:00 and I had a monthly ticket, but not if he tries to jump out of the train right next to the controllers!!!

One more thing: there is another city in Germany without traffic signs ...

here i am ...

I have finally found that special something that I have been looking for for such a long time to pimp up my blog. The thing is called plazes and is a social networking service in connection with location tracking. I have signed up, set up my home location and started SMSing whenever I left my place. So from now on you can see where I am whenever you come to my blog - just look to the top right section. It is pretty cool - you simply send your location via SMS and you get a reply from the system so that you know if it knows the place or not. There are a couple of users in Frankfurt already, but not too many. You can discover new plazes and get points for doing so. It also calculates your average speed when going around. Let the race begin!!! (though I guess now I will need an SMS-flatrate, otherwise this will cost me a fortune :-)

DSDS on YouTube

I got an invitation to anti-diet paradise (casa Alba) tonight and so am staying a bit longer in the office so I am not there too early. Just enough time to update the blog with the recent highlights of the "Deutschland Sucht Den Superstar (DSDS)" candidates.

Here is a list of my favourite moments:
1. Tanja the gardener (just watch and cry :-)
2. Andreas (Dieter Bohlen is the most straightforward person in the world - but wait until the guy plays the piano - wow) -> they threw him out in the meantime because he has Zero "Ausstrahlung"
3. Mr. Love spielt ein bisschen was für euch :-)

Absolute highlight of the day: Nadine


BONUS

sometimes people make a war ...

I found this clip on the internet - it is a kind of anti-war rap song from Hungary. It is so funny - I guess you can only enjoy it if you speak a bit of hungarian or if you know how hungarians speak english when they cannot really but are trying anyway. Sorry if it is not funny to you - I enjoyed every second of it ...

ICELAND!!!!!

Years of peaking at the icelandair website are paying off finally (ok, I am a bit exaggerating here, but who cares?). They have a new promotion running as of tomorrow - you can fly back and forth for a measly 140 Alpendollars!!! both ways!!!

If anybody wants to join, let me know. I will be booking tomorrow first thing in the morning! Looking at my list of things to do from my last visit, this will be another great weekend!!! This time I will try not to forget to check out the mask :-)

more about the deal here: http://www.icelandair.de

UPDATE - this just in - I have kept my promise not to travel to this madman-country of the US of A for a long time now. Recently only have I began to think I was too stupid and felt a kind of an urge to visit NY - and now I am reading that they are going to have every visitor's fingerprints taken and put into the same database that the FBI keeps for the criminals. What a fantastic way of catching criminals. Bastards! (I know that my last word is not really an argument, but I don't think arguments help here any more)

Bottom line - I am back to where I started. There are plenty of other places to visit on mother earth...

the return of the blog :-)

I was planning to switch on the big marketing machinery to bring back the blog - but i am too lazy for this. So instead here are some rather shocking photos of harry potter - yes, it's him. They are actually from a play in London, that opens end of February. It is a rather strange story involving 'arry going naked, a white horse, a psychiatrist and more weirdness...

By the way, the rest of the cast is also pretty impressive. Among others there is Richard Griffiths, who played uncle Vernon in the HP movies ...

This just reminds me - it must be great to live in London ... Here is another photo of Harry with a horse ...

new year, new resolutions

Helly Everybody!

It's 2007. I am closing the blog for a while and focusing on my new year's resolutions. Plus I am thinking of changing the blog a little now that is is going to be 2 years since I have been publishing from time to time...

Feedback or comments are welcome. just push the right buttons ...

see ya!

ooooh - almost forgot, here are some singing beavers wishing all of you a happy new year!!!

Jack delivers :-)

I just checked my email to see if the guy that sold me the beamer on ebay without the remote has sent it in the meantime and look what I found:


My heart was filled with joy as I opened it - and the biggest surprise came afterwards - besides the usual presentation thingie it actually comes with sound!!! I am so happy that it worked after that fiasco with the Bond invitation that I had to upload it to the Internetz as we call it in Austria. Thanks, Jack and Jasmina!!!

So, now I am off to Hungary to visit my grandmothers. See you later!!!

Too good not to post ... (sorry)

Der neue Pfarrer war so nervös, dass er bei der ersten Messe fast nicht sprechen konnte.
So fragte er den Bischof nach Rat. Dieser sagte, dass er vor der Messe zwei Tröpfchen Tequila in sein Glas Wasser geben solle und wenn er dieses zu sich nehme, sei er nicht mehr nervös. Nachdem der Pfarrer das getan hatte, ging es ihm so gut, dass er sogar bei einem Sturm die ruhe nicht verloren hätte.
Als der Pfarrer später in die Sakristei zurückkehrte, fand er dort einen Zettel vom Bischof vor:

Geschätzter Pfarrer! Ich gebe ihnen einige Anmerkungen zu Ihrer ersten Messe und hoffe, dass sich diese Angelegenheiten in der nächsten Messe nicht wiederholen werden:

1. Es ist nicht nötig, Zitronen an den Kelchrand zu stecken.

2. Der Kasten neben dem Altar ist der Beichtstuhl und nicht das WC.

3. Die Gebote sind derer zehn und nicht "circa zwölf".

4. Die Anzahl der Apostel war zwölf und nicht "sieben oder so".

5. Jesus und die Apostel benennen wir nicht mit J.C. and the gang.

6. David besiegte Goliath mit einem Stein durch die Steinschleuder - er fixte ihn nicht zu Tode.

7. Wir benennen Judas nicht mit Hurensohn und der Papst ist nicht El Padrino.

8. Bin Laden hat nichts mit dem Tod von Jesus zu tun.

9. Das Weihwasser ist zum Segnen da und nicht um den Nacken zu erfrischen.

10. Weshalb Sie den Messwein in einem Zug leer getrunken, dann Salz geleckt und anschließend in eine Zitrone gebissen haben, ist mir auch unklar.

11. Niemals sollten Sie beten, indem Sie sich auf die Stufen vor dem Altar setzen und den Fuß auf die Bibel legen.

12. Die Hostie dient nicht als Aperitif zum Wein, sondern ist für die Gläubigen gedacht.

13. Bitte nehmen Sie den Satz: Brechet das Brot und verteilt es unter den Armen! nicht wörtlich. Es war nicht nötig, sich zu übergeben und die Schweinerei dann noch unter den Achselhöhlen zu verreiben.

14. Noah baute die Arche und besaß kein Offshore-Boat.

15. Abraham war auch nicht der Vater der Schlümpfe.

16. Die Aufforderung zum Tanz ist nicht schlecht, aber eine Polonaise durchs Kirchenschiff: Nein!!!!

17. Die Tussi mit den kleinen Möpsen war die Jungfrau Maria; stützen Sie sich nicht mehr auf die Statue auf, noch weniger müssen Sie sie umarmen und bitte auch nicht küssen.

18. Der Freak im Kirchenschiff ist übrigens Jesus; er hängt da auch nicht so rum, sondern ist ans Kreuz genagelt. Und seine letzten Worte waren nicht: "Mehr Nägel - I rutsch!"

19. Jener in der Ecke des Chores, welchen Sie als schwule Sau, ja sogar als Transvestit mit Rock benannten, das war übrigens ich.

20. Das nächste Mal geben Sie bitte einige Tröpfchen Tequila ins Wasser und nicht umgekehrt.

Herzlichst Ihr Bischof

The Day After Tomorrow

Dear blog,

I owe you an apology. Sorry for not posting for the last two weeks. The thing is, the last two weeks were simply too much and I did not have the motivation to do anything around posting. Not only did I fall into the famous year-end-work-trap by having to do so many tings in a short timeframe - a.k.a. "being overworked", but also on the private front something happened that made these last weeks simply too much.

My grandfather died two weeks ago. He has started to loose his memory a while ago and was in hospital for a while. Still it was unexpected and quite shocking. It brought up memories of my other grandfather when he died. At the time I was 18 and was preparing for a maths competition and my final exams at the same time. And so I couldn't go because of my exams.

So this was my first funeral. My brother and I flew in - we met in Frankfurt at the Airport after he took a flight from Amsterdam and we flew together to Vienna. My parents went to Budapest by car and we followed the next day.
The ceremony was sad but nice - pretty much what I imagined. It was a way of saying goodbye and at the same time having old friends around was very nice to see. Since then I have been thinking a lot about life and the things in my life and - as this is not a book or one of those hollywood movies - did not come to a conclusion :-)

Except that I need some time off to relax. And this is what I am doing this week. And I thought it would be nice to write a couple of lines and see what happens the next days.

c.u.later. / a.dopo

geeky comics

another step towards fame

another website picked up my photos from flickr on the paris fashion show. Check it out here:

http://www.justjr.com/modelstreetstyle.htm

Adventskalender!!!

I have decided to start up the huge marketing machinery and make use of the fact that X-mas is coming up. So I proudly present my own little Adventskalender. I mean if Playboy can do it, I can too... (don't even try to click the Playboy link at work ...)

So you will notice the little numbers at the top right - click on the day and you will get little surprises - cinema tickets, personal vouchers, never-before-seen-party-pics and more... Unfortunately I forgot to post it 5 days ago, so the voucher for the yacht, the dinner with Daniel Craig, the ride on the Ebbelwei express and the meet-and-greet with Paris Hilton are no longer valid. That is why I replaced them with some cool links to even cooler things on the net. Anyways - there are still many things to come so keep clicking!!! (hint: there is a real goodie behind number 5...)

Update 2006-12-25:
Here is the half-finished (why am I not surprised ...) result of this experiment - a.k.a. my ADVENTSKALENDER ARCHIVED

Fitness Center

So after the weekend I decided to do something for my physical condition so that I can go snowboarding instead of snowrolling later this season ...

I made it into the fitness center at 7:15 only - jumped on the machine at 7:30 and did the usual 1-hour crosstraining stuff. This means the Hügel programm for 60 minutes with 87 Kilos and Stufe 7. It was very difficult to find my rythm - watching VIVA charts helped (the SEX edition including Eric Pridz and more) to get moving - though I don't want to know how I looked "exercising". Anyway - after about 40 minutes of pain the situation changed abruptly. There was an old guy on "who wants to be a millionaire" and it was so funny I started to laugh out loud. And the whole fitness thing became fun!!! The endorphins kicked in and it was groovy baby!!!



Anyway - best thing came after the training!!! "A" is back! Now I know this is an insider joke, but those of you that asked me why I do not join the company fitness center, know what I mean. Just when I was leaving I saw him leaving the elevator and entering the fitness center. I have to watch out not to watch ...

BTW - the shops on the Zeil seem to be opened now until 10 in the evening. Cool for shopping...

BTW number 2: My blog about the S3 is getting zero attention at the moment - not surprising as there have been no marketing activities yet - though the data collected until now is pretty impressive. Out of 4 trains none were on time. More at http://s3-rmv.blogspot.com ...

hell is a better place

Just woke. Up I mean. I am not too well to be honest. Too much party yesterday - too much Gadgets, James and Jane Bonds, Casino Royal, Roulette and Poker, shaken and stirred things.

So what do I do now to come back to normality? Check the blogs but it seems I am the first so nothing new just yet. So I type www.hell.org into my browser and Voilà:


It's good to see I am still normal considering other examples of our kind ...
I think these are photos of the Burning Man festival, but I am not sure.

Anyway let's compare this with www.heaven.org:


What a surprise - people as happy as a hyppo!!! I am also happy to report that john@heaven.org (no joke) is available for your enquiries.

By the way, hell wins over heaven on googlefight.

The internet is an evil place... I am leaving it now to go to a better place - there is a hint of sunshine outside - would be a pity to miss it ...

Bond, Jack Bond

More pictures later as soon as I get them. The film is on its way to headquarters for development. I hope Q does not mess them up like last time...


UPDATE: Finally got the pictures. Unfortunately some of the more raunchy ones have been lost in translation so here are the more or less normal ones. There are still enough Bonds and Girls so don't worry ... Just click on the picture below and enjoy!

Customers of the World - Unite!!!

I have decided to change the world. If a tree falls and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound? I don't know but in my case the tree is the train, the falling part is the delay and the sounds is the blog. Capito?

I am glad we understand each other. So I decided to step into the footsteps of the Neistat Brothers and similar to their website - iPod's Dirty Secret I am hereby declaring war on the delays of the S3 in the Rhein-Main area. I am fed up, tired and angry with the ongoing delays of this train. I have started using it 5 years ago when I moved to Frankfurt and after a short pause of 2 years when I drove a car now started to taking it again. And still it is the same madness!

The only train that is delayed every morning is the S3. Why? Why? Why?

I don't know when I will start to paint the city with all kinds of colours using a cool banner like in the movie here - basically declaring this war situation, but if you know me, you know that I am basically a ticking time bomb. So as a way of cooling down I am starting to simply run a diary of this and so I am proud to present:

Die S3 ist schon wieder verspätet!

(nothing fancy, just a way of letting go ...)
ps: Did I mention I love the movie Falling Down - Well now I did ...

Radar!!!

So I read an article in a forum that there are new speed traps planned in Austria. Check out the photos and read this aticle:



And then read this article and you understand why forums are such an unreliable source of information ...

ps: In any case the pictures are pretty cool, I don't care if it is Austria or Switzerland ...