….and I hate the Internet.

But today I triumphed. Tomorrow the battle begins anew.

Fuck you spammers.

I posed for this picture last weekend as we were in Hamburg looking around for a couch.

Last Saturday started off at 9am… M and I jogged around the Alster. After that we went out for breakfast with some friends and then went searching for the couch. Couches are expensive. Damn. I wasn’t expecting regular not-crappy couches to be so wallet-reamingly expensive. I’m probably gonna be dropping some serious cheddah on this. Oh well, I have to have someplace for guests to sit and chill. It’s a pain in the ass going to all these stores and checking out what they have. I might get something similar to this. I’m not sure.

One store we checked is called the Wäscherei. It is a furniture store/night club/restaurant/café. They try really hard to be hip. I think there was some special event/party going on last weekend while we were there. Upon entering the 3 story building, we were blasted with high-decibel house music spun by some superstar DJ. The 3 fabulously dressed gentlemen working behind the counter were working it while slowly going deaf and handing out candy.

There is a lot of really cool and interesting stuff there, but we found most of it to be very overpriced. Nice café though. The food looked good as well. As were the waitresses who were smoking hot.

Serving up brew since at least 1486, Pons is Lüneburg’s oldest Kneipe. It is also one of Lüneburg’s best vegetarian eateries. We went there tonight and had a feast for a reasonable price. There are two cool rooms upstairs as well. One has a pool table and foosball table. The other has mood lighting and couches facilitating a chill out atmos. They also have Lammsbräu, a bio-beer.

And for no other reason, other than I like whiskey, and I like Willie Nelson, I give you….

[Editor’s note] This entry has been posted under the influence of whiskey.

Although this video is in Japanese, the same thing could work in Germany. In NYC you’d probably get beaten though.

Die Nutella oder Das Nutella?
Take it outside, boys.

M and I went to a small Greek café here in Lüneburg the other day. Behind us were 2 guys speaking a language I didn’t understand but I think it was Greek. One had a Lord of the Rings T-shirt and long hair styled up like Elrond. He was a fan alright. He was just waiting for the one true ring to be found so he can go on an adventure. Anyway, I find it interesting how many English words have found their way into other languages, especially nomenclature in the IT world. For a while I wasn’t paying attention but my interest was peaked when I heard “…Mac OS…” than a long conversation with “…file sharing….linux….unix….samba….windows….Bill Gates….” This was quickly followed up with a Chortle! heh heh snort!” I didn’t understand, but I knew what they were talking about.

….Those that understood him smiled at one another and shook their heads; but for mine own part, it was Geek to me.

We found this on Friday. It must have happened on Thursday night. I’ve already made my feelings about graffiti known.

It is an interesting tag. Can anyone decipher it? SAFT 52? S4FTP 52?

I ran for 80 minutes non-stop this morning. I was beat. I’m supposed to be training for a 10k run but I will be out of town when it happens. There will be others.

(get ready for some nerd talk)

After running I went to work because I had to do some wiring on a new network I built for some new office spaces we acquired. Eventually, both buildings will be joined with a conduit underneath the street, but before that happens we need a temporary solution. This means I set up a wireless bridge between the two buildings. I spent all day Friday drilling holes and pulling CAT6 cable. Today I hooked up network sockets using a punch down tool and I affixed antennas to the side of the building. That’s a lot of work for a temporary solution. In the process, I stabbed my finger pretty good and gushed blood onto the pretty pretty floor. Whoops. I also fell out of an attic space, down the ladder and onto the floor. It is a miracle I didn’t kill myself.

Anyway, I wanted to build the network the right way with rack containing a patch panel, the 16port switch and the wireless access point all nicely set up with patch cables and the whole 9 yards, but I wasn’t sure exactly what kind of patch panel to get. Instead I’ll just stick some RJ45’s directly on the cable for now and worry about it later. Technically, it will work just fine, but if a professional network engineer saw it, he would give me a stern talking to.

The reason I’m trying to get it done quickly is because I’ll be going to Florida next week for 2 weeks. It has to be up and running before I go. Preliminary tests show the wireless connection is working and I can see the network and get to the Internet. I’m just not sure how strong the signal is. Is it just barely reaching enough to work or is it full strength?

Hmmm. When we do connect the buildings, should it be a twisted-pair cable or fiber-optic? Fiber-optic will require bringing in people who know what they are doing. I think they are called professionals.

1. A new blogger in the sidebar.

2. A funny comic

3. I’ll miss Molly Ivins. Her last column.

4. An interesting little flash thingy. Click “Paint!” and draw your own figure.

5. Angry panda.