Heads up to this swinging Hamburger for hippin’ me to the Bob Dylan?s “Theme Time Radio Hour” from XM Satellite Radio. There are two 1-hour mp3s of DJ Bobby D playing his favorites and offering commentary between tracks. Get it while you can before The Man shuts it down.
Psst….
You didn’t hear it from me.
I was hanging out with Jens in our local stammtisch and I met a geek rockstar of sorts. It was none other than Kasper Skårhøj, the founder and one of the masterminds behind Typo3 with his lovely wife and beautiful baby girl Amelie. He’s like the Linus Torvalds of CMS. We talked shortly about the new 4,0 version. Kasper said 5.0 will solve a lot of headaches. We’ll see. It was just weird. I’ve met lots of famous musicians and celebrities in my travels, but it was also cool to meet a person who wasn’t necessarily famous, but who has had a big impact on the online community.
I have mentioned this once before, but here in Germany, and I assume in other non-anglophone countries, it is possible to hear certain songs on the radio that you won’t hear in the US. Well, not without lots of beeps littered throughout the song due to lyrical content. Maybe it will fly in the U.K. but I haven’t heard a lot of radio programming during my brief excursions to Scotland and Heathrow. So sometimes it is really surprising to hear what they will play here. English isn’t the native language, so most listeners aren’t paying attention and therefore aren’t offended. The 7 dirty words just don’t apply. So when I saw this Dutch ad for English classes, I had to laugh. (Not remotely safe for work, Turn your speakers down. You have been warned.)
Raskal mentions a new PR campaign urging foreigners in Germany to apply for citizenship. Although I can respect one’s decision to become a citizen of the country in which they live and work, I won’t be doing it anytime soon, or ever. I got too much pride in the the old Red, White and Blue to go and do something like that. Yeah, she’s all fucked up right now, but she’ll pull through. Well, maybe.
If I were to have children and raise them in Germany, and they decided at the age of eighteen to give up their US citizenship, I’m not saying it would break my heart, but I might have to drink that one off. If I understand correctly, children that have dual-citizenship because of one of their parent’s country of origin, will only be forced to give up their non-German citizenship, if they join the German military or get a job in the German government. The reason is because they are required to swear allegiance to Germany. There may some details there that need to be corrected but after my discussions with other expats with kids, that is the gist of it.
But my main reason for planning on always keeping my US citizenship, is that when the petroleum-based economy and all of its infrastructure comes crashing down, I don’t want to wait in the longer non-citizen line on my way to my tricked-out Atlas missile silo/bunker where I will await the coming of the post-nuclear Mad-Max society.
That, and being foreign is exotic. Oooooh.
Sheisty things going down at “Der Spiegel”
I know someone who works for a company in the Spiegel family. I know this person quite intimately. I don’t wanna name any names but let’s just say I’ll be sleeping with one eye open until this blows over. Of course, if the NSA is up to snuff, they have a record of every phone call I’ve made in the last 5 years anyway, so it doesn’t matter. Another interesting thing is that every few months or so a server out of Virginia scans all the content from this site using wget. Should I be worried?
You never know what could happen when somebo %%%%%%%%&/7=%264/(56************+++AT0
NO CARRIER
Here is a news item reminiscent of the film, “Die Fetten Jahre Sind Vorbei“:
A gang of anarchist Robin Hood-style thieves, who dress as superheroes and steal expensive food from exclusive restaurants and delicatessens to give to the poor, are being hunted by police in the German city of Hamburg.
The gang members seemingly take delight in injecting humour into their raids, which rely on sheer numbers and the confusion caused by their presence. After they plundered Kobe beef fillets, champagne and smoked salmon from a gourmet store on the exclusive Elbastrasse, they presented the cashier with a bouquet of flowers before making their getaway.
The latest robbery is part of a pattern over the past several months, suggesting that the thieves deliberately set out to highlight what they perceive as the inequality inherent in German society.
Not much going on. Lots of nerding about on the computer with Typo3. You’d think the chachis at Microsoft would finally fix Internet Explorer’s world renowned crappy implementation of the CSS box model with its release of IE7 but no. Everything breaks. I know it is beta but that should be at the top of the list.
This brilliant pixel-based reenactment of Game Six of the 1986 World Series reminds me of hanging out for hours in Brian Allers’s basement and playing RBI Baseball on his Nintendo.
Here is a page full of all kinds of musical theory. Good reference for refreshing your memory.
I’m thinking about jumping the ProTools ship and moving to either Logic Pro or Nuendo. I’m frustrated with Digidesign’s hardware requirements and limitations. However, I love the software. I’ve been using it for almost 10 years and I am really comfortable with it. The hardware on the other hand needs to move into the 21st century. The main shortcoming is that you have to have Digidesign hardware attached to the computer just to start the software. That means doing edits on your laptop during a long plane/train ride is out of the question unless you have the M2, which is a piece of crap. That also means if you want to customize your IO interface to suit your needs, you are fucked.
The 002r, which is what I currently have, is okay but if I want to record a session requiring 16 simultaneous XLR inputs, it requires too many workarounds and pieces of external hardware (AD converters and ADAT interface). All I really need is a few of these Focusrites and I’m set. Unfortunately, it is directly incompatible with ProTools so I would have to finagle it together with the ADAT interface and then there are clock issues and more gear and cables to haul around and lots of other bullshit I’m sure. There is no elegant ProTools solution for under $13,000. In other words: fuck that. With Logic and Nuendo however, I can use whatever hardware I want. We’ll have to see what Digi releases this year and how well their Universal binaries work on the new Intel Macs.
Eventually this year I want to get a road case with the 2 Focusrites, a patchbay, channel strip(s), and maybe a nice EQ. Put this together with a new 17-inch MacBookPro, a small mixer and some decent monitors and it’s a mobile recording studio.
Oh, did I bore you with all that? Here…
Ballroom dancing making comback among German youth. I have yet to notice this trend.
What’s up with Germany and their friggin’ beard clubs?
Time for bed. I have a heart check up tomorrow.
Heute bin ich 5 Jahre in Deutschland. I don’t regret moving here but it’s not exactly how I imagined it. Either way it’s time to Tanz in den Mai.
Yesterday was M’s birthday. We got some friends together and went to the Sülzwiesen for the Frühjahrsmarkt where there was lots of rides and games. While trying my best to blend in with the carnies, I played some machine which I have no idea what it is called but I totally cleaned up. For my efforts I got a magnetic dart board. Unfortunately they didn’t have any of those square mirrors with a picture or logo of your favorite 80’s hair band painted on it. I wonder what ever happened to the one I used to have when I was a kid with Mötley Crüe on it.
We also rode the ferris wheel, scrambler thingy, virtual crappy space ride and bumper cars, the last of which M and I have to thank today for the slight whiplash.
After that we went out for a few drinks and some more games. Yay!