Last weekend I had a black and white photography course at the Uni here in Lüneburg. It was cool. It’s a lot harder than one would think. I made three good prints. The first day started fine. Later on the in the afternoon I hit my head on the ventilator switch on the wall in the Photolab. It hurt like hell. Shortly after I felt sick or really hungry. I wasn’t sure. When I went home I decided on hungry and ate some dinner.

Mistake.

I yacked. A lot.

In the morning I wasn’t feeling aces but I had been waiting so long for this photo course that I wasn’t going to miss it come hell or high water. So I went.

It was tough but I pulled through. I went home and promply fell asleep and called in sick the next day. The doctor said it was a viral something something. I think it was a combo of bad food, not enough to eat, dehydration, concussion, photochemicals, and viral something something. But what do I know? I’m not a doctor and I don’t play one on TV.

All better now though.

Aaaaaaanyway,

I haven’t posted much political commentary lately because it just depresses me. I’ve tried to sit down and write about it but when you do the research and follow the links and see lie after lie, it really gets to ya and makes ya depressed. But Uncle Wily toughed it out and posted something in the direction of what I’ve been trying to say. Couldn”t have said it better myself. Thanks Wil!

WIL WHEATON DOT NET: a matter of priorities:

“But here’s the thing that just boggles me, and actually moved me to write tonight: The Bush administration waited 74 days before they started an investigation into who blew Ms. Plame’s cover, putting her, all her assets, and all of us at risk.

Seventy-four days. When National Security is at stake.

How many days did it take for the Bush administration to call for an investigation into Paul O’Neill?

One. One day after he was on 60 Minutes. One day is all it took for what can be called a punitive investigation, at best, when all that’s really at stake is the rapidly vanishing ability of the Bush White house to lie to us and get away with it.

So the question sweeping the nation is: Does Mr. Bush care more about protecting Americans from terrorism and ensuring our safety, or protecting himself from criticism, and ensuring his reelection?”

Would you notice? No, for real would you?

At least you are still free to read this……

Wired News: Bush Grabs New Power for FBI: “While the nation was distracted last month by images of Saddam Hussein’s spider hole and dental exam, President George W. Bush quietly signed into law a new bill that gives the FBI increased surveillance powers and dramatically expands the reach of the USA Patriot Act.”

I’m afraid that if I ever move back to America, it is going to be a completely different place I remember leaving and I don’t mean for the better. Why isn’t there an outrage about this? Why isn’t the system of checks and balances working?

Just read it. *sigh* Iraq’s Arsenal Was Only on Paper (washingtonpost.com)

There is an interesting article I saw in the New York Times about Turkish-German artists. One of the interviewees is Kaya Yanar. He has a TV show called “Was Guckst Du?” (What you lookin’ at?). This is one of the funniest shows on TV because he plays with sensitive stereotypes and tells jokes touching on things non-minorities can only think about but can never say in public. One of his best characters is Hakan the Turkish club bouncer. He also does educational things with a comic slant like tours of Turkish bakeries in Germany (Where a lot of the Döner bread comes from) and goes inside a Turkish Tea Parlor (Teestube?) the insides of which most Germans have never seen. A lot of the really good German hip-hop is performed by Turkish artists.

Turks are the largest minority group in Germany.

Like all New York Time articles free registration and the sacrifice of your first born child are required.

Turkish-German Artists Thrive in Their Adopted Land: “There are nearly three million Turkish-Germans in Germany, by far the largest minority in a country of more than 82 million. Some Turks still live cloistered in poor neighborhoods, speaking only Turkish. Others are fluent German speakers integrating into society. Germany is struggling with its role as an immigrant culture, and strains have developed between the mostly Muslim Turks and Germans, manifested in quarrels over the building of mosques and proposed bans on the wearing of head scarves in public schools. “

Skycraft in the house: A rough mix (5.9 MB). I hope to have this one done soon. There actually three different parts to this song one of which is the above link. This leads me to my new years resolutions:

1. Produce at least one music CD of original material

2. Really figure out PHP and MySQL and make this whole website dynamic, which ties in with…

3. Convert my companies website into a dynamic database driven site with lots of css, xml, and various goodies.

4. design and put together a portfolio of photography

5. Write more postcards.

6. Tally up my grocery receipts in a timely manner. I’ve already almost broke this one.

7. Read more “real” books in German. No more Pippi Langstrumpf und Fliegendes Klassenzimmer für mich.

8.*

9.*

I’m keeping 8 and 9 to myself. Heh.

I’m off to bed.

good night

I did take pictures in Cologne but it was with my 35mm. I’ll get them developed this weekend at a black and white photo course I’m taking. Hopefully I won’t fuck them up when I develop them. I’ve never developed BW film before. I know I’m taking a risk but I’m doing it for art man, dig? Dude you gonna pass that or what?

Like any big Mac geek I watched the Steve Jobs Macworld keynote speech{link updated} live via Quicktime stream today. Two interesting things: The iPod mini (I cannot say that without putting my pinkie finger in the corner of my mouth) is cool but still too expensive. The mini (there goes the pinkie) is only 50 bucks cheaper than the 15gig full size iPod. Lame. However due to the €-$ exchange rate if I had someone buy me the 15gig in the US and send it to me then I would be paying a lot less than it would cost here. Hmmm.

The other thing Apple released today that is really really cool is a new program in their iLife suite and that is Garage Band. It is a program that allows the user to produce, record and mix their own music. There are great synth sounds, loops, amp modeling, export to iTunes…. The demo in the stream linked above is really interesting. This is by no means a professional system but it is a great tool for anybody learning to play an instrument. If you have a USB or MIDI keyboard you can record midi and assign it to any of the synth sounds. You can play along with a guitar, record it, make up solos, overdubs. If they would have had this when I was learning to play as a kid, things may have been a lot different. OMG, if I was a music teacher I would jump all over this program. Compose music that sounds cool and that focuses on a certain lesson theme like major/minor scales or chords, burn it to CD and give it to my student and have him or her practice to it. I think it be more motivating because it sounds good and not like the cheesy old MIDI crap from back in the day that always came with the Mel Bay guitar books. Like I said it is not a professional tool although If I was a musician on the road it would be great for getting down those spur of the moment ideas in the bus. Of course having some talent is important. There are going to be some users making horrible sounding shit, But it lead some people, especially kids, to discover talent they didn’t even know they had. That’s why I really like Apple’s products; because it enables people to create and express themselves who ordinarily wouldn’t in this fashion. And if Apple made it then it is probably very easy to learn because all of their products are so intuitive.

That’s so cool.

Bush in 30 Seconds is a political advertising contest sponsored by moveon.org. Over 2000 videos were submitted and voted upon by people just like you and I.

From the site:

“The winning entry, or derivative work of said entry, will be aired as part of a television advertising campaign funded by Sponsor. The ad will be aired during the week of the 2004 President’s State Of The Union Address (time and placement of airing shall be at the sole discretion of Sponsor).”

The viewer voting is done and now it is up to the judges to decide on the 15 finalists. The 15 finalists are really good. Please check them out. Quicktime required.

Chillmost calls the shots here, capich?

Well well. It seems somebody at the NYTimes is reading Chillmost.com. In an earlier entry here at Chillmost, there was a story about a mob shootout up in East Harlem. I called bullshit because there was nobody in the whole story called “Fat Tony”. It doesn’t matter if he was directly involved or not. There has to be a reference to at least one wiseguy who is know as Fat Tony.

I’m pleased to say that journalistic integrity has won out and that Corey “The Kill-again Kid” Kilgannon and Vincent “Vinny No Knuckles” Mallozzi have, shall we say, heard the voice of reason, and written a related article (free reg required) in today’s NYTimes. And whadaya know? Bottom of the 2nd paragraph.

Booyah.