Mallorca, Day 1, Travelling

I am an „early bird“ ...generally. But 3.30h in the morning is unusual to me too. Today was our leaving day. We started our 2 weeks vacation to the Balearic Island of Mallorca and our flight was scheduled for 6.00h a.m.

I was sure that I would get into a lot of troubles with my girls since they hate to start their morning before 7.00-7.30h a.m. But again I was wrong. Now that I am writing this, they both are still alive and well, had a lot of fights during the day (just the usual girl to girl fights...) and now looking with sleepy eyes into some imaginary time-holes.

We arrived here as scheduled and were in our flat already at 10.00h a.m. After unpacking our stuff, we went to the beach to test the water of the Mediterraenian Sea and...it's warm...unbelievably warm...too warm. For me, water of the sea has to bring some refreshment with rolling waves to me. But over here air temperature 35°C, water temperature +26°C. Nearly no difference.

We went to the beach 2 times more today and I must say that it is not as crowded as I expected. You really can have a relaxing time at the beach...I never thought that this was possible anywhere on Mallorcan Island at all.

Shame on me:I had to realize today that the longer I stay here, the less I want to do. I am already in a state of unbelievable lazyness and my curiousity about new things to discover seems to be somewhere far.

Oh yes...I discovered some wireless network hotspots here. They are protected ...but not too well protected :-)

Vacation

We are on vacation until August 25th.
If I won't find an open w-lan somewhere, I won't publish anything here in the meantime. Since I probably won't have access to my blog and wanna avoid any spam, you are welcome to comment on anything in here still, but all comments will have to wait for my approvement.

I wish you all a perfect summertime. Enjoy and celebrate every nice day and give me your feedback on anything that you did and experienced this summer!!!

Consulate

Today it was high time for us to travel to Hamburg to the Russian Consulate General to receive the new passport which we will need tomorrow when travelling to Spain.
Now, usually this visits at the Russian Consulate always put me in some kind of indisposition and anger because those officers there are so high-headed and conceited.

Today it was a bit different. I did not accompany Julia into the consulate. I was only the driver today and took a rest nearby, having a look at the beautiful view over the "Alster" in Hamburg. I had my book with me but did not even manage to finish a single chapter because weather and terrific view kept me busy with enjoying it....simply beautiful!!
Bad enough that Julia already came back after only 20 minutes.... In fact we were of course both happy that this time everything went without any problems and here is what we were today travelling 250 kilometres for:
Now, I am at my office...and I am just starting my working day which will surely last until 9.00h p.m. today. But vacation in sight...nothing can harm me now anymore

Silbersee

Sunday afternoon, the daughter is away on a party, so what were we supposed to do?? "Let us go by bicycle to a nearby swimming lake". Good idea?? Probably...for some!
The situation here: a very noisy "autobahn" in only 100m and hundreds of people laying on the fairly small grass area near the beach. So you had really good contact to all kinds of dogs (one of them seemed to be a feet fetishist), and various people spraying their water and other fluids over you.
The good things of this afternoon: I had my new in-ear headphones for my ipod with me....and this special "pleasure" afternoon lasted for only 1,5 hours until the sun disappeared.

Geocaching

Yesterday I found another geocache on my way home and this one was an easy one. Since some of you still ask me what this geocaching thing is about, I want to take this cache as an example of how a geocache container can look like and how it can be hidden. The container this time was a small plastic bottle...

If you look at this photo, can you imagine where the cache was hidden?? Have a guess and drop your guess in the comments.

Low Energy level

If I look at the countdown counter on the right of this page, I am in a state between positive expectance and despair. Work is not nice...and it is nothing new to me that some weeks seem to be like never-endiung weeks. But right now, with our vacation in sight, my battery level is down already at noon time.
Can anyone cheer me up please, tell me a joke or anything that keeps me from thinking about work??

I'm Not There

This film was difficult to get into but for the same reason it was even more thrilling and entertaining. It is said to be a film with autobiographical pieces of the life of Bob Dylan. The name "Bob Dylan" though does not appear in any scene on the film.

So it is a combination of real and surreal pieces.

When I watched this movie, I expected an autobiograhical movie in the classical way and needed a lot of time to get comfortably into the film because there is no real plot...no timeline, no chronology where you as a viewer could cling too. There are a several different identities trying to display the variety of the person "Bob Dylan".

For example:
The 11 year old Woody Guthrie, playing a fantastic accoustic session with Richie Havens (in reality, Woody Guthrie was one of the few persons that Bob Dylan really looked up to)

Jack Rollins, the Folk Music sensation, a difficult charactere, singing for the common people about simple life and expressing what others would like to say. The early Bob Dylan for sure.

Richard Gere, as Billy the Kid, was supposed to reflect the older Bob Dylan...but I must admit that I never got behind the meaning really. I am too simple for such stuff and I am too less into american history as well.

The artist Jude Quinn is the main plot of the film...and Jude Quinn (surprisingly good played by Cate Blanchett!!!!!), arrogant, ingenious, selfish and always thinking two thoughts ahead of others is playing Bob Dylan as he always appeared in my eyes. I like some of Bob Dylans songs and he sure is an outstanding personality, but generally I always disliked his terrible way of performing and his even more terrible obtrusive voice. He is one of the persons that was always really going on my nerves.
The film however was better to me. I thought it would be a hommage to Bob Dylan, telling everyone what an ingenious god he was and is. But the film was good to look at. It keeps your brain moving...giving you pushes to think further.

Sometimes all this is drifting away into heavy surreal dreams...as if you were under heavy drug influence of which I am sure Bob Dylan has spent a lot of time of his life. But one cool sentence I took with me from this film:
"It is as if yesterday, today and tomorrow are all in one room. You never know what's gonna happen then."

For the german viewers: the german voice of "Jude Quinn", which is taking most of the time of the film is simply terrible. I mean...Bob Dylan sure has a terrible voice, but not that terrible

Sticky???

Long time no posts in here. Or let's say no real posts. Looks like I am having a blogging break or maybe I am having too many informations and too less time? Or maybe both?

Anyway, if anyone has a little more to say than me, send me your thoughts, reviews or whatever and stop feedburner telling me that my site seems to be sticky (yes...they really use that impression).
And anyone feel free to count the days until my vacation. In 14 days I will hopefully be relaxing under the spanish sun. Count.....1.....

Spelling Fail

Americans our proud...and right they our!

upside down

¡¡ʞɔnl pooƃ ˙sıɥʇ ƃuıpɐǝɹ ɥʇıʍ ʎsnq noʎ dǝǝʞ sı op uɐɔ ı llɐ 'os ˙ɹoɟ ǝɹɐɔ oʇ ɟɟnʇs ɟo ʇol ɐ puɐ sʎɐp ǝsǝɥʇ ǝɯıʇ ɥɔnɯ ʇou

Lively

Google has just released a new product from its Google-Labs: Lively.
In Lively you can enter or create virtual 3D chatrooms. It is an avatar chat where a maximum of 20 poeple are able to chat and have a look at the avatars in the room. For your own avatar and room you can purchase stuff like clothing or furniture.
For now Google says that there is no plan for a commercial use of Lively but I am sure that Google will place its ads near the Lively chatrooms and thats of course a smart thought because people on chatrooms usually spend a lot of time on that site...and that is what the advertiser wants and pays for.

The outlook and the comic-alike avatars on Lively remind me a bit of web-design from the 1990s and I wonder where the difference is between Lively and other Avatar chats?

The good thing is: you can always embed any chatroom via HTML Code to your website. That simply means: Lively can be everywhere. If you enter a website, all over sudden you may be able to enter a Lively chat.

To me, this Lively thing is a nice idea not to be compared with Second Life (...why should Google copy a senseless product??) But I still did not find out what it is good for and what is different here. Hmm...I am sure that Google has some further plans with it.

All in all, to be honest, I am really suspicious, maybe frightened, about this next Google step towards a medial world domination.

Tip der Woche

Hmm...sehr seltsamer Tip der Woche den ich heute morgen auf dem Weg zur Arbeit bekam. Sollten wir in dieser Woche besonders auf die Kollegen aus der Neuen Welt achten?? Was haben die vor??

Safety FAIL

Now that guy seems to be quite happy with his leisure wear...but why are the others there dressed so strange???

Breminale 2008

Mix it, baby...could be a good motto for this years Breminale again. Breminale is the Bremen Culture Spectacle taking place outdoors on the banks of the river "Weser", trying to combine all different kinds of arts, music, kids entertainment and as always it was again a very relaxed and joyfull atmosphere there.

All the different foods and drinks there did not really interest me that much (maybe because I forgot to take my money?) but the bands playing there were really interesting to me.
There are like 4 main stages with different bands performing there all day. All in all there were some 60 bands during 5 days playing and how different they were! We joined the gigs of:

The Coal Porters
Playing like Bluegrass,- Skiffle music. I have never been a friend of that really. But to this event it fitted perfectly. The musicians had so much fun with their performance and played a lot of uptempo pieces. Real fun to listen to their performance.

Outmatch
hmm...what was this? Those guys were really trying hard to act and behave like rockstars. They have the pose, they have the lightshow, they probably know how to play well...but this night they refused too. It was like boring rock music that you could play in the background of a shopping mall. And I bet they would give a lot to be able to sound and suck the same hard as Coldplay.

Dub Spencer & Trance Hill
That was a surprising act to me. This is a Dub/Reggae/Electronica kinda thing and that really moved me. The sound was so clear, the bassdrum went directly into my stomach and when they drifted away in some 10 minute improvisation (at least it sounded like improvisation) it was a good piece of Trance with exact and dry beats. They did not even play half as much reggae as one would think when looking at their myspace site. Maybe thats why I liked it. Very cool mix...I loved that!!!

National Treasure: Book Of Secrets

This film is perfect for those who like Indiana Jones movies and something like Da Vinci Code. National Treasure: Book Of Secrets is a mix of both genres. Kind of an adventurous thriller.

The story is as usual: Some good ones searching for a hidden treasure to extract the historical informations and some bad ones searching for the same treasure to extract money, gold and prosperities from it.
Fairly funny dialogues and a treasure hunt at high speed keep you really busy with watching and trying to understand the story. In the middle of the film you finally discover that the story is not important at all.

The whole story is not really logical if you see how easily the protagonists in this film are able to get into Buckingham Palace, The Oval Office and how easily they solve every new riddle in just a few minutes. We had a good laugh at the way of how the scenes have been constructed sometimes...especially when it came to the hijacking of the US President. But this ain't no documentary, it is an entertaining movie. And it was entertaining me very well. Recommended.

The main actors:
Nicolas Cage - terrible as usual
Diane Kruger - meaningless and pale
Justin Bartha - funny and ironic
Ed Harris - somewhere between good and evil...as usual

How Californians See America

Oooh...as a Eurolander or Germlander I wonder if that is true..or somewhere near. Does anyone know any Californian??

Radiergummi zerknubbelnde Egomanen

Gut zu wissen das auch Lehrer bzw. Rektoren noch lustige Fehler machen.
Erster Elternabend vor der Einschulung, der Rektor eröffnet den Abend mit seiner PP Präsentation....erste Folie:

Die Aufgaben des Schule

Gut, gut...so fing der Abend unterhaltsam an. Und er ging auch so weiter. Sehr locker, ironisch und (mir völlig unerklärlich) unterhaltsam wurde uns 2 Stunden lang Dinge über die heutige Schule vermittelt.
Glaubt man einem der Lehrer, ist die 1. Klasse in der Schule zu unterrichten im Prinzip nichts anderes als Radiergummi zerknubbelnde Egomanen zu zivilieren. Wobei nur die letzten 2 Worte von mir erdacht wurden.

Der weisse Neger Wumbaba

Gut wenn man eine Schwester hat. Noch besser wenn sie den kleinen Bruder mit Lesens- und Hörenswerten Tipps versorgt. Sonst hätte ich vermutlich nie vom "weissen Neger Wumbaba" und ähnlichen "Verhörern" gehört und hätte vermutlich auch keine lustigen Lachanfälle auf dem Fahrrad ertragen müssen.

Axel Hacke beschäftigt sich in diesem Hörbuch mit "Verhörern". Worte und Phrasen im Alltag, in Liedtexten und Gedichten die nicht nur von Kindern falsch verstanden werden. Wer hat nicht schon einen Text vor sich hingesummt und irgendwann, Jahre später, erkannt das man den Text die ganzen Jahre falsch geträllert hat? Dieses Buch beweist das man damit nicht alleine ist.

Mir persönlich gefällt ja der "Erdbeerschorsch" der alle filmen will am besten. Nicht schlecht ist aber auch das Kinderlied mit "Mama Weinetsehr" und "Herrn Dabesin"...mehr will ich nicht verraten. Sollte es jemand wirklich noch nicht kennen, gebe ich hiermit den Anhörbefehl!

Soviel sei noch verraten: der Titel des Buches leitet sich ab von Matthias Claudius' "Der Mond ist aufgegangen. Das geht nämlich so:

Der Mond ist aufgegangen,
Die goldnen Sternlein prangen
Am Himmel hell und klar;
Der Wald steht schwarz und schweiget,
Und aus den Wiesen steiget
Der weiße Nebel wunderbar.

Alles klar??

Axel Hacke bei den Amazonen
Archive of misheard lyrics