gotta be one of the best video clips of all time that wasn't mentioned on this blog...
Monday, October 27, 2008
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Rediscovering Music
Over the last couple of years I've been listening to a very selected number of albums... and mainly thought that everything out of the 40GB of music is getting rather old and boring. But sometimes I turn on smth that I haven't listened to in ages and realise that this bit of music is actually pretty damn good. This happened to me this morning, as I was half asleep on the train going to uni. I switched on Grace by Jeff Buckley remembering it as a quiet-ish melancholic album. And then Eternal Life came on. I mean if I knew how to play guitar, this is something I'd play day and night. What a beautiful and powerful song. Needless to say I didn't sleep for much longer and walked into uni bobbing my head up and down like a silly rapper. Go Jeff! ... pity he's dead...
Sunday, October 19, 2008
catbag
For quite some time now Unix has become a big fan of the purple beanbags that I made. This is all well and good, except that he has just a tiny amount of hair on him, meaning that the nice purple velvet beanbags over a couple of days become a nice shade of grey. No matter how much or how often I vacuum them, they still look like yet another cat. Thus today I decided to put an end to it all and made a cat beanbag for him, especially rubbed in catnip too. We're yet to see whether he'll actually prefer to sit on his own, or still would like a human beanbag...
Let there be light
The festival of lights is on again at the moment in Berlin. Every autumn they light up landmarks and interesting buildings for a couple of weeks, so yesterday we went and had a look around at some of them.
Friday, October 17, 2008
The world would be a perfect place if...
there weren't any people who:
- go up the stairs in front of you in the metro and then stop on the very top step suddenly to look at where they need to go
- listen to their music on their phones really loudly on public transport (they're exercising their right of freedom to listen to music, but what about my right not to have to listen to it?)
- force you to sit really close to smokers at work (can one get lung cancer from passively smelling a smoker?)
- work in the Ausländerbehörde (Foreign Office) and who lack any kind of emotion, empathy, feelings and who make sure that you experience utmost misery if you try to deal with them, let alone get them to do something as a human being to another human being. Or who give you a phone number (or four) to call, and no matter when/how often you try no-one EVER picks up.
- wear their pants REALLY low down exposing their underwear (what about my right of freedom not to be forced to be confronted with eeky underwear?) Since when did belts go out of fashion anyway?
- just can't accept no for an answer!
Monday, October 13, 2008
Tempelhof
Some time ago the Berlin authorities decided to build a whole new airport, which is due to be completed in 2012 near Schönefeld. Part of the bargaining agreement was to close some of the existing airports (of which there are currently three) and one of them being Tempelhof. It's closing its normal air operations in the end of this month, and given its importance in Berlin history we got ourselves onto a tour on Saturday.
This airport is located in the centre of the city and was used in the Luftbrücke, the Berlin Airlift in 1948-49 when the allies brought food and necessary daily goods into Berlin. Back then it must've been one of the largest air operations ever - they had planes landing and taking off every 90 secs... which is now the amount of traffic that Frankfurt airport is receiving. Along with that it's the third largest building in the world (square meters area wise), and largest outside the United States (after Pentagon and smth else).
Something ridiculously small like 10% of it is currently used, and no-one really knows what's going to happen to it in the end of this month when it's no longer going to be used as an airport. The tour was quite interesting and the guide told us quite a few facts about how it was built and reconstructed over the years. For example, underneath the airport there's a huge system of channels for air/water/what have you... some crazy amount of kilometres, which gave birth to a number of legends about the dark forces living beneath the surface. As part of the tour we were also taken onto the roof, where we could see the field and various old school planes. There are flight tours that one can do on some of the old planes that were originally used in the air lift... the Rosinenbombers... literally Raisin Bombers, because the pilots used to throw down candy and sweets for the kids around the airport in little parachutes.
We also went down into the bombproof bunkers underneath. On some of the walls there were quite nice paintings but sadly there wasn't really enough time to work out what they were or why they were painted. These bunkers were one of the most solid built, and were fairly well planned... for example each room had a latch which controlled air pressure. Should the pressure drop below a certain point, the latch opens automatically to let more air in (pic. 1). One of these bunkers used to have, what they think, the Nazi film archives during the war (pic. 2)... because they were very solid and very well protected (a huge metal door at the entry). So when the Ruskies got to Berlin and got to that door they either needed to have the code or blow it up... guess what they picked? Sadly the blast caused all film to catch fire and nothing could be recovered.
This airport is located in the centre of the city and was used in the Luftbrücke, the Berlin Airlift in 1948-49 when the allies brought food and necessary daily goods into Berlin. Back then it must've been one of the largest air operations ever - they had planes landing and taking off every 90 secs... which is now the amount of traffic that Frankfurt airport is receiving. Along with that it's the third largest building in the world (square meters area wise), and largest outside the United States (after Pentagon and smth else).
Something ridiculously small like 10% of it is currently used, and no-one really knows what's going to happen to it in the end of this month when it's no longer going to be used as an airport. The tour was quite interesting and the guide told us quite a few facts about how it was built and reconstructed over the years. For example, underneath the airport there's a huge system of channels for air/water/what have you... some crazy amount of kilometres, which gave birth to a number of legends about the dark forces living beneath the surface. As part of the tour we were also taken onto the roof, where we could see the field and various old school planes. There are flight tours that one can do on some of the old planes that were originally used in the air lift... the Rosinenbombers... literally Raisin Bombers, because the pilots used to throw down candy and sweets for the kids around the airport in little parachutes.
We also went down into the bombproof bunkers underneath. On some of the walls there were quite nice paintings but sadly there wasn't really enough time to work out what they were or why they were painted. These bunkers were one of the most solid built, and were fairly well planned... for example each room had a latch which controlled air pressure. Should the pressure drop below a certain point, the latch opens automatically to let more air in (pic. 1). One of these bunkers used to have, what they think, the Nazi film archives during the war (pic. 2)... because they were very solid and very well protected (a huge metal door at the entry). So when the Ruskies got to Berlin and got to that door they either needed to have the code or blow it up... guess what they picked? Sadly the blast caused all film to catch fire and nothing could be recovered.
1. 
2. 
It's fascinating finding out new things about the city you live in. More pictures here.
2. From Novosibirsk with love
While he was here we walked around Berlin quite a bit and even did a trip out of the city to a town called Belzig, which has precisely 11808 people (according to Wikipedia). That's something we can't really confirm... but then again who cares. It was a really nice little town with its own fortress and tiny little German houses. Being autumn also helped because all the trees were beautiful shades of red, orange, yellow, gold... On the way back we got off at Zoo and walked home through Tiergarten, which was also incredibly beautiful.
Dad and I visited the Old Museum and looked at the Niffertiti and various other wonderful old statues, mummies, clay pots, etc. Another day was spent in the Technical Museum... which is huge... and definitely worth a visit even if you're not an eight year old boy. I got very excited pressing various buttons and making stuff move. One evening the three of us went up to the Fernsehturm and had a drink at 207 meters... very nice. And yet another day we walked to my uni... it took just over three hours and we had nice coffee and cake in between. Uni is looking really nice right now dressed with all the autumnly trees. Dad was also impressed by the campus and the libraries.
Now that he's gone back to Siberia a feeling of sadness descended... as usual. But I'm hoping I'll be able to go and visit in March... so all's well.
Some more pictures here.
Friday, October 03, 2008
A delayed happy birthday to me
For my birthday much earlier this year a group of people lead by my sneaky wife got together and surprised me with gift voucher. It wasn't for socks either it was to do a stuntman course at the Filmpark Babelsberg with their resident stuntcrew. Mainly we were training and doing the stunts inside the Volcano where they do a regular show based on Mad Max.
There are videos from this little adventure too, I'm out of disk space right at the moment so can't edit them, After all I need to remove all traces of me squealing like a little girl. Will try and post them later on today if I get a chance.
We got to climb over their "set" and see what it looks like to jump off the places where they do it. Sure is a great view from the top of that 40m mast, pity the air cushion looks like a hanky and there's about 6m of sharp painful looking metal stuff that you have to cross horizontally before you reach it. Needless to say they didn't let us jump from the highest points.
Most of the first morning was learning how to fall and roll, forwards and backwards. Got a bit boring but is probably better than breaking your arms, legs or neck later on ;-)
White man can't jump, but they can fall. It was falling from a modest height of 2.3m (left photo) to start with - effective fall to the mats about 1.7m. Nobody else in the group wanted to be first, so in order to actually get on with it I scrambled up the ladder. It isn't a great height, the mats are soft so there's no drama right? Well the mat is only about 50cm wide so you shouldn't miss or it's concrete for you. Also to jump you are supposed to kick up one leg thus swinging you forwards and tilting your body back so you land flat on your back. This has the disconcerting feeling of letting you think you will bash your head on the rusty metal platform. Thankfully that didn't happen.
Then it's time to go again, in the same order - so me first again only this time it's from 4m (right photo) effective fall 3.4m. A 50cm wide mat from hear does look a bit more like a postage stamp. That and I think all those years in SES where you were supposed to stay on whatever it was you were on combined to make it a bit harder to get off of this one. Though I did actually manage it the landing didn't feel any different to the shorter jump - some very nice softish mats they've got.
You're on fire baby - The first day ended as all good days do with a nice little fire. The difference here was that it was us that were on fire. Unlike the big fat guy I did manage to fit into the heat proof racing suit, over which is a glass fibre outfit, then a blanket doused in petrol. Just add matches and you're practically cooking with gas. The disappointing thing was that wearing all that stuff you could hardly even hear the fire, let alone feel it.
On the second day we got to release some of the days frustrations by beating each other up, this tall muscular guy didn't stand a chance...
Then we did some abseiling, about 35m. Nothing unusual and always fun.
And to finish a nice quiet ride home into the sunset
A huge thank you to everyone who put in to get me this gift it was great fun and definitely a top present.
Jack...
There are videos from this little adventure too, I'm out of disk space right at the moment so can't edit them, After all I need to remove all traces of me squealing like a little girl. Will try and post them later on today if I get a chance.
We got to climb over their "set" and see what it looks like to jump off the places where they do it. Sure is a great view from the top of that 40m mast, pity the air cushion looks like a hanky and there's about 6m of sharp painful looking metal stuff that you have to cross horizontally before you reach it. Needless to say they didn't let us jump from the highest points.
Most of the first morning was learning how to fall and roll, forwards and backwards. Got a bit boring but is probably better than breaking your arms, legs or neck later on ;-)
White man can't jump, but they can fall. It was falling from a modest height of 2.3m (left photo) to start with - effective fall to the mats about 1.7m. Nobody else in the group wanted to be first, so in order to actually get on with it I scrambled up the ladder. It isn't a great height, the mats are soft so there's no drama right? Well the mat is only about 50cm wide so you shouldn't miss or it's concrete for you. Also to jump you are supposed to kick up one leg thus swinging you forwards and tilting your body back so you land flat on your back. This has the disconcerting feeling of letting you think you will bash your head on the rusty metal platform. Thankfully that didn't happen.
Then it's time to go again, in the same order - so me first again only this time it's from 4m (right photo) effective fall 3.4m. A 50cm wide mat from hear does look a bit more like a postage stamp. That and I think all those years in SES where you were supposed to stay on whatever it was you were on combined to make it a bit harder to get off of this one. Though I did actually manage it the landing didn't feel any different to the shorter jump - some very nice softish mats they've got.
You're on fire baby - The first day ended as all good days do with a nice little fire. The difference here was that it was us that were on fire. Unlike the big fat guy I did manage to fit into the heat proof racing suit, over which is a glass fibre outfit, then a blanket doused in petrol. Just add matches and you're practically cooking with gas. The disappointing thing was that wearing all that stuff you could hardly even hear the fire, let alone feel it.
On the second day we got to release some of the days frustrations by beating each other up, this tall muscular guy didn't stand a chance...
Then we did some abseiling, about 35m. Nothing unusual and always fun.
And to finish a nice quiet ride home into the sunset
A huge thank you to everyone who put in to get me this gift it was great fun and definitely a top present.
Jack...
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
What's on the t-shirt
On my way to work there's a t-shirt shop. Normally I don't pay much attention to it, 'cos I ride my bike. But this week still feeling somewhat sick with a cold and the weather being very Very rainy I'm taking the U-Bahn, which means there's a little stretch of Friedrichstraße that I have to walk along from the station to work. Which brings me back to the shop...
It's an "all-natural fabrics" store, and t-shirts happen to be their major assortment. Along with many regular t-shirts they also produce some with their own writing. This one keeps catching my attention the whole week - it says "Born to chill. Forced to work." :)
Here's the website.
It's an "all-natural fabrics" store, and t-shirts happen to be their major assortment. Along with many regular t-shirts they also produce some with their own writing. This one keeps catching my attention the whole week - it says "Born to chill. Forced to work." :)
Here's the website.
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