tvc15

Psychedelic Flowers

Saw those psychedelic flowers this September in the town of Mainz. Don´t know what they do put into the water of the plants, but seeing this technicolour arrangement midtown, was a bit of a surprise. Wonder how the flowers look like in spring!

Room Of A Million Rainbows

A friend came along with the new CD by The Timewriter on the weekend, the album is entitled Paintbox. One track is really outstanding and I guess it´s the best one I heard all year. It´s the last one on the CD and called Room Of A Million Rainbows. I can´t praise Jean F Cochois enough for this special track, it´s a superb production, minimal in one way and lush in it´s textures in another. The perfect track for early mornings or the last hour of the party. Hypnotic is the word!

Hot & Cold

While parts of Germany are seeing loads of rain and cold weather, other parts have been struck by some sort of bliz- zard. People have no electricity and get hot soup for free in schools. The whole weekend one special feature on the telly was followed by another... So what do I read in a certain paper today:  Will the future only see two seasons? Think that extreme situations provoke thinking in extremes. Or make tabloid writers come up with extreme bullshit. Why not go for a bit of skiing shortly after the surfboard was packed away? From ice cream to ice skating in less than four weeks! Show Santa your suntan! Spend Easter in shorts!

Antarctica

Realised it´s dead easy to contact the stations in Antarctica! As easy as as finding a Mc D in your neighbourhood. So let´s wait what happens... It´s "summer" there I read!

The Data Storage Conspiracy

My newest theory is, that the guys behind p2p networks and all those binary newsgroups are well linked to the manufac- turers of hard disks and other mass storage solutions. Even more, the ISPs are playing a role too, as they come up with even faster lines every year that make your disks fill up in no time.

I went to a shop today to have a look at external hard disks. Where once one or two manufacturers had some products available, a multitude of mass storage was staring back at me and begged: Buy me, I will provide endless disk space for you. But looking back how fast my second 300 GB external hard disk filled up I can assure everyone ENDLESS IS OVER QUITE SOON.

126

Today I read Microsoft is said to be losing 126 $ on each Xbox 360, ever since the the parts sum up to 470 $ for the premium version. Which can´t be true because not every Xbox 360 sold will be a premium version, or? And even less true as nobody expects Bill Gates to become bankrupt soon. Think it has more to do with clever supply conditions and the desire to top Sony with it´s Playstation in the forthcom- ing years. But why should I consider an Xbox when the next Gran Turismo comes out on the Playstation 3? I´d better finish Gran Turismo 4 in the meantime...

In Need Of Presents?

For the digital photographer with an office desk or sideboard there is a brilliant x-mas present around: a Philips Digital Photo Display. I mean besides harassing the world with a photo blog, spending money on photo prints or starting the odd diashow on your PC, what can you do with 1000s of photos? Hidden away on the hard disks, filed on CDs or DVDs - who will ever see these pictures?

Sadly at 200+ Euros the Philips Digital Photo Display is still a bit steep, but I got an unused one from a frustrated old school photographer over eBay, who received it as an un- wanted present just after it came out. And I payed nearly 100 Euros less than the recommended retail price!

It switches itself on at 08.00 in the morning, shortly before I arrive at my desk and reminds me to leave around 18.00 too. The diashow feature works quite well, every half hour I am seeing a new shot. And with an extra 512 MB card, there is enough room for future photos. But most astonishing is the display quality. With my 1-2 MB size pictures one really asks why we should print any pics out...

Munich After Sunset

Two weeks ago the plane had to circle over Munich in the morning since there was fog over the airport. The day that followed was a bright and not too cold for autumn. After sunset the fog and cold weather came back and transformed the inner city into a scenery from a Jack the Ripper movie. Some shots taken on this evening can be seen in a new photo section to the left.

November

On the way to work this week, all very bright but cold and foggy. Ironically the caption on the lorry read: We wish you a lovely day

Hatfield & Torpey

As promised, I´ll add some remixes from the past, there is a new section to the left, just under the photos. Todays remix was done for Brainwork, giving 4AM Machines a radical treatment. The song appeared on the 2003 Back To The Future release. As for more information about the project, see this page.

Apart from my usual habits, a breakbeat was used for this remix. The whole remix was done based on sequences from the original track that were imported to Reason and trans- formed by the mysterious Hatfield & Torpey. The remix was named after some neighbours, living in the same house, but two floors down. So I guess they were save from my sonic assaults there...

Second Class

While waiting at the station for the delayed train last night, I discovered a vivid proof that Germany is mainly second class these days. Think the two third society is already a fact. But it´s the other way around: while one third of Ger- many travels on first class rail tickets, two thirds are on second class ones.

Todays FRAR was:

Ultravox - Reap The Wild Wind

Night Train

The only comfort on a train journey lasting more than three hours is an old fashioned train restaurant. Especially when the con- necting train was already delayed by more than 30 minutes. This train restaurant tonight looked like it was taken straight out of a 70s flick. It had a bit of a modern Orient Express and a bit of retro TEE romanticism. The lager on board was alright, must have been of Austrian origin.

Mirror

Almost forgot that one! A Frankfurt building mirrored in the one across the road. Frankfurt seems to be made of shiny facades, tinted skyscrapers and their reflections. At least when you visit the town on a sunny day. When it rains it is as dull as other cities.

Africa Calling

With Cote De´Ivoire and Togo we finally had some readers from Africa! As more people from Guam were seen on the site, I guess we are building a strong readership in the Pa- cific area. Not to forget Hawaii and India.

So for all you people out there: please feel free to leave comments on the site, this is what the function was made for!

And for you specialists knowing (working!) Email addres- ses in Antarctica, please send them to me, I´ll start spamming in a minute. Anything goes from ships cruising there, scientists in camps with a passion for long winters, lonely whales etc.

More Frank´N´Furters

The Architecture IV Frankfurt photo section has been expanded with the help of  the recent shots. The one above does not show an eclipse, the black dot is the sun blinding the mobile with it´s reflection on the Deutsche Bank towers. Reminds me of being in Frankfurt when the 1999 eclipse took place: sadly there were clouds all over the city.

Timeouts And Other Problems

Sorry if there have been problems connecting to this site. But it looks like the Typepad service is not up to standards after the recent updates. I even had to try a couple of times to be able to log in myself and post this - not good at all.

Have been travelling thru Germany yesterday and will leave to Munich Wednesday morning. So don´t expect any up- dates until Thursday or Friday evening.

There are excellent new shots from Frankfurt on my second mobile, but transferring them over to the PC does not work yet. Instead of buying the manufacturers expensive cable I ordered a cheap one over eBay. But there seems to be a sort of protection in the original software for the phone: if you don´t buy their pricey cable, it will not work...

Vatertag

As more and more international guests come here (recently from Malaysia, Ice- land, Korea, India, Bulgaria, Chile...) I guess we should post at least one picture that fuels peoples (mis)conceptions about Germany. Like Fatherday (Vatertag), the day in spring that gets people (male or not) out into the open, drinking loads of beer on this public holiday. Sitting in a beer garden, going on tours, getting wasted out in the forests. This shot is actually from this day in 2001. And yes, we drank beer...

Most Irritating

Badly synched clocks in reach can be quite irritating. Sitting at work I have around five digital clocks in my view: office phone, business mobile, private mobile, desk clock and the one running in the Windows task bar. These little bastards are not synched and reveal local times between 16.57 and 17.04 at the moment. I did try to synch them manually, but within a day the effect vanishes. Somehow the time in the PC is always on fast forward, while the mobiles always achieve a two minute difference between each other.  Desk clock and office phone do somehow match, though standing far apart from each other. Strange coalitions, so to say. Sometimes I open a site on the net, revealing the true, one and only GERMAN ATOM TIME. Needless to say this time is different from all the clocks in my view. I do need to simplify my life soon...

The No Names

NaThere are pictures that did not fit any of the categories so far. Reorganising the shots from 2000 - 2003 yesterday I came across quite a few, e.g. this one of La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. As we can not wait for the cathedral to be finished and there is no Churches Galore section waiting in the wings, I decided to add it here. Running around the con- struction site (well, this is what it is...), one doesn´t feel much like visiting a church. It´s a sort of work-in-progress experience, but more interesting than most other spiritual places in the western world I have seen.

Other Side Of London

The other side of London has got no Big Ben, little of Trafalgar Square and not a bit of Harrods in it. It´s the backside of swinging London, the aspects you´ll find in hardly any guide. For me this side is hidden in many pictures I take home: the dimly lit alleys, pubs with no name, underground stations in the morning light. Some of this secret views are now visible in the photo section to the left.

Todays FRAR was:

Deep Dish feat. Stevie Nicks - Dreams (Honeyfires Dub Vs Honeyfires Anthem Mix)