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Is It Loud Here?

People come and check out our old flat. The house is located besides a street leading into the inner city. On the other side of the house a big four lane street crosses the first road. In between a double tram finds it´s way around the city. So what is the favourite question I hear every day?

Is it loud here?

Under Construction

The Gherkin under construction in 2003.

Another Furniture Shop...

...and dozens of sofas. When you finally see one you fancy, you can be sure it´s a pricey one.  Or much too pricey when you want it in that black smooth leather. You sit down on a cheap one without looking at the price and you will instantly do know it´s crap but affordable. But best is seeing all the rubbish ones around, the smelly plastic ones that do get purchased too. Would you buy a sofa that smells like a chemical plant?

Looking For A Home

Seeing so many students taking a look at our flat on Sunday gives you an idea, how desperately people are looking for cheap housing in Cologne. Hearing all their stories about the holes they have been offered for enormous sums of money, the landlord horrors they are facing. A room on their own is something see are looking forward to, a bathtub presents a sort of five star luxury.

You´ll Always Find Them In The Kitchen...

To plan how a kitchen will fit into a certain room takes some valuable time of your life, I can assure you. Especially if you do want to include one of those huge side-by-side fridges. The amount of cash one could invest in a kitchen seems to be astronomic. As we do prefer cheap tricks, it was possible to order a looks-like-a-designers-dream kitchen for a fraction of the money yesterday.

Understanding Prices

Can I help you? We´re looking for that black leather sofa over there. I have tell you straight away it will take a couple of weeks to be delivered. Especially now, as it´s holiday time in Italy... Alright, we see. This one is 2990 Euros in black leather. 2990 Euros? But the sign says it´s 1990 Euros ! Yeah, but that´s not the leather one. The prices start at 1990 Euros for the cotton version.

Lion City

Reading about our travel destination Singapore presents new insights every day. Everybody heard about the draconian laws that prevent people from littering the city, urinating in public or eating food whilst using public transport. New to me was that they do punish the bulk import (means a couple of packets) of chewing gum! Going on a holiday with a stash of your favourite chewy is a serious no no. I was delighted to find out you might bring any amount of cash in though...

Glow

Taken from the balcony, catching some late night traffic on the crossing.

Furniture Hunting

Five furniture shops on a Saturday, seeing one billion pieces of tasteless furniture and about a handful of things I would buy. Worst is going for a kitchen. The only kitchen I fancied needs a house to be build around it and several 10000 Euros ready. Cheap chairs for a dining table are crap, the ones that make one sit comfortable are as expensive as a small table. Most striking: the people that eat at those restaurants in the big furniture shops. We just went for a drink as temperatures were hot and watched those families munching SCHNITZEL and CHIPS at noon. In a furniture shop restaurant! Do they get hungry from shopping? Is it a sort of theme park experience for them? Did they already ditch their old kitchen and needed some prepared food badly? I never understood that before but did spot it again yesterday.

Real Estate

The absence of posts here has something to do with housing issues and setting up plans for a major change. Expect updates on this very shortly. So it´s not the World Cup keeping me away from this blog...

The Big Brothers

A survey found out more than a third of companies in the USA or UK with more than 1000 employees have staff working for them who read and analyse outgoing emails. Companies in both countries  suppose that one in five outgoing emails contains content that poses legal, financial or other risks.  Almost a third of US or UK  companies have terminated an employee for violating email policies in the last 12 months. So it´s little wonder around 50 percent of companies are concerned about web-based mail services.

1984 was 22 years ago, we thought...

Strawberry Fields Forever

A strange photo was mailed to us on Sunday, but we are sure it has to be exposed to a wider community. Looks like this guy was seriously tripping on strawberries when coming up with this self portrait. If we find out more about the circumstances, we will report it here.

Ch Ch Ch Changes

Cursing the weather again and again we have to remark it changed to up to 30 degrees rather quick. Looks like today's Ibiza beach party at a local lake will at least see the sun and have the people sweating...

Return Of The Mick Blotter Paper

      

Japanese television saw a surprise appearance of Michael Jackson and folks did first not believe it was him. But it was not a double, he was just looked as strange as always in recent years. It inspired this design study for blotter paper, which is shown here for the very first time.

Did You Notice?

666 passed (or 06.06.06 to be precise) without any major Armageddon happening. I´m not talking about the losses at the stock exchange market but real trouble as predicted by the Bible,  Nostradamus and ten million sites on the web. Or has the gate just opened it´s doors and the worms of Armageddon are crawling towards us? Stay tuned!

She Comes In Colours

Taken Christmas 2004 in a park close to Madrid. Looks better than Germany in the summer...

Guy Goma

Man of the week is Guy Goma, for making it accidentally onto prime time tv and being, well, himself and a nice bloke. If you want know more and see it happening, fly over to auntie BBC.

Bora Bora X-Press

More and more blogs are coming up with videos instead of pictures, text or whatever. The only video posted here so far, has been spreading around the globe very fast! Videos still consume a lot of blog space and just grabbing it from other sites is not too original. But coming across one from Ibiza a few years back, I can not hold it back. The madness, the pure genius, the true afternoon spirit of Bora Bora is available now. Grab it and make sure you watch the dude on the table!