tvc15

Dancing With The Moonlight Knight

Can you tell me where my country lies?,
Said the unifaun to his true love's eyes
It lies with me, cried the Queen of Maybe
For her merchandise, he traded in his prize

Picture was taken last night on the  terrace.

External Treasures

The online version of German news magazine Der Spiegel today came up with it´s 2006 top ten of scientific photo shots. As we do like smart pictures and strange subjects, we gladly hint at those pages you can find here. So what has Hitlers´ only aircraft carrier, deep sea creatures and a dead whale in common? They´re all part of the top ten...

Hasta La Vista, Bill

Windows Vista looks like a great operating system. It installs quickly, doesn´t need many extra drivers and performs like a charm. System usage is not for fainthearted rigs though. Wonder what the first killer application will be that pulls users over from their old systems. Think games like Crysis will play (forgive the pun) a major part in the rush for Vista. And will Bill beat the boots this time? I don´t think so, but don´t ask me why...

Kinara

The Kinara is a brilliant Indian restaurant we discovered in Singapore, situated just besides of the river. The atmosphere at night is quite good, sitting outside one can look at the Boat Quay restaurants lined up along the shore, the bridges and the neon lit skyscrapers of the business district. The restaurant is located at 57 Boat Quay.

They serve Punjabi food is amazing variations. The soup I had for starter really came with a different twist to all the Indian soups I´ve tried in the past. Main dishes cover a wide range too. The taste of the dishes we had was delicious. Highly recommended as a supplement is the bread basket, though it´s far too much for two persons to eat, especially when you´re having rice with the mains.

Service is also up to standards, while prices are moderate by Singapore standards. Spending an evening there can be well recommended.

Five out of six points.

Ballz

Skype Me!

The button of my Skype status has just been added to this blog on the left hand side. You can leave messages for me when I´m not online, I do check Skype regulary now. The face tracking and other features of the camera are quite good, so it was worth the purchase. And the problem with the microphone level of my headset is now fixed, it happened due to what we call human error.

Another Gadget Consumed

And a brilliant quality it has... Soon there will a button on this page that tells you if I´m online with Skype!

Strange Note

Found this strange note attached to the ATM machine in front of Zouk in Singapore this September. This cash point was just around the corner of our hotel so we´ve been there a couple of times. One morning I saw this note on the machine and took it with me. Dunno if this is a bad joke or whatever but came across the paper again just today.

Look, A GLOF!

Glacier Lake Outburst Floods might be the the next big topic due to the climate changing.  Also called a "Tsunami from the sky" it´s basically killer waves of water, stones and other rubble rolling down mountains sides due to glacier lakes rising in level, especially in the Himalaya region.  So if the water on the shorelines is rising, Tsunamis heading towards us from the mountains, middle height plains could gain some neo popularity... Or is there a new fun sport due in Nepal, called Rubble Rock Surfing?

Hew Haw

The Total Confusion party on Friday night, first mentioned here was  a great success. The Bogen 2 venue was not totally full so it was easier to dance around and still meet your friends now and then. No one understood why Michael Mayer was playing that early, but this fact could not prevent the posse from partying hard. I heard we all made it back home in a big taxi for eight persons but sadly can´t remember this part of the night. At least I must have opened the door to our flat, the after-party lasted until midday (which I can remember...).

Tall Paul Flipper

The tallest man of the world saved two dying dolphins, the papers say today. He grabbed pieces of plastic stuck in the dolphins with his long arms, no doctor was able to help before his stunt, since the dolphins were hectic. Wonder if this has something to do with the amount of alcohol consumed by me at the office Christmas party last night. Why was the tall man around anyway? Could the smallest man of the world have  done this as well, climbing into the dolphins? Do nervous dolphins bite?

Lennon's On Sale Again

Or so it appeared to me in this Munich shop.

Bobotie Lounge & Dining Room

In this new section we´ll present restaurants we come along on our travels around the world. Sadly we have to start with a very mixed impression from the Cologne scene.

The Bobotie Lounge and Dining Room started off this November in central Cologne. As far as I know it´s the first one in the area specialised on South African food. We stumbled across it close to our home and had a great quick dinner on a Thursday evening, just days after the opening. Last Friday we went there again with a friend and were let down no end.

As we reserved a table in advance the disappointment was big, when the table wasn´t ready on our arrival. Especially when hearing "That is no problem to you?!" from a confused looking waiter. After some wait and a free drink in the lounge we were finally led to our table, finding it not ready, barely cleaned from the last guests. Ordering some wine the helpless waiter had to search the venue for ages, stating there was only one wine list around! Politely asking for his recommendation to cut this long search short we heard he wasn´t able to, "because the wine seminar is due next Monday". Moreover he complained of having to do so at nine in the evening; a clear statement of his passion for business...

Finally the wine list was found and we received our choice. No, we received white wine at a luke temperature would be more precise. I´m clearly not the greatest wine boffin on earth, but this was a true sign of them not getting their act together. Asking for a cooler to save it from the worst we got to know all the three wine coolers were "in use at other tables". Another smart shortage for a brand new restaurant, we thought.

Asking for a certain starter from the food card we provoked a call to the kitchen, "if that one is still available". It was, but nevertheless minutes later my girlfriend was ask to change something in the main course she ordered. Funny coincidences for a Friday night! To put it straight, the food itself was great, just as on our first time there. But our satisfaction went down into the cellar when the second bottle of wine was likewise luke-warm and no one cared to bring a cooler over...while seeing a cooler being served at the table next to us. All we had to endure numerous times was a quick change of half empty ashtrays, which was too much unnecessary attention. We heard many excuses that night, but none was followed by genuine service.

And for this level of service the venue is simply too expensive. Training the staff should be done before one starts off and before they start selling expensive wine. This is no training-on-the-job enterprise, we´ll save that for Burger King.

A wasted chance for a new flavour in the local restaurant scene!

Two out of six points.

December

Yesterday I drove around with my bicycle for the first time ever in December. And I wasn´t away on a holiday, to be precise.  There used to be snow and ice here in Cologne at this time of the year! But as it´s the warmest autumn in 500 years, I cycled around in my hometown in the bright sunshine. A shirt and a jacket were enough. Don´t ever confuse this with a global change of climate!

Hiawatha's Departure

By the shore of Gitche Gumee,
By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
At the doorway of his wigwam,
In the pleasant Summer morning,
Hiawatha stood and waited.
All the air was full of freshness,
All the earth was bright and joyous,
And before him, through the sunshine,
Westward toward the neighboring forest
Passed in golden swarms the Ahmo,
Passed the bees, the honey-makers,
Burning, singing In the sunshine.

Taken from a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Well Said

“Sure, some got into the scene because they wanted girls, money and things like that but most people start DJing for a simple reason that’s central to being a DJ: they want to play music to people, to say ‘I really, really want you to fucking love this track’. DJing is a very giving thing but somewhere down the line everybody started getting secretive, hiding what their records are. Some people have forgotten that simple giving dynamic. It doesn’t matter if there’s one person in your front room or 5,000 in a stadium, you want them to love it.”

Fabrics´ Keith Reilly on DJing in a recent interview for TTDJ

Shine Your Light On Me

A huge lamp I spotted in a shop recently, wonder how many watts it consumes!

Browsing The Nuclear Press

Browsing thru assorted press, some people appear quite naive to me. Like when all these nuclear spy-vs-spy stories popped up during the last weeks and provoked so much public astonishment. Did people really think Russia and the other superpowers are big friends since the end of the 80s? That the cold war wasn´t replaced by other, maybe more sublime but ongoing hostilities? I don´t have any figures ready but think there are many people assassinated, killed or simply kidnapped each year by secret services around the world. And this does not only include those "bad Russians" or the "evil Chinese" but global cowboys like the US, GB and other UN members aswell.

Star Trek Synthesizer?

Usually this blog does not link to external videos. But I got this link today and think this concept of a future musical instrument is really cool. I haven´t got a clue how this synthesizer will work in a lit room, but it surely looks like big fun to play around with it in the dark.

World Aids Day