tvc15

Wordy Rappinghood

The ups and downs of the stock exchange market may go on for a while. During the last weeks singular bits of news seem to have the power to make the rollercoaster go down or up for half a day or so.  As happened after the mighty wizard Bernake remarked something today. Who knows what news will send them down again tomorrow. However, the global information society provides a very unstable rollercoaster fuel...

Unbelieveable

Reading these facts about Facebook, I wonder where they host all this and how long it will stay a free service...

More than 800 million photos uploaded to the site each month
More than 5 million videos uploaded each month
More than 20 million pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc.) shared each month
More than 2 million events created each month
More than 20 million active user groups exist on the site

Time Flies

The general notion is, that time flies faster for every year one does live. Looking at the 1st of December date today, this seems to be very true. The ever accelerating sequence of the same public events, birthdays, holidays, meetings, parties, seasons, of days getting longer and finally shorter again. The one great CarnivalEasterWhitsundayHalloween Christmas show, live and in color. Twice as speedy this year, so better hurry!

PAD Thai

Reading the Bangkok Post these days is not much fun, especially when one plans to visit the country during the next months. Hijacking planes is bad enough, but two airports? Beg your pardon? They really should sort those things out soon...

Neo Crimes

As if seizing a huge tank ship and wanting 35 million dollars for it was not enough, now the coffin of a billionaire has been robbed, containing the dead body. Reading that Friedrich Karl Flick´s remains have been stolen from it´s Austrian cemetery makes one wonder, if we will see a wave of neo crimes coming. What could be the next crime, now that bank robbing and stealing expensive cars looks so terribly dated?

We´re waiting for:

Snatching St. Peter´s Cathedral from Rome during the easter weekend.

Abducting a submarine and uploading some vids of LAUNCH BUTTON PRESSING on YouTube.

Covering the moon in black, asking mankind if they ever "want to see his face back".

Freedom Of Expression

42 year old politician Lutz Heilmann proceeded against a Wikipedia entry revealing bits of information about his past in East Germany. He obtained on 13.11.2008 that the internet address wikipedia.de is no longer connected to de.wikipedia.org. Basically just this information is displayed at the German site at the moment and everyone looking for more information has to use this link. Hence has not achieved anything, but makes clear to everyone how he is trying to censor this source of information. What a poor way to reveal that an upbringing in East Germany has left its marks on a politician and MdB, not being able to cope with the basic rights of liberal societies. He won´t stop free speech, he won´t stop freedom of expression.

Warning

The

End

Is

Near

Headlines...

... we are waiting for:

Björk buys Iceland back from the Russians

Wall Street sold and shipped to Dubai

The Great Prozac Depression

From 09/11  to 10/06

Invest now!

Forget The Island

Talking about hyper-regulation, this seems to be the dominant trend ruling Ibiza nowadays. For the last seasons there has been a strict policy of banning the clubbing antics the island got world famous for. At least everyone who has been on the island this year told me so after coming back home. No real after parties, no music at beach bars, hardly a working open air party...the list of changes is endless! Which results in less busy venues, because no one is really shelling out that much money for parties that end two hours after they started going. So let´s wait for the first golf resort developments taking place...

Hyper-Regulation

When clubs become smelly because of the smoking ban, or drinking a can of lager / eating an ice cream on the tube is suddenly a prosecuted no no, we realise how much regulation of life in public spaces does happen these days. The term hyper-regulation, I recently picked up in Britain, sums it up very well.

Where once states like Singapore were pointed out for coming up with harsh reactions to public smoking, littering or similar, we now face a situation where life in western states is moving into the same direction rather fast. This is probably why manifestos like this one are appearing. Of course there is always a good cause behind it (fighting lung cancer, preventing pollution, making public transport a saver place) but still the freedom of people is limited this way, narrowed down at least.

Quite often there seems to be a sort of joy on the side of relevant institutions, to be able to punish these things now. To make money with fines or simply put some more people into the jobs related to these new regulations. One still does wonder, what the next swing of the pendulum will bring...

Masking Bad Smells

Ever since smoking was prohibited in dance clubs and other nightlife places, a new devil raises its ugly head. No, we are not talking about excessive drinking or drug binges, we are talking about BAD SMELLS. Everyone who has been to a club after smoking was prohibited will have experienced this. Where once cigarette smoke masked all the sweat and other odours a steamy nightclub may come up with, now you have to endure offensive smells. And that´s after you may have parted with some serious money on the door...

Being back at London's Fabric after two years made me realise this again. So one of the next big trends for clubs could investments into masking those smells with certain measures. The old fashioned ravey strawberry fog might do at some venues, but more subtle techniques will be suitable for glitzy venues. The unintended consequences of social action - let´s wait and have a sniff later!

Star Bucks

With the economic situation changing for the worse, everybody seems to care no end about Starbucks closing over 600 stores in the US of A. Why is that? I mean no one really howled triumphantly when their mega expansion spawned so many stores in so little time. There is a new Starbucks - yawn! Can´t be their caffeine kicks better than others. So people, get over it. There is better coffee to be drunk on this planet, there are nicer coffee bars to visit. And our cupboard  can´t carry any more of their mugs anyway...

Won´t Get Fooled Again

Not Forgotten

Dying In Public

The media attention to Amy Winehouse is kind of scary. I don´t fancy her music, but watching how the press and other media scrutinise every step of her is truly awful. Because I reckon they are waiting for her to overdose, wreck herself in a car or whatever final action springs to mind. They are longing for a female Kurt Coburn reality show to take place right in front of the camera. This would be even more interesting for them than a dead Pete Doherty could ever be. She would be the first female pop star to end her life under the eyes of the public and provide tabloid fodder for years after.

Oba Ma Ma Ma Mia

100000 people or more in Berlin listen to a dude that has even not been elected yet - nuff said? Obama mania strikes in Germany - mama mia! Just anyone is going nuts, it can be only hours from now, that the first Germans try to register their votes in Americas - and fail. Pass a can of Bud, please!

The Return Of Pol Pot

Seeing Paul Potts in every other commercial break here in Germany at the moment, we envision the backlash lurking ahead already now. After hearing his version of Nessum Dorma for the 85th time in a week, people WILL START TO HATE HIM - no doubt. And surely German Telekom - still the dodgiest company around - will realise they did themselves no good after the first million of tissues have wiped away the tears evoked by their singing Pol Pot. Guerrilla tactics in reverse, ey?

Birthday Greetings

The internet and electronic communication in general has surely changed the world. I recognised this again not so long ago. Last week people came round to my birthday party, send mails, text messages or phoned me up. But there was just one single old fashioned card crawling out of the mailbox. To be honest, it was send to me by my tax adviser! Makes you think, ey?

Something Oily

My recent profits out of speculation with crude materials makes me wonder what does happen on a larger scale at the moment. If I can get away with some serious profit in less than two months, what sums do large scale investors gain? As long as the oil price pushes forward, there seems to be no limit for this kind of speculation. This really isn´t about generating values, it´s a sort of milking the hype.

Tommy Can You Hear Me?

Two observations caught my eyes recently. First of all the advancing technology of hearing aids and how small these things are nowadays. Certainly one feels more comfortable using and hiding a wee one than the big ones of former days. Second there seems to be a opposite trend of  clipping gigantic blue tooth headsets to ones ear and connecting them to your mobile. The bigger and more futuristic the headset looks, the cooler the mobile addicts think they are. Some of them seem to wear the headset 24/7. So I wonder what happens when headset geezers turn deaf or someone with a hearing aid is looking for a solid sci-fi look.

While My Shares Gently Weep

Coming back from Barcelona I can only shake my head. This must be the greatest stock exchange experiment in history. Hardly a day passes without a major effort being made to stabilise the US financial system. And hardly a single day passes without news about the stock exchange celebrating these measures. But in the end there is the next part of the downward spiral lurking, once the straw fire has burned down. Doctoring the symptoms, burning loads of money every day. We all haven´t seen the bottom line yet.

Watch Out For...

...female pilot jokes every day now! After the recent Airbus incident at Hamburg airport news popped up today it was not the experienced male pilot but his young female co-pilot at the flight controls. Still it looks like she managed to get the plane out of this terrible situation or did he intervene within seconds? Maybe the Hollywood movie that might already be in production will tell us more about this. Was there a nun on board too? And a child with a guitar?

Trevor

11.01.1958 - 19.01.2008

While 2007 had great losses for us in store, 2008 seems to start likewise...

Trevor was born in Jamaica and a member of the original Bad Boys Blue lineup.  He left the group in 1989 and continued to play music under different names, e.g. Supa T during the 90s. I played gigs alongside of him and we met frequently at the Ifficial Art site, where he lived next doors for the last years. The photo to left was taken at the Phase 13 event in 2006, where he suddenly picked up the megaphone we had in the DJ cabin and started jamming along to the tracks we played, cracking up with laughter.

Rastafari Trevor was a truly original character and left for the big Jah in the sky last Saturday. Where ever he is now, I am sure they will like his Jerk Chicken recipe as much as people here did.

Down The Chute!

Regular readers may remember that lil bit of stock market "prophecy" going on here now and then. Looking at what has happened to the stock markets this January and might happen along the road up to April and May, the prophet working for this blog wasn´t that wrong. So all we now need is a prophet predicting the real bottom line, not the one that everyone hopes to be the bottom line of 2008...

ClintonObamaEdwardsShow

The US pre-election polls are staged like a cheap soap opera flick for political students in the German media. All that blunt "Hillary fails", "Hillary triumphant" drama is too much for me. Who has written the lousy script for this little showcase of journalistic horror? If you have never believed in conspiracy theories, watching the media during the pre-election phase is a damn good reason to come up with some conspiracies. So this is the last time we´ll touch the subject here...

The MI5 Geezer

One of the more frightening characters of the internet is the MI5 Victim. He has been claiming to be harassed by the British MI5 for ages and does not stop to promote his view of reality on the internet and usenet in particular. From what I understand via his posts is he must be severely paranoid. Ever since December he seems to be on one great binge of postings and floods all kinds of newsgroups with "observations" that sometimes date back to the early 90s. He has a sort of homepage too, as you can see here. If the MI5 was really after him, I think he would not have a chance to post all this garbage. But maybe that´s part of the conspiracy...

Don´t Try This Kids

Drinking four rounds of Bushmills malt whiskey is no good after a couple of pints of Newcastle Brown Ale. Three people in the town of Cologne have sustained a severe hangover because of those devilish liquids and their "smashing" combination. I´ve got idea why this is legal while designer drugs are listed. So kids, don´t go into the nearest Irish Pub to try this combo, you might not like Sunday if you do!

Erm

I must confess I did not win the lottery jackpot mentioned here. No one did actually, that´s why there was one of 43.000.000 due today. People were queueing up for playing one more time and as it looks now, someone got it. Hearing the magic numbers a minute ago I did not recognise my ones... But didn´t I tick the box for next Saturday too?

Boogie Down

There is nothing worse than going to the dentist and hearing Al Jarreau music all the way thru a lengthy session. As I had to stay there for more than 90 minutes this morning, the torture was on for quite a while. All those "interesting" jazzy voicings, the multiple Scat attacks, his happy go lucky crooning - I now do remember why I have been allergic to him all my life. Only the noise from the drill did present some relief...

The End

Even the video screens in  the local subway do mention today, that the Cold War ended in November 1990. Rarely anyone wants to be reminded of the shit load of hot insanity that followed ever since. Looking at the Bushs, Putins and all the others longing for maximum power, minimal oil supply problems or whatever material or "idealistic" goods, we doubt we have seen the worst already. Remember no one seems to be really concerned that the arctic regions might see a major meltdown, BUT some powers are already concerned they might not get their share of the arctic cake. A major war in the polar regions...that would be a cold one, or?

Unexplained Blue Cloud

How daft can one be? Reading this story in various magazines (reprinted even in Europe), there seems to be no limit for daftness these days. At least in and around Ohio... I mean if you look at the video, it´s easy to spot insect like movements rather than a ghost or an angel floating about. If they would come up with explanations like, the ghost was checking out the recent gas prices - now that would be cool. But no, spiritual America sees an angel rather than some insect on the camera lens. Who you gonna call? Mythbusters!