Is kind of a yawner but the real story is the TV shows, at a small 320×240 video size.

I bought Desperate Housewives Season 2 Episode 1. It is 206mb in size. Then it took an hour to authorize my laptop to watch what I had paid for. It tells me I have 3 machines authorized out of 5. DRMs suck. DRMs suck.

Anyway, here are some screen shots:

320×240

Blown up to full screen (1152×768)

Monday was just a work day. Things are settling in just as I go home next week heh.

Tuesday I got into the office late, having worked at home in the AM while they had meetings, and had vege pizza dinner with broccoli on it. Things are do different.

Like milk in a bag. All milk is stored on the shelf, warm. Water has carbonation in it. Not tap water, but the water you buy, which is what people drink. It is harder to find water without carbonation.

Restaurants don’t serve water. You buy it. With bubbles.

People line up on the side of the road with wheelbarrows and their yard trash that they could not compost and wait for the truck to come by. These weekend homes are small plots of land and a cottage that people would own in addition to their apartment. It was their way of having some “freedom” during East German times, when the government controlled everything else. They’d plant vegetables, etc as a supplement to their other food sources.

That is it about now. Day 17 awaits!

This is a sweet site of DIY Disney crafts?

As pointed out by someone on IRC, searching Tiger’s dictionary for “Democracy” yields the following. Guess this is what you get for using a free dictionary eh?

Sunday was awesome. I had brunch at Canopé, which was a buffet of german pancakes, meatballs, eggs, ham, etc, etc. Yummy.

I did some work in the early afternoon, then Michael took me to see the canal bridge which I have pictures of. That is an amazing piece of engineering and is essentially a big bath tub over the river Elbe. We walked down the bridge and back.

We then went to café Pinguin, which is one of the few shops to survive reunification. Nestled in a quaint small village outside Magdeburg, they make their own ice cream and it was delicious. I had a cherry liquor sundae, mmm.

Michael dropped me at home and Martin was working in the yard so I helped him out. There was a pole in cement that needed removing so got the pick axe and went to work. By the time I was done that thing had been loosened, but I was not strong enough to lift it out. Martin did that work. I was fairly light headed too - I seriously need to get back in shape!

So I showered and then we ordered pizza for dinner. I took my clothes down and washed everything in two loads, including my Berlitz guide to german. Ooops. Guess I am going to the store this morning! I have not consulted it too much, but was sure nice knowing it was there.

Matt sent me a video of coral standing, with his help at her waist, but she did all of the balancing, looking quite perplexed at things. That was awesome!

I crashed early but got up at 5am. Bleh. On to another day!

Be sure to check out the amazing canal bridge!

New pics start here…

Ok the day is not over but I am flipping exhausted. More later!

A little bit about my trip in Magdeburg, Germany!

Listen

If you are into new display technologies, check out the BrightSide. Be sure to read the entire article, or you can skip to the Demo using the popup menu.

This is fairly impressive. At $49,000 it will take awhile to come down in price, but the theory behind it (literally) is quite interesting.

I’ve posted photos from day 13. The new pictures start with this one!

Saturday was beautiful! I’ll post pics in awhile. It was a bright, sunny day and I got out for an hour walk through the neighborhood to take pictures.

Around 4:30, Martin and I headed over to Petra’s for dinner. We walked to the tram and Martin rode his bike down to Hauptbahnhof, the train station. He was on the bike as he was going to head to a party after dinner.

We walked from Hauptbahnhof to Petras, about 3 miles or so. It took an hour and was a great walk. We went by the Dom, which is a wonderfully old Cathedral that I have pics of in the Europe 2003 collection. Then we were at the water, as Petra lives on the Elbe River and finally made it down to her place.

We had Zwiebelkuchen und Federweißer, which is onion pie and fresh wine, a German tradition for this time of year. We also had a tart, followed by coffee. Bernd, Martin and I chopped the onions and meat, as well as grated cheese. The food was delicious and the company was wonderful. We did puzzles and told stories.

Most of the conversation was in German, so I just listened trying to pick up words and making my own stories using those words heh. Was quite fun.

Maic and his wife drove me home as the trams only run every hour late at night and I was home by 11:30. The youth house next door is having another party so more education on the German youth music scene for me!

Friday! I’m settling in as I almost left my laptop at home. I headed in to work and spent the day updating records in our database. By the end of the day the folks at Impara had worked on the server so it is much faster now.

I headed home and Martin and I had spaghetti dinner with sweet wine. He didn’t like either. The sauce was a little bland, but I enjoyed the wine. We have nice conversation and I spent the rest of the evening chatting with friends.

Oh yeah, Martin likes my YMCA video.

The last two days have been pretty slow. Mainly work, and work at night

I did take the wrong #5 tram home tonight. Not sure why they have two #5 trams, but they do. So I got let off at the train station where it all began. Two minutes later a #3 came by, hopped on and was off at my second closest stop in 5 mins.

I went to the store, bought some fresh rolls and headed home. Had a sandwich, some OJ and then a work conference call.

I did get invited to Petra’s (She found my groovy apt for me) Saturday night for dinner. Martin, Grit, Bernd, Bert and others will be there. I am told it will be traditional German cuisine! I can’t wait!

Day 9 started off with just 4 hours sleep. Is weird having your body clock all messed up. I bussed in to work and had pork steak for lunch, with broccoli and cucumber salad for lunch.

Work was good, we sent off the white paper and I started the work to model my timelines after the content.

I caught the bus home and went to the grocery store. I got some bread (not fresh, just normal bread), some margarine, oj, cookies and some luncheon meat.

Walked home and cleaned some things up, had a short chat with friends and then headed to dinner with Martin. We took the 3 tram down to Olvenstadt to go to Tokio House, but they were closed. Oops. So we got on the tram going the other way and went to Hasselbachplatz, which is the restaurant district that Kuca was in and found another sushi place.

It was all you can eat sushi, laid out on plates, which was different and was ok. After dinner we headed home and I called it a night.

Monday was German Reunification day, so it was a holiday here. We had a deadline (today) so Michael and I had planned to work in the afternoon.

I was up early, around 4am for some reason. I fell asleep at 9 the night before and my body is still confused obviously.

Around 10:30 I headed down to try my hand at my first tram trip. Being a holiday I knew they had different schedules, but I had figured out which words meant holiday so was pretty confident about things.

40 minutes later no 5 tram had come by. A number of people were staring at me as they drove by, so either a) I am funny looking, b) They had nothing else to do or c) they knew the 5 was not running at that time of day.

I finally gave up and walked down to Immermannstraßße where I had seen a train earlier and caught the 94, which normally runs at night. Turns out it was a very weird schedule that day.

I arrived at Alter Markt (Old Market) and took the photos you saw earlier. The bratwurst and doughballs made me hungry. I took more pictures and then went back to where the coaster was when the German band started up again. Only this time, it was more surreal.

First, they played a country version of “White Wedding” by Billy Idol. I really wish I was able to record it. Then, they played something that made me cry. I am not sure if it was out of humor or what, but when that german band played a country version of “Stayin’ Alive” I nearly lost it. A bunch of elderly nice folk groovin’ to country disco. You really had to be there.

Anyway I SMSed Michael and he popped down on his bike. We had lunch (mmm) and did a walking tour of the mall (open but the shops were closed) and the Hundertwasser house (it is the big pink one in the pictures)

We then headed back to the office, got some work done and I popped home on the tram. Martin helped me get my first load of laundry done. It is a tiny machine but it holds a lot! You load from the top but the barrel spins on its side, like a water wheel. You lock it up and then it uses gravity to tumble the clothes - My next washer will be like this.

I headed down to Canope for dinner with Michael. Far too much smoking going on, my clothes and jacket wreak, but the food was good and I even had a beer. I still don’t like beer all that much. Wednesday is Tequilla Sunrise night though

I headed home and chatted then fell asleep. Martin came home and woke me up so I could get my clothes (it takes an hour to wash) and loaned me a rack to dry them on. No dryers here. It is a little sunny today so I hope they will dry soon.

I was up until 4am talking with Carren and finally hit the sack. I woke up at 8. Go figure.

It was a grand day all around!

Upon telling Martin that I had lost a sock and thought that the sock monster had gotten it, Martin replied, “I will try to catch this monster… And then I will torture it until it admits its crime…”

I’m really pooped, but the new photos start here

Really, if anyone still thinks it is the Bush Administration, and I know some of you do, check this out, from Salon:

“George W. Bush has just nominated his White House counsel, Harriet Miers, to replace Sandra Day O’Connor on the United States Supreme Court. Miers has no judicial experience — she’s never served as a judge, never argued a case before the Supreme Court — but she does have this: more than a decade of service to George W. Bush.”

Wow. Really. First he puts up Roberts for chief justice, ignoring all of the justices already on the court, insulting them I am sure, now this.

America, I ask you - Is this a true leader? Someone who is blatantly manipulating the system? Remember, these people will be making decisions for your children until they die or retire.

Write your congressperson, write your President. We deserve qualified people on the Supreme Court. This has Michael Brown written all over it, with one exception - Once a Supreme Court judge, you can’t be touched.

I spent Sunday with Martin’s friends, then I lounged around a bit, played some Professor Fizzwiggle, chatted, worked on my code some. Michael came and picked me up for dinner, had a nice lamb dish.

I ended up crashing around 9 and woke up at 4am. ugh heh. Today we plan to work some in the afternoon (it is national holiday) and visit a house by some famous artist. If I get in and get pics, I’ll post em of course

hehe I’ve posted pics of my niece playing with something I sent her - New pics start here. She is sooooooo adorable!!