So you thought after the dot-com bubble that the IT folks were weird, right? You've always sort of known that they're weird. And it's not only because they eat cold pizza at 3am while trying to iron out some bug in the syntax, and because they know more about Science Fiction than about how to keep an apartment clean, or to cook. You probably also thought that they're weird, or at least suspicious, because they did all these things you can't understand. They program stuff, which essentially means: They create things you can't touch using only incomprehensible combinations of letters and numbers and other characters, some of which you've never seen before, and many of which you wouldn't find in any good old Shakespeare play. As opposed to a person who takes a piece of wood and crafts it into a table, or a person who takes metal and shapes it into a sword, the good new IT guys just don't seem to be doing ANYTHING of real value. And back then, in the years 2000 and 2001 or even before, this was even more likely to be your (at least subconscious) perception than it is nowadays. It just wasn't yet the age in which it was a perfectly common thing to sit with your Macbook in a cafe for half the day, surf the web and work on some "projects", while drinking Latte (and it has a trace of irony that you're not even considered weird doing that, probably because these "projects" are at least comprehensible and you can imagine that something tangible comes out of at least some of them).
So a bunch of weird (read: part incomprehensible, part mystyfied, part "not creating anything tangible") IT folks did lots of stuff nobody understood, and a majority of us (read: non-IT-guys) were ready to bet money on the hope that some of the stuff these IT folks did, and that we did not understand, would sooner or later turn into fortunes. Never forgetting that some of it indeed DID, most of it did not.
Now we witness banks crashing, and it's quite the same story to a simple mind like me:
So a bunch of weird (read: part incomprehensible, part mystyfied, part "not creating anything tangible") IT folks did lots of stuff nobody understood, and a majority of us (read: non-IT-guys) were ready to bet money on the hope that some of the stuff these IT folks did, and that we did not understand, would sooner or later turn into fortunes. Never forgetting that some of it indeed DID, most of it did not.
Now we witness banks crashing, and it's quite the same story to a simple mind like me:
A promotion by German milk brand "Baerenmarke", with a slogan that (as we see it) could as well fit a local brothel's special Christmas offer...:
At Marc's place in Hamburg, again:
LMAO:
Aha, Take On Me
Beatles, Strawberry Fields Forever
Radiohead, No Surprises
Red Hot Chilly Peppers, Under The Bridge
Rick Astley, Never Gonna Let You Down
Tears For Fears, Head Over Heels
U2, Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
Aha, Take On Me
Beatles, Strawberry Fields Forever
Radiohead, No Surprises
Red Hot Chilly Peppers, Under The Bridge
Rick Astley, Never Gonna Let You Down
Tears For Fears, Head Over Heels
U2, Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For
I'm changing some settings in our mail system, and what do I find? No matter what button I mouse over, the ALT text shows "Air Baltic":
I have been waiting all my life for an opportunity to use this poor pun in some context. My day has come.
My muesli bowl is too big, and my Axa Strawberry Muesli is too tasty. The consequence is that with each serving of this delicious cereal, half a pack vanishes into my digestive tract. Two servings, and a pack is gone.
What a waste of packaging materials.
Or of muesli.
My muesli bowl is too big, and my Axa Strawberry Muesli is too tasty. The consequence is that with each serving of this delicious cereal, half a pack vanishes into my digestive tract. Two servings, and a pack is gone.
What a waste of packaging materials.
Or of muesli.
It's cute and adorable if the description of a lighter includes information about its producer, about the proper use of lighters, and about what's in these lighters, and possibly some more stuff I didn't bother to read.
The outcome is that the sticker with the product information is about as big as the lighter itself.
But hey, maybe there's really more to this object than meets the eye. It might be no coincidence that it's called "Lighter 'Atomic' ", and describing how to handle it with care might really require some space...:
The outcome is that the sticker with the product information is about as big as the lighter itself.
But hey, maybe there's really more to this object than meets the eye. It might be no coincidence that it's called "Lighter 'Atomic' ", and describing how to handle it with care might really require some space...:
Stuff is going on, stuff. Plenty of it. Except for work, that includes... well. Hm:
An evening cooking with two local friends, again speaking Russian the whole time. Good fun, with good normal people, outside my usual social circles, and therefore more educational for me than most of the people I meet (though in a different way maybe).
A visit to the apartment that these same two friends share, a tiny place which is already rather full with two mattresses inside. A nice sit-together with cheap beer from PET bottles, good long chatting, and a final good-night-drink in a small bar under the bridge nearby. Good place, by the way - I'm already waiting to introduce this newly discovered gem of a Riga dive bar to some guests.
Then a weekend of mostly work, and no going out at all (except for the above-mentioned evening, but then I went home at midnight). That lasted until Tuesday, when one couchsurfer arrived from France/Germany (pick whichever you prefer). We did get along very quick and very well, and seem to share a certain interest and curiosity for these rather unusual places. Starting off with a little Caka/Avotu tour seemed a good thing to do on a Tuesday evening, and indeed it was, with friendly folks and some district dwellers who even went as far as to buy us beer while talking to us in Russian and, partly translated by one of them and partly by me, in English. They bought us more beer than we could handle, particularly at such speed, but they had no hidden agenda whatsoever - in fact, they left well before us. After that, we had the idea of going to the usual swampy place, which on Tuesdays is quite entertaining anyway. It was entertaining. Except for the usual craziness, this time, there was a girl in a rather neat dress who played around with some sort of toy that I can't find a word for. Basically something like this, but without the fire. During the evening, she was teaching half of the club how to do this, with more or less and usually rather less success, and she looked fabulous doing that - very stylish.
The idea of joining a few random acquaintances after the club closed and going to have another drink with them was probably not one of the best we ever had, but still, we had it, managed to get home somehow, and even still got a few hours of sleep. My guest leaving to the airport at mid-day, me going back to sleep some more - not much of Wednesday left, making it a long evening and then a very early Thursday.
So now it's work. No going out today. Maybe tomorrow, my earlier mentioned dancer friend whom I haven't seen for already almost two weeks will have some days off and is, of course, eager to party. Not yet sure if I'll be.
An evening cooking with two local friends, again speaking Russian the whole time. Good fun, with good normal people, outside my usual social circles, and therefore more educational for me than most of the people I meet (though in a different way maybe).
A visit to the apartment that these same two friends share, a tiny place which is already rather full with two mattresses inside. A nice sit-together with cheap beer from PET bottles, good long chatting, and a final good-night-drink in a small bar under the bridge nearby. Good place, by the way - I'm already waiting to introduce this newly discovered gem of a Riga dive bar to some guests.
Then a weekend of mostly work, and no going out at all (except for the above-mentioned evening, but then I went home at midnight). That lasted until Tuesday, when one couchsurfer arrived from France/Germany (pick whichever you prefer). We did get along very quick and very well, and seem to share a certain interest and curiosity for these rather unusual places. Starting off with a little Caka/Avotu tour seemed a good thing to do on a Tuesday evening, and indeed it was, with friendly folks and some district dwellers who even went as far as to buy us beer while talking to us in Russian and, partly translated by one of them and partly by me, in English. They bought us more beer than we could handle, particularly at such speed, but they had no hidden agenda whatsoever - in fact, they left well before us. After that, we had the idea of going to the usual swampy place, which on Tuesdays is quite entertaining anyway. It was entertaining. Except for the usual craziness, this time, there was a girl in a rather neat dress who played around with some sort of toy that I can't find a word for. Basically something like this, but without the fire. During the evening, she was teaching half of the club how to do this, with more or less and usually rather less success, and she looked fabulous doing that - very stylish.
The idea of joining a few random acquaintances after the club closed and going to have another drink with them was probably not one of the best we ever had, but still, we had it, managed to get home somehow, and even still got a few hours of sleep. My guest leaving to the airport at mid-day, me going back to sleep some more - not much of Wednesday left, making it a long evening and then a very early Thursday.
So now it's work. No going out today. Maybe tomorrow, my earlier mentioned dancer friend whom I haven't seen for already almost two weeks will have some days off and is, of course, eager to party. Not yet sure if I'll be.
Not that I'm a big AC/DC enthusiast at all. But making a music video in Microsoft Excel is Rock'n'Roll. For sure.
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