pics malle, finally

been some time, moving to zurich and working really takes its toll, but I´ll try with updates, starting with a gallery from Mallorca from the hike ende of may/ beginning of june. ENJOY

work

takes it's toll -- well I try to update this coming weekend ... --

back from mallorca

Wow, haven't been surprised that much for a while now. Mallorca is absolutely beautiful. Landsccape, mentality of the people, the food, cities and towns...

As I'm busy moving to Zurich I'll see when I find time to post more, but for sure there'll be lot of tipps on where to stay and what to do, probably in consecutive posts, day by day.

I'll probably have time for a first post tomorrow, to make the wait shorter check out agroturismo-balear.com to find your favorite calm "farmstay" (well, it's more like farmstay with **** )

holidays

I finally made up my mind and if nothing comes between I'll book a flight to Mallorca tomorrow morning. The plan is to fly from Basel at around 6:45am on Wednesday (blame Easyjet for the time) and return on Thursday next week. In between that I'll be hiking the GR221 on the North-West side of the isle, so don't expect frequent or any posts at all for a week or so...

room

So this is the result of around 10 days of looking for an appartment in Zurich:


Well, don't laugh, besides a pink toilet the deal includes a very calm room facing to a very calm backyard.



Indeed, it's a really cool place, newly renovated, in the heart of the city (Niederdorf), 2min. from the main railways station - and a bit more than 5min. by tram to my working place.

holiday plans

The GR20 on Corse will probably take too long for now, also several people indicated that it'll be pretty tough with all the snow on it - probably. So I figure I won't take the chance as I'll be hiking on my own.

So I decided to maybe go for Mallorca - ..... - Mallorca?


No, not exactly. My plans are more along the lines of flying into Palma for cheap and then escape anything that sounds or looks German in a second.



As Marc told me, the GR221 which runs over the isle is really beautiful and also not as high (max. 1400 meters), so there won't be snow I guess and climate should be nice. But I'm still open for other ideas if you have suggestions...

Roomsearch part V

Oh well, my life is not very exciting at the moment. standard procedure: admin stuff in the morning, roomsearch in the afternoon, pack bike into car, drive to Zurich around 4pm, arrive at 5pm, visit appartments for rent till 8pm, return to Basel.

My backup plan now is to keep searching till Friday, then simply go for a temporary room for 2-3month and search when I've started working in Zurich. Might be easier with working permit and everything in place. But hopefully something nice works out this week already.

Yesterday my all-time favorite apt was due to be inspected, it's very central, calm, own balcony, sunny, rooftop terrasse, new kitchen & bath, wooden floor, what have you. Figure people would kill for this apt. Anyways, the way it actually will go is this: one of the 50 applicatints will be a native swiss female cleric with a salary of 15`000 CHF per month, no animals, not playing an instrument. She will be the future tenant, I figure.

So long.

Roomsearch part IV (relaxed!)

Sometimes I am reminded that you can do the exactly same thing in different ways: creatively or letting yourself be pushed around.

I already felt slightly stressed when only thinking about finding an appartment in Zurich, so I decided I had to find an approach that would add some positive vibes to it. So I put together the list of all appartments with inspection dates next week and packed my bike in the back of my car.

And indeed, compared to the hectic of driving around in Zurich with a car, pedaling along with a bike is pure pleasure. You don't have to follow insanely constructed one-way streets that lead you anywhere but not where you want, nobody honks at you because you're looking for an adress, no problems with parking in front of the houses ...

Anyway, my first house - the only where a inspection was due yesterday - was in a side street of Langestrasse. First I was deligthed: quite, wooden floor, right in the centre. Then some minus points appeared: only two rooms, kitchen very old, no dishwasher, direct neighbourhood with around 3 sexshops ... - but in summary it'S a lively quarter with "normal" restaurants around, not dodgy.

So I'm really thinking about applying, it's only 5 min per tram from where I work. Also the real estate agent managed to work out a semi-smile when I mentioned that I work for a bank and do not plan to establish a community living in the apt, so my chance among the 30 applicants might be pretty good.

Now for the nice part: cycling around I found a really cool neighbourhood restaurant "Bei Babette" in Bertastr., on the right hand side shortly after coming off Badenerstr.


They have really good custom-beer and it's just a very nice place to waste your saturday afternoon reading, chatting or just thinking about the world in general...

Roomsearch Part III

So, cancelled going to Ticino this weekend because I figure all those lazy competitors for appartments might take the weekend off and maybe chances are better to conquer a target this way. Based on my language you might infer that looking for a room in Zurich is not fun, indeed it's war disguised with a smile.

So here's one of my No1 objects currently, it'S around 55 square meters and very central and based on the street it should also be calm, wish me luck ...



And of course, if you have any ideas on finding a flat in Zurich, LET ME KNOW!!!

Room in Zurich / Rote Fabrik / Trois Pommes Factory outlet

Yesterday I had my first go checking out rooms in Zurich. I figure it's gonna be tough. Not that the appartments were bad, but out of the three there wasn't really one that I totally liked - plus in each there were around 5 other visitors that checked it out only in the 5 minutes when Eva and I were there...

But from my first impression I gonna primarily focus on Wollishofen, it's pretty green there, close to the lake, and still pretty close to the city.

After we checked out a room there we went to the "Rote Fabrik" to get some dinner. It's a old production site with studios, exhibition areas, concert space etc., but also with a really nice bar / restaurant, directly at the lake. As we had seats right at the window we had a faboulous lake view in the evening and food was really good and not pricey at all. Also it's a really lively location, people discussing, laughing, reading, working, playing, everything... - cool atmosphere. Also they have a big outer area right at the lake, should be really good in summertime.

If you go there don't forget to check out the Trois-Pommes factory outlet which is almost in the direct neighbourhood just some blocks away if you follow the road down the lake southwards, also on the left-hand side like the "rote Fabrik. But be warned: as the have Gucci and Prada and the like, even the checkout is not exactly cheap, but there might be a good deal if you're lucky.

pasta siciliana

Yesterday we had one of the best pastas I had for month -- surprisingly, it doesn't even take as long as the spaghetti need to become al dente to prepare the sauce!

Here's the receipt (4 persons): 500g spagehtti or whatever noodles you like (take deCecco, thei're the best), 350g really fresh and tasty tomatos, some fresh basil (basilikum), 3 (or as much as you can handle..) garlics (Knoblauch), 80g almonds (Mandeln) without shell, some of the best olive oil you can get (2 big spoons) plus black pepper.

Heat up water and start preparing the sauce: cut tomatos small, (keep some aside to add later), put garlic and almonds in a mixer, mix, then add tomtatos and basil and oil and pepper and mix some more. for my part I would leave some almonds and tomatos aside, cut them only with a knive, and afterwards add it again to the mixed part, so that you have some bigger chunks in the sauce as well. so much for the sauce - wait for the noodles to be ready and then mix it with the sauce and serve. delicious.

more receipts in :

n tables

Wow, pretty cool tables, check out their home page on myspace..





and, a friend of n-tables, "Salcön"... - seems to be a band, and includes pretty cool and weird art stuff... - maybe they'll be featured in the art fair "Liste 2007" in Basel in three weeks time?

room in zurich

Finding an appartment in Zurich is quite a task I guess. At least that's the impression I got after one day of scrambling through different homepages, mailingslists and writing various mails to friends and business contacts.

My favorite is 3 Minutes by foot from my working place, right in the city centre, still with a quite reasonable price for Zurich standards. The inspection date is next week on Wednesday. As the lady on the phone already told me that there will be quite a crowd around I figure it will be more an inspection of aspirants than of the flat itself. Maybe I should bring along some roses and champagne to cheer up the broker? We'll see.

Anyways, if anybody has ideas or even some place to rent out in Zurich I'll be more than happy to be contacted via a comment below this post. Basically I am looking for 2-3 rooms, close to Paradplatz, which in my terms means not further away than 15min with public transport.

But now for my real-favorite housing object on Zurich lake:


only three minor problems with this appartment
- it's not in Zurich but in Meilen
- it's already taken
- it would probably cost me the equivalent of 15 years of future wage, if everything goes smoothly, that is.

Brainteaser solution

Ok, that was a long time to think about the problem from May 5th. You haven't read it yet? Stop reading and go back to the post and make up your mind before reading the solution.

Funny enough, the chances of winning the game are 2/3 overall. That said, it's obvious that you have to switch doors to arrive at this high probability. Because obviously, if you chose one of the three doors, and stay with the choice even after the elimination of an empty door, your chances is and always will be only 1/3.

For myself, I came up with the following explanation, which I then afterwards also found on the web: imagine you play the game three times. Everyone would agree that if you don't switch, chances are that you win the game 1 time, at least on average (or say you play it 3 million times, the number of winning games will be pretty close to 1 million).

Put differently, if your are right 1 time out of three, you are wrong 2 times out of three. This means on average your switch will make win in two times out of three and lose only one time. Straightforward, isnt' it?

What I liked about this problem is that it makes you think quite a while, at least me, even after coming up with a reasonable solution and argumentation. If you want to read more about it check out the Ziegenproblem on Wikipedia Germany or the Monty Hall Problem on Wikipedia international.

mymuesli.com

Up to now, all the projects in this section were direct friends of mine, so this time a novelty by presenting a project of a good friend of a friend of a good friend of mine: mymuesli.com . Basic idea: custom made muesli.


So first things first I wanted to do a reality check to my beloved "Seitenbacher" muesli, and as I am more the "basic" muesli eater keeping it real with almost no add-ons, I randomly picked a more complicated muesli mix from the Seitenbacher shop . It's called Müsli 721 (codename: indulgent mix..) and contains raspberries, blackberries, black currants (Johannisbeeren), raisins and apples plus almond reeds added. Trying to reproduce this in the mymuesli shop I picked a basic mix and ... only found raisins, apples as well as the almonds. Mh. Okay, lets pick three substitutes for the missing berries, I go for figs (Feigen), Mangos and cherries. Going to the checkout this makes 7.00 EUR for 575g corresponding to 12.17 EUR per kg while Seitenbacher is at 3.99 for 750g or 5.32 per kg. Summary: maybe the random choice was disadvantegous, but I didn't get what I hypothetically wanted or would have gotten at Seitenbacher, also it's not exactly cheap, but maybe I picked relatively more expensive ingredients.


Yet to be fair, the choice of other ingredients is really cool and large, and the coolnes factor of customizing your own muesli shouldnt be underestimated, I figure there'S a lot of folks out there who like the Seitenbacher Mix X but always have to go through some pains to pick out ingredient Y or separately buying ingrediant Z and add it.

Further thoughts (consultants disease to always make suggestions..)
- to me it looks like a black socks business model, people need the muesli in some fixed intervalls, so they should probably offer combi-packages for a year or so in addition to the regular shop; I'm not quite sure if this would help with prices because it would have to be mixed fresh each quarter year
- I'm not quite sure about the positioning of the product, from my random sample it looks like it's potentially twice as expensive as a standard muesli, so it'S probably a premium product
- is this scaleable? it's highly customized, so probably a lot of hand-effort

Anyways, I thinks it's definitely a cool idea and has potential.

jobsearch & breaks

I'm in the middle or rather at the end of looking for a job, which went pretty good except that now is the time to chose which is rather hard. I'll post results as soon as I made my mind up. Anyways, chances are that I will start working beginning of June in Zurich, hurray!

---

If you also need to procrastinate, check out the site of the breakin convention, I highly reccommend to launch the streaming player (banner on the lower right hand side of the page) and check out some performances, e.g. "Frank II Louise". Or check out this guy here, Frank Ejara...

Weekend brainteaser

Here's a little weekend brain teaser I encountered on the net - something to think about for rainy weekends..

THINK! Do not use Google! I will post the solution in some days, feel free to comment with your answer. If you have an answer think again, you're probably wrong...

You find yourself on a game show called "Let's Make A Deal." The game is very simple. There are three doors: door #1, door #2, and door #3. Behind one door is a million dollars. The other two doors contain worthless joke prizes. All you have to do is pick which door you want to open, and you get whatever is behind it. But you only get to open one door. By simple math, then, you obviously have a 1 in 3 chance of picking the correct door and becoming an instant millionaire.

pic is taken from here.

You pick a door. As soon as you tell Monty (the gameshow host) what door you want to open, he stops and says, "Okay, you've made your choice. Now, I'm going to do what we always do here on this game. I'm going to open one of the other two doors for you that I know has a booby prize." And he does so. Then he asks, "Okay, now, would you like to stay with your original guess, or would you like to switch to the other door that's still closed? You only get one shot, so do you want to stay with your original choice, or switch?"

Here's the question: is there any compelling reason to switch doors?

bjork - volta

cool, Björk is coming with a new album out on Monday 7.May --- sounds already pretty promising what can be read on amazon already. check out the album homepage for a preview.

Executive pay - Yermack attacks Round 2

I was lucky enough to write a seminar paper in New York, as part of the Zaeslin Program of the University of Basel, supervised by Prof. David Yermack.

I figure he'll have to hire bodyguards soon, as angry managers gonna start mobbing on front of his house and office.

Just last year he published a study titled: "Flights of fancy, Corporate jets, CEO perquisites, and inferior shareholder returns" (Journal of Financial Economics, 80).

Basically he showed that the private used of corporate jets by executive is very bad for you as shareholder, indeed generating inferior returns compared to a benchmark group. This was tightly related to golf club membership and golf handycap...

As Manager Magazin points out today in an article, he now went into the second round of the battle (together with Crocker Liu), analyzing the house of S&P 500 managers. Obviously, managers buying lofty houses are a definite SELL signal to investors. I haven't had the chance yet to read the study myself (which you can get free here at SSRN ), but according to Manager Magazin the key results are:

- strong outperformance of companies stocks whose managers bought smaller houses than average ( 20% abnormal return over 36month)
- strong underperformance of companies with luxury mansions bought by managers (-25%, 36Month)

I have yet to confirm these results by reading the study myself, but this sounds really impressive, compared to the small return gaps you can normally explain with event studies or return prediction models.

David Yermack

Would you like to buy this?

Check out kancept.com for portfolios of cool possible future products, I must say I would surely by the transparent toaster ... - the page takes you through different designs and you can always vote and see how others liked the stuff...

Some update on my own life coming soon, probably tomorrow...

EU again

The European Union advances to my favorite topic, as it seems. I just can't help exploring what hilarious ways are tought out by eurocrats to wast our tax money.

So basically this time the EU has noticed that current programms are becoming to complex for anyone who adminsters them to understand. Frankly speaking, what do you do if you don't understand anymore what you are doing? For my part I'd go for reducing complexity. But this plan is probably too straightforward...

Thus if you're the European Union and you're running three programs to spread money according to some arbitrary but highly sophisticated rules, and this doesnt work, you naturally opt for establishing a fourth program which adminsters the other three.

This has several advantages to it
1. you can hire more staff - everyone will think because you're expanding it's a big success
2. as a eurocrat, you probably get a rise because more people report to you
3. you make yourself irreplacable: complex stuff needs to be taken care of..
...and probably lots of other good points...

For all the details check out the Spiegel article.

big hike holidays - GR20 Corse

If everything goes well, what I expect, I'm going to start working in June, which leaves some time to relax in May.

I'm not quite sure where to go and what to do, but one idea I like a lot is the plan to go on a big hike in mid may. So I was reminded that Marius, a friend of mine, told me about the GR20 (Grand Randonnée 20) some time ago. It's a trail circling the isle of Korsika in around 15 days, and I'm confident that there's some room for speeding up that time from what I read.


Here's some ressources I checked on the net:
- Abenteuer Korsika
- GR20 Tagebuch

What I'm not quite positive about is whether the season is already right for doing it, my main concern is snow as a lot of the track is around 2000 meters, and some parts even above, with the highest peak on the island being at 2700 meters. Experiencing snow in the Ticino last year in May/June I can tell that it's partly funny but also very exhausting if longer stretches are covered with deep snow, and north faces can be covered in snow pretty long.Also probably a lot of food will have to be carried, as some huts might only be open in the main season for the trail starting in June.

Thus I would appreciate any hints on how weather, snow and everything is like in Korsika/Corse currently. Maybe you know somebody who lives there or something, that would be cool.



On the other hand, maybe you have different cool ideas for a short two week break somewhere else in the world???

UPDATE: STephan on the Globetrotter board told me that the GR20 is completely free of snow currently. Only the hut wardens won't be there yet, so it sounds like a lot of stuff to carry around, incl. gas (this makes for few boxer-shorts... - but hey, it doesnt look like anybody is up to joining me anyways.. ; )

Flight event: Axalp 2007

Ok, it's a bit early to announce but the Axalp event of the swiss army is taking place from October 9. to 11. this year. I've been there for two times already and it's really awesome flight-action with all types of military airplanes. Some "freaks" I met there last time told me it's probably the most exciting air show out there in Europe or even the world.

Check out swiss-sky or Patrouille Suisse for more infos.

(cool) university shirt

Wouldn't thought that it would happen, but University of Basel actually managed to produce some cool t-shirt that you might be actually proud wearing. They're made by Tarzan , a young swiss label. They're already sold out as far as I know, luckily a got one as a graduation present.. ; )



Anyway, now my collection is complete, as I already had a t-shirt from New York University and Simon Fraser in Vancouver. Looking forward to wearing the shirt, especially when going abroad. You just can't beat more than 500 years of experience (since 1460) ...

Here's the link to the details on how to get one.

Unlucky Porsche dealer - business sense gone mad

Wow, check out this article

Glen Fergusson - Sales and Marketing manager for a brand new Californian Porsche dealer. Has lost his job and faces possible legal proceedings as the company strives to reclaim the costs of the 18 Porsches given away free under Glen's Opening day "buy one get one free promotion" "I admit I didn't really do the numbers properly on this one" said Glen who told reporters that he had "seen the concept work really well for coffee stores" and in terms of numbers you could argue that Glen's campaign worked. As the new Porsche dealer sold 18 Porsches in the first hour of the store opening. [ continued on stuffed.co.nz ]

I find this to be a very nice example of how stuff can go wrong if you transfer ideas from one business where they make sense to another industry with different characteristics, where they obviously do not make sense.

Sadly, the story seems to be made up, as can be read here on urban legends references pages of snopes.com .

Anyways, I think the point made is still very true. This story probably happens a hundred times every day in numerous companies around the world. Except that the guy's name is not Glen (well, maybesometimes) and he's probably not a Porsche dealer. And most of the times, it won't be that obvious what happens, but still value is destrcuted.

E.g. you have a top CEO that turns around a whole company in 2 years and has the best track record you can imagine, plus is highly appreciated by analysts and the stock market. So what do you do? Right, you fire him ...

Pizzo Centrale

At the end of the season I finally managed to put my new ski touring boots into use. Some people migth argue that mid april with 25 degree in the valley is not exactly made for skiing - but there's still plenty of snow - well, above 2000 meters..

We decided on backcountry.ch to go for a tour in the Gotthard area. So Dave, Jeanny and I met at the Andermatt gondola saturday morning at 7:15am (getup at 4:30am..) and took the gondola to the top of Gemsstock at 3000 meters.

From there we first had to descent on frozen snow, not exactly a nice ride. After arriving at the low point we started ascending again, first with skis, then by foot after the ski depot. The last section up to the peak was already pure hiking/climbing, as it was exposed to the south. Arriving on the peak we met two guys enjoing their fondue on a small camping cooker and who even invited us for some bits.

Pizzo Centrale (on the right)

After descending again to our skis we traversed and went on for another peak, "Glocketürmli". From there, we had a really nice ride down in the valley.


But then at some point, spring time showed it's full power: the last hill was almost completely burnt away by sun. So we had to take the hiking path by foot for the last section before starting to walk back on the road to Hopsental and then taking the train to Andermatt again.


To finish off the day, we then went to Flüelen at the Vierwaldstädtersee and had some serious BBQ at the lakeside in the evening, doesnt get better ; )

You can find a full gallery of pics here on rockthepowder.com ! And a short additional description of the conditions here on backcountry.ch .

how to become a gastro expert

Ok, I get this mail in Xing by a woman who is looking for a manager / lessee for her restaurant in Basel, which is currently about to be rebuilt and due to open in autum.

Obviously, I must thus be a reckoned expert for the gastro scene in BAsel. Question: how come? Pretty easy: I've written an article on Xing on the "Basel geht aus" restaurant guide, which now seems to be ranked on google.de on the 7th position when you search for "gastroszene basel" ...
(You're not on Xing yet? - it's free, guaranteed).

Well, being an expert in this field, let me give some recommendations:

- Check out Acqua at lunchtime, it's 20CHF for menu (starter & some kind of pasta + red wine & water a discretion)
- If it's warm enough in the evening have dinner at Don Camillo, on the terrasse. Food is very good as well, but you just can't beat sitting there outside on a warm summer evening
- check out Ono on Petersgraben in BAsel, they don't have homepage yet, but guess who's xing post is coming on 3rd place in google results when searching for "ono basel" ...

Acqua

how do you like

the stuff that is posted here?

I'm aware it's a pretty wild mix of arts, ski, politics, mountains and whatever comes to my mind or happens to me. So I'm kind of curious what's really interesting (of course the best thing to hear would be that it's the wild mix..)

I will also try avoiding such long gaps between posts like the other days...

Baselworld

Baselworld, the international jewlery and watch show is coming to an end today. From what I've heard, it was pretty impressive. For my part I was kind of reluctant to spend 45CHF entry fee to check out stuff I cannot afford (yet...).

The main afterparty spot was the area around the Acqua, remodelled as "Baselworld Village". I finally made it there yesterday evening, which was also the last chance as it was the last day. I can only say that Simon Lutz really has it. After pulling of Acqua and Baracca Zermatt, this is taking it to the next level. Regarding Basel nightlife I would say they're well ahead 2 or 3 years compared to the other locations in terms of concept and execution.



The village was using the whole area around Kuppel and Acqua, with lot's of possibilities to chill and very nice details like flowers, a huge fireplace etc. Some impressions below.

But the best part was the VIP lounge, where luckily the colleague of mine I went with had an entry card. This meant beer for free the whole evening and a stunning live performance of a very nice brasilian singer. Way to go...- looking forward to next year.


Check out the gallery for more pics of the village.

weekend & cool knowledge

Wow, not much time for an update. I'm all in the midde of my application process after I finished the last bit of my MSc studies. Also I'm struggling with my allergy against pollen , think you call it hay fewer in english. so that's the reason i'll escape to the mountains tomorrow (well, there are other reasons as well.. )

Anyways, here's some feeding for your browser, somewhat grouped around the topic "cool knowledge":

dropping knowledge - cool project
howstuffworks - anything you never knew about the world..
covers project - knocking on heavens door is originally from ? right, Bob Dylan. and it was covered by? Grateful death, Leningrad cowboys...
international movie database - okay, I mentioned it some posts ago, but it just belongs in this list

have a nice weekend...

this weekend

Andermatt, definitely the place to be on the coming weekend. Here's the link to the event. It's on Saturday, 14 April. Too bad I won't particiapte, but I figure it's the smart choice given the condition of my right leg, although it feels pretty good when I go biking etc.; So I figure I gonna take it easy, some laid-back skiing and watching other people race.. ; (

Monopol, Art & Liste

I currently have a test subsrciption of Monopol.

There's a cool article about the NY artist Dash Snow, looks like Jim Morrison and probably takes as many drugs as the Doors singer did once. Check this link for some impressions of his art. (you have to click on the dash..)

Also presented in the issue is the collection of an collector from Iran, Ebrahim Melamed. Those two works byFarhad Moshiri are from his collection, I find it's a pretty cool idea. The images are taken from here .



Talking of ART it has to be noted that ART2007 is opening soon on June 13th ! We of course all know when the official start is ... --- Not less important of course the young art fare in basel Liste2007 ! starting on June 12th.

new skis

Haven't mentioned it here but I broke my skis in Engelberg two weeks ago. So the day after I rented this beauty (Made 'n' AK) here and fell in love. It's soft like chewing gum and floats on powder like a feather, well, a feather made of stell I guess. As far as I can tell it's build for going fast in powder and jump big stuff...





So some days later I got me the successor of the Maidn, the " AK Enemy" . I find it's hard too argue which one looks better. I probably would've gone for black if it was still available but start to like this one with my marker M14 free with red flames as well a lot.


The only thing it can't handle as far as I can tell is the combination of icy slopes and high speeds, but then again it's not designed for this and excels in what it does best: powder & speed ...

Easter movie quiz

If you ask a 10 year old what happens at easter you probably get the answer that movies on TV are even better than on Christmas.

Anyways, I watched TV yesterday and couldn't help zapping around. After a while of rough overview I decided to spend my evening with Mel Gibsons Jesus, Alien and Predator. Thus it's pretty obvious what the question is, what is the difference between the two movies ?
I admit, this is an easy one. Clearly the blood is red in the Passion of Christ and green in Alien vs. Predator. On the other accounts, I couldnt note much difference, and here's some points to illustrate:

- both are classical stories (the first Alien movie was shot in 1979, so almost 30 years now, wow)
- the plot is very predictable in both cases
- main actors speak in strange languages

I don'T know if it's my strange kind of perception of reality or just the equalization of everything that Hollywood gets in its fingers that makes me think so ...

Anyways, check out IMDB for more cool infos about more cool movies, it's addictive ...

happy easter!

how can you tell that it's easter? rabbits get long ears.. ; )


so let's play a easter game -- the first person who can tell me where this rabbit was spotted gets a chocolate rabbit ...

Prague trip

As noted earlier I visited Prague together with Eva last week. So check out the gallery with some impressions. We mostly checked out what everyone else was looking at: old stuff. But honestly it's pretty cool: the castle, the jewish quarter, Kafka museum and so on.

If you plan going there let me know, I sure have some tipps and hints to offer. Foremost I can tell you about the many way that Czechs manage to make you as a tourist pay around 10-20% more.. - in the end it doesn't kill you to pay 40EUR for a meal for two including wine and everything, but still it's annoying to pay tip if you don't feel like it because the waitress was unbelievable unfriendly..

But in summary it's a pretty cool town, and beer is at 1EUR for half a litre ... haven't checked the pictures yet ?

samuels gallery

this is a pic from Samuel's gallery, a friend I often go freeriding with. check out his whole gallery here. by the way, he is aiming to become a pro-rider, so just in case you have a ski company let me know and I'll forward his details, I can assure that he's really a strong and stylish rider.

I gonna study at Stanford and Princeton

I read about this in karriere . Many of the top universities in the US offer free online material for their lectures. Haven't checked this out in detail but it sounds like it is really good material including exercises and even video material. Go here for the article on the karriere.de homepage.

Here's the link list for your convenience

Berkeley, University of California: itunes.berkeley.edu; webcast.berkeley.edu Carnegie Mellon University: www.cmu.edu/oli Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health: ocw.jhsph.edu Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT): ocw.mit.edu University of Notre Dame: ocw.nd.edu Princeton: www.princeton.edu/WebMedia/lectures Stanford University: itunes.stanford.edu Tufts University: www.ocw.tufts.edu Utah State University: ocw.usu.edu

najo beanies

A friend of Samuel, a friend I go skiing with, makes really cool beanies together with a friend of hers. Got it?

check out the homepage, the stuff looks cool and is definitely unique and hand made: najo



oh yes, Prague pictures are in the pipeline..