Good Friday

Yesterday we went to the lake which was fun (pictures here). After that, we went to a Chinese restaurant where we really enjoyed the food but also the menu... We contemplated ordering one of their "prok dishes" but since they all contained beef, didn't. Jessi wanted to get the Margherita ("for the brave and the frigid") but I would have gone for the Mai Tai ("for the mentally disturbed"). And then we did the Good Catholic Thing on Good Friday, namely watched Life of Brian. (Hadn't seen that film for ages).

Bad Cat Getting Experience

Today we wanted to get a cat and went to the animal shelter, but they didn't have one for us :(

If you know of a cat that wants to live with us and is willing to bear the name Herr Schmidt - Graf von und zu Kamikatze please contact us. Has to be small since our apartment is small and shouldn't want to go outside since it won't be allowed to.

Good News

Ulisch and me applied for a contest to go to Ireland (sponsored by a whiskey company) and I got a call today that we advanced to the next round. They want to interview me, so now I am waiting for their call...I'll keep you posted about the results!

For the end of the day I'll tell you a Good Thing and a Bad Thing. (The Good Thing is better, though)

a) Good Thing:

I've been offered a job once my university is finished, yay!!!! I worked with my old colleagues from Qualitative Market Research today and my boss said she really liked my work and if nothing changes till October I'd be welcome to start as a project manager with their company. That would be really nice, I liked working there because of the job AND the people which is hard to find nowadays, I guess.

b) Bad Thing:

Do you remember how I said the construction noise would make everyone crazy and how I was pissed when they renovated our roof? Guess what..when I came back home today they had put up scaffolding all around our house because they're doing it again. Oy. Terrible noise, terrible noise...ka-drt-drt-drt-drt-BLAM in the morning (noise of bricks being thrown off the roof via a big hose). I sincerely hope the end of the hose is not in front of my window again. Oh well, this too shall pass.

Oh dear, I don't own this blog anymore...Marco bought 50% of my stock. He assures me it's a friendly buy-in, not a hostile take-over, though. If YOU'd like to co-own this blog, just sign up at blogshares and get some shares, while they're still hot!!! (I also have 1000 shares myself to dole out amongst my admirers, though I'm not sure whether I should give them away, now that Tycoon Marco has appeared on the horizon, but I just might :)

Oh, and I just received some

Trixi Happy News

Baby Olivia was born yesterday 16.15. (What's that in Horoscope?)

52 cm, 3170 g. And cute, apparently.

Boring stuff, mostly

Another day spent in the library. I am wondering how people survive who work all day.. I was so exhausted when I got home that I couldn't even be bothered to go out again. Might have had something to do with the fact that I had to lug my laptop to University on my bike and the damn thing gets heavier and heavier when you're carrying it on your back. Should have opted for a smaller one, I guess. In addition, I have to take an external keyboard since I messed up the "t" key, but I guess that's my own fault. Now my neck hurts...and I lost the F8 key of the external keyboard. I am such a klutz sometimes. At least I don't do Flash programming, as the F8 key is vital for that or so I have been informed. I have never needed it and hopefully won't any time soon. Because a car drove over it and it's pretty flat. Flat key, huh..oh well.

At least I won't have to go to this library any time soon, I managed to get everything done that I wanted there. Tomorrow I actually get to work and earn money (yay) plus go to another library to get some books, but then I'm all set with researching. The bad thing about it is that what I researched does not really fit what I'm supposed to write in my paper. So either I go along with what I planned to do and it'll probably go wrong (but then at least I know what went wrong) or I have to change stuff. Not decided what I'll do, I need to gather my thoughts when I have everything that I need. Should be able to do that tomorrow and/or this weekend.

But at least I did not move my car. Another promise kept. They tore up the other side of the street today, the people at the end must be getting quite annoyed with all the noise as they are also fixing most of the houses there. I remember when they renovated our house, it drove me crazy.

I decided since my blog has been subject of an interview it needs a little sprucing up and added a picture. Since I suck at HTML, this is the best I can come up with :)

Today I actually made progress in the library...yay...my paper seems to be picking up steam. Other than that, my day was pretty uneventful (what can you expect, slaving away in the library all day).

Round here it's Parking Hell at the moment.They are tearing up the whole street next to us and I had to go round the block about 20 minutes before finding a parking space. I am never moving my car again. No way. I said that yesterday, too. But this time I mean it.

Murphy strikes again

Of course, the day I decide to go to the library is the day that only half of the electronic journals are working properly. Which half? That needs to be tried out on the slooooooooow library computer. Everything else that I needed was not available on site and had to be ordered. Which I could have done from at home. Oh well, at least I got out of the house...(I also spent an hour in the park which was nice).

Went to Legoland today with Tinisch, Marco and Babsi. It wasn't that exciting but we managed to have fun anyway (we usually do).

First we went on a ride where you have to pedal yourself forward (c/o Babsi and me). Waited in line for 45 minutes, rode for 60 seconds. But hey, we had a great view. No, really. Tried to hit the car of the people in front of us, but failed.

Then we decided we'd give ourselves points for each kid we kicked during waiting in line (hey, THEY started it!). I think Babsi got the most points, but she got whacked in the nose by one of the little buggers, so I'm not sure whether that counts as a victory.

Then Legoland employee Marc lied to me about the "Seat That Will Stay Dry on the Waterride". Hilarity ensued. I am sure the others were laughing with me. Yes, they were. Definitely.

Then we had the Worst Burger of our Life^TM.

And then we did the Dragon Ride (Note to Tinisch and Marco: I thoughtfully kept your picture, by the way) where we laughed at all the parents and kids who had disregarded the height restrictions and had to turn around.

Saw lots of strange huge lego figurines, too. Some guy called "Agent 007" (the thing was talking, informing us of its name) who was carrying a toilet (??), an old lady who was catching pigeons to eat them (??), a crazy bunny with a chain saw (??) and a guy half sunk in concrete (??). Those Danish Lego People are crazy, I guess. Finally they gave us a present: a lego brick (weighing 4 grams as some tourist lady informed me out of the blue - why? I do not know) and we left.

Lessons Learned

a) If there's an Euro to be saved, Swabians will take the opportunity to park off the designated parking area and walk to the park.


b) Don't name your kid "Raul" if you are not Spanish.

c) There are 24 possible ways of assembling two eight-noobled* Lego pieces. *("nooble" being the term of choice for the bumps on top)

d) When in an amusement park, always try to remember where you parked your car.

And here are some pictures...

While I was jogging today (yay me!) I started thinking. Happens to me a lot while I am jogging, not much else to do, I guess. And since I had just replied to a comment regarding John Irving, I thought about the following:

Books that made me cry

(While I usually cry at the drop of a hat, for example because of sad movies or sappy commercials, books rarely make me cry. So whenever one has managed to move me to tears it deserves a special place on a list somewhere in my heart.)

• A Widow for One Year by John Irving (hence the thoughts)
  
• The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman (kids' book, but nevermind)
  
• Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell (Hey, it's a classic)
  
• The Wolf of Winter by Paula Volsky (I really don't know why. Got it from the library for cheap fantasy entertainment. It took me somewhat by surprise)
  
• The Plague Dogs by Richard Adams (You think Watership Down is bad...boy, are you wrong. Couldn't even finish this for crying)

These are the ones that I can think of now off the top of my head. While I was looking for inspiration at amazon.de, I ordered some more books, of course. Thank you, amazon. Need to stop ordering books!!!

Other stuff

Was interviewed about my blog today. Maybe that'll attract more readers. Greater responsibility. Meaningful posts...nah. Maybe it'll increase the value of my blog. Because...I am on the market, baby! I am supposed to get 1000 free shares of my blog, if I ever do, I'll freely distribute them among you people, so you can co-own this thing. I actually co-own slashdot.org and theonion.com now. Boy, do I ever feel important :)