Vote for Organic City!

Last year, Seamus, a friend of mine from the MSP, together with Sarah Mattern started a project called "The Organic City". It's a community storytelling project focused on the downtown Oakland (California, USA) areas surrounding Lake Merritt. Through their website they encourage people to read and write stories (text, audio, or video) about local places. Right now they're also working on a mobile experience for the stories.

It's a really fun project and they've been nominated for a Webby Award 2006 in the Best Student Website category. Please check out their website and then vote for them! Voting is open to the public from April 11th to May 5th at http://peoplesvoice.webbyawards.com.

Sick: Roach-Brooches

I saw this on another blog and am still upset about it so I decided to post it here as well. Isn't this sick??? A "designer" came up with the idea to make a brooch out of a living roach and sell it in a boutique in Salt Lake city. Of course the boutique couldn't have hoped for a better advertising but in my opinion they went too far this time!

Madagascar hissing cockroaches are decorated with colored jewels and put on a silver chain leash to be able to crawl. Thank goodness something like this would not be possible over here due to laws (at least that's what I deeply hope for) and I'm surprised that apparently it doesn't seem to be forbidden in the US.

Besides the fact that someone must be really disturbed to want something like that as "jewelry"!!

Article, photos and video

Being self-employed

Well, I'm not breaking any news to you when I say that being self-employed in general is not easy and I'm sure anyone having gone through this experience will agree here. And I'm not gonna talk about all the things you have to find out and solve here to be legally on the save side, or projects, or anything like that. No, this post is about the status and acceptance of someone being self-employed in Germany.

A while ago I came across a blog of an American ESL teacher living in Germany and talking about her experiences. Unfortunately, I only copied a quote in my notes and forgot to bookmark her blog so I wasn't able to find it again for this post... Too bad. Anyways, here is what she said:

Germany is a "company town". It is not entrepreneurial. Working for yourself is even looked down upon as having a job with a big business and a desk that you go to for the next 30 years is considered what is appropriate and correct. It is secure and that is what is important (never mind the fact that all over Germany companies are going out of business or downsizing large percentages of their workforce.) [...] Being an entrepreneur here is the opposite of what it is in America, with America being something you aspire to have and here something only desperate people do.

I copied this because at first I was a bit surprised of her view but the more I think about it the more I must agree with her. Not necessarily from a business perspective since especially in my field a lot of companies work with freelancers and I have not had any bad experiences with any kind of attitudes yet.

It's more on a personal side... Especially the so called older generations still hold on to this view she described. The younger generations are a bit more open although some of them grew up with this point of view and see no reason why they should change their mind about it. Others start to see the simple necessity to be more flexible for the job market these days. I'd say it's more and more changing...

How about you? Have you made any experiences like this? How is the acceptance in your region/country?

Thanks to Fraser who found the blog I have quoted in this post!! You can find it here, towards the end of the page under "Doing Business and the Economy".

International Tourist Guides about Germany

A German radio station has put together a little collection of how Germany is described in international travel guides. They also present it on their website (it's in German though). Here are some of the myths translated:

1) "Don't ever whisper in Germany - it makes Germans suspicious" [China]

2) "Avoid ordering milk in Germany - Germans think of milk on a breakfast table as impertinence" [China]

3) "Germans drink a 'tasteless coffee broth'" [Italy]

4) "In a bar you better don't order your beer with the index finger - you might end up getting two beer. Remember: Germans start counting with the thumb!" [UK]

5) "Always be punctual and always bring a present when invited" (that's a really nice one - I'd like that with the presents ;-D) [Netherlands]

There were more but these are my favorites. Well, now you're prepared... ;-D

Song stuck in your head?

Do you have a song stuck in your head, and you don't know the name of it? No worries, there's help in sight:

The Song Tapper

You just try tapping the rhythm of the song on your space bar while humming the tune and it gives you several results then. I tried it with "Obladi" from the Beatles and it worked.
(Got this pointer from the radio station I'm listening to this morning and had to try it out...)


P.S. In case you're wondering, I've added the picture later since I just found it in one of my photo folders (it's taken from a shop window). Thought it'll fit quite well here... ;-D.

New camera - any suggestions?

Since I'm taking a lot of photos lately, I'm determined to get myself a new camera that is smaller, faster, and handier than the camera I have now. So far, I've been looking into Canon Ixus or a Canon PowerShot, but I haven't really gone into it yet, so I don't know much about the advantages and disadvantages. Any ideas, tips, recommendations?

Btw, you can post comments without subscribing, so "fire away"! :-)

Once upon a time...

One upon a time... there was a little fishermen's town at the baltic see. One day, a mermaid appeared on one of the rocks along the sea, made completely out of bronze. All the inhabitant were quite surprised, since noone knew where it came from. They couldn't find it out, but nevertheless decided that apparantly it was supposed to be theirs. So they started selling postcards, T-Shirts, bags and even little replica of it. And then, all of a sudden, one year later, the little mermaid disappeared again...

This sounds like a fairy tale but it really happened (found this story on SPIEGEL ONLINE).

90 tons of garbage

I read in the newspaper today that the carnival parade in Wiesbaden produced 90 tons of garbage that people left on the streets or in the garbage bins (partly through confetti and all that stuff that gets thrown, partly through the people who eat and drink and leave that garbage as well). 50 cleaners had been on the road to get everything back to "normal".

It's great to see that many people being happy and celebrating but I hope we can find a better solution for this problem!

Winter Olympics 2006

Looks like Germany's been doing really well in this year's Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy - last time I checked we were number 1 in terms of medals. And today is the last day so I don't think there'll be any more big surprises. Congratulations to all the athletes! For more infos check out the official website.

Watch out - you might be kissed today...

I just have to share this: I just saw an article in the newspaper that Lufthansa started to make special announcement at the airport in Bonn/Cologne because of the carnival season (Cologne is the "capitol of carnival" in Germany).

One of the announcements is: "Watch out - you might be kissed today" or another one says "Watch out for your ties - they might be cut off" (also check out my post on this on my daily photo blog). Since masked and costumed people do all kinds of funny/crazy things during carnival time, I guess they want to warn foreign visitors ahead of time so they don't get scared :-D.