one of austria's best features (it's not a bug!) is its political insignificance due to which chances are low that vienna will ever be on this list:

NY, NY
Washington, DC
Madrid, ES
----
London, UK

or does did anybody seriously assume it was sinn feinn? i don't didn't.

downtown vancouver sucks. the hotel was a nuisance. no ac, no fridge, no elevator. not to mention the drug addicts and other revellers circling it. but maybe i'm only grumpy because i can't be in san fran (which obviously sucks, because now i cannot give my premature burial lecture myself).
jetlag is kinda funny, though! i had pizza yesterday at 7 a.m. and the good thing about not being in san fran is the fact that i don't have to deal with any problems there. and organising events in a foreign country - aka foreign language - can be quite exhausting.
but then, there are always a couple of problems to solve at home, too. for example: lawn mowing. the grass is extraordinarily high and i don't even have a mower. well, i'll deal with it on saturday. jetlag still got me.
*yawn*

whoah!
our time in LA is almost over, we're heading for canada tomorrow morning.
i so had to skip dinner tonight to spend some quality time with my laptop. i'm gonna have to leave it with johannes when i go home, that means three weeks without.
oh my god, LA has been such an exciting and exhausting and mindboggling time, all at once. it was pretty much work-to-party-to-networking-hopping all the time. i didn't even have time to shop, so i only managed to spend a lousy 100 bucks on clothes in 2 weeks! can you believe it? well, and half of it i only spent today (quality time at the mall, had to skip the special caltech tour for that).
it's kinda weird how so many movies are set in LA, i never even realised. but on friday we went to see the new romero. or rather, all the others went. i pledged for an alternative as soon as i learned that zombies were involved, and got to see bewitched. and all these 'from above'-shots looked so familiar all of a sudden, as if i had just passed by all these streets and places. the film is not too compelling, though. this ferrell guy is just so not my idea of a hunk.
on saturday we had dinner with the actual real winner of our illegal space race and then we went bowling with him. very lebowski.



we managed to go on a hollywood starhomes and trolleys tour on sunday





and after that attended caryn's birthday party. well, i don't know about caryn and sean, but their dogs (lebowski and quint) seemed to love me.



we presented caryn with the planets of the inner solar system - in the form of a bouquet - for her birthday.
i already miss this extraordinary city and all you people.
i hope i can come back really soon.

first and foremost: i found a bikini! over at the target store! there was only one out of about 100 available models that did not have the abominable knot in the neck, though. the shop assistant even denied that they had one, but i found it. and luckily enough, i also liked the colour.



more pics from our visit to malibu.



of course, there was also a life guard on duty. and he's been to austria before and he also liked it.

johannes always orders 'the smallest car' when we rent in the US. in florida this is usually a rather huge one, indeed. well, in LA what we got was probably the smallest car of the whole country, it hasn't got a trunk, only the idea of a trunk and, even worse, it hasn't got a central lock. appalling!
well, it sure is an outstanding car, because a woman stopped at the parking space in front of an olive garden restaurant to ask me if i liked this car. and if it had 'pepper'. i had to tell her that it only has 4 gears and no central lock but that i didn't actually care too much because it was a rental, anyways. she still liked it:
'it's soooo cute!'



btw: i took the coin laundry challenge yesterday. good thing. everything nice and clean now. and i really dig detergent machines.

it's really really hard to blog on a regular basis when
a) you're hanging out in a city as exciting as LA and
b) your boyfriend keeps occupying your laptop.

anyways, you get everything you need to know about the magnetism party (saturday) and the brick of coke thing (tonight) here.

as for private stuff: we moved to a motel outside of the town for it has a pool. although we now only have 20 tv stations as opposed to 60 on sunset, we like it.

i started doing crunches for fear of santa monica and the beaches, where i wanna buy a new bikini, but i'm sure i'm gonna fail again. did i tell you about the bikini incident at H&M? they had nice pants there. perfect ones, indeed. but all the tops were 2 inches too small for me. when i asked for my size they told me that this was an oversize and they didn't produce it anymore. well, i thought, f* you, i'm gonna go buy one in the US.

i already did some window shopping, actually, when sean took us on another sightseeing/shopping tour yesterday. but no bikinis for me :/
oh yes, and a car almost hit us, and the driver turned out to be a certain woody harrelson. i don't know the guy but he sure must be on some a-list since everybody else was pretty excited about the fact that he even waved courteously for we stopped and gave him right-of-way.

:D

you wouldn't believe where i've been yesterday evening. we were going to have dinner with sean but when he picked us up at our inn, he told us that we'd been invited to a BBQ at his friend's friend's place. all we knew was that is was somewhere in beverly hills. well, the place is a downright villa and it's not just _somewhere_ in beverly hills, it's on f*ing top of it!
forget the view i told you about yesterday. we're talking 360° here. with a pool. and two verandas, and a patio, and everything you could possibly think of.









unreal! we don't know what sean's friend's friend does for a living, though. well, maybe it's better this way.

yesterday, we went to a mall to buy a big pot to start boiling coca cola in the galery for the brick of coke-experience. there were about 200 stores but not one single book-shop, which i think is appalling but mark said that it would be useless to complain about that to the authorities. however, sean told me that people don't read too much in LA. here's why:

S: people in LA just wait until the movie comes out
E: but this might last up to 100 years
S: you know, they think that if the book was any good they'd make a movie out of it right away

sean also took us to his place which has a phantastic view over the city and two little dogs that rather behaved like grasshoppers.

anyways, thanks for the guided tour yesterday, sean.
*big hug*

there've just been two small earthquakes. and i didn't even notice, because i was out on the street. damn. experience missed!

tue, june 14th, 2004

8:00 get up, breakfast, go to gallery
9:00 marvel at the newly built coffin
10:00 write abstracts on songs we'll play at the lecture
11:00 clean up gallery
12:00 finish hole
13:00 get giant burrito supremes and devour on them (develop a maddening stomach ache)
13:00 harmonise course of events for the evening
14:00 take car to melrose ave, see the hollywood sign for the first time (so unreal!)
15:00 buy roll of black plastic and pink bottle of alleged stomachache reliever (which doesn't work at all)
16:00 drink lots of water with apple cider vinegar to finally get rid of stomach ache (vinegar is the ultimate cure for this problem) and decide to donate the pink stuff to the first aid kit of the gallery
17:00 start decorating the gallery, go to hotel to take shower and dress for tonight
18:00 interview with radio guy
19:00 first guest arrives early, she asks to be buried together with the guy she has her first date with tonight (yes,the coffin will be big enough)
20:00 more vinegar water, last preparations, everyone pretty nervous, a crowd of people
20:30 give lecture
21:00 start burying people
21:30 we bury our couple, they kiss inside the coffin (first time) which is filmed by a night vision cam and shown on a tv above the door. people applaud spontaneously. they'll be on the radio.
22:00 - 1:00 more live burials
1:30 discover ranch dressing at the 'brite spot' restaurant
2:00 sleepy time

so, after three weeks of complete madness (work, work, work) we've finally arrived in LA. pretty much the first thing i did was starting to dig a grave in the backyard of the machine project gallery.



and then i went to the DIY store to buy material to build a coffin in order to bury people alive tomorrow night (but, of corse, we'll take them out again, after 15 minutes).

because i usually love to be a tourist i also did somthing very touristy and took a stroll through the nearby echo park where the water flowers are huge.



and i'm also looking forward to meeting sean bonner again, the inventor of the metro blogs.

btw: happy birthday johannes! welcome to your thirties. keep doing what you're doing. i love you, anyways.

Felix Langhammer fragt:
Was bedeutet eigentlich
"Trackback URL:
http://feuerfisch.twoday.net/stories/730436/modTrackback"
ich kann mich dem interrogativ nur anschließen: ja was eigentlich?

klar sind wir alle CSI fans. aber mir kommt es beinahe so vor, als wäre ich die einzige, die den wirklich wesentlichen unterschied zwischen der ursprünglichen serie und dem ersten spinoff miami bemerkt.
csi las vegas ist revolutionär in mancherlei hinsicht. der aspekt, der mich am meisten fasziniert ist dabei die einführung eines neuen 'helden'typs. gil grissom ist ein wissenschafter, ein forensiker, insektenforscher und trotzdem cool!
er lässt sich nicht einreihen in die lange liste der fiktiven wissenschafter, die oft zerstreut, manchmal genial und jedenfalls immer irgendwie lächerlich sind. grissom ist nämlich vor allem eines: positivist. mit allen vor und nachteilen zieht er diese grundhaltung durch, nicht ohne sie immer wieder auch seinen mitarbeitern nahezubringen. das hat kraft und verleiht grissom glaubwürdigkeit und größe.
csi miami liest sich da schon eher wie "eine himmlische familie geht zur polizei". horatio caine trägt zwar unbestritten die coolste sonnenbrille nördlich des äquators aber seine zeichnung als held fällt weit hinter der grissoms ab. er ist der klassische amerikanische moralist, überheblich, unantastbar. caine will dadurch cool wirken, dass er verdächige wie abschaum behandelt, moralische werturteile abgibt, rache schwört etc. und dieses verhalten wird fälschlicherweise mit coolness verwechselt, ist aber grober unfug!
gil grissom: "ein mensch kann sich irren, beweise nicht. wir sind nicht hier um zu urteilen, sondern um beweise zu sammeln!"
übrigens zeichnet sich dieser qualitative unterschied bereits in den texten der jeweiligen titelsongs ab. csi las vegas fragt nüchtern und sachlich "who are you?" und betont "I really wanna know", das caine-lied liefert die werturteilende moral-keule schon in der ersten zeile: "we won't be fooled again!" wird hier gedroht, und die verzweiflung, mit der sich die miami crew immer wieder davor verwahren will, 'nochmal verarscht' zu werden ist leider tatsächlich nur etwas forensisch aufgemotzter käse.

seit nun beinahe schon 2 wochen gibt es wiese in unserem garten (the piece of land formerly known as anderer leute parkplatz). mittlerweile gibt es außerdem noch: himbeeren, brombeeren, einen farn, efeu, gartenmöbel und einen rasentrimmer. die paletten, die säcke und das fahrrad sind bitte wegzudenken. da stehen mittlerweile gartenmöbel.

eat your heart out!

Ich habe mir gestern detaillierte Notizen über das Semifinale für den diesjährigen (49.) Songcontest in der Ukraine gemacht. Leider habe ich diese Notizen zuhause vergessen. Also probiere ichs ohne Startnummern, ohne unbedeutende Bandnamen und Songtiteln. Letztlich gehts ja ohnehin um Nationen.
Udo Jürgens hat leider ziemlich recht wenn er immer und immer wieder in Interviews konstatiert: früher war alles besser.
Das Problem gestaltet sich wie folgt: man freut sich auf einen Abend voller Schlager und Schmalz und was kriegt man vorgesetzt? Ein Pop bzw. Rock-Konzert von mangelnder Qualität, in unerträglichem Stilmischmasch und seit einiger Zeit auch noch von undurchstehbarer Länge. Die Beiträge der paar Länder, die tatsächlich noch 'old school' Auftritte hinlegen (heuer zB Monaco und Slowenien) wären ja wunderschön, aber wegen all der nervigen Popnümmerchen zappt man ständig weg und das ganze bricht auseinander. Ein unterträgliches Klingeltonwerbungsfeeling stellt sich ein. Es ist ein Jammer.
Ein zweiter Trend lässt sich feststellen: die Mischung Pop/Folk wird zusehends gerne genommen, auch Österreich hat heuer versucht, damit zu punkten. Dass das nicht gelungen ist, liegt meines Erachtens einzig an der signifikanten Insignifikanz unseres Heimatlandes. Ein außenpolitischer Segen, der sich jedoch beim Songcontest wie ein weißer Albatross um den Hals jeden Teilnehmers aus Österreich hängt. Dass die norwegische 'wir wollen Kiss sein'-Formation mit ihren unauthentischen Rockbrunftrufen sowie die synthetischen 'chicks on ice'-Tussis, die für die Schweiz sterilen und völlig unbedeutenden Girlie-Pop zu Gehör gebracht haben, ins Finale aufgestiegen sind, ist unter diesen Umständen nur ein Treppenwitz, der keinen mehr zum Lachen bringt.
Vom Grandprix de la Chanson d'Eurovision ist kurz vor dem 50. Geburtstag nur eine etwas verbitterte Grimasse geblieben.
Das Finale kann ich mir da wohl schenken. Ich bin ohnehin im Rabenhof. Da, wo Sperrstund völlig indiskutabel ist:
http://www.monochrom.at/udo77/

armes, vernachlässigtes blog, du *streichel*
du hast sicherlich den eindruck, dass ich mich vieel zu wenig um dich kümmere. aber was soll ich dich mit meinem alltag langweilen? dir erzählen, dass ich die kostüme für die zweite staffel von udo77 besorgen muss und den zickenkrieg schon mehr als deutlich vorausahne? eine der zwei damen will nämlich 3/4 ärmel, die andere kurze! oder soll ich dir davon berichten, wie ich mich neulich so echauffiert habe, dass ich einer szeneperson, die von sich behauptet, radikale feministin zu sein, es aber meines erachtens gar nicht ist, gaanz fest auf den oberarm drauf gehaut habe? sie ist dann aufgesprungen und gegangen, weil schlagen lässt sie sich nicht und schon gar nicht von einer faschistin, die auf kronenzeitungsniveau argumentiert(=ich!?)
oder möchtest du etwa hören, wie die tatsache, dass sich unser büro zusehends in ein zeltlager für obdachlose künstler verwandelt, meine besorgnis weckt?
siehst du, blog, das ist alles gar nicht weiter spannend und intellektuell verwertbar isses schon gar nicht. höchstens tragikomisch.
wie? du stehst auf tragikomisch?
i see.