Howard’s Blog

Put on your headphones(doesn’t work with speakers) and listen this link. Wild. Link found here.

Es ist mal wieder so weit – mein Lieblingsseite des Jahres..
It’s that time of year again – my favorite post of the year is up

The day before yesterday my Maxtor external USB drive showed only about a quarter of my mp3 files. Fortunately, after running a 2 hour scan on it, I was able to recover the rest of my files. Nothing too important, mind you, just mp3 files. I bought the drive as a backup for my pc at the time, but it soon got converted to a media storage unit. Anyway, I had lots of room on my pc’s hard drive, so I decided to copy the mp3 files to my pc, just in case. Today, as fate would have it, my pc’s hard drive died an sudden, ugly death. While I was busy voiding the warranty by opening up the box, I noticed 2 things: first, the new SATA hard drives have the stupidest connectors. Ever. Second, the people who put the pc together obviously didn’t read the clear notice on the hard drive, warning to use either the new SATA power supply, or the legacy power supply, but not both, otherwise the hard drive could be damaged. Both power supplies were hooked up. Boy would I ever give them hell…if I hadn’t voided the warranty. Sigh. I just can’t help myself sometimes…gotta open that box….

Einfach um M. zu ärgern werde ich schon wieder einen englischen Eintrag schreiben. Oder ich bin faul.
Nothing new in the rest of the world, but the good ol’ USA is always ready to help with excitement.

First, I’m thrilled to report, Al Qaeda’s number 2 man, Ayman al-Zawahiri, has officially become ‘the Man we will be killing this year’. You may remember that in 2005, it was the #3 terrorist that had to deal with being exterminated every week or so. I don’t have much sympathy for terrorists, but I was starting to feel a bit bad for number 3, who despite having his reported death constantly in the headlines, never actually got consistantly identified. So here’s to killing #2. May it happen often.

Today the news reports that 4 terrorists were killed in the first killing of #2. I can just picture the conversation that must have taken place, as the CIA discussed how many ‘normal terrorists’ they would have to report as having been killed to minimize the bad press from a) not actually killing #2 – because he wasn’t there, and b) murdering 18 innocent men, women and children in the process. I guess four sounds about right.

Other than that, the biggest news of the year so far is James Frey’s book, ‘A Million Little Pieces’, a true story about a hardened criminal drug addict who made his way back from the brink on his own. Well, true except for the criminal part. Or the drug addict part. Or making it back from the brink.
Oprah Winfrey has been hyping the book as inspirational for those who find themselves in a similar position. I guess she means con-artists… dunno for sure tho. The truth about the book was revealed on ‘the Smoking Gun‘, a website showing mugshots and arrest warrants of celebrities. They became a bit suspicious when they could find neither for Mr. Frey, who claimed to have assaulted a police officer and spent 3 months in jail for it(among many other offenses).

Depite the revelations, Oprah has been resolute in her support for Frey, stating on Larry King that his book should be in a ‘new category’. I got a categorie for ya Oprah, how about we call it ‘bullshit‘…

“We must respect the other fellow’s religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.”

H. L. Mencken

ok, it’s been 10 days already since the new year, so it’s not that big of a deal that I’ve already had my first ’senior moment’* of 2006. Searching frantically in the elevator for my keys with the hand they’re not in.

*the phrase ’senior moment’ stolen without permission from my mother

Für all diejenigen die gedacht haben, Bode Miller wisse vielleicht mehr über Sportmedizin als der durchschnittliche Skifan als er behauptete Blutdoping sei ungefährlich – hab keine Sorgen, er ist in der Tat ein Trottel. Seine letzten Äußerungen, dass besoffen Skifahren nicht leicht ist(wer hätte es gedacht??), und er sei das eine oder andere Mal betrunken ins Rennen gegangen lassen kein Zweifel mehr daran – oder doch? Am Anfang des Jahrs hat er gesagt, er wolle eigentlich nicht mehr fahren, hätte aber Verpflichtungen bei seinen Sponsoren. Mir scheint es ein durchaus viel versprechende Taktik zu sein, wenn er sie jetzt loswerden will. Es gibt nur ein Haken: seine Fans, die ein Bisschen weniger Talent haben, doch genauso viel trinken, werden jetzt ein Vorbild haben für ihre besoffenen Streckenfahrt.
Ich bin sicherlich nicht der Typ der meint dass alle Berühmtheiten ein Vorbild in ihrem Privatleben sein müssen, aber öffentliche Angeberei über alkoholisiertes Skifahren ist einfach dumm.

In Amerika, mein Lieblingswahnsinniger, Pfarrer Pat Roberts, gibt wieder was von sich. Der Schlaganfall von Ariel Sharon sei Gottes Rache für die Zerteilung Israels. Wenn man an seine Zitaten aus den letzten Monaten denkt, z.B., dass die Ortschaft Dover nicht mehr beten darf, wenn ihnen was Fürchterliches passiert, eben weil sie ‚Intelligent Design’ aus der Wissenschaftsklasse gestrichen haben…. Nun ja… dürfte ich seine Grabinschrift komponieren? So was wie ‚Hopsala’, nehme ich an…

Und die EU mischt sich wieder in unserem Leben ein – diesmal nehme ich’s persönlich, weil es ums Golfen geht. Ab 2007 darf kein ‚Männer’ Golfclub mehr existieren – das stört mich natürlich nicht, ich kenne kein Solches Golfclub, aber es darf auch keine Frauen ‚Teeboxen’ mehr geben. HÄH? Golf ist bitte der fairste Sport der Welt. Frauenabschläge existieren weil Frauen meist(mit der möglichen Ausnahme unsere Bundesministerin für auswärtige Angelegenheiten) etwas kleiner sind als Männer. Dadurch entsteht weniger Schwunggeschwindigkeit. Das bedeutete kürzeren Abschlägen. Teeboxen die etwas weiter nach vorne gesetzt sind dienen dazu, diesen Nachteil auszugleichen. Aber bitte sehr.

Anyone who thought Bode Miller might know more about sports medicine than the average ski fan after his now infamous statements suggesting that blood doping might actually be healthy for professional skiers can rest assured – he’s an idiot. His most recent interview, where he admitted racing drunk (and saying it wasn’t easy, well duh) – and wouldn’t exclude the possibility of doing it again, proves it once and for all – or does it? At the first of the year I remember him saying something to the effect that he didn’t really want to race anymore, but had commitments to sponsors. Well unless his sponsors are beer companies, this seems to be an effective tactic to get out of those commitments. There’s just one catch: all of his fans, who aren’t quite as talented, but like to drink just as much, now have a role model.
I’m not one of those people who think that celebrities have to behave themselves all the time, just because of their influence on their fans, but public bragging about skiing drunk takes it a bit too far.

In the states, everyone’s favourite insane preacher, Pat Roberts, makes headlines again by claiming the Ariel Sharon’s stroke is God’s punishment for splitting up Israel. Add this to his comments about the city of Dover – that they better not pray if something bad happens, because they voted God out of their town when they booted the ‘Intelligent Design’ idiots out of science class – and well, please let me write his gravestone epitaph.. something like ‘oops’, I imagine….

And once again, the EU is interfering in our lives here. This time it’s personal though. This time it’s golf. Beginning 2007, ‘Men Only’ Golf courses are banned. This doesn’t bother me – I don’t even know of any clubs that are that stupid. The second change is that there will be no more ladies tees. Huh??? Golf is the fairest sport in the world. Ladies tees exist because women (with the possible exception of our foreign minister) tend to be smaller than men. They tend to have shorter arms, and that results in less clubface speed. That means shorter drives. Ladies tees balance this out. But hey, fine by me…

Regen in Kanada, Schnee in Wien. Daschau
Ich habe zwei sehr schöne Wochen in Nova Scotia verbracht, und bis auf einen Neffen – der auf einem Kreuzfahrtschiff unterwegs nach Antarktika war – hat sich die ganze Familie mitten in der Einöde versammelt. Ein ganz besonderes danke schön an M und D, die mir bei der Geschenksuche ihren guten Geschmack geliehen haben. Es hat bis Weihnachten geschneit aber danach nur geregnet – wie man auf den Fotos sehen kann.
Auf der Reise dorthin hat mich Sharon aus den Bahamas zum Frühstuck in Heathrow eingeladen, einfach so. Es gibt tatsächlich nette Menschen noch . Auf der Rückreise bin ich über den Sohn des Wookies im Frankfurt Flughafen gestolpert, wo wir Poker mit seiner Tante gespielt haben. Oiso ein echter ‚Flughafen Begegnung’ Urlaub.
Gestern habe ich das Neujahr mit sehr netten Leuten in der Bierbörse gegrüßt und als krönender Abschluss 3 Flaschen Wein, eine Flasche Rum, und ca. 100 Euro in Gutscheinen bei der Verlosung gewonnen. Und auch ganz nette Menschen kennengelernt, davon hat mich eine nachhause gebracht als meine Taxi Chancen eher gering ausgeschaut haben. Ganz nett.
Mein Plan war gestern Fortzugehen, und mich ermüden so dass mein Jetlag nicht so schlimm sein würde – sonst wäre ich bestimmt erst gegen 04:00 müde geworden. Irgendwie glaube ich nicht, dass der Plan gut durchdacht war, da ich erst gegen halb fünf in der früh wieder zuhause war…
Rain in Canada, Snow in Vienna, go figure.
Just got back from 2 wonderful weeks in the great white north, where the entire family – with the exception of one nephew, who was Antarctica-bound on a cruise ship – had gathered in the middle of nowhere for a family Christmas. Very special thanks go out to M and D, who loaned me their good taste to help me out with Christmas shopping. It snowed right until Christmas day, and started raining after Christmas, as you can see from the last couple of pictures.
On the way to Canada a lady from the Bahamas treated me to breakfast in Heathrow. Just like that. And I had stopped believing in random acts of kindness. On the trip back I bumped into the wookie’s son and his aunt in the Frankfurt airport, where we played poker while waiting for our planes. It was a real ‘Airport encounter’ vacation…
I decided yesterday that going out for new years would be a good way to start battling the jetlag – otherwise I probably wouldn’t get to sleep until 4 in the morning. The plan would probably have worked if I had actually made it back home before 4:30 am, which I didn’t. I did have a good time though, and won 3 bottles of wine, a bottle of rum, and gift certificates adding up to about 100 euros in a lottery. I also met some nice people; one of whom drove me home after my chances of getting a taxi started looking very slim. Very nice indeed.