February 2012
1 post
10 tags
southern cooking in vienna
A couple of my Austrian friends are coming over for a meal this evening and I have to brag about it because I’ve never done a meal like this before (my girlfriend is the cooking fiend in our house). Tonight’s plan:
Welcoming drinks in the form of Pepper Jacks (my own concoction I came up with at a party one time: Jack Daniels and Dr. Pepper)
Dinner consists of Southern Fried...
January 2012
4 posts
11 tags
This is why no one takes the train
As I said in my recent post, my father is coming to Europe. He’s going to be spending a few days in Vienna, but I would also like to go and visit him during his trip while he’s in Germany. Since I’m in Europe, I can actually take a look at what it costs to take the train because sometimes the train can be significantly cheaper than a plane - just depends on when you’re...
8 tags
My American shopping list
My dad is coming for a visit before he heads off on a business trip that has him travelling throughout Europe, so that means I get to stock up on all the stuff from home I normally bring back on my own. Whenever an American friend flies home, all his/her friends here in Vienna all hand over a shopping list of things they want. It’s tradition. I’ve not been home in a year now (today a...
5 tags
When I retire
I know exactly what I’m going to be doing in my old age and I can’t wait:
I want to be a dirty old man. I always remembered the laughs that old guys would get when they hit on chicks in their 20s. When you’re old, you can say whatever you want and it’s hilarious.
Go to retail stores and ask stupid questions. Not simply stupid questions, though - I want to get the...
Nokia Lumia 800 review
Now that I’ve gotten to play with the Lumia 800 for a few weeks, I think I’m qualified to make a few observations on not only the hardware itself but also Windows Phone 7 as a platform. Let’s talk about the hardware itself first, though.
When you open the box of your Lumia 800, sitting right on top is your device and when you take it in the hand for the first time, you’ll notice that while it...
November 2011
2 posts
Why are computer scientists so often so filthy?
This is something I’ve been struggling to understand since I’ve been studying here at the Vienna University of Technology. There seems to be amongst the most hardcore of the computer scientist students, namely those studying software engineering, a great disregard for personal hygiene. I mean, I know when you’re on a hardcore studying binge that certain things might be ignored...
4 tags
"Kürbiskernöl" or "The Black Oil of the Gods"
Kürbiskernöl (don’t worry if you can’t pronounce it, it took me a while when I was first learning German) is a culinary delight from Styria (Steiermark in German), a province in the southeast corner of this backward country I call home. I’m not going to go on and tell you what it is other than an oil made from a specific variety of pumpkin native to the region. If you want to...
August 2011
2 posts
10 tags
Presentation is key (K'Naan as an example)
One of the things that I love about going to concerts is that if you have a real artist playing in front of you, the art will always be presented differently each time. Presentation is key with all things in life - think about how products are presented nowadays. If you don’t do it right or get people excited, no one is going to care.
There’s a moment in my life from last year that I...
11 tags
Glenn Beck is a fool (and so are the Teabaggers)
Every now and again I like to look at Tea Party opinion leaders and have a laugh (and sometimes the occasional heart attack) at the idiocy that they typically spew but this time it’s getting a bit much. I’ve been working at a financial position for the past two months and have learned quite a bit how credit markets work. Whenever I see or hear someone talking about something they...
July 2011
1 post
3 tags
Austroversary No. 4
Today marks four years to the day since I’ve moved to Austria (my fourth “Austroversary” - thanks Ally!). What a ride it has been thus far. In the past four years I learned the German language after not having been able to speak a word of it, restarted my university career at the Vienna University of Technology and met a lot of new people along the way.
It’s impossible...
May 2011
3 posts
7 tags
us vs austria v: strip clubs
I’m not someone who goes to strip clubs very much (only went a few times in the United States), but they are a part of male culture around the world. In the United States an eighteenth birthday is often celebrated best with your first visit to the strip club. Now you may ask yourself, “Austria has strip clubs, too. How can dancing naked women/men be different from each...
6 tags
My thoughts on bin Laden's death
I was asked yesterday morning to write about my thoughts on bin Laden’s death. Originally I had never intended on doing so, I figured a short discourse about it on Twitter would have been enough, but after hearing that request I gave it some more thought.
How do I feel about bin Laden’s death? I personally do not know anyone that died in any of al Qaeda’s attacks, but I have not...
2 tags
A few weeks in stars (April 11 - May 2)
Seeing as how I haven’t been terribly active on Twitter for the past few weeks in all (only again in the past few days), I haven’t gotten to read a lot of tweets and therefore not a lot of favorites. The past few days have been good, though, so I thought I would just throw it all into one big pot for right now…
@digiom Vienna University of Technology has got… wtf?...
April 2011
3 posts
2 tags
A Week in Stars (Apr 4 - Apr 10)
@Modern_Redneck Atari 2600 finally hooked up to 55” TV. Those little tanks are awesome at this size.
@peshkira @AmericanAnDerTU lol… seriously.. I wish I had your problems ;)
@filos when the best actors are chosen by other actors, it’s called Oscars. When the best actors are chosen by the people, it’s called an election
@filos After the 5th pitch email in one month,I...
2 tags
A week in stars (Mar 28 - Apr 3)
This one is coming REALLY late, but I’ve been busy as hell with university for the past few days.
@filos A friend said “Wow, Chrome is now 11, Firefox only 4… Google is way faster!”… no comment.
@RolandGiersig Wann kommt endlich mal die Meldung: “110 Tote, Gott sei Dank nur Männer!” statt “110 Tote, darunter Frauen und Kinder” (When is there...
3 tags
Why the EU pisses me off
The EU really pisses me off sometimes. Not because they cater to big industry or because the system is so murky and few citizens of the EU actually understand its goings-on. No, that doesn’t bother me. Firstly, I’m not an EU citizen so I don’t really have much room to bitch and moan. Secondly, I don’t care. Third, the EU has done quite a number of great things that...
March 2011
13 posts
2 tags
A Week in Stars (Mar 21 - Mar 27)
@Paxocha Wouldn’t it be great if twitter had a roped off VIP section where celebrities could keep their boring tweets to themselves?
@designertalks You followed someone because you enjoyed their tweets but then unfollowed them when they didn’t follow you back because, you know, your ego.
@akpeach21 My coworker trying to tell me she got a gucci purse for $150 bitch please you can...
6 tags
Should public transport be free?
I had a brief discussion with my friends Florian and Martin on Twitter about whether or not public transport and such should be absolutely free. Unfortunately, given that 140 characters is just not enough to express one’s self (and I was in the middle of class), I decided to write this blog post about it. This way it’s also a bit more public and easier to respond to.
Should public...
3 tags
A Tribute to the Zangief Kid
After writing my original blog post, I’m absolutely astonished to see how viral this video has gone. Despite YouTube constantly trying to pull it down, the original video that sparked all of this hasn’t been allowed to die. Now Casey Heynes, aka The Zangief Kid, gives an interview on an Australian television show, A Current Affair, about the video and a brief view into his life.
...
2 tags
A week in stars (Mar 14 - Mar 20)
@iwona_w “Was macht denn Deine Mama da am Handy?” - “Wahrscheinlich schießt sie mit den Vögeln die Schweine ab.” - “Achso”. Gespräche 5jähriger. (“What is your mom doing with her cell phone?” - “Probably shooting pigs with birds.” - “Aha” Discussions between 5-year olds)
@cammyrobb Ahahaha I love my girl! I said “A wild...
3 tags
Austria - A Shopping Nightmare
Given that I’ve been in Austria for nearly four years, you would think I would have gotten used to all the little idiosyncrasies that come with living in a foreign country and have come to accept them by now. In most cases, you’d be correct. There’s only one that still bothers me and since I was in the United States recently, it’s a festering gripe that has returned to the...
6 tags
Let's put things in perspective
Tuesday night I was hanging out with a friend and his room mate, both of whom are physicists and both of whom work at the Atomic Institute of Vienna, which is part of the Vienna University of Technology. We got into talking about the situation in Japan and they explained to me how the reactors work, what exactly caused the cooling systems to fail and how they work, etc. Got into real detail about...
3 tags
Have you been bullied?
During my morning surfing I found this video that I promptly posted to Twitter and received the following response:
@minusfortynine @AmericanAnDerTU if you think this is funny you are truly sick. Please don’t ever ask anyone to watch something like this again.
This prompted me to do a little bit more surfing on the topic and see what the background to the fight was to try and confirm...
A Week in Stars (Mar 7 - Mar 13)
@Vliconaleash Morgen Frauentag und nächsten Montag Schnitzel und Blowjob Tag (Tomorrow Women’s Day and next Monday Schnitzel and BJ Day)
@HairyJew4Life Today I saw a sign for a suicide helpline on the back of a bus. Wouldn’t it be a lot more helpful if it was on the front?
@kattcalls “You never fave my tweets anymore” is the new “we never hang out.”
...
6 tags
English a friendlier language?
Is English a friendlier language? Are you instantly a more polite, laid back person when you speak English, regardless of whether it’s your native tongue or not? This is a question friends and I have pondered many times, especially in the company of non-native English speakers.
I hear it often that many people from Europe comment on how much nicer people from English-speaking countries...
3 tags
Gaddafi and Libya
I haven’t been following the Libyan events nearly as closely as I did the Egyptian protests and subsequent overthrow of Mubarak, but what I have been hearing from the news coming out of Libya is absolutely ghastly.
Here we have an elderly and clearly insane individual at the reigns (though reigns that are slipping from his fingers) of a country with a vast amount of oil wealth that can...
nearly 4 years now
This is going to be a free-written blog post. Not going to try and structure my thoughts very much, what you read is what I thought as I thought it. Here goes…
So in a little less than two hours as I start writing this it’s going to be my 24th birthday. Twenty four years old and still no degree. Not even an Associate’s (getting that finally sorted now, though). If I do a search...
A week in stars (Feb 28 - Mar 6)
@iwona_w Danke open office, Du Arsch, dass ich jetzt eine Stunde lang UMSONST an einer Präsentation gearbeitet habe. (Thanks Open Office, you ass, I’ve sat here for an hour for NOTHING working on a presentation!)
@nordlysjenta They would’t hire me. I’m not a nice person :P I’m Norwegian: I don’t smile, don’t ask, I just wave my axe around :D
@hdrr_at...
Back to blogging
After giving it some thought, I’ve realized that I need to do some more blogging. Not only these satirical and dry humor blog entries, but also some more serious things (but with as much tongue in cheek as possible). I need to get back to my blog. Writing is a very refreshing and also relaxing thing to do. I’ve begun writing a poem whenever I am sitting in the trains, always have my...
January 2011
5 posts
6 tags
TU Fashion
This is going to be a blog post that only people studying here in Vienna will really be able to appreciate, but anyone studying at a university with a strong group of science faculties should also be able to have a laugh…
So I read this blog entry from a Viennese lifestyle site and thought they didn’t address the TU Wien’s fashion style very well. Allow me to correct this grave...
3 tags
German words that we don't have in English
The German language is a fun thing. There are many words in this language that don’t have a very clear or exact meaning in English or words that describe entire actions or ideas that require whole sentences or phrases to accurately translate into English. Let’s have a look at a few of those…
kiffen: in German this verb means “to smoke weed”. How cool is that? There...
3 tags
germans butcher the english language
For those of you that don’t speak German, you’ll probably enjoy this more than the Germans, Swiss and Austrians that will read this. I think the natives will perhaps be a bit insulted. Whatever.
German-speaking natives have done a wonderful job of taking English words and then butchering them and twisting them to fit the German language. Makes for a helluva time to learn the language...
4 tags
A few of my favorite German-English phrases
There are quite a few lovely phrases in English and German that always make for a few laughs when doing literal (or near literal) translations. Here are a few that I can remember off the top of my head:
“I glaub i krieg ‘ne Krise” is one of my favorites of all. If you translate this almost word for word into English it comes out like this, “I think I’m having a...
3 tags
Some of my favorite movies
Had a conversation with someone recently about favorite movies, so I thought I would make a list while I listen to some good tunes.
Comedy
Ace Ventura: Pet Detective - I remember watching this when I was a kid, this movie turned me onto Jim Carrey and the rest of his movies and his comedy. The sequel is also really good. Classic ’90s comedy flick.
Airplane! - One of the classic oldie...
December 2010
2 posts
4 tags
Weighing in on WikiLeaks
I read this and this on Esquire.com about a week ago and it got me really thinking: is all this hoopla about WikiLeaks really necessary? Has it even been earned? Assange said he would redefine the history of the world with his release of all these diplomatic cables - but he hasn’t really done that, has he? The cables are being released but what history has really been rewritten? Certainly...
dreading my return to the states
It’s been almost a year and a half since I set my foot on US soil. In January it will have been a year and a half. The last time I was home was in the summer and a Georgia summer after being used to the beautiful weather in Europe is… well… unpleasant. Imagine going to a spa and going into a sauna to relax. In Georgia, an afternoon is not too different from many of the saunas one...
October 2010
2 posts
10 tags
Observations to University protests
Today there have been general assemblies at nearly all of the universities across Austria. The protests themselves are still continuing on throughout the day, but I want to write up some quick thoughts about what has happened up until this point with perhaps a focus specifically on the Vienna University of Technology (Technische Universität Wien) as that is where I study.
It’s been quite...
13 tags
us vs austria iv: the mobile world
Yesterday the largest mobile service provider in Austria, A1, announced that they will indeed be offering the iPhone 4 in the coming weeks. Now, up until this point, only two operators had the agreement with Apple to sell the iPhone and many thought that would be that - Apple doesn’t typically do things to harm those with whom they have exclusive agreements. The Austrian market seems to be...
September 2010
2 posts
12 tags
Forcing welfare recipients to work
In recent news in Austria there was a proposal from the Austrian People’s Party Vienna mayoral candidate Christine Marek that has stirred the pot quite a bit. What she would like is that people receiving welfare and have not found a job within six months of first receiving welfare will be put to work or their welfare payments will be reduced or ultimately taken away.
Given that Austria...
13 tags
us vs austria iii: eco awareness
One thing that I admire about Europeans is the general compassion that is expressed towards the environment and the attention that is paid to one’s own health in regards to what enters the body and where it comes from. Austrians in general are especially fanatics about this kind of thing and I have to say that I truly do like it.
Every time I visit the Austrian countryside and talk to...
August 2010
8 posts
15 tags
How To: Set up Fermi for HD audio and video on...
Earlier this week I got a new computer with the latest offerings from Nvidia, the GTX 460. I had originally planned on getting one of the new Radeon 5000 cards based almost exclusively on one factor: putting out sound and video via the HDMI port on the card. The older Nvidias (according to the material I was reading) didn’t have the ability to do this like ATi’s cards did. Now,...
us vs austria ii: customer service
I have to say that I absolutely love Austria. Not everything about it, but there are certainly a lot more pros than cons. Let’s talk about one of those cons today, though: customer service.
Let me first start by apologizing. There really is no way to be nice about this subject matter. Austrians have no concept of the idea of customer service, especially when it comes to customer service...
24 tags
Flooding in Pakistan
I woke up this morning and was watching the news as I always do and I finally hear some of the latest headlines regarding the floods covering a fifth of Pakistan (currently an area the size of Italy has been affected, 20 million homeless and 1500 dead). Now, I am no great fan of the government of Pakistan, especially of the ISI and their ever-continuing support for the Taliban in Afghanistan...
7 tags
How to Insert Tweet Button into Tumblr
So the Tweet Button that Twitter released yesterday is a pretty neat little toy. It is an absolute cinch to create yourself, but the problem that people always have is they don’t know how to insert the code themselves. Now, I’ve dabbled in HTML a little bit but I am by no means a master of it, I can’t code it myself, but I can read it and understand it (little tools like Firebug...
US vs Austria I: Rednecks
(image courtesy of Rat Hunter)
This is going to be a running series on my blog. The first one is going to be about rednecks.
I had this topic suggested to me by Matthias a few days ago. I had another topic already in my head but unfortunately forgot it and needed some quick inspiration (this one is already funnier than what I had in my head).
In the United States I spent about 13 years living...
7 tags
Jolicloud 1.0: Add a 3G connection
Here’s a short guide on how to add a 3G connection to your Jolicloud computer. I’ll be using the Huawei E182e, but you can use any modem that you have lying around.
Step 1: Insert your 3G modem of choice. (Be sure to remember what USB port you’ll be using, because often when you switch USB ports, the modem won’t be recognized unless you stick with the same port all the...
5 tags
Jolicloud 1.0 Review - Part 2
Battery life. It’s the most important part of any mobile experience. You don’t want to be constantly afraid that your battery won’t last through the day or the time that you need it to last. That’s why any operating system, regardless of whether or not it’s on a phone, a laptop or even a GPS device, should always be able to squeeze the most out of that most sacred of...
Jolicloud 1.0 Review - Part 1
I’ve been using Jolicloud for almost exactly a year now. I first came across this wonderful little OS while browsing for a cheap, instant-on type OS. There were the few that were loved by the hardcore Linux fans on the various netbook forums (Puppy and its variations, Xandros, Ubuntu Netbook Remix, etc.). The problem with all of those was that they either required a lot of configuring to...
July 2010
4 posts
3 tags
Twimbow - Color your thoughts
A couple of days ago I finally got my invite to become a pre-alpha tester for the new Twitter web client, Twimbow. It looks a lot like TweetDeck with the three customizable columns, but the best part about it is that it’s a web app and thus lacks the bloat that TweetDeck brings to the table. Actually, that isn’t the best part about Twimbow. There are lots of great features that...
6 tags
USA vs Europe
Road trips. I love them. They are one of the most gratifying things to do, whether with friends or as a lone wolf. They’re also one of things that I miss the most here in Europe. Certainly, the various highways in Europe are some of the best and you can drive 130 km/h (in the USA, you can hit at the most around 115 km/h). Road trips in Europe, however, lack the same emotion that...