Daniel's blog

People are getting pretty crazy about soccer here in Berlin. There are almost no bars left that do not have a TV set standing around. Even if Germany doesn't play there are crowds of people in those places watching the games. Tonight I strolled around the area where I live and took some photos (view them here). What makes this all even stranger is the sudden explosion of german flags - something unseen until a few weeks ago, but by now every second car and every third flat displays one. Pretty weird. I thought Germany had gotten over this patriotism thing...

In totally different news, I'm making good progress on updateing the structure/navigation of this site, a new version will be online soon.

And, last but not least, a film-tip: In the last few days I watched a lot of woody allen movies - If you haven't seen it yet, definitly watch "Hollywood Ending", im my humble opinion his best movie to date, absolutely hillarious.

Maybe you have heard the quote, maybe you haven't. Well, here is another example of how scary our world really is. Gives me the creeps. And while I'm at it: Du bist Deutschland. Also scary, in a different way. And as if that wasn't enough, the cicero magazine recently had a story about the new friendship between the bush clan and the clinton clan - reminds me of this piece in the brilliant "Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy" (pretext: a spaceship crashes into Harrods, opens its hatchway and a robot emerges)

“I come in peace,” it said, adding after a long moment of further grinding, “take me to your Lizard.”

(Ford, the well-traveled space-adventurer then explains to Arthur, the human:)

…”It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see…”

“You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?”

“No,” said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, “nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people.”

“Odd,” said Arthur, “I though you said it was a democracy.”

“I did,” said Ford. “It is.”

“So,” said Arthur, hoping he wasn’t sounding ridiculously obtuse, “why don’t the people get rid of the lizards?”

“It honestly doesn’t occur to them,” said Ford. “They’ve all got the vote so they all pretty much assume that the government they’ve voted in more or less approximates to the government they want.”

“You mean they actually vote for the lizards?”

“Oh yes,” said Ford with a shrug, “of course.”

“But,” said Arthur, going for the big one again, “why?”

“Because if they didn’t vote for a lizard,” said Ford, “the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?”

“What?”

“I said,” said Ford, with an increasing air of urgency creeping into his voice, “have you got any gin?”

“I’ll look. Tell me about the lizards.”

Ford shrugged again.

“Some people say that the lizards are the best thing that ever happened to them,” he said. “They’re completely wrong of course, completely and utterly wrong, but someone’s got to say it.”

 (Kudos to CraigsirK for typing the passage (for use in this post) )

Life is good again! My eye infection is gone and my new, shine, sexy IBM/Lenovo X41 arrived - a convertible laptop (both laptop and tablet pc). I can work outside, use it as a notebook (as in, a bunch of paper sheets one draws and writes on) and use a whole bunch of new, weird applications. Among other uses its great to use it for drawing (I will never draw on paper again - how can anyone work without layers?). If you are considering buying a laptop in the near future, definitily try this sweety.

I also started redesigning this website a little, especially in regard to the structure of the site. I hope to put it online within the next two months. 

A new script is also in the works. The working title is "Die Glücksmaschine" (the happiness machine). The story is about an old man suffering from parkinson who gets an operation that works a little too well - it makes him manic. The film is about the consequences this has on his relationship as well as the dilemma his doctors are faced with - should they get rid of the sideeffects, even if the patient likes them?

Teresa just finished editing the first batch of photos we took at Birigts and Hans' wedding,  photos from the evening will follow in a few days. If you want printed photographs please contact us. You can find our photos here (taken by Teresa Marenzi and myself, Daniel Bachler). The photos by Goswin Rothenthal can be found here.

If you are interested in a choice selection of our photographs or consider to hire us, please take a look at iconoclash.org .

By now I think almost every internet user knows wikipedia, quite possibly the most useful website there is. I have recently started to look into how I can contribute to this amazing collection of human knowledge, and I was surprised about how difficult this is - there are simply so many articles that are better already than I could ever hope to make them. However, it seems that photographs are still much needed in certain areas, and this is where I started contributing today. My first contribution to wikipedia: (photo, article it appears in).

Consider contributing to wikipedia, it feels really good!