Press reviews on Orhan Pamuk after winning the Peace Price 2005

After Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk was awarded with the German Peace Price on Saturday during Frankfurt Book Fair this was widely covered in German media, of course in Der SPIEGEL. Thanks to their new content policy the interview is also available in English, Orhan Pamuk and the Turkish Paradox.

While Turkish Press.com stresses his comment to the Turkish EU bid, BBC NEWS points out that Pamuk referred to the Armenians killed during WWI once again.

I'm already looking forward for christmas as I'm planning to read his latest epos "Kar" (Snow) then - maybe in a lonely village in Lower Saxony ;-)

RPG to waste your time ;-)

I couldn't resist when I saw this D&D-personality test on Shrike's page, and hey - a druid, how interesting!

Druid 25% Combativeness, 60% Sneakiness, 58% Intellect, 52% Spirituality

Sneaky, cunning, and spiritual: You are a Druid! Druids work with nature to cast their spells and favor balance over extremes. They're shapeshifters, capable of taking the forms of natural creatures. While they don't always deal well with people, they do have animal companions to come to their aid. You are probably intelligent, spiritual, and more than a little deceptive. Fortunately, your lack of violent tendencies means you are also likely to be level-headed.

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 5% on Combativeness You scored higher than 86% on Sneakiness You scored higher than 20% on Intellect You scored higher than 62% on Spirituality

Link: The RPG Class Test written by MFlowers on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

The Evil Overlord List

If I ever became an evil over... over... over... Damn! Where the fuck is the feminine equivalent of "evil overlord"? Ok., evilness is male. I'm fine with it. But here's the best mistakes out of all those Star Wars and other Science Fiction movies and what to learn about: Peter's Evil Overlord List. And, yes I know that it's quite old in total, but updated so far. (Thanks to Lars)

Shok Muzik (German)

Eine der nettesten Begebenheiten der ansonsten vollkommen verkorksten VICE Launch Party vor 3 Monaten in Berlin war die Bekanntschaft mit dem Shok Muzik Projekt in Berlin Wedding. Inzwischen auch schon vor einem Monat ist Der Spiegel darauf aufmerksam geworden, der Artikel ist ein bisserl sehr "ey, Ghetto", aber sonst ganz nett. Leider habe ich ihn auch eben erst gefunden.

The handiest Finnish-to-English translator on the net

For - let's say, a couple of people, Jens Johansson is only known as the ingenious keyboarder of the heavy metal band Stratovarius. If I got him right he "only" programmed this handy little translation tool called Finx for the non-finnish members and crew of the band. It helped me a lot recently so I'm crediting it here. Thanx, pal!

8 years ago survey

I'd like to free this MeMe from Myspace.com. Let's see what's changed and what stayed:

8 years ago...

How old were you?
Sweet 22

What grade were you in?
My second year at University, still undergrade

Where did you go to school?
University of Hamburg (Germany)

Where did you work?
I was still contributing articles to "General-Anzeiger für Schaumburg", a local newspaper. Also I was head of the student's government back then, in the middle of a struggling strike.

Where did you live?
Hamburg

How was your hair style?
long hair in my natural dark brown, mostly in a braid.
Posh is sth. else...

Did you wear braces?
No, never

Did you wear contacts?
Same about that, no

Did you wear glasses?
Nope

Who was your best friend?
Bianca (thanx for visiting me regularly in that madhouse called AStA and taking me out for lunch!)

Who was your boyfriend/girlfriend?
... already finished off and lonely again. No, not lonely, busy.

Who was your celebrity crush?
Was it my Dave Gahan period? The Mike Patton aera? Or some Swedish Death Metal long-haired guy? My taste was changing around that time...

Who was your regular-person crush?
I'm afraid I was already over Marc (if you read this: You knew it before, we even talked about it, didn't we?!), so it has whether been Knud or Oli back in that days

Were you a virgin?
What's the difference between virginity and innocence?

How many piercings did you have?
None

How many tattoos did you have?
None

What was your favorite band?
Entombed, Hellacopters, Gluecifer, Dackelblut

What was your biggest fear?
Being left alone in the University over night, beaten in a battle of words in the student's parliament, beeing on the "wrong side". Stuff I can't really describe in English. Very real at that time.

Had you smoked a cigarette yet?
Sure thing. But miraculously I never got it what it was so special about

Had you gotten drunk or high yet?
Both. What a question???

Had you driven yet?
Yes, yes. Tractor driving license for 6 years, car license for 4 years

If so what car(s) did you use?
At that time I still had my "Unimog sport" called VW Golf II in forest green. Even though I had absolutely no use for it in the city and it was much too dangerous already to drive long distances with it.

Which of your pets were still alive?
Oscar and Lady are both still alive and well, but I wouldn't call neither a big shepherd nor a horse a pet. Had to sell Lady later

Which members of your family were still alive?
As my beloved granny died just last year...

Which members of your family were not born yet?
Little cute Frederik, my nephew and godson.

Did you know the person who posted this right before you?
Yes, thanks to Debbie Hell for posting on the Myspace bulletin.

(While I'm compiling this I'm listening/watching Tunespoon.de

Harvest Festival

There's two versions of celebrating the "Harvest Festival" in Northern Germany, precisely in Lower Saxony. One of them is the very common way every encyclopedia might show you - in churches they celebrate the "Harvest Festival" on the sunday after St. Michael's day - which was sunday a week ago.

But on the countryside in the villages they celebrate Harvest festivals all from late July to early September - when the weather is right that you can party hard outside, of course. Why I do mention it NOW that the weather turns to shitty outside? Because I just uploaded my pics of the "Erntefest" in Rehren A/R (that's on the countryside where I grew up - sorry, no English description of that) on Flickr. If you ever want to experience Germany a different way, let yourself be invited by a friend/relative/pal to join an "Erntefest". First of all - the people will be drunk. In any scale from mellow drunkeness to totally pissed. That's why it could be easy to find friends or foes without being able to tell one from another. So better be guided by an old friend or close pal. Second: The people will be drunk. That could be a reason for great fun as well as heavy embarassement. Could be a reason why your friend never invited you to his annual local Erntefest by now.

You can't tell the difference between Oktoberfest and Erntefest by now? First of all, in a local Erntefest there's lots of layers of culture and tradition to discover, which would be hard to find in a big thing like Oktoberfest. I think even at other big fun fairs like Schützenfest Hannover or Brokser Markt that would be easier than in Munich. Secondly: You'll have a reliable privat accomodation when for sure the local hotels have temporarily closed for their once-in-a-season holiday. Everyone wants to party sometime. But if you really wanna discover something typical (Northern) German, than go there. No tourist did before, I'm sure!

Questions not Answered and not directly asked

Funny, how many people find to my blog with questions I never really answered - even though I could. Well, those who brought me the most traffic over the last weeks I can't answer:

• I don't know where you can get the "I do all my own stunts" T-Shirt. Holger got it in exchange by a musician, I think you have to shop for it either in LA or NY in the US.
• I don't know either where you can get the Harry Potter/Harry Porno shirt. Warrel Dane wore it on that pic. He told me that it's out of print for obvious license reasons. You'll maybe check T-Shirt Hell for updates or re-stock.
• And, funny enough, I got some hits for people searching for dressage riding lessons in Hamburg. I think it should be possible to find one... A friend of mine had very good experiences with the staff at Gröhnwohldhof, but the last time we were talking Donnerhall was still alive, so that's not current news...

Children Of Bodom - "In Your Face"

Katapult Filmproduktion uploaded a short edit of "In Your Face" on the menu of video director Sandra Marschner if you haven't seen it by now. Ask your music television why.

Du bist Deutschland (german)

Du bist die WM
Originally uploaded by Bronko.

... und frage nicht, warum du dazu alle deine Daten rausrücken musstest. Bisher mein Favorit in der "Du bist Deutschland"-Satire in der deutschen Blogosphere. Und auf flickr.

I, Robot...

So that's what I look like in the cyber-age:

Found via Dragon/Kolibri

my first flickr-pic

2girls
Originally uploaded by La Laetti.

Photo-Mania: I'm at flickr now, too!

Well, I still have several photo sections on my old page. But I was always looking for a possibility to have a nice and easy to handle photo bucket. While I don't like Photobucket. While I was having flickR in my Rss-Feeds for almost 6 month. But it's never too late, and now I have my own public picture page to share photos too big to be sent by email - or too popular too keep them for my own. Stay curious!

ps: What I like best at flickr is the tagging. I'm still finding a way to get a patch for blogger to be able to categorize my entrys. As I'm still waiting for it (and as I'm way too lazy for moving my whole blog on a different service, too!) now I at least have a cool system of categorizing my pics...