Articles by darph

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Freebies

Ich habe einen Gutschein für 1 (in Worten: Einen) Song aus dem iTunes-Store im Wert von € 0,99 erhalten. 

Welchen Song soll ich mir nun davon kaufen? (Beziehungsweise welche Lizenz, das urheberrechtlich geschützte Werk auf bis zu drei Abspielgeräten abspielen zu dürfen, das aber auch nur, bis irgendwann der Schlüsselserver sagt “nöö, ich mag nicht mehr”?)

… as we know it and I feel fine.

Tomorrow the Large Hadron Collider will go online and possibly destroy Earth and everything in its vicinity one way or another.

To put it in clear terms: Tonight is probably your last chance of getting laid. Have fun.

If it were to the discretion of a renown but here not named German retail chain, the Advent season began exactly yesterday.

Had to drag the One away from the cookie-stand by force as we were standing in front of them in light summer clothing.

I guess next week they will stock chocolate easter bunnies. Just in case.

Hacked

You might get a message that my site might have been hacked. 

Yes, it has been. 

The problem is a general vulnerability on the side of my hoster, who has several servers affected and seems unable to fix this. Until they get rid of them pests or I find a new hoster (suggestions?), I will have to clean the index files periodically. Meanwhile I can only ask you to live with the warning. And to get a Mac to prevent unwanted infection. 

Thanks for you patience.

Anonymity

If you call me and have your phone number suppressed, so that I am not able to identify the caller, then chances are that I am not picking up.

If you call me, then I must assume that you call me for one of three reasons.

You call me to discuss a private matter. In that case you most likely know me personally and there is no point in shadowing your identity prior to me accepting your request for conversation.

Maybe you call me for matters business-related. How would you feel if someone wanted to talk to you about topics that, in one direction or the other, will result in the transfer of money, but does not want to disclose his identity to you? Does that sound credible to you? 

Both possibilities give you no reason to not disclose your caller-id. Therefore I must assume that your call has to do with either me winning something (highly unlikely) or you wanting to sell something to me (your succeeding in which is also highly unlikely) or you simply spamming me. 

If you want to talk to me, tell me who you are. Yes, I understand you desire for general anonymity, but aren’t you taking things a bit too far? If you actually have to call someonewho must not know who you are or what you phone-number is (and is certainly not me), then contact you carrier. He will explain to you the codes with which you can turn this feature on on a call-by-call basis. 

So whoever you are, who is trying to call me the past few days, please tell me who you are before me picking up. This also significantly increases the chance of me calling you back.

Thank you.

Breakfast

Thumbnail of the image titled Breakfast

That it had been a stupid idea to visit the Café Münchner Freiheit at a time such late, should’ve, so I thought to my self not long after we arrived at aforementioned establishment, been obvious. Why did I even come here *) I thought to my self, which devil rode me, to sit down here, I asked myself, as we stood near the door, not quite inside yet but with one look could come to the only valid conclusion: That it made absolutely no sense to visit the Café Münchner Freiheit on a Sunday.

It is impossible, I thought to myself, while we were standing uselessly near the door overlooking the patio and watched the people there, to stay here for as long as ten seconds, the whole breakfastism destroys everything, how it destroys everything every Sunday, I thought to myself and watched, for the sake of completeness, inside, where it lead to the toilets and where there were only few tables, which, as expected, were also occupied by breakfasters, like, according to my conclusions, all the Cafés in town were occupied by breakfasters. The breakfaster, I thought to myself, while I evaded a skinny girl that slid past me with a huge tablet, is the enemy himself and Sundays it is always breakfast-time, at least until 2 p.m., as is in the Café Münchner Freiheit, even though it calls itself a pastry shop, which in this case doesn’t really help either, I thought to myself.

A confectionary that also serves breakfast should not be allowed to call itself a Café, I thought to myself, while we still uselessly stood near the entrance and did feel not only a bit stupid doing that, it is dishonorable for the bakers in those so-called pastry shops, if they even employ real bakers, to deal with the stacking of cheese and cold-cuts on plates. And it’s terrible for the guys behind the counter, who are worn out by those breakfasters, that they don’t even recognize their friends and co-workers, should they by chance stand near the entrance not being able to help themselves, I thought to myself. It should be the duty and moral liability of any bakery-owner, even if they call themselves Andreas and think they have to make any Pound possible, I thought to myself, to keep those bakeries, even if they are also Cafés, which isn’t that bad itself, coffee is drunk any time of the day, that at least makes sense somehow, I thought to myself, free of those breakfasters since those are, I thought, the worst and most unbearable people of all, I thought, while we still stood near the entrance like ordered and not delivered, not wanting to give any ground to the breakfasters who occupied all the chairs and tables, who we didn’t to grant the triumph of banishing us from the Café Münchner Freiheit. It is no wonder, I thought to myself, that the waiters don’t even recognize a new customer to help him find a free table and some leisure time, if at the same time they have to cope with this riff-raff of breakfasters, the way it roams freely here.

Why, for example, is Orange Juice, a protected term, so that only juice made from one hundred percent oranges may be called Orange Juice, I thought to myself while slowly our legs began to feel heavy from all the standing near the entrance, while the other stuff, depending on contents, must be called orange nectar or fruit juice drink with orange flavour, but the term Pastry Shop is not protected, even though the term Pastry Shop deserves much more protection than the term Orange Juice, I thought to myself, especially from those breakfasters the term Pastry Shop need protection, but not the term Orange Juice, that wouldn’t make any sense, my mind mumbled more and more meaningless though the cloud of yesterday’s beer-usage, while we still looked onto the patio where nobody even made as much as a move to free a complete table, which would’ve been the only feasible solution besides flight, had that not been connected to capitulation and ensuing hunger. 

In our desperation we were almost willing to join some partly occupied table, as we did on other days, but of course not at a table where someone had breakfast, which, according to my experience is not only a completely absurd but also uncomfortably space-consuming activity, which, I just noticed again, standing near the entrance, seems to be the single purpose in the life of a breakfaster, the blossom how they devotionally move around little plates, dribble slices of cold-cuts, behead boiled eggs, folded and put salad decorations that were never meant for eating into their mouths, cut off cheese crust and opened sweet rolls in slow-motion, they didn’t even eat senselessness, which in and of itself was terrible enough, they followed a collective ritual which only purpose seemed to be, I was certain, to prevent us from visiting the Café Münchner Freiheit.

They are maniacs, I thought to myself enraged, while we were, waiting for a wonder to happen, stood near the entrance in the middle of here and yonder, harassed by people that rubbed against us like sexually foodless, even though we took special care to leave enough room between us and the next obstacle, for that even the biggest gross-motor-unskilled found a space to pass us friction-free. Breakfast, even the word itself is to be hated, if you think about it, I thought to myself, what is that even supposed to mean, breakfast, breakfast, a fast break, brobably invented by some peasants, I thought, while we again and again had to shift our position to evade the breakfasters that constantly sat down, stood up, on their way from nowhere to nowhere to the restrooms and back or wherever, but never leaving the Café, which would’ve been the only acceptable action, that harassed us, some peasants, I thought, who even before sunrise put something pinned on a knife into their mouths, before they go out spank their servants, I thought. But even worse and more unsophisticated than the term breakfast are the breakfasters, I wasn’t quite ready to cool down while waiting to be recognized, which began to become awkward. Breakfasters are People too, I made the concession, but why do they have to carry their awful hobby without shame into the public, I thought, hardly able to control my rage, they are like nudists or swingers or whatever, I thought to myself, they lift fatty fingers and say things like “can I have another egg?” or “didn’t I order a caffè latte?” and they don’t even realize how awful it all is. (Sven Regener, Herr Lehmann. Ein Roman. München 2003)

*) Of course it wasn’t that bad at the Café Münchner Freiheit. While being full, we easily found a free table in the shadow and had a nice and while not cheap, not too expensive breakfast.

Certainly worth visiting again.

Vokuhila

Dear Munich’s Youth,

Mullets already looked shitty in the eighties (go ask your parents), and they sure as hell haven’t improved since then. So, please, don’t put them on your head.

 

On Friendship

You know who your real buddies are when you are foolishly trying to move a mattress that has the dimensions and weight of the Juan de Fuca plate by manpower only and are in desperate and immediate need of a motorized vehicle at 9:30 p.m.

Or when you are moving and more than fourteen helpful hand move the complete interior of a luxurious 3-room-apartment (and then some; I really need to start throwing things away)  on a hot July Saturday from one part of the town to the other in a whiff.

Or when you realize you can’t pay that luxurious rent and are invited to „just move in, why don’t you?“.

That’s when you know who your friends are. Thanks a lot, guys!

Ich kann nur mutmaßen, daß damit der Scheidplatz gemeint war, war dies doch die nächste Haltestelle. Wie sich das dem Ortsunkundigen erschließen soll, bleibt mir ein Rätsel.

Bitte bitte, liebe MVV, tauscht die alten U-Bahnen aus oder rüstet sie wenigstens mit der Sprecherin aus den neuen C-Zügen aus!

Durchsatz

Einer ziemlich komplizierten Umrechnungsaktion war es geschuldet, daß die Eine mir einen Betrag von rund 50 Euro ebendiestat, nämlich schuldete. Das Geld gab sie mir Sonntag abend in bar. Sie meinte dann noch “Das reicht für die nächsten anderthalb Wochen (die wir in München verweilen werden, Anm. v. mir), nicht wahr?” 

Vorhin (es ist jetzt Dienstag) habe ich online meinen Kontostand geprüft, um zu sehen, ob ich die Einkäufe mit der EC-Karte zahlen kann …  ;(

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