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Summer Chill

I've really been digging Dave's Lounge for the last few weeks. It's a more-or-less weekly podcast that features 20-30 minutes of chillout, downtempo and mellow trip-hop music. Like all music podcasts that give you a selection of music, the hit rate is never going to be 100-percent, but this is the only podcast that works well enough for me to make a playlist of all the episodes and just run it all day on the randomizer while I'm working.

I've been really out of the loop with music lately--just too busy to go explore. So I'm grateful that this podcast has tipped me off to a lot of albums that I've ended up buying on iTunes. Check it out if you're in a chill mood. Dave's site is here, and you can subscribe to it through iTunes.

I love the world

Can I just say how awesome it is to live in the modern world? I'm really grateful for all the tools we have and the way we can stay in touch with people wherever they are. In the last few months I've been able to keep pretty close contact and spend face-to-face time with a lot of friends that live thousands of kilometers away, and I've re-established contact with two separate friends I haven't seen for more than ten years because they were able to google me (hi Julie, hi Paul). None of this would have happened ten years ago.

Just want to send a shout-out to everyone reading this to say I'm glad we have each other.

World Cup - On the ground in Germany

Like everybody else around here and across Europe, I'm stuck with World Cup fever lately (one of the reasons I've been so silent the past week). I wasn't able to make it down to Germany but Marissa from San Francisco was. She just sent over this vivid email that really gets the feeling right. It's cool because it also reminds me of the first time I landed in Europe and how vivid and fresh everything was-- seeing it all for the first time. Thanks Marissa!

Greetings to All!

Germany is amazing! The Cup is amazing! Europe is amazing! I want to move here! And from that, where do I begin?!?!

Well, I've been to 2 matches so far, and it's pretty difficult to describe in words. Luckily, we had tickets for the Germany v Sweden match on Saturday. It was mania! Mayhem!

Our seats were waaaaaay up at the very last row of the top balcony. The 'uber'-nosebleed seats. BUT! It was not a problem because the new Stadion Munich was designed with such exquisite German Engineering that every seat has a great view. Being up high gave us a bird's-eye view of all the plays, so we could see how well (or not well) the teams were setting up their attacks on the goal.

But, with all the cheering & craziness, I had forgotten about the basic laws of physics: heat rises. Since we were at the top, it was like a sauna! And the trains getting to and from the stadium were packed with drunken smelly soccer fans. _Then_ it took us a half-hour to pass thru the first check-point into the stadium. We were standing in the direct sun with all the aformentioned drunken smelly fans. I was so smelly by night's end I felt like burning my clothes!

Sunday's match was less smelly, but no less exciting! (Portugal v Holland) At one point we thought both teams would bust out in a full-on ice hockey brawl! 4 red cards almost seemed like not enough! The Nuremberg Stadium is a lot easier to get to - there were twice as many trains, so sardine-effect with drunken smelly fans was avoided. What a relief!

AND! In Nuremberg, we even got to meet, Pele! See the link below:

http://www.mastercard-pricelessphoto.com/pickup.php?i=4361117611229992

Ok, ok, it's really shameless advertising, but, hey, it was fun! The other thing about Sunday's game was that we were on the ground section, so we could see the players more closely. We had more of a real stadium experience; there were coke vendors & pretzel vendors! Trust me, Bavarian pretzels _truly_ live up to their fame... Crunchy on the outside & chewy in the center. The dough is flavorful & the salt is always from the sea. But, no beer vendors coming through the isles... Didn't matter though as my pal & I refused to drink the crap Budweiser as a protest.

BESIDES FOOTBALL: Germany is a _fantastic_ place! I've made many new friends in Munich & seen lots of dear old friends in Nuremberg. The beer is out of sight! Also, there is a type of beer they make here called 'Radler'. It's regular beer mixed with lemonade. It's half as strong as beer, and so people drink it when they want the beer flavor but not all the booze to go to their head. So sensible! 'Radler' literally means bicycle; the theory goes if you drink Radler, you will be sober enough to ride your bicycle home... After drinking it, I've always found my way home, so it works!

Munich is such a laid back town! The atmosphere was about 10 degrees mellower than London. The sights of the old town are super. A walked in to the Main Brewhaus on Saturday, and it was packed to the gills with maniacal football fans who would spontaneously burst into songs or cheers about Germany, and football, and probably 'God & Country' and all that. men, women, & children alike were hooting, hollering, standing on the tables, and generally acting nuts. It was like nothing I've ever witnessed! The same could be said for the Marianplatz, the main square outside the Ratzkeller hall with the famous Glockenspiel, or clock thingy with the dancing marionettes. At least the Swedes had a force, and there were silly cheers being thrown back & forth from each camp. One Swedish cheer involved the lines 'We are Sweden, we'll beat you. We love J.Lo, who are you?'

For lunch we went to the open market near to their cathedral. Lordy, there were fresh foods, jams,, spices, sauces, sausages, fresh cheese, olives, and much more that made Whole Foods look like a 7-Eleven... For a moment I thought I saw the pigs being slaughtered in the alley, the food was so fresh. If there was only some way to ship it home!

The beirgarten's are generally self-service I learned, but there is also a roped off area for service tables, which are more expensive. Not sure if it was just for that day, but all the servers were wearing the special leiderhosen & dirndl costumes, the traditional Bavarian dress. It was so neat! Also there were roaming groups of Oompa bands playing at various beirgartens around the market.

For both matches, what blew me away was seeing Europeans, who are generally perceived as being more sophisticated & subtle, gentle, and mellow, act like total animals! The Dutch fans made college fraternity parties look like an afternoon tea party! I mean, I can't emphasize to you enough how crazy with yelling, cheering, drinking, & mayhem everyone was. And the costumes were nuts!! The silliest soccerball hats & goofiest face painting I've ever seen. Even the Southern college football fans in the US don't go this nuts. I've simply never seen anything like it.

And the partying never stopped! Especially after Germany won, Munich's Leopoldstrasse (the street blocked off for fan partying) still had 20,000 people at Midnight.

Yesterday was spent mostly in recovery, and drinking beer in the big beirgarten near the river while watching the other matches. And, seeing old work colleagues. Sadly, although it's been over a year since I left, I'm hearing the same horror stories & misery as long ago.

After this email, I'll finally go for a walk around town. I'll do more sightseeing in the old town and some shopping for the next few days. Then, it's off to Frankfort on Sunday for Brasil v. ?.

Again, _tremendous_ thanks to Sven for being the best concierge, porter, and host at Hotel Dummer. The service is impeccable, and the rooms are very clean. :)

Folks - there is _so_ much more that I can't put words to. We'll have to get together for a World Cup decompression party where I can describe in person the experience. It has been out of this world!

Hope all is well!

Hugs,
Marissa

The Long Thread that Connects Us

I'm working from home today and since the weather is so spectacular out there, I decided to test my broadband wireless connection and take my laptop out into the back garden. The connection worked fine and I've been able to crank away under the sun. Gorgeous.

But my Outlook client exploded a couple of weeks ago and it wiped out all my settings and connections when I reinstalled it. Turns out today I needed to get into my team's unified incoming mailbox remotely, and I didn't remember how to set that up from scratch.

So I called my company's tech support line and was talking to a guy in a call center in India. Rather than tell me how to fix my problem, it was easier for him to take control of my computer using the desktop sharing feature of Communicator. So I sat there in the garden with the computer in my lap, and watched as a guy in India took over the mouse and keyboard and fixed my machine.

I know my geek gene runs deep and I get more hot & bothered over these things than I probably should, but I think it's pretty damn cool. I have a lot more to say about telepresence and virtuality, but for now I have to dive in and get back to work.

--one from the lawn chair...

Gates to scale back Microsoft duties, become full-time philanthropist

From Associated Press:

JUN. 15 4:43 P.M. ET Microsoft Corp. said after the bell Thursday that Chairman Bill Gates will transition out of a day-to-day role in the company to spend more time on his global health and education work at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The company announced a two-year transition process to ensure that there is a smooth and orderly transfer of Gates' daily responsibilities, and said that after July 2008 Gates would continue to serve as the company's chairman and an adviser on key development projects.

Microsoft said Chief Technical Officer Ray Ozzie will immediately assume the title of chief software architect and begin working with Gates on all technical architecture and product oversight responsibilities, to ensure a smooth transition.

The return of Epitonic

I worked for E-Music.com back during the late '90s Internet bubble, and Epitonic.com was one other site all of us E-Music proles agreed was a well-thought out, well-built site that seemed to be designed by music lovers for other music lovers. They were good at identifying and linking a broad catalog of lesser-known music, so if you liked a somewhat well-known band, let's say Stereolab, the site would suggest a mix of some other high and low-profile bands along the same theme like Mouse on Mars, The High Llamas, Neu, Saint Etienne, Air, Flowchart, His Name is Alive, Cornelius and so on.

There are a lot of sites that do this, but I remember Epitonic as having the broadest reach and the best recommendations around. There are also a lot of free non-DRM mp3 downloads so you can listen to some new bands and try them on for size. I discovered a *lot* of new music on this site, back in the day.

Epitonic has been down for a while, but I just heard (I think on Dave's Lounge) that they're back up again.

I've only had time to do a single low 'n' fast recon pass at the site, so I'm not sure if the content is as good as it used to be. I'm disappointed at the new design, which is trying so hard to be cool that it gets in the way of navigation. But give it a try, it might be worth it.

World Cup follow-up

Just got an SMS from Magnus- he's in Berlin now, and has this to say:

It's really incredible being here. I'm at the fanfest area at Brandenburger Tor, seeing the game with thousands of people from all over the world. Very friendly atmosphere, I've seen Brazilians and Croatians hug each other ahead of tonight's match. You should be here!

Indeed, we all should.

[Editorial note: Heh, when I sms'd Magnus back to ask if it was cool I put his comment up on my blog, he pinged back "Yeah, sure. I'm drunk, happy and surrounded by Brazilian women. Gonna dance samba tonight!"]

Bum start to the World Cup

I watched the US team get crushed by the Czechs last night in the US's first World Cup match this year. The Americans didn't play badly but they were just outclassed. I marked the defeat by drinking a bottle of Budvar--I can be a gracious loser.

I'm not a huge sports fan--I don't like baseball, basketball or American football, and I usually don't have time to watch local football (soccer). I think to get the full enjoyment of the game you have to spend a lot of time learning the different players and team histories and statistics, and I know a lot of people that do that and feel deeply about their favorite teams. I don't dislike sports, I just don't see myself making that kind of time commitment to it.

But there's something about the World Cup that gets me--the whole international aspect of it. The idea that all the people of the world are getting together for peaceful, good-natured competition, while at the same time going completely out of their minds with nationalistic passion for their team. It's fun to get wrapped up in it.

I know a couple of people heading down to Germany to get swept up in the fever (hey Magnus, hey Marissa). I'm just a little jealous!

Small Victories

Due creds to Cecilie, Danmarks Radio's newest full-time journalist!

After working as a contractor for the last three years, DR (Denmark's national radio and television station, the Danish equivalent of the BBC, CBC or PBS) finally hired her as a full-time permanent webmistress.

Here's the DR Undervisning site, upon which Cecilie has been spending most of her waking hours for some time now.

Other job news, on Monday my company is finally launching the next release of the product I've been working on for the last four years. It's the first release cycle I've survived (so far), and the madness of it has been keeping me away from the Art Damage blog, personal email, friends, and any semblance of a normal human life for the last six months.

Lessons learned: well, too many to count really, but I think a key learning here is that you probably don't want to wait four years in between product launches, guys!!!

Hey don't blame me, I'm not a developer--but being in the damage control department I'm used to catching all the flak anyway. If I survive the next couple of weeks of post-launch insanity, I'll be a very happy boy. And then maybe I can catch up on sleep for a change!

Last December in Berlin

I finally got these photos up from our trip to Berlin last winter. Seems strange to be Photoshopping these frigid snow-filled scenes now, six months later, when the weather here is gorgeous, spectacular. It's that time in Denmark now when the sun doesn't go down till after 9pm and the sky is only dark for a couple of hours. It's a specacular arclight sky outside, and I'm looking forward to running down the beach when I finish this.

But it's also great to go through these winter photos because there were a lot of things I've forgotten about Berlin, and the photos bring it all back. The places we visited and the feel of the city. I've been so busy lately that it's been difficult to stay open and mindful of the world

I'd never seen the city before, and while I was looking forward to the trip, the main reason we went down was to see our friends Jeremy and Diana, who had flown over from San Francsico via Switzerland as part of a European adventure. It was great to see you guys as always. I hope we can stay as mobile as we've been the last few years.

I've put notes on most of the photo pages, so be sure to catch those if you want more context. And now to the photos.