So…two weeks passed…and I’m back…

Lots of stuff to sort (around 760 unread emails, loads of real mail, etc etc)…watch this space for extended entries soon…

Alright, I’m going on a two week vacation tomorrow morning (Destination: Hurghada Egypt)…so don’t expect any new post for the next weeks… :wink:

Have a great time…I’m sure I will :mrgreen:

Yes, I’m still alive – didn’t have much time to post something though. With an exam coming up on friday I’m trying to study as hard as possible and spend as little time online as possible. I’m really looking forward for this thing to be over as my head is full, full, full of knowledge waiting to burst out. Hopefully everything will be fine, I guess you can’t do more than prepare properly – I’ll find out on friday and keep you updated (I guess Saturday)…

So, here’s a quick round-up of things:

• Fantasy footie Weeks 27 and 28 (34 points/929 points total – 10 points/939 points total)
• It seems that after three weeks of canceled matches we’re going to play on sunday – thank god, it’s really hard to get into gear when you’ve been training for around 8 weeks (after the winter break) without a single real match (we’ve played some friendly matches, but that’s just not the real deal)
• I’ll be around more after the exam as mentioned above. One exception though: Sat April 2nd – Sat April 16th…VACATION :mrgreen: (more about that soonish)

PWD = Posting while drunk…I can’t even remember the last time I came home after 6am, but now it happened again (6:21am here). Nice birthday party of my mate Bernd!

I think it’s time to get at least some sleep until the next birthday party of my mate Welf goes down tonight…boy you gotta enjoy those back-to-back birthday parties….:wink:

Finally my new car stereo is (almost) completed. Today the long awaited new rca-cables arrived, so I ripped apart half my car (you wouldn’t believe how much stuff you have to remove to pass some cables from the frontend to the rearend of the car. But now it’s done and the sound is brilliant (finally no generator noises in the system anymore :mrgreen: )!

In the process of revamping my car stereo I used the following new components so far:

• Sinus Live Bandpass to replace the crappy Magnat Tube
• new speaker cables for all rear components (high-quality cables with diameter of 2.5mm (speakers) and 6mm (subwoofer))
• new MxM-Germany RCA-cables, triple shielding, aluminium-foil isolation, 24karat gold connectors

Now only the new front speaker are missing – as soon as they arrive my “dream-machine” will be completed :tup:

It’s been some days since I lasted posted some “major content”, so now that I’ve got some spare time, I thought I should do a roundup of things:

• I decided that two exams covering 7 different academics is just too much, so I signed off one exam yesterday (the one covering 2 academics, as I’m already on a good way to master the one with 5)
• Today parts of my new car audio system arrived, namely the new amplifier (as the old one gave up on me over a week ago) and a new subwoofer (Sinus Live DB 250) to get some nicer bass-sound. I spent 1.5h today to mount everything properly and pass some new lines. Sure enough the tweeters got a nasty whistle now…so I will have to pass the new RCA (“Cinch”) cables, I just ordered, next week…then everything should be :tup: :tup: (hopefully)…
• NBA News: So the Philadelphia 76ers acquired All-Start forward Chris Webber – cool, maybe that’ll result in an more interesting eastern conference (Philly: A.I. + C-Webb, Miami: Shaq + Flash). Apart from this trade there were numerous others right before the trade deadline – Boston got Antoine back, Dallas landed Keith van Horn, Golden State got Baron Davis…crazy stuff going on, you can read all the transactions here
• Personal sports: After the last match was canceled due to snow, it seems that the upcoming match on sunday is canceled, too. There’s just too much snow on the pitch (we trained on about 20cm of snow on wednesday which wasn’t all that much fun). This isn’t all that good as we’re all hot to get the season started again, then again it’s a free sunday, so why do I complain ;-)
• International Football: All in all it’s not looking all too good for german teams in both UEFA Champions League and UEFA Cup. CL: Bayern 3-1 Arsenal :tup: , Leverkusen 1-3 Liverpool :tdown: , Bremen 0-3 Lyon :tdown: :tdown: . UEFA Cup: Aachen, Schalke and VfB Stuttgart all out :tdown: :tdown:
• Apple launched the new iPod Mini…didn’t have the chance to have a look at it, but will do so asap…

That’s it for now. Hopefully I’ll have more time to post over the next few weeks as I’ve got a little bit less stress now that I canceled one exam…

So long…have a great weekend!

I guess you already noticed that I didn’t post all that much recently. That’s due to the fact that I’ve got exams on the horizon (March 16th = Wissensverarbeitung (Knowledge Processing) and Verteilte Systeme (Distributed Systems); March 18th = Mensch-Rechner-Interaktion I+II, Arbeitswissenschaft, Technologiemanagement, Service Engineering) – as you see I’ve got to prepare myself for 7 concurrent subjects with scripts ranging from 200 to 600 pages :shock: .

That’s why I try to focus on that and cut my online time – hence the lack of updates…

I’m not a big fan of carnival, although it’s a quite happy time with everybody having a good time (getting drunk) and all. Nontheless I went out to Ludwigsburg (the next biggest city around) to have a little fun – not particularly carnival fun, but pub fun (if there’s something like pub fun at all :wink: ).

So we went out to Club 69 which had a Coyote Ugly party tonight (for all who are unfamiliar with the hollywood movie see here). The concept is quite easy to understand: you’ve got a pub and you’ve got one or more fine girls who are acting as go-go-girls dancing on the bar in hot clothes…then those girl(s) hand out free drinks. After having a good time there we decided it was time to move on, so we went to Tatort which is a legendary cocktail bar around here. After having ourselves some nice drinks we decided that it was time to get home…and that’s where the “problems” started. Did you ever try to get a taxi at carnival time?

So we had to walk quite a while to get to the train station where all the (remaining) taxis are waiting for customers (and believe me it’s cold out here)…but we made it and now I’m home safe without having to risk my driver’s license – I always encourage ppl to get a taxi instead of drinking & driving (mostly due to common sense and the fact that one of my best mates was killed in a car accident almost three years ago (he couldn’t do anything about it, a drunk driver hit him)).

Bottom Line:

• It’s 3:27am and I had a good time
• Some different drinks…around 20€
• Paying for a taxi (sharing it with 3 mates)…around 8€
• Being home safe…priceless

That said, it’s time to get some sleep as I’ve got to get up in some hours to play a friendly match (FCM II – GSV Pleidelsheim II)…Good night :rolleyes:

Today was the of my brother Michael’s final (oral) exam at the IHK and he passed!!! Now he’s entitled to call himself “Industriekaufmann” (Industrial Clerk) :tup: :tup:

Congrats!!!

Now all he needs is a job…

Ooooh…it’s freezing cold out here. Yes it’s 3:30am here and I just came back from a mate’s birthday party. It’s -12°C out there (that’s 10,3°F for all the American/Canadian Folks out there) – not the coldest I’ve seen, but definitely the coldest in a long time…

On another note: I gotta get up at 8am today, so it’s a whooping 4 hours of sleep for me :sad:

After “injuring” my right big toe last wednesday it was already a little bit blue, but at the Bottwartal-Turnier I got hit on just the same toe again (in the match against Benningen – my hometown).

So now my toe is really blue…and I don’t know why, but it hit me: it’s Dr.Greenthumb meets Mr. Bluetoe :mrgreen:

Dr. Greenthumb (Cypress Hill)

Mr.Bluetoe

And just when you thought winter was (nearly) over, it’s time for this year’s (and this winter’s) first snow…

Full size image

Not for me I guess. Due to the fact that I don’t live within the US means that I can’t take advantage of stuff like freemacminis.com :tdown:

Too bad for me, so I guess I will have to start saving and buy one with my own money in the future, or maybe not?

Inspired by sites like Save Karyn, Scrounging Git and last but not least Jeremy’s sponsored laptop I thought: “Why not? Let’s give it a try!”.

So here’s my request: Support me in getting a MiniMac, donate me some dosh (489€ for the 1.2GHz one is my goal, if the 589€ for the 1.42GHz one would come in though it would be more than fine, too :mrgreen: )!
Disclaimer: I know that there are more worthy causes, especially in times like these, so please don’t interpret this as disrespectful – I have already donated as much as I can to the german relief efforts!

And what’s in it for me?
I guess I should give back more than my endless gratitude to all the donators who might help me out. So, hmm, I guess there should be a raffle:

• First price: The lucky winner out of all donators will receive a graphic ad for 6 months (see my advertising page for more information) and a cool geek T-shirt (of my choice) which will be delivered to his/her home for free!
• Second price:The first runner-up will receive a graphic ad for 3 months!
• Third price:The second runner-up will receive an advanced text ad for 3 months

(If anyone wants to donate some more prices in return for a mention here, feel free to contact me at Ingoal[at]gmail[dot]com).

Finally:

• The drawing will be random!
• There’s no right to a price!
• The prices can’t be exchanged for their money value!
• I promise to use the donated money for the Mac Mini and the Mac Mini only!
• I will keep you updated about the current status of donations received!
• I will provide a list with amount donated and a backlink to your site (if desired)
• Thanks to all donators!!!

Donation links:

• Donate in Euro
• Donate in US-Dollar
• Donate in British Pounds

Current ammount donated:

• 0 $
• 0 squid
• 0 €

Today is my dad’s 55th birthday, so it’s family cake&coffee this afternoon (the first relatives already arrived) and dinner in a restaurant tonight, so don’t expect any other posts today :wink: