Sonic the Hedgehog..

That's what a friend of mine was calling me after seeing me on this self-taken, quite arty and expressive picture. And I have to say, I agree (for those of you, who do not even know who Sonic is ... screw you!).

Canned Things

Thanks to Martin Blumenau (c) from FM4 (in German):

"Ein Wort noch zum künftigen Meister: im gestrigen Cup-Semifinale zeigte sich nicht nur, warum diese Mannschaft in Europa nicht weit kam und auch im Herbst nicht weit kommen wird, sondern auch die Fehl-Kalkulation der neuen Marketing-Politik, was die Fan-Kultur betrifft.

Mit diesem Schönwetter-Ansatz des gerne als Familien-Publikum verhätschelten neuen Anhangs wird man keinen Meter weit hüpfen. Ein wirklicher Fan-Block, ein wirklicher Anhang wird das eigene Team im Fall des Rückstands weiter unbeirrt nach vorne schreien und klatschen. Die Fähnchen-in-den-Wind-Hänger auf der Salzburger Tribüne beherrschen das nicht nur nicht, sie haben das System dahinter auch nicht verinnerlicht, sie habens simpel nicht kapiert: wenn das Team zurückliegt, reagiert man mit desinteressierter Teilnahmslosigkeit.

Diese etwas affige Einstellung war auch früher manchmal Salzburger Problem, so peinlich wie gestern, wo man in der Verlängerung nur noch das kleine Mattersburger Fan-Häuflein vernahm, war's aber nie. Die "neuen" Salzburger Zuschauer sind keine Fans, sondern nur schleißig gebrandete Papp-Kameraden ohne Seele, eine Schande."

Unstoppable?

Another thing I am quite interested in is icehockey. But only NHL and none of those boring European leagues. I pretty much like the Buffalo Sabres, the team of fellow Austrian Thomas Vanek. He was drafted 2003 as overall #5 pick in the 1st round by the team from the state of New York. Last season they surprised almost every expert and made their way right into the Conference finals (similar to the semifinals in other sports). Being haunted by some serious injury problems within their defensive lines (during those seven games against later Stanley Cup champions Carolina Hurricanes) they were forced to play without four of their top5-defenders during the semifinals. And nonetheless it was a tight and close battle they unluckily lost.

This season, the Sabres are the hottest team in the NHL, winning six games out of their opening six games, scoring unbelievable 31 goals. Yesterday the Flyers from Phily had to suffer from the strength of their opponents, being trashed 1-9. Those are the scorers from yesterday (TV played in a line with Derek Roy [2G] and "Max" Afinogenov [1G 4A]):

1-0 Vanek (Max, Numminen)
2-0 Spacek (Briere, Numminen)
3-0 Drury (Gaustad, Briere)
4-0 Roy (Vanek)
5-0 Tallinder (Lydman, Max)
6-0 Max (Kotalik)
7-1 Roy (Max, Vanek)
8-1 Novotny (Kotalik, Lydman) 9-1 Vanek (Max, Campbell)


It seems like Vanek finally arrived in the NHL after a quite sloppy first season - he made nearly 50 points, but his +/- stats were awfully bad and his defensive play was disliked very much by his coach, Lindy Ruff (the longest active coach at the same team in the NHL). So he was dropped to the bench before the deciding playoff games last season - which seemingly incited him more than it disappointed him. Now he's already +5 up and has scored three goals and four assists within only six games so far. I believe that he can become a true (super?)star - not only measured by Austrian standards, but also by NHL standards. He's only 22 years old and has got the speed, the endurance and the technique to outplay almost every opponent. Nevermind, he will probably never reach the level of Ovechkin or Crosby (two very much hyped wizkids), but if you ask me he's up for 60-70 points every season (excluding playoff stats).

I also very much appreciate the Toronto Maple Leafs, although they are a direct opponent of the Sabres in the Northeast Division. But considering the facts that I love the city of Toronto and that my father brought me some memorabilia from his trip to Canada in 2000, I have to slur over all of that rivalry by those two teams from the North and the South side of Lake Ontario. Mats Sundin, the Swedish captain of the Leafs, has lately reached the 500 career goalmark by scoring the deciding OT goal shorthanded (!) against the Calgary Flames last Saturday. I'd really love to see both teams playing each other in the Eastern Conference Finals. Since Premiere has lost its rights to broadcast NHL games, I pretty much get into watching streams on the internet - well, the quality could well be improved, but nonetheless you get to see all the action and furthermore many funny American TV ad's. Especially, I love these two which connect both advantages:

Peter Forsberg - Game On!
Jonathan Cheechoo - Game On!

Snow Patrol, II

I now can proudly present my very own review of the concert of Snow Patrol. At 2.30 PM I left Ried and via regional train, fast train and Intercity Express I arrived in Vienna at 5.30 PM. A friend of mine fetched me up at the terminal and afterwards we went to a nice little restaurant near the Schottentor, where we drank a beer and ate a little bit. At 7.50 PM we finally arrived at the Wien-Arena in the Eastern part of Vienna, near the Gasometer-towers.

After doing the routine stuff (buying a tour-shirt, going to toilet, drinking another beer) we entered the hall, where an Irish soloperformer called Declan O'Rourke was just about to stop playing. Before singing the last song he said, that he would have already sold all of his CD's the day before so there would be no CD's available that day. Well, nevermind. The group performing before the main event called themselves The Cinematics. A very British poprock band from Glasgow, inevitably sounding like their role models from the same town - Franz Ferdinand. But nonetheless the vibes went up and their show was very okay.

At about 9.10 PM the lights went out and the band everyone was waiting for finally entered the stage, intoning a soft and smooth "doo doooo" - and within a few seconds SP fans knew what was coming up first - "Spitting Games", the song where I posted the lyrics in my last article. "Wow" was the bridge passage to my personal highlight of the evening, "Chocolate", one of my favourite songs of all time - the crowd seemed to like it in a same way, you could clearly hear many (flashy) voices singing along with Gary (the leadsinger). Recapitulating - the first three songs of the evening springed from their 2004 hitalbum "Final Straw".

Afterwards a bunch of new songs were performed, starting with a very impressive "It's Beginning To Get To Me", where not only the couple standing right next to me was heavily kissing during the climax of the song. "Headlights On Dark Roads" was dedicated to the "beautiful city of Vienna" where the band performed the very first time last Sunday. The next song, "Make This Go On Forever" was again dedicated to somebody, this time to Declan O'Rourke and The Cinematics for touring with them. "Gazed Knees" was inducing the maybe best known song these times, "Chasing Cars", where the crowd was REALLY going wild for the first time. The last lines of the song, ".. if I just lay here (2x), would you lie with me, and just forget the world?" were exclusively sung by the crowd, clearly to the delight of the band at a quite high volume.

Photo (I do not have or claim the rights for it) taken from a nice review on FM4 that can be found here.

After having featured "Shut Your Eyes", the ever-popular "How To Be Dead", "Somewhere A Clock is Ticking", "Gleaming Auction" and finally "Ways & Means" (all from the Final Straw album) made the way to the last two songs before the encore. At first their maybe greatest hit ever, "Run", was intoned - starting slowly just to end up exploding massively at the climax. Again, the last lines "... light up, light up, as if you had a choice, even if you cannot hear my voice, I'll be right beside you dear" were sung exclusively by the crowd, and again with success. "You're All That I Have", the first hitsingle of the current album rounded the basic part of an amazing concert. For the encore, "Open Your Eyes" and "Tiny Little Fractures" had been chosen and I was surprised, that it was NOT halfhearted as mentioned in the other article. They sumed up a 99%-perfect concert that managed to come clearly amongst my top3- concerts of all time.

Snow Patrol

The following entry is completely dedicated to Snow Patrol, my favourite music group for a reasonably long period of time. You may ask yourself now - hey, what about U2? Well, it's always about the bands BESIDES them. Actually, both have something in common, at least to my person. In June 2004, when I travelled over to Dublin with two friends, Snow Patrol was in the honourable duty to warmup the crowd by playing right before U2. Northern Ireland met Ireland, and they both guaranteed me a highly unforgettable evening on this rainy and windy day back then in June (however, it was my birthday as well).

But now back to topic, as I mentioned before that this posting would TOTALLY be dedicated to SP. Next Sunday (October 15th) SP will be coming to Vienna and will be playing a gig in the Vienna Arena. Initially they should have featured at the Frequency Festival in August, but since the band was touring the United States back then, this was impossible and the gig in October during their current European tour was agreed.

Their songs are highly melancholic and melodic at the same time, and the lyrics are simply beautiful and you start thinking about them. I like to hear SP best whenever I go running, especially in autumn/winter when it's getting cold and dark outside pretty soon. Why? Because it perfectly matches my mood then most of the time. You want to have an example? Well, alright, the following part of the lyrics of Spitting Games (2004) amazingly described my "relationship" to a girl for some time:

[...]
I'm far too shy to speak to you at school
You leave me numb and I'm not sure why

I find it easier to sit and stare
Than push my limbs out towards you right there
My heart is bursting in your perfect eyes
As blue as oceans and as pure as skies

I struggle for the words and then give up
[...]

Well, nevermind. The times they are a' changing, as Bob Dylan used to sing a long time ago. I have to admit, not all of their songs are melancholic and dramatic as I may have mentioned above, some new ones are fast paced as well. So I could say "it's in the mix". After a short google-search I found their setlist at a concert in the USA, the picture you can see on the left beneath.

It starts full of verve, gets melancholic then and after a romantic part maybe their best known songs, "You're all I have" and "Run" make up the end of the concert.

The encore seems a bit halfhearted to be, since those two songs are not very outstanding within their repertoire if you ask me. But criticising a concert before even attending it? That's not in my mind. Last but not least, some sort of appetizer from their new album, "Chasing Cars", embedded from YouTube.com:

The day 74,22% of the Austrians voted, Ried played in Salzburg and many people ended up being surprised twice that day

Today I got up at noon, not knowing that today's vote would be a big surprise and disappointment for (not only) myself. Recently I talked a lot to my friends about the upcoming vote, and nearly everybody would have wished a coalition between the ÖVP and The Greens. This would have had the effect of a Green department of education and a conservative government. But as you can see at the results pictured below, Austria's future will be covered of a big shadow of uncertainty. There will probably be a big coalition and everybody was running in the last few years to stand still in near time. Well, never mind. Long live the democracy.





A big loser and three winners. Hardly anybody would have expected results like that.



And as I mentioned earlier in September, there was another exciting event today. Ried played in the Disco of Wals-Siezenheim - and surprised EVERYBODY. We managed to get a draw which was very lucky for the cans. Our players hit the crossbar three times and our forwards let many other big chances go away. So it came how it had to come, RBS managed to score the equalizer. Well normally I would be perfectly glad with a draw at the best Austrian team, but not today. This was the fifth draw in a row and we're still last in the table. But it does not look that bad, four points more and we would be 4th. Next game: Wacker (A) on the 14th of October. Objective: win the game!

Sitting, waiting (, wishing)

Right now I'm sitting right in front of my screen (what a sensation!), waiting for the next WSOP 2006 episodes to be successfully "transferred" to my computer. Last weekend we sit out at the Rieder Wirt, playing hold'em for about three hours before we went to the football match. Afterwards we went to Hafner's, playing it for another three hours. In total, I won 13,5€ this day - not that bad. It's funny, it brings people together and maybe makes you (a little bit) richer. Wonderful occupation. Yesterday in the evening I finished reading my poker book mentioned below. Pure theory, which has to be converted into practical know-how. But that will take a lot of hands played online and on livetables...

Until the WSOP episodes finish, I am listening to the new Mando Diao album with a lot of interesting songtitles like "Welcome home, Luc Robitaille", "Killer Kaczyinski" or "Good Morning, Herr Horst". Pure rock'n roll, whereby I'm glad that I have already attended a concert of the band in November 2006 in Vienna. Really never ever sweated that much like on this evening at the Gasometer. Afterwards I went to a party where some friends of mine already had been. One pal unsuspectingly touched my t-shirt - I had been wearing during the concert I hung over the radiator to get dry - and asked me if it had been raining - well, the answer was no and he was a little bit disgusted then, hehe.

Wishing? Well I wish that my job interview next Friday will be successful and I can start working soon. In the beginning I've been enjoying something like the last holidays in my life pretty much, but lately it gets a bit boring since university starts again and autumn enters central Europe slowly but inevitably. Going back to Salzburg also opens up many possibilities like going to cinema whenever I want to.