provincial backwaters of Austrian football

My tongue was numb. My lips were numb. That was the scenario when I was returning from the dentist yesterday. Seems like a very good way to stop me talking, ain't it? After arriving there I was x-rayed for another time (I feel it, I am contaminated!) before the dentist told me, that I had a very big hole in the aching tooth (did noooooot know that before). But here's the clue: my radix was damaged, so she had to kill the nerve by drilling away big parts of the tooth. That hurted much much more than the wisdom teeth surgery, although I got a local anesthesia. In about three weeks, when the nerve has died, I have got to visit the dentist again to get a radix-filling in my tooth.

Oh yes. Seems like I'm having taken out a subscription to various dentists. Alright, let's talk of something different. Yesterday there was another football game with participation of the SV Ried. In a game at a very bad level we managed to get three points from our opponent Sportclub Untersiebenbrunn Seidl Software (no joke, that's their real name!). These three points are very important, because our main opponent in the race for the relegation lost, and now our margin is already eight points with one game more played. I'm very confident that we can make it, the team is strong and has not lost a single game since the beginning of the spring season. The bad thing about yesterday is, that our goalgetter Sanel Kuljic got a red card after insulting an opponent player. He'll surely be taken out of the competition for two or three games, and we'll surely "miss" him.

Right now I am looking forward to seeing the match on Tuesday in Wörgl/Tyrol. Have not been there yet, but this time I have got a place in a car that's going there. When we talk of Wörgl and football, we're talking about a semi-professional team that plays in a pro league. They've got a budget of about €400.000 which seems ridiculous comparing to the €4.5 million of Kärnten. And their playing ground has no away sector. Nice anecdote here - when you ask the treasurer of Wörgl for a ticket for the away sector, he tells you [in German]: "Wosch? Gäschteschektor? Sowosch homma nit!" Pure cult! And that only about one hour away from Salzburg (by car).

Maybe you won't hear anything from me for a few days, but right now I am lacking of interesting things to be written and published here, so I'm expecting to get some interesting stories from the journey to Wörgl and the participation of our FH football team in the Austrian-FH-Cup in Wiener Neustadt next Wednesday. That's it for now, see you (not that) soon!

the devil of toothache

What a grace of nature! Right now I've got toothache again, this time not descending from my wisdom teeth (the ones remaining), but from the right premolar in the lower jaw. About two months ago I have bitten off a piece of it by eating some cake [watch out doing this!]. That event has produced caries and in succession a small but unpleasent hole which is aching for two days now. Even had to take painkillers yesterday in the night before going to bed (fortunately I had some left from the wisdom teeth surgery last month). The morale of that story? Have to go to the dentist tomorrow in the morning, very much earlier than expected (as mentioned earlier in this blog, I do not "like" dentists that much).

What else can I tell you? Have had a nice but very long lasting exercise today, topic was practical data mining. We worked with SAS, the market leader concerning business ETL data mining tools.

SAS is the leader in business intelligence and analytics.
Our software answers strategic business questions no one else can – enabling you to control costs, drive revenue, achieve capital efficiency and lead with confidence. (taken from http://www.sas.com)

Quite funny programme, some mixture of an enterprise resource planning (ERP) programme and a classical statistics programme like SPSS. Companies pay thousands of euros/dollars for using it to optimize such things as reporting, OLAP, integrated analysis, visualization and MS office integration. Errh, maybe I should move over to another topic.

We (= when I'm talking of "we", it's the SV Ried) are still on top of the table of the so-called Red Zac Erste Liga. The game on Tuesday ended with a satisfying 3-1 win in Leoben/Styria. But what tension of my nerves again. There was a real //crowd// in the Ried-channel in the ASB, because the game was nor shown on TV neither many people took a ride to the far-away playground. More than 380 postings later I waited for the goals to be shown - but - in the first moment it seemed that there had been no TV station to catch moving pictures of the match. Alright, the goals (and really ONLY the goals) have been shown on ATV+ yesterday, better than nothing.

What else can I say - I've got five days off now, it seems that our lecturers are some kind of bored of our presence at the FH. To be honest - it doesn't bother me!!! Weather forecast is talking of some nice pre-summer-weather during the whole weekend, so I gotta take my bermudas and short sleeved t-shirts out of the cupboard. Right now I'm gonna take a relaxing and persevering full bath. See you all soon (:

about:blank

I'm in a better mood today. There are some news concerning the mid term exam:

the date for the 2nd round mid-term exam will be on Wednesday, 11.th May, 8.15-10.00 in my office. The exam will be oral and will erase the first grade. Everybody who wants to improve his/her grade may also repeat the exam on the 11th.

What else have I done today .. mhh .. learned for another exam on Thursday, in Data Mining (theory). Also made some summaries for my own better understanding. I really do not want to fuck up another exam this week, one per week is more than enough.

Besides my life is not that exciting. Today in the evening I will play indoor football again (to overcome the shivers concerning the result of the game Leoben vs. Ried). Weather will become better this week, that's fine.

Fìn.

f*cked up days

Do you know that feeling when you can do whatever you want, everything gets fucked up? Had such a great day today. The day started with rainfall, and it's still continuing. When I got up today I thought of a pretty normal day with normal lectures and such stuff. There is a nice saying in German: "erstens kommt es anders, und zweitens als man denkt".

Today we got back our mid-term-exams in Brand Management. And it's my worst workpiece since I am student at the University Of Applied Sciences in Salzburg. I've got EIGHT points out of 30 possible. The weird thing about is, that I had learnt pretty much for it, read the book a several times and made summaries on my own. And I _understood_ the content of all those books, pre-readings and lessons. Can you imagine the shocking moment I had to suffer from today? I was like paralyzed for more than three hours, unable to think of anything else than this bullshit. In my opinion (and also in the opinion of all the others) our lecturer is a highly subjective person, cause he gave me zero points for some examples after only reading the first two or three lines. Bad luck for me that I write that much when it comes to exams, even worse that it's in a quite unstructured style. Never mind, I've got the chance to do the exam again, hopefully he'll be able to understand me then.

Later on we had our last test from the 5th semester - the oral exam in Financing. Managed to get the best mark possible, as many many others were able to do either. Overall my average of marks from the 5th semester is 1,5 - not that bad compared to my so called failure in the mid term exam. Afterwards I was able to calm down (in fact I was calmed down all the time, paralyzation kept me away from doing and saying stupid things - although I am a quite choleric person as my friends will attest me) by playing indoor football. Thereby I had to cope with a bad shape too, maybe due to the fact that I had only eaten one //Topfentascherl// the whole day.

Now in the evening I am quite relaxed (although I can start learning for another exam and the 2nd try tomorrow), watched Lost on PRO7 before (my favourite TV series right at the moment). Now I am listening to some music (Kaiser Chiefs, The Bravery, Feeder) and trying to express my feelings (?) in this blog. Don't want to go to bed, don't want to watch TV any longer, don't want to do anything. Somebody's missing in my life, and some of you exactly know which person that is.

Alright, let's get rid of those feelings descending from my bad experiences today. Perhaps you want to know my "favourite five songs of all time".

1. With Or Without You (U2/The Joshua Tree/1987) - I can hear that song whenever and wherever I want. Epic, timeless, the best love song of all times by far.
   
   
2. Clocks (Coldplay/A Rush Of Blood To The Head/2002) - my current ringtone, another epic song. Thanks to Chris Martin and the others for that piece of music.
   
   
3. Bittersweet Symphony (The Verve/Cruel Intentions OST/1997) - the first time I heard it on "Cruel Intentions", I fell in love with that song that was originally written by Mick Jagger.
   
   
4. Don't Look Back In Anger (Oasis/What's The Story Morning Glory/1995) - it was the first album I bought, back in 1995. I like it more than Wonderwall, maybe the most famous song on this record.
   
   
5. Wonderful Land & Arrival (Mike Oldfield/QE:2/1980) - these songs remind my of my childhood. Always heard it on tape when we were going somewhere by car. Whenever I hear them right now, some kind of warm feelings overcome me.

Mh, gotta do something different now. Don't know what. Will see...

boring weekend, part 142

It has been pretty much time since my last blog has been published. Don't be afraid, I'm not neglecting it, I just haven't had much time during the last few days. Thought about writing this one later that evening, but the football game between Lazio Roma and Juventus Turin is that bad, that I better waste my time by doing something else. I could also learn for tomorrow's exam in Financing, but I think that the two hours learning time on the train have been enough for today.

The weekend has been pretty boring (.. and it's not over yet), I could characterize it as a typical spring-weekend that does not attract many persons to come home for it. On Friday we were at the stadium, watching (and chanting at) the 29th game of Ried this season. I'm glad that we won it by a small margin (1-0), because the opponent had been something like a feared opponent to whom we lost in autumn. Bad game, but I had to cope with a certain tension of my nerves. At the moment it's looking pretty good for us to be relegated back to the Bundesliga next season, a return that would be deserved as no second thing [ I have got the permission to be biased because I'm a fan].

On Saturday I had to cut the grass of the garden inherited from my grandpa, 500m² of aslope ground. Lucky me that he owed a motorized lawn mower that's at my disposal now. Elsewise it would be a hard job to push and pull that thing up and down the small slope. That evening nobody wanted to go out (the usual "I turn my cell off so that nobody can call me" thingie), so I kept occupied by my own new cell. Thanks to an extension of my contract with ONE, I had been given the Siemens S65 and a half year withour basic fee. I'm no churner, that means I am customer of that mobilephone company since 1999.

But back to my new cell - in the very beginning I thought about giving it back, because I have never had anything else than cells from Nokia, and the menu navigation of a Siemens cell is pretty much different, you could say fundamentally different. I came over those problems, henceforth I will never buy any other cells from other companies because it's that easy, combined with a nice design and some special features like a 1,3 megapixel digicam and an extra 32 MB memory card.

The game on TV is still on a 0-0, I'm gonna watch the last ten minutes, maybe somebody is able to show mercy by scoring the deciding goal (hopefully Juventus). Did you see that marvellous, stunning, extraordinary goal scored by Wayne "Wunderkind" Rooney earlier today? Perfectly aimed outer-instep-volley-shot from more than 30 metres, right into the upper left corner of the net. Many football players dream of a goal like that, he's already done it a several times, and he's still only 19 years old.

edit: 86th minute, 1-0 for Juventus, scored by Pavel Nedved. Weee!

meeting hard-cora's husband

Yesterday I absolved the mid term exam in Brand Management - it was quite okay, but somehow undimensioned. That means you could write nearly everything that came to your mind according to some key words like "brand identity", "brand awareness" or "brand positioning". Afterwards I finished some work for my internship next semester, it only took me three hours so I had a lazy afternoon - of which I had never thought before.

Why do all the companies call and write back NOW? In the end of April? In the last seven days I got responses and invitations of a several companies, including big concerns like IBM, Porsche and Telekom Austria on the one hand and smaller, dynamic companies like ICC and CIMA on the other hand. Don't know if I'll respond to all of these enterprises, because I have already done quite much for my internship in Ried - and they had been the first company to respond me - the first company of a total number of 23 applications.

Never mind. Yesterday in the evening I was very curious to watch the next Ried game - but it was cancelled only five minutes before the original kick-off. The heavy rainfall and the suffering ground conditions made it quite impossible playing a football game in Styria. Why the f*ck has it been raining all week? Thought that the winter has already gone, but right now it seems the other way round, that he has returned. Something between 5C° and 10C° combined with heavy and constant rainfalls makes it impossible hanging around outside or doing some outdoor sports.

Today in the evening my former project group from the 5th term has some "informal dinner" at a Mexican restaurant in Salzburg. I am looking forward to eating those delicious ribs and chicken wings, including potato wedges and some herbs-sauce. If the FH tournament tomorrow in Hagenberg/OÖ cannot be absolved, I will surely drink one or two beers too. At the moment it's not looking very comfortable that this soccer tournament can be played - due to the heavy rainfalls and bad ground conditions mentioned before. Anyway, I'll keep you briefed about any new situations and news.

Just about half an hour ago I returned from a lecture at the WIFI (Wirtschaftsförderungsinsitut Salzburg) which dealt with some judicial facts, including patents and brand licences. Quite boring, and afterwards there was no buffet (THE reason why many of us went there anyway) neither.

Oh, nearly forgot an important happening. In the lunch break we went to the Europark (the biggest shopping centre in Salzburg) and had lunch at Mc Donald's. You'll never guess who we met - RALF SCHUMACHER! He and his young child were our table neighbours - the boy was quite amused, but his father looked a little bit annoyed. He was wearing a nice outfit - a mint green cap and pullover (both from Ralph Lauren) combined with blue jeans. Maybe he was that annoyed because nobody wanted to have an autograph or starred at him?

BBQ time again

Yesterday it was time to reactivate the barbecue - more than 20C° and a desire for grilled meat made up some nice conditions. But I can tell you - it's been a hard birth until we could start the whole process. In the morning when I got up the weather was fine, so I went out of the back door into our garden. There I recognized that the stable for our rabbits had still been on the terrace and not on its usual (summer-)place. So I asked my dad if it had been possible to arrange a nice BBQ in the late afternoon. He laughed at me and told me, if I did some certain things, I could do so. Well, he underestimated my will to arrange the BBQ and so I did all the following things:

• took the chairs out of the garage and cleaned them
• carried the rabbit's stable back to its usual place (with the help of my dad)
• scrubbed the flagstones on the terrace
• swept the terrace and set up the big table
• cut the grass in the garden
• assembled the new grill (my sister //lost// the old one last year at the Frequency)

Phew, hard work (but that way I successfully avoided learning for the mid term exam on next tuesday). Afterwards I invited the guests, mainly the usual suspects - and told them to come in between 4.30 pm and 5 pm. Well, I had already learnt enough lessons from the past, so I did not expect any of my guests before 5.15 pm - and I was right. They mainly arrived at 5.30 pm, thanks to the weather-god that it didn't start raining this evening.

Some loin steaks, roasted sausages, turkey hen steaks, (garlic) baguettes and salads - combined with herbs-butter, grill-sauces, ketchup - later, we sat out until 10 pm. After this we went out for the evening, surprisingly we spent another evening at the Hafner.

What else can I say - I'm still furious about the stupid policeman from Linz on friday, somebody should ban him immediately for all football-events as long as he cannot behave as others can. One of my friends told me that she suddenly was having blood on her hand, thinking that it was her own, so she licked it off - a few moments later she recognized that it was not her blood and neither the blood of her boyfriend, who was having some of it on his shirt too. Arrrgh!!!

undue force

Yesterday I was in our regional capital, Linz, to watch the football derby between Ried and the LASK. Poor game that ended 2-2 due to some tactical mistakes of our coach. We led the game by 2-1 after trailing an early 0-1 arrear. But in the second half a forward was substituted by a midfield-player - nobody knew why. So the LASK got back into the game and managed to score a second goal only ten minutes before the final whistle.

But what has really been unbounded cheek was the approach of the police in the guest sector. After some idiots ignited some smoke bombs and banyan fires, the police entered the sector and tried to get these guys under control. A part of about 800 persons - mainly normal and violence-free - was threatened by one police guy, who totally exaggerated and got beyond control.

• going down the stairs, he was using his club (!) to push the people aside
• after one guy complained about his proceeding, he immediately put his club under his throat
• because of that this stupid policeman got a nice beer-shower from other furious fans
• after that he nearly got into a fight, but some other policemen could pull him out of the crowd

In the half-time break many Ried-fans were complaining about this guy, me too (because I got his club into my back too). And it was a success, he was told off by his supervisors for his approach.

"Die Qualität der Aggression hat zugenommen", berichtet auch Thomas Winkelmann, einer der ersten Fußballfankontaktbeamten und Betreuer in der österreichischen "Nationalen Fußballinformationsstelle" (NFIST). Auch er ortet mehr Gewaltbereitschaft gegen Polizisten: "Vor allem Uniformierte sind zum Feindbild der Hooligans geworden." Selbst für erfahrene Fankontaktbeamte werde es immer schwieriger, ihre Problemkinder in Zaum zu halten. (BMI)

It's really incredible, how only ONE DAMN GUY can launch such a sequence of undue force in the middle of normal fans which only came to watch the game. The forbidden slogan "A.C.A.B." has to be transformed to "S.C.A.B." where the "S" stands for some.

The Bravery

It's all about the hype when somebody's talking about newcomers "The Bravery" from NYC. Recently BBC voted them as "Most Promising Act Of 2005", the Rolling Stone crowned them with the title "Artist To Watch In 2005" and according to Spin Magazine they are "The Next Big Thing". In last year's survey, Keane were followed by Franz Ferdinand, Razorlight and Joss Stone in the top five - all of whom were virtually unknown outside the music industry at that point.

Now what's really behind this band, that has only had two singles and one album so far? After playing in some NYC night clubs with little success, they recognized that they would never be successful with that kind of music in the US. So they crossed the Atlantic Ocean and tried their luck in the UK - immediately they got a job as heat-up-band of "The Libertines". Suddenly every record company wanted to sign them for their label. Their first single "Unconditioned" was released then back in November 2004. You could characterize them as another //The-Band//, but with a fine sweet distinction to the others - they are playing 80' new wave sounds like "The Cure" or "New Order". Before I talk about other topics - here's the BBC list of the most promising bands for 2005:

1. The Bravery
2. Bloc Party
3. Kano
4. The Game
5. Kaiser Chiefs (they'll be playing before U2 on July 2nd)
6. KT Tunstall
7. The Dead 60s
8. The Dears
9. Tom Vek
10. The Magic Numbers

Yesterday I watched the game between Bayern and Chelsea - thanks god the Germans dropped out of the competition. Now I'm looking forward to seeing the match between Juventus and Liverpool tonight on Premiere Sports - I'm really glad that I got a day off tomorrow so I'll enjoy it with beer and chips. Have you seen those events occurring at the other match yesterday between Inter and AC Milan? Unbelievable. You should ban those stupid idiots for one year or even longer. This has not been the very first affair surrounding Italian clubs - thinking back to the toss throw at Roma last autumn. Fascistic parols at Lazio Roma, battling //fans// at Milan - somebody has to stop this chaos - maybe president Berlusconi (the owner of AC Milan)? Haha.

Somehow my brain's damaged, had to get up quite early (7am) today again, because of my appointment at the oral surgeon. He took out the sutures and then his assistant presented me the bill - 360€ for some x-ray picture and the removal of two wisdom teeth - will pass it on to the health insurance company. Afterwards I enjoyed breakfast (a strange feeling) at a café, before travelling back to Salzburg by train - without any engine damages or delays. Right now I'm mentally preparing for today's outfoor football training - will surely be great fun :-)

fraud is the ready minister of injustice

What I've got for you today is an anecdote about people, trustfulness and impertinence. Some months ago I bought a ticket for //Keane// at the Gasometer in Vienna on the 17th of March. This costed me 32,10€, postal charges and dispatch included. Unfortunately I was not able to get to Vienna then - due to a lack of motivation and financial means - so I tried to sell it online.

First idea - eBay! Well, obviously no good idea, because I could not sell it there because the concert was not sold out. So I asked many people if they needed a ticket - I even cut prices down to 15€! Finally, two days before the concert, I found a buyer - a long-time-member of the ASB, which seemed to be quite trustworthy. He sent me his address and name, 30 minutes later I went to the postal office because time was already slowly slipping away. My only chance was to send it via EMS (express mail service), which costed me another 8,12€. Until that moment I already spent 40,22€ on a concert I would not attend.

So far so good. Today's the 11th of April, somewhen two or three weeks ago I thought that he would have had enough time to make the bank transfer. I kindly referred to the fact, that he should transfer the money to my bank account - for two or three times - but never got an answer. Last week I even got his cell number from a friend of him, but he did not answer my SMS neither.

Today early in the morning my father called me, that he had the EMS for me that was on deposit for about one month because nobody came for it. The funny thing about EMS is, that it costs you another 8,12€ if nobody comes for it. This f***'n guy took my for a ride, haha. Paid 48,34€ for a concert I did not see. He'll surely have fun with my judicial claim, so I stay calm.

dress code!

At present I'm doing everything to avoid learning for tuesday's mid-term-exam. Well, I've already learned something yesterday and the day before, but for today I've not done anything yet. Due to a lack of motivation, descending from certain circumstances in my studies, I'm not motivated as much as about one month ago. Nevertheless, now it's time to bite through and restore the motivation back.

Yesterday in the evening we wanted to go out in the //Partyhouse// after having some drinks in the //Fellini//. We hooked us up at a quarter past nine - well, at least some of us, some others always need a bit longer - and had a few beers in good company. Some Ried players like Lasnik and Cemernjak were having some drinks too - deserved or not, that's the question. The achievement was quite okay, but the realisation of chances to score was quite horrible. Alright, that's not the topic for today. After leaving the //Fellini// we got on our cars and headed towards Haag am Hausruck, something like 14km away from Ried, the place where the //Partyhouse// is located.

After coming in at the place, we wanted to go in - but one of us - Mekko Märtin, the rallye driver from Estonia, who I have already mentioned some time ago - did not match to the //dress code// of the etablissement from the point of view of the security staff. He was wearing a normal jacket, a normal shirt and normal shoes. BUT he was wearing pants with little bags at his lower legs. At the very first moment, we thought that he would be kidding, but obviously it was no joke. So it was quite amusing to see people with 5€-garment from //New Yorker// entering the site, mostly hydrogen-blonded and with a very bad taste of clothing.

Bad luck, they lost seven possible customers, but I think that they did not give a damn about that. So we went back to Ried and had another evening at the //Hafner//, the one pub we wanted to prevent spending another evening. Came home early, did not spend that much money - thanks to Mekko :-)

Alright, have to bear down my lack of motivation to learn, have to get back to Salzburg late in the afternoon get there before 7pm to watch //el clasicó// between Real Madrid and FC Barcelona on Premiere Sports.

engine damage!!!

I do love the OBB. Why? Because they provide me damaged engines, delays and alternative rail traffic nearly every week. That's not a joke - unfortunately. Since the beginning of the current semester, I have already witnessed alternative rail traffic for two times and damaged engines for three times. I guess this might be something like a record - the semester started in the last week of February, that means it's going seven weeks so far.

Sometimes I feel like being 50 years in the past, where railway traffic has been a very common and senseful way of transportation. Nowadays it does surely not make any sense to go by train as far as you don't really have to. Unfortunately I do not have an own car, so I have got to ride it nearly every week, except holidays. The distance between Ried and Salzburg is 64km by car - fantastic 104km by train. In time - the former one hour, the latter more than two hours. Today it took me almost more than 2h30min (!) to get back home to Ried. Why? Because of a damaged engine and alternative rail traffic - once more. This damn bus stops / has to stop at every station, has to go many detours to arrive at those little senseless stations like LEHEN ALTENSAM or OBERBRUNN, the bus driver enjoys long talks with train conductors and many more. Almost cannot stop badmouthing OBB, even more since they boosted the prices another time.

Alright, my nerves are frayed, so I have to calm down a bit. Yesterday in the evening we arranged the very first BBQ this //season// - let's better say, it's the very first BBQ in which I had participated. I'm glad that I still cannot eat hard-bitten things after my wisdom teeth surgery and still cannot drink alcohol due to the reason that I'm still taking painkillers and antibiotika. Means that I had been more something like a visitor to the BBQ - drinking my mineral water (with pear and melissa!) and eating my joghurt. Somehow I could not resist and tasted some grilled sausage - forgot about my right jaw - and bit on it. AGONY!

After that experience I went home and watched Champions League, the match betweek Chelsky and Bayern Munich. Today I'll be watching the UEFA-Cup quarter final between Austria Vienna and Parma in the Wikingertreff, our former favourite pub that had closed almost one and a half years ago. Still cannot drink any alcohol (yes, beer is alcohol in fact), but not because of painkillers anymore, but due to the fact that I have a job interview tomorrow in the early morning.

the day that changed football history

Has not been a very much interesting day for me. Woke up early in the morning with some pain in my mouth, had to get up to take some more painkillers. Worked fine for me, so I could sleep until 11 am. When I got up I recognized that there has not been any swelling at my right cheek. Later I ate some lunch, but very carefully not to touch the right side of my jaw with any food.

In the afternoon I went to the postal office to give up two registered mails, afterwards I played Total Club Manager until 6 pm. At 6.30 pm Ried started with a very important game against second ranked team FC Kärnten. It ended with a quite satisfying 1-1, which let the table nearly unchanged. After that I watched Champions League quarterfinal between Liverpool and Juventus, 20 years after the Heysel-tragedy. Liverpool won the game by 2-1, leaving back Juventus with a satisfying starting position for the rematch. You don't know what had happened back then ?

On May 29, 1985, Liverpool played Juventus in the European Cup final. In a widely criticized move, the Belgian authorities had allocated a section of the ground to neutral fans. This was an idea opposed by Liverpool and Juventus, as it would easily provide an arena for fans of both clubs to obtain tickets from Belgian ticket touts outside the ground and evade the segregation measures.

A flimsy wire fence had been erected to segregate the Liverpool fans from the neutral area. A contingent of Liverpool fans began to stampede towards the Juventus fans - some Liverpool fans reported that this was a response to the act of throwing rocks and other missiles by Juventus fans - leading to the collapse of a retaining wall. In the panic that ensued many people were trampled or crushed resulting in the death of 39 people (1 Belgian and 38 Italian).

It was felt that to abandon the game would incite further trouble, and the match eventually kicked off. Juventus won 1-0 with a penalty from Michel Platini.

As a direct result of this event, The Football League banned Liverpool from participating in European competitions indefinitely, and all other English clubs for five years - a move which UEFA ratified (many believe that The Football League acted first to avoid a heavier punishment from UEFA). The length of Liverpool's ban was eventually set at ten years, though this was later reduced to seven.

The Heysel stadium itself has since been completely rebuilt, and is now called the King Baudouin Stadium.

My sources for the text and the picture aboce are Wikipedia & BBC ... gotta go to bed now, have to get up early .. unfortunately it's time to get back to business.

wisdom teeth surgery uncensored, part 1

Any mistakes I'm making by writing this blog can be referred to the fact, that I'm writing it with just one finger of my right hand - in my left hand I'm holding an ice pack to my right cheek. Continously the painkillers are not working anymore, so I've to take some more quite soon.

Alright, here's the course of events today:

• 7 am - I'm woken up by our telephone at home - somebody wants to talk to Dr. Assmann - haha.
• 8 am - I'm woken up by our telephone at home - somebody wants to talk to Dr. Schachinger - haha².(both got nearly the same telephone number as we have)
• 9 am - I'm woken up by my grandma (what the hell is she doing in my room?)
• 10 am - I finally get up, couldn't sleep anymore - thanks to the persons mentioned before
• 10.40 am - I leave the house and head straight towards hell, the doctor for oral and maxillofacial surgery

First thing that I had to do there after arriving - taking some painkillers. Started very nice and promising. After that I had to fill ou some personal data and information, e.g. if I'm suffering from heart illnesses or if I have any allergies. After that I was x-rayed from the medical assistant (its always nice to stand around with that plumb-thingie around my chest). This was followed by some gossip with the doctor, he had to tell me some legal stuff and how the process of taking out my wisdom teeth would be achieved. We agreed to take out only my right wisdom teeth (one from the lower jaw, one from the upper jaw), the other ones follow within the next two or three weeks.

After that I got a local anesthesia in my mouth - executed by six or seven injections from a large needle - fun! As soon as it worked and my mouth was numb, the doctor started to work around the first tooth in the lower jaw (his two female assistants were talking about "Krautfleckerl" in the middle of the while) by scraping it off at first. This was followed by the usage of some over-dimensional dental drill. At last he bent it before taking it out with his gripper. Because this surgery leaves a usual wound, he even had to sew if afterwards with some mint-green fibre. Then he moved over to the tooth in the upper jaw. He took his gripper and simply took him out, without using any other means.

The most important fact - I survived!!!!! After the surgery (it lasted for about 20 minutes) I was sent to some relaxation room, then they called my dad who was picking me up afterwards. At least I don't have any pain until right now, but as already mentioned in the very first sentence, the local anesthesia is slowly losing its impact, so I have to go now and take the painkillers and the antibiotika!

see, saw, seen

The Pope is dead, long live the Pope. Yesterday evening I was out with some friends when I heard that he finally had died at 21:37 CET. Actually we were discussing the liftstyle of a Pope, if he gets a wage, if he has hobbies, if he has some spare time and things like that. Somebody meant that it's strange that he's lacking of a big plasma screen TV - referring to last friday when he we could only see his back while he was watching the Good Friday Mass beiing celebrated. You may say now that it's unusual talking about such circumstantial things, but imo life is some kind of an accumulation of circumstantial things.

Yesterday I finally succeeded in leeching the total bootleg of U2's second concert in San Diego - in total 241 mb - 22 songs - elapsed time: more than 10 hours (!). Nice to have ISDN here in Ried, very entertaining when you can't hang around your PC whenever you download something. But on the other hand, I can do other, more senseful things instead of wasting my time in front of my 19" CRT-screen (which I want to replace with a 19" TFT-screen in summer).

Yesterday I bought "Collateral" on DVD, the first time since the beginning of November that I had the financial means to afford myself a new movie for my collection. I pretty much enjoyed that movie in cinema, different from my co-watchers back then. Last week I heard of another pretty good looking new movie called "SAW", starring Cary Elwes (you may know him as Robin Hood from Men in tights) and Danny Glover (Captain Roger Murtaugh from Lethal Weapon).

Here's the topic of this movie (copied from http://www.imdb.com):

Adam (Leigh Whannell) and Dr. Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes) wake up chained to pipes at opposite ends of a dirty utility room. They soon learn that they have become the victims of the Jigsaw, a serial killer who devises intricate situations to get his victims to kill each other. Pitted against the clock and each other, the two must work to outwit their captor and save Gordon's family, who have been taken hostage by the killer.

Sounds quite thrilling - hopefully it can come up to my expectations. Right now I don't know what else to write, so I better finish for today - tomorrow is another day, and if I'm able to sit down after my wisdom teeth surgery, I will provide you with some details.

hopes & fears

Just got up, didn't sleep that mich last night because I was stuck in the recurrance of "Jerry Maguire" with Tom Cruise quite early in the morning. Good movie with one of my favourite quotations: "show me the money!" Nice quotation for an economies student like I am.

Yesterday //my// team SV Ried beat Kapfenberg 4-1 in a truly amazing match, we completely dominated them and it even seemed that they really never had any chance to win the game. Very impressive, so it makes me very convinced that we manage to be relegated to the Austrian Bundesliga again. Sound intensity was very high again, even Laola swashed through the ranks for four (!!) times. In my opinion the best game of Ried this season, but I think I already mentioned that before.

Besides that I finally got my U2 tickets for the show on my birthday on the 24th of June at the Croke Park in Dublin, Ireland. It took them nearly ten weeks to ship them, so me and the others got quite nervous, but now its everything alright. They sent them as a normal letter - no certified mail, no registered mail, no priority mail. Due to the fact that I had worked as postman for two times, I know something about those habits and standards in shipping expensive things. If they had got lost on their long way to central Europe, I would have had to shoulder the blame for that. Well, right now its just "what if...".

What else can I write ... mmh. On Monday I've got a surgery. Don't worry, it just takes place in my mouth. All four wisdom teeth have to be taken out. Strange thing. Why do we have some teeth that we don't even need? Here's the answer: A tooth becomes impacted due to lack of space in the dental arch and its eruption is therefore prevented by gum, bone, another tooth or all three. Lack of space occurs because our jaws have become smaller (through evolution), we do not loose teeth through decay as frequently as in the past, and our diet is such that our teeth do not wear down as much.

What a pitty that I'm afraid of dentists. Seems that I inherited this fear of my grandpa, who got shot in WW2 for two times and was captured in Spain. But alright, he feared the dentist. Somehow strange how we human beings sometimes work. Right now I don't have a clue what else I could tell you, so I gotta go for lunch.