music makes the people come together

Somehow I'm currently eager to tell you my favourite albums. Greatest hits compilations, other compilations and U2 albums stay out of the list (this time).

2004
KEANE - Hopes And Fears

There are very few albums you can hear from the first to the last song without skipping a single song. Starting with "Somewhere Only We Know", ending with "Untitled". Just great. Had the pleasure of hearing them for a short time last summer at the Frequency Festival in Salzburg. The rain and low temperature made it impossible staying until the end of the concert.

2004
SNOW PATROL - Final Straw

Don't exactly know if it's an album for insiders, or if it's already mainstream. A perfect rock/pop mix with my favourite songs like "Spitting Games", "Run" or "Chocolate". I'm glad I will hear them next month as supporting act for U2 in Dublin.

2000
ROBBIE WILLIAMS - Sing When You're Winning

A total release of seven (!) singles from this album make it one of the best pop albums ever. The likes of "Rock DJ", "Supreme", "Kids", "Let Love Be Your Energy", "Road To Mandalay", "Eternity" and "Better Man" made it a must have for me and my 219 Schillings back in 2000.

1999
TRAVIS - The Man Who

"Why Does It Always Rain On Me", their first hitsingle back then made me curious about the rest of the album. And in this point of view, I'm glad that I faced the decision of buying the album. Great songs like "Turn" (maybe you remember the video), "Driftwood" and "Writing To Reach You" make it another album you can listen to from the first until the last song.

1999
CRUEL INTENTIONS - OST

In my view the best official soundtrack ever. You certainly remember "Bittersweet Symphony", a song written by Mick Jagger and performed by The Verve. Other songs like "Praise You" from Fatboy Slim and "Every Me Every You" from Placebo complete a very special album I had even bought before I saw the movie.

1995
OASIS - What's The Story (Morning Glory)?

It was the very first album I bought with my pocket money at the age of 12. Back then I especially liked "Wonderwall" and "Don't Look Back In Anger", but today I appreciate songs like "Champagne Supernova" or "Some Might Say" as well. Many people say that it's probably the best Oasis album ever, and I certainly agree.

1992
REM - Automatic For The People

At first I have to admit, that I bought it back in 1998 or something like that and not in 1992, because back then I hardly knew REM. Another one of these "listen to the whole album" records with outstanding songs like "Drive", "Everybody Hurts", "Nightswimming" or "Man On The Moon". I saw REM performing live at the Wiener Stadthalle this February, and it was great although I did not expect that because of bad experiences with Schönbrunn one year before.

football links

Alright, let's talk about football. Not very unusual, I know - I apologize myself in advance.

http://www.austriansoccerboard.at
Biggest Austrian football forum - meet me in the Ried channel, I'm tmNh ;-)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/default.stm
The football page of the BBC - all the latest information concerning football in the UK.

http://www.fussballoesterreich.at
The page of the Upper Austria football organization. All results and dates of all under-class games.

http://skysports.planetfootball.com/
Many redundancies with the BBC page, but still a good one.

http://64.77.87.5/sport/index.html
LJ's page - listed all live football games on TV - great page.

http://www.marca.com/
Do you speak Spanish? If the answer is yes, enjoy this site.


I could list many more, but I think that's enough for today. You have any questions concerning football? Send me an e-mail or drop me a message or a comment below.

We are the champions

WE DID IT. YES, YES, YES.

Turning a 0-2 after 53 minutes into a glorious 3-2 win. Promotion. Welcome back Bundesliga. Two years of hurt never stopped me (and thousands of other Ried-fans) dreaming of that day.

Welcome back Salzburg. Welcome back Rapid. Welcome back Austria. Welcome back Pasching. Welcome back Wacker. Welcome back Admira. Welcome back GAK. Welcome back Sturm. Welcome back Mattersburg (oh - we actually never played them).

Weather is too fine to waste my time in front of my screen in my flat. Gotta go outside, see you soon.

until the end of the season

The last posting is nearly one week old, although I have had enough time to make new ones, because I've got something like holidays now. That's strange, isn't it? (this isn't it always reminds me of Frank Stronach when he's talking in German)

Well, may be due to the fact that I have done exactly nothing since last Saturday. Nothing means watching TV (mainly football games, but I don't have to say that in particular), playing football manager on my PC and chatting via ICQ. Yes, that's it. In fact, I have got to eat/drink and sleep from time to time, but that's standardized.

You know what's coming right now - you're right, I'm talking about football. Tomorrow (or is it today) the SV Ried will play their 34. game this season, against Austria Lustenau in the so called Ländle. They are a real feared opponent the last two seasons, they have not lost a single game at home since May 2003 (in numbers: 36 successive games). But now time has come to change that situation. All our players are fit and allowed to play, everybody has a clear focus on the main target, that can be expressed within one word: promotion. Promotion to the Bundesliga, the highest of all Austrian leagues in football.

At first I wanted to accompany my team to Lustenau by train, but somehow I'm lacking of motivation for the 15-hours-lasting trip. In detail it would look like this:

10:34 departure from Ried (regional train)
10:54 arrival in Neumarkt/Kallham
10:58 departure from Neumarkt/Kallham (regional train)
11:25 arrival in Wels
11:28 departure from Wels (IC)
16:40 arrival in Feldkirch
16:47 departure from Feldkirch (fast train)
17:06 arrival in Dornbirn
17:10 departure from Dornbirn (bus)
17:37 arrival in Lustenau

The game starts at 19:00, which means that I would probably have 2,5 per mill so far. Somehow I was really keen on watching that game, but now after a friend of mine told me that he does not want to go there (for whatever reason), I do not feel comfortable about going there, mainly with people I only know from going out in the evenings.

Well. What else can I tell you. A good friend of mine (a female) told me that she has to go to the dentist for a wisdom teeth surgery on Monday. A few hours later she told me that she has to go there already tomorrow, because of acute pain. Not a very funny situation as I know from myself (radix-treatment!!!). I'm glad that everything's alright in my mouth the very first time since ... don't know how many months.

Alright, only 18 more hours until the kick-off of the game. Damnit, tomorrow will be 1) a great 2) a very bad day. If we win, we're almost in, if we lose, fate will probably replay itself. It's time to do my prayers now...

I take the pledge - at least for some hours

I feel sick, both mentally and physically. I was on the booze now (reference to Bobby Moore: "Win or lose, always on the booze!") for two successive evenings. Spent nearly 100 Euros hard earned cash (ha-ha) on drinks like beer, vodka-lemon, cola-rum and some other alcoholics I cannot remember. But it's somehow merited, because I managed to get overcome the oral exam vulgo examination and had to celebrate my team's sixth successive win.

Yes, we won the game against Leoben in an impressive way by the score of 3-0. The stadium was nearly sold out as predicted, 7000 spectators saw a clear win by our team. After the game I was almost involved in a fight between Austrians and Turks. Stood near those people and suddenly got hit a little bit by a backsliding guy. Did not hurt myself, but it's afflicting that racial problems still involve our everyday lives. Connected with alcohol, oral conflicts are very likely to exaggerate in a negative way, which means physical violence. Afterwards we realized that it had not been that bad as it had looked like in the very first moments. But it's still stupid to see such occurings.

Another interesting topic I read today in the internet.

Nationalrat beschließt neues Mediengesetz

Der Nationalrat hat Donnerstagabend einstimmig eine Novelle zum Mediengesetz verabschiedet. Kernpunkt ist, dass die einzelnen Bestimmungen des Gesetzes auch auf das Internet bzw. andere elektronische Medien angewendet werden können. So wird etwa klargestellt, dass auf einer Website Gegendarstellungen veröffentlicht werden müssen, wenn diese über die Darstellung des persönlichen Lebensbereichs des Inhabers hinausgeht und deren Informationsgehalt geeignet ist, die öffentliche Meinungsbildung zu beeinflussen. Neu ist gemäß Gesetz weiters, dass Medien künftig nicht mehr beschlagnahmt, eingezogen bzw. zu einer Urteilsveröffentlichung verpflichtet werden können, wenn sie die Äußerung eines Dritten gerechtfertigt und wahrheitsgetreu wiedergegeben haben.

What does it mean for ordinary people like you and me? Is the expression of my very intimate thoughts an action of exposition of public information? For example, if I said that I disliked a several persons, would that mean that I can get fined therefore? Is it another step to realize the topic of books like Orson Welles' 1984 or Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451? Some might say that it's just a guard for innocent people, some might say that it harms a person's human rights, some might say that they do not care at all. The truth probably lies in between, at least I hope so. Gotta watch some football now, cannot think of any other topics worth discussing now.

hope and frustration

Since the frustration of the lost lines due to the strange blog-publishing-behaviour has passed quite much time. I am looking forward to the next week – holidays. Don’t exactly know why, but we have no lectures in the next week after the Pentecost-weekend. Surely I’m glad about that fact, but I still do not know what to do. In fact I have to do various stuff for FH, but it won’t take me all ten days for sure.

The league championship has come to a quite thrilling stage right now. Kapfenberg is our very last opponent for the promotion to the Bundesliga. They are five points behind us, only four games left. The first of those four will take place tomorrow in Ried, opponent will be Leoben. Before the last game, the Styrians have been something like a feared opponent, but after the away win about one month ago, this status has fortunately changed to our side. I expect a nearly sold out Fill Metallbau Stadion tomorrow, maybe something around 7000 spectators and an important win. We cannot allow slipping, because Kapfenberg will exploit every mistake of our team. The very last game this season will take place in Kapfenberg, so we’re all hoping that the margin by then will be something more than three points.

We all have bad experiences with games of fate, since our relegation in 2003 descends from a 0-3 home loss against Admira Wacker Mödling in the very last game. One point would have been enough, but our team was paralyzed, nearly dead. It’s a fact that we had lost the last eight games that season, so the relegation was quite deserved. The more deserved would be a promotion this season. We’re the big ones in our league, have the most spectators and the best infrastructure and management. Last season we had been voted as the “best led professional Austrian football team” (the vote was taken by the labour union of footballers).

What else can I tell you? My second favourite football team, Manchester United, has been taken over by American billionaire Malcolm Glazer this afternoon. He now owns 56% of the club’s market shares and therefore has to state a bid for a takeover. The fans and the CEO David Gill are furious about this fact, because the American's destination is to ruin the club. He already owns the American football team called Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and the first thing he did back then was to raise the entry fees. The second step was to stop activities of transfers and recruitments in order to weaken the team and raise his income. If he did the same things at Manchester, this would surely be a catastrophe. The international position would be enormously shocked, teams like Chelsea, Milan or Barcelona would be on top for the next years, leaving United back in mid-class.

Last thing for today – spring has come back, sunshine and about 20 C° today. Right now I am looking forward to going running, after the end of the Ice hockey match between Canada and the Slovak Republic.

two days in the life of a football aficionado

As promised, now I've got a lot of things to tell you, concerning the last two and a half days. The day before yesterday, we went to Wörgl to watch the football game. Normally it takes you about one hour to get from Salzburg to Wörgl by car, but thanks to a traffic jam near Chiemsee, it took us about one hour and a half (some guys from Ried who wanted to see the match too had it even worse, they did not see the first match half). The Sportplatz Wörgl is just great. Everything is so old fashioned, boring and not worthy of a team that plays in a pro league. About 300 people watched the game (50-70 from Ried) that was more than once disturbed by heavy rainfalls.

What you see on the picture above is a faked interview scene with the Premiere anchorman and myself. When we asked him kindly to act as if he interviewed us, he was very friendly and agreed immediately. This was just a nice action, because maybe we'll never see that "stadium again. If we are relegated to the Bundesliga. What is looking very promising at the moment, we won the game 2-1 (after a quite bad performance) while hardest opponent FC Kärnten lost to Kapfenberg 0-2. Now we've got an eight-points-cushion against Kapfenberg, Kärnten is already eleven points back. Any only five more games remaining - I am already looking forward to the next game tomorrow against Wörgl again, but this time in the Fill Metallbau Stadion (that's the name of our stadium). The last time we played Wörgl at home, we beat them 3-0, and I am confident we can hopefully esceed this score this time.

That's it for the Wörgl game, let's move over to the FH football tournament in Wiener Neustadt. Here's the chronology of Wednesday, 4th of May, 2005:

4.30 a.m. (no mistype) - got up, packed my sports bag, brushed my teeth and left my flat.

4.45 a.m. - arrived at the OMV petrol station where the bus should fetch us and take us to the south of Vienna.

4.50 a.m. - we were only two players so far (the second was the other forward), so we thought about being kidded - but a few seconds later another two players and the bus arrived. We should have left Salzburg at 4.45 a.m., but


NOW I'M REALLY PISSED OFF, BECAUSE THE REST OF THE BLOG WAS FUCKED UP. GREAT! THIRTY MINUTES OF WORK LOST IN THE DIGITAL NIRVANA!

Austrian ego

Football and ice hockey are two fundamentally different sports. Well, according to the Wiener Stadthalle ice hockey can be played on a watery ground too, but that's an exception from normality. On Saturday our national team was able to keep eyes on the same level with former world champions Russia, so everybody was happy and satisfied. "We're not the same team anymore we used to be in former times", some experts expressed their opinions about this "success" (in fact we did lose the game, nothing else). Two days later the small brother and former part of Russia - Belarus - was the second opponent of the "self-confidence bubbling" Austrians. "Belarus is much worse than Russia, we have to win this game if we do not want to be relegated to the lower play-off", some experts and even players said to the media this time. Unfortunately they lost the game 0-5 (some kinda clear win for Belarus) and were the 2nd best team on the ice (or water, if you want so), nothing more or less. "This team has to learn many things, it's not a world class team yet", was the general tenor this time. "We are only Austria, how can a team like Austria beat strong ice hockey nations like Russia or Belarus, that's impossible". Okay...

Same thing about football. Do you know Hans K. (picture shown below)? A former European class forward who scored more goals than any other Austrian player in these times. Right now he's the coach of the national team, and nobody knows why. He has not had any successes yet, failed to qualify to the EM in Portugal last year and will fail in qualifying for the WM in our neighbour country Germany next year. Can you remember the game in Northern Ireland? No? Well, here's a short reminder:

That means that we naturally _cannot_ qualify for a big event like the WM. I wonder why we had been able to qualify for the world championships in 1990 and 1998. Maybe it was a mistake by some officials, or our players unintentionally scored too many goals. Before the two matches against Wales, we had been the worst team in Europe, according to the media and the publicity. After those two games (and six points) we suddenly _can_ qualify ourselves for the WM? Have I missed out or ignored anything important? Or is it just the nature of the Austrian soul?

Himmelhoch jauchzend, zu Tode betrübt. It seems that we cannot avoid these recurring loops. But it would not be any fun anymore, wouldn't it? Sincerly yours, mp, inhapident of the football world champion nation 2010.