Trip to Ireland, part 1

As promised I’m gonna tell you the whole story concerning our trip to Ireland this weekend.

I got up at 5.45 a.m. on Friday because we wanted to leave Ried at 6 a.m. to be at the airport in Vienna about two hours before the plane takes off to Dublin. You can imagine that we did not actually leave Ried at 6 a.m., because the guy with the car didn’t hurry at all and so we finally left our hometown at 6.30 a.m., still early enough – somehow too early.

After a pit-stop in a roadhouse near St. Pölten (the driver wanted to have some breakfast, I was too nervous to eat anything) we arrived at Vienna International Airport at about 9.30 a.m. – after parking like 2km away from the terminals - we had to make a nice walk with luggage in the hot summer sun - we got together with the third guy in the doorway between terminal 1 and terminal 2. Well, two hours before the flight was still too early, so we had to wait before we could check in at the Air Lingus desk. After finishing that process we moved on to the waiting hall and had one coffee and some nice small talk, surely about Austrian football and in detail the Bundesliga.

Afterwards we moved further on and entered the gate A50 where the people for the Dublin flight had to wait for the progressing boarding process. My last flight was in 2001 (to Mallorca), so I felt quite uneasy about it. But there were no problems at all, and after 2 hours and 20 minutes in the air we finally touched down in Dublin (or should I call it Baile Átha Cliath?), Ireland (Eire). And because I want to watch TV now, the story will be retold tomorrow.

sunday bloody sunday

I know I have been very lazy lately, but I had to finish the 6th semester at the University of Applied Sciences in Salzburg. I'm glad I managed to get through all tests, exams and all the other things quite well. The weather is fine as well, so I was at the open air bath for a few times. Soon there will be a huge report from my trip to Dublin/Ireland where I will be standing on the pitch of the Croke Park among 88.000 other persons, listening to the U2 concert.

Please forgive me this short posting, but I have to leave again, the Confederations Cup game between Brazil and Mexico starts in ten minutes.

crazy frog, crazy world

Friday evening. Boring friday evening. Nobody else in Ried, so I have to sit in front of my screen and add another posting into my blog. Tried out the 1,3 megapixel-cam of my (relatively) new cell. That's the outcome (light is bad) - that's me, just for the case if you didn't see a pic of mine before (although there is one at the upper right corner of the blog - but that's more than two years old).

Too bad all those pics vanish from my blog when I "check out" of my flat in Salzburg - where the internet connection with all that webspace exists. Have to look for an alternative, maybe a good AND cheap one. Ha ha.

Did I already tell you that I'm nearly fed up with my current situation. Somehow for the first time I wish I had a car, so I would drive around to make the time go by. Or go to the cinema in Braunau or something like that.

Today I heard that "Crazy Frog" song for the very first time. WHAT IS THAT? Please shoot the guys who did this crime to the public. A 20 seconds ringtone that starts again and again and again, three minutes long. Is it a joke? Are some of the music-buyers in the UK crazy? Please never pay any, I repeat, any attention to the single charts. They are meaningless, tell you nothing, absolutely nothing. It's a shame for bands like Coldplay to be outnumbered in sales by such freaks, but I think their new album X&Y will be ranking on the first place when it enters the charts next week.

Today I did something I almost never did the last few years - I watched a tennis game. The one between Roger Federer, the best player in the world, and Rafal Nadal, the 19 years old wiz-kid from Spain, probably the best sand player (how is it called in English?!) in the world (aaand the nephew of Miguel Angel Nadal, the former Barcelona & Spanish captain - in football). Nadal made it in four sets, he was (by far) the better player today and meets the unseeded Mario Puerta from Argentina in the big final.

Alright, already 10 p.m. - time to do useless things again. See you.

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.

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 :-)