Saw the most amazingly perfect rainbow while driving home tonight – unfortunately I only had my camera phone with me and not my real camera, and I was driving on the A4, so this is the only souvenir of my favourite natural spectactle:
Monthly Archive for May, 2006
I went a little overboard with my ESC-related posts last year, so I’m just going to make it short and sweet this year, partly because my pillow is looking really tempting right now and I’ve fired off all my sarky comments regarding the show already.
Well, I guess I am pleased with the outcome, I do like the Finnish song – I wasn’t too crazy about the tongue action in between (never thought I’d live to say these words 
), but it was solid and catchy, and it was hard rock, hallelujah! For once in my life, I also liked the German contribution because I’m just a little bit country, and it was disappointing to only see them making number 15.
So who did I vote for? Turkey! Again! I thought Sibil Tüzün rocked – I pretty much loved everything about her – the song, the hair, the tattoos, the attitude, the background singers, the bling-bling barrette and belt buckles (alliteration alert), the star-formation – definitely my own personal winner. Apart from Turkey, Germany and Finland, my other favourites were Bosnia/Herzegovina, Denmark and Sweden. I choose to ignore Ms. Carola’s comments regarding the alleged curability of homosexuality with pills though.
Least favourite acts:
- The guy from Moldavia, who was accompanied by a very bizarre Omarion-impersonator – dude, you should have stayed in O-Zone! Again, words I thought I’d never utter.
- Las Ketchup from Spain. Which should say it all. They seemed like a distraction from the background dancers. Which reallyshould say it all.
- Croatia, Latvia and Armenia. Can’t even remember who they were, but they are the only ones with either a “- -” or “- - -” score on my list, where “+++” is the highest, and “- - -” the lowest ranking.
Oh, and by the way, did anyone else notice Daffyd Thomas singing background vocals during the Irish entry? I will have to try and find some screencaps. I also laughed about my friend’s (who wishes to remain anonymous) comment , summarizing the Greek entry as “folklore meets showing your tits”. Quite true. I was subconsciously wishing for Greece to win, only so I could use the title “Transvestite Wins Eurovision Song Contest”. Did she really wear a € 170,000 outfit by Jean Paul Gaultier? If so, girl, you’ve been ripped off!
All in all, it was another night of great fun, often bordering on the bizarre and cheesy of course – but I never feel as proud to be European as I do when the Eurovision fanfare resounds prior to and after the contest, and usually any notion of patriotism is very foreign to me.
This blog has literally been bombarded with spam for 24 hours now. The filters have been doing a pretty good job at keeping the worst out, but I still got about 50 comments to moderate in my inbox, which was just a slight bit annoying. I’m currently testing different strategies to keep those out as well, so if at any point you run into trouble while commenting, please feel free to get in touch with me. My email address can be found in the “About”-section. Thanks in advance.
Since tonight marks the night of the Season 6 finale of CSI, I thought I’d post my findings on the CBS search picture here. The first part of the finale already aired last week, but from what I’ve gathered, only the fact that Brass was shot and the name of the casino involved, the Lucky Dragon, have been dealt with so far:
- Both Sara’s and Grissom’s heads turn when magnified – to each other. I’d say “yay”, but the expression on their faces remains sad.
- Grissom’s hand opens up when magnified – like a hand asking to be taken.
- There appears to be written “GG + ?” on the chair next to Catherine. I’d say this has got to mean that Grissom is finally getting some action, hopefully with Sara Sidle, but Sara Sidle appears to be hiding something (in her pocket), so maybe not?
- Nick has a cut on his neck and signifies “4 – 0″ with his hands. Ok, maybe he doesn’t, but I hope the cut does not signify anything. They’d better not do any harm to poor Nicky, I’m still traumatized by the season 5 finale.
- One of the casinos in the background disappears when magnified.
- “Play” on the diner window becomes “Dead”.
- The doctor is holding a scalpel, wearing a red shirt, Greg’s eyes are closed and he has got a card in his pocket which looks like a tarot cared to me. Pretty grim, no?
- I’m seeing something else in the magnifying glass pictured above but I will wait until after the finale because even writing this right now would feel utterly crazy.
I’m not really collecting the evidence here, but my guess is: The finale will be about Brass’ struggle between life and death – and hopefully surviving – and Grissom. With Sara Sidle, preferably. If the clues in the picture are anything to go by, then this won’t be an episode of Cath!Drama – so it’s got to be a good episode by default in my book.
I saw this computer terminal at Cologne Central Station the other day and it literally made me laugh out loud – the infamous Windows blue screen of death!
It reminded me of the new “Get a Mac”-adverts by Apple, in particular the one about restarting. Every single one of them made me snicker, even though I am quick to admit that they merely play on stereotypes and are not selling us any claims of universal truth. Still, great fun – and my friend thinks the PC guy is cute, which I find a tad disturbing.
I really enjoyed the latest episode of CSI, “Time Of Your Death”. Starting out with the tune “Living for the Weekend” by Hard-Fi (congratulations for apparantly having made it in the USA as well!), the victim-to-be, a “cool” guy in his late 20′s was seen driving around Vegas in a flashy red Ferrari, accompanied by a beautiful blonde, generously tipping the valet guy, hitting the dancefloor, making out with the blonde – living the dream, as some might say.
Turns out that the dream was a staged fantasy – he had done a favour to his boss, who in return awarded him with a trip to Las Vegas that behind the scenes had been meticulously planned by the hands of a company organizing the individual’s perfect night – sans the death, obviously. While the episode’s cinematography was average, it is indeed this idea of life not being as random as one would expect that got me thinking. It just seems so easy to lure people into happiness. Is what we regard as happiness indeed motivated by our most inner thoughts, by our own accord, or is it triggered by people, motives, actions – making it something that is subject to external influences and therefore manipulative?
My reverie was interrupted, however, when the shady owner of “Caprice Unlimited”, claiming that everything is possible, made a point of turning around after having been interviewed by Grissom and Sara Sidle, telling them, “And may all your dreams come true!”
Huh? Had I heard that right? Indeed, I had. How odd. See, I do have some ambivalent feelings about the GSR (Grissom Sara Romance). Granted, I love CSI. I love Grissom, I love Sara Sidle. ‘k, I love her the most I stumbled across GSR fan fiction by accident, and while I thought it was mildly entertaining, I never really saw it during the six years of CSI. Yes, there was some bantering, kind words were exchanged, mild innuendo uttered – but I thought Grissom and Sara just connected on the geek-level… after all, he is her boss, and he is much older. The fact that Grissom was wearing what I like to call “The Old Guy Jacket” in this episode wasn’t exactly helping, either:
It seems like I will have to throw my superficial objections over board for good, though. There were so many references and stolen glances throughout the remainder of the episode that GSR suddenly seemed feasible to me, and not just in “theory”, i.e. the GSR ship, but also in “reality”. Obviously, this is a huge compliment to William Petersen’s and Jorja Fox’s acting abilities – not that I’d ever perceived them as anything short from perfect, but when this look was exchanged at the end of the episode, I was convinced that the GSR ship is firmly and justly on its way:
Since today is a national holiday, I spent yesterday doing what I love the most – geeky stuff. Some may just call it “slacking off”. In my case, that amounted to playing around with various Greasemonkey scripts, downloading stupid videos from YouTube (just because I can, even though they’ve now introduced session IDs), reading lots of really bad GSR (Grissom Sara Romance) fan fiction, converting videos for my mobile phone thanks to iSquint, listening to “Peacekeeper” on almost infinite repeat, and while all the youngsters and hipsters were getting wasted, laid, or rioting in the streets in this most traditional of traditional nights, I watched CSI on DVD, decided it was time to get an HDMI DVD player (something I will pursue tomorrow once shops are open again), and went to bed early.
It’s official – I am getting old. It’s also official: I took the geek test and am a certified nerd:
