Shoot 'Em Up

I watched the movie "Shoot Em Up". I heard of it before and I was interested but I never got around to see it. Now I did, and I have to say I liked it alot! It's without compromises. It wants to be a picture-intense, pure shooting-feast with cool guys, hot girls, bad guys, alot of guns and shooting and impossible situations, and everything in the all so nice and dirty "Film-Noire" look. And you exactly get all that! It's like a mixture of "Sin City" and a movie version of "Max Payne".

The movie was violent yes, but also very good-looking (in its own way), smart, funny and just damn damn cool! It is like a computer game made into a movie! If there's ever gonna be a movie version of "Max Payne", please let Clive Owen be in it! He's Max! :)

Finished Ninja Gaiden II

Ok, normally it's not really something that special if I finish a game. I tend to finish most games I get - at least once. But if you actually finish a game like Ninja Gaiden, it's alittle special and you can be proud.

I did finish it at the lower of the 2 difficulty-settings, ok. And I have to admit overally it was quite easy most of the time. Only the one or the other boss-mob gave me troubles sometimes, but most of them were easy. It's a very good game and I enjoyed playing it alot... except for the final boss! Why? Because you had to finish him with the bow! I never liked the bow. I love the game. It's fast, the combos are smooth and you hardly ever feel slow or cornered. Ryu twirls and flies around and you never feel like you can't control where he's headed and what he's doing. Very good responsiveness, high speed, that's how I love games! But when you use the bow, you don't feel fast anymore. You're slow, standing, aiming. A sitting duck, having to wait til your bow is fully charged so you can release one arrow and hopefully hit the right spot in time. It takes away the key element of the playing-style of the game, that's why I never use the bow. I prefer the shuriken since you can just throw those while moving and doing your combos.

And if that wouldn't be annoying enough, the final boss has to be fought a total of 3 times, that right after a previous boss-mob and even adding a final boss mob to the very end for a whopping chain of 5 boss-fights, all without savepoint or shop to restock. Looking back afterwards, it wasn't too hard to do either - since the mobs before and after the annoying fights are actually doable with melee-action, but the arrow-part is very annoying because there's alot of luck involved and there's a high learning-curve involved - at least there was for me, who never had to rely on the bow much before that.

But I'm proud I finished the game, and it was alot of fun indeed! So much I'll surely go for the higher difficulty setting soon... very much doable, just some boss mobs I'm not looking forward to. But I can live with a game that' 95% fun and 5% annoying - I just wished they wouldn't have put the most annoying part at the very end.

image taken from and © www.ign.com

Being nice = problematic?

I read an article on Spiegel Online yesterday: http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/mensch/0,1518,560519,00.html.

Scientists analyzed the changes we have in partner-searches. The main statement was "the wild ones get the best girls". Or something like that. They found it actually true what many men already know: machos, egoists and guys who manipulate people and treat women bad actually get women more easily. They found that such dominant, strong behavior actually triggers certain female key-stimuli that appeal to their lower emotional levels - which might make for a great short-term relationship, but are the complete wrong indicators to determine a partner for a longer relationship or even marriage.

He thought about another thing: that it probably had its advantages that in the past when parents arranged marriages. They have the "big picture" in their minds. They want their children to be safe and in good hands. They don't have to be in love head over heels right away, they just have to like each other and love will come later.

So today many relationships fail these days, a lot of marriages fail after a year or two and the numbers have been going up drastically since the 68ies. And the reason for it could be those instinctive indicators that rely on short-lived characteristics like physical attraction and dominance rather than on those actually important to have a long-term relationship. They talked about how often the most successful relationships / the longest marriages are those based on a more rational decision to stay together rather than something hot-headed. The ones not made by the heart or the pants alone but rather by alot of brain. And then I had to think of my grandparents and about when my grandfather told me how they got together: They were dating and one day, my grandmother got pregnant. They liked each other and they said "ok, then let's get married" - that's actually how my grandfather told us the story. And they ended up being happily married for over 50 years. Could you believe something like that happening in our time? With all the freedom we have? I doubt many women in our society would simply go for such a step but rather have an abortion or raise the kid by themselves. Back then, those possibilities did not exist or weren't that easily available. And values like catholic religious views were very important as well. It were different times back then, and I'm sure there are bad examples for the drawbacks of those times too, but in this particular case, it gave my grandparents a happy life together, and made my grandma give birth to my mother... I might not be here if times would've been different.

I don't know about all that. I don't like it when ppl tell other ppl how to live their lives. And I always believed in true love. I still do. So I think it's important everyone is free to chose their partner and I think it's important that passion and attraction can play a role. I just thought about myself and how it surely is harder for me with that. I'm not that outgoing, I'm not the most attractive guy and surely not egoistic. I'm a nice guy, I simply am. I'm the type of guy parents would like to meet, but those aren't necessarily the types that women dig.

Still, I won't change. I'll simply be the nice, sweet, geeky me. And with alittle luck, perhaps I'll find a girl one day who appreciates that and wants to be with me.

New Coldplay Album

Coldplay released a new album, called "Viva La Vida". I've always been a fan of Coldplay, I like emotional, catchy, sometimes melancholical tunes with alot of feeling and poetry in it. I liked singing with the songs, learning the lyrics. How much their music touched me and meant for me emotionally I all too well realised after Karen broke up with me.

As their last Album, "X&Y" was released, we were still together and it was during a hard time in my work-life where she and Coldplay were the things that gave me the strength I needed.

Now it's 3 years later and they have another album out, and I think I'm ready to start listening to Coldplay again. So I got the album and just listened through it one time. I'm still alittle undecided what to think of it. It's definitely Coldplay, and I would think it's pure and without compromises. The songs are all good and not mainstream. They all show the usual determination and deep emotions... it's what makes their songs so enjoyable when you are in the right mood and connect happy thoughts and memories with em - and so tough when you are in a completely different emotional state.

Right now while writing this, I have the first "song" (more an instrumental) running in a loop. I immediately fell in love with this short little tune called "Life In Technicolor". The rest of the album is alittle different than that song though, not too fast, drum and beat-oriented... something I have to admit I did like alot about older songs and wouldn't have minded hearing again on this album.

But perhaps I just need to listen to it alittle more to learn to love it even more... or maybe I simply lack the right emotional state... or someone special to enjoy it with...

image taken from and © www.amazon.de

I knew it! They still got it!

So they did it! And I can proudly say I didn't doubt they would. The german soccer team defeated Portugal, one of the favorites of the tournament and now they themselves are favorites for the title suddenly.

And what a victory it was! I believed they would win the match, but I thought even if they got better than they have been the last two games, they still would need luck. But what they showed us was incredible! They played amazingly! With so much passion, joy and sovereignty! It was so much fun just watching them play... combinating, rushing, forcing forward... and scoring goal after goal! 3 of them!

The match got tight in the end again, but they were victorious in the end - and they absolutely deserved to win! The portugese were good, but we were better!

Man of the match was Sebastian Schweinsteiger, who scored one goal and assisted on the other two. You could see he was hot and eager to compensate for getting that red penalty card 2 games ago. But it wasn't him alone who played exceptionally, it was the whole team. Actually, I wouldn't even call it exceptional since that implies they were playing above their skill limits... which is definitely not true. Ever since the world cup 2 years ago, all of Germany knows what these guys are capable of. And in this match, they simply reminded the whole country: "Yeah, we still have what it takes! We're still that good!"

... I'm glad I didn't doubt them. And after that game, I know noone else will - even if they shouldn't win the title. Thank you, guys!

picture taken from and © www.spiegel.de

cute kitty

While visiting my parents this weekend, I caught one of their cats, "kitty", in their living-room feeling cuddly. So I caressed her and she was really enjoying it. It was so cute I had to take a few pictures and a quick video with my cellphone...

Video: Kitty being caressed by me

with 121 km/h into the quarter-finals!

So they did it today. And I didn't doubt at all that they would. The german soccer team beat Austria 0:1 today and thus moved on to the quarter-finals. I didn't like the game too much and I think the germans could play alot better still, but I'm happy and proud nevertheless. And Kudos to Michael Ballack, our captain, who scored the winning goal... and what a goal it was! His free kick went straight into the upper right of the goal, with a speed of 121 km/h! Impossible to catch! Wonderful to look at, such force, such precision!

Even though I also was shocked about what our team showed the match before this one against Croatia, I didn't like all the negative and bad comments and reports by all the wanna-be reporters and specialists. Yes ok, they did play badly, but they admitted it and we all know they can do alot better! I'm glad they showed more today, but I also agree after today that there's still room for improvement - and there has to be, because our next opponent won't be as easy to beat as Austria.

image © www.spiegel.de

Thinkgeek order arrived! Time to geek out!

This morning the delivery service brought the Thinkgeek-order from the US! They even called me as I didn't answer the doorbell. I was at home but still in bed hehe. So today after work, I went home with my friends from work who had their part in that huge order and we checked out the stuff we got together.

I didn't get too much. A few geek t-shirts again and a Rubic's cube, a motivation poster and a duct-tape wallet. All pretty cool! Oh, I almost forgot about the doormat!

The wallet is alittle smaller than my old one though, so I'll have to see what I can leave out to actually make it close. I have been carrying around alot of unnecessary stuff anyway. Perhaps it's a good time now to clean it out. I'm gonna hang up the poster in a frame somewhere around my apartment. I also wondered if we should hang one up at work... those are fun, especially since many ppl might not even realize right away that they are actually making fun of all those motivation-posters. But they look so authentic, they can fool you.

I gotta get some training with the Rubik's cube again. I once knew how to solve it but that's so very very long ago already... still, I love puzzles like that and I'm sure I'll spend quite a bit of time with that one.

One drawback was that the big Binary-clock I wanted to get for my living-room couldn't be shipped outside of USA and Canada. Strange, since the smaller desk-version could be delivered. I'll have to look if other companies actually sell those here.

It's my fault!

... or "my curse with public viewing". Today I went to the "E-Werk" to enjoy Germany's second match of the European Championship. The weather was great, not too hot, I had awesome places right in front of the screen, I had beer... but there wasn't much to enjoy because Germany lost. And I had to think back to what I was joking about with my dad today as I called him: that I hope I won't bring as much back luck during my first public-viewing session as he did when he went to a public-viewing event during the World Championship 2 years ago. Back then, the only match my dad view on the big screen outside was actually the one and only match that Germany lost.. against Italy in the semi-finals. And perhaps this defeat today was my fault...

I got quite upset today - which surprised me myself. But I think what hit me hardest was that we actually deserved to lose! Our team didn't play well at all and seemed weak and without will. If it was an unlucky defeat, I'm ok with that. It can happen a lot in soccer that the better team still loses. But today, Germany wasn't the better team and they were lucky to "only" lose 1:2.

Oh well, good news is: nothing is lost yet. We have to win the next game against Austria to advance into the semi-finals. And what I also liked: There were quite a few Croatian fans in the city celebrating after the game and it was peaceful between them and the German fans. It's all cool, it's just a game after all.

but still sucks if your team loses...

found the perfect theme

I can't believe this actually happened! But I finally found the perfect theme for this blog! Wordpress has of course theme-support and there are soooo many themes out there... and I tried out many of them, but every theme I tried had something not quite working / looking the way I wanted it too. The last one I used worked best actually but the colors it used weren't my favorite ones. I know, I know I could've simply changed the style-sheets to adjust the blog to my tastes, but to be honest I'm not a big fan of fumbling around with HTML-code to get a certain style/look. I don't lack the skills, but I'm not patient enough for stuff like that.

But I didn't give up. I kept checking for themes and I finally found this one:

iTheme 1.1 by Nick La

WordPress theme designed by N.Design Studio.

I love the look. Always been a fan of clean color-themes and blue if my favorite color anyway. The style seems to copy elements from MacOS X which I also adore! The clear distinction between the right-side menu and the content is another plus, and I was surprised to see you can move the menu-elements or click away their content - a neat feature that I don't really need but it's cool to see.

So, my long long search has finally come to an end... and I can delete the megabytes of themes that are still stuck on my webserver...

Ninja Gaiden 2 is here!

Today I got Ninja Gaiden 2 for the 360! I've been waiting for it a long time and I've been excited to play it. As I wrote before already, I was hoping that they don't change too much since the first one already was quite perfect... and I didn't get disappointed!

It's still as hard and fast and smooth, the chicks still have the Tecmo-typical sexy outfits showing big, bouncing breasts, the boss mobs are huge and the atmosphere is great!

I'm not sure about the graphics. To me, it still looks like the first one, no real improvement. Then again, the first one was quite amazing already. It's probably the same as with Dead or Alive (the fighting game and the volleyball one), which didn't seem to be that much better-looking on the new Xbox either.

A definite improvement is on the gore-factor! Blood, blood everywhere! Chopped off body-parts and corpses that stay where you left them. I'm not sure if I simply had a censored version of the first one or if it really was that less bloody. I like the more intense display of violence, though it's not a must - the game would've been great with alittle less too. (some might say that the same goes for the bust-sizes of the females in their games, but that's a big NO from my side!)

The one thing that didn't get improved is the camera! I hear all Ninja Gaiden fans cheer "Yay!"... it's still as crappy, too slow, never focused on the thing you wanna see and so you end up controlling it yourself with your right thumb-stick while you are playing. Well, I guess most fans are used to playing it that way anyway.

They added an easier difficulty setting. I have to admit I started on that one and it wasn't that challenging. I might still finish the game quickly on that one but just like with the first game, I'll replay this game on higher difficulties too. It's a challenging game, but thanks to the higher amount of save-points and the now included max-health at those spots and the self-heals after fights, this game will probably frustrate a lot less than the first one did.

So, the game has been worth the wait. Some things could be a little more impressive - especially for a 360 game, but it's got all the things I loved about the series so far and I'm looking forward to beating the game and seeing more of the plot - which I can't say too much about yet.

Huge Thinkgeek order

Today I finally finished and sent off a huge order of geeky stuff at Thinkgeek.com. It's been a few years since my last order and since the Euro is quite strong compared to the USD, I thought it's a good time now to restock myself on geeky-stuff.

And as I mentioned it to my friends and co-workers, they all wanted to join in on the order and it got more and more expensive! *L* we passed the $600 mark easily and would've been much higher even but some electronic items couldn't be shipped to places outside the US and canada. Still, I think we made a good deal with that - even though shipping wasn't that cheap... and there might be customs and taxes to add to that but still, I think it won't get too expensive.

image taken from and © www.thinkgeek.com

Grid - first impression

Ok, after getting "Grid" for the 360 a few days ago, here are my first impressions:

The game feels good. The physics engine is amazing and I can't remember ever having so much "feeling" for the car and the track when playing a racing-game. Surprisingly, the 1st person "helmet view" is the setting I like driving most, despite the drawbacks. But I think it gives the best feeling about the behavior of the car - and more reputation points if you set the camera fixed to that view. And playing the game sitting close to a big HD-screen makes it even more amazing!

Now I'm actually thinking about something I never thought I would: should I get the steering wheel for the 360?

DVB-T - the "almost everywhere TV"

Yesterday I got my antenna to install for using DVB-T on my Samsung TV. I do have analog cable but that one looks crappy. I hardly ever watch tv but I thought for the European Soccer Championship I definitely want to have a nice, clear and crisp widescreen-picture. So since my Samsung has a DVB-T receiver built-in, I got an antenna for a few bucks to try that one out. I heard lots of things about DVB-T so far, many of them not really positive. Too few channels, quality-issues due to low-bandwidth, bad availability...

Most of those didn't matter to me. After looking up info on the internet, I knew that quite a few channels are available where I live, more than enough for me and including the main 2 ones I need for the soccer broadcasts. The quality definitely is the main issue for me, since my tv is quite big and I want the picture to look good on that one, without noticeable artifacts...

Lets get the obvious things out of the way: Setting up the thing was quite easy. And I got most channels right away. The quality was ok, but did vary quite a bit since some channels don't have a lot of bandwidth. The ones with enough data-rate did look quite good though, given you didn't sit up close to the TV - definitely an improvement over the analogue input, but no competition for digital cable (DVB-C) or satellite (DVB-S). But quite satisfying.

"The first" being last?

The two programs I needed for the soccer broadcast were the main two german channels "Das Erste / ARD" and "ZDF", meaning "the first" and "second german broadcast". Of course, those are supposed to be all up on top of the availability-list for the broadcast signal. Strangely enough, I realized later that I was missing "Das Erste". The channel search of my DVB-T tuner didn't find it. Consulting google again, I found that it should be broadcasted on channel 06, but my tuner didn't let me select channels that low - it always started at 21.

The solution was to re-select the initial Plug'n'Play setup of my tv and specifically select "Germany" as country, since the built-in tuner uses that country setting to determine the correct channel-layout and the broadcasting-frequencies. It turned out my TV was set to "Great Britain", probably because I wanted to have english language in all menues. I can't recall specifically setting that country though during the very first setup after installing my tv. Ohwell, after changing that, the tuner did search those low channels too, but "Das Erste" still didn't show up...

It turned out that channels this low use quite low frequencies - close to VHF-range already. My antenna had troubles getting a good signal for those frequencies at my place. I managed to set it up in a way now that I get reception, but the signal strength still is quite low compared to the rest of the channels I have... those all are around 70% to 80%, while "Das Erste" is at 20% max. I'm glad I got it to work, but I couldn't help and wonder why such an integral channel got assigned to such a low frequency-range. My antenna was supposed to be a quite good one, but from what I read online, receiving these low channels is alittle more trickier.

All in all, I'm quite happy with DVB-T though. The antenna I bought can be mounted inside and outside and I'm happy to see that I have the same signal strength inside my living room, so I don't have to place it on the outside. I connected the TV's optical out with my surround-receiver. I didn't get to test Dolby Digital yet and I realized that sometimes my audio stopped but I'll investigate that further. I'm sure I'll get over these obstacles too. I do like the built-in program guide and a few additional features.

But there were times yesterday while installing it when I couldn't help but think "Why can't things simply work?" I use that phrase alot... it seems like no matter what I do, something always doesn't quite work the way I want it to. Do I really have such high demands?

God of War - Chains of Olympus

I don't own any Sony-console. My first console I bought was a PSX, but I boycotted them ever since then for different reasons. I do own a PSP though - the old variant, not the "slim". It's a niftily little gaming-machine for old-school players and geeks, without stylus and touch-screen but with full-fledged WPA-enabled Wifi access and USB mass-storage support.

I got "God of War - Chains of Olympus" for the PSP not long ago. There are only a few Sony-console exclusive games that I actually missed so far, and the 2 God of War games certainly were amongst them. The happier I was when the PSP-game was announced and I've been looking forward to the game ever since then. Now it's here and I have to say: It's really great! Very impressive what they got out of the good old PSP-hardware! The game itself has the Kratos-typical, involving and impressive storyline which is told by beautiful video and realtime-3D sequences. The sound is amazing and very fitting. All in all, this game pretty much looks like its predecessors on the big consoles... I don't have a PSP slim so I can't observe the gfx on the big screen via TV-out, but I doubt it'll look that much worse than the PS2-games.

The game is a lot fun so far. I didn't finish it yet but since I have all my stats and my items maxed out, I doubt it'll be that much longer til I see the credits rolling. I did read reviews and the only thing most of them saw as drawback was the short playtime. And if I'm done with the story soon, then I have to agree with that. I only started playing the game on Friday and spent a couple of sessions during the weekend... so all in all if I finish it during my next session, I think that's a little short indeed. Ok, given I never played any of the other games much but I do have a lot of experience with those kinds of games - which are one of my favorite kind of games - so maybe I simply was a little fast. The game itself didn't appear hard at all so far, only 1 or 2 slightly annoying situations that were very doable once you figured out the right tactics.

But to sum it up: Great game! Even if it should be done in a few hours of playtime, you definitely are very very entertained during those hours! And I rather have a shorter game that rocks 100% of the time than a long, boring game!

picture taken from and probably © Amazon.de

Rant: No online order status information

It's time for a rant now. And I created an additional category for that even, because I know more will follow.

I do rant at times. I'm not someone takes things too seriously. And I don't go overboard if I should get angry - ok, unless it concerns comp stuff not working correctly, I can become a monster then - but nevertheless I wanna write about things that annoy me, simply because I think it's unneccessary and can be done better.

Anyway, this rant is about companies that simply don't inform their customers at all about the status of their orders. Can it be that hard to simply keep customers updated about when they can expect their delivery? When it was processed or sent out? I understand that there can be delays or availability-shortages, that's fine. But: I wanna know! And without having to contact them first!

Kudos to Amazon! They are best-practice when it comes to that! I order quite a bit there and most of the deliveries were really fast and on time. And I was always informed about the few that weren't, even if it was just a delay of one or two days. Those mails are automatically sent out I'm sure, but that's all I'm asking for.

I had bad experiences with other companies where I ordered stuff and waited for a week or more hoping for my ordered items to arrive. And when I contacted them, I got told "Sorry, there are availability-problems." Is it that hard to tell me that right away? I also had companies before that didn't answer my contact e-mails at all!

Well, so much for my rant. As I said, I really don't ask for too much. I won't make a scene right away just because a delivery is alittle late. I'm quite tolerant, but I hate being left in the dark - especially when I'm looking forward to the ordered stuff, what I usually do.

I will always favor Amazon in the future, simply because I have had no bad experiences yet. Perfect record, and that after so many deliveries, even from the US or the UK.

hot weather - Genoa all over again

I'm no friend of the heat. I prefer it cooler. «insert random geek-growing-up-in-basement-joke here». I don't mind the sun at all but what I need is the possibility to escape the heat - by going inside for example or standing in the shadow and letting the cool wind blow in your face.

That's the problem I had during this latest heat-wave here. It reminded me all too well of my time in Genoa, Italy during the summer-season. It's hot - everywhere! Even in the shadows it's too hot to feel good, and the air is hot too... so even if wind is blowing, it's hardly cooling you down. Only escape is getting wet or fleeing into an air conditioned zone - which aren't that common in Germany for private residences... more reason to stay at work! :roll:

We had hot days this spring before, but it always was quite cool and ok as long as you were in the shadow or went inside. Plus, usually no matter how much the sun was shining, cool wind was blowing too. That was great! And during such a time, I don't mind at all sitting outside in the sun - which I actually did back then, surprising for my friends who know me and my "vampire tendencies" :-D

I took this picture on the way too work last week. Quite hot. It sucks when you can't find any way to keep yourself cool during your way to work. Then you arrive at the office all sweaty and hot - especially when you take the bicycle as I always do. I guess I need to store towels and "emergency clothes" in the office, just in case. A shower in the building would be nice too... some do have that, but not the one I work in.

Well, I'm hoping my apartment can fend off the heat during the summer. It's the first hot season I experience in it. So far it's quite ok. Could be cooler but still bearable. That's definitely better than in the apartment I had in Genoa - where you could not escape the heat anywhere! That makes you go nuts! Italy is fine for holiday, when you don't stay long and have a nice, AC'ed place and the chance to head into the water whenever you feel like it. But I wouldn't wanna live there! And thanks to global warming, Germany is slowly getting mediterranean climate too... guess sooner or later I might feel like moving to some place cooler.