Frohes neues!

Das neue Jahr gefällt mir soweit SUPER! Hab auch noch Urlaub, aber am Montag geht's wieder los - also zurück ins Büro.

Gemacht hab ich nicht besonders viel, oder zumindest nix, was hierher gehört.

Meine neue Lieblingsserie ist GLEE, eine Art Highschool Musical als Serie, aber mit viel absurderen und witzigeren Dialogen und Charakteren (ist ja auch nicht von Disney). Die Serie läuft auf FOX und pausiert jetzt leider bis April.

Außerdem freu ich mich, dass Castle nächsten Monat im dt. TV anlaufen wird (auf kabel eins). Ist ne leichte, charmante Krimiserie (soweit Leichen oder das Aufklären von Morden leicht und charmant sein kann ...). Wie immer gefällt mir die Kabbelei der beiden Hauptfiguren Rick Castle (Bestseller-Krimiautor) und Kate Beckett (Detective beim NYPD).

Bereits nächste Woche startet HawthoRNe, eine Arzt- bzw. Krankenhausserie mit Will Smiths Ehefrau Jada in der Hauptrolle. Werde wohl wegen Michael Vartan, den ich seit ALIAS total mag, mal einschalten, aber so der Hammer ist die Serie wahrscheinlich nicht. Bald folgt auch The Vampire Diaries, was mir wie "Dawson's Creek meets Twilight" vorkommt. Brauch ich nicht wirklich, bin aber treuer Gucker des Pro7 Serien-Mittwochs und werd mir wohl die beiden Neustarts inklusive neuer Folgen Desperate Housewives anschauen.

Pre-Christmas Quickie

Sounds dirty, but isn't. Ha.

Anyway, here's another sort of general update:

The office move went well. Compared to the other 2 companies that moved with us, we seem to have been the most organized - despite my presence ;-) All my colleagues were there and helping. We were pretty much settled in by the afternoon. There's still some work to be done on the building itself, though.

I'm not feeling very christmassy - again. But I did go to the famous Nürnberger Christkindlesmarkt this year and had some Glühwein. Still have to make a photo calendar for my parents. Hope the prints will arrive today.

Wanted to go see a romantic comedy with my sister on the weekend but the 2 movies we had picked as options weren't on anymore. I'm talking about New in Town with Renee Zellweger and Harry Connick Jr. and Love Happens with Jennifer Aniston.

I've been listening to Milow a lot this past week. He's a singer/songwriter from Belgium and had a big hit with a cover version of 50 Cent's Ayo Technology. I watched a concert from Berlin that was streamed live on Facebook. He even did a cover version of Joni Mitchell's song River. Beautiful. He has a soft voice and good lyrics, I think.

It's freezing cold and snowed for the past 3 days. Still went to work by car after I had brushed off all the snow. The weather forecast says we'll get a rainy, mild Christmas. As always.

This is so random. I should start writing blog entries that focus on one topic. Damn.

General update

I've updated the list of what I'm watching. A couple of seasons ended in the past 2 weeks. Desperate Housewives will be back in January. When there will be new episodes of Chuck and Cold Case, I have no idea. But I've read that 2 shows that premiered this fall in the US will start airing here in January (Wednesdays on Pro7 after Desperate Housewieves): Vampire Diaries from The WB and HawthoRNe from TNT. I'm not that much into vampires (even though the rest of the female world seems to be in love with Edward Cullen/Robert Pattinson from the Twilight book/movie series), but I'm always curious about new TV shows so I'll give it a try. HawthorRNE stars Michael Vartan, who was Vaughn in one of my all-time favourite shows Alias, so how could I not watch?!

What else: my best friend and her boyfriend are now completely obsessed with playing FarmVille on Facebook and I guess I am to blame. I still play, too, but I'm getting a bit annoyed with the game because it's so time-consuming and always puts pressure on you to do stuff every 5 minutes. So I guess I prefer casual games like Biotronic which you can play for 5 minutes and you don't have to come back to check if your cranberries are fully grown or your cows need to be milked or whatever.

Speaking of Facebook: my boss has decided we should keep private and business stuff separate on social media networks, but I'm not sure how I'm supposed to do that or why. I only have 6 people as friends on Facebook who qualify as clients and they are not really decision-makers at their radio stations so I don't see what harm it does if they see a funny video clip I share or a status update from me. I think what my boss wants to avoid is that we come across as unprofessional like some people who post silly pictures every 5 minutes which makes you wonder if they ever work. I try to stay away from Facebook during working hours anyway so that won't happen. My co-workers seem to disagree with my boss as well cos they said it could improve your relationship with clients if you get to know them better by interacting with them on Facebook. So we'll see how that debate continues.

Other stuff at the office: we're moving in a week from Monday and I'm very nervous. The new building is only about a mile from the one we're in now. But there's still a lot of stuff to pack and to organize. I hope my colleagues/superiors won't leave me all alone on moving day cos they want to work from home and not be bothered with the chaos. I can just see them coming in later to complain that the furniture is not in the right place. Argh. Well, I don't want to be too negative about it. I'll just have to tell myself that everything will work out fine ... *sigh*

The past weeks have been exhausting cos I've basically been working 50 hours a week which is no fun at all. And my skin is worse than ever. I have psoriasis and it's back with a vengeance itching like hell literally from head to toe. And now I'm not even sure if it is psoriasis. My boss keeps saying I should try homoepathy, but I'm not convinced. For now I just hope it'll go away soon and put lotion on the affected areas. Great. I also need to get a couple of wisdom teeth out. I've been putting that off for years. I really need to start looking after myself better. That'll be my first new year's resolution: make doctors' appointments. I love it already. Not. Argh.

What else: my sister is getting married next May to a guy from Milan, Italy. I like him a lot. My family met his family last weekend. His parents seem nice, too.

Ha. Now you know everything that's going on, more or less.

All sorts of TV stuff

Uh-oh, long time no post. As I might or might not have mentioned before, Facebook has taken over my life. Now that I've discovered the games you can play on there, I'm spending even more time on the site.

Anyway, I just saw the comment to the post below so I thought I'd reply in a separate post and also add some other stuff.

24: it still is and always has been in real time. Every season has 24 episodes for the 24 hours of one day. It's always about Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) saving the world, more or less. In the previous seasons he was an agent for the CTU (I think that stands for counter terrorist unit) in Los Angeles. There's always some sort of terrorist threat against the USA and especially its president and Bauer tries to stop it by all means. It's all very exciting with many twists and turns and lots of action. I can really recommend the show - even the latest season (7) has gotten better than it was at the beginning.

The Wire: I've heard of it - and only positive things, I think. According to Serienjunkies it's only been on Pay TV in Germany.

The Legend of the Seeker: pretty new on German TV. Based on a series of fantasy novels by Terry Goodkind and shot in New Zealand. I'm not sure how similar the novels are to The Lord of the Rings, but she show does look a bit like a rip-off. I probably wouldn't have started watching it if it wasn't for the beautiful scenery. I enjoyed the pilot, but the other episodes I've seen so far were rather mediocre.

Private Practice: am trying to keep up with the current U.S. season. Very much enjoyed Miranda Bailey's visit to L.A. (she's a regular on Grey's Anatomy, of which PP is a spin-off). Favorite quote: "This place is better than a telenovela". Hehe.

Lipstick Jungle: not the best show ever. Only watch it because Kirby Atwood (Robert Buckley) runs around shirtless most of the time. Pure eye candy. Hee. Oh, and how can you name a character Kirby?? It always makes me think of that fluffy pink or blue thing floating around like a cloud in one of my sister's old NEC games.

That's all for now. : )

No, wait, I forgot something: there's a new TV channel that started this month. zdf_neo. It's digital, but I can watch it via Zattoo on my computer. It shows all sorts of stuff previously unaired in Germany, such as 30 Rock, Spooks, Hustle etc. But they are on at 22:30 on weekdays so either I'm too tired or watching something else. Too bad.

More about Robbie and some stuff about 24

First of all, I thought the video would be embedded. Damn.

Secondly, I’ve now paid more attention to Robbie’s lyrics and can’t help smiling every time I hear this line: “All we’ve ever wanted is to look good naked, hoping someone can take it”. You gotta love RW for this.

Thirdly, greatness vs. asshole-ness (brought up by a friend's comment): I don’t think you necessarily have to be an asshole to be great. Yes, Robbie is a poser on stage, but that’s part of what makes him such a great entertainer. I’d never call him an asshole. As to his greatness, I think that has a lot to do with who he works with. As mentioned before, I hated his last album Rudebox although I own all of his other CDs. I know he wanted to try something new but it just didn’t work for me. Now he has teamed up with songwriting partner (or producer??) Guy Chambers again and it seems to have been a good decision. We’ll have to wait and see how the whole album sounds once it comes out.

I could go on with psycho-analyzing Robbie or go into a philosophical discussion of what defines greatness, but I guess I’ll postpone that : )

Other random stuff that's on my mind: I'm wondering why I don't like Season 7 of 24 as much as the ones before.
Possible reasons:
- It's on too late (from 10:30 to 00:30) so I'm just too tired to properly notice the good quality.
- The German dubbing is bad - well, it always has been on that show. Some of the voices just sound wrong.
- The quality really has gone down. Must check the web for reviews of Day 7. Miss President Palmer.