Prison Break season 3

... will start airing in Germany on January 8 - yay! Stupid me could have known that 4 weeks ago if I'd checked Serienjunkies PB page. Ah well, better late than never ... Too bad it's on so late again (11:15 p.m.) again. I need my sleep : (

So ... will I go back to being obsessed with Wentworth Miller? Hm. My new actor crush is Hugh Jackman. Tough competition. Hehe. I'm so looking forward to AUSTRALIA (which will open on Thursday). Hugh is sooo handsome and so cute with his kids. He can ride horses like a real cowboy and can sing and dance. What more could a woman ask for? : )

Okay, time for bed. Gute Nacht, John Boy. Oder so.

Entschuldigung / Weihnachten

Ich glaub, es ist Zeit für ne Entschuldigung. 2 meiner Freunde hatten kürzlich Geburtstag und ich hab ihnen nicht gratuliert, obwohl ich an sie gedacht hab. Also sorry und alles Gute nachträglich!

Was noch: ich hasse Weihnachten. Überfüllte Innenstädte und Weihnachtsmärkte. Versandaktionen im Büro. Beschenkungsresistente Verwandtschaft. Jedes Jahr dieselben Lieder im Radio - z.B. Chris Rea (den ich schon eh nicht leiden kann) mit "Driving home for Christmas" bis zum Erbrechen. Endzeitstimmung und Einsamkeit. Frustriert? Ich? Ach, woher denn ...

2 fun links

Ha, 3 posts in one day. Must be a new record. Anyway, just found this in the TV section of digg.com

If TV shows had truthful titles from Holy Taco, a site I haven't come across before. The first poster is part of the reason why I stopped watching Lost. Ha. (See older post for more.)
Can anybody tell me what the 2nd show is and the one that is now called Dreamjob?

And a site that looks like fun altogether that I hadn't heard of before:
NothingCorporate.
The film pic shown in the 5 must-see films thing is Equilibrium starring Christian Bale (one of my fave actors). I think. Cool.

My new fave TV show canceled : (

A couple of weeks ago, Pushing Daisies started airing in Germany and I was instantly hooked. The show has a unique look - very colourful and fairytale-like - which reminds me very much of Tim Burton's movies. It also has a very likeable cast and a wonderfully old-fashioned romance between the 2 main characters Ned and Chuck (no, they're not gay, Chuck is really called Charlotte).

It's on every Wednesday after Desperate Housewives and the ratings have been good so far - much to my surprise I must admit. I didn't think something so original and quirky would do well.

Then yesterday I read the news that Pushing Daisies will apparently be canceled after the 2nd season. What a pity. I thought it was doing well in the US, but apparently not. Hope the storylines can all be resolved properly (read: I want a happy end for Ned and Chuck!!). My German source for the news is here at DWDL. An English article about the whole thing can be found here.

The ABC cancellations also affect Eli Stone, but that doesn't really bother me. I started watching it but didn't like it much - at least not enough to miss it when season 2 of Heroes started in the same timeslot on another channel here in Germany. I'm pretty sure Pro7, the German channel that airs Eli Stone, won't be too unhappy cos the ratings were pretty bad.

The 3rd show about to end is Dirty Sexy Money. That one hasn't even started airing in Germany yet so I can't say anything about it.

Edited to add: Argh, I just read that the final ep of Pushing Daisies ends with a cliffhanger (because the original plan had included 22 instead of only 13 eps). That is so not funny.

Snow

As every year, I'd like to report the first snow. It started yesterday in the late afternoon. And it's almost gone again. Did look quite pretty on my car this morning.

Snow and wind caused my sister's flight to Rome via Zurich to be delayed so she was stuck in Zurich for the night. I kept checking her flights on the airports' websites all evening. My own Friday night thriller. Strange way to spend an evening. Later I acted as her travel agent trying to rearrange her flight back. What a mess. But I guess all that was better than worrying and not knowing what was going on and not being able to help her - which would have been the case without my DSL. Cool.

Weekend almost over :(

So ... I ordered a new display yesterday. Got it for a great price. Also by Acer like my Aspire X3200. And I signed up for facebook on Friday. I found more people than I thought I would, mostly my old online friends from the Baleheads days. They're from the US, Canada, Spain and Denmark. Cool. Germans tend to use studiVZ instead I guess. Hm. We'll see who else might pop up again.

Lalalala : )

Edited to add: Yay, links work. The wonders of DSL ....

Yeeha!!

DSL is working!! Took me a while to figure out that I had to manually de-activate the WLAN thingy. What's a big manual for if it doesn't tell you that?? After that, suddenly, my access data were accepted. Ha. Cool. So many things to do and see and listen to but so little time ...

Lalalala ... Now I don't know where to go first ... or what to download ... hm ...

DSL update

My router and stuff arrived yesterday. When I openend the box in which the splitter was in, I saw screws and a drilling instruction and panicked a little thinking I'd have to rip my old phone socket out of the wall. Then I opened the router box and the manual and saw that I'd been wrong. Phew. Relief.

DSL is supposed to be available from Saturday on. I noticed that my old Ethernet cable is too short so I need to buy a new one. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that everything will go smoothly. Problem now is that I'm supposed to show up at my parents' place on Sunday. I can already picture myself tapping my fingers, sort of like "Hi, bye, I can't stay ..." hehe. And my sisters wants to go shopping with me on Saturday. Hm. We'll work something out.

Also, I can't decide which display to get. I'd like a 19" widescreen. But I'm not sure which one. My co-workers say Asus displays are good value for money. But there's an Acer model that's cheaper. Argh. I hate that. I can't tell where the differences are anyway.

Replies to 2w10s comment to the post below:
No, I don't know the book you mentioned. Will check it out at Amazon.
And no, I haven't really made any updates since I had Vista. I tried once to update my anti-virus software. Ha. Forget it with dial-up. There's always some update download going on in the background I think. Haven't managed to stop that yet.

New music

Music recs

Good:
Maria Mena - All this time: Wonderful ballad with uplifting lyrics. Chorus: “All this time you’ve had it in you. You just sometimes need a push.” I can definitely relate to that. Somehow I hear “a little push”, but I think it’s just “push”. Whatevery. Lovely.

Polarkreis 18 – Allein, allein: Another song I can relate to (at least as far as the chorus goes). The verses are in English but I haven’t really paid attention to them yet. The chorus sounds like an anthem.

The Killers – Human: Heard it on British radio about 2 weeks ago. It’s now catching on here as well so it will probably be The Killers’ first song that gets some airplay in Germany. I guess they deserve it.

Sugarplum Fairy – Never thought I’d say that it’s alright: Came across it at work. Hadn’t heard of the band before at all. My friend Wikipedia told me they’re a band from Sweden. There was a pic and I thought, hm, funny, all these Swedish rock bands look so alike. And guess what, a couple of days later I heard on the radio that one of the guys in Sugarplum Fairy is actually the younger brother of one of the singers in Mando Diao. Ha. Guess that’s why his last name (Norén) seemed strangely familiar when I read it on Wikipedia. They sound pretty similar to Mando Diao, too, which might not be very original but it’s okay to me.

Nickelback – Gotta be somebody: Ha, how did they get in here? They normally annoy me cos all songs sound exactly the same. But this new one has got some good energy.

Jordin Sparks – One step at a time: Lovely (urban) pop song. Has not been released as a single here (yet), I think. Very positive vibe. Her other single Tattoo is good as well. Speaking of “urban pop” or whatever you wanna call it, I also like Ne-Yo’s new song Miss Independent. And Chris Brown isn’t too bad either. I’m becoming a planet chick. (That’s a reference to planet radio, a German radio station from Frankfurt that plays a lot of black music.) Still hate everything that’s too much hip hop / rap, such as Flo Rida or Lil Wayne or 50 Cent.

Linkin Park - Leave out all the rest: Sad lyrics. So good it makes me want to cry.


Bad:
Britney Spears – Womanizer: Listen to it once and it will stick in your head. And not in a good way. Makes me want to puke. Apparently the video is very sexy but I haven’t seen it yet and don’t really need to.

Alicia Keys & Jack White: Another way to die. This is the new Bond theme song. It sounds very much like former Bond theme songs. Couldn’t really care less. The title of the new Bond film sucks as well. At least the German title. It’s so bad that I can’t even remember it now. Oh yeah, my brain’s working excellently righ now ... and no, I didn’t have any alcohol yesterday ... Oh, and did I mention that I’m not into Daniel Craig AT ALL? Don’t understand what everybody sees in him. Okay, he’s got a good body. Pfff. Like that makes him attractive or a good actor.

Sarah Connor – I’ll kiss it away: Song for her kids or something. Lyrics are okay and I guess I could bear it in an unplugged version, but the synth beat they’ve put in it just ruins it.

Computer status update:
The mouse wheel is working now. Don't ask me why. Yippie! And I've managed to set up an internet connection. Still on dial-up so everything is as sloooooow as before. But still better than being offline. Right now I'm trying to update my antivirus software, and some other updates are in process in the background as well though I'm not sure for what. Hm. I don't like that my comp does things I haven't told him to do. Must look into the settings to stop that.

Comp update

At the end of last week, the comp I wanted was available again so I ordered it immediately. Yay! Got it on Tuesday. It's an Acer Aspire X3200. It's small and black and shiny and pretty. And fast and quiet. I do have one problem, though: the scroll wheel on the mouse won't work. Co-worker says it must be a driver problem. Will try to solve it on the weekend. Haven't found any solution in any online forums yet. Very annoying.

The comp has got Windows Vista Home Premium. Looks okay though the explorer takes a bit getting used to. Am loving that it comes with a couple of games that XP didn't have, such as Mahjongg and Chess. Oh yeah, the games, that's what makes a good OS ... I'm such a girl.

Still don't have DSL or any other internet connection at home at the moment.

Other things: it's very cold. Must get my coat from the attic on the weekend. Brrrrr.

What's new?

Quick update:
I'm trying to buy a new comp. Once I had decided on a model from the 2 a co-worker had suggested, of course it wasn't available anymore (or temporarily out of stack or something like that) at the online shop of my choice.

I'm also trying to pick a DSL provider. Not easy.

I'm getting my hair cut today.

That's it. Over and out.

Nothing much interesting

Sorry for the lack of update. Have just been too busy and tired and my computer at home almost completely refused to work last weekend.

Been meaning to post my opinion on a couple of new songs but all I've been doing was updating my "TV shows I currently watch" list.

Blah. Autumn's here. Weather's cold. Heating only works in living-room and bathroom. Damn.

Have a big to-do list for the weekend consisting of such exciting things as laundry and vacuuming etc. Great.

One interesting thing: have free tickets to a preview of Burn After Reading for next Monday. Yay. George Clooney and Brad Pitt. Should be good.

Smashing shout-out

Just a quick rec of a site I stumbled upon via http://www.mister-wong.de/charts/

Smashing Magazine http://www.smashingmagazine.com

It's an online mag for webdesigners. I'm not one, but it's still fun to look at the site if you're interested in photography and such. The latest post features free desktop wallpapers with calendars for the new month. Yay. I love changing the wallpaper on my comp. The wallpapers are all beautiful and stylish and come with or without the calendar and in various sizes.

Okay, gotta get back to work. See ya.

P.S. Why must Blogger mess up the hyperlinks EVERY frigging time?! Argh. If only I could remember the little HTML I once knew ... Shit shit shit. So I guess you have to copy and paste the URLs instead of clicking them. How last century. Grrr.

Recap of my week off

Monday: Ikea. Didn't buy much and had a major headache in the afternoon.

Tuesday: Some shopping and a movie. Bought a pair of jeans and a purple v-neck sweater, both from Tom Tailor. Saw Mamma Mia! and liked it a lot. Meryl Streep has a great voice. IMO she sounds a bit like Cher (which normally would be bad because I don't like Cher, but here it worked). The men's attempts at singing were very cute. Never liked Amanda Seyfried in Veronica Mars but here she's really good.

Wednesday: Watched the Olympics. Did some laundry.

Thursday: Bought the Mamma Mia! soundtrack and saw The Dark Knight. Hm. What can I say? It was veeery looooong but Christian Bale looked good. I wasn't blown away. I don't know.

Friday: more Olympics, sadly not with a medal for my fave guy, the German pole-vault athlete Danny Ecker. Some grocery shopping and cooking. Never bought so many fresh vegetables before. Love love love the smell of limes (which are fruit, not vegetables, but anyway ...) Girls' night in with 2 friends.

Edit: I've thought some more about Batman / The Dark Knight: I love Michael Caine as Alfred and Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox. They both have the best lines (in both parts, i.e. Batman Begins and TDK). I love the score (also in both films). I miss the Wayne mansion. I didn't like Maggie Gyllenhaal much. Don't know why. I almost wanted Katie Holmes back. Heath Ledger really is excellent as the Joker.

Okay, this next part might contain spoilers so you've been warned:
The kiss between Bruce and Rachel was lame. Bruce kept one hand in his pocket. I mean, hello?? You're kissing the love of your life, can't you be a bit more passionate??
I kept waiting for Harvey Dent to go bad. I kind of remembered it from the old Batman movies, I think, but I wasn't sure.
It felt a little bit to me like they had put too much story into one film. I don't really know how to explain this. There was just so much, the bad guy from Hongkong (Lao or whatever), the Joker, Dent, it just went on and on. I guess this should be a good thing, but for me it was just a little bit too much instead of focusing on one thing.

The Script

Haven't recommended any new songs for a while. Might have mentioned We Cry by The Script sometime. Now I've heard their 2nd single The Man Who Can't Be Moved and that's excellent as well. They're an Irish trio but don't sound Irish to me. Not that that's a bad thing, it's just that their R'n'B-ish style doesn't sound like any other Irish artist I know. Went straight to an online record store but guess what, their album isn't out yet. Grrr. So I have to wait to Sept 5 or something.

Anyway, they're good and you can check out their Myspace page here

Now why doesn't the link show up in the preview?? Argh. If it really doesn't show, just google them or something.

Christian Bale

Ich wollte eigentlich neulich schon was zu ihm schreiben, und zwar, dass ich ihn mal wieder "wiederentdeckt" hab, da ich endlich mal meine 3:10 to Yuma DVD angeschaut hab. Ich mag ja eh Western und der Film ist echt super. Er und Russell Crowe spielen toll und das Psycho-Duell ist wirklich spannend.

Außerdem kommt bald der neuen Batman-Film The Dark Knight in die Kinos, worauf ich mich auch freue. Ich muss unbedingt vorher noch mal Batman Begins anschauen. In Amerika ist er ja letztes Wochenende sehr erfolgreich gestartet. Aber was muss ich da gestern lesen? Christian Bale soll seine Mutter und eine seiner Schwestern in einem Hotel angegriffen haben. Pfff. Glaub ich überhaupt nicht. Ich verfolge seine Karriere seit 15 Jahren und es gab noch nie irgendwas, dass auf Gewaltätigkeit hindeuten würde bei ihm. Klar, er ist ziemlich extrem, was die Rollenvorbereitung angeht bzw. stürzt sich immer ziemlich intensiv in seine Projekte, aber sowas ... nee! Außerdem ist er eh schon als Teenager von seiner Mutter weggezogen zu seinem Vater nach Amerika und hatte angeblich gar nicht viel Kontakt zu seiner Mutter in England in den ganzen Jahren. Vielleicht ging es um's Geld, jetzt, wo er endlich mal größere Filme macht, bei denen er sicher gut verdient. Wäre ja nicht das erste Mal, dass Angehörige von Prominenten mit abstrusen Anschuldigungen ankommen. Ach, keine Ahnung, ich spekulier nur wild rum, aber ich kann auf jeden Fall nicht glauben, dass er auf seine Familie losgegangen sein soll.

Ich wünschte mir nur, es gäbe mal einen Batman-Start, der nicht von irgendwas überschattet wird. Als damals Batman Begins rauskam, hat sich ja die Presse nur für Katie Holmes und Tom Cruise interessiert. Und diesmal wird sehr viel über Heath Ledger geredet, ist klar, aber das mit den Anschuldigungen gegen Bale hätte echt nicht noch sein müssen.

Grrrr.

English summary: Christian Bale who I've just become interested again, is supposed to have assaulted his mom and one of his sisters in a London hotel. I don't believe it for a minute. ButI'm very much looking forward to The Dark Knight which comes out in Germany in August.

More vampire stuff

I've started reading the first book of the Twilight series that I mentioned recently and I love it. It's got 500 pages and I'm already on page 420 or something like that (even though I wasn't home most nights this week). I'm reading it in German, but I think I'll have to get it in the English original for myself soon.

Stockholm pics

Typical colourful houses at Stortorget (= big market square) in Gamla Stan (= Old Town).

Changing of the guard at the royal palace.
T-Centralen (= central train station)
View from Monteliusvägen (a small path in Södermalm) to the island Riddarholmen with the characteristic church. This is my desktop wallpaper on my computer at work. Love it.
View from Södermalm to the islands Kastellholmen and Djurgarden.
There was also a pic of a mother moose with her 2 little ones that I took in Skansen (an open air museum with old buildings from all parts of Sweden and a zoo) but that won't upload apparently. Whatever.

Vampires

While I'm still in the middle of reading the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon (takes me twice as long as it normally would cos I read every volume in English first and then again in German), a co-worker told me about another series of novels she loves very much: the so-called Twilight saga by Stephenie Meyer. I think there are 3 parts available so far. The protagonist is a vampire. Hm. She said she wasn't too keen on that when she heard about it from a friend but now she can't put the books down. Like her, I'm not into vampires, but a good love story is always something I enjoy so I might borrow the first novel from her and see what it's like.

Speaking of vampires, I've started watching Moonlight now (or in other words, it has started airing in Germany now). That's a TV drama series about vampires. There's only 1 season cos it didn't get picked up but I'll watch it anyway while it lasts. I like the actor in the main part, Alex O'Loughlin. Don't think I've seen him before, but he's cute. I was looking forward to seeing Jason Dohring from Veronica Mars again in that show, but unfortunately he hasn't been doing much in the first 3 episodes.

Rock im Park

Tada, mit fast ein-monatiger Verspätung hier meine Kurzzusammenfassung vom 1. Festivaltag.

Kid Rock: Amüsant, mehr nicht.
Fratellis: klingen wie Oasis mit mehr Geschrammel. 2 Lieder kannte ich. Gesehen hab ich eigentlich nix, weil kein Interesse und zu weit von der Bühne entfernt.
Jimmy Eat World: super, aber leider war der Bass zu laut, fand ich, so dass man den Sänger nicht gut genug gehört hat.
Tote Hosen: gut, zumindest das, was ich gesehen hab, was aber nur ca. ne Viertelstunde war.

Schlange am Eingang und Gedränge allgemein: weniger schlimm als erwartet.
Bierkonsum: zu viel – aber nicht von mir, ein 0,4 Becher hat gereicht, schon weil die Klos total widerlich sind. Die ganzen Leute, die nicht mehr mitkriegen, wo sie hintorkeln oder die dich ungebetenerweise umarmen oder anrempeln, brauch ich echt net.
Wetter: hat gehalten, trotz Regenwolken. Temperatur fand ich optimal, nicht zu heiß oder zu kühl.
Verpflegung: teuer, aber gute Auswahl an Essen und Getränken.
Organisation allgemein: scheint alles gut zu sein.

Zum Sonntag vielleicht später mehr.

P.S.: Stockholm war toll. Wetter war schön, aber ca. 10 Grad kühler als hier (was mich nicht sonderlich gestört hat). Auch hierzu später mehr. Hab ca. 250 Fotos gemacht.

Misc.

Okay, so obviously I survived Rock im Park, my first rock festival from June 6th to 8th. (Can't bring myself to call it RiP as everybody seems to be doing. They don't think of gravestones when they do that apparently.) I actually wrote a longish post about it but it's in my computer at home and I'm at work right now and forgot to put the file on my USB stick. The weather and the sound were both very mixed. As I said, longer post to come but probably not this month.

Reason: I'll be on vacation next week. Yay! Going to Stockholm with my sister.

Soccer EM 2008: the German team sucks. The best thing about our 1-0 win over Austria was Angie. Am too tired to explain that now. Tomorrow we'll have a BBQ on the roof terrace of our office building and then watch the Germany-Portugal game. We'll see how that goes. I'm not too optimistic. NL definitely looks like they'll win the whole thing.

Ha, boss just called saying I should go home now. Pfff. But I'll be a good girl and listen to him, hehe. Just this once. LOL. Nah, I'm just kidding ... anyway .... I'm off!

As always, general update

The past weeks have been a little bit crazy so I haven’t been at the computer much.

So what's been going on:
I had a car accident 2 weeks ago. And it was my fault, at least according to the police. Nobody was injured and the damage my car suffered isn’t big, but still it was no fun and of course the result was that I had a major cry fest that night alone in my apartment. Not pretty. The reason behind it wasn’t really the accident, but it kinda triggered my breakdown. I couldn’t stop crying for hours and my eyes looked completely puffy the next day. Oh boy. And don't ask me to explain why I actually cried because it sounds ridiculous even to myself. Whatever.

I’ve been out more than usual, thanks to a girl from the office that I get along with quite well. We went to a beergarden last Friday and to a cultural event in town called Blaue Nacht (blue night) on Saturday which really wasn’t that cultural. It was more pushing and shoving yourself through the crowds and look at some video/color/light projections in the market square and onto the castle on a hill above town – that was pretty cool.

Coming up is my first rock festival, Rock im Park. We’re all going, i.e. all my co-workers have tickets, too. I want to see Jimmy Eat World tomorrow and Gavin DeGraw, Stereophonics and Manic Street Preachers on Sunday. Oh, and a new guy from Australia called Pete Murray. Never heard of him before. I’m not too keen on any of the bigger/heavier acts such as Motorhead or Rage against the Machine or Kid Rock but I guess Metallica Sunday night is a must – although Germany’s first match at the Euro 2008 soccer championship will be going on at the same time. Dilemma.

Note to self: post something about Go Home Productions and mash-ups in general soon.

More music

A couple of new things I'd recommend:

Duffy - Rockferry (album). Although she might be getting a lot of Amy Winehouse comparisons, she's nothing like her. Okay, not quite true. They're both in their 20s and from Britain and have unique voices. But whereas Amy's a mess, Duffy isn't. Also, you shouldn't judge her by the single Mercy alone because for me, the rest of the album sounds completely different, which is good cos I'm not a big fan of Mercy as a song. The first 2 songs on the album (the title track and Warwick Avenue) are much better IMO. Beautiful and dreamy, with a 60s touch. Reminds me of Petula Clark's Downtown somehow. Just lovely.

Sara Bareilles - Love Song: She sounds like Sheryl Crow with a bit more piano or a more cheerful version of Aimee Mann. Nice catchy unannoying song.

What else? Have I ever mentioned that May is my favourite month? At least for now, hehe. The weather's been wonderful for more than a week. Clear blue sky, sun, and the trees are a bright green. And not too hot yet. Yeeha. : )

Hair

Been to the hairdresser on Saturday. Apparently, the definition of "chin-length" is up for discussion ... so my hair is now shorter than I wanted it to be. Strange thing is, while I'm not too happy with the result, the response of my co-workers was all very positive. Huh. Go figure.

Normally people (especially men) don't even notice when I get my hair cut, but this time, really almost everybody said something to me. One of "my guys" said it made me look younger. I'm sure he meant it in a nice way ... BUT I DON'T WANT TO LOOK YOUNGER! The girl I went out with for coffee on Sunday (she also works here) almost didn't believe me when I said I was 32. Argh. My typical dilemma.

New music

Here we go again with the song recs:

The Kooks – Always where I need to be. Gets me in a good mood.

Panic! at the Disco – Nine in the afternoon. They look like they’re 12, but the song is good.

Plain White T’s – Our time now. Completely different from their first single Hey there Delilah. This rocks.

Hoosiers – Worried about Ray as well as Goodbye Mr. A. Fun stuff. Upbeat pop-rock. Yay.

One Republic - Stop and Stare: Had a huge hit with Apologize. This is the follow-up and I like it better. Very catchy.

Sunrise Avenue - Choose to be me. Makes me jump around my living room every Sunday afternoon.

3 Doors Down: It's not my time. This one rocks as well. Great.

Daughtry: Over You. Follow-up to It's not over and even better than that. Love it. I'm turning into a rock-chick .... seriously ...

Germany's Next Topmodel

Okay, this is going to be a rant about Germany's Next Topmodel and therefore it's gotta be in German:

Also: die 3. Staffel von Germany’s Next Topmodel. Bin total genervt von einigen Kandidatinnen. Unangefochten auf Platz 1 auf meiner Hass-Skala: Gisele. Brasilianerin aus Norddeutschland (Nähe von Braunschweig oder so). Hat eine unerträgliche Stimme und kommt leider ständig zu Wort. Benutzt Worte wie „tragödisch“. Hm, ja, is klar, das zeugt eindeutig von hoher Intelligenz. Wie Fiona in der vorherigen Staffel fühlt sie sich von den anderen Kandidatinnen missverstanden und ungeliebt. Aber wenigstens hat Fiona nicht Photoshootings abgebrochen, weil sie sich gerade „nicht danach fühlte“ oder ähnliches.

Der Abschuss war in der Folge am Donnerstag folgendes: es gab in ziemlicher Kälte an einem Strand in der Nähe von New York ein Unterwäsche-Shooting mit 3 männlichen Models, die reihum mit den Mädels posierten. Es stellte sich raus, dass einer der Männer (ich glaub, er hieß Björn) der Freund eines Mädels war, das bereits ausgeschieden war. Weil diese Taina nicht nett zu unserer lieben Gisele gewesen war, wollte sie sich dadurch rächen, dass sie besonders heiß mit Björn posierte und rumflirtete, was sie auch lauthals verkündete, womit sie sich verständlicherweise noch beliebter bei den anderen Kandidatinnen machte. Björn war aber nicht an der Reihe, mit ihr Fotos zu machen und wollte auch nicht. Sie schleifte ihn aber trotzdem mit an den Strand und bezeichnete ihn vor Heidi Klum als unprofessionell, glaub ich. Björn war leider zu höflich und erzählte nicht die ganze Story (dass Gisele nur seine Freundin eifersüchtig machen wollte und so). Geweigert hat er sich aber schon. Also machte Gisele dann das Shooting mit einem von den anderen Kerlen (den ich sowieso viel schicker fand), den sie vorher keines Blickes gewürdigt hatte. Plötzlich wurde sie aber total scharf auf ihn und küsste ihn sogar und erzählte hinterher, dass ihr beim Shooting ganz „schwitzig“ geworden war usw. Er schien auch auf sie abzufahren. Und die naive Heidi fand es auch noch süß, wie gut die beiden sich verstanden. Ich kotz. Und vorher hatte Gisele immer steif und fest versichert, schauspielern sei ja so gar nicht ihr Ding … haha, dass ich nicht lache.

Was noch: es gibt 2 „Busenfreundinnen“ namens Sarah und Gina-Lisa, die mich auch ziemlich nerven. Sie nennen sich gegenseitig „Schatz“ und sagen sich dauernd, wie toll sie sich finden. Jetzt soll nur eine von ihnen weiterkommen und es gab ein Riesendrama am Ende der letzten Sendung. Anstatt die Jury anzuhören, haben die beiden untereinander rumdiskutiert. Sarah will nämlich auch gehen, wenn Gina-Lisa ausscheidet. Gina-Lisa findet aber, sie sollte dann für sie beide weiterkämpfen. Whatever. Shut up already, kann ich da nur sagen. Die Staffel gewinnen wird eh keine der beiden, wenn man mich fragt.

Das bringt mich zu den Kandidatinnen, die ich gut finde (ja, solche gibt’s tatsächlich auch): Also erstens meine ich, es sollte endlich mal ne Brünette gewinnen. In der 1. Staffel war es ja die blonde Lena, in der 2. die rothaarige Barbara. Also ist jetzt ne Dunkelhaarige dran. Und da gibt’s auch einige, die sich ganz gut machen und schon einige Jobs bekommen haben (die Mädels gehen nämlich in dieser Staffel ziemlich oft zu richtigen Castings). Meine „Lieblings-Brünetten“ sind Vanessa und Janina. Die kommen sicher beide sehr weit und machen einen sympathischen Eindruck. Vanessa konnte schon ein Shooting für eine Kampagne für die Taschen-Marke Bree machen (bei dem ich ihre Outfits allerdings schrecklich fand) und Janina hat einen Schuh-Werbespot für C&A gedreht und mehrere Laufsteg-Jobs bekommen. Außerdem mag ich noch Wanda und Raquel, weil sie auch natürlich und normal wirken.

Link: http://topmodel.prosieben.de/

As always ...

... wow, no new post for more than a month, that's really bad. As always, work got the better of me. I could probably work 24/7 and still wouldn't get everything done. Argh. The "new guy" does help, though. And I get along with him quite well.

In my defense, I must say that I did write something new last Sunday but then my internet connection at home broke down before I could post it and I forgot to save the text to my USB stick so I can't post it from the office.

I know that part of what I wrote was a list of new songs I like. Hm, let me see if I can remember them ...

Melee - Built to last. Band's from California but they sound very British. Piano pop rock, similar to Coldplay and Keane, so that's right up my alley. My absolute favourite song at the moment. The chorus goes like this:
So this is real and this is good
Warms my insides just like it should
But most of all, most of all
It's built to last

Newton Faulkner - Dream catch me. British guy with weird blonde rasta hair. Has a unique way a playing/plucking the guitar.

Hm, those are the only good ones I can think of right now. Whatever ...

What else? Went to see Horton hears a Who! at the movies and enjoyed it very much. Very colourful and imaginative (is that a word??) and not just for kids. Cute. And I saw the trailer/preview for Made of Honor (in Germany it will be called Verliebt in die Braut, which means "In love with the bride"), which is Patrick Dempsey's new romantic comedy. It comes out in May. Can't wait. Love the McDreamy : )

And last, but not least: April weather sucks.

TGIF etc.

FRIDAY!! Yay!!

Can you believe it? I'm in a very good mood today. Part of the reason is that I've been listening to Virgin Radio from the UK today (I was actually trying to find a good Irish station, but none really worked on my Phonostar player. Then I wanted to listen to Kiss FM from the UK because I'm registered at Songpeople and the keep inviting me to surveys that include questions about Kiss where you don't have the option to click "don't know" .... anyways, I wanted to know what it's like but it wasn't available on Phonostar so I chose Virgin) - and I'm loving it - and so does my co-worker in the room next to me so we're now playing it loudly. Examples of excellent songs we heard during the last couple of hours:

- Paul Weller - Wild Wood
- Rock the Kasbah
- Amy MacDonald - Run
- Snow Patrol - Run

They also play a lot of new British stuff I'm not familiar with. Problem is, the website where it says at the top which song is playing won't load. Argh. Not good for curious people like me.

I've also been checking out Jon McLaughlin's MySpace page. He did a song in the movie Enchanted and performed it at the Oscars last Sunday. BTW, 3 out of the 5 nominated songs were from Enchanted, but none won. Bummer for Menken/Schwartz, but good for Glen Hansard (remember him from The Commitments? I think he had long hair back then.) & Marketa Irglova from the film Once which I'd love to see because it's set in Dublin but it's not playing in any of the movie theaters in town, much to my and my co-worker's dismay. Anyway, Jon McLaughlin seems good. Couldn't listen to all of his songs on the MySpace page yet cos my co-worker turned up the volume next door.

Oh wow, I'm so rambling ... but I guess that's a good thing cos a couple of days ago I wanted to post something much more .... I don't know ... depressing ... cos work is still so much stress and I have no energy left in me etc. etc. It sounds stupid even to me know cos as I said, I'm in a good mood right now. I like my co-workers and the casual atmosphere here in the office (okay, that sounds as if we're having orgies, right? Not what I meant, believe me ...) and the fact that I get to listen to lots of new music etc. But there are downsides. But as I said, I'm not in the mood now to talk about them.

Anyway, here are the links to stuff I mentioned. Enjoy and good weekend to everyone who might be reading this.

Links:
www.virginradio.co.uk
www.songpeople.com
www.phonostar.de
http://www.myspace.com/jonmclaughlin

Changing places

... but just in the office. Moved from sharing a room with a colleague to one for myself (and the noisy computer server). Room's got 3 doors, though. I'm like the receptionist now.

Other stuff:
Check out the Puppini Sisters http://www.myspace.com/puppinisisters They do Swing versions of songs like Walk like an Egyptian or Crazy in Love. And their own stuff too. The myspace page looks pretty crazy (the background I mean). Makes my eyes hurt.

My cold is over. Lasted 4 days, basically. Not too bad. A couple of the other girls in the office upstairs are ill now. Given that we haven't really had a winter this year, it's pretty bad.

New music

The good:
A Fine Frenzy – Almost Lover: kinda like Soulmate by Natasha Bedingfield. Very quiet, slow and moving with sad lyrics. Love it.

Sugababes – Change: Pure pop with a nice melody. Sweet.

Foo Fighters – Road to ruin: This rocks. Great stuff.

Mika – Happy Ending: His other songs annoy me, but this one’s nice.

Gwen Stefani – Early winter: With her it’s the same as with Mika. Don’t usually like her at all, but this ballad is good.

Amy MacDonald - Mr Rock & Roll: Girl from Scotland. Haven’t heard her on German radio yet but hope I will soon. She says she was inspired by Travis. You might like her if you like KT Tunstall.

The bad:
Madonna – Candy Shop: Haven’t heard in Germany yet, but a Ukrainian station that I’ve been listening to this week plays it. Not good.

Sheryl Crow - Love is free: Her new single. Used to like her, but that song is lame.

The ugly:
Celine Dion – Alone: Cover version of the Heart song (you know, the 80s hard rock group with the Wilson sisters). I love the original but Celine just ruins it completely. I was in almost physical pain when my colleague played it.

Leon Jackson – When you believe: Cover version of the Whitney Houston/Mariah Carey duet they did for the animated film Prince of Egypt. I’m not sure if their duet was also called When you believe or if it was called Miracles or something like that. This boy Leon Jackson won The X-Factor TV show in England, apparently. Problem is, he can’t sing at all. Really awful.

P.S.: I’ve got a cold again and feel awful. Not good.

Our very own Knut

I don’t know if you've heard about the polar bear baby Knut that was raised by humans in one of the zoos of Berlin last year. Got loads of media attention, and not just in Germany, as far as I know.

Now the local zoo here in Nürnberg has a polar bear cub, too. It’s a girl and it doesn’t have a name yet. There were 2 bears who had babies but only one survived and the keepers have to feed it now because the mother bear Vera was a bit confused (She took the cub out of the “den” and dropped it a few times and didn’t take it back into the den.). The cub doesn’t have a name yet, but she is referred to in the press as Flocke (flake). She’s the cutest thing although she doesn’t do much beside sleep and drink yet. She can’t even crawl and only opened her eyes yesterday for the first time. And she makes the cutest noises in her sleep.

If you want to check her out, the zoo and the city of Nürnberg have set up a website that provides an image gallery etc.

I really hope the little bear will be okay. The zoo’s director says she might still get an infection and is not really safe before she’s 3 months old or something like that.

More TV and music babble

Prison Break Season 1 DVD box:
Have now watched discs 1-3 and the specials on disc 6. Am happy with the box, but there are still a few things I wish they had added:
- Audio commentary from Wentworth Miller. He’s the only actor not doing one, I think. Instead, you get the very monosyllabic Dominic Purcell on more than one episode.
- Outtakes. They were always the best thing about the ALIAS DVDs, mainly because Jennifer Garner was so different from her character Sydney (i.e. clumsy and girlish-giggly) and that was so much fun to watch.
- More deleted scenes. What I most would have loved to see is a longer version of the kiss in episode 19 because it’s edited very strangely in the episode itself.

Dinotopia:
Oh yes, I’m still very much obsessed with Wentworth Miller. So although I hate dinosaurs I watched Dinotopia on TV last night (both parts were shown back to back) because he was in it. What really confused me was that his brother (played by Tyron Leitso) had his German Prison Break voice (Gerrit Schmidt-Foss, who also dubs Leonardo DiCaprio) while Wentworth had Lex Luthor’s voice (from Smallville, done by Björn Schalla). So when the brothers were in a scene together I always thought it was Went’s character speaking when I heard the Michael Scofield voice. Anyway … I found the whole thing highly amusing. It was all such a fantasy land … the costumes alone made me laugh quite a bit. Oh boy … poor Wentworth … no chance of looking cool in a light green shirt or a beige pilot’s uniform … hehe. But it was interesting to see him in a different part than the one he plays on Prison Break, just for a change.

New songs stuck in my head at the moment:
Bad one: Leona Lewis - Bleeding love. Argh.
Good one: Michael Bublé – Lost. You are not alone, I am here for you … la la la. Like it.

J.J., you've officially LOST me

Short version: I will from now on (we’re somewhere in season 3) not watch LOST anymore. Another channel will start airing new episodes of Without a Trace in the same timeslot so I’ve decided to watch that instead.

Long version: I’m really the most loyal viewer any TV person could ask for. If I start watching a show and I like it, I’ll hardly ever miss an episode. I’ll even keep watching if the quality of a show deteriorates. The first season of LOST blew me away. As a fan of J.J. Abrams’ show ALIAS I had high expectations and wasn’t disappointed. Loved the combination of the things going on on the island after the plane crash and the focus on the different characters by means of flashbacks to their lives before the crash. Loved most of the actors as well. Bought the DVD box. Then season 2 came along and I didn’t like it as much. Can’t even remember why exactly. Michael getting violent and in general the appearance of guns and the increasing violence on the show were certainly part of the reason.
Then there was a long break on German TV cos the ratings had gone down and the channel LOST is on probably didn’t really know what to do with the show. But eventually season 3 started and it all got even worse.

Here are some of the reasons why I don’t like the show anymore:

- I hate the character Ben (kind of the boss of The Others) or maybe it’s the actor. I just can’t bear to look at this guy. You might argue that he plays the villain or creepy guy very well and I can enjoy villains on other shows, but this one … no way.

- The backstories for the characters have stopped making sense because they don’t fit together with what we learned before about a character. Examples: I didn’t buy Jack being completely jealous of his ex-wife’s new boyfriend. I don’t really see how Kate could have been married to a cop. It’s like the writers are just pulling rabbits out of hats. Look, we’ve got another surprise for you viewers! Hahaha. Not funny. The last thing I saw (I was on the phone at the time so I don’t know all the details) was that Claire is Jack’s half-sister. Great.

- The “love triangle” has been drawn out for way too long. Sawyer is hot. Kate fancies him. But she still can’t leave Jack alone because she thinks he’s the better guy and she should be with a good guy and not bad boy Sawyer. Or whatever. Who cares. But unfortunately the show focuses too much on these 3 characters. Yes, they were in the center of it all from the beginning, but before (season 1) it all seemed much more balanced and I really cared for most characters. But when you just see them in the background somewhere it’s hard to keep an interest in them.

- Everything keeps getting weirder. Okay, there was a polar bear in the middle of the jungle in season 1 and I thought it was cool. On one of the last eps I saw, there was a cow and some kind of farm. in the middle of the jungle. I don't know. I'm not saying I want "monster of the week" episodes. I don't mind story arcs that go on for several eps, but on LOST it has simply become too much. You just never get any proper answers and it's frustrating.

Okay, enough reasons. Bottom line: I’ve stopped caring and I won’t spend another Monday night watching that crap.

P.S.: Damn you, Hollywood!

Last week I was in a bookshop and saw Cecelia Ahern’s novel PS, I love you with a film poster cover showing Hilary Swank and Gerard Butler. I had heard of Ahern before – all her novels have been translated into German and are quite successful here, I think – but had never read anything by her. I had mainly stayed away from PS, I love you because I thought I’d be crying the whole time if I read it. (The story is that a young man dies of a brain tumor and has left his widow a letter and notes for the months to come.) I had no idea they had made a film adaptation and I like Swank and Butler but didn’t buy the book that day.

Then on New Year’s Eve I had dinner with a friend. When I was about to leave we went into her bedroom to the bookshelf for some reason and she showed me some of her books and PS, I love you (in the German translation) was one them. So I told her about the film version coming up and asked if I could borrow it. She said yes and I basically spent all of January 1 reading it. I really liked it and it wasn’t as sad as I’d expected. It’s set in Dublin, which I loved cos I’ve been there twice (and loved it) so some of the street names sounded familiar. While reading it, I tried to picture Hilary Swank and Gerard Butler as Holly and Gerry. Didn’t quite work. And I kept wondering who’d play Holly’s friends and family (who all play important parts in the story).

Anyway, I started to look forward to the film especially because of the location. Haven’t seen a film set in Dublin in a while. But what did I have to find out today when I picked up Filmtips (a free magazine that lists the local movie theatre programmes and has short texts about all the films in it)? The film is set in New York (City)!! Are they crazy or what?! It says ‘autumn in New York’ in the blurb about the film. Even better. The book starts in February or March. Not exactly autumn, I’d say. F***ing Hollywood. Why do they have to Americanize everything? As I mentioned before, Hilary Swank and Gerard Butler do not quite fit how I see Holly and Gerry. Holly sounds more like a petite blonde, not tough girl Hilary Swank. But maybe it could have worked. They do speak English in Dublin, you know. And I’m sure there are Irish or English or Scottish actors who could have played all the other parts (Gerard Butler is Scottish anyway). But transferring everything to New York? Totally different story. Not that I don’t like New York, but shooting this there with a mostly American cast just destroys every connection to the book except for the basic storyline. So guess who does not want to see this movie? Right. Still, I don’t regret reading the book, and I might buy the English version – but only if I find it with a ‘normal’ (i.e. not movie-related) cover.

New Year's Resolutions

Obvious topic for this new post ... okay, so here they are:

1. Stay in touch with the girls formerly known as the "Eurochat girls". We've known each other for years from a Christian Bale mailing list/Yahoo! Group and used to chat regularly Sundays at 5 p.m. But for some time now we haven't been in touch much for various reasons. I e-mailed the girls (well, 3 of them - 2 from Spain and 1 from Denmark who I've actually met in real life) for Christmas and got sweet replies. Loved that. So I really really want to keep this up and not just feel guilty for losing touch every Christmas. And there are also a few people from Germany who I need to write to again.

2. Work on the things that my bosses mentioned in the talk we had in December. I was pretty shocked that they know me that well and have noticed most of the little things I thought I could get away with. Such as the fact that I don't like talking on the phone too much and try to avoid it by writing an e-mail instead. *Sigh* Must work on that and other things. Won't be too easy cos the things are not just "things" you can learn but they are part of my personality. Does that make sense? Hm. Also, I must try to figure out where I want to be in 1-5 years. As far as I'm concerned, work could just go on like that. I don't have a goal in mind that I want to reach within a certain period of time. I don't really know where my strenghts lie. I'm pretty clueless and don't have a plan or some grand ambition. Dammit. Wow, this is getting pretty deep and depressing. Anyway ... NYR no. 2 basically is to get better at my job.

It's 11 p.m. and I'm tired. So that's the end of my short list ... for now, anyway.

P.S. Dear Blogger, please don't screw up the line breaks again!!