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Daddy Mike

Yep, I'm a daddy now. And the funny thing is that my picture database is still backlogged to Mid-November. There ain't no special treatment for you guys, so you'll have to wait until I caught up before you can see any pictures of her. (And I already took over 200 pictures in the first four days).

I'm working on it.

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Things Ain't Bad

Been quite a while since I updated last, huh? I'm too busy to even update the picture database (but don't worry, I *will* update). So how have I been?

Pretty good, actually. Really. Things are good. Julie rules. My job rules. The fact that I'll be having a child in a few months rules.

There are lots of minor quibbles in all of the above. Every day, there are some things in the job that need to get resolved, there are setbacks and problems. Same thing goes for the other things. But overall - I am happy. I should be happy.

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Talking In Pictures

Hello fans, long time no hear! With so much water down the drain, my mailbag has grown to a uncomfortably huge size. Let's reach in and draw a bunch of random letters I got in the past few, um, days:

"Hey lady! Where are the updates?"
"POST MORE!!!111111"
"you might aswell close this site schmuckface if you dont psos"
"Update now or else!"
"Pharmacy 75% off!! Soma - $3.2/pill Cialis - $4.8/pill Ambien - $3.4/pill"

Well, it sure is a warm and fuzzy feeling to have some many people concered about my well-being.

Regarding the lack of updates I might have displayed here recently, I would like to extend my warmest "Quiet now" to you.

Actually, that was what I was initially going to write. But then I realized... hey, wait a sec. I *am* updating. Almost every day.

Just not this lame blog thing. Instead, I'm sending new pictures every day. And you know that old saying: "A picture is worth one thousand words". So having 3438 pictures in the database at the time of writing, I have sent you guys 3,438,000 words, which is a lot more than any of you has in your pathetic little journal thing. So... Quiet now!

Seriously though, if you step through the pictures (at least if you are cool enough to have a password and see all the good ones), you get a pretty good idea of what's going on here. You can see everything I did over the weekend (weekday pictures are getting scarce, but that is mostly due to weekdays being nothing more than work days), you can see that I put this bling bling on Julie's ring finger (i.e. we got engaged), you can see that I got a Prius in March, etc. etc.

So why should I even write anything in here? Well, I could still provide you details on those things you can't see on the pictures. Like, "hey, I just farted". Happy now?

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NYC

"Don't look up in New York City", Dave warned me, "only tourists do that. You'll expose yourself and make yourself a target for muggers."

And I see now why tourists do that. The buildings in this city are tall. I've seen skyscrapers in my life, even San Diego has a somewhat decent skyline, but this is different. Manhattan is an ocean of somewhat phallic architecture, wherever you are, you can look up and see something rise up to the sky.

It is an impressive city, I gotta say that. You have to be there to feel its spirit, and I think I understand this city now. At the same time, I know I wouldn't want to live there. Southern California and NYC are not only geographically opposites – they are different in every way.

NYC is pulsating with life. Too much life, actually – it's hectic as hell. Cabbies honk their horns every minute because somebody isn't moving fast enough. People push their way in and out of the subway, heading towards their oh-so-important things they are going to.

But New Yorkers are proud. They love their city. I can understand now why Al Qaeda chose to strike here. If they had gone against something in Los Angeles, the people would have just moaned around, "well, we’re kinda pathetic anyway." But striking the two mega-dicks hit the New Yorkers right in the heart.

NYC reminded me of Hamburg. Another big city that never sleeps, where public transportation is the way to go, and people are too busy looking important and pretending they are better than you.

And 9/11 has really turned New York into a paranoid mess – now you have to go through a security gate even to board the tourist ferry that takes you to the marine attractions, just in case somebody plans to hijack the vessel and crash it into the statue of liberty, or whatever the heck people are thinking.

The whole thing is more some sort of brainwashing, to make people feel safer (oh gee, at least no-one is gonna capture this little ship full of tourists... who aren't really targeted anyway), and to create this paranoid atmosphere. Hey, the Russians are gone, so they need somebody else to hate.

Returning from NYC, I feel even luckier to live in San Diego, and I realized again that I'm all West Coast. I could not identify with New York City. It's cool, yeah, it’s a nice place to visit, but it is just not me.

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Short Outage

OKAY OKAY, stop ladying already. My hoster upgraded servers because they had some stability issues, and in the process they messed up my database. Actually, they didn't really do it - I made an, um, misconfiguration, which prevented them from restoring it. In any case, it's fixed. So it's all good.

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MT Update

Okay, is this messed up or what? I added some minor protection against those spammer freakheads (which apparently worked). The next morning, MT had been virtually uninstalled from my system. Okay, what the heck? I checked back with my hoster, but nobody has a clue just what the hell was going on here.

Anyway. Back in. And hopefully to stay.

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What You Don't Do Yourself

...usually turns out being completely messed up. The one thing on this website I didn't do is this blog thing. And guess what: It's a piece of crap. Not only is it in Perl, so it doesn't work together with my PHP-based site at all, not only does it have major other shortcomings.... its pathetic programming now has me swimming in SPAM.

Yes, some asshat has used MovableType's comment system to distribute spam. The new MT versions offer protection against that, but guess what, the new MT ain't free no more. And since I barely use MT (as evidenced by the angry mob that keeps urging me to update), I sure as freak won't pay for this.

So now comments come in faster than I can delete them. I'll see if I can hack something into MT to stop it, but if not, I might turn it off altogether, or, if I find some free time, I'll replace this piece of crap with some custom code. I only use a minimum of the MT functionality the way it is.

I remember what it was like when I was a kid. I had so much free time... I wouldn't even be thinking twice, I woulda have kicked this spam-ridden garbage out of the window and written something myself. But now every hour is precious. Welcome to the real life.

Well, at least some good news. Got my car back, and it looks better than ever. Work is going nice (and it still helps me thinking about my previous job - that way, I enjoy my current job twice as much). Other than that, no major news. But don't worry. I'll keep you posted.

Wow... Oh man. I've been writing for 5 minutes, and there are already 15 new posts! The funny part is that the automated scripts use the lower blog IDs which I have blocked, so they don't even end up on my site. Still, I just googled around and found some information about this problem. Looks like I do have some options.

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Crash and Burn

Oh wait, I just remembered something. Whenever something happens, aren't you supposed to go to your blog and let the world know about it since they've all been dying to hear the newest news from you? Sure. Well, here goes.

As you've already seen on the Picture Of The Day, some jackass ran a red light and almost totalled my car. Well, he made a left turn as I was going straight. He woulda have had to yield to begin with, but it was even an intersection where he had a red arrow. And he even blames me, saying that if I hadn't been going that fast, he would have been able to make it. Yeah, right. If you hadn't run a red light, we wouldn't have this discussion in the first place, schmuckface.

And now I'm stuck with a bunch of dumbasses. This doofus who tells his insurance fairy tales so now they're at a loss who to believe. My insurance assigned me a ridiculously slow claims representative who hasn't even bothered calling my witness in two weeks. The other guy's insurance isn't any better, except that their representative even sounds dumb on the phone. The shop? The shop at least is somewhat cool, but they're being slowed down by my insurance. But they suck too. Didn't call me back when they promised to do so.

Well, now I got a rental which annoys me. It's comfortable, quiet, works, and has a much better stereo than my car. What the heck is up with that? Well, maybe in 10 years the other guy's insurance will reimburse me for that rental, if the representative there finally gets his head outta his humongous booty.

So that whole deal kinda brings back my wrath I haven't felt in a while (maybe except for my previous workplace). But hey. Who cares. It's all good.

Anyway... this incident reminded me to write a new entry here (well, after two weeks)... which in turns reminded me to keep it updated more often. Cool?

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Proof Of Being Alive

Okay, listen up, smart-asses. This is a translation of an article I wrote in my old Kraut blog in December 2001. I didn't even have 'picture of the day' back then. Hell, I even lived in Germland back then. So Quiet now.

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Most people probably don't even question it. The truly brilliant movie FIGHT CLUB (which everybody should watch at least once) asks - amongst other things - whether we're still alive or already turned into zombies, guided by what society and the TV tell us.

Some characters in the movie try something similar the weirdos in JACKASS do: Pain as proof of existence. I suffer, therefore I am.

I got something too. Way simpler.

Pictures.

In a quiet hour of depression, when I ask myself whether I'm alive or have started living yet, I look at my collection of pictures and see what kind of things I have seen in my time. Where I have been. What I have been doing. What kind of people I have met. (Subtle reference to my huge picture database, hint, hint).

And then it's obvious: It was worth it so far. There's been a lot of stuff going on in all these years. Not only have I seen many places and did a lot of things and did change myself considerably - my environment has changed too. I see a picture of a happy couple hugging. Well - by now, she's an alcoholic, he's clueless, and they broke up years ago. I see five people posing for a "best friends on earth" Kodak moment. Now, years later, there's been a lot of trouble inbetween, one of them isn't even mentioned by name anymore by the others.

Helge said in one of his postings that he can't live without music. I can't live without pictures. Without pictures, I'd be an empty existence without a past, without substance.

I get my picture taken, therefore I am.

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Update!

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Here's another article I wrote on September 10 2002, right after I saw that brilliant movie One Hour Photo.

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The trailer for One Hour Photo has fascinated me for months. Now, finally, it was released a couple of weeks ago - albeit in a "limited release" only.

One Hour Photo - it's about Robin Williams, a simple, law-abiding man in a cold, empty apartment in downtown, without family or friends.

He works in the photo department of a huge shopping center where he's exposed day by day to photos of families, children birthday parties, newly-born babies, and lovers. As he puts it himself, "people only take pictures of the happy moments of their lives. They never take a picture of something they want to forget".

That's why he only sees the happy moments of that one poster family - despite the fact that beneath the surface it doesn't look all that peachy all the time.

The things Robin says could have been taken straight out of my weblogs - see the article above. I couldn't agree more with Robin as he comments on some stone-old portraits of people: "If pictures have anything to say, it's this: I was here, I existed. I was young and happy and someone cared enough about me to take my picture."

Wonderful line. Brilliant. That's just what I'm saying.

The movie moves onward without unnecessary scenes, without cliche crap, and keeping its subtle touch. The ending might not be totally convincing (even though it's still good), but all those truths about pictures alone make the movie worth watching.

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Dear Diary

Dear Diary. Today I had Carne Asada Tacos, and then I drove on the I-5. Boy, traffic was bad. But luckily, I got home in time to see this wonderful sunset.

Seriously. What the heck was I thinking? Okay, this blog crap has a point in the German section of this page - letting them folks back there know what's going on over here, since they really don't know. But this blog here? Well, I could fill it with poetry and lyrics of the latest Joy Division whine-o-ramas, but unfortunately I happen to be not a goth. I could tell what's going on here, but most people who read this know very well what's going on here.

Well, there are some outsiders like good ole Mellzah who had the nerve to go cow-tipping in Wisconsin where she has to milk cows every day to afford the horrendous fees of the one municipal Internet computer they have in Wisconsin (I think one gallon of milk roughly equals 20 minutes of high-speed (=9600bps) Internet access).

But other than that? I don't think anyone gives a flying freak about how I feel. But I might still add something, just for the heck of it.

The beauty of maintaining a blog is that you feel like someone actually cares. What usually happens though is that the wrong people read it and you just make an booty out of yourself. But most people don't realize that (since they don't run a big-brother-style log file) and keep on writing and feeding the booty-o-meter.

But anyway. I'll probably also start translating old entries of my first blog. That wasn't anything like "what I did today", it was more like "what I saw today that gave me these deep-booty thoughts". Some of these entries are four years old. So brace yourself for some of my thoughts, concocted up before I freaked my brain up with all this booze and depression and crap.

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