More and more, it seems to me that there's nothing new or innovative in life. I think the more you understand something, the less you enjoy it. Take computers, for example. I understand computers. I've been working on them now almost thirty years, ever since my first home job, the risible Texas Instruments TI 994/A. My second computer was the much more suitable Mattel Aquarius, replete with 16K expansion board. 16K? I remember thinking it was the shit, something I could never even dream of filling up. Consider the following BASIC program:

10 ? "HELLO"
20 GOTO 10

That's about 25 bytes, and also about the extent of my BASIC programming abilities at the age of 11. I remember there was this other kid in my sixth grade class who also had an Aquarius. I remember him bitching because he only had the 4K expansion, and he didn't have any room left in memory for the data sets that he used in the Dungeons & Dragons-based RPG he'd programmed on it. I would have loaned him mine, but I was humiliated into lying that my flight simulator was almost finished, so sorry, no dice.

In the eighth grade, I took my first computer-oriented course at school, which was called "Business Computing on the Apple ][". I'm not exactly sure what eight-graders are supposed to understand about business computing, or what we were supposed to think of the cleverly hackerish use of square brackets for the roman numerals in the Apple ]['s name, but I was nonetheless intimidated into swearing that I would never buy a computer, much less one that had the colors of the international homosexual conspiracy brazenly embedded in a fruit. Subtle it ain't, the old Apple logo. Instead, I would live my life in buckskin trousers and shoot at revenuers with my kentucky windage, wishing for simpler times when men were men, and night was dark. Which of course is why I'm now a UNIX system administrator, and write blog entries in bars on my Apple laptop.

So nowadays, I understand that every laptop is basically a remix of different off-the-shelf parts, with a selection of the available software, as money allows, nothing special. There's only the capacity of hard drives, the speed of the processor, and the amount of RAM installed that make any dent. It's all the same shit. There are many computer companies, but only a few huge factories that pump out the shit that they all build into their computers. There is no wonder, no joy, mystery to any of it.

This principle applies to everything in life. At least, it applies to anything built after the second world war. German engineers are no better than the Americans anymore, they all use the same CAD software to get their shit done, and, with the Internet, there are no magical metallurgical formulas, no secret underground laboratories, no oil fields in the Balkans that make a difference, only Google results. Nowadays, there's only the price of commodities on the global market, the intricacies of international currency markets, and the sewing together of the same, tired old components by some poor saps in Taiwan for each and every manufacturer in each and every field of business, be it shoes or MP3 players.

Depressing.

[22:20]
I'm giving the New Worst Bar in the World a second chance tonight. For about the eighth time now, I guess. These guys are the worst of the worst. They're even worse than I remembered, and that was bad enough. I've been sitting here now for about 10 minutes, and they haven't even acknowledged my presence. There's 4 chicks behind the bar, just a-wiping them counters, a-polishing them glasses, and a-wasting my fucking time. I guess I keep coming back out of morbid curiosity, of the literal kind. I've got to see how long it takes for this place to die off.

Atrocious service. There's an entire floor of guests here where I'm sitting, and we all came in about the same time. Probably about 10 people. There's no way they could've missed us, and anyway, I'm sitting on the railing, with my sizeable noggin in plain view of God and everybody. Let's watch...

[22:30]
Welp, still high and dry here. The staff have, in the meantime, made a perfunctory round of the lower floor down there. They didn't bother to put out their cigarettes to do it though, just left them burning in the ashtrays. Never a good sign. I'll light a cigarette and see what happens.

[22:35]
Cigarette's out. Somebody's coming up the stairs, oh wait! She's got a notepad with her! She's either a waitress or a reporter, and either one would suit my purposes at this point. Meanwhile, more customers are grousing around and looking nervously over their shoulders, the silence of the taps a deafening presence in the room. My hatred hangs over this place like a cloud. Thalia Bar and Grill, I am your own personal Simon Wiesenthal, you worthless, arrogant bunch of fucks.

[22:39]
The reporter took my drink order. I ordered a beer, and I'm anxious to see if she fucks it up. That would be just like the AFP to do something like that. Arrogant Cowboy American Orders Mai Thai, Asks Twice for 'Cute Little Umbrella'. It's a sting, I fucking knew it. I will bring this place down around their ears. The Duke would.

[22:41]
After leaving something on my table that most certainly looked like a beer, the waitress was unresponsive to my admittedly lukewarm thank-you. Fucking narc.

[23:30]
This fucking bitch. She only came up one more time, and that was to clear off another table, and then she went back down without asking if I needed another beer. I guess I don't, seeing as I've gotten attached to this one, as spending an hour with a beer brings you closer to it. I shall shit upon this bar, its name will be stricken from every card, from every column, and every positive blog entry I ever wrote about it, should there actually be any. The Thalia Movie Bar and Grill is, without a doubt, the worst bar in the world.

I'm in a chatty mood tonight. That may very well be because it's Sunday, and Sunday in Augsburg means Biscuits à la Rube, and Grits au Fromage. Such breakfasts are good starts to any day, even when served at 4:30 in the afternoon, in filthy pajamas.

So, what shall we talk about? Let's talk about the weather. In a cruel turn of fate, the weather finally got warm the week after the kids went back to school. Fuck 'em. Treats them right for living in the arctic circle. Move back to the world, kids, there's sunshine and hurricanes.

Ok, that's the weather. Let's talk shop. I got a steady gig now, which doesn't take much time, and doesn't pay all that badly. I'm self-employed, so whenever a steady source of income shows up, it's always welcome. It doesn't quite make up for the 2 and half months of project work that I just did for which I didn't get paid, but it makes telling certain customers to go fuck themselves that much easier.

I actually worked for one customer for up to 60 hours a week for the last two months. Even though I relaxed my normally-exorbitant hourly rates for the sake of customer relations, the bills are running up into the tens of thousands. Thing is, I haven't seen a dime of that money yet, and the way things are looking further upstream, I don't think I'll ever see any of the money. The other party, who's basically doing sales for the project while I do the work, has decided that almost all of the customers we've been servicing like overworked whores lately are 'Reference Customers', who will be useful down the road for bringing in other customers, and therefore won't get billed. Which means I won't see any money from them at all. Which means I'm pretty much figuring out whether or not spending time in the big house is worth the ass-whipping I'd like to lay on my salesman. Still too close to call.

The press might want to stop trying to milk this one.

Mama Moonbat and Her Multitudes

30 people? I've had orgies bigger than that, and I don't recall getting phone calls from Murdoch over it, either. In fact, through most of the "summer" here, there was some sad-assed march against the Hartz IV welfare reforms, which involved somehow making people actually fill out more forms to keep getting unemployment checks. Every Monday night, the teeming masses of about 20 or 30 people would march through the town square to the train station, with some buffoon up front shouting rhyming missives about Schröder or something through a megaphone. And I always wondered to myself, usually through a beery haze, if he really saw himself as some sort of revolutionary figure, with the streaming red banners of the International Communist Conspiracy waving all about, black confetti falling from the medieval buildings around them, as the oppressed volk breathe a sigh of relief that they finally have a voice. Instead, I mean, of the 20 or 30 bongo-playing dopeheads who were shouting, incoherently, his dumbass rhymes back at him, to the derisive hootin' and hollerin' of the Monday-night Maximilian-Strasse promenaders, with the intention of getting their $2000.00 a month benefits extended past the 3-year limit.

What a bunch of fucking parasites.

Just in case y'all missed it, the photos from the wedding are up. The bachelor party photos have yet to clear customs, ahem.

And speaking of Herr Doktor Probst, he's got his own blog now. Check it out. I'm sure we'll be seeing more from him, as soon as the monkey-in-the-mirror 'Test' posts scroll out of the way.

Mutual friend Martin Bruch also has an interesting blog, as long as you're a Mac weenie like me.

This is perhaps the most beautiful, romantic thing I've ever read (NSFW):

Ladies, find the ugliest man you know (and my e-mail address is linked on the right) and I'll assure you that you'll soon forget where your clitoris ends and his tongue begins. Within hours, you'll be thinking that you breeched birthed and adut male.

From skippystalin, of course.

Hope their sites can stay online after the vicious Bitchdotting they're getting here.

If anyone ever tries to tell you that open-xchange is worth the trouble, kick them in the nuts. Hard.