tech talk

Yesterday felt like xmas in summer.

The reason for that was not really funny and gave me a fright on Saturday and much work on Sunday. Saturday morning I realized that the NAS wasn't running, at first I wasn't that surprised cause there was a power outage on Friday evening, and because those happen frequently and sometimes repeatedly I've programmed all computers not to reboot when the power comes back.

After rebooting though the NAS still wasn't available and that's when the trouble started. The system said "no disk" and G said "oh no, where's my data?!" Most the files we need to use both were stored on that disk. The rest – pictures, movies and music where just backupped there for easier access.

The rest of the weekend turned out to be very technical. Removing HDD from NAS, inserting it into PC, understanding the file format and finding a program to make the disk readable.

I learned everything I never wanted to know about ext3 partitions but all that counts was that I was able to recover all of the data. Because those programs couldn't find any errors on the disk, but the NAS was still insisting that the disk was broken, I decided that it was in the fact the NAS that was broken and quickly got G to agree to buy a new one asap.

I found one from Linksys but a visit to their forums convinced me to wait some more time to get their newest media hub. It's very tempting, but has only been available for a couple of months and is still suffering from minor problems.

We headed out to a huge electronics store yesterday morning, and though I had in mind to get a NAS with two HDD's I settled on a model with only one (Buffalo Link Station 1 TB). Those models which allowed the installation of several HDD's didn't have the media-options. I decided to go with more functionality and need to rethink and seriously setup a backup-system for the rest of our data.

The rest of what we bought falls into the category "do you really need that?"e.g. yet another satellite receiver, a power cable for an internal SATA-disk, and many many dvd's that were on sale. Oh and a case for G's iPhone, cause the one I ordered was to be delivered around mid june. Yesterday evening I received an e-mail that it has been shipped :-)

After the exhausting shopping we both had our first Subway-Sandwich – yummy :-)

sunday morning musings

Ever since I "moved out", Sunday mornings have been my favorite part of the week. As soon as my presence was not required anymore at the family breakfast table, I became an early riser. I don't do much; it's my personal version of celebrating slowness, my own slowup which only requires me getting up.

When I was living in apartment, I took a book and my walkman (you know the thing you needed before mp3) with me and headed out to a park.

Nowadays, whenever weather permits, I take my cup of coffee and go out onto the terrace. This morning though with only 13 C° (55 F°), which is way too cold for June, I'll prefer to have my coffee inside and watch the Sunday morning rerun of my favorite talk show with my favorite talk show host.

Then I'll be probably awake enough to start research for a new NAS; the old one crashed yesterday, but at least I was able to recover all the data on the disk.

Cu l8er

the perfect gift

It's that time of the year again - girlfriend's birthday. And those of some other people too.

Presents are really important to G, coming right after birthday congratulations, they don't have to be big or expensive it's the thought that counts and she likes the unwrapping ritual. This is why I often tease her with the wrapping - creating a form that has got nothing to do with the content at all.

I always have a hard time choosing the perfect gift, also because of one rule which I always apply - I never buy anything I wouldn't buy for myself. I'll make compromises where the color is concerned but that's about it.

The most impersonal gift you can make is giving money, unless they asked specifically for it to buy something big. What I truly like are gift cards. I'm an avid Internet shopper and when you're not around me daily, chances are high that you're giving me something I already have.

And you can even vary the gift cards depending on the current needs, e.g. when my brother married I gave him gift cards from IKEA.
Then there are cities that offer them which means you can shop and pay with them in almost any store you want.

To me gift cards are not an excuse or even a sign of disinterest - next to geeky gadgets - they're my favorite gift.

Stupidity – and the award goes to…

Monday I had – judged by my standards – a really nice shopping trip. Except for that occasion when I wanted to buy a gift-card for ITunes. You might wonder what's so difficult about that? We were in Germany and the card was for a Swiss friend. I asked the guy if I could use this card in any ITunes-shop in any country and he said "Why not? It's via internet, isn't it?"

Uh – working 10 km from the border to France or Switzerland and not knowing…anyway – I breathed deeply and told him calmly that it's impossible to buy from the US-Store which somehow got through to him. Simultaneously we started reading the back of the card where it said "only to be used with German ITunes-Store". Bugger. At least – besides being a dork - he had tried to help.

Tuesday morning we made a quick dash to Switzerland, in hope of getting that gift-card. We started by adding more dvd's to our collection. Then G asked an employee who was busy sorting dvd's "We're looking for the ITunes card. Do you have them here?" – We were in the entertainment section, after all. This woman responded, with a voice sounding slightly slurred "No, I don't know what you mean. Cards? You should head over to the computer department. They will be able to help you". She repeated this about four times and grew louder each time. G and I fled as fast as we could; this situation had a wee dose of surrealism ;)

This was by far the most stupid person I've encountered in a long time.

We ignored the advice and headed to the checkouts where we found the gift-cards right away.

favorite language

A couple of days ago there was this poll on facebook about your favorite language. Mind you, there were only five choices but the selection included some of the language I speak.

English, French, Spanish, German and Latin.

I took Latin back at school and hated it. I only wished I had come across Rita Mae Brown's "Starting from Scratch" earlier; I'm sure those classes would have been more fun.

German is my native language and I've lived in many different regions in Germany and sometimes hate how certain dialects but also groups of people butcher this language. It's not the most romantic language and it doesn't sound sexy when spoken, but it gives you so many possibilities with the times and nuances that I don't really understand why people would voluntarily reduce these possibilities.

English is a different matter; I learned this language at school, like most Europeans. I'm still regularly surprised when I meet people with five and more years of English classes, who are not able to speak the language.

I admire the Dutch and Scandinavians cause all I've ever met with those nationalities mastered this language to a level I'll probably never will.

And still I chose to write most of my blog posts in English, to the dismay of some (sorry, I'll try to write more in German in the future). I started reading books in English when I was about 16, discovered English tv-channels at about the same time – thanks to a satellite dish and listened for a long time exclusively to music with English lyrics.

So what's my favorite language? I'd love to speak Spanish, started this some years ago but never got far due to lack of time. Apparently I got the basics right – this might also be related to the despised Latin – cause I do understand bits and pieces of it, especially when written or when spoken by my brother-in-law (though that's a mix of Spanish and Catalan)

Surprise, surprise, it's French. I loved the language already before I was able to speak it - only some more years and I will have spent more years of my life in France than in Germany. There are many different dialects as well, not all of them sound nice to my ears and yet I still love this language.

I didn't have the best education at school, too much about using the right vocabulary and grammar, but once I got over this, I really had fun speaking this language. And the French didn't mind mistakes – ok, they were a special crowd and I sometimes felt as their mascot but those were great times.

French is very melodious, no matter from which region the speaker comes. They have preserved their origins by some harsh rules (specific amount of French songs on radio, etc.), but it's only done them good. The language is always related to a certain "savoir vivre" and "joie de vivre" and even though I hate writing the language, French is my favorite language.

And I love Paris, but that's a different post. This picture was taken in the Jardin des Tuileries (that's the park attached to the Louvre), looking onto the Place de la Concorde and the Tour Eiffel in the background.

Names – ever think about them?

 

Ever wondered what's in a name and what this might imply?

In Germany we have this thing called saint's day and in some families this day is given more attention than anniversaries.
Most of those saint's days go back to religious persons and there are complete books on that topic. If you're from a religious family you probably have a more traditional name, one that can be traced back to a saint.

I recently read that there is a wave of choosing more androgynous names like Luca or Lena though I don't see anything androgynous about either of them. Sure, normally a name ending on an "a" would lead to the assumption that you're dealing with a woman - unless you're facing an Italian name. Italian Luca's and Andrea's are always male. As for Lena (and who is not thinking of Lena Heady at this moment?) nothing modern and androgynous about this one, as it's short for Magdalena - very religious, very traditional and definitely very feminine.

Family names are a different matter, sometimes left open to speculation, e.g. I have at least three versions that really make sense as to where my family comes from. I prefer that version where it would mean "on fire".

And I'll leave you with that thought.

Random Stuff: Questions, food for thought?

This is not planned as part III to "boring and random stuff about me", these are questions I often wonder about, some are meant rhetorical, some are real questions.

1. Why do so many lesbian authors choose androgynous names for their characters? Or "male" nicknames? And why do they often pair blondes and brunettes? I can't believe that so much of lesbian fiction is alt- or uber Xena-fiction. (really don't know the difference between alt and uber, yet I'm sure that this is not fanfiction)
   
2. Is there really no base-line below which political elections will be cancelled? I can't believe that elections with 30% of attendance can still be valid. Sure, people who stayed at home will have to live with this, but still….
   
3. What is the point of having a non-smoking policy on trains but not at the stations?
   
4. If I stopped thinking for others for an entire day, e.g. on the road or avoiding run in with those little monsters at the supermarket, will I still be alive in the evening?
   
5. Why are most current lesbian plots on TV spoiled by one of them being pregnant, some sooner, some later?
   
6. E-books prices don't differ as much as I expected from "real" books. I hope that authors get a bigger deal from e-books as production costs are extremely lower.
   
7. I'm beginning to like facebook's "pick your 5" and wonder if there's a possibility to cross post them to my blog.
   
8. Dita von Teese is supporting the German Act at the Eurovision Song Contest? Seriously? I'm glad that my tv fees support Patricia Kaas ;)
   

Random Thoughts: Things that drive me crazy

Normally I'm not that a person who's much into details, at least not at first glance. But there are some details, especially in tv-series that drive me crazy. Sometimes they irritate me that much, that I stop watching the show altogether. The irritation on SVU was that strong, that I already wrote an entire blog-post on that subject.

Currently I'm watching "La vie est à nous" on a regular basis (read the recaps on eurOut if you want to know more). Marianne looked great in the first episodes and had – compared to the other women appearing in that show – an unusual haircut. Lately she seems to be growing out her hair, a style hovering between boring and slightly ugly. To give the show some credit, it's not the only show doesn't seem to be able to be giving their actresses a decent hairdo.

Do you ever pay attention to what they are wearing in the shows? Sometimes the same outfit during the entire episode (e.g. some "Tatort"s), even when the storyline suggests the story spanning over several days. On a recent episode of CSI Las Vegas the team pulled an all-nighter (plus 24hrs) and none of them changed their clothes once, what do they have in their lockers if not a change of clothes?

I know, that I drive people crazy talking about this; they think that paying attention to these details is weakening the story-line, but hey, especially CSI stories are about details, so they should get them right too. If you don't want me to notice these things, have them wear overalls, or look over to NCIS where Gibbs is constantly drinking coffee, Abby getting her power-whatever-fix and they use non-see-through containers. I never wonder or count how much they've been drinking ;)

Exploring random facts

Before posting more random, boring facts about me, a post which is already finished, I’ve got something else I need to get out of my head.

I’ve always been a “daddy’s girl”, I’ve got no idea why and there’s no one left in the family with whom I’ll discuss this. Next to being a “daddy’s girl” I also was a “grandpa’s girl”, and there’s nothing wrong with neither of this, I had a lot of fun with both of them.

Most of my pre-teen summer vacations where spend at my grandparents, and with my parents being an hour of a car drive away this meant pure freedom. Most of the family lived in the same city where my grandparents lived, which meant visiting a lot of aunts and uncles. That family had a weird generation gap, at least on my grandma’s side but the youngest were still about 8 years older than me, which is an aeon when you’re only 7.

One of the things I clearly remember is the basement at my grandparents, or more precisely the space allocated to them, as they lived in a house with 3 other families. There where shelves on three of the walls, with one wall being reserved for self-made marmalade and conserves. The fourth wall, right below the window, was reserved for grandpa’s tools including a traditional workbench.

I never understood why my dad let himself talk out of getting this workbench, after grandpa had died and they had to empty the apartment.

Back to being a daddy’s girl. This included some embarrassing moments for him, cause there is a long line of years during which you could bet on me knocking over some glass or cup from the table during meals, this also happened regularly when he took me for his morning pints.

When I was about fifteen, my parents decided to build their own house, which was when the real fun began. My dad had always been very talented when it comes to the “handyman” stuff, which resulted in the financing of the house being based on lots of our own hours. In some ways, that summer was even better than the summers spent at my grandparents. There was not a single day when we weren’t at the construction site and despite me having small accidents every other day; I also learned lots of things.

There are only a few tools which I’ll never use, e.g. I have a weird fear of buzz-saws. Guess I’m lucky that we don’t own one.

But – look at this treasure, and please ignore the clutter around ;)

This post went in a completely different direction of what I had initially intended, so there’ll probably be a part two of this.