Montag, 3. März 2003

SMS takes over - your language: This is an excerpt from a Scottish schoolgirl's written report of her Summer holidays: My smmr hols wr CWOT. B4, we usd 2 go 2 NY 2C my bro, his GF & thr 3 :-@ kds FTF. ILNY, its gr8. Need a translation?: "My summer holidays were a complete waste of time. Before, we used to go to New York to see my brother, his girlfriend and their three screaming kids face to face. I love New York, it's a great place." She wrote the whole report using the SMS language that is popular with people who message each other using their phones - because this was easier than writing normal English. If this is true (I have no other source as yet) - Then Be afraid.

Project weather reports: Steven posts a weather report on each Apapche project he is currently involved in. Very good! Now if you could just visualize that using SVG - that would be neat.

Thanks - but no thanks: Russell doesn't want a new job after all. My semi-serious post here sparked off a deluge of job-offers arriving in his in-box (no - not really a deluge). However he has other plans as you can read in his rebuttal. We'll see.......

Blogging your product: Dr. Pepper is using a weblog to market a new drink here. Will it work? Well Doc doesn't think so and I tend to agree. You see the marketing is toooo obvious and so this is no more a weblog - but just "old wine in new tubes" as they say here. So it's just marketing blah blah that has been repackaged to look like a weblog. What they should have done is have the product development team (do they have that in drinks?) set up a weblog and describe how they are working on designing the drink. Just like Dave Hyatt has done for Safari for example.

Session planner up: If you're going to attend JAX in Frankfurt then go here to behold the session planner.

Running man: Yesterday I officially put myself down for the annual Paderborn Easter run (10 K). This will be my third time running in that event and so far I have yet to come in under an hour (71 mins, 64 mins to date). And I've just had a great idea :-): I'm looking for sponsors! Send me an email indicating what you would like me to wear and I will get back to you with my postal-address and size. Photos of me wearing your stuff will be taken and put on this weblog - on the day! And as I am not one of the quickest - your logo is seen for a long time as I drag my way around the 10.000 meters.

Good WW quotes: Stefan often quotes the good stuff from the West Wing. Here are my 2 for today (still on Season 2): Laws don't work like that - we don't ask for a show of hands. There's a wrinkle in the situation.

Rambo lives: Rambo is alive and well and living in Irak - or Afghanistan - or... On Saturday I bought a copy of the current Spiegel issue - just for the title picture.

Helau Europe! Today is Rose-Monday here in Germany (Rosenmontag) and the height of Carnival festivities. People get dressed up in funny clothes and walk around the streets and - later - the pubs doing funny things. I try to ignore everything. Every town or area has their own "carnival shout" - ranging from "Helau" and "Alaaf" to other incantations you don't really want to know about and which will not give you any better grades when you take your next German exam. All the carnival raving will be over on Wednesday and then hopefully the spirits of Winter will be so scared that they will not return again this season. And if I was a Winter spirit I would long be in Auckland by now.