Everybody lies

Just found the idea on a german blog (via another german blog):
A list of 10 things I really would like to do before I kick the bucket for good.

Funnily, first it was quite hard to think of anything at all - and the more I thought about it the harder it got to narrow it down to only 10 things…

1. Write a novel. A good one.

2. Publish it, see it topping the bestseller lists and become rich and famous. (Well, rich would be enough, I pass on the famous thing.)

3. Learn to speak spanish, italian and japanese fluently. (Pure fantasy, as I got my hands full with english.)

4. Build a house, or at least buy one and restore it completely. Preferably, it should be located on some beautiful coast, miles away from any other human habitation, and the only thing that’s really important interior-wise is a huge library. And an open fireplace.

5. Learn to play an instrument, preferably the piano, but guitar wouldn’t be bad either. (Not likely to happen, though, because I am musically challenged to put it mildly.)

6. Design and plant a garden - or even better yet, a park - with lots of trees that will look the way it’s intended to only in a hundred years or later.

7. Lose 40 pounds. (And again: not going to happen in reality.)

8. Have enough money to buy every book that takes my fancy - and enough time to actually read them all.

9. Live in a couple of countries other than Germany for at least a year each. Japan would be one, others are Australia, Alaska, Canada, Mexico, Italy, Great Britain, Ireland, Brazil and definitely New Zealand again. (I think that one has the most potential to actually happen.)

10. Visit a couple more countries for prolonged holidays.

If I could manage all that I could look back on a life well spent and die happily. When I’m 120 at the earliest, because for now I’m still intending to live forever.

So, I’m curious: what are your 10 things? I’m not gonna tag anyone, but if you’d like to play along leave a comment.

Just found this while I was looking for Hugh Laurie clips on Youtube.
Hugh is in it only for a few seconds (wearing a very ugly wig), but the whole thing is hilarious.

Now this is a movie I would actually pay to watch.

Oh, and just as a favour, could you please let me know if this embedded video totally fucks up my page layout on your screen? Because I have just spent 10 minutes trying to make sure that it doesn’t, but I am not sure if it will still behave once I published the post…Thank you.

I don’t even know why I didn’t like StumbleUpon at first. I was probably just being antagonistic on principle, what with all this social media hype bullshit and all.
I have changed my mind meanwhile and have lots of fun stumbling through random websites nowadays. Of course it’s a huge time thief and much of what I find is totally useless, but some of the stuff just makes me literally laugh out loud.

Like this website selling bumper stickers, buttons and the like I found tonight. It’s called EvolveFISH. com.

Now, I have to admit I don’t have any bumper stickers on my car and you wouldn’t ever catch me running around with any kind of button on my shirt or jacket. (I do like t-shirts with catchy phrases, though.) Besides, many of these things are way too America-centric to be of any use to me personally, but the atheist ones were obviously right up my alley. Just for fun.

Especially their different variations of the christian fish symbol rock. My car might be small, but I think I would find room for both the Darwin one and the Flying Spaghetti Monster version.

My favorite, though, would be the Invisible Pink Unicorn (although it doesn’t look much like a unicorn and it’s not even pink), because nobody would know what it is supposed to be in the first place, making it a total insider joke.

I know, some of them are old, but they still make me smile.

(BTW, just in case you were wondering: the big, silver A up there is apparently the new logo for atheists.)

Some stories I read on the net just leave me shaking my head and wondering about people with strange ideas and apparently too much time on their hands. This one, though, also made me laugh. Where else but in New Zealand could this have happened?

I know that things are a little bit different down there sometimes, but this story really tops everything I heard while I lived there myself:

The makers of a chart-topping song only audible to dogs say they hope it can become a global hit.

A Very Silent Night - a Christmas number one in New Zealand - raised money for the country’s Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

How can a song that’s only audible to dogs become a hit? I suppose when they play it on the radio as a human all you hear is silence. Ok, some people would say, compared to the normal program of most radio stations nowadays, silence is actually preferable.

But lots pf people must have bought the CD, ending up listening to silence on their CD players. I reckon, that can only be explained by the fact that most Kiwis are essentially good people and wanted to raise money for the good cause. Which is just one more reason why I love this country and its people so much.

But honestly, I bet my dog would totally ignore the song, just like she does with the rest of the noise from the tv and radio.

On a much nicer note: it looks like Vincent D’Onofrio’s new baby has already arrived.

According to this message on a forum his wife Carin gave birth to a healthy baby boy on Valentine’s Day. How fitting.

I can’t wait to hear what name they choose. I’m just curious like that, can’t help it.

Too bad he has to go back to work on LO:CI just now. As glad as I am that the writers’ strike is finally over, this is a bit of awkward timing for him. Good for me, though, because I can finally look forward to new episodes of not only Criminal Intent, but also House, Bones, Criminal Minds and Numb3rs. Rewatching the old ones over and over got a bit less than exciting lately.

Edit 22.02.08:

His name is Luca.  Love it. Goes well with Elias and Leila.

Norovirus. Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

Now it’s finally official: I am sick.

Well, ok, that’s not really news to anybody here.  :)  But this time it’s got nothing to do with my head. It looks like I caught a norovirus infection. At least according to my doctor, who prescribed one week sick leave right away (I just love that woman).

Of course I had heard of that virus before, but I since I am usually not all too prone to infections I never had it until now. So I had to do some reading up on the symptoms on Wikipedia (whatever did I do before there was Wikipedia?). And, lo and behold, I had them all. Every. Single. Fucking. One.

Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, general lethargy, weakness, muscle aches, headache, low-grade fever.

Thankfully the really severe stuff went away after one day and one really really wretched night, but the overall feeling-like-crap is still there. So I’m very glad I can stay at home for the whole coming week and am officially supposed to lounge in bed all day, doing nothing more strenous than sleeping or reading. Although I have to say the thought of being on sick leave is actually more fun when you’re not really sick and feeling like shit. Only then it would be called skipping school, I suppose.

Ironically, now I will be missing most of my virology course in Leipzig. Which in a way is a pity, since I actually enjoyed doing some lab work for a change instead of just listening to boring lectures all day. But then again, I also won’t be seeing my colleagues for a whole week, and that is actually a good thing.

I think, I can finally say that I have fallen in love with Margaret Atwood’s writing. I just finished reading “Oryx and Crake”, which will definitely be on my top ten list for this year (yes, I am aware that it is only February).

We didn’t have an easy start, Margaret and me. The first book by her I tried to read was “The Blind Assasin”. I said tried to read, because I gave up on it not even halfway through. I can’t remember anymore what it was about, only that it bored the pants off me.

But her writing must have had something, or maybe it was only because she is Canadian and I generally like Canadians. Whatever it was, a year or so ago I decided to give her another chance. This time I picked a collection of short stories, “Good Bones”. Incidentally, the book was among the first short story collections I ever read. Luckily for me I liked them quite a lot.

Now last month I checked out another short story collection from the library: “The Tent”. To call these stories strange would be an understatement, but I am beginning to appreciate this special kind of strangeness of Ms. Atwood. I’m not sure I really got the point of some of those stories - I’m not even sure they really had a point. But again, I enjoyed them.

And now “Oryx and Crake”. What can I say? This book is incredible in every possible way. I even liked the ambiguous ending that leaves you free to imagine the following events in whatever way you like. This is the kind of book that Saramago probably tried to write - and failed miserably. Atwood not only went to the trouble to do a lot of research to get her facts straight, she also came up with a compelling and suspenseful plot (with believable characters, who do things that are actually imaginable given the circumstances of the story). And she manages to include lots of sociological commentary on today’s society into the story in such a way that it makes you think without ever pushing the story out of the way. Mr. Saramago could take a few lessons from her, I reckon.

I have to return this copy to the library tomorrow, but I definitely have to get my own copy to re-read soon. I might write a longer review then. For the moment there are just too many pictures still swirling around in my head. Next up will be “The Handmaid’s Tale” as soon as I can lay my hand on a copy. And then, who knows? In a way I am lucky that I discovered Margaret Atwood only so late, because now I have this whole list of books she already wrote to look forward to. I might even end up giving “The Blind Assasin” another try.