Whoops ... Almost three months since I last updated. I wonder whether anybody still reads this :-)
Ok, let´s see what happened during that time. Yes, we went tu Brussels. Brussels is an interesting city, especially in the light that it hosts the European Parliament -- often, you can see hypermodern buildings on the one side of the street while the other looks like, well, crap. Some of those houses are barely inhabitable anymore, and most of them look like they would crumble to pieces if even the tiniest earthquake were to hit ... Of course, that´s only my visual perception, YMMV ;-)
Anyway, I think our math class had a lot of fun. It could have been better (for example, the so-called beds in the Youth Hostel were detrimental to the feeling in our backs), but overall it was good. We had a Lasertagging Arena right down the street (something we lack in Germany due to some weird laws) which provided the much-needed exercise after walking around the city the whole day :) Weirdly enough, it was in the same building as the bowling hall, just like in McAllen (, Texas, USA) ... Anyway. Once my team one, once it lost against some Belgians. Fair enough :)
Of course we did also visit the European Parliament (or parts thereof). Basically, it´s a humongous building that's cost us about $1-2 billion to build. Impressive, but expensive. Seeing politicians debate in 10-12 different languages (sometimes even 4-5 in just one sentence) surely is interesting, even if the matter at hand was not (I think they were discussing whether to follow an invitation or not, but I only remember dimly :). We met the representative of our region (which is about half the size of our state, Niedersachsen). An interesting fellow with a crowded schedule. IIRC, he didn't even have an entry for lunch. :)
Anyway. Talking French again was weird but possible, watching English television again was rewarding (they actually showed Buffy on weekday evenings), and they actually had eatable Pizza at Pizza Hut (a feat that has yet to be accomplished in my city ...)
Finally, our home is connected to the net via adsl ... While the hotline Telekom technicians aren´t the brightest folks around here, I am rather satisfied with what I got. It´s addictive to listen to 192kbit mp3-streams (I recommend Urgent Student Radio, they play good music) while downloading the latest ads from AdCritic to have a good laugh later (unfortunately, German television ads lack wit, humor, professionalism, innovation, and even sense. It really is that bad. And we don´t even have Tivo :-( ). Of course I'm now virtually connected 24/7 (subtracting the times when my ISP screws up something again or when I´m on LANParties ...)
For those statistics-collectors : I have about 2.5 gbyte of traffic per day on average. That´s about as much as I had in a month when I only had a modem :)
I didn´t actually get to babysit my father´s dog -- His wife got sick. Nevertheless I did finish the Bundeswettbewerb Informatik 19.1. The solutions to round one should be up here some time soon (as soon as I get around to it). Currently I´m devising solutions to the problems of the second round, which are a lot more interesting than last year, IMHO. Maybe I´ll even make round three, this year :)
Why do I update today ? Well. School is off for Christmas, and I don´t have to go back until January 8 ... This leaves me with some free time on my hands :) Anyway, 5 more months to go and I have my Abitur (that´s graduation for us, about equivalent with first/second year in College in the US). 13 years. And soon it is to be over. I need to start getting my life together, I guess.
Oh. The German military thinks that I´m not fit enough for them (due to my back, mainly). This means that I have to do neither military nor civil service and can start university by the end of 2001 ... Nice.
Now it is Christmas time. Oddly though, it doesn´t feel like christmas ... Sure, there is the commerce, there are the bells, there are the lights. But there is no snow, no christmas-feeling, no warm and fuzzy atmosphere, no singing, no family gatherings. Somehow it feels as if we´re just somewhere at the beginning of november, not yet thinking of what is to come in two months. Very weird indeed. Maybe it´s because I stopped listening to "real" radiostations (their music gets worse and worse _every_ day ...). Likewise for TV -- I barely watch regular programming anymore. Sometimes I tune in to Ally McBeal or TV Total, but that´s it ... I prefer watching my favorite shows in English, which means that I have to fetch them off the net (no, we don´t have ANY worthwhile entertainment program in English on German television -- all we get is CNN and BBC News). Currently that would be Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Star Trek : Voyager, Dark Angel, The Simpsons, Futurama, the Dune miniseries, lots of ANIME, etc. ... Since I don´t have a burner, they usually just sit on my hdd until I finish watching them, though :)
How did I get here ? Oh, yes, Christmas. Well, let´s see how Christmas Eve will be, I hear we will be having raquelette again (which is fun), with most of the family coming over (which is, too :). Now if I just had all my presents together -- this year I can´t just go out and buy something on Christmas Eve, since that´s on a Sunday. And no, there are no stores in Germany that are open on Sunday (or past 8pm on weekdays, even).
Due to a request, I put my current playlist into the music section ... The links are not complete yet (that takes time), but at least it is there ;-)
Anyway. This is it for now ... I am sleepy (it is 4:40 am). Maybe I´ll put up some new pictures etc. tomorrow ... No promises, though :) I´ll just go to bed and dream about something. Or somewhere. Or somebody. Go figure :)
ttyl,
Eike
Just listening to "Zager and Evans - In the Year 2525" ... Great song. Also finally cleaned up my coding playlist, it´s now at 9 hours again (vs. 25 hours beforehand) and good to listen to. Anyway, I need to update the page, it has been some time. School´s been happily churning away on me, I turned nineteen, got a "AP Scholar with Honor" Certificate (along with 16 from brainbench.com in various areas) ... Scans coming up once I can lay my hands on a scanner. I´ll probably get a DSL connection next week (what that is ? an internet connection 24/7 with 768kbit down- and 128kbit upstream. Or shorter : about 24 times faster than I have now), along with ISDN - our house is going to be callable again (read : I cannot hog the one phoneline anymore ;-)
What else will happen ? Well, our Math Class is going do Bruessel/Belgium for a week starting October 9. But for a visit of the European Parliament, we have not yet planned much. I guess half the class is going to go drinking, the half is going to enjoy the city (and the movies, theatre, etc.), me belonging to the latter. Now I just need to get together some money for that :)
My former French teacher Mme Sandstede has started a project unheard of in our city´s history -- she is teaching a French class at our school over the internet because she is unable to leave her home. While our lovely government doesn´t think it either needs to pay her nor pay at least for some of the equipment nor sponsor this undertaking, the class is coming along great. They are already in their third week, and I only get taken out of my German class once a week for 10 minutes or so (well, installed the tech beforehand ;-). Although the connection only gets established at a measly 128kbit/sec (dual B-channel ISDN), the sound and pictures are happily flowing through the wire. Well, once they produce something that can be seen on the net, I´ll link there ...
In the first three days of December, there is going to be another JagyLan, a LanParty with about 130 people present. Could be fun. No sleep, though. Lots of fun.
I have been killing some time with Diablo II. It's a great game. Definitely addicting. Currently I have three characters > level 30 (2 src, one pal), of which I only play one (the others were tests). That sorceress just rocks. It's getting close to the optimum equipment it is going to have (if you play : Fast Cast rings with +mana and +life, Wall of the Eyeless (shield with Faster Cast, +5 mana/kill), Nightsmoke (Belt, +20 mana, 50% of damage taken goes to mana), treads of cthon (chain boots, +50 def agains missiles, 50% stamina drain, fastest walk), dual perfect-skulled Crown, Faster Cast Wand, Magefists/Frostburn, +1src amulet (looking for faster cast rare prismatic), and currently a Rare Splint Mail with Goldskin coming when I have str 80 (75 now). Also found Silks of the Victor yesterday, so that's an option, too). This sorceress is playing a mix of Kristova/Tweaker. Although I have not expanded on any skill but warmth (on 18 now), I have no problems whatsoever in Normal/Hell and Nightmare/Act1 ... Favourite Combos are Static Field+Frozen Orb or Blizzard + Glacial Spike, all at a VERY fast speed :-)
Anyway. If you happen to have that game and play on the European Realm, /whisper me, my account name is shattered_stone. Maybe I´ll even put some strategies on this page some day, who knows ...
The "Bundeswettbewerb Informatik" 19.1, a national German Computer Science competition, has begun. I will submit my solutions in November, and publish them at the same time on this page. The problems seem to be rather easy to solve, so I can spend some time on elegancy. This is also going to count 20% towards my Abitur-Grade (that's the final grade for school, no less), so I will seriously work on it in the Autumn Holidays (Somewhen around Oct 16 or something like that), when I will stay at my Dad´s house where I´ll take care of the dog while he and his wife go on a vacation themselves. Promising - 7 days without even a supermarket in sight. ;-)
As for my reading, I´m into Book 8 of "The Wheel of Time" by Robert Jordan now. I can only recommend this fantasy series to you, it has left me gaping at the pages more than once after keeping me awake for another sleepless night ;-) Also I read the Trilogy on TCP/IP by Richard W. Stevens (TCP/IP illustrated). If you are interested in how the Internet works at all, you have to read those books. I´ll probably put the new-won knowledge to use some time soon to code a generic multi-homed port forwarder for our school and maybe patch wget to let me slow down transfers a bit. Should be fun, as well.
While I´m at it -- Perl is great. I dig that language. There aren´t many languages that let you put your code into action this beautifully. Python comes close in readability, but does not quite reach it in other aspects, IMHO. PHP is great, but I prefer Perl. Now if I just had all that time to put my ideas into code, it would be great. I don´t, so I won´t, but anybody may dream of winning in the lottery, right ?
Recently, a friend lent me his Buffy and Angel collection (fourth and first season, respectively). If you are in for good jokes, a funny take on things, a great series, or just the right evening entertainment, this is for you. Probably haven't laughed that hard in quite some time. Or shivered. ;-)
Kuro5Hin is up again. Finally. Go there, it is a great page. Personally check in two to three times a day (together with that other site and UserFriendly :-)
My sister is back. She got here two weeks after my birthday, and is recovering. While still in a lot of pain, she´s able to walk now and occasionally go to school for an hour or two. Thanks for the support eMails, I have relayed them.
Michael celebrated his birthday last sunday. It was a fun to be there. He got one of those glass-balls that have ion-channels swirling in them. That was the attraction for the techies of us. Especially the slightly drunk ones (not me!). Anyway, Happy Birthday ;)
Sorry that the German pages aren´t working. I have finally begun to translate some things. The first you can see is the Picture Gallery which you can read in German as well, now. As for the rest -- time will tell when I have the time to put this up :)
I think that about wraps it up for today. I´ll go sleep now and have a nice 4-hour English test tomorrow (Tudor and Stuart England/London. Now that is something I´m definitely not going to talk about on my homepage ;-), after which I´ll probably feel too lightheaded to code and too hyperactive to read, so playing a game or two seems to be the only alternative.
Should I get a cellphone ? (perfect MP3 device, BTW. Guess the RIAA is going to sue me over it. <sigh>)
ttyl, Eike
A few envelopes arrived from the Collegeboard AP program. One contained my grade report, the other an acknowledgement for my APIEL score of 5. The first I already scanned, and it´s up on my virtual wall together with my High School diploma in case you´re interested to see it. While I´m at it, I might as well point out that I got myself another twelve certifications from Brainbench, which are up there as well.
I started reading on the Wheel of Time series again ... Currently I´m tackling book 5, and I guess that by next week it will be book 6. A very good fantasy epic if you want to read one, and I can only recommend it. I think that´s what kept me awake the last few nights (and the fact that I could sleep during the day .-)
Which brings me to my sister : She´s currently in the hospital for eight weeks. Everything seems to be going well from an objective point of view, but she still has a lot of pain to deal with. My mother was over there the past 10 days, now my grandmother is going. I´ve only visited her once 1.5 weeks ago but I intend to go again (it´s about 200 miles from our hometown). I hope that she gets better soon.
A friend of mine had a gift for me the other day : an original Atari ST1040 with Monitor and plugs ... I think I´m back to playing OOOOLD games now :-) Still need to figure out where to get a decent mouse for that system, though ...
Three weeks ago, I was at a network session at Michael´s house again. As always it was quite a lot of fun, this time also with a long-lost-to-a-girlfriend-friend who actually appeared to be beating me in Q3A for a time (not long, though :). If I EVER get permission to, I´ll post a few pictures here :) Likewise for the subsequent session at Henrik´s and Bosse´s house, which were quite fun as well :)
While idly reading some
of the mailing lists I´m subscribed to, I found out about
USACO. They offer free training in computer science competition
related problems. I think I´m going to spend quite a lot of
time there, such problems always amaze me :-) And no, I´m
NOT going to post me results here as I do with "real" contests,
there´s just no point to it ...
Along the same lines, the CEOI is going to take place on August
26th (my birthday ;-), so I´ll probably have to get up at
6:30 on that Saturday.
Sadly, Kuro5Hin is still down. I´ll leave the link on the left side of this page since I´m told it should be back up in September. Let´s hope so. :-)
Back from hibernation again ...
Yes, the site moved. It can now be found at http://eike.cjb.net until I get my own domain. These pages are served from a server of a friend of mine in California. Thanks again, Matt ;-) You´ll notice that the banners are gone now if you´ve been here before. The site used to be hosted on free.prohosting.com, but they recently introduced banners there, thus the move.
Summer holidays have begun in Germany. So far they have been great (no sleep-cap in the morning anymore). I´ve been at a LAN-session at Michael´s house. I have been forbidden to post any pictures by the people there, so I won´t (at least for now %-)
Diablo II hit the stores. I have been addicted to it ever since the Stresstest. Yesterday I finished the game on normal difficulty. Nightmare follows right on its heels :-) If you only buy ONE game this year, it has to be this one. But for the casual server down messages, I have had endless fun with it :-)
The AP IEL results are in. I got a 5. That´s good. Really.
I went to the movies with a friend the other day. This time it was "Gladiator". The film is worth it´s money -- let it be just for the fact that it does NOT have a Happy-End in Hollywood-style ;-)
Finally, a few editorial notes. Now that the page has moved (and I have set up the server), I can finally rewrite lnX. Currently, all that´s dynamic on these pages is the counter and the date -- I intend to change that. The current version of my website system works fine but lacks some extensibility and experiences some code-rot. The next one will be clean-cut. Promise. And Open Source, too. Most likely even Free. :-)
Well. See you soon,
Eike
Hello ... It's been less than a month, but I´ll update anyway :-) Lots has happened since I last wrote here, so here´s a short account of it :
I took the AP International English Language Examination. Lasted about six hours, was pretty .. uhh .. boring. After that I went to the French theatre play our school´s French theatre group put up, and I have to say it was great. I dare not compare it to the play two years ago, though. Let it suffice to say that it was a success ;-)
Easter was nice. We got two weeks off from school ... The first week I
just relaxed (that really DOES help ;-). Then Easter weekend came. We had
a nice breakfast on sunday, went to eat at my grandma's house after that,
and generally had lots of fun. Too many eggs, though. The second week I
spent on the computer, mostly, trying to solve the latest problems in the
German Computer Science Competition. I have not succeeded, probably due
to the fact that there were two little problems I was not able to overcome.
Guess I need to take some more formal CS ... Next year I´ll manage,
promised ;-)
Sadly I haven't been able to get through to my family on the phone. Either
the line was busy (and I expect that to stem from the fact that it was
Easter), or nobody would pick up the phone. I´ll try again this
weekend.
Speaking of telephony, I don´t understand the world anymore. A call to the U.S. is about 0.5 cents a minute more than a LOCAL phonecall to your NEIGHBOUR. Long distance is CHEAPER than a local phonecall. This is why monopolies are bad (in Germany, the DTAG holds a quasi-monopoly over local telephony). Internet is still paid by the minute, though (something not very good for me ;-). I don´t want to go into my financial status right now, it´s just not a very ... uhmm ... pleasant thing to talk about right now .-)
My Computer Science course ended (... three months earlier than my other courses) due to the fact that it was for 13th grade and 13th grade is over a few months early. I´m probably going to have another course in September but need to negotiate with my teacher what topic it will be on. Sadly, I´m not going to be able to take this course for my final tests in one year, as a certain administrator at a certain school (Cäcilienschule) killed that course three weeks after it started and no teacher here wants to administer the test to me. It´s pretty interesting that a city of 150.000 with over 7 schools in my level is not able to provide a solid Computer Science course; why should the country spend money on education for its youth when it can get the workers from outside (note that I don´t have the slightest problems with foreign workers, but currently there is a debate going on in German politics that would effectively give them a rather unfair advantage. Oh, how I love politicians.)
ProHosting changed it terms. (ProHosting is where this website is served from). They want to start displaying ads now. Not good. I´m on the look-out for another webhost which does not have this limitation and supports CGI´s as well. I don´t like banners on my homepage. Paying for the webspace is almost impossible; it would cost me $20 a month to get an acceptable plan, which is bad because I don´t even have $5 left over once I paid my bills. Oh well ;-)
It´s 6 am right now (I woke up at 5 and could not sleep any more, so I thought I´d update the page) ... We´re going to have our first English lesson in 3 months today (our former English teacher died of cancer, may he rest in peace).
Well, school is going to start soon, so I better get ready. See you again when I wake up early again ;-)
Hi there :-)
I have not been able to find a better web host for this site just yet. Well, I guess it will have to stay on here for some more time, so I can just tell you how sorry I am that the Popup appears every time you load up one of the pages.
On to different things :-) A lot has been happening lately in here. I´ll just tell it in no particulary order (because that is easier :)
I have been at the EXPO 2000
in Hannover today (actually, my whole school went over there). It
was a great experience, and I hope to be able to go there again
some time this year. Although the U.S. did not have ANY building there
at all (supposedly, they did not manage to get the money together,
shame), the other countries WELL made up for that. If you do not
want to read about that, just skip that :) Oh, and
IF you don´t, note that these are my personal impressions from the EXPO ...
When we arrived on the site at 9:00am, the lines at the entrance
were moderate (took us 5 minutes to get in), and the first
Pavillons greeted our sight almost instantly. With a friend of mine,
I went on to explore the area. First stop was Venezuela. Their
Pavillon was filled with images and exotic fish, and was interesting
on its own right as it was largely open-air (but protected from rain).
Next up was the Mexican Pavillon. I have to say, I was impressed.
We got in almost immediately, and they showed a fabulous 3d animation
of ancient Mexico City and Mexico City in the 16th century, to be followed
by some exhibits from Mexican Art and other related things.
Well, right out of the Mexican Pavillon, we went to the Japanese one. It
was a little more crowded, but well worth the wait. Their whole pavillon
was built out of recycable material (paper being the most prominent there),
and was generally quite impressive. The general theme of the Pavillon was
environmental awareness, CO2 reduction, etc. Many visionary things were
exhibited, and the technology was impressive (not to say : flawless). There
wasn´t much history or current things shown there, though.
Having gone through three pavillons in about an hour and a half, we
went to the benches down the road to plan where to go next. It was decided
to visit the African Countries Hall first, after which the Asian Countries
and Canada would come. The African Countries Hall had a lot of cultural
references, while the Asian Countries Hall was mostly a big market for
souvenirs.
Canada, though, was quite a nice surprise. The line was a little longer,
but acceptable. One would go into a long, broad, brightly illuminated, curved
hallway, whose ground was plastered with monitors showing flowing water and
the like, the walls being filled with eyecandy. After going through that, you
enter a big hall with a GREAT light-, beamer-, water-, and soundshow. Absolutely
worth the visit.
Next up were the Fun Sport Hall, which was great for kids, but not
really my wavelength. We went by the T-Digit Cube afterwards (which
was basically just one huge advertisement-cube), going into the
theme park "Humankind". An interesting hall overall, but I fail to
be able to come up with something really worth mentioning in it. If my
brain doesn´t trick me now, we next went over the great bridge
to the South side of the site.
The first stop there was the Finnish Pavillon, which was, in my opinion,
the best one I visited today. First thing you did was shake hands (after
being entertained in the line). Then would come the first part of the
Pavillon, which was entitled "Finland from the eyes of children". Beautiful
imagery, nice technology, lots of cell phones, a few interactive computer
gimmicks, and so on. The connection to the second part of the pavillon was a
quiet wood-landscape (and it really was quiet and beautiful). When entering
the next room, you would smell the woods (as they were racked up at the sides)
and a river. There was a long wall with a detailed picture of a river
landscape, where different animals would be projected onto the picture (and,
of course, accompanying sound effects). It was strikingly beautiful
and one of the best rooms on the whole EXPO, imho. The third hall
contained a few more exhibits, which I did not really have the time
to look at closely.
We went to the Croatia Pavillon next. While the floor, which was made out
of glass beneath which a stony water-sea was put, was pretty interesting,
the 360 degree video that was shown afterwards was, although nice and good-looking,
not as interesting an attraction as other pavillons offered.
To get back to the North/West side of the areal, we used the cable
railway. While it cost DM 5 (~$2.50), it did not offer any major
insights to the EXPO. All you see is roofs and some occasional people
masses. Well, back at the start, we went to the American Pavillon (which
is, in fact, McDonalds, as the U.S. did not send any other building) to
get something to eat. Prices were moderate for an Exhibition.
The sun already at 4 o'clock, we then went to the gigantic Iceland
cube. They had an interesting projector setup inside, and quite some
touchscreen terminals. Overall it was interesting, yet not as
interactive as other pavillons had been.
The final pavillon we visited before leaving the EXPO (the bus was
scheduled for 6 o'clock) was the Thai one. While offering virtually
no interactivity, it was still an impressing building. A lot of
atmospherical lightning and many pictures, sounds, exhibits, etc.
Herafter (it was about 5:30 pm), we gathered and went back to Oldenburg
in the bus (and I will not tell you about those 2 hours of bus-driving,
let it suffice to say that it was fun :-).
All in all, I enjoyed the EXPO very much and will try to go there
again, as I found out I missed quite some nice halls and pavillons.
Oh, yeah, the next Expo is 2005 in Aichi, Japan. Hmmm. ;-)
On Saturday, this year´s Abi-Ball (that´s the German prom) took place. I attended, as the theme was "Mexican Nights" (and sure enough, they did have some nice hot-sauce, which was not even comparable to Diana´s, though) and tortillas, two things I miss a lot since I came back from the U.S. (oh, yes, on Saturday, I will have been back to Germany for exactly one year). The evening was pretty nice (I caught a lot of nice chats), although towards the end, the masses got pretty drunk. Pretty funny to look at, though ... I left the party at 3:40am, finally. The place was packed and I hope our graduating class will perform at least as good (one year of planning to go ;-)
Of course a lot of other things happened since May 6 :-) For example,
I got selected for the Diablo II
Stress Test Beta test, and am since addicted to that game. Unfortunately,
I cannot afford the final version right now, so I´ll have to put
that off for some time.
School fared well as well. No big news there, but for that we FINALLY got
a constant link to the internet (guess who is needed to set that up ..). For
now it´s 128kbit/sec, I expect to upgrade it to 384kbit/sec within
the near future. Education-wise, nothing major happened (but for
the school year slowly coming to a halt, finally.
At home I got a flatrate now, as well. This means that I do not
pay by the minute anymore, but rather $45/month for full internet
access (+phoneline). This is quite an improvement over the previous
state. If I manage to make some money in the summer holidays, we might
finally get ISDN, as well :-)
Due to school sucking up most of my time, I did not get to call
the U.S. very often, but I will resume that (now that summer holidays
are coming up). Also, I will continue on learning Japanese in the
summer holidays, as I have not yet been able to gather enough time to do
that, yet.
There are a few new places I can recommend on the net :
- Kuro5Hin.Org is a member-lead news and discussion resource for technical issues related to society.
- BrainBench.Com gives out certifications for a lot of IT fields. Here are my current scores.
- TechFest.Com is a great resource about computer protocols, peripherals, networking, etc.
Now on to the site changes :) The changing of the layout took longer than anticipated. I cleaned up some HTML here and there, put a few new things in, dropped others, etc. (see my Certifications in the IT field, the newly added Games page (containing things about my gaming preferences, not games), or the Music page (not containing Music either, though :)
Ok folks, that´s it for now. I hope to be able to update more often from now on, but as always, I cannot make promises :-)
ttyl,
Eike
Ok, today you´ll only get a short update since I don´t have the time to tell you everything that happened since May 6 ... I just want to welcome you to the new design of the page. I hope everything is still working right. I worked on this for a few hours today and will probably spend another one or two on it tomorrow to finalize it. Now on to the happy game of "search the webhost with CGI/SSI support and no banners" ... Oh Joy ;-)
First let me tell you what happened here the past few weeks. I wrote my Research Paper in English (avaiable at my files section. It´s on Mark Twain. I´m not really content with it; it is not what I wanted it to be. It will have to do.
During the time I worked on this, I of course read a lot of Mark Twain's Works (which I enjoyed), but did also find the time to explore a few other things. For example, I got addicted to another game. This time it´s Final Fantasy VIII from Squaresoft, one of the best and most entertaining games I played in a long time. I also managed to set up my internet connection the right way (tm), so that I won´t have to worry about it too much anymore. Maybe I´ll post some of what I did on the page, I don´t know.
I tried to get in touch with my family and friends abroad; I did not really succeed. Either time was on short supply, or timezones did not match. I have to focus on this more closely ... Sometimes, I wake during the night just to think about them. Weird.
Well, off for now. I need to sleep again, and it´s only just 7pm again ...
I did a few updates today, so you can check those out if you want to ...
There was a lanparty the other week (Jagylan), which was much fun attending. I won 5th in Quake 3 Arena, Second in Unreal Tournament, and 16th in Doom II (that´s a joystick, 2 t-shirts, a jacked, 2 cd´s (Populous - A new Beginning Mission Disk, and a shareware collection), just about 40 pins, 4 mousepads, lots of sweets, and an awful lot of fun). Next time I´ll probably be on the organizer- team, which seems to be fun as well (that is, if you don´t have any technical difficulties ;-)
Last week I was at CeBit in Hannover (that´s the largest computer trade show worldwide, for the uninitiated). While theren were GREAT shows at some of the companies, not too many really innovative things were presented. Sure, there were those 1 ghz CPU´s and really big LCD´s or those web-companies. But there wasn´t anything like the beginning of internet or the presentation of the Pentium. Oh well :-)
This weekend I´m going to go to Cologne, which is where my father lives. And as it´s going to be carnival, we´ll have a lot of fun generally (it´s the biggest such thing in Germany. That also means that I have to dress weird. And there are going to be pictures, inevitably. Ooops.)
As for everything else : my life has not really changed that much over the last few months ... With the difference that I increasingly realize that I don´t have enough money. Hopefully I´ll get a job soon (yes, I´m working on it. But frankly, education is more important than work, and the former just takes a lot of time right now. Actually, a little too much time for my taste ...).
On the gamning side : I played Nox the last few days. It´s a nice game aiming to resemble Diablo. It doesn´t quite succeed, but is nevertheless worth playing IMHO. I should add a page on games some time ... When there´s time :)
Well, I wish you a happy day, I´m going to go sleep in a few minutes (I try to regularize my sleeping schedule, and in order for that to happen, I have to go to bed at eleven. That´s pretty soon, now ;-)
ttyl,
Eike
Well, everything looks good here ... I´m currently working on implementing a little search engine for the homepage. Not that it would be really neccessary, nevertheless it could prove useful when I need to find a spot in it real fast :-).
I´m really sorry I can´t put up more stuff right now, I just wouldn´t know what. Any ideas ?
Have fun, so long, ttyl, yours, bye, cu, au revoir, sayonara, tschuess, etc.,
-- Eike
Eight people, 10 computers, no sleep. The perfect recipe for a successful lan-session :) Well, actually ´they´ went to sleep a few hours ago, but I just couldn't. That's one of the drawbacks of caffeine sometimes :-) Well, I got some time to sort through my computer this time, so the time is not lost ... But I don't even want to know how long I´m going to sleep tomorrow :)
Well, most computers still work, the stoneage hasn´t come yet, and even the phone works. No power surges, either. I guess I´ll have a lot of canned food to eat, anyway (sic!) ;-)
I tried to call a lot of people 20 minutes after midnight (their time). I actually got to speak to three of them ... Seems everybody was partying at that time (and nobody can be blamed for that :)
1999 has been a good year for me. I got to know a lot of people. I was in the U.S., have a second family. I learned a lot lifewise. On the other hand, it also brought some dilemmas ... Things like longing to go to a place you will not be able to reach as easily as before (just taking out somebody to the movies is not as easy (--> impossible) anymore ...). But I think that´s an adequate price to pay for what I got ...
I´m not going to even try to describe what I feel right now. Language is very limited at times.
I hope for everybody to have a great year. I´m going to make the best of it.
I did start to read the bible again after realizing that I never once read it from cover to cover. I´m in Genesis 12 now, reading 3-5 chapters a day. Let´s see how long I can hold that pace (I guess until school starts :-).
Yesterday I got mail from the Bundeswettbewerb Informatik (a German countrywide Computer Science competition). I advanced a round :-). I guess I´ll scan the letter they sent some time ...
While sorting that stuff in (oh, yeah, did I tell you I cleaned up my desk after four months ? Well, it´s christmas after all), I stumbled upon some very old diplomas. They´re from sport competitions in Kindergarten (1987), Swimming (1990-92), etc. As always, it will be scanned. Some time. :)
It´s Christmas time. I actually did get the presents in time, and did send out the cards in time (I hope). Now there´s just this anticipation of tomorrow ... I don´t even know who´s coming but for Santa Clause :-)
I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 1900.
See you soon,
-- Eike
That's what I just saw, and it was one of the few moments I'll probably remember for long. It was just beautiful ... As beautiful as ... hmm ... Well let's not talk about it :-)
I got a letter from my family in the U.S. today. Some beautiful pictures and Christmas cards were included ... I feel happy :-)
School has been pretty tough on me. While the lessons are not hard (therefore the homework is not, either :), the tests are really straining you. I think I´ve had three tests a week for the past 4 weeks now ... Each of them at least 90 minutes, sometimes 180 or even 200 :-/. Can you imagine sitting there having written nine pages worth of content, still having 50 minutes and absolutely NOT knowing what to write anymore ? I solved that one by playing tetris on my calculator, but that really worries me ... Guess I should´ve learned what they did when I was not in class (which was for sound reasons, mind you :)
My computer does not like me anymore. It reboots more often every day ... Its newest tactic is to just beep and stay where it is. Not CTRL-ALT-DEL, no power-button, only the reset-button still works. I´ll have to teach this one senses some time ... (ooops ... I just see : It has Windows 98 SE on it. Well, that should be the source of the problem :-)
As you all know, it´s christmas time. I have not gone Christmas Caroling this year (doesn´t make much sense doing it alone, I could be mistaken for some drunk fool), but I did encounter a lot of commercials involving Santa Clause or his female assistants. I´d make a gift of everything they offer IF there was some money in my wallet. But coincidentally there is none. Oh well, that´s life I guess.
Oh, yeah, please send an eMail for christmas if you can : I will probably have enough time at hand to read them, then ...
Gerson wanted me to mention him in here, so I did.
Christmas is coming, and I yet have to figure out what I´ll do. I have some ideas, but no clue on how to accomplish all that :-) Also, I don´t as of yet know what I´m going to do on New Year´s Day 2000 ... Questions over questions, all waiting to be answered -- or forgotten :)
My sister turned sixteen yesterday. It was a nice birthday, some of the family came over for diner. She´s going to have a party this weekend, so I´m in for some serious noise then ;-)
We went to a Mexican Restaurant, and I discovered what I missed all these months : Fajitas :) They even made me some especially hot hot-sauce. Not quite as good as Diana´s, but sure serving its purpose. I have to go there again some time soon, again, I guess.
I´m through with another book ("Stone of Tears"). "Blood of the Fold" is next up in line :)
Christmas time is coming, and it sure does NOT feel as it felt the past years. Something between outcrying joy and drowning sadness is what would describe it.
Until next time, Eike
Quite some people from my school came onto the net these past weeks. Nice to have someone to ask what homework to do online most of the time ...
I´ve did a lot of eMailing, too (now that I have my eMail software newly installed). Feel free to drop me a line ...
Homework is calling again, so I´ll have to quit now.
Although lots of other things happened, the events I remember most are the two movie premieres I went to. First was Mickey Blue Eyes, and guess who came that evening ? Hugh Grant. You should have seen the look of my sister´s face when I told her just that :-)
The second movie was Schlaraffenland. It´s a movie with Franka Potente (Lola runs), Heiner Lauterbach (the evil guy), and lots more good actors. All were there, sitting 3 rows in front of us :-) I liked the acting and the music, but the story was not as well thought out as it could have been. I expect this movie not to be a failure, anyways ... On a sidenote, we had the tickets to go to the party afterwards, too, but my dad had to go to work early the next morning (4:30am), so we missed the performance of Apollo 40 and the following party till 5am. Too bad, really.
I went to the city of Cologne once that week, wanting to buy new shoes and do some sight-seeing (which I had done 2 years earlier when my class went on a trip there. I didn´t think my memory of it would be that vivid ...). Also, my dad needed a modem so that he could finally write some eMails to me ... (actually he wants to explore the net, I guess ;-). Found out that they don´t take credit cards at Media Markt, one of the biggest shops for all kinds of appliances. Guess they lost another customer now :)
Having much time at hand, I also took out the good old X-Wing game again (the one from 1993, not that dreadsome newer one). Still as much fun as it was when I played it first. Already half through the game again :-)
Today I finished "On Writing Well" by William Zinnser. Not that I would have been able to learn everything in there (best example being this webpage), but I had some fun reading it. It´s really great if you think seriously about writing a non-fiction book, as it explains everything in great detail and is written well.
I also checked on sending flowers to Japan. Well, the cheapest would be a few flowers (assorted) for about $50, roses come in packs of 12 for ~$90. Guess I have to call someone over there instead, these prices are way out of my financial horizon.
Finally I got my reading material in order again. Guess for the next few weeks, I don´t need to worry about getting any more books ... Here but not yet read : Robert Jordan´s "The Great Hunt, Wheel of Time II", Terry Goodkind´s "Stone of Tears, Blood of the Fold, and Temple of the Winds, Sword of Truth II, III, and IV respectively", Richard Friedenthal´s "Goethe : Sein Leben und Seine Zeit", Tad Williams´ "City of the Golden Shadows, Otherland I", and various periodicals.
I´m gonna go buy some video capture equipment today, the card itself seems to work. By thursday I´m probably going to be able to finally put some of my videos on CD :-)
I got a letter from the AP Program today, telling me that I have been awarded the AP Scholar certificate. Pretty nice, now let´s move on to the Honor´s version of it :)
Did I tell anybody that I like anime ? Not that filthy stuff, but the funny and epic ones ? They´re really relieving at times ... Have a look at LunaArts, they have some subtitled episodes there ... My personal favourites are Berserk, Future Boy Conan, and Weisskreuz, but then again, I did not download all of them, yet.
It strikes me that there´s no interactive content on this site ... I´ll go out and search for something I can put my own CGI´s up on, but that might as well take a while (as I don´t have any money and really don´t want to have any banners on my personal homepage :-)
There are some things that nag me right now. I somehow feel weird, almost as if I had nothing to do (while there is lots). Slacking around a bit, too. I don´t really know what to do against this, so I hope it´s over, soon :)
Finished reading "The Eye of the World" by Robert Jordan. Am certainly going to buy the next volume, this is a series I like ... Quite different from Sword of Truth, but just the same fun to read, I guess %-)
Everything seems to work quite well, already had about 200 frags combined (Duke3d and Quake). There´s some files floating around here, so the network is almost always maxed out (it being only 10 MBit BNC). Streaming seems to work quite well, too, I noticed. A windows install of Apache serving as a streamer for RealMedia, Windows Media Player, and WinAmp works just pretty :)
A friend of mine scanned a lot of pictures for me today. Expect some of them to be up on the site pretty soon ... There are some really nice ones of my families, as well ;-)
Next week I´m gonna be able to capture video, finally. Although it´s not- compressed (-> 3,6MByte/sec -> 14,4GByte/hour), this might be some fun.
Tomorrow I´m gonna have exams in English (3 time hours). That´s going to be some serious fun. I think the topic is going to be Televangelism in America, so a lot to write about ... Unfortunately. :-)
Tried to call the U.S. again ... Danny seems to be out of town every few days now, so I didn´t get through again ... Weird thing ;-)
The homepage is coming along. only 2-3 sections are left basically content- less. And yet I have 1-2 ideas on what to add next (besides scanning the pictures :)
Was talking to a friend about possible universities to go to after school. Seems this is going to be a pretty difficult decision, but luckily I still have two more years to think about it ...
School´s getting longer every day. Got some stuff working on the server there ... (the news-server is up and running (including posting), the webpage is held locally rather than somewhere off-site, some eMail-glitches are fixed, the pine config was revised, the newsgroup-list was beautified, some minor glitches in the system are gone, the crontab looks readable, etc ;-)
Just another busy day, I guess.
Still feeling weird. I guess I should get some sleep ... Maybe that helps.
I feel a little bit lonely today. Thinking about the people I got to know during my year in the US. Feel the want to call somebody, but don´t know whom. Weird. It seems as if I would know nobody in here.
Got into a new Computer Science course today. Hope that I can stay there. At least the teacher is not going to kick me out because I "know too much for this class" ...
Got a few books to read. Some from the local university´s library (Chaos - Making a New Science (for the third time), On Writing Well (seems to be interesting), Goethe - Sein Leben und seine Zeit (for my German Class), some books on parallelization of computer algorithms (just to look into it)). Also got a package from Amazon, containing Blood of the Fold and Eye of the World. Something to read, at least.
