Fun With the Postal Service

I ordered some stuff from the US at an undisclosed location.

In customs, a funny little tax and some strange customs charge ("obsolete bureaucrat overcharge"? "unnecessary delay compensation"? - as for me, I think it's more that time of the month than ever) was slapped on the delivery - for a total of about ? 27 - which the postal service kindly advanced for me. Then they charged me about ? 6 for it.

Let's whip out our calculators: Assuming our goods have spent two weeks with the complete wastes of perfectly good carbon that's called "customs officials", that comes to an annual interest of 6 27 / 26 * - almost 580%.

Motherfuckers.

At this rate, express parcel services are cheaper (in my experience doing the customs stuff is more or less included in their pricing) - and not "only" about three times faster. You live, you learn.

[FILM] Munich

1word: overdiscussed

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Why Spielberg still is famous as a director of great movies is beyond me. The movie is by no means bad, but it's just as far away from greatness. I think that basically all his recent work was from the realm of uninspired average. And that's not counting basically everything before Schindler's List. Now that I come to think of it, has that man ever made any other good movies?

Anyway - if you have to make a movie about the middle eastern conflict to get people talking about you, basically that's the moment you should retire. Having seen it, it certainly explains why only pro-Israel or anti-Israel blowhards had much to say about it. The movie is simply standard fare with the usual emotional manipulation using aesthetics down to subtle colour changes (I noticed them, so "not sublte enough") and a spiritually tormented hero.

Additional malus points for the - to me - most memorable point in the movie (spoiler of sorts): I found the gratuiciously graphic nudity during the assassination of a female assassin pretty disturbing. Maybe this is another indication of how far beyond reason the whole Israel-vs-cameljockeys discussion is - you can make snuff movies and all that people discuss is whether they are sufficiently pro/anti-Israel.

On a completely unrelated note; flashbacks to executions of hostages don't make for good sex scenes. Maybe that whole combination of sex & violence was put in in post-production:
"We have all the violence we could ever need; things blow up just fine...but I still have the nagging feeling we missed something!" That's it, it's not Spielberg's fault at all. It could just be some sort of Hollywood rule!

[BOOK] Dilbert and the Way of the Weasel

Buy it here! W00t! $$ for me!

If you've ever worked in the corporate world, it'll be more a documentary than a humorous book to you, but I really liked it;uite possibly the darkest humour found in any of Scott Adams' books. Many of the cartoons in there seem to be exclusive to the books: I've been a regular Dilbert reader for years now and I knew very few beforehand.

I'd recommend the book, but then again I actually sometimes feel like Dilbert incarnate.

[COMPUTING] Thunderbird 1.5 on Mac OS X

Did the update today. It's great.

The automatic extension updater that looks for compatible versions of your previously installed extensions after a Thunderbird update actually works now.

A few quirks that seemed to have to do with file locking on Mac OS X are removed.

The spell checker is still a little awkward with non-default Languages but that won't kill me. I only noticed it because spell as you type is the default now.

The most amazing thing is that it's faster. On my poor little iBook. I mean, lots of software gets faster on the newest hardware, because it uses features of the hardware that older versions didn't know; or on the newest OS release. TB 1.5 is a lot better on a middle-aged Mac, with the previous OS release.
Nice.

The rest is as great as ever, as far as I've seen so far.

Get TB here.

Fetch! Good Admin!

So, that's how far the Unix crowd has fallen: I'm fetching sticks for a Linux distributor. ;)

4 Jobs I did:
Bookseller's temp / construction worker / webcoder/-admin / sysadmin

4 films I can't get enough of:
Fight Club / the 3 Monty Python's feature length movies

4 Orte an denen ich gelebt habe:
(Wels Graz nil nil)

4 TV series I like:
Arrested Development / Simpsons / South Park / Desperate Housewives

4 places I've been to on vacation:
California / Pakistan / Salzkammergut / Ireland

4 of my favourite foods:
Chili / pizza / lots of salads / beef soup

4 Pages I hit daily:
all daily fixes I get via RSS

4 Bloggers I pass the token to:
rad!ance [here] / jclingan [sorry to say jclingan has declined] / CK [here] / montag [here]

[BOOK] The Dilbert Future

This book is so funny that I was laughing out loud during (minor) surgery.
[It was local anaesthetics, too, so I wasn't just tripping on nitrogen.]

That was not only a first for my doctor - it was also the first time that I read anything but comics by Scott Adams. Although he's pretty much an induhvidual himself, the guy sure can write.

I was especially amazed how correct he got the predictions that weren't just jokes [the book came out in 1997]:
The only notable blunder seemed to be that he gave ISDN any chance.

The Dilbert humor is definitely on the deeply cynical end, so you won't like the book if you're a Garfield fan. Peanuts fans will fare better, but expect to laugh occasionally between crushing failures of the characters.

Buy the book here, so that I make a buck, or I shall taunt you again!

Buy books I link to, bitches!

Amazon just told me I'm a loser, and it's all your fault!

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Said they:

Sie haben sich vor einigen Wochen beim Amazon.de Partnerprogramm angemeldet, haben aber bisher noch keine Bestellung generieren koennen.

Trans: You've registered for Amazon.de's partner programme a few weeks ago. So far, you haven't generated any sales.

Isn't that great!

On my way to class today, the horizon was a steelish grey from the tiniest ice crystals in the air and the fine branches of the trees stood out in a brilliant frosty white against the blue sky of a wonderful winter day. It can all be so beautiful, what a pity I left the camera at home.

Giving in to my wackier impulses and delivering on the irony that the title promised, I also saw a bicycle messenger standing at a crossing. With an impossibly bold look on his face. I just had to sing his praise:

oh bike messenger!
proud dude, race on with gusto!
self-propelled transport.