ROOOOOOOOOOAAR

Alright, it is this time of the year where I celebrate my birthday.
This year we had three days continuous celebrations. We started off on Thursday with a visit to the 12th anniversary of ZoCards, thanks to Pierre. We were joined by the a friend who, after living here for 17 years, mistook Boat Quay for Clarke Quay end ended up in the museum instead of the bar. Eventually he made it to the right place. After some wine and beer Maroccan food finished off the day.

On Friday we went for a three course meal with Champagne at Rogues. Rogues kindly delivered vouchers for free food and drinks. Being a night with a full moon, a visit to the Megadeth concert seemed to be just the right thing to do. Open air makes sense here and the event was a much better one than Yngvy Malmsteen in Hong Kong. What was missing were people in leather jackets, plastered with metal and patches. No one was really drink and I cought some people drinking WATER! At a Heavy Metal gig! Next thing you know is that there will be a juice and milk bar at the Alice Cooper concert. What i liked was the statement from frontman Mustaine that apparently they are from San Diego and that a fire had burned down his house. He said though:"It takes more than a F*#&+ng fire to make us cancel our tour."Now that is what you call attitude (Compare to Copperfield who is grounded cos some woman claimed he raped her... Right... A guy who could have them all...) Awesome gig by the way. Saturday would have been another concert, Heaven and Hell, the original Black Sabbath line up. Hey, there is culture in Singapore! Some of the staff deserves special recognition, such as the "Usher" of the male toilets... A 70 (!!!) retieree working at a Megadeth (!!!! Four exclamation marks) concert to spice up his pension money. RESPECT!

NB: The image confirmes why I prefer to have a camera as a camera as opposed to a phone that takes pictures...Anyway, I tried.

Saturday we went to the 1nitestand, the comedy club. English fellas taking the p*&s out of their home country - Hiralious! The Germans got their fair share as well...If you are in Singapore while there is a show: Go for it. The tickets for this event were also proudly sponsored by.... Rogues.

Today we take it easy with a bit of cycling and shopping. Now it is time to head for dinner.

As there are still some vouchers left, the rest of the week I will be dining at - you guessed it - Rogues.

I pledge Guilty

Today I violated Murphy's Law. What is the punishment for that?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murphy_law

Test Post on Web site

As i am trying to redirect my blog to http://www.stefanpertz.org/ I am encountering difficulties.

Anyone got an idea how to link Blogger to my own site???? H.e.l.p. !

The future was yesterday

So you have seen I, Robot and thought it is a nice little movie. Frankly, it scared the living hell out of me. Having read Asimoov's I, Robot novels 18 years ago they were cool science fiction.
But that was decades after the book was published. Now, today you have to ask yourself how far away are we from that future? Come to think of it the 3 laws of robotics make perfect sense. Also the possible outcome that lead VICKY to take over the world.

The latest is that robots (ASIMO II) dances and runs. There are robot soccer world championships and the latest fad is to produce military robots to fight on the front (of whatever war). Now ask yourself how far away are we from that "future". The Terminator no longer seems to be a thing for weirdos that like Austrians on steroids.

Comes the next one! Think of the great narration of the movie "The 13th floor". Not only is Adorf an excellent actor, but this is likely an equally good movie as Matrix when it comes to making you think. While we may think that Second Life is fun, as we create Avatars, some actually believe that we already live in a computer simulation (http://www.simulation-argument.com/matrix.html)
By the way, second life is an old idea... Guys, you remember the C-64 and LCP...(Little Computer People)?? A new group of researches is the spin off from these kinds of applications. They research the behaviour of people in VR and they actually claim you can judge if there is a male or female behind an avatar by monitoring it's behavior.

And here is for all the business travelers: Next time you approcah the runway, ask your stewardess (Airhostess or Flugbegleiter) if there is an actual pilot in the cabin or if that thing uses Autoland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoland). Coming back to I, Robot... Cars that drive automatically. Funny? Boring! Why would i want to have a car that drives without me..?
Even though Mercedes no longer Dymler Chrysler is close to it.

And here comes the last dying breed: Printed stuff. Watch Minorty Report (originally written in the 50s). There you see the people holding a newspaper which is a translucent sheet, updated via mmmm Bluetooth or Wireless Internet. Research points at decreasing production of print media. Not that people don't read, but not printed stuff as we know it. People nowadays read on a screen of some sort. Over the last few years we have seen TVs becoming increasingly slimmer. How much more does it take before there is such thing as the roll up screen? Well, done already (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2005/10/11/DI2005101101387.html).

At this point I would like you all to go and get the following videos: War Games, Terminator (ignore the time travel), I, Robot, 13th Floor, Fail Safe, Silent Running, THX 1138, Blade Runner and Titan AE. For those who still know how to read: Neuromancer and Gekauftes Leben. Once you'r done tell me that you are not scared!

Alright, while you do that, i will log onto my Third Life and see if I can get some Nano fodder for my HTML-Dog and the Binary Code Cat. 100010010011 1011 10001!

Bored? Get some pets!

Beginning of the year we moved to Singapore. As we lived in a hamster box sized aparment in Hong Kong, we did not have any furniture (One could sit on the TV, but not for long). First thing in Singapore was to buy furniture. We found this amazing set of a table and benches in Mango wood. Very stylish, very neat. Adding a matching bookshelf and a funky, huge and cosy sofa with a coffee table, made of the same wood (I like coffee tables as they go well with coffee).

Throw in some lamps and oil paitings and TADAAAA comes the designer home. Actually, the furniture came with an own breed of little pets. Woodworms.

Woodworms are really fun. They don't make any noise, no need to walk them. Just wipe off the sawdust once a week. The coffee table has been in for replacement / treatment 4 times by now (one time almost got an Indian worker killed as he slipped on the staicase). The bookshelf just came back and I found more worms.

Now the folks from the store are going to replace the whole lot for us. Next time we buy aluminium or steel furniture. Also much better if you happen to have a dog. Less chewing!

Impact of Chinese Holiday on World economy

Amazing! China is celebrating the golden week, meaning they are on a week-long public holiday.
Good for them! And good for us. Why? Here is why:

Because all of a sudden the constant stream of strange e-mails stopped. No more Viagra that I don't need, no expelled dictators that want to give me their billions, no fake watches or bags, no invitations to meet the most beautiful women in my neighborhood and so on!

I am looking forward to the next golden week...Until then, I am thinking about taking up that offer from the investment banker to store his 300 Million USD for a week to earn 10% commission.