the first photo was taken in bolinas, the hippie village up the coast from san francisco. where up until the late 80’s they kept hiding the traffic sign so no one would find them. if you did find them anyway this is what awaited you: hostile kids pointing guns at you.
on the other hand the mission back then was considered to be a dangerous area, but these kids are all smiles and concentration.
i am kidding of course. but somehow symbolic, i thought.

Tags: blackandwhite, kids, photography, california, 1987, bolinas, mission, sanfrancisco

[teh glorious interweb what got stuck in my camino tabs this past week]
[i’ve been away, so this is very incomplete and messy]

news schmooze

Family History - this nifty little guide came with the guardian two weeks ago - but then we lost it. smart as the guardian is they publish it all online. “Ever wondered where you came from? The latest in our monthly series of Guardian Guides will help you discover your roots.”

The World Bank has the perfect standard bearer - “The bank’s credibility was already fatally compromised by hypocrisies far greater than those of Wolfowitz” explains naomi klein.

The Channel 4 Big Art Project - “It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity. The chance to get involved in the commissioning of a work of art, courtesy of Channel 4.” moblog.co.uk is envolved with the photosharing/mapping site.

Flickr: The Big Gob - osymyso has started a flickr group of people opening their gobs. people look scary when they open their mouths like that.

Blogs turn 10 - “Blogs might still feel rather novel, but there are now something like 70m of them around the globe. To mark the 10th birthday of the form we have come up with a list of noteworthy modern blogs and crucial moments from the first decade of blogging.” [via metablog]

Subvertr: Learn more - “Subvertr wants to be a ludic reflection about overwhelming and overflowing images, it is based on the collaborative mechanics of the Net”

Draft Blogger’s Code of Conduct - “We’ve drafted a code of conduct that will eventually be posted on bloggingcode.org, and created a badge that sites can display if they want to link to that code of conduct.” [via oh heck i forgot]

swiss

Tweakfest Festival Programm, 24. - 26. Mai 2007 - the tweakfest programm is online and tickets can be ordered. now there’s a nice and affordable new media conference in switzerland. its possible after all.

Die Welt von Tom Kummer - lang:de. out there book review of blow up by tom kummer. who will come read in switzerland 11.5. in basel and 15.5. in bern.

MISSION ETERNITY / ANGELS / Become an Angel - the software is ready, become an angel, be part of the p2p network.

Twitter is the cult of me - laurant does not like twitter, and while i agree with some of his points, i also find twitter to be kinda fun. just plain hedonistic fun.

swiss electronic music

bengston: More free tunage - bengston has remixed Evil Nine’s “For Lovers Not Fighters”

filewile.com : Preorder - preorder my friends filewile new cd.

vids

Mr George Bush Bring My Boyz Back Home Horny Country Girl - if this video aint gonna convince dubya to bring the troups home, i don’t know what will.

Unpluggit.co.uk - “Unpluggit is the world’s first campaign dedicated to helping prevent climate change one plug at a time.”

evidence.mov - sad adbusters spot for tv turnoff week.

gamez

crush for psp - this psp game looks amazing. let’s hope there’s a homebrew firmware hack soon.

Jay is Games - Flash and casual game reviews - reviews and walkthroughs of online flash games.

Free to Play - FREE MMORPG wiki - a list of free mmorpgs wiki.

bees CCD craze

Experts may have found what’s bugging the bees - it’s a fungus! “Experts may have found what’s bugging the bees A fungus that hit hives in Europe and Asia may be partly to blame for wiping out colonies across the U.S.”

Are mobile phones and Wi-Fi to blame for the world’s ills? - “They reckon the world’s crops are going to fail because, allegedly, mobiles kill bees, and Wi-Fi will make teachers, pupils and people wandering around Westminster (which this week turned on its municipal Wi-Fi network) ill.”

Aganetha Dyck - art made with bees. shoes “{Altered by the bees}”

Aganetha Dyck - art made with bees [via bb]

Boing Boing: Are cellphones killing bee colonies? - “The world’s bee colonies are dying mysteriously, and a study from Landau University suggests that mobile phones may be to blame.”

Are mobile phones wiping out our bees? - Independent Online Edition > Wildlife - this article started it all. “Are mobile phones wiping out our bees? Scientists claim radiation from handsets are to blame for mysterious ‘colony collapse’ of bees”

wordpress

K2 - wordpress theme with added functionalities.

Vino Tinto Wordpress Theme - Ubersuper - a k2 wordpress theme by sis.

[stream: del.icio.us/pieceoplastic | links or subscribe to this RSS feed]

Tags: linkdump, bees, videos, family, blogs

taking a trip in a car is bad. cars suck. it’s not as terrible as flying of course, but still awful in an ecological sense. we agree. ah, the guilt.
as an aside, after this trip to ireland i will now sell my car. since i gave up my share of our family mountain house my last “justification” to even own a car has left. public transportation/mobility will do fine from now on.

but having said all this, it’s also bloody amazing to travel by car. almost nothing beats cranking up radiohead’s paranoid android (best rocksong ever) way up on a freeway. with subwoofers! you also get to places, that you would never reach otherwise, like all the funky backroads we took, the tiny beaches, the remote mountains. plus you’d never get these superb gas station anecdotes:

anedote # 1:

near bantry, it’s only the second time ever we get gas in ireland, as i exit the car to try and start pumping, i notice a dude approaching me, his hand extended to greet me, saying “hiya whatyerrrname”. turns out it’s a serviced station and he would do the pumping - after shaking my hand, mind you. needless to say, that “hiya whatyerrrname” became some sort of a mantra for our trip.

anecdote # 2:

near wexford, it’s the last time in ireland we “fill her up”. the prices for gas in england are outrageous, so we want a full tank at the much cheaper rate in ireland. the cashier messes up and keeps converting my credit card payment to swiss francs, with 3.5% fee added plus a terrible exchange rate. i contest this, but he clearly doesn’t know how to handle credit card payments. he keeps repeating “i am just doing what the machine tells me” and always ends up with the wrong total. finally he shows me and i can point out the mistake he was making. but that line “i am just doing what the machine tells me” almost made me crack up and that would have been so not appropriate; the good lad was already shaking in anger.

anecdote # 3:

near london, dammit the full tank didn’t get us through ingerland. we have to get a few liters for 0.94 per liter. as i approach the gas station some french guy in front of us slows down in hesitation, i pass him and start pumping. suddenly i perceive the guy, who by the way looked like he could be sarkosy’s brother, standing to the right of me. he says: “ich kanne nichte pumpen wegen sie, weil sie quervorfahren haben mir”. he must have seen that i am swiss and decided to complain to me in “german” - or what he thinks to be german. i hate that. i look at him and say to him in best cockney accent i can muster: “just bloody go and fuck yourself”. i look away again, but as i do so i can perceive how his jaw drops. he keeps standing there giving me the evil eye, probably he is contemplating, if he should bite my head off. after a few seconds i look back at him and tell him: “just fuck off”. finally he does.
i don’t feel proud of this. the poor frenchie received the bad end of all my frustrations, from being stuck in a traffic jam near and in london for hours and at the french elections results. but man, did it feel great to vent. omg. random anger bursts at gas stations rule.

Tags: ireland, travel, gasstations

ok, here’s an embbarassing one to admit, when we were in cork, ireland we did go to search for the apple campus. on a scale of geekiness, if such a thing existed, this would be pretty high up, a 9.35 i suppose. btw. the campus sucked: no factory outlet, no goodies, no inside scoops for spontanous visitors, plus a rather hostile climate tbh. they must getting weirdo apple fans like us often, oh the shame …

for anyone wondering, the campus is on hollyhill in the industrial area called hollyhill industrial estate on the outskirts of cork.

but this morning (19.4.) in dublin i saw one worse. a group of drunk englishmen, yes drunk, or still drunk, at 9 am, wearing black tshirts saying “stagparty for dan” and there was even a guiness logo on the shirt. and now please take a guess what they were looking for … aha, easy one, huh. the guiness factiry of course. as an aside they were looking in the totally wrong area. we drove past guiness by accident. impressive. huge. they must be brewing some beer there still besides all the gadgets they sell, the bottleopeners, mugs, tshirts, fridge magnets …

later, when we saw a huge heineken logo right smack in the center of dublin, we wondered, if this was perceived as a provocation.

Tags: apple, campus, ireland, campus, guiness

disclaimer: i am fully aware, that probably only i will find these funny.

weird habit of mine, that i started as a kid: when bored driving on a freeway i tend to read license plates.

on the way up i also saw, no photos to prove it though, FFS. and on the way back i saw R6GAY (lovely older couple in crappy car schlepping a trailer) and TLC (single guy with an eerie smile).

edit: yesterday play sent me this picture, thank you so much. the Knut craze continues …

Tags: licenseplates, carplates, humor, lol, ass

“*” (in france on the side of the freeway they have these digital information boards. if there is no other info only an asterisk appears)

“gaelic ist geil” (jan, nach dem amusanten versuch die strassenschilder auf english UND irish gaelic zu lesen)

“ich glaub mich knuddelt ein knut” (franziksa, nachdem ich ihr das viel schwächere “ich glaube mich knutscht ein knut” gesagt hatte)

“hiya whatsyerrrname” (gas station attendant in bantry - more about him later)

“i am just doing what the machine tells me” (gas station attendant in wexford - more about him later)

“i hope you enjoyed yer stay at wren’s nest - tell yer friends about it” (drunk goofball at one of the best pubs we been to - and yes, i hereby will tell my friends, everyone, please go to the wren’s next in wexford!)

“lovely maneuver” (said the pictured british gentleman after intently studying the ferry’s departure from rosslare, ireland)

“ich kanne nichte pumpen wegen sie, weil sie quervorfahren haben mir” (french guy complaining to me at a gasstation in england - in german! - more about him later)

Tags: ireland, travel, quotes, land:de, german

for the last 6 days we stayed at the green lodge, a self-catering vegetarian accomodation about a 10 minute drive from bantry near ballylickey (i know *chuckle*) and kealkill (kill again). btw. the word “kill” is featured in quite a few names here in ireland. one of the first places we visited was called kill, plain and simple, see my previous post. of course we wanted to spend the night in kill, but since we didn’t find a b&b there, we pretty much just drove through. since then we’ve encountered quite some variations of names containing “kill”. killarney comes to mind; a fugly tourist town that got its name almost right (hell yeah, kill arnie, the governor). on the other hand killkenny (sometimes spelled kilkenny) is just plain wrong (omg they killed kenny). but the deepest we’ve seen is a small place called killbrittain; if you take just one i out the thinly disguised anti-brit sentiments have found their capital.

but i digress, the green lodge was amazing. we rented a two room cabin with a full featured kitchen, the rooms were spacious and offer a view of the lucious garden. the 6 nights cost us 180.- euro. they also sell a nice selection of vegetarian foods, home made bread and organic vegetables (in season). i have rarely stayed in such a quiet place. ever. after 6 nights of deepest, undisturbed sleep i am fully relaxed; so relaxed that i am sure most people wouldn’t even recognize me now. but we didn’t go fully lowtech, we watched one episode each of battlestar galactica and 24 every day (on the laptop), went to check our email two or three times at the cafe organico in bantry (1.- euro/15 min.) and took daytrips to nearby locations [mizen head (not that great, crookshaven is sweet though), ring of berea (a very beautiful drive), killarney national park (avoid! full on tourist trap)]. one of the main attractions were our daily walks to a nearby sheep grazing field, where we watched the lambs frolicking and tumbeling about - before their meeting with the butchers soon …

now we are staying at the cafe paradiso in cork for one night, happy birthday to me. cafe paradiso is a pricey place - one night here costs almost as much as the 6 nights we spent at the green lodge, but it is really amazing. the food downstairs is to die for and the rooms are very comfortable, roomy and offer alot for the price: great location at a 5 minute walking distance from cork center, spacious room in a tasteful design interior, super commfy bed, best shower ever, tea and coffee as well as some delicious snacks and sweets provided in room, free wifi, and of course the most exquisite, creative breakfast menu i have ever seen …

f. hast posted an embarassing video of me enjoying the food at cafe paradiso …

other vegetarian accomodations in ireland (that we haven’t tried):

- gort-na-nain in nohoval, kinsale, co. cork (we wanted to go there, but it only opens may 1.)
- cussen’s cottage in ballgreenan, bulgaden, kilmallock. vegan! (we might try to stay there tomorrow night)
- mont bretia in skibereen, co. cork
- eco friendly guesthouse on clare island in ballytoughey, clare island, co. mayo

edit: we drove to the area where cussen’s cottage is located, couldn’t find it though. later we reached them on the phone, but the b&b was closed.

Tags: ireland, accomodation, vegetarian

Tags: ireland, photo

on our way to the ferry to ireland driving across the south of england we had a few hours to kill. so we did the obvious thing; we stopped in bristol to go searching for an original banksy… or is that an original robert banks? i know, that’s a pretty lame thing to do and we are both very embarassed to behave like such groupies… there was a funny situation when we noticed another chap, camera strapped around his neck, doing the very same thing. it took us some time - btw. bristol is surprisingly graffiti-free considering it is hometown to the most famous graffiti artist worldwide. the banksy we finally did find, was the crap one; the one with the guilty lover hanging by his fingertips from a bedroom windowsill. that same day in the guardian we read, that bristol council has put this very piece under a preservation order. and how symbolic that is. this must be one of the very few non-political works banksy ever did. it’s got a tongue-in-cheek, slightly humerous message, one that is not threatening to the masses (mehrheitsfähig). but even more shocking to me, was how poorly it was done. it only works from far away, once you check it out from up close by it’s more like a mural than a graffiti piece, the technique utilised looks very clumsy.

i do wonder how banksy feels, that out of all his work the most harmless piece was the one placed under a preservation order… this might forever after become the bristol/banksy tourist trap. while for the rest of bristol they impose zero tolerance on graffiti and streetart.

or did we missunderstand and in fact the “banksy” was this arrangement of trash under his signature?

i still bought the book banksy wall and piece, but the cheaper, paperback version with the sticker on it that reads, “now with 10% more crap”.

Tags: banksy, bristol, streetart, graffiti

travel

bern - pembroke
eurotunnel
irish ferries

vegetarian food

irishvegetarian
vegetarian.ie

cafe paradiso, cork
organico bantry

accommodation

green lodge
mont breia
cussens cottage

art

Hotel Ballymun: A unique place to stay - “from 31st of March to the 27th of April 2007 the top floor of the Clarke Tower, one of the last remaining tower blocks in Ballymun, will open its doors to the public in the form of a unique short stay hotel.”

Tags: ireland, travel, vegetarian