a few months ago they started to demolish a huge garden center and the rows and rows of green houses behind it. this is happening close to our apartment here in biel in plain view from us.

a few weeks later the football (soccer) field across the street from the construction site gets infested by worms, to the point that the pitch becomes almost unplayable.

no one seems to make the connection.

swiss cup game fc biel – fc luzern was still played on the rough ground this past weekend, lower league fc biel won, probably helped to some extent by the uneven pitch, i even saw them train on the funky pitch the week before the game. but the week before that, huge panic. they even invited experts to fight the worms. the grass looked horrible. they spread out some brown goo. nothing seemed to help.

but my question is, where will the worms move next?

let’s face it. the germans will win this worldcup. sad as it is, of the remaining teams in the tournament, they have the strongest team. by far! the only team that could have beaten them were brazil. on a good day … ok, on a very good day.

but while everybody and their vuvuzela-hating dog seems to rave how the germans play a much more attractive football than in previous years, i just don’t see it that way. and i really really tried to be open to see the beauty in their game. yes, there is more technical ability in the team. yes, they actually win games instead of just relying on their unbelievable luck – as most previous german squads did… but no, they don’t play a beautiful football. and here are my top 5 reasons:

emotionless

football is all about emotions. it is fascinating to watch a team or individual players struggle with their emotions, to see how they might start to doubt in their abilities, then suddenly find confidence again and flare up with great exuberance. these emotional ups and downs are what make football fun to watch. almost all teams you’ll ever watch seem prone to emotional flare ups. not so the germans.

the germans seem extremely rational in their approach to football. let’s assume that there is no way that they don’t actually experience these emotions, the doubt, the fear, the nervousness, since these are part and parcel of human nature, isn’t it almost eerie how they somehow never seem to show them? they must have somehow found a way to push emotions aside. as a result they play more like emotionless robots. as we have seen time and time again this is very effective, but it is definitely not a lot fun to watch.

take the example of klose. this past season he hardly ever played for his club. every other player in this position would be insecure, or at least experience some doubts. not so klose. he just slams in goal after goal after goal. and even his goal celebration seems almost mechanical, no real joy there, just a little squirt of “jetzt aber”.

shock and awe

this well known military tactic seems to be what the germans use to win their games. watch any german game and you will notice that the first 10 to 15 minutes they play extremely aggressive football. germans just steamroll their opponents at the start of the game, they commit most of their fouls in the first 15 minutes. every player, including their strikers, rushes toward the opponents ball carrier, often two three players gang up for this and often they are just barely keeping it civil enough not be bookable offenses. they take that risk, because it helps them achieve what they want, which is to intimidate their opponent. they don’t try to impress with their skill, as brazilians or other teams do, but to put the living fear into the other team.

as a result german teams are feared, not respected. this type of behavior can be compared to that of schoolyard bullies. very often even the referees seem to get intimidated by it. when the spanish referee gave klose a red card for this type of bullying, the german team put in a lot of effort to criticize him after the game. the media intimidation seems to have worked. again they get away with much too much at the start of every game, with the referees turning a blind eye to their excessive aggressiveness.

physicality over technique

i love to watch football for the skill, the fast paced tricks and gems, the touches of genius, the surprising twists and turns. very little of that can be seen in the german game. while it is true that there is a little more skill in team, with özil and – at times – with schweinsteiger, most of what makes them win is still their physical dominance. it’s fast, it’s aggressive, and most of all it is very very very physical. but it lacks the fun factor.

everyone in germany is raving about the multikulti truppe, how all these players from different cultural backgrounds were integrated, how they have players with turkish, tunesian, polish, spanish, whatnot roots. but just check out their player with roots in ghana and tunesia. they look very very german when it comes to technical skills, playing the typical german “hauruck” fussball. of all these players with roots in different cultures only özil seems to have kept some flare and creativity. isn’t this strange? it almost looks as if they made a conscious effort to play in such a way. again, it might be effective, but it is not at all fun to watch.

no stars

football comes alive because of the stars. the messis, the ronaldos, the rooneys. you can like them, or not like them, but they add to football with their personalities, their stories, their style.

german teams generally don’t have stars. the only german star, ballack, was injured for the tournament. and some people wondered if the young team could cope with him missing out. strangely the team seems almost relieved by his absence.

there’s a german dictum, one of the so-called “deutsche tugenden” that have been cited many times before, the german virtues: “der star ist die mannschaft”, the star is the team. in theory i can maybe agree, but in practice, you need the stars to make football interesting to watch.

they use black magic

just kidding.

but seriously, something is not right. for instance, if you compare how argentina played in their previous games and then against germany, the difference seems almost unbelievable. argentina in their previous four games had created many great chances, and it was often only their opponents goalkeepers, who had to pull incredible stunts do deny them many more goals.

messi alone had at least 10 unbelievable shots denied by goal keepers, all of them were precise and placed in the corners. against germany every shot went straight towards the keeper. every single one! that is bizarre. and almost a little bit spooky. i mean, yes, the german play destructive football, they probably pressed messi harder than all the other teams. but how every single argentinian shot could go straight towards the keeper, not even forcing him to pull out one difficult save, that is more than a little bit weird. of course it is futile to argue the what if and could have beens, but if lampard’s goal would have been accepted, as it should have been, maybe we would have seen a different game.

another german dictum: “das glück erzwingen”. “to force one’s luck” would be my translation. for them this means fighting and fighting and fighting until luck finds you. ok, so far so good. but how can a german team at the same time force bad luck onto their opponents?

edit: looks like tom mallows of dangerhere.com agrees: It is still the same old Germany

i must be one of the few people in switzerland, who feel ashamed at the way the swiss won their game against spain last night. they won, that’s good i guess, but how? they won playing extremely destructive football, 8 – 9 defensive men behind, and then going for counter atttacks. and even the goal they did create was very scrappy and not at all beautiful.

this is how inter milan won the champions league, or the greeks won the european championship in 2004. good for them, but sad for football.

let’s face it, this is a huge tournament and the stakes are huge. but if the northern koreans can almost deny the brazilians a win, and the swiss can even win against spain, things are just going the wrong way. switzerland has never won against spain yet, and for good reason. and that’s really ok. ours is a small country and a small league. the worldcup should have a different kind of beauty than winning games at all cost.

i think that there need to be rules that punish this type of tactics, destructive football takes all the fun out of “the beautiful game”. or it will get more and more boring.

this being an 80% fashion, 20% fandom decision, which flip flop should i order?

(100% fandom would be: 1. brasil (but that flip flop is too clichee), 2. netherlands, 3. cote d’ivoire, 4. spain, 4. england, 6. argentina)

or

or

and yes, i am tempted to order all three models, so i can adapt my footwear according to the game that day. (actually, this one is the best 100% fashion based, but uhm lol, new zealand?)

havaianas

die schweizer medien rätslen über den young boys spieler ghezal. es fallen worte wie seltsam und unerklärlich, wenn sein plötzliches verschwinden anfangs dezember erwähnt wird.
mein erster gedanke zum thema, ghezal’s verschwinden erklärt sich mit dem seltsamen und unerklärlichen resultat der minarett abstimmung.

teh glorious interweb as it got stuck in my camino tabs this past week – the edited version.

online video killed the …

Little Kid does worlds best Batman Spoof – "This little kid gets a Batman costume for Halloween and has way to much fun, See why in the video!" his mum probably skipped a day of giving him his ritalin. [via b3ta]

FLAIRS – TRUCKERS DELIGHT – "Truckers Delight animated video clip directed by newcomer wunderkid Jérémie Périn who takes the song's title (a tribute to those little pleasures that the lonely truck- driver indulges himself in) and takes it to the next level." sexist, offensive, but very well done animation.

Hand thierry henry ireland french 2010 football world champion ship – i hate you, thierry henry! leave barca, get out of my life.

act now – "frame by frame 2D animation to the subject of change climate change" this video was made by my friend karen from hamburg for the raise your voice youtube contest.

Youth Soccer Goalie Scores on her own Team!!! – cute.

Unusual Stop Motion: Videogame – stop motion video that reinvents the medium and could almost be performed analogue.

schmooze and abuse

Life on Mars star's turn in Marks & Spencer ad attacked over 'sexism' – "Life on Mars actor Philip Glenister's spot in Marks & Spencer's Christmas TV campaign has been accused of being sexist toward women." orily?

Queen: We sank the Armada, we can sink some P2P pirates! – "The Queen opened the UK parliamentary session yesterday and announced that an Internet disconnection bill would be coming soon. But will it actually be legal?" orily?

Listen to ‘World’s First Twitter Album’ – "Anyone with half a brain can put a song onto Twitter by pasting in the URL for a song. For some, that isn’t enough — they figured out how to paste entire songs into the 140-character Twitter window." yarily.

warp20 (elemental) – sorry, warp, you fail to deliver my goods, i am forced to search the interweb to finally hear the music i ordered months and months ago. this osymyso mix is fantastic stuff!!!

Pets love 'em…. – “Annoying cut out 'n' stick eyes for pets.”

Clients From Hell – "A collection of anonymously contributed client horror stories from designers." we all know some anecdotes like these…

Pirate Bay Retires World’s Largest BitTorrent Tracker – "Operators of The Pirate Bay shuttered the site’s BitTorrent tracker on Tuesday, six years after it was founded. Trackers — the servers that bootstrap each BitTorrent download — are no longer necessary with enhancements like DHT and PEX that allow peers to locate one another without accessing a central server, site operators wrote in the Bay’s blog."

NERD THRONE. – "NERD THRONE. This 7-foot tall chair is made entirely of Japanese Famicom (Nintendo) cartridges."

heffer pitcher – "An utterly irresistible and modern gift, both on the giving and receiving ends." didnt they mean to say udderly.

Banned Xboxs flood online marketplaces – "Over the past week Microsoft has banned nearly one million users from the online gaming service after finding that they had modified their consoles to play pirated games. Since the ban is connected to the console rather than a gamer's online account, many modified Xboxs have appeared online being sold by banned users." do not buy an xbox! ok ok, i mean on ebay.

Video Game Requires Kissing – "The DS has a mic and a touchscreen, so… one time, she asked me to say "I love you" a hundred times into the mic. I was on the airplane when she asked me that, so I was like, no way."

Me and Belle de Jour – ‘Could it be Brooke?’ – "A couple of months went past, and after Belle de Jour won the award for Best Written Blog from the Guardian and the whole BdJ phenomenon kicked off, I had my eureka moment – I was sitting on the tube one morning and suddenly thought: ‘Could it be Brooke?’"

I’m Belle de Jour – "Finally the anonymous sex blogger from Diary of a London Call Girl comes clean to The Sunday Times. She's Dr Brooke Magnanti"

Why Are Eggs Harder to Peel? – "The reason why might surprise you -older eggs are easier to peel, and the eggs we eat are fresher than ever! As an egg ages, it loses both moisture and carbon dioxide, which causes the air bubble between the shell and the membrane to get bigger." this is why i love neatorama, i often wondered about this.

The History of the Internet in a Nutshell – “Here’s a brief history of the Internet, including important dates, people, projects, sites, and other information that should give you at least a partial picture of what this thing we call the Internet really is, and where it came from.”

Wife posed as girl in online trap – "A suspicious wife posed as a teenager online to catch her husband propositioning girls in a chatroom, Cardiff Crown Court has heard." sucks to be him. and her!

delicious.com/pieceoplastic or subscribe to this RSS feed – with all the typos.

[teh glorious interweb what got stuck in my :flash: camino tabs this past week]

george carlin r.i.p.

:flash: Seven Words – shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits. he’s right, it’s got a very nice rythm.

:flash: George Carlin: A YouTube Obituary – “Here’s a short selection of George Carlin’s best YouTube YouTube flicks. If you’re a fan, I know you’ll enjoy them; if you’re one of the uninitiated, well, better late than never.”

footie

:flash: Luca Toni – “Cow’s arses, banjos, donkeys, clown shoes, muppet puppets … yep, this week’s Photoshop versions of Italy’s misfiring hitman left no stone unturned.” i am a fan, but i admit. he did look rather clumsy.

:flash: Chancellor Merkel goes fussball crazy – “Chancellor Angela Merkel has become so wrapped up in the team effort that she sends players regular text messages before and after games and has even been invited into their dressing room for pep talks.” oh noes, another powerful woman creaming her panties over footballers?

:flash: Allo raymond – making fun of raymond domenech is the good strategy. it is hard though cause he mostly pisses people off.

graffiti/street art

blu at hangar bicocca milano – me = incoming! blu’s website

:flash: Scott Wade’s Dirty Car Art Gallery – artist creates artwork on dusty cars.

:flash: Nerd-Graffiti – “What happens if some IT comes into our real life?”

:flash: REVERSE GRAFFITI: Clean Green Street Art hits San Francisco! – “The Reverse Graffiti Project imbues the guerrilla tactics of street-art with an eco-friendly element, detourning the definition of graffiti by actually cutting through and cleaning up grit to leave a lasting impression.”

online video killed the …

:flash: How to torment telemarketers with one word – “Dedicated to those wonderful people who phone me every day.” yes!

:flash: Where The Hell Is Matt? – matt, the globetrotting dancing dude, has a new video up.

:flash: Blonde does the escalator rail spin! – “it’s really hard to stop …”

:flash: The 10 Best Fan Made Hip Hop Videos With Sims Of All Time – “Fan made music videos featuring The Sims aren’t exactly new. Still, have you seen these things lately? They are the funniest thing.”

:flash: The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain ownage – “Nirvana famous song ‘Smells like teen spirit’ by The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain” and curt has officially turned in his grave.

:flash: Heavy Load – punk band featuring musicians with learning disabilities. i am down with the down syndrome drummer.

:flash: Rayman singing Sexbomb – Rayman and Globox singing Sexbomb. yeh …

schmooze and abuse

:flash: The Many (Geeky) Faces of Bill Gates – “Transition One: Coder to Negotiator, Transition Two: Founder to Fortune 500 CEO, Transition Three: Monopolist to Savvy Defendant, Transition Four: Captain of Industry to ‘Venture Philanthropist’”

:flash: Flooded London Gallery – “the Medcalf Gallery in London debuted “Flooded London”, a photographic depiction of the future of London as it is overtaken by the rising sea.” preview of things to come.

:flash: Yeondoo Jung – kids drawings recreated as photos.

:flash: A Marxist analysis of the Simpsons – “Rather than being a satirical examination of American working class life and alienation under capitalism, the show has been transformed from satire to spectacle.” damn man, communists sure know how to take the fun out of everything.

:flash: Michel Gondry Picks 25 Classic Music Videos – “Michel Gondry, the French-born director of acclaimed offbeat movies like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, has also directed numerous groundbreaking videos for the likes of Björk and the White Stripes. He offers his picks of the best videos of the last 25 years, in no particular order.”

:flash: Big Lebowski 8-Inch Figures – dude!

:flash: The Paper Version of the Web – “We don’t usually get to see this handmade stage of the web, but some folks have been thoughtful/narcissistic enough to upload photos of their UI sketches, and I find them fascinating.”

:flash: Nintendo ‘least green tech firm’ – “Games firm Nintendo has come bottom of a ranking of the world’s most eco-friendly electronics firms.”

:flash: Dance powered phone charger for Glastonbury Festival – “Orange today unveiled a prototype phone charger which harnesses the kinetic energy of your dance moves to allow you to make calls.”

:flash: RETRO Reality – retro game chars in real-life settings.

:flash: My Headphones Almost Killed My Cat – “I guess I never really noticed or thought about the fact that they were enclosed in this big thick plastic case.” i so know this, struggled many times with these unbreakable plastic packaging materials.

:flash: By Open Sourcing Symbian, Nokia Kicks Off the Mobile Age – “Symbian co-founder Nokia announced Monday night that it is buying the 52 percent of the software maker that it doesn’t already own and releasing its mobile operating system under an open source license.”

:flash: The 13 Most Common Female Courtship Gestures and Signals – “The female techniques that you are about to see give you a basic understanding and a few small and maybe unknown female tips.”

:flash: Hackers Crack London Tube’s Ticketing System – “Dutch security researchers rode the London Underground free for a day after easily using an ordinary laptop to clone the “smartcards” commuters use to pay fares, a hack that highlights a serious security flaw” haXXorz.

:flash: Announcing the “Internet for Everyone” campaign – “Today Google joined a national initiative of public interest, civic and industry groups to help launch the Internet for Everyone campaign, whose goal is to make ubiquitous and open broadband access f every American a priority in the next administration.” so noble. so not evil. so goo… i think i am gonna puke now.

:flash: Man named God arrested for selling cocaine – “Whether his name is a blessing or curse the man named God Lucky Howard was arrested by undercover detectives for selling cocaine in his neighborhood.” god, can you sell me some crack when you get released from prison. please?

:flash: PictoplasmaNYC – “Pictoplasma NYC – Conference on Contemporary Character Design and Art New York, September 5-6, 2008 Away from its usual home in Berlin, the Pictoplasma Conference is about to touch down in the heart of Manhattan.” if only ny wasn’t so bloody unaffordable.

:flash: www.belluard.ch – Since 1983 the festival Belluard Bollwerk International takes place every year in the beginning of the summer in Fribourg (CH). At this year’s festival which takes place from June 24th til July 5th 2008, 19 projects – will be presented.

:flash: Wonderland: Postcard from Azeroth – “In a moment of brilliance (I suspect fuelled by gin), my guildmates sent the guild a postcard each … from Azeroth.” what strikes me is that they had everyone’s rl adress.

:flash: Teens use technology to party in strangers’ pools | Register Hardware – “Tech savvy teens are using Google Earth’s splendidly clear aerial shots of the UK to launch a summertime craze – pool crashing.”

german crap

:flash: Markus Notter | Regierungsrat des Kantons Zürich – website of a swiss politician, that gives the illusion you actually meet him. [via swissmiss]

:flash: Nokia erwirbt Berliner Startup Plazes – “Nokia kauft das Berliner Startup Plazes.com. Der weltweit führende Handyanbieter baut damit seine Internetplattform Ovi weiter aus.”

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

usually i REALLY don’t like cristiano ronaldo. no doubt, he is very skilled, but he plays a much too flashy style of football for my taste, he seems way too narcissistic and full of himself. i like the lampards and the inestas of this (football) world.

but tonite i am the hugest cristiano ronaldo fan. go on, portugal, send the germans home, so that we can finally start to enjoy this tournament… yeh.

(but of course it is alread clear that klose, who so fa had the worst tournament possible, will score two lucky goals late in the game to equalize and the germans will pass to the semi finals on penalties. as per bloody usual)

after last night this is now truly a football season to forget. young boys, our local team in bern, has a chance to win the swiss championship, but then lost the all deciding last game in the most pathetic manner. in all the other european championships that i follow, my least favorite teams win (in order of my dislike: real madrid (aka ichos de puta), bayern munich (aka stinketown), inter milan, manU). fc barcelona turns into the new fc hollywood and excels only in drama off the field this season. and then last night in moscow chelsea slips (first didiers hand then terry’s foot slip) and loses the champion’s league final on penalties …

the only thing that could make the season any worse would be, if germany wins the euro, that is about to be held in switzerland/austria … oh please god, no!!!!!!!111!!!!!111

yesterday we stayed at a nice hotel in arona; nice view of the lake, great bed and it even had a wifi. this was a first for me, the wifi was a payed service, but they also offered a list of websites free for everyone to access:

Welcome To Hotel GIARDINO 

WEBPOINT Hot Spot Internet Service

Username: Password:

TRENITALIA

TUTTOCITTA’

ANSA

NAVIGAZIONE LAGO MAGGIORE

AREOPORTI DI MILANO

CNN

ALBERGO GIARDINO

NOVARA CALCIO

most of these make prefect sense of course – news portals, train schedules, the airport, the hotel website – but i really had to laugh when i discovered novara calcio on the list, the website of the local football club. funny.

just imagine how this guy must have been feeling when he woke up the morning after his freakout. oh … my … gawd

for some reason the youtube video won’t process, maybe laterz … hmmm.

ok, ok, it was a miracle to begin with that the fc baulmes, the football club of a 1000 person village and pride of the whole region, was able to stay in the second highest league of switzerland for as long as they did. and what a great symbol it has been, a small passionate fotball club can make it among the rich clubs.

now the dream is over, fc baulmes is relegated to the lower, regional divison. but the way it happened, that’s just too cruel … omg.

all the fc balumes needed was a victory to climb above the ominous bar since the 2 other teams envolved in the relegaton struggle were facing eachother. by halftime baulmes was up 2:0, but after 62 min. locarno manged to inscribe first one and then in the 92nd minute of the game a second goal. in the 92. minute!

my godson, who lives in baulmes, doesn’t care. for him the fc b is last years hype. now i do wonder what the village with its 1000 inhabitants might do with its plans for a 5000 capacity stadium?

today i read in the papres, that YB player varlea has been receiving threatening phone calls from marseille supporters over this last week or so.

this reminded me of last summer, when we saw the game OM – YB in marseille, in the stade de velodrome. and to express it mildly, we were quite embarassed by varela’s extremly rude behavior.

the upcoming uefa cup qualifying game is a repeat from last years encounter, when we sat on the tribune among marseille supporters, which was hot and – uhhh – so dangerous. not at all actually. very family friendly atmosphere on that side of the pitch. during the second half left-fielder varela played in right front of us and after being fouled he started to roll around the pitch, as players seem to have to do these days, just to get up a few moments later to be fit as ever. naturally this earned him a few whistles from our stand.

but what followed made me ashamed to be a YB supporter. varela, over the next 15 minutes or so, went on to produce every rude gesture in the book towards these marseille supporters, among them many kids. the bird, the stinky finger, the go-f-yourself, the you-ve-got-a-hole-this-big. every single one he could think of. he was fuming and airing his frustration in an extremly rude way.

so i am not saying this justifies him receiving threatening phone calls now. but it certainly explains it. varela may be a good player, but his attitude stinks. he is one of the albeit many reasons why this club does not enchant me anymore …

download: pieceocast064.mp3
[5:06 | 4.69 MB | 128kbps]

le vrai coupable

the argumenation zidane has used in his interview explaining his headbutt to materazzi it is soooo irresponsible, that i am still under shock; i simply had to go ahead and digitally correct the statement. as in any conflict the real culprits are of course all parties envolved. the one who provokes shares part of the blame just as the one who acts out does. still, violent acts are much more condonable than words can ever be. especially for someone like zidane, who a few days earlier, during france – portugal, called the ref a son of a whore (icho de puta), this distinction should be clear. what would zidane have said, if the ref went ahead and headbutted him for calling his mother a whore?

musically i had to go with nina hagen, the only possible choice when it comes to mad people. nina hagen should be a real idol for all mad people, she went all out and is so deliciously free. lets go all out and one day we will be free.

playlist: music borrowed [with all due respect]:
1. pieceocast intro: a loop from amon tobin: hokkaido [chaos theory, the splinter cell soundtrack]; fred, the voice in my computer, samples
3. nina hagen: born In xixax
2. edith piaf: je ne regrette rien
4. nina hagen: antiworld

playlist: samples borrowed:
the zidane interview

listen:

the pieceocast can be accessed here:

this link will pick up all my mixes and the occasional mp3′s i link to from my blog.

earlier pieceocasts:

to find the earlier pieceocasts please check this list with links and stuff.

a word about copyleft:

all music and audio is borrowed with the utmost respect for its creators. however, i do consider this to be fair use. this material is created purely for fun, to share with my online friends. there is no commercial transaction involved. as a long-time dj i own 5’000+ albums in vinyl and quite a few cd’s. all the music i use for these mixes, i either own a copy of or it was released under a CC-license to begin with.
i release all my work, the dj work as well as all my other coding and creating, under a creative commons license, hence i treat this material as if it was under CC license. i attribute it and i do not use it for commercial gain. don’t try to sue me, i am broke anyway.

its truely tragic what happened last night, i mean, i don’t like the french. but zinedine zidane i always kinda respected. very great player, very humble man.
and now this.
in his last international game.
will this forever after taint the image we have of this guy?
zidane’s wikipedia entry was already changed accordingly.
the video has been YouTubed.

[click to watch a better anim gif]

it would not make a huge difference, because the gesture is inexcusable.
but come on guys, communicate already, what did materazzi tell zidane that maid him lose his marbles like that?
was it a racist provocation?
was it something else?
can’t someone who is able to read lips make out what materazzi said to zidane already?

yet zidane still won golden ball award for player of the turnament [much better than the blue balls award]? how could that be possible with a gesture like that?
sends out the very wrong signal as well.

btw. why did the french lose? not because of zidane’s headbutt. the french fans were to blame. they chanted “allez les bleus”. but it must have somehow escaped their attention that on the field, the italians wore the blue shirts. not the french.

EDIT: zizou headbutt game, see how many headbutts you can get away with before getting redcarted [thx klav]

joke, this is only a joke. i would never sell it. nevar d00d.

funny scenes this morning, italians bugging newsvendors all around town for the gazzetta dello sport. lol

AND I GOTTA COPY. hah

[teh glorious interweb what got stuck in my camino tabs this past week]

serious serious interweb

:flash: welcome to country x – matthew herbert and friends are starting a new country. online. i am a citizen, i think, but i am not sure i understand what this is about … yet. [via de-bug]

:flash: Steal This Wiki – steal this book as a wiki; probably a good idea in order to update all the information in this classic book.

:flash: Lost map – a map gathering all the facts and data available up to this point of the tv series lost.

:flash: Bodenständig 2000 are opting out of iTunes – "the German bitpop group Bodenständig 2000 sent out an email blast the other day announcing that the band finally managed to opt out of iTunes." because they hate the DRM.

:flash: Laptop DJ Tutorial: The Perfect Mix – ahhhh great info, if you have a PC.

:flash: DJ Request Policy T-shirt – the tshirt for djs who hate to get bugged with requests. even if this might come off rather arrogant, as an ex-dj i understand the feeling. [via beatmixed]

:flash: Popgadget: spamshirt – spamshirt makes it to popgadget, finally. but hey.

:flash: International Chindogu Society – portable zebra crossing. [via pasta & vinegar]

:flash: Another Crate Piece from Melbourne – tetris with crates. one of those great ideas we wish we had…

:flash: Amanda UnBoomed: Amanda UnBoomed – amanda leaves rocketboom.

:flash: Amanda UnBoomed: For the Record – amanda leaves rocketboom continued. was she fired or did she quit?

:flash: xplsv.tv // CODE HUNTERS by Ben Hibon – one of the best animations i have seen in a looooong time, kinda like tank girl.

:flash: To Google or Not to Google – "It’s official: Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) really is a verb now. The Oxford English Dictionary" [via digg]

pirated pirated interweb

:flash: The Pirate Party US – pirate party us website launched.

:flash: Parti Pirate » French Pirate Party is born ! – pirate party france launched.

footie footie interweb

:flash: Dishonest Ronaldo – the english have a new scapegoat for not making it to the finals.

:flash: 2006 FIFA World Cup Best Young Player Award – in fact, please vote for VALENCIA Luis (ECU) here. he is in a promising second place, your vote might make sure cristiano ronaldo won’t win this award.

:flash: World Cup Death Watch – we wondered if we should laugh or cry when they launched this at blog.wfmu. meanwhile the count has gone up to 63 worldcup related deaths and it’s cry.

:flash: ali g interviews posh spice and david beckham – not new, but still very funny. and now on youtube.

humerous humerous interweb

:flash: YouTube – Ted Hitler – in an attempt to prevent blogger cover-ups stephen colbert comes right out and admits that he is in fact adolf hitler’s great grandson.

:flash: SeisMac – did you always wish your mac was also an earthquake detector? coming right up.

:flash: YouTube – Nina Hagen & Heino – a match made in heaven

:flash: Weebls Stuff – Mouse Balancing – mouse balancing game by the weebls. super hard.

[del.icio.us/pieceoplastic | links]

download: pieceocast063.mp3
[7:40 | 7 MB | 128kbps]

o sole mio ???

strange.

when the daily show’s demetri martin makes fun of MySpace everything is said, even the p-word gets used: “i hope he uses the word paradox … yess!”.

when the italians win against germany and reach the semi-final of the worldcup, they sing “o sole mio” in their locker room ???

when the daily show’s stephen colbert talks about prince charles, bananas and monarchy, he finally loses his usually deadpan delivery and cracks up.

playlist: music borrowed [with all due respect]:
1. pieceocast intro: a loop from amon tobin: hokkaido [chaos theory, the splinter cell soundtrack]; fred, the voice in my computer, samples
2. flaming lips: ego tripping at the gates of hell
3. andrea bochelli: o sole mio

playlist: samples borrowed:
the daily show

listen:

the pieceocast can be accessed here:

this link will pick up all my mixes and the occasional mp3′s i link to from my blog.

earlier pieceocasts:

to find the earlier pieceocasts please check this list with links and stuff.

a word about copyleft:

all music and audio is borrowed with the utmost respect for its creators. however, i do consider this to be fair use. this material is created purely for fun, to share with my online friends. there is no commercial transaction involved. as a long-time dj i own 5’000+ albums in vinyl and quite a few cd’s. all the music i use for these mixes, i either own a copy of or it was released under a CC-license to begin with.
i release all my work, the dj work as well as all my other coding and creating, under a creative commons license, hence i treat this material as if it was under CC license. i attribute it and i do not use it for commercial gain. don’t try to sue me, i am broke anyway.

hesitated there, should i really say “die welt zu gast bei verlierern”, losers, or maybe rather “die welt zu gast bei würsten”, sausages, or something much much worse. much more evil.
yes yes yes, i admit it. this morning i am flooded with the purest form of malice, “häme”, despite being kept awake quite late by the honking cars in the neverending italian corso. and yes yes yes the italians do not REALLY deserve to go to finals either. but then, in this most rotten of worldcups, who does?

certainly not the germans, they deserved to lose. in fact, a few games ago.
so here’s a big “take this, suckers” from my part. take this for:

- compensating your lack of football skills with agrressivity and mental strength. football is supposed to be a game, remember?
- whistling each time an opposing player touched the ball.
- blatantly abusing of the home advantage in every conceivable way hardly deserving of the slogan “die welt zu gast bei freuden”.
- behaving as if this title was somehow reserved for you and taking every conceivable measure to impose it [even voodoo!].
- creating the most unfair schedule ever, putting the home team in advantage in every posssible way, best stadiums, longest breaks between games, etc.
- franz beckenbauer. enough said.
- oliver kahn. enough said.
- jürgen klinsi. enough said.
- having your worst ever bundeskanzlerin frau ferkel merkel in the stadium! and shown on tv every 3 seconds! i still puke.
- getting all german-style enthusiastic and your media going overboard in every possible direction. as usual.

oh, i could go on.

italians, great job. realistic. clean.
despite the sweatstain jersey design, at least its creative. despite only really starting to play last game or so, we love the minimalismo. this was worldclass football. great defense. great attacking. now win this sucker of a tournament.

“Get into Football Bastelizm”
the video AreYouVeda Football Camp saves the day, or the month actually.

as far as i am concerned the worldcup is over. what a huge dissappointment, defensive football rules again. the last group of my favorites has been eliminated this past weekend. and since i even do have a “group” of favorite teams, i guess that makes me the open minded kind of fan.

so from now on, i’ll admit it, i’ll mostly be a negative fan in the sense that i don’t want 2 teams to win: germany and france. and its not looking good on both sides. the only thing that holds any interest now is to hopefully watch germany lose against italy and france against portugal. its not likely, but hey, as they say in germany, die hoffnung stirbt zuletzt, hope dies last. germany does not deserve to win this, yet even i have to admit, they prolly will. so i will be a full-on tifosi this week.

oh, got sidetracked there, sorry about that. back to the mad AreYouVeda crü.
if you liked sunshine, the wild and fresh summer track by da sign & the opposite, blogged here, you can now vote for the video to be played on roboclip SF. lets win this.

76 Da Sign & The Opposite Feat. MC Sunshine Vote!

july 2006 – marco streller

wait, that was hardly fair. who allowed the ukrainians to place that huge sign in front of their goal? the swiss federal council is pondering political repercussions.

as always, we are grateful for ideas, suggestions and constructive criticism.

photoshoppery: franziska nyffeler
idea: franzsika nyffeler & jan zuppinger

download: pieceocast062.mp3
[13:06 | 12 MB | 128kbps]

y que hacemos ahora?

there were no commentators, when we started watching spain – france. amazing how you could feel the players pre-match tension there. first without commentators and then there were 4 or 5 guys and 1 woman commenting all at once, passing the mic back and forth, like a hiphop crew in a battle. amazing job, and even if spain unfairly lost, they took it well, “la vida sin egual”. in the end, again, they only had the ambient sound feed on, after one last very symbolic question coming from the woman in the off: “y que hacemos ahora?”.

the national hyms they played that night were a bit odd, i’ll admit, a japanese kraftwerk cover version for spain and a swiss reggae song for france? hmm? and odd coincidence, maywa denki is playing in zurich this weekend and in fribourg this monday. more info. i should go, but can’t promise i will.

playlist: music borrowed [with all due respect]:
1. pieceocast intro: a loop from amon tobin: hokkaido [chaos theory, the splinter cell soundtrack]; fred, the voice in my computer, samples
2. espagna – france
3. satoru wono feat. maywa denki: dentaku (tsukuba mix) [from Musique Non Stop A Tribute to Kraftwerk]
4. the scrucialists feat. lutan fyah: use force

playlist: samples borrowed:
strindberg & helium

listen:

the pieceocast can be accessed here:

this link will pick up all my mixes and the occasional mp3′s i link to from my blog.

earlier pieceocasts:

to find the earlier pieceocasts please check this list with links and stuff.

a word about copyleft:

all music and audio is borrowed with the utmost respect for its creators. however, i do consider this to be fair use. this material is created purely for fun, to share with my online friends. there is no commercial transaction involved. as a long-time dj i own 5’000+ albums in vinyl and quite a few cd’s. all the music i use for these mixes, i either own a copy of or it was released under a CC-license to begin with.
i release all my work, the dj work as well as all my other coding and creating, under a creative commons license, hence i treat this material as if it was under CC license. i attribute it and i do not use it for commercial gain. don’t try to sue me, i am broke anyway.

last night on swiss italian tv channel TSI 2 they invited two argentinian priests as studio guests. when asked if football was the de facto new religion, they were adamant to deny that. but we have our doubts after finding this image of lionel messi.
[ok, we actually lied and will therefore rot in hell. we did not "find" the image, but mek it ourselves]
[and why "we"?]