At least for screensaving Mac users this year could not have started better. All I thought was “Finally!” because I was about to do the same as Andy. Take things in my own hand, that is, after my favorite screen saver couldn’t make the jump to Snow Leopard. But it’s time to calm down for those who got already their forks and torches ready to storm the former developer’s Bastille: Flipsaver.
Plain beauty. Restored.
It takes a historian to define thee moment of the noughties*, so all I can really do is try. Therefore I’d like to mention a couple of decade-defining keywords such as learning to live with the 9/11 aftermath, overcoming teenage angst in high school, moving my body to MGMT, watching a black US President’s inauguration, embracing college life and lots of enriching cross-border experiences. iPods! Twitter! I think I can be quite grateful for having a chance to live with/thru all those things.
The superiority of the noughties is not that big of an accomplishment in comparison with getting off diapers during the (NB: early) 1990s and musical highlights like the Backstreet Boys.
by Phillip Niemeyer on NYTimes.com
Here’s the awards for the best blog posts of 2009 on philafication.com…
Most Visited Blog Posts of ‘09, what else could it be. I heart NYC: Top 12 Things To Do In The Big Apple.
Awarded for the Reality Slap In The Face of ‘09 is this fictional map of Europe that explains it for once. The more truth mocking holds, the more it hurts. Subsidized farmers. Ouch: Reality Hits “Us” (Europe Explained).
According to this blog , the Word of ‘09 is not Audimaxismus (Austrian thing), but this little fellow, right here: Meh.
The Catchy Tune of ‘o9 goes to The Black Eyed Peas and their song I Gotta Feeling (Song of the decade?). This song is as controversial as Crocks, white socks and Appletinis. They’re only excusable when drunk. Shake: I Gotta Feeling Quebecers Are Awesome.
Most Disturbingly Popular Post of ‘09 goes to Spidey tattoo (tons of people google for tattoo ideas and end up on my blog): An Example of Loyalty towards Spidey.
Most Original Commercial of ‘09 goes to the French Canal Plus. No BS: The Power Of A Great Story.
While US iPhone owners will disagree with me awarding AT&T anything other than a Your Network Sucks award, I’d like to point to the “You Will” campaign and pronounce it the Blast From The Past of ‘09: AT&T Vision For Our Future.
I Wish You A Happy New Year!
The stars seem to align for 2010. Having my host brother in town in the first half of 2010 and heading for Vancouver in the second, they only thing bugging me is the German approach of saying 2010 (zwanzig-zehn). I guess it takes time to adjust to change. 2009 was one one of the best years and I’m really grateful for every new experience. Thank you, guys. 2010, bring it on.
*Noughties derived from “nought”, a word used for zero in many English-speaking countries
Will you help me out finding the song of the noughties, please? Submit a comment and tell me what is the official song (created between 2000-2009) that has unforgettably defined a decade we can watch closing up behind us right now.
If you feel like it, add a song that made you shake or move your body even though it is absolutely embarrassing. Quasi, your secret naughty noughties’ song.
I recommend using the “Most Play Count” feature of iTunes everyone is so afraid of and disables before every party to save yourself the time it takes to make excuses.
Except that we hardly used a player like that. We're Generation iPod listening to MP3s of minor crackling quality. (photo by HawkinsThiel)
Off you go. Thanks for your contributions in advance.
My song of the noughties is Mr. Brightside by The Killers.
And by we, I mean our current society that relies on the internet 24/7? We google, check Wikipedia and surf up dictionary.com every single time we need to check a fact or look up the meaning of a word. Memorizing? Why bother! There’s the internet for that, right?
by La Casa, Bogotá, Colombia (October 2009)
Today’s hush-hush standards suggest that reading a book is totally overrated: Let’s wait for the movie to be delivered by Netflix or showing in theaters. Also – how could I forget – one can always surf up Youtube for clips.
So what’s libraries? Whatever it is, it can’t possibly have any appeal.
To answer the initial question. Should we be offended? No. That rant above was sarcasm and the campaign probably intends to raise awareness of the worrisome trend in society. Look around, how many books are around you. Right now? It is true that nobody has to feel guilty if something flees from your mind. However, I honestly think that with the internet being a information hydrant of massive dimensions, we should also “drink information” from the good old glass. Reading up on in a book, that is.
I ordered* my Kindle a couple of days ago and can’t wait for it to be delivered to allow me read actual books on the go.
More ads from this campaign for “More literature, less Youtube.”
*Jep, online on amazon.com (International shipping)
Dan Brown’s latest novel, The Lost Symbol, held me captive over the Christmas holidays every time I had an hour to spare between having excessive and heavy food and stuffing down cookies en masse… After The Da Vinci Code and good reviews of the Lost Symbol, I really felt like a good novel to order for the holidays.
The House of Temple in Washington D.C. (photo by M.V. Jantzen)
This time the adventures of Robert Langdon are taking us through famous buildings of Washington, DC, where a fast paced story evolves around the mysteries of Freemasonry. Helicopters hovering above DC and CIA agents breaking into houses searching trash, mystic codes to crack and near-death experiences, and a madman and his insane requests to spare lives. These are all the ingredients for a story that makes you want to read it all at once. A classic page-turner.
A great Christmas present that let me cool down and enjoy the winter break to its fullest.
Thumbs up. Highly recommended.
We have talked about the Austrian advertising landscape before, haven’t we? There is this fairly new commercial by Generali on TVs in Austria. Whoever worked behind the curtains of this commercial must have seen those Fifty People One Question videos that I always enjoy watching. There’s a certain resemblance, is there not?
httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crHrJSIlToE
Seeing the commercial on TV, reminded me of this “What’s Your Secret” edition by Fifty People One Question and Post Secret. Gotta love that one as well.
We’ll start with a little anecdote taken straight out of my life in order to wave goodbye to my temporarily-Viennese-American friends.
Chilling by the water in Miami beach last summer, I ran into a Hispanic family. They chatted me up by starting with something like, “Where you’re from? You can’t be American reading a book on the beach!” We kept talking until the mother called her youngest son, who played with the crashing waves, to put on some sun screen. However, the son didn’t think that was necessary at all and countered “I like the pain the sun burn gives me. It reminds me I’m alive!” We laughed.
And that’s exactly where you come in. Certainly, I see the expression on your face – “Where is he going with this?”, but it has been you who reminded me I was alive throughout this semester. Therefore, I’m super-grateful for having had people like you around me.
This exchange is a great example for a mutual learning process. For instance, me teaching you how to pronounce Sturm, coming up with vocabulary lists for several Mundart-Words, and you making me feel like a foreigner in his home country (which was refreshing) and introducing me to American youth culture (e.g. Murder Mystery Parties). I could go on like this for quite some time. Yet, if you have learned anything during these months, I hope it is something along those lines. (Inside-joke-alert, going on aaaand, off.)
My modest goal? Make this the most successful bumper sticker of all times.
So Goodbye, you crazy IES students and thank you for shaking up my semester here in Vienna.
‘Tis the season to be tacky, merry and very, very, bright. (Dave Dempsey)
For the Guitar Hero fans out there who wish to get in a very bright festive mood. Tuned into FM4 and what do I hear? This very webtip by the one and only DaddyD who will never stop giving. A great demonstration of how big some US suburban households go with “seasonal” decoration. The quotes go there to mock the corporate political correctness that is rock-solidly established in around Christmas & Co.
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXjbMIZzAgs
It saddens me to tell you that I’m still stuck on Medium. Happy holiday season!
A final thought: Maybe what the Kings from the far far East saw was a time-and-space-distorted reflection of the christmas decoration up in the sky and NOT the Star of Bethlehem.
(via @daddyd)