Confessions of internet user

As internet user there are some things I don't expect to happen when I visit a website. And by "don't expect to happen" I really mean "it annoys the hell outta me". For example :

• the music that starts playing when I visit a website,
• the music that starts playing everytime I refresh the page, even if I turned it off the first time,
• the main navigation dissapears every time I visit any of the webpages,
• pop up ads (possibly in flash with loud music) appear out of nowhere and follow my cursor,
• special characters change in bizzare unreadable signs thus making the text completely impossible to consume,
• having to read long text with few or no paragraphs,
• having to read somebody's mindflow for 10 minutes before I get to actual information,
• having to look for contact info for more than 10 seconds,
• having to deal with the search field or e-form that doesn't work,
• discovering the dead pages,
• "news" that was refreshed a year ago.

Having a website is overrated. Unless you can take care for it properly, don't embarrass yourself by having a lousy one. This might also help.

So, how is your German?

This is a sentence I hear quite often (apart from two most annoying common ones: what are you doing in Berlin and why). My usual answer is: besser.

Eventhough I am still planing to take an intensive course, I learned a lot just by listening and trying to speak. I must say the latter is much easier after a beer or three. Of course I make lots of gramatical mistakes with die, der, das and others, but it doesn't really matter cause they don't pronounce half of the letters anyway.

I love Berlin slang. It's somewhat soft, melodic and sometimes also funny. E.g.

Bin ick kino? = Why are you staring at me?

Ick mach dich Krankenhaus = I will beat you up. (funny only cause it means literally I will make you a hospital)

With everything else I improvise. Like today at the hairdressers. She can't speak English so I showed her a picture. Actually I showed two pictures of completely different haircuts and said: Etwas wie so oder so.

She went on on explaining on what would be good and what she's gonna do. Every now and then she would ask me something. I understood most of the things and when I didn't I just answered with "Ja".

The result is a nice haircut for only 7 eur. So yes, my German is improving :)

Local Natives

Yesterday's concert of Southern Californian indie band Local Natives was indeed one of the music highlights. Only a week after the German release of their debut album Gorilla Minor they peformed in Berlin's rather small but nice alter place called Bang Bang Club. And let me tell you, oooh, and aaah doesn't even begin to describe it.

Expectations were high and were partially satisfied by an excellent rock pre group who's name I didn't manage to catch. Needless to say the club was packed with excited people and so was the stage.

Local Natives were not performing at all, it seems as they were completely melted with their music, enjoying every minute of it, and so did we. They mastered their instruments as well as the genre. Positive surprise and a band that is definitely worth keeping an eye on.

Unfortunatelly I didn't make any photos as I found concert much more enjoyable that way, but here is a taste of their live performance. Very likable!

Freedom

..usually come with uncertainty. Of future, desires, finances and often also relationships. But for those who crave for it, it's really not the question of choice. It's more about either feeling alive or being imprisoned by other people's expectations.

It is not an easy decision to make, to step into unknown when it would be so much easier to grab already known reality which leads to certain but prescribed future. A golden cage at the reach of a hand doesn't mean much when you want to fly.

So here I am, not sure of what will happen or how will I be able to realize my goals. No guarantees, no promisses, no laid down paths to follow. But I do know that I really like to fly.