BB's Random Stuff

Only the Chinese..

On Sunday I went to Amsterdam to get Yum Cha for lunch.

Amongst other tasty things was an order of ducks feet. Soft and mushy, except for the bones, a little like mushroom. Sucking the webbing is very bizzare.

One of the weirder things I've eaten, but certainly tasted ok.

That weird yellow bulb

I moved to my new corner inthe office sometime last December. And now after two months, the sky has cleared sufficiently for me to finally realise that my screen at work gets a lot of glare from the sun.

Almost three months for enough sun to break through to notice. Weird shit.

Sausages, crashes and trades

The last week or so has been quite a fun week for me. I've been up to all sorts of things, not all of it pleasant, but mostly it's been quite fun. A weekend in Germany was followed by a crash with the moped, and a trading spree on Ebay.

Last weekend, Snow and myself headed to Frankfurt in Germany, after finding some pretty cheap tickets. It was about time to get out of Holland again, to see soemtihng a bit different. Germany is close by, and is quite different from Holland, especially for food, and the cities are somewhat more modern and hilly than their Dutch counterparts.

We found a nice hotel, right across the road from the main railway station, with some great pubs and restaurants nearby. It was really convenient there, being a short walk to the main shopping area. Amongst the highlights of the trip were:

• A great Thai curry at a very fancily decorated restaurant. The servings at the Golden Rainbow were huge, and the soups were absolutely divine.
• A trip up to the top of the Main Tower made for some great views across the city. This is one of the only skyscrapers with a public viewing platform at the very top - right on the roof at over 200 metres.
• A flea market on the southern bank of the river Main stretches for a couple of kilometres, and people were selling quite a lot of decent stuff. I ended up with an Atari 2600, which I planned to sell on Ebay, though I might have a play with it for a bit.
• Karaoke at an Irish pub. With rather mixed results. On one hand there was a guy who did a damn fine job of Mustang Sally. On the other hand, there were two girls who probably ranked lower than fighting cats mewling at each other.
• A walk through a large cemetery made for an unusual yet very interesting walk. Germans don't go for fancy gravestones at all.
• German food is much better than Dutch food. Taste buds rejoice!!

We will head back to Germany again one day - perhaps Berlin. but it'd be nice to head to another country. Belgium may be on the cards next.

Oh yeah that was just the weekend.....

On Monday morning, heading to work, an old fart decided to turn into the street I was passing, without looking properly. And there I was with Snow on the back of the moped, crusing along the road. Snow, me and the moped t-boned this guy straight into his side door with an almighty crash. No one got a scratch though, thanks to the crumple-zone effect of the front wheel fork and the handlebars. After exchanging details I walked the bike to the moped shop, and they were able to fix it within a couple of days - the damage was quite easy to repair. now to wait for the insurance to pay out!

I've been getting into Ebay again lately. Turns out I've got a whole bunch of stuff around the house that I can sell, so decided to put those up for sale. Hopefully I'll get one or two hundred Euros for them. Also decided to try and 'play the market', buying and selling stuff in different regions for hopefully a profit. Time will tell - my first items will end early next week.

And this week is almost over...

Kazaa's day in Australian court

Kazaa has been chased around the world by lawyers for the entertainment giants, bent on stopping the adoption of new media distribution technologies. They were chased out of the Netherlands having lost a case (which was overturned on appeal) and went to Australia.

Now, they are in court again, this time it's the Australian music industry attempting to bust them for copyright breach. This was reported on ABC news tonight in a two minute segment, a copy of which is available here as a DivX video (5Mb).

If the music industry wins this one, it won't do a fat lot of good anyway, as more programs and protocols will appear to take it's place.