Making Money Blogging

I've spent the last couple of months blogging and I can now come up with my first personal results regarding the success of this little adventure. I have made 3 blogs, one of which is now more or less defunct but still online to generate a couple of cents a month, another one making 90 per cent of the money and a third one on the way to becoming my first real niche blog (Ginkgo Tabletten - just putting it here so that google will be more likely to crawl it regularly).

The first blog, called how to lose and win, was a blog written in english about weight loss. It was my very first consideration for a blog because nutrition and dieting is a field I am very familiar with. I wrote about 100 articles on that blog.

Only after a while did I realise what my first mistakes were. Not only did I target keywords that were hopelessly out of my range. Even the ones that I had a chance to rank for were still highly competitive compared to the same keywords in my native language, German.

So I realised that I was wasting my time. I could have kept on fighting, trying to rank for a term that has 10000 searches a month and 10 million results, instead of switching to German and competing for the same keyword (just different language) with 1000 searches and maybe 50000 websites going for it.

I dropped this first blog, the english one, pretty much immediately.

I moved on to a new blog, this time a German version of the original english blog I had made, with the exact same design and overall layout, just a different title. It was difficult to start over. Only a fraction of the english posts could more or less be transformed into german posts (I had to rewrite everything). Most of the time, I found myself writing totally new articles.

While it was hard work, I realised pretty soon that I was about to have a lot more success having a german blog. There are many reasons for this. Germans are not "behind the moon", we do have cars, technology, computers. But we are also a little traditional in some ways and not up to date with certain things. For example, most people prefer a savings account with 2% interest rate over the slightest risk of going into the stock market.

And that mentality is carried over into many situations in life. It even goes deep into the German law. For example, we have mandatory health insurance. Usually, this is a good thing, as every employee will automatically be health insured, which is paid for by both the employer's and employee's contributions. But the downside is that if you are not employed (in other words: if nobody is your boss), you have to pay a lot of money to be insured.

This cements the attitude of Germans to always cling to their professions in an employee-employer relationship. It also has to do with the fact that the german education system is different from most of the world. In Germany, you need to learn a profession before you can start anything substantial. Want to work in the office? Must finish a 3 year job training first. Want to become a gardener? 3 years job training. Salesman? 3 years job training. Unless you are a mere factory worker or other "unskilled" jobs, you are going to spend 3 years of your life learning that profession, exams included.

All of this leads to a lifestyle of dependence on big companies. There are, of course, always exceptions, but these are usually people starting real, physical businesses, not online ventures.

Now back to blogging. I noticed that Germany was "behind the schedule" in some way. While the english-speaking market was full of American, English and even Indian people writing tons of articles that were useful and totally optimized to be on the number 1 spot on Google, I had not so much competition in Germany. And always bear in mind that this is how money is being made!

Eventually, I ended up writing another 100 blog posts, all in German. I got increasingly better at this, finding the right keywords to rank for, optimizing in terms of which topics could also generate income, and making the articles look more attractive.

At first, I was sceptical, but now I know that some money can be made. The only problem is that I would have to keep doing this for a long time before I can live like this only blogging and not working as an employee. I'd have to earn 20 times as much as I do now. Although this sounds like a lot, it should be worth mentioning that, right now, my blog is basically earning 5% of what I earn in a 40 hours a week job.

There are, of course, always downsides: I have to pay income tax as if this was a regular job. I have to register my blogging as a business, which will lead to additional costs in the end. There is a lot of bureaucracy involved. And if I decide to make it my only way of living, I have to pay for my own health insurance.

But for some reason this does not discourage me too much. And that is for several reasons:

• I am earning more than I expected I would earn after only 8 months.
• People on the internet were a lot more pessimistic towards "making money blogging" and claimed it's impossible.
• I am earning more money than over 50% of the bloggers do, according to statistics I found on the internet.
• Due to exponential growth and increasing improvements on my blogs, there is a rapid growth in earnings that is difficult to foresee but usually beats my estimations.
• I have only applied what I learned so far. There is still a steep learning curve ahead of me.
• I benefit from english-language experts because I can understand e-books and articles in english, and I can use that knowledge in a market where I am in a superior position compared to english blogs.
• I have only started and I can keep going like this forever if I have to. Right now, it's only 100 useful articles. I might as well write until I have 1000, including new blogs that open the doors for visitors of different niches.
• As a spouse of someone who is employed, I would be health-insured nevertheless. This is not the case right now but it might be, and that would save costs and I'd be on the safe side improving my websites over the course of years.

All of this combined leads me to believe that I might succeed. Right now, it's mostly about time and not even so much about money. Of course, I need to stay employed, which sucks because I would rather spend every day writing extensive articles on the internet. I would rather build empires of blogs now and benefit from them later. Because I realised: As an employee, you only work for the present moment. You give your work power to your employer, you're hired and "rent out" your working power. The results are always given to the employer. You don't benefit in the long run. You have to start over every month, repeat your workload every month, work each month for the current month, and keep repeating these steps. With blogging, it's different. Every blog post, every article adds up, goes on top of a pile of pieces of WORK that keep generating income. Some more, some less, but they STAY to work for you. Every hour of work, if invested well, brings returns in the form of money.

Sounds enthusiastic, doesn't it?

The only things that I found to be very important:

• Always save your work. If your blog host decides to delete your blog, you must move on to elsewhere but KEEP your intellectual property, which is your articles. 
• Don't mess with the terms of service of those advertising or affiliate companies you work with. Don't try to cheat or to beat the system.

To be very honest, I can imagine that this might work out for me. I definitely have the passion. I'm also, with all due modesty, quite a clever guy. I like analyzing things, and I'm ahead of my competition because there isn't that much of it. I can find my niches. And when I look at what American bloggers write, it amazes me because they are happy to have 500000 other websites competing for the same keyword, and that's not even a problem I have!

So now I've started a new niche blog about ginkgo, as I mentioned before. From what I've read, niche sites are interesting because they don't take much work, can go to the top spot of google easily, and if they succeed, you can transform them into authority blogs to give them more credibility. If they fail miserably, you just discard them. Simple.

So I'll see how that goes. If I duplicate my results another 19 times (or if all my blogs double in size, only 9 more to go), I'll be able to quit my job (unless my contract ends anyway, which is possible) and live like that. I also know that I'm quite familiar with the stock market, so I could expect some sort of income there, too, although I admit I don't like stressing myself out. It's a more intense way of earning money, but it includes stuff I like: analyzing.

All of the things that are happening right now sound a little too good to be true. And I suppose paying taxes will eventually bring me back to reality. On the other hand, if it turns out to become my only sources of income (earning money online), I'd have to pay less taxes anyway because I wouldn't have a normal job then. We will see. It's always been a dream for me and it's not just for the convenience of being a lazy stay at home guy. No... there is something else. The prospect of making more money out of what I do. This is what drives me. Not the idea that I'd stop in the very moment that I earn 1000 euros (or any other arbitrary number) a month. I'd like to see how far this can go.

I do admit that what I am earning right now is not THAT much. But I was able to grasp the potential that blogging offers. At least for the lucky people who are smart enough, love to read and read about it all the time and who don't need to blog in english. Because blogging in english is extremely hard to make money with. And of course, time and patience is needed.

If any of you who is reading this (probably nobody) is from a country where english is not the preferred source of getting information online, you might wanna check out if there are possibilities for you. I mean, my vision is that sooner or later all these countries are going to have their niches covered. Some smart companies will emerge that will fill all the blanks, stuff all the holes and answer every long tail question a google user can come up with. Whether it's about ginkgo, dieting, bodybuilding or other stuff. Right now, there is still a chance to succeed.

That spirit that is in the air right now... it's like the early 80s when many people started to realize you can only make a fortune if you invest in stocks like microsoft, IBM and the like. You know, I always wished to find that kind of opportunity where I can sense it's going to be profitable if I only know the secret trends. I feel I've found it with blogging. I mean, the internet is still relatively young, think ahead 50 years how different it's going to be.

End of the story.

PS: I got 10 times more pageviews with my successful blog in those 8 months than in 8 years of blogging in this private blog.

What To Do When Your Blogspot Blog Got Deleted By Google

"Help! My blogger blog was deleted by google"

This is what happened to me some days ago. I was just signing in to my google account to see how my blogs were doing. I have all my blogs on blogspot, also known as blogger, which all belongs to google.

The first thing that seemed strange was that they asked me when logging in what my phone number was, and they said that some "unusual activity" had occured. It was weird but I verified with my phone that I was not a robot.

Then, suddenly, without any warning, I noticed that one of my blogs was totally missing from the dashboard. At first, I thought that the "unusual activity" must have been that my account had been hijacked by some hacker in another country and that someone must have had his fun removing my blog.

Only a couple of heart attack seconds later, I realised that my blog was under the "deleted blogs". I was still convinced it was a hacker's fault. But then I checked my gmail account (the second thing I do after checking my blogger account) and found an email.

The email informed me that my blog had been deleted by the blogger team (or google) because of a spam suspicion. The automated system had found my blog to be spammy and therefore totally deleted it over night.

I was shocked. I knew that you could be banned from the google search engine if your blog was spammy, or that you could be thrown out of adsense. But I never even imagined they would delete my blog.

At this point in time, my situation was as follows:

• I had written almost 100 posts that I now no longer could access
• My blog seemed to have been lost forever
• I had worked hours and hours over more than half a year to write all these unique posts
• I felt totally innocent (trying hard to make a good website for my visitors) although I knew that humans make mistakes, and maybe a sloppy little mistake with affiliate links could have cost me months of work.

I spent the next hours trying to do two things: Finding out how to reverse the process of my blog being deleted, and trying to recover my blog posts.

Recovering the blog posts proved to be difficult. I had never exported my blog onto my computer (big mistake) so none of my posts were available offline. I didn't even remember all my 94 posts that I  had written. Also, my blog was deleted, therefore offline, and I could not even access my blog in the dashboard.

The first thing I did was to check my blogger profile again for posts that I had subscribed for (I had subscribed to my own feed, meaning I could see posts that had been put online by myself). Then, I had to open each link to each article, notice that each of my posts is offline, copy the url into the google search engine, right-click the corresponding result (luckily the result still displayed each time), open in cache, save the content of those pages offline (the safest way is to copy everything into a word file), and do this over and over again with every article that matters to you (if you can remember what they were called or you know the exact urls).

Regarding the deletion of my blog: I sent an appeal to google. It's the only thing you can do. You are then supposed to wait for up to 48 hours for something to happen. Only THEN are you allowed to / supposed to consult the google help forums.

So I sent an appeal. It's basically only an electronic message where you confirm with a captcha phrase that you are a real person. No need to justify yourself or write any text.

Luckily, on an early Monday morning, less than 24 hours after it had been deleted, my blog was put back to life and I received an apology by email. My blog had wrongfully been detected as spam, but a human being checked out my website to come to the conclusion that my blog is, in fact, okay and not meant to be spammy.

As far as I can tell, the only negative side effects on my blog's performance were that it cost me a whole day of people visiting (I got over 100 page views instead of possibly a thousand) and my income on adsense and amazon was brought to a halt (consider that it was a Sunday and people like to go shopping on amazon on Sundays).

When my blog was undeleted, it performed well again.

Here is what I advise people to do:

First of all, your situation should be like this:

• You have a blogspot / blogger account where your blog was
• Your blog was deleted by the blogger team / google, not by you accidentally
• The reason for your blog being deleted has been explained to you in an email
• You feel innocent because you had no bad intentions and didn't violate any terms of service (TOS) on purpose

In this case, my advice to you is: Send the appeal so that someone can look over the problem. Don't go too crazy over the fact that your blog has disappeared. Also don't send the appeal twice, and don't start a topic on google forums yet. You can try to recover your articles so that at least your material as a writer can be saved. Because, if the blog stays deleted, it helps to at least have your written articles somewhere in an MS word file. Then you could publish them again on a different blog (wordpress with paid hosting for example). I know, this would suck because you would have to start over in search engine rankings, but believe me, at least your work would be online again.

Apart from that, remember that you might be lucky and your blog will be restored. Don't think too far ahead if you haven't even received news from google / blogger team.

Why your blog may have gotten deleted

Here is the supposed reason why my blog was deleted, and this could have happened to you:

In my case, I never had bad intentions, but I did use the amazon affiliate program. This meant that I had links on my articles that led to amazon. Google recognizes these links, and if you put a whole bunch of them into one article, google will think you are a spammer.

In most websites that are not blogspot, this will only lead to a search engine penalty (your website will go from first in the search results to 200th position). But in blogspot, this can lead to the deletion of your blog!

HOWEVER: I didn't put a crazy amount of links into one article. But you know what my mistake was? While I only used between one and three amazon links in each article, I did not use a "jump break" in every article. The jump break is the little tool you can use (looks like a torn piece of paper) in your blog post instruments. When you are writing a post, you can see it: It's 9 items away to the right when you look at the "bold" button (the one that looks like this: B)

The purpose of the jump break is to shorten your articles as they appear on the home page of your blog. Then it says "read more" instead of showing the whole article.

As I hadn't used this enough, there were several articles on the "home" section of my blog, some of them were full-length articles including one or two or even three amazon links. And now consider several articles containing amazon links!

In total, I had 5 amazon links on my "home" page displayed, together with 3 standard google adsense ads. Now you can imagine: 8 ad scripts on a single page... that looks a lot like spam!

Be sure that your articles are cut short and no affiliate links are displayed in the shortened version of an article. And don't use 5 affiliate links on a single article that also has adsense ads on it. This might backfire heavily!

So this is what happened when google deleted my blogger blog. When your blogspot blog got deleted by the blogger team, now you know what you have to do. If it still seems like your blog will be deleted for all times, use the cache trick (right clicking on search results for your article urls in google) to try and save your content in a word file. Good luck.

By the way: I think it's really unfair the google deletes those blogs. Even if they were spammy, at least give a warning first. Apart from that: What about the intellectual property of the innocent ones who write articles worth hours of work? At least you should "give back" the contents to the bloggers if they request their content back.

Also, being informed by email that "your blog has been deleted" is a big shocker. My insides were turning when I read it. I strongly believe that customer service in google and facebook have a lot of improvements ahead of them if they want to be customer-friendly.

The Incredible Downfall Of A Video Game Series

I am talking about the FIFA Manager series. This is a video game by EA Sports. Back in the old days, in 1996 and 1997, I used to play Fifa Soccer Manager, one of the best manager games ever (read about it in my Video Games: Most Played article).

From there on, things went wrong. I still bought these games on a regular basis. A version I had around the year 2001 crashed very often and I barely played it. I thought back then that it was my computer's fault: That my computer couldn't handle it.

Later, I got the 2004 version. The game, the way I remember it, was pretty good and brought me a lot of fun for several years. There were youth players you could get from youth camps all over the world, you could even give your players direct orders (shoot, pass, etc.), which is unusual for a manager game.

But even in THAT game, I had terrible things to go through. After unsuccessfully playing the 2007 version, I decided to go back to 2004. I played the game and what happened? It crashed at a specific date in the game. Even after reloading an older safe data of the game, it again crashed on a specific date. This meant that several seasons of playing had gone down the drain... you know what I did? I broke the CD into pieces so that I would never feel tempted to play the game again.

I still feel "hurt" for breaking my own copy of the game, because I liked it. But on the other hand, breaking it prevented me from the feeling of disappointment after putting so many hours of my life into a game that just crashed anytime it wanted to.

But there is one thing that still bugged me for years:

Even years after I bought my last version of the game, the heavily bugged 2007 version, I still read reviews on Amazon where only few people complained. But they complained about bugs that had never been fixed, bugs that had even been carried over to newer versions, because each year's version of the game uses the same game code, and essentially, the same game with only a couple of updates (worth the price of a full new game!).

You know what I hated? The fact that the reviews, in total, were favourable of the game. Enough people got fooled. Year after year... but you know what? Something has changed about it. I checked the German Amazon page and compiled a list on how the games did in the past years, from 2007 up to 2014. And now just look for the average rating each game got. You will be surprised:

As you can see, in 2007 and 2008, the game had nearly 4 stars average, which reads to frequent Amazon customers as "there are a few grumblers, but the game is awesome". This is what I hated because I felt that people were deceived each year. But then, things have changed finally.

Now, in 2014, of the 235 reviews, a wopping 188 are 1 star reviews! That's an exact 80,00 % reviews of the very lowest rating! Bottom of the barrell.

Finally, people have caught up with the fraud that is Fifa Manager. For years, many of them have bought the game year after year like idiots, and well, that's how they financed the fraud. I mean, each year, I read people's reviews and they were like "I have been buying this game since the early 2000s and I'm not gonna buy it again". But then, what's the meaning of that when the next year, a hundred people are saying the exact same thing, and the year after? They're all a bunch of stupid idiots!

Keep buying that shit and you end up unhappy every freaking year.

You know when I'm gonna buy that kind of game again? When it has exactly ZERO negative reviews. I don't want to hear about bugs, about bug fixes, about how everything is going to be improved "in the next patch". No. Hell, I'd even go back to playing Fifa Soccer Manager from 1996 and play it with an updated database by fans, if there is any.

EA Sports made millions recycling a game and slapping the current year as a label on the package. Idiots buy shit because it says "2014". They say:"Huhuh... this is so 2014, I'm gonna buy it... huhuhh".

Goodbye, EA Sports. Burn in hell.

For Women

Diets for women, protein shakes for women, medicine for women... everything has to be "for women".

I found this out when I was looking for keywords for my other blog. When I searched for these keywords (which are based on real google searches that people performed), I found out that a lot of women search for stuff that is especially designed for women.

Well, to be honest, I never bothered to search for "protein shakes FOR MEN" or "diets FOR MEN". I just assumed that what I searched for would be suitable as soon as results show up, regardless of whether I'm male, German, in my 30s, or a Nazi (just kidding). It never crossed my mind that the results in google would only be for women. Although that's often the case when searching for hair styles.

So... what's going on here? Are we in a video game world where every character is male by default unless it has a purple or pink bow?

And why do women search "for women" when what they search for is basically genderless? Why would a protein shake not do the same for women that it does for men? Why would a diet be only for men when it's mostly women that are so extremely concerned with their weight?

And most of all: Why do women always act as if they were inferior to men? Oh, look at me, I'm just a woman so I have to add "for women" in my search request so that all the "for men" results are filtered out.

Or is it that women believe they can only safely search for kitchen supplies, celebrity gossip and makeup because that's their world? Everything else is the man's world? Science, knowledge, philosophy? All stuff that only guys are interested in? So you have to add "for women" to find out there was nothing especially for women to begin with?

That's bullshit.

Now let me end this post and keep searching for health-related articles on the internet... for men, I guess.

How To Fix Youtube Monetization When YOUR Content Is Affected!

I have been raging about Youtube disallowing me to monetize my OWN content (see my previous posts: 1st and 2nd) and now I've finally found what seems to be the solution.

First of all, the solution works for you if this is your problem:

• You uploaded a video that is 100% your OWN content (your own video, your own music (if any), no cover versions, no stolen images etc.)
• Youtube acts as if you had stolen something
• You can't monetize because either Youtube is totally rejecting monetization of your video or keeping your video "under review" for eternity, or asking you for "proof" that you have the rights to use audio and video
• Monetization as such is active (you have either monetized a video before or you have monetization enabled in your settings)

Here is the problem, according to the person who delivered the solution: It's supposedly a bug in the software that the Youtube employees simply don't care about. The glitch is so dominant that nobody is capable or willing to do anything, and all you get is standardized text from the Youtube robot telling you that your video is infringing copyright.

So basically, you are talking to a wall if you're trying to sort things out with Youtube. Don't try to write letters to Youtube where you "allow yourself" to use your own music. Save that energy, because no human being on the other end of the line is ever reading these letters. Instead, check this manual here:

10 easy steps to avoid the "monetization under review" problem

However, there is one thing in the guide that is not working. I tried to inform the author of this article of what's wrong, but my comment didn't get through (a typical problem with many blogs).

In one of the steps described, he tells you to go to "actions - monetize". I found this to not be working. When you try this, nothing happens at all. Instead, you have to go to "actions - advanced" and then click on the respective monetization option. What you should not do is to "edit" the video and to enable monetization there.

Here are two images to see what's supposed to happen. Apart from that, follow the instructions in the link I have given you. Yes, in order to make this work, you have to upload your video again - from scratch. Just delete your old video, you are not going to monetize it, so just start over.

I really hope this is going to help the people who search google for problems like "I can't monetize my video although it's my own content". Or "Can't monetize my own video / song Youtube stuff". Whatever it is. I hope people are going to find this blog entry and solve their problems. If I was able to help you, please write a comment. It would be good to know that people are finally succeeding when Youtube does not give a shit.

By the way: I checked and ads are actually showing. So it's not just monetization being displayed as working, the ads are there in full force!

Youtube Monetization With AudioSwap / Library

Yesterday I posted on this blog about my problem monetizing a video that included my very own music.

This morning, I thought to myself: I just want to make cooking videos, not impress people with my own music. So I should use royalty free music available in the Youtube library and forget about my own music.

So I used the "AudioSwap" or Audio Swap option. It's the easiest way to change music that Youtube thinks is copyright infringement into music that they say is "available for monetization".

When I was done and the video had processed for half an hour, no monetization button was there. I was utterly unable to monetize my video. Only then did I find out that you need to:

1. Download the music from the Youtube library instead of using Audio Swap
2. Cut audio and video together using external software (windows movie maker)
3. Upload the whole video on Youtube (again)
4. Hope that the robots at Youtube realize that the song is FREE
5. Explain to the Youtube robots that your music is FREE in case they ask!
6. Hope and pray that they will get it

In case that the Youtube robots consider your video copyright infringement, you lose. You can not get in touch with human beings when sorting out copyright claims. It's all software doing automatic steps.

So what did I learn from this? Well, after uploading my own video with audio that I totally own, but being forbidden to monetize it (the robots think I stole music, which I didn't) and using music that is supposed to be free but doesn't allow monetization the quick way (instead: downloading and uploading again), I thought I am going to spare myself yet another disappointment.

And that disappointment would be:

• I download free music from the library
• I cut the whole video and free music together
• I upload the whole video again
• Youtube tells me that there is copyright infringement and asks me for proof that I hold rights
• I tell Youtube that it's a free song from the library (artist name, song)
• Youtube tells me it's "not enough verification" and asks for written permission from the artist
• I explode with raging anger

No, I won't do this. I found my own solution. I am indeed going to record music again, but it's not going to be extremely well-produced music this time, just a bunch of chords and a song played in an ambient / calm way... hoping I won't accidentally play two notes in a row that were already used in that order before in the history of commercial music.

My advice to you: If you need to have music, choose a song from the Youtube library beforehand, download it, put it into your video, and if youtube asks, have the artist name and the song ready. But if it doesn't work, forget about the whole music thing... you aren't going to monetize anything unless it's your own music that doesn't even remotely sound professional! Sometimes your music may sound professional but then you have to be lucky that Youtube doesn't mistake it for an actual chartbreaker.

Edit: I finally found a solution.

Youtube Does Not Monetize My Own Music And Video!

After posting about my troubles with Facebook (here and there), I am now facing more annoyances with another major internet company, Google.

Youtube doesn't allow me to monetize my video with my own music!

At first, I thought the problem had to do with free samples that were used in the song. Basically, when you make electronic music, everything that is not recorded directly with a microphone is a sample. Every note you play (piano, synth, organ etc.) is a sample because you don't actually play a real piano or organ or flute, you play sounds (samples) that were recorded once and can be played at different frequencies.

However, I used free samples that were longer (like loops, but as synth instruments) and are recognizable in other songs, where the same samples are used. But this does not mean that I steal from other songs. It's the same as saying playing a single piano note is ripping off John Lennon's "Imagine" because he also used a piano there.

Then, I found out that samples and all that technical stuff aren't even the problem. The problem is Youtube itself. They simply scan for anything that has music in the video, and if the music sounds remotely professional (=good), then they instinctively or automatically believe that the music must be a rip-off of someone else's music. At least that's what I believe.

Then they are scared shitless and demand full documentation of the copyright. This can lead to Youtube telling you to send a letter of the original artist... so you are asked to write a letter to youtube in which you allow yourself to use your own music. Ridiculous.

The worst thing about the whole "Youtube does not monetize my own content" is that you are permanently talking to a robot. Yes... You write to youtube that you want your video to be monetized because it is your own work, but you never get to talk to a person, it's always standardized text messages you get.

It's sad but that's the way it is.

Now I'm trying to learn some tricks that might allow me to get these things out of the way.

Edit: I think I found the solution!

When The Postman Rings Twice And Then Says "Fuck It"

A postman is supposed to deliver mail to you. That's his job. Sometimes, though, the postman thinks it's enough to just ring at your door when you are not home (out to work, perhaps?), then he takes your mail and sends it straight back to the sender with a comment such as "recipient unknown" or "recipient moved away".

I've noticed this behavior twice now, in two different places I lived. The pattern is always the same: You receive normal letters without problems. Your mail box has your name written on it. The senders always write your address correctly. But as soon as it's a parcel that doesn't fit into your mail box, you risk not receiving it at all.

In Germany, there are different possible procedures that are legally possible.

Number 1: Everything goes as planned. The recipient is home and can accept the mail.

Number 2: The mailman asks a neighbor to receive the mail. That neighbor has to confirm this with his signature and will take over responsibility / liability of the mail.

Number 3: The undelivered mail is sent to an automated storage station (needs a code to access the mail) or to a store of the delivery service, where the mail can be picked up. The recipient gets a written piece of information so he knows what to do.

Some postmen go straight for option number 4: Either send it back and claim that the recipient didn't exist, send it to a store to be picked up without letting the recipient know (don't have the time for that shit) or simply throw the damn mail away... who is going to find out?

Mail services have an incredible amount of power over you. They CAN read your mail, they CAN throw stuff away without you being able to prove it and they CAN'T be punished because large companies such as Amazon rely on them and you are only the person on the other end, not the company that made a deal with the mail service.

All I can do is complain and hope that the mail company will transfer my complaint as fiercely and resolutely to the mailman in charge as I sent it to them.

I really want my fish oil...

Bus People

Exactly 4 years ago, on Feb 1st 2010, I released my article called Grocery People on this blog. This time, I want to go on with another annoying group of people: Bus people.

When you're on the bus, you just want to get to your destination without problems. However, it can be a pain in the ass, especially when everyone needs to get to work at the same time. Here are the worst of the worst, in no particular order:

1. The blood clot

When a bus is starting to get crowded, people don't just keep moving into the empty spaces. At one point, there is a person who is just standing in the middle of the aisle, even before reaching the first exit door. This behavior is caused mostly by these causes:

• Talking to a friend who is seated
• Not wanting to reach a distant pole
• Feeling inhibited because several people are standing nearby, although clearly not blocking the path
• Lack of attention and awareness of the people behind

The most common reason for the blood clot to occur is because the person is selfish and not aware of anything. It's enough to just stand somewhere, it doesn't matter if everything in front of you is empty and everything behind you is so crowded that people have a hard time entering the bus.

It also usually takes the bus driver to scream into his microphone to back the hell off. And what's even more annoying is the fact that the people who turn into blood clots are most often students who get on the bus EVERY FREAKING DAY!

2. The sneezer

I don't know why, but people here in Germany seem to live all of their lives at home or in hospitals. That's the only explanation I can come up with for the constant vulnerability to sneezing. I'm not just talking about people who are having a cold. It seems that busses and trains cause people to sneeze just because they are out of their usual environment.

Then what puts the icing on the shit cake is when these people just sneeze wildly and orgasmically into the air... which we all need to share. Oh how beautiful that is...

Combine this with the fact that most people don't carry handkerchiefs with them. They should know they are sneezers but they just don't prepare themselves. Then they just draw all that ugly stuff deeper into their noses... one of the most beautiful sounds of nature alongside waterfalls and birds singing.

3. The ghetto kids / "checkerz"

The checkers are the ones who like to sit at the very end of the bus, where there is usually a U-shaped formation of seats. They like to be noisy and mark their new territory with verbal urine.

Somehow it's also kind of sad that many of them are foreigners. It's like they are begging for people to hate them for who they are. I try to avoid that area of the bus because it's reserved for those not blessed much with intelligence.

4. The fidgety child

You have come across this one if you've ever seen a child enter a bus, sit on the very first seat it notices, and then changing seats again or wanting to explore the bus afterwards.

For some unknown reason, the "must have a seat quickly at all costs" behavior is always present. Most children will always go for this first and only THEN will want to explore the bus or complain that they want to have a different seat. It's especially annoying when the child was first so eager to get in the seat and then change its mind.

The worst fidgety child is the one that can explore endlessly, pull some freaking acrobatic maneuvers with parents not even watching. It's only a matter of time before a fatal accident occurs. Which leads me to my next subject on the list.

5. The flying passenger

This person is very common, but also a hidden talent. It can be any passenger, also one with different traits as mentioned before and after. Sometimes, it's someone who feels too dignified to hold on to the bacteria-infected poles (thanks again to passenger number 2), so flying across the aisle at the next crazy braking maneuver of the bus driver is mandatory.

Then there are these "half-assed" passengers who do hold on to poles, but they don't really adapt to the way the bus goes. They don't lean their bodies when the bus goes into a sharp corner, they don't stay alert for sudden braking, they just "stand there" and wait and act like nothing bad is ever going to happen.

Not long ago I saw people flying, and it was not with wings. Well, they were actually falling, and it was funny how I was the only person who, oh God, beware, HELD ON TO THE DAMN POLE when it was clear something like that could happen.

6. The flying grandma / grandpa

This one deserves a mention of its own. Sometimes, when old people enter the bus, the bus driver patiently waits for these people to sit down. Other times, he doesn't. But sometimes, it doesn't even matter because of the lack of awareness the old person has. It's like the world is standing still for these people as they greet their old chaps, talk about the good old times and THEN realize while flying through the air that finding a seat should have been the priority.

I often cringe when I see old people enter the bus because I can tell within seconds whether something is going to end well or not. Often, the old people are taken by surprise and have to cling onto a pole in the last possible minute.

7. Mother Goddess

A mother with a pram can be annoying because she has the holy right to get her space on the bus and everyone has to move out of the way. It's especially annoying when she has to enter the bus at the exact time when adults have to go to work and children have to go to school. I mean, unless the baby is going to Kindergarten, there is no reason a mother has to be up at this time and go for a walk in the park somewhere in the city.

Some mother goddesses are really bad, they leave the pram in a very unsecured position (sometimes sideways) so the pram will fall over. Sometimes, several mother goddesses gather and enter the bus together or one station after the other, which leads to funny cat fights for space.

8. Grandma / Grandpa leaving

When old people step out of the bus, funny things can happen. I once was behind an old lady, and after she had taken exactly ONE step (the one out of the bus), she stood there and looked into her bag. Did she not give a damn that there are people behind her? Well, I had to wait for her to step forward so I could squeeze out of the bus and leave.

Of course, old people take their time when leaving. Often, they are so slow that they only get up when the bus is already preparing to drive off. That can cause big problems.

9. People who are late

It's annoying when people try to catch the bus when they are late. Some of them would risk their lives and dignity to catch a bus rather than to wait 15 minutes for the next one. They will wave their arms frantically even from a mile distance, violently knock against the windows of an already moving bus or making weird gestures or even point at people INSIDE the bus to "do something".

I personally can't even imagine doing these things. I mean, it's just embarrassing, isn't it?

10. People who try to help people who are late

What's even worse than people who miss their bus are people who try to assist them. They shout in a loud voice "HELLO! BUS DRIVER! SOMEONE WANTS TO ENTER!" and wave with their hands. They take a keen interest in helping the hoping-to-be passengers, but sometimes fail miserably when the bus driver simply ignores the request.

11. The overly helpful Grandma

Old people who chitchat on the bus are nothing uncommon. But sometimes old ladies become extremely eager to be helpful to others. There was once a woman who was sitting with her back facing the direction of travel. She turned her head to see where the bus was going. Immediately, an old lady sitting opposite her talked to her:

"Do you want to get out?"
"No, I was just checking where..."
"WHAAAAAT?"
"Just checking where we are now"
"You want me to press the stop button?"
"No, not now"
"WHAAAAAT?"
"Next one"
"NOW???"
"No, next one"
"I can press the button for you, I can do that!"

12. The panic person

This person is overly nervous, to the point where he or she thinks the bus has reached a bus stop and won't let that person out, so they shout "excuse me" towards the bus driver. Only to realize it has actually been a red traffic light and not a bus stop. These people are constantly afraid that the bus driver either won't stop or won't let them out. Is it so difficult to just look outside the window to see where the bus stop actually is?

13. Impolite old people

Most busses have seats reserved for disabled or old people... well, actually only disabled people. I mean, what does a first aid cross sign mean? Old? No.

Okay, anyway, most people know that a seat is given up when a needy person approaches. And that is fine. It's okay to occupy the seat if nobody is around, but when someone says he or she needs the seat, then a nice way of asking will be enough to make most reasonable people get up from their seats.

There is only one thing I really hate, and I have seen it before several times. Instead of asking nicely, the old people say:

"Are you disabled?"

And it's not asked in a curious way, it's asked in an aggressive way.

Makes me want to beat the old people until they can call themselves disabled. No, just kidding. I just want to kill them.

14. The therapy person

Just someone who likes to share a conversation with someone but lets the whole bus crowd know the story. One particular incident I remember was when a girl talked about how much "it" hurt and how much she screamed when it was her first time... you can figure out what it was about.

15. The HELLLOOOOO person

I have mentioned this one a couple of years ago. It's usually a teenager with an utter lack of respect and awareness who screams into his mobile phone that he can't hear the person at the other end of the phone line. Makes everyone turn their heads, then shake them.

16. The dependent passenger

This one likes to depend on others to press the stop button. Having to get to work in time? Who cares! It's not just my responsibility to press the button, I know 5 other people also have to get off... what, was that my bus stop just now! BUS DRIVER!!! STOOOOOOOP!

Most of them are just too much into their daydreaming.

17. The WTF person

Every once in a while (with years of waiting in between), I come across someone I can't really describe. Someone who is just too much out of this world to fit into any other category. The behavior is either so disgusting or so eccentric that I don't know how to call them. Here are some examples:

A boy stands at a pole that also has a "open door" button. He is obviously drifting off in his mind, always looking far into the distance, and starts to lick the button with his tongue repeatedly. Oh, by the way, this boy is an elementary student, not a baby.

A drunk guy in his twenties is drooling on the floor and can barely stand in the aisle when he wants to go off the bus. When he was still sitting, a constant thread of drool was going from his mouth to the floor... just a constant flow.

18. The dog person

Dogs are like children, they are overly excited and need to rub their noses into anything that lives.

So, when dog owners enter a bus, the most obvious problem is that their own idea of what a dog is allowed to do clashes with everyone else's opinion on that topic. While the dog owner may be okay with the dog licking his face, eating from his plate at home or whatever else they do together, this may not be the case with everyone else.

Usually, the dirty nose with mud on it goes straight for everyone's genitals. Those who are lucky enough to sit still get the nose into their pants and on their shoes, and the fluffy hair is also rubbed into the fabric of the pants. Nice job. But yeah, he just wants to play, right?

19. Isolated phone persons

This modern age of cell phones leads to weird situations. First of all, people seem to be extremely dependent on their phones. They look like prisoners to me whose only window out of their cells are the screens of their phones.

In the mornings, I even get blinded by all the screens that are shining with their bright light towards me. I believe the bus could safely drive without any lights on if only the cell phones were all set up. There is enough light there to guide a ship into a harbor.

On top of that, these people are just so... lost. Mentally. They are just staring into their phones... Weird way of thinking of it... staring at a phone... isn't that kind of stupid? Imagine that 30 years ago.

20. The bus driver himself

Oh my god. The unholy grail of bus people. The driver himself. He is the assholy one.

Some drivers are just badass, cool people. I once had a bus driver when I was a kid. He would play our cassettes sometimes, make funny announcements every day like we had just ended a 2 hour trip (not half an hour). He was great and fun.

But that was just one out of a hundred drivers I've known. If your bus driver says hello, you are even lucky. Some are very considerate, others not.

I've seen some very idiotic drivers. They brake like idiots when even I could see from a mile away that there was a red light or some car in the way. Sometimes, they are far behind their schedule, other times they are minutes ahead of it and still driving off when people want to enter the bus.

Some drivers even take valid customer passports away from the passengers because an additional ticket is missing. They accuse people of cheating with their tickets and other weird stuff.

One of the worst childhood experiences of my life was when I was about to leave a bus as a young student (10 years old or so) and, as I was the very last person to leave the bus, the bus driver suddenly stood in front of me, giving me no way to leave, and told me to clean up the thrown away packagings of chocolate bars and other stuff because SOME students had carelessly thrown them away. So I was the scapegoat and had to clean up that stuff. When I was allowed to go, I threw the stuff at the stairs in front of him (at the exit) and ran away crying. My parents got into contact with the bus company but they claimed it was impossible to identify the driver. Which is kind of funny because the bus I was riding on was a totally new bus that was totally different from the other ones at the time. Yeah, sure.

Since then, that bus driver has been on my death list.

I hope you liked the list of bus people and if you are a bus person, make sure to not become one of the bad guys. But if you see any stupid people, just kill them for me, okay?

Facebook Is A Big Disappointment

When I started off with my blog about dieting, I read about all the things that are necessary to make things work: SEO, Social Media, Youtube Videos, Content, etc.

Of course, Facebook had to be part of the whole thing. I decided to join, not because I like it (I never used it and found it unnecessary for my personal life), but because it's a way how you can drive traffic to your website.

In fact, the first results seemed promising. Only one or two youtube videos, shared via Facebook, led to about 140 registered visits in a short time.

Then, suddenly, someone must have complained and reported me as spam. I don't know why, but the reaction was radical, immediate and not even the slightest bit fair. I had no chance to defend myself, and most of all, I didn't even know what was happening (see my previous post for more information).

I wrote to the "help desk" several times and now I'm done with trying. I leave facebook and I don't even feel bad about it. I mean, what's the point sharing stuff on a facebook page when:

1. No visits from facebook are registered
2. Facebook warns its users that they believe my site is "not safe"
3. I have to enter captcha phrases (hard to read) for EVERY post I try to make
4. I can only share content directly from my blog to facebook (can't enter the link on my facebook page)
5. A marketing campaign worth 30 euros (coupon from facebook to encourage people to advertise there) ended with NO money being spent (which means that either they didn't display the ad or the ad had no effect at all - which means facebook is a bad platform for marketing
6. It has been a waste of my time.

There is only ONE aspect of facebook that I am still using. And that is me sharing Youtube links. I found this to be a useful way to get around the anti-spam blockade. As I said, Youtube videos are a part of my campaign to make my website interesting. Facebook will never (I hope) declare youtube a spam website. Therefore, I am under protection from their URL, even if it's my own "spammy" content they despise with all their heart. So I am able to share youtube links in facebook groups that deal with weight loss. I get a couple of views that way (on youtube, plus some people hopping over to my blog from there), but it's not totally overwhelming and I am not going to make that many videos.

As for private use, I have never used FB before and I'm not going to use it again either. I found it  a little discomforting how people searched for me and then suddenly the whole network of ex colleagues was suddenly on my list of suggested friends. I knew FB didn't know privacy but I didn't think they'd push familiar faces into me like that. Just leave me alone.

It's annoying, it sucks, it's bad, it's old. People are going to leave Mark Zuckerberg's little project quite soon. The only thing that could stand in the way of this process would be Google's stupidity in being just as robotic and unfriendly to its users. We will see how it goes.

Anyway, now that even I used Facebook, I think it's time for it to die away. You see, I'm always the last one to hop on the train. When it was myspace, I was among the last people before it collapsed. When it was friendster, everyone was there until I came - then they all ran away. Now I've entered facebook, and I think it's going to crash soon. Any other social media I should bring to an end?

Cynical Ways People Are Dealing With Tragedy

There is a lot of voyeurism and sensationalism involved when people get killed or badly injured. But sometimes, it gets a little too much. It's not the fact alone that people, especially the media, exploit the misfortunes of others. It's how they do it. Here are some examples:

People making cell phone videos of people dying

It's very popular, especially in obscure third-world countries, to first take your cell phone out of your pocket when you see a badly injured person lying on the street after a traffic accident or someone who was just shot during riots. But these people don't take their phones out to call the ambulance, they want to take videos.

It's a little sickening, especially when the person who is dying is still conscious and aware of what's going on around him. And while valuable minutes pass until an ambulance arrives, there is no interaction between the majority of the bystanders except for many cameras being pointed at the victim.

Covering a dead formula 1 driver's body with blankets and continuing with the race

Nowadays, Formula One is a very heavily regulated sport where you get penalized or even banned for the slightest things. Even ordinary accidents usually lead to a drive-through penalty or something of the like. The newest atrocities include drivers being warned for their choice of words at the post-race interviews. I won't be surprised if points will be deducted for comments like "I don't give a shit if people think I don't smile enough" by people like Kimi Raikönnen.

In the 1970s, Formula One was still a totally different sport. Drivers never had to hold back their opinions, enjoyed cigarettes and alcohol and knew they could be next on the grim reaper's list.

It was also totally normal (or so it seems) that a race was not stopped when a driver was burned to death in his car and the only thing organizers would do was to cover the car with sheets. They didn't even recover the dead body until after the race! The poor guy who was burned alive was Roger Williamson. His car turned over in a 1973 race and he was trapped under it. A fellow driver tried to rescue him but could not do it alone, and the track marshals back then barely knew how to use fire extinguishers and didn't have fire proof clothing.

Formula 1 in the 70s was as pathetic in terms of safety as the 1820 were in terms of cloud computing. It makes you feel like you lived in the middle ages.

Dozens of people uploading fake Schumacher skiing accident videos

When Michael Schumacher had his catastrophic skiing accident in late 2013, videos about his accident quickly appeared on Youtube. Some of them already said "RIP" when he was still in coma (and would remain in a coma for weeks). What was even weirder was what happened later. In the course of the next days and weeks, more and more videos were uploaded that not only contained pictures but actual footage. Footage of snow, of alleged skiing accidents, footage from point of view helmet cameras. But all of these were just random footage recorded by the people themselves and marketed as "Schumacher helmet camera" or other things.

I've checked Youtube, knowing that the original footage has not been released by the police, and there are at least half a dozen people reinacting accidents and making it look as if this was the real Michael Schumacher accident footage from his own helmet.

Isn't it weird how people are so sensational about getting views on Youtube from something that's just fake? Considering that it's a serious matter we are talking about?

Imagine if you had an accident like falling of the stairs while holding your amateur camera, and suddenly everywhere on Youtube there are fake videos with your name plus the phrase "original staircase accident camera footage" or something like that. All of them trying to make money and get famous because of your accident. Wow...

Facebook - A Digital Version Of North Korea / Fireworks In Germany

What do Facebook and North Korea have in common? Both have dictatorship-like structures, including a dictator, silence critics and don't respond to your inquiries about things that are wrong (well, I assume... I have never written a letter to North Korea yet, so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt).

Here is the thing: I opened a facebook page in order to promote my website about dieting. I also joined facebook groups about low carb diets. In these groups, it is mainly only allowed to post recipes, not guides, tips or other supposedly "spammy" stuff.

So I abide by these rules and only post recipes. However, I do this by sharing a link, because only handing out free knowledge and receiving nothing in return is not why I came to facebook. I at least want some traffic on my website, so I post the link to a recipe which people may or may not click on. In some cases, when the admin of the group says so, I will also type the text of the recipe so that people also get the basic idea of the recipe. Just to be in full compliance with the group rules. I also read these rules very carefully.

Sometimes, it happens that my recipe needs to be checked and published by the admin of the group. In this case, my post will not be published immediately. The only problem: If the admin does not like my post, I usually don't get any feedback from them. So I guess all they do is report me to facebook as a spammer instead of telling me that they don't like my post.

What has this led to? First, I could no longer share links on facebook. I thought this was a technical problem, and facebook even said "oops... we are working on it". But after this kept on happening for weeks and other people happily posted their links, I figured out it must have had something to do with my account. I kept guessing and guessing for days.

And bingo! I noticed I could share links from any other website except for my own. This confirmed my suspicion that facebook had blocked my site without even letting me know about it (North Korea style).

I also, at one point, received a message that facebook considered me a robot - although without mentioning anything about my website. They just "felt" I was not a real human being and demanded that I confirm my identity with a phone number, which I did. I thought it's just their typical scheme of getting personal information about you, so I thought it happens to anyone after some time.

This, however, did not redeem me. I am still considered a robot, although one that is encouraged to spend money on marketing campaigns for my facebook page (lol).

I learned all by myself (couldn't find any help on yahoo answers) that I can technically share links if I post them directly from my blogger site onto facebook, so that works. But then, I have to type in a captcha phrase (different numbers with shit sprinkled all over it so you can hardly recognize anything).

Every time I share a link, I have to confirm - again and again - that I am not a bot.

What did I ever do to be treated like crap? And why is there no way I can defend myself except for writing enquiries to facebook that are never even answered (North Korea style)?

Another thing that confuses the shit out of me: When I write to facebook, the contact page shows text both in English and German. Different text on the same page! To explain, let me show you this:

(English) Please let us know if you have any problems using facebook. We rely on your feedback.

(German) Is Facebook considering you a spammer? Please write in the text below why you think this should not be the case.

Text box (English) Please enter your text here.

Below text box (German): We will contact you as soon as possible.

After clicking "send": Thank you for your information. We will let you know bla bla (English). 


This makes me wonder: Regardless of them not reading my messages anyway (North Korea style) - would it be a German or an English-speaking person reading my message? Is anyone going to understand me anyway? Do they actually have German employees?

And seriously, I was very tempted writing "Dear Mr. Zuckerberg" when I started out with this crap.

Another thing that's very popular in Germany

Maybe you know that in summer, many people leave their kids for dead in the heated car. This is a very popular custom here. Another thing that's very popular is killing or hurting yourself and others around "Sylvester", that's new years eve.

It's the time when many fireworks are used in the streets. And every, every year - people get killed. This year, I heard about at least two people getting killed, one of them was a father who got killed by a firework he built himself. Another person "only" blew off his hand at the age of 26. Even two year olds got injured, and I wonder how this happened.

Even as a child, I heard that our neighbour had once lost an eye or something like that in such an accident. So it's a tradition.

So if you ever come to visit Germany, make sure you check the news in summer for stupid parents who leave their kids in a heated car while shopping, and around new year, make sure you count how many people blew their limbs apart with fire crackers. Hooray!

End of year post 2013

I managed to comply with my compulsion to always write at least one post every month, and this year I also wrote no more than the necessary single post per month. Which makes this year seem very boring. But that's not true. But I would rather not talk about myself, instead I would like to talk about some things to get them out of the way.

Here are 4 things:

• Girls taking pictures of their feet
• Natascha Kampusch's book
• Yet another Ralf Schumacher Syndrom
• How my computer annoyed and degraded me

1. Girls taking pictures of their Feet

This seemed like a cliche reserved for uninspired photographers when I heard about it in Lost in Translation. But I'm scared to realize that this is actually true. Recently, I have been visiting a sort of blog promotion website to make my german dieting website popular (Du kannst es! - no need for you to click), and as a part of getting other people to visit my site, I clicked through their blogs as well - knowing that everyone on this promotion page only sat there like a spider waiting for other people to come into their webs. Instead of making an effort to attract views from visiting pages themselves.

So I visited others, and got visits from other people because they knew I had visited them instead of sitting on my ass waiting. But what was shocking: Most people with blogs are girls who are either into make up, fashion+spending money , or taking pictures of their feet.

I don't know what this whole "I am going to take a picture of my feet" craze is about. Is there an equivalent for guys? Something that guys do, only guys do, and they always do it on blogs? I don't know. If there is such a thing, it would be quite likely I do the same as all the other guys, whatever it may be.

I just find it kind of...poor. Useless. I mean, if there was a word for this sensation of watching another person's "foot picture", I think this word would be a new niche word for "underwhelming" or being strangely disappointed when all you see is someone trying to entertain himself in vain - while letting the whole world know about it.

2. Natascha Kampusch's book

I recently got my first E-book reader, which quickly raised the academical question in me whether a muslim woman would have to clean herself before reading the E-quran on it, or whether the E-reader would become holy, only the E-quran, or even the other books that are in the reader, and what effect that would have if other religious books from other religions were in that reader - but I digress...

...what I was going to say: I read the book 3096 days by Natascha Kampusch. I still remember being in Singapore and reading on t-online.de about the case the day she escaped.

It's one of these events where, when people ask you about it, you still know where you were when it happened. Like 9/11 or when Diana died.

Well, Natascha Kampusch was kidnapped as a child of 10 years and only escaped from the stranger who kidnapped her when she was 18. That's the story in a very small nutshell.

What fascinated me about the book was not so much the story by itself. It was the fact how I could mentally "play" my life on an inner dvd player while reading through the book, kind of like comparing my life to hers. The places I went to between 1998 and 2006, the things I did, and considering that everything she did was being locked in a prison or having to renovate houses for her kidnapper while being beaten all the time.

When I was in hospital in 1999, she was in a basement prison. When I witnessed the turn of the millennium, she was in prison. When the planes flew into the WTC towers, I sat in front of live TV and she heard about it in her prison. When I graduated from school, she was in prison. When I met Marit Larsen, she was in prison. When I watched the three world cups of 1998, 2002 and 2006, she was in prison. I watched more than 100 formula one races while she was in prison and had no way of telling her family she was still alive and suffering. And she had no idea that she would escape, how, or when.

Even the stories about nearly escaping, about nearly finding the courage to talk to someone in a store where the kidnapper took her, only to lose that courage by thinking "he is going to say i'm his insane niece and walk away with me again" - that was thrilling and shocking. Shocking because it's a true story.
And even scarier: While I read this story of a martyrdom that's over, another story of that kind, somewhere in the world, is still evolving, and has been evolving for probably longer than her story and me reading her story together.

So that was a humbling experience. Sort of like acknowledging that people have lived and died before you, and will live and die after you. I think it's always good to bring yourself back to solid ground by reading stories by and about people like Kampusch or Aron Ralston, the guy who cut off his arm.

3. Another possible Ralf Schumacher Syndrome

It may soon happen again. As you may know as a frequent reader (those two or three of you who are), RSS is the syndrome that shows symptoms of arrogance and over-confidence that are totally out of place.

I have this uneasy feeling that another formula one driver might be affected by it: Adrian Sutil. He had an average season and towards the end of it, he said that he will definitely be in formula one next year, that he had a contract, that he just wasn't allowed to announce anything yet.

Well, I think there are reasons why teams don't want you to announce anything, and mostly that's because nothing is set in stone yet!

Well, formula one has been changing a lot lately and next season with new engines and cars might even see Sebastian Vettel possibly losing his title if only one of the other teams adapts faster and better to the new rules.

But as for Adrian Sutil, the financial problems for the teams may cause them to hire pay drivers from now on, and he might be the one to not get a cockpit. We will have to see about that. I just find it very suspicious when someone is totally confident, but can't seem to make his team announce with pride that he will drive for them. His current team, Force India, already confirmed Hülkenberg as one of their drivers, and it's not very likely that the other driver will also be German, as teams usually try to attract sponsors from different countries to get more money options.

If I'm wrong about Sutil, hey, that would be great. One more German driver to stay with us. We will see.

4. My computer making me his little bitch

Don't you just love it when your computer makes fun of you, degrades you and knows perfectly that you can't do anything about it, not even blame it because "it's only a machine"? It's like the Truman show telling you that your whole life is just a game, but you know what? You can't prove that it's just a show. These are the times when I secretly need some medication before I go insane. Muhaha.

This is how I feel about computers sometimes. They break down in ways that defy all logic. Then, you think that there must be conscience in them, but on the other hand, you can't prove it and you'd be put into a mental hospital sooner than you can say "Bill Gates".

Here is the most recent story of my digital adventures: I wanted to record music on my computer, something I had done before in the exact same way, with the exact same computer and the exact same recording device, a synthesizer with MIDI USB connection.

I plugged in everything and started the computer. The only thing against me was that this connection had not been used for some time. It's basically the same as saying I wanted to play a game I had not played for some months but had never deleted from my PC anyway.

But then came the obvious catch. My computer denied any knowledge of the device. The good news was that it was "willing" to install the foreign body that was leeching like a tick on the USB cable.

So it already said stuff like "yeah, I know you have this Midi USB thing going on... I need some drivers".

That was already some good information for me as I knew that the computer was not only aware of the hardware (thank God) but also knew what kind of device it was, so it was definitely not talking about some other USB device that might have been plugged in at the same time - a camera, a memory stick, or even a fondue set.

Then came the situation I like to call the "macho moment".

The computer told me that "he" needed some files as drivers. I can't recall "his" exact words, instead I will list them here they way I recall them from my emotional memory.

Computer: Hey, you know what? I need this Emuk17.dll file.

Me: Okay... But it should be on the computer, I mean, I never deleted anything and certainly you shouldn't either since I wouldn't allow that.

Computer: Just go with it. I really need it. And arguing with me won't help.

Me: Okay. I suppose that it's not on the computer any more, so I will check online.

***checks online***

Me: Excuse me, dear computer. I just read that "the Emuk17.dll file can usually be found at C:/windows, C:/windows/system32 or other similar places". Could it be that you actually HAVE that file already???

Computer: I never said I didn't have it. I only said I need it.

Me: What? You want ME to look for it?

Computer: What's the problem? You want me to look for it with my personal logic? You want me to browse through your last summer vacation pictures to look for it there? Through your music files, your chat log files, your temporary internet files? You want me to search through your computer games to see if a driver for a music USB device may accidentally end up there? Come on, it's faster if you look for yourself.

Me: This should be your job!

Computer: Then ask the dog.

Me: You mean this little fucker?

Computer: Yeah, he is responsible for that kind of shit.

Me: Okay.... search dog, please come here

Dog (after minutes of loading): Do you want me to search for anything?

Me: No, I want you to wash my car. Of course I want you to search for something, you idiot!

Dog: What do you want me to search for?

Me: It's this file, Emuk17.dll - I need it.

Dog: Do you want me to search for files, music, audio files, video files, do you want me to search in folder, pictures, hard drive, connected USB devices, what exactly do you want to do?

Me: Uhmm... can you just... okay, whatever. It's probably somewhere in C:/ and it's a file. Okay?

Dog: Yeah, let me check *starts searching*

Computer: You know, I would have done it for you too, but then you'd have to make me a sandwich first *claps my ass virtually*

Me: Fuck. You.

*minutes pass*

Dog: Hey, I am back. I found nothing.

Me: What do you mean?

Dog: I searched through C:/ just like you asked me to. I found a lot of things there, mostly folders. Some of them had names like "windows" or "system32", but there was no such file as you requested.

Me: Did you check these folders you just mentioned?

Dog: No....

Me: Why... not...?

Dog: You only said I should check C:/ and I did that. If you tell me to check the cupboard for your car keys, I expect them to be on top of it, not in one of the drawers. You have to be specific. You didn't say check C:/windows or C:/windows/system32

Me: So you are saying I need to specify every little thing about the search in order to find my file?

Dog: Yes.

Me: Tell me one thing, you little fucker. Who is more useless? You or that paper clip guy from Microsoft Word?

Dog: I don't know, but I could look for him. Do you want me to check C:/ or D:/ for him?

Me: Fuck you

Dog: Is that a file or a piece of music?

Me: It's a piece of shit coming out of your ass.

Computer: So, can we go on now with the driver? I think I might fall asleep soon and then you have to restart me.

Me: No, please don't freeze now. *clicks "search for file manually"*

Computer: I could search for it myself, but my programmers found it better if the user has to click the file himself to degrade and humiliate himself.

Me: Yeah, I got it.... what the fuck? It was there all along? The file was in the system32 folder in C:/, right there, and all I had to do was open the folder, search with my eyes through the files and find it. There you have it? Can I use this device now?

Computer: Oh no, not yet. I also need the Emuk28.dll and the Fuckmuck22.dll please. I think their location since last time hasn't changed at all, but please find them for me because the .dll files are not in the same folder as the device itself.

Me: Oh guess what, they are all in the same stupid folder! How easy can it get! Come on. The dog should have done this, and you too!

Computer: Okay, we're finished, do whatever you like now *freezes*

Me: Yeah, thanks for nothing. Freezing is a computer's way of turning their back on you. *restarts computer*


Happy new year to everyone in advance! Signing out for this year.

Major Suckage

Recent things that suck:

1. The fact that my MS Word, although I'm German and have lived in Germany all my life, does not know certain words it should. For example:

• Hühnchenfleisch (chicken meat) - alternate suggestion: Menschenfleisch (Human meat)
• Heißhungerattacken (urgent food cravings / hunger attacks) - alternate suggestion: Regierungsattacken (government attacks?!)

2. The fact that blogger does not know how to format text properly. I spent 2 hours writing a blog post about a video game, formatting the text with colors, fonts, headlines, bold, italics and other stuff, only to find out most of the stuff doesn't make a damn difference to blogger. 

Well, we only live in the year 2013. We're not advanced enough yet. I mean, good things take time. But then, why don't we need a crank handle to start a car's engine, or why do we not need phone operators to talk to on the phone any more, and why can I actually write all this stuff to people around the world when blogger is not able to format texts? I mean, this whole internet stuff is much too avant-garde in comparison to text formatting....woah!

3. The fact that yahoo mail actually has the guts to ask me to confirm that I'm not a spammer. I'm trying to write an email to someone I know and yahoo asks me to enter a number code in order to make sure I'm not a robot. 

First of all, I can't even read the damn numbers. Sometimes I get it wrong! And also, this is my damn email adress, okay? I could try another provider if yahoo doesn't trust me.

Then, on the other hand, yahoo mail is an ass-kisser. When my spam folder is empty (lol), they say "you are my hero! You keep your folder free from spam". What the hell? Then why do you give me this slavery treatment like I'm supposed to be grateful I can even SEND an email????!!!!

4. The fact that Supermarkt prices are STILL like this:

4.99
9.99
9.95

I keep collecting coins I don't freaking need. I need to go to a bank to put them back into my account. Who needs this?

Of all the secret, hidden, subliminal psychology tricks that groceries use, is this one really the absolute best? Is this the all time money maker?

Are people really that easily impressed by numbers? Come on, if just one market rounded up the numbers, people would feel a sudden relief from pain in the ass!

5. The fact that my internet router is losing connection or resetting every day. Oh well, it's only the year 2013. We don't have Neuro-USB-connectors at the back of our heads yet.

If I was in charge of any of these things, wow... but no, I'm just a crappy customer.

The perfect American president

Warning: This post is very controversial in its nature. I intend no racism or any other kind of discrimination against minorities mentioned here. This is purely a parody of extreme political correctness and the attempt of people to please everyone.

I watched some videos about feminism on youtube and realized once more how difficult it is to please everyone. It seems that many situations in life are viewed by feminists as degrading, disempowering or in other terms negative for women. As a guy, it makes me feel sorry that I was even born to be a man. As if it's suddenly my fault that I belong to the gender that has been degrading women.

Weird... because I don't feel like I should be responsible for anything. And then it reminded me of my "fantasy" about the perfect American president. It was in 2008. Before Obama became president, he was battling with Hillary Clinton over who would become the democratic candidate for presidency.

Either way, there would be a chance to have a "first" kind of president. A woman or a black guy. Then I wondered: If republicans always come up with white men as candidates anyway, wouldn't it make sense to bring up a "perfect" minority candidate? Someone who would please all minorities?

And then the idea was born. So I wondered... what would that perfect candidate have to be in order to not leave anyone feeling left out? First of all, the candidate would have to be:

• Female
• Black
• Lesbian

But then I thought: No, that's not good enough. Female is okay, but in terms of gender, there are subcategories and sub-minorities that demand attention. So the candidate would have to be female, but an ex-male. Transgender. So whoever the candidate was, she was a man once. Would this drive feminists mad because the only female candidate ever wasn't even born as a woman? Well, this would not be a legitimate complaint because no feminist should bash a woman just because she was born a man and wanted to be a woman. Checkmate!

Next up: The race issue. Okay, a black candidate would make sense, because black people are the biggest group of racial minorities in the USA, so they need a voice. But on the other hand: There are other minorities that need to be taken care of. We also long for the first Asian American president (Obama doesn't count). So the candidate's parents would have to be Asian. But wait.... one parent would have to be of Mexican origin just to make sure that that group is represented too. So in the end, it would not only have to be genetically clear that there is mixed heritage in the candidate, it would have to be visible, too. A black woman with asian eyes and hispanic facial features. Somehow...

About the lesbian part. That is not enough, either. We need to represent as much sexuality as we can. So bisexuality is a must, with different preferences the candidate can openly discuss. Bisexuality has the advantage that the candidate can change his views about whether she wants to be more with men or women. Everything is possible. And of course, she is open about other types of sexuality as well.

But we can't just settle for these things... there is much more that needs to be covered. How about disabled people? Does the public believe that disabled people can't run for presidency? We must prove them wrong at all costs. And we need to make sure that our candidate fulfills enough criteria. How about blindness? Yes, that's good. Blind people can achieve many things. But we need more. Diabetes? Check. Wheelchair? Check. Multiple disabilities involving trisomy? Check.

Other preferences.... well, vegan, of course. Anything else? I don't know.Oh yes, our candidate must embrace all religions at once. We don't have time for contradictions, just squeeze as many religions into the person as possible. Of course, the religious views have to mix with modern-day science, so everything that science states has to be acknowledged and must be compatible with religious views. Great!

I'm really afraid I missed something, but okay, let's just sum up what we have:

We have a black candidate with Asian and Mexican origins who is transsexual, female, bisexual, blind, bound to a wheelchair, has diabetes, is severely disabled in multiple ways, is vegan and very religious.

Will this be the perfect president who can solve the world's problems? Perhaps not. I don't know if there even is such a person in America or the whole wide world. But I think we should make sure not to believe that someone who does not belong to a minority group automatically wants to oppress minorities. I think it's more about the way the person grew up and how sensitive he or she can be towards issues that affect minority groups. I do admit that it often takes someone who is directly affected to know what the individual perspective of such a person is like. But then, this also means that our politicians have to be more in touch with such people.

If you believe this post was pointless, that's okay too... I don't want to oppress your views and opinions.

My new blog about weight loss

I have come up with a new experiment. My own blog about dieting and losing weight.

http://how-to-lose-and-win.blogspot.com

Edit: (Well, I'm not linking to it here because it's obsolete).

It will be interesting to see if I can really attract viewers. So far, my personal blog has only been about my own experience, and I have never cared about actually checking how people find posts on the web.

So now I have something new to do. Since I already lost a lot of weight in my life, I have a lot of experience to share. Let's see what this blog does half a year from now.

Also, there is a German version: Low Carb Diät

It's about all the German stuff like Abnehmen, Gewicht verlieren, Übergewicht, Fettleibigkeit, Gesundheit and all that stuff. So let me continue in German:

Dieser Blog wurde ins Leben gerufen, um Leuten zu helfen, die abnehmen wollen, aber keine Kalorien zählen möchten. Es geht um eine kohlenhydratreduzierte Lebensweise. Also alles, was mit Essen ohne Zucker zu tun hat. Davon sind dann auch Nudeln, Brot, Reis und Pommes betroffen. Natürlich und ganz klar auch Süßigkeiten. Wir essen zu viel von dem Zeug, und das muss nun endlich vorbei sein.

Mit der Anleitung, die auf dieser Internetseite steht, kann man gut abnehmen. Die Regeln für den Gewichtsverlust sind klar erläutert, und wer sich daran hält und nicht aufgibt, verliert viel Gewicht. Also los!

And of course, one website always stands out for its excellence: Starkcorner

Video Games: To The Moon

It's probably weird to write a review about a game I haven't even played. I only watched a "let's play" of it on youtube, but I would still like to talk about it because it's a very good game. It's very emotional and has a dense, complex story. In the end, it leaves you in a very sentimental state of mind.

The story goes like this: A company is able to alter the memories of people (like a mix between Total Recall and Inception). The service of having your memories changed can be ordered by people who are about to die so that they will die with the feeling that they had a rich life with all their dreams and ambitions achieved, as opposed to what really happened in their lives (which will be forgotten).

Eva and Neil are the main characters in the game. They work for the company and drive to an old man's house. The man is about to die, his last wish is that his memories are to be rewritten so that he will get "to the moon". He is asked why it is his lifetime wish to get to the moon, because as part of the "inception", it would help to know. But he doesn't know, he only knows he wants to go to the moon.

Eva and Neil bring their devices into the house. The technical part comes then: They enter the mind of their customer, whose name is Johnny, and need to navigate their way deep into his subconscious mind. In order to change his memories, they need to implant an idea into his oldest childhood memories so that he will relive his memories as a child, wanting to become an astronaut throughout his entire, relived life.
To get to his childhood, Eva and Neil have to hop from one memory to the next, progressing further into the past. They need to find clues after clues to trigger Johnny to remember his memories back and back into childhood. On the way there, they also get to know his story. He was married to a woman named River, who died from a terminal illness. Memories of the wedding can be seen, and many romantic and touching moments are in these memories.

Before River dies, she wishes that Johnney completes building their house instead of paying her medical bills, as they can't pay for both. It is unclear why, because the only reason River wants the house to be built seems to be her emotional attachment towards the lighthouse that is located nearby the site where their house is being built. Johnny does not want his wife to die, but in the end, he respects her wish.

Further down the past, it becomes clear that the lighthouse played a big role in their lives. They often met their when they were younger and also got married at the lighthouse.

River shows some strange behaviour and doesn't seem to be able to express her feelings. It is later revealed that she is suffering from a condition. River's sister has the same condition, but her advantage is that the condition was diagnosed when she was a child, so she was able to adapt to it. It's clear that they are talking about Asperger's syndrome, a form of authism, although it is never mentioned directly.

Neil and Eva find out about how Johnny went to school with River, and how they went out on a date in the cinema. But when they reach his childhood and try to implant his wish to become an astronaut, things start to go wrong. When they travel back to his most recent memory, they find out that nothing has changed at all - Johnny lived the same exact life as he actually really did.

Neil goes back to reality and calls his company to investigate what could have gone wrong while Johnny's health gets worse. The phone call reveals that everything is okay with the equipment, but important information about Johnny's past was not given to Neil and Eva. Johnny had taken medication as a child that had made him forget some memories, and now these memories are either gone or hidden deep in his mind.

After their return to the mind world, Neil and Eva find a link to earlier childhood memories. They find out that Johnny had a twin brother who was accidentally killed by his mother's car when leaving the house. Johnny's mother then gave him medication to make him forget this trauma. But something even more important comes to light: The same year the accident occured, Johnny met River at a carnival near the lighthouse. It was their first meeting ever and they were still young children. River tells Johnny about her love for the stars and how she believes that every star is a lighthouse that's trying to communicate with other lighthouses. 
They later agree to meet up the following year, when the next carnival starts. River asks Johnny what happens if he forgets or doesn't make it, and he says "then we will meet up on the moon".

Now it is clear that Johnny wants to go to the moon because of his forgotten memory. He misses his dead wife and subconsciously knows that he wanted to meet her on the moon to see her again.

This is where things really get ethically difficult. Neil and Eva were ordered to make Johnny wish to go to the moon, and they must fulfill that mission. However, if they implant this idea in his memory now, it will mean that he will forget everything he ever had in his life and that fake memories of him going to the moon will overwrite the cherished memories of his marriage with River, for whom he actually wants to go to the moon.

Neil is very reluctant and wants to stop Eva, believing that Johnny would never have wanted to have his memories erased for the wrong reasons, but Eva goes on with the plan and totally messes up Johnny's memories. Suddenly, all the memories are all over the place, which can be seen by pieces of dialogue from the wedding and other important dates being mentioned in out-of-context situations like in the classroom where they had lessons. Eva changes many aspects of Johnny's life, including the survival of his twin brother who is now part of his fake memories.

The memory in which Johnny asks River out on a date in school is removed. Thus, they never meet in the cinema, never get to know each other and don't get married. Johnny, now eager to go to the moon, follows his ambitions until he gets to NASA. 

In a sudden turn of events, River appears at NASA too, having made it into the recruit program just like Johnny. So they actually do meet up again to get to the moon. As the rocket is launched into the sky and both of them hold hands, Johnny, in reality, dies in his bed.

And that's the story in a nutshell. Actually, it is more complex than that if you watch it on youtube. I think the game has such an emotional effect on the player / viewer because of the implied effects that the decisions will have and the importance of memories.

Johnny basically had a good life that only ended sadly because his wife died, and he is filled with regrets because she wanted to give up her life for a lighthouse. He also forgot the first time he met River, which River feels bad about but can't express in words because of her mental problems.

When he is about to die, he only has a very rudimentary desire to go to the moon, and he is not able to comprehend the consequences of his decision to ask for an alteration of his memory. It is only by luck (and maybe the faith he would meet his wife again) that the fake memory actually turns out to give his life the happy ending he hoped for. Otherwise, the story could have gone wrong and all the love that existed between him and his wife would have been like the sound a falling tree makes that nobody is there to hear.

And this is also one of the things the story tells us. Memories are important. What is the meaning of a true love story if there is no one to remember the story? Is it enough that people loved each other? That it was real? It's actually hard to answer. I'm sure many people had great lives and memories and what they did was very meaningful, but when they died, all these things just died with them.

The other big question is: What's the worth of reality compared to a dream? It's questions that were raised also by Inception, Matrix or Total Recall. Where do you draw the line between reality and fiction? When is suffering in real life so hard that you would actually live a dream, even if everything is fake? When is it right to accept the burdens of real life, just to know that what you did all your life is at least what really happened? Would you rather live the perfect life that wasn't real and forget what really was, or would you take the pain and keep your real memories?

Then, one last thing that the game teaches, is to appreciate what we have. And that is maybe the deepest, most touching lesson the game has in store. Even when his wife is gone, it is important that he remembers her until he dies. In the game, he does that in both versions of his memory, his real memories, and later the rewritten memories with a different career.

For a game that has the graphics of what could have been a 90s game, that was a very, very impressive game. I recommend watching PewDiePie's 15-part video series about "To The Moon" to witness the story. It only comes across well if you see it for yourself. The music is also very fitting.

The way we handle money

I nearly missed this month's post, but here it is. I noticed quite a long time ago that people in my country (Germany) are very conservative with their money-saving methods. Note that I am not talking about what to do with the money, just how to save it.
Germans have no problem wasting money on parties, alcohol and cigarettes, which shows that they are not so afraid of having no last resort for bad times. On the other hand, they are absolutely unwilling to take the slightest risk when it comes to money management.

The most popular saving method is the so called "Sparbuch", a bank account with very low interest rates. It was made popular from very childhood on in my case. You get a small booklet with empty pages in it, only the first page shows your current bank balance. You could go to the bank and bring your pocket money there, and thus save money again and again. As a child, it had a good effect on you because you could see your money grow.

Germans are happy when they see that there money is safe in a cruel world full of corrupted and evil people who are after our money (Greeks, Portuguese etc. - just kidding). The people believe that stocks or bonds are only for experts. They especially believe that stocks, in general, are always "risky". They don't put this term "risk" into any relation, it's just a label as in "dead" or "pregnant". You can't be a little dead or a little pregnant, and the same goes for stocks, they assume. They are risky. Period.

They don't know that inflation actually is a risk too. I saw the news today and it was mentioned that prices for common goods like milk, eggs or fruits rose by more than 5 per cent, which means that they same money you had one year ago could buy you a lot more of these things than it does today.

But people here don't see that. They are happy to have gotten 1,25 per cent on their savings, because technically, the numbers on their bank account are bigger than before. They don't realise that the money has less power to buy them stuff.

I also noticed from trading stocks for a over a year that, even with a very conservative strategy, it is quite easy to get a profit of 5 per cent per year, if you use dividends. It doesn't even require any time once you picked your favourite stocks. And it's one of the less risky ways. But then we have the other problem again: Germans like to spend money uselessly. And when it comes to their savings, they will like to get that invested money back to buy a car or a house. Then they are surprised if the stock price is low, and will have lost a lot of money when they get the money back from selling at the "I need my money NOW!" moment.

And now let's go back to the good old Sparbuch. Its money is available all the time, they can take all the money out of the account at any time. Maybe that's why Germans don't like to be adventurous about money.

I am actually quite shocked to see that my intellect has made me capable of beating an average German's annual profit in less than an hour. I don't think of myself as a genius, and sometimes I think that maybe I'm not clever for probably not noticing something (that's the "it's too good to be true" feeling).

Well, it's also good that there are many mindless idiots out there because as long as I can exploit the flaws of the system, there is more money for me to be made... hahaha.