Twilight - My review!

Oh man.... did you see this one coming? I'm actually reviewing twilight - the movie. I never saw that coming, not even this morning, when I went to work. But yes, it's true. Colleagues at work (female colleagues, I might add) talked about it and left me and my (male) boss just watching helplessly and cluelessly, wondering what's so special about a movie that features vegetarian vampires.

I just watched it and I'm still trying to figure out what's so appealing about the movie. What I heard from my colleagues is that the main actor is totally beautiful and that he "sparkles" in the light... and that seems to be 90 % of why that movie is so good. After watching, I must say that I get the same feeling... there is not much else except for the good looks and a lot of make-believe.

To describe the whole movie in one word, I'd have to say it's "thin".... and maybe people who like it would go with "subtle". I would like to point out that I can understand the romance in "Titanic", and I can understand why women like that, but in this movie, I simply can't understand what's so appealing.

The romantic relationship between the main characters is very superficial and not based on anything except good looks and mystery. In fact, the relationship between the average viewer (female, in her 20s, in love with Edward Cullen) is about as deep as the relationship between the main female character and Edward Cullen itself. He looks good, he is mysterious, and most of all, he is unapproachable and untouchable... and women need this sort of distance to fall in love with a guy (if I'm wrong, girls, you correct me, but then you explain the logic behind it). In the first third of the movie, Edward is a person I find very unlikeable as a guy. He gets more female attention than he deserves, and in reality, he would probably turn out to be a bad boyfriend.
The female character (sorry, I don't know her name any more) falls in love for no reason... and don't tell me there are no reasons for falling in love, there are! But in her case, she is just intrigued by him, but shortly after getting to know him, she already feels as if she could sell her soul for him. If she said she was "in love", with butterflies and all, I could at least believe that. But she truely loves him for.... being a rude, complicated, good-looking guy?

Another side of this movie I can't understand is the dramaturgy department. One example: In "Interview with the vampire", the vampires face the choice between turning a person into a vampire (a cursed life of immortality and restlessness) and killing a person. In "Twilight", Edward faces the remorseless choice of either turning his love into a vampire, letting her die, or CURING HER COMPLETELY. Where is the drama in that? Where is the heartbreak? What's so special about it? Why do I hear my colleages say that they cried during this movie? Somebody explain!
What is the sacrifice in there anyway? Edward saves her when he could have sucked out all her blood. Is that proof of his love for her? That's like saying I'm a romantic hero if I don't kill and cook my girlfriend although she tastes really good.... wow....

There is a fragile romance that I can sense somewhere deep below. I try to let myself be touched by it, but it doesn't really happen. There is nothing "out of this earth" about the love relationship. They don't really touch any topics of interest. Neither of them dies in the movie, so there is no particular kind of hurt either. The only kind of hurt seems to come from the fact that the girl eventually faces mortality, although that might take place 60 years or more in the future. Is that supposed to make me feel heartbroken? She can still turn into a vampire, but she might as well have children with him, become sick of him and get divorced (just to explain that so much can still happen).

Apart from that, it's an average movie to me. It has some action sequences that are okay, some mystery elements, the atmosphere is always "twilightish", rarely sunny. It's as if most of the movie takes place in the morning hours, which seems to be on purpose. I like the baseball scene.

What can I say? It's not so bad, but not worth the hype, let alone the tears. I feel that Edward Cullen is just another Brad Pitt kind of person... all the girls talk about him, but in 20 years, when he is married, has children and doesn't look so super good (I mean the actor, not the actual character, of course), the girls will be after someone else then.

This movie was made by women, for women. I can only repeat: I understand Titanic, I don't understand Twilight. It really doesn't seem so romantic to me. If the good looks are all that matters, then I'm really sorry for women because they have proven another prejudice I had against them. I don't even want to start with "logic"... I will just stay with the shallowness of the movie. At least, not every girl loved it to death, that gives me hope.

Rules for parents and children

A couple from Saudi Arabia got into an argument about the name of their newly born child so much that they ended up getting divorced. The father wanted to name the child after his own, recently deceased father, whereas the mother had exactly the same in mind and had already made a promise to her father.

Friends and relatvies tried to conciliate in vain - the divorce was carried out 48 hours after the birth. A national survey recently showed that the divorce rate in Saudi Arabia and the Arab states of the gulf is the highest in the world.

Some of the worst things in the world have happened and will happen in the name of tradition and family. I have already pointed out honour killings and other family-related issues. To me it's still hard to understand how people are so bound by their family that they destroy their current life, consisting of a partner or, as in this case, already their OWN family. Here in the west, it seems to be a very hard to imagine scenario. People here usually feel that they have their own life, and it's part of our way of life to follow our own "pursuit of happiness". If parents disagree, we tend to break bridges with them and feel good about it because we did the right thing. It's unthinkable to give up things that matter to us because of our parents.

The idea behind it is that the parents are a generation of their own. They HAD their good times. They HAD their life with us, it's THEM who decided to put us into this world without asking us, and only put us into this world for the sake of feeling happy themselves. They HAD their time, they HAD their 60s or 70s music that is so "out" after all these years. And most of all, they have each other and that's how they belong to each other, and for us it's time to find someone to belong to. Parents and their children are not supposed to share all their lives together and always agree with each other. Children have to become adults and do their OWN thing.

I think I will go through this drama too. In fact, I am going through it already and have been for a long time, but there is still a lot to come. I am tired of thinking about my parents' mistakes, and I don't feel responsible for them in any way. They have their own stuff to deal with and one day I will be gone and they can take care of themselves. I will not make promises to my parents or argue with my partner because of something my parents say. If my mum says "your girlfriend should [insert suggestion or critisism]", I don't get involved with that. Then I say to her she should rather come up with it towards her and I don't want to deal with it. I don't do stuff just because I get feedback from everywhere.

These idiots from the arabic states (this does not mean that all of them are idiots) should learn this rule:

1. You are responsible for yourself and make your own decisions, so you come first (it has nothing to do with egoism)

2. The person you are going to spend the most time of your life with has to come right after that, and not your parents who are going to die when you are only halfway through life.

3. If you choose to live according to the rules of your family, you live with the consequences. When they are already dead and you wasted all your chances to become happy, you are the one suffering, they already rest in peace.

4. If you decide to get a child, act responsibly! Because as soon as the child is there, the child has to come first - you put it into this world, you have to feed it and raise it.

5. If you are a parent of an adult child, LET GO! You HAD your time. You know what it was like when you were that age. Accept that your child has a right to live a life of one's own. If you didn't want to give up control then you should not have made a child.... bastard!

Argh.... I wish I could just beat up the whole world sometimes... well, in fact, not the whole world. Ugh... it's so sad when prejudices are confirmed so often.

Stone age people

Another massacre happened. The first thing I did when I read the headline was just laugh, because it said "the massacre of the Celebis shocks Turkey". Well, Celebi is a Pokemon. What's wrong with Turkey? They have so much Batman, Celebi, whatever else that has to do with stuff that you only see on the screen.

Anyway, it's a sad topic nevertheless. The only thing I don't really understand is why it's always the Turkish people who go crazy like that. I'm not saying that Germans never do that. It happens. And especially in school massacres, it's almost always Germans. Reminds me of what my brother said to his classmates:" Be careful, school shooters are friendly and quiet, I might turn out to be one of them". And they answered:"No... you're not friendly". Haha.

Okay, back to the topic. I think something is seriously wrong with the Turkish people. Here in Germany, when there are family-related homicides/killings/murders, it's so often people with Turkish background that it is significant. The problem is a mixture of culture, religion and tradition. You cannot get around that. Just take a place on earth where people are so strict they always follow the same traditional, religion-based rules for many, many years. These people are so bound by the traditions and rules that it causes a lot of dissatisfaction. In some way, they do not progress into a civilised community. If there were no more effective ways of killing people, they would still throw stones at each other.
This massacre happened because a man wanted to marry a woman, but the woman's father said no. It's as simple as that. If there was a woman's freedom of choice, it would have been only the woman who had been killed. But if there had not been any stupid traditions at all, nobody would have been killed anyway.

I just don't get it. This whole idea that you can just punish anyone to death who doesn't share someone else's opinion is just so deep in their culture and religion. I wish I could say it differently because I'm a big friend of people. I strongly encourage everyone to be individual and I am for respect among people of all different backgrounds. But it would be naive to just accept everything as "different culture" or "different religion". That's the problem nowadays. You can not be politically correct and at the same time fight for equality among people, justice, fairness, whatever. These things exclude each other.

Somehow it's also strange that these things happen in Turkey. Because this country did at least some things right. It is one of only few islamic countries that are strictly secular. State and religion are two things, although they assume you are muslim unless you tell them otherwise. And of course there are disadvantages for christians, etc. But at least they understood something.

Well... I'm not sure if anything is going to change. It might as well go on like that in some countries. Resistance against change is a great source of evil sometimes. We should know better, but we don't... or maybe they don't. I'm just glad as long as I don't come across people in my country where the boyfriend says "don't look at my woman" if I only serve her in customer service etc.

My WTF moment this month

Damn... whenever you think you know everything, something new comes up.



The Marit story seemed finished to me. But I think it's not. Today my online friend Anouk told me she met Marit and they even talked about me. I don't use this combination of keys a lot, but: ?!?!?!?!

It's like: What?! Cool. And the best thing is... no wait, I will just post it here:

we talked about you ;) she remembered you and said you were "such a nice guy"

Then Anouk also said that people at the concert asked Marit to sing at their wedding, and that they met through her. When I heard that, it gave me a feeling of satisfaction, because that was all I had left to say since I met Marit in 2005.

I don't know really... I mean, it's still true that I am not the biggest fan of her current music, I won't lie about that. But you know... sometimes someone changes your life and you don't totally let go of remembering that person. I think I will always stick around somehow. Not as a hardcore fan, maybe not as a "fan" anyway, but at least I will enjoy to hear what's she's been up to, what kind of countries she conquered, all that stuff.

Yeah... hm... okay... I will accept the inspiration I got from this. And it makes me remember the good times I had with Marit. Damn, I'm talking like she's an old friend of mine.

So guys, maybe that's it for this month, see you next time, just let the old man is shed a tear of nostalgia now. *puts on his cowboy head and walks towards the digital sunset*

No more Marit Larsen

I want to tell you a story about Hannover. It's a city in which about half a million of the more than 80 million Germans live. This place, of all the big cities in Germany, is the one that's closest to the city I live in.
Something very strange happened. If you were a musician and were to choose three cities to visit in one country, what would you do? I think I would go to the most crowded cities, or choose cities that are spread throughout the country.
On Saturday I found out that Marit Larsen played in Hannover. I found that out just 48 hours after she played. And that made me sad. When I last checked her message board, it said that she was in the Netherlands. It may surprise you, but I never thought that Jason Mraz and Marit would come to Germany anyway. Jason was never famous until maybe last summer, as far as I can recall. And Marit, well, she never made it here really, and I was her biggest German fan once.
But there is more to it. I was disappointed. You know, I was one of the five people who kept the message boards alive when things were really bad.... a long, long time ago. It was so bad that not even "The Marit" herself let anyone know what was going on. For so many months. And I kept checking the boards again and again. But at some point recently, I gave up.
I thought if I check every couple of months, it's enough. But it's not enough. It's too much asked to post a topic like "tour dates" on the boards. And I also didn't notice that she updates her myspace like crazy.... last time I checked it was just her music there and some "Under the surface" design. As far as I remember.
When you are so used to someone not really communicating, you don't even expect anything any more. But that day, I could have been in Hannover, at my door step. But I wasn't. Because I simply didn't know.

You could say that I was a bad fan, that I was not loyal enough to "keep checking", or that I should already be thankful for what I got from her. But I'm asking you: How thankful can one be? How many years would I go on listening to music I don't like any more because it's so different from the music I heard in the beginning? How many years do I put up with a lack of information from my long ago favourite artist? It can't go on forever.

It's not that I was not thankful. The sad thing is just that it's now past. All the good things that happened, they happened. And from now on I'm just someone who will hear about Marit by accident. Maybe when other people mention her, when she's really famous here one day. I was the one who wished I could keep this special thing linked to the present, you know. To be able to say that it was the line that followed through my life from one point onwards. But it's one thing that starts and stops again.

There is another gig in Leipzig, also Germany. and there are still tickets available. But after not going to Hannover, I don't even feel willing enough to go further to see her. It's not only because of disappointment, it's also because of the fact that there is no more reason for me to go. I simply don't like her music any more. I listened to her new songs exactly once.... once per song. There were only few that could stick out, but it was not strong enough to give it another go yet. And why give it another chance if I would not give it another chance if it was a different artist?

I lied to myself anyway. The best thing was "Don't say you love me". It was a time that fills my heart with nostalgia. The song itself, the Pokemon movie, all these little things. After that, I already notice how it was a decline. The first time I listened to "The big room", I was actually disappointed. Only after some time I accepted it as a worthy follower of the previous album. Under the Surface was no big surprise, it was again further away from what I wanted. And so it went on and on. The only difference was that there were always SOME songs to like. Just like Depeche Mode basically. Or Pet Shop Boys. Or New Order.... there is always SOME stuff that's good.

1999 until 2009, I suppose, that's what I can say here. I no longer consider myself a Marit fan. I have to be honest about that. If I was a fan, I would go to the concert. But I can not run after my promises of yesterday, it would be childish. The voice in me that says "you have to go to the concert" is the voice that once said that I will never get tired of her. I didn't change... she changed too much.

I would have taken Hannover as a sign from above.... as in "it's your door step, you wanted it, now you go there". But since I never got a wake up call for that, I take it as a sign to let things go. That's the small difference between two possible endings. Because it was supposed to end anyway.

If anyone reminds me, I will listen to her next songs whenever they come. May it be in 2011, 2013, whenever. Every 2 or 3 years there might be something. But, as I also fear, she is the kind of person who would get a baby, not tell anyone about it, and disappear forever. She's that kind of person you can never fully understand.

I am glad for the good times I had because of her, and all that she changed in my life that's so irreversible. I'm just saying that I have to live in the present, too. It's like the 80s.... they were good but they had to die, too.

Now I have perhaps no more bands to follow. Marit is no more, New Order broke up again, Depeche Mode don't really come up with anything new (and they got worse last time), and all the others are stuck in the 80s anyway. From now on I only like individual songs, not artists or bands.

If she ever comes back, I will be there....

The mandatory post for this month

Hello to all my readers. I'm glad some people read this blog, thank you very much.

Not much is going on though, so I will keep this short. I have to write anyway because I have this neurosis that tells me to update every month of the year (because it would drive me crazy if there was one month missing in the list of months that I posted in).

I gained weight, several kilos. When Ira is back home again after three months of being here, I will do some very strict diet. Some of my pants hardly fit, and I also feel thicker. I have to do something but it's okay, I once lost 30 kilos and I can lose 10 or 15 kilos again if I want to. It's all a question of will, and I can force myself if I want to.

The winter here is also not so bad. It's not as romantic-looking as in good old Norway (jealous looks at Desi's blog) but we have a lot of snow compared to the years before (at least in my memory). I had hoped Ira would see some snow, and there have been several occasions, so we did the usual stuff like throwing snow balls or building a snow man. What we didn't do yet was sliding down a hill or doing this "snow angels" stuff. Haha.

Winter is not my favourite season, but it's close. Autumn comes first. Spring is also okay. And summer I really don't like much except for the times when I'm on holidays (but that's a lame excuse for liking a season).

I'm also at another turning point (yet again). Do I pick up doing physical excercises again? Do I lose weight again? Do I get a new hair cut? Do I colour my hair? What about jobs?

Will see... will see soon.

It's been a long time (1999-2009)

There are some anniversaries to celebrate. First of all, one of the cutest, nicest girls celebrated her birthday recently and became 10 years old. Happy birthday again to you! Don't worry, you will get a cat one day, but keep in mind that cats also mean work.

I also had my birthday this month and I got a new electric shaver. The last one I got 10 years ago! Wow, that is already hard to believe. It helped me look acceptable from age 16 until now. Whenever I had to look neat, whether it's in job interviews, when meeting important people or just whenever I had to take that whole stuff off my face, I could trust my Braun shaver. Now I send it into retirement. It already started hurting my face, maybe because it was so overused.

The new one is the Braun CruZer² - yeah, that sounds stylish, right? And I hope this CruZer² can last for 10 years just like my old shaver. When I compare the both of them, it's already obvious on the outside that they come from different ages. My old shaver looks very boring, like an ordinary, mid-90s cellphone. A big black block without any aesthetic curves or shapes. The new one has those curves, and also a nice design, colours (orange for example) and cool stuff on it. Interesting extras. I wonder how these shaving things look in another 10 years. Maybe totally futuristic.

I often make a comparison to 10 years ago, no matter which year I'm in. 1999 was not the best year for me (and others), so I hope 2009 does not become this bizarre twin of 1999. It can even be a not so special year. Just normal would be okay. Maybe some things could go right instead of wrong, I wouldn't mind.

I try not to feel too bad. There are things to appreciate, things to enjoy. Like cooking. Or being in a nice relationship.

Top 7 Health Myths

It's a new year and I've been wanting to do this for a long time, so let's get straight to business. Here are my personal top 7 health myths. Why exactly seven of them? Because I only chose the ones that I consider most controversial, either because of the time they have been myths or because of the fact that even the media have abused (or still do misuse) them in a bad way.

7. You can leave the skin on when eating potatoes

This one has been a topic in a show last year, and they made a big deal out of how dangerous potato skin really is. They said that in the middle age, people knew how much poison there is in the skin, but people nowadays forget. When I heard this, I read about it again to make sure, and yes: Potato skin is dangerous and people who eat it a lot, especially children, can get in big trouble. Even death is possible, but of course not necessary.
The worst thing, though, is that I also saw the opposite claim on tv once. In a cooking show, a chef said:"You can keep the skin, it's okay". It was not a private station, it was a public-law station! They collect our money and not only do they broadcast crappy movies, they also don't even get the facts right! Shame on you!

6. High heeled shoes are good for women

My brother told me that, a couple of days ago, there was an infotainment show that claimed that these shoes are good for women. Why? Because, as they said, the different kind of walking strengthens a woman's hips and makes her get better orgasms. Another thing is that, which can be admitted is true, high heeled shoes give a woman a different stance. It's a more attractive way of moving and makes the woman look more approachable.
The downside is also worth mentioning: There are fibres in the body that get shortened by constantly walking with these shoes. Women who only walk around like this can no longer stretch their feet in all directions and get serious problems. But hey, why would anyone bring that up if the key to happiness, sexual power and superiority over other women is so alluring?

5. Sex is healthy (subliminal message: have as much sex as possible with as many people as possible)

364 days of the year, the media support sex, cheating, the attraction of things that are forbidden, free love and the idea that bad guys are so sexy. One day of the year, I believe it's the first of December, it's world Aids day.
Yes, sex as such is healthy, probably because it's one of the basic things that are put into the human instincts. The biological purpose is evident. But that does not mean that we need a society where everyone does it with everyone else. Not only are there enough diseases (that you can protect yourself from, sure), there are also moral standards. But it's hard to define them because nobody recognises them as binding. But that doesn't mean that the opposite has to happen.
Too much sex can also lead to addiction, and too much focus on sex can result in disappointment in a relationship, and eventually it can also lead to people cheating, which destroys the whole relationship. If sex is so important nowadays, would it be wrong to make it partly responsible for the high divorce rate?

4. Red wine is healthy

This is a myth that has been going back and forth. First people claim wine is healthy, then they take it back, then they say it's healthy again. The truth is: A certain ingredient in the red wine is healthy. But it's not the alcohol. It's an ingredient that appears in many red, dark drinks. There are juices that have the same effect. And that should be all there is to say. Alcohol may have positive effects, but it's addictive, has unhealthy side effects and has done a lot of damage to our society. We don't need it. Whoever wants to drink once in a while, go ahead, but you define what "once in a while" means.

3. Kissing is healthy and serves as an oral vaccination

While kissing as such, just like sex, is again healthy for reasons we can understand, it doesn't take any experience in kissing to tell that the statement mentioned above can't be right in general. Of course, if your immune system is perfect, you're doing sports, take cold showers, and have no stress in your life, then I agree that kissing a person with a slight cold might even give you a vaccination this way.
But in general, if you are an ordinary person, then I highly doubt there is this effect. I really doubt it. Isn't it so obvious? Look: You are on the bus, everyone is coughing and sneezing, you barely even get in contact with them. You even try to hold your breath and turn away in disgust, yet you still end up with a cold. Is anyone trying to tell me that, if I were to run towards them and kiss each of them passionately, it would save me from falling sick? Hell no... if little contact causes disease, then intimate contact surely causes a higher risk of falling sick!

2. Cold weather does not cause colds

The sentence itself already sounds quite absurd, doesn't it? Well, the answer to the myth is not that the myth is really wrong. The answer is that some scientists are really picky with their explanations. They say: You get cold, your immune system gets weak AND people spend a lot of time in rooms together, as opposed to the situation during the rest of the year. Therefore, you have a higher probability of falling sick.
Now here is my explanation: Cold weather weakens the immune system, you get the germs from wherever you will get them during the whole year, you fall sick, therefore the cold weather is responsible for your disease, dammit!
Why is there even questioning about it? I fall sick in winter at least once, but hardly at all during the rest of the year. Does anyone tell me it's not the fault of the weather? That's like saying it's not the man who pulls the trigger, it's the bullet that murders. Yes, it is the cold weather! Live with it!

And now, the worst of all...
1. Vitamin C saves you from catching a cold

This is the myth I have fallen for my entire life until 2008. I already understood a while ago that it will probably not help to consume vitamin C when I am already sick. But it's even worse. Not only does vitamin C not increase the recovery time during a cold. It also doesn't help at all to prevent you from having a cold. What I mean is: If you consume extra vitamin C. Of course you need vitamin C. But you don't need to eat oranges and other stuff like crazy. It has no purpose.

Scientists found out that only people who do extreme sports benefit from EXTRA vitamin C. The rest can eat tons of it or just the standard dose. If you want to save yourself from catching a cold, the only possibility is to isolate yourself from everyone who is a threat. And that can be almost everyone!
And just to explain to you what this whole vitamin C issue means: There is vitamin C in onions. Paprika. Horseradish. You don't need lemons. Vitamin C is in whatever is green or yellow or red. Eat healthy and you are going to be okay. If you like lemons or oranges, go ahead. But forget the extra dose, you will not be safe.

Thanks for reading, and now I hope all of you are wiser. See you next time when a scientist makes a new thesis or cowardly takes back an old one.

The year 2008

It's time for the usual end of year review. 2008 is over and it's not so easy to put into words about how I feel. Somehow it wasn't the worst that could have happened, but I still feel devastated somehow.

It was a year without any big tragedies for me. The last remaining grandparent I had died, but that was the only personal loss and not even something I really felt so sad about because it came as expected. All in all, you could say that I was not haunted by the terrible things others had to go through.

Then there is another aspect of the year that expressed itself in a way that the year went by very quickly. Not quickly as in "wow, how did this year pass so quickly again". Literally instead. There was a couple of months of unemployment here, a couple of weeks there, and once again, and in total I think I spent about 5 months at home due to this. So there was a part of the year that was kind of easy going, nothing special, just me staying at home and trying not to be too negative about not working.

I will just talk things through in order now: In January, the year started just like the year before had ended, with me pickung up the same job at the same company again. It seemed to go on like this until perhaps Easter, but instead, the job ended after, I think, not even 2 weeks. It was not my fault, just the company having financial problems. I also didn't really feel too bad about it because it was just a job and I had other things to take care of. But already at that point, I realised how the stress got to me and I was thankful for every break I could get (which would be the case several times during the year).

The first shock of the year came right then, though, and that was that a school in Singapore that offered a job training closed down the job training. It had been the one option I had decided to go for and put all my hopes into it. It was the first big disappointment that year, and one thing that still makes me angry.... Anger, by the way, could be called the third aspect of this year.

I was stressed, a nervous wreck, and had no idea what to do at that point. It seemed like all my plans just disappeared. So I had to start all over and I felt depressed because I thought it was already too late to apply for ANY job training.

Then came a phase of applications for various job trainings. It was the longest time of unemployment this year, but also a time I enjoyed staying at home because I didn't need any more stress. I was lucky enough to be invited to two interviews, and did an internship in one of them. It went well, but I don't like to look back to this company any more because I kind of lost my face. I made an insecure impression from the beginning and never really got a better reputation than that. But at least they had some sort of family atmosphere.

I could have joined this company though, and I was offered to join, but I made the biggest mistake that year, and one of the biggest in my whole life. Instead of listening to myself (going for the safest option: a company I already had an internship for) I chose to work for the other company I had only visited once. The reason was that many people said it was the better kind of job training: More money, more ambitions, more chances, everything is better. It was not like I did not make a decision myself, but how I made the decision was wrong. I told myself to go against my own principles: "Don't always make safe decisions only. Dare to be brave. Risk something once. Do it for your career. Don't make decisons based on convenience only". But the hesitation within me was not out of laziness or cowardness, it was the lifelong experience I should have listened to.

When I joined the company, I already noticed in the first week that I got myself into something bad. When I worked there, I felt so out of place and clumsy and felt like I was not fitting in there. There was no way for me not to feel embarrassed and insecure once more. I tried to shake of this habit of making an insecure impression, but it was impossible because I had no idea about what I was doing. Then I also got into trouble with one colleague, and in the end I "was left" out of the company because I was never accepted. The situation was really, really bad.

After that came another short period of unemployment, then a job at an agency I am currently still working for, and it's a job I like so far, but I also know I can't stay there because it's not always going to be as easy as it's now. And they also don't have any job trainings to offer to me. It's just not the right thing. But the main problem for me at the moment is that I don't know how to get rid of the things that 2008 brought to me.

When I think about the future, I get this feeling that I will forget 2008 because, though it was full of disappointment and also lots of free time I could enjoy, it was not really significant. I am afraid of 2009. I have always been afraid of it, and maybe it's superstition because 1999 was already bad. I always thought it would either be another best or worst year of my life.

At the moment I face an unclear future, and the worst thing are the bad feelings. On the one hand anger, regret , hate and unforgiveness towards myself and others, on the other hand hopelessness, a lack of ideas and the feeling that my story is written already... a story of someone who isn't able to get anywhere. I can't listen to people saying that nothing is decided. Because a lot of it is decided already. My CV is written to the point where I am now. I am that old, and I've lost that much time. I still have a chance, right. But I don't know as what. And once I lose another year, I lose even more chances. At the moment I am running out of things to do. I don't even know what's right for me.

2008 seems to only be the beginning of something. I must say that it was the first time in several, if not many years that I can not really call it a good year. I think between 2002 and 2007, all the years were at least mixed with lots of good things to look back to. I either completed a school year successfully or had a special time somewhere. But this year I can not really say that it felt that way. I don't even care about the stuff like "I'm wiser now" etc. It doesn't satisfy me. 2008 was not totally bad, the worst is yet to come (I feel/fear), but it made me feel bad towards the end of it.

I feel unbalanced lately, with a tendency of feel furious and sometimes deeply depressed. I feel depressed during Christmas for reasons unrelated to Christmas. I don't feel unhappy because everyone else is happy, I feel unhappy because I am not over 2008... and won't be for a long time.

A quantum of Bond

Today I found a short article that went like "ex Bond girl murdered". In the end it turned out that it was a woman that played in a Bond movie, yes. But to say that she acted "alongside Roger Moore" is an exaggeration. She is credited as "girls" together with about 20 other actresses who were only "girls" and not even really got any character names in the movie. It's not even so likely that the Bond character had eye contact with her in the movie.

So that's what you call a Bond girl. And it's the same thing as something else I read years ago. It was something about a Bond girl having been a man once in her life. A myth that turned out to be true, but it's not like anyone would think, a Bond girl having been a man having had sex with Bond. No, it's just one of the many girls that pose with Bond, are seen briefly, and that's it. No big deal about it.

The only strange thing is that these stories only happen to Bond movies that Roger Moore played in. What a poor guy.

There's also something about youtube I want to mention... it got worse again. Now they did what I had hoped they would never do. They fucked up their search function. It used to be good the way it was: You enter key words, you get precise results. If you entered very specific key words, you only got results with the key words you used. If you wanted a rather open search, you could still enter less key words, and even flip names around (Bond James for example) and still get satisfying results. There was nothing wrong with it. But now the search function has the same problem that search engines have. They search for everything now. When searching for James Bond (JUST an example) you also get all the James Smiths, James Lasts, John Bond etc. Why? Why can't they leave it the way it was.
Now in order to do search the old way, I first have to select an option. But why do I need to do that? I think that people nowadays are skilled enough with computers, they can do intuitive searching and find what they are looking for. Just give them the right options.

So sad....

PS: There was once a scene in a Bond movie where a mourning widow attacked Bond, and the widow turned out to be a guy in the end. Does that count as a Bond girl too?

Surgeons transplant a piece of dog shit into a journalist's head and throw the brain away

The following article is from http://www.msn.de/





Surgeons engraft an entire face

Micro surgeons in the USA have, for the first time in the world's history, transplanted an almost entire face [...] 80 per cent of the face was replaced [...]not included were only the forehead, the eyelids, the lower lip and the chin.

You are now wondering what's so wrong. I know what you are thinking, and you are right: I am complaining about the fact that the headline says "entire face" and in the end it's only one of the stupid ways to seduce a reader into reading more. In the end, it's only "almost" an entire face. When you think of a face and substract all the things mentioned above, what you have is by far not a real face, it's more like a ghost/alien face.

But it's more than that.... and you want to know why? Well, I will try to explain what I hate about this sort of thing... and it not only goes for surgery, it goes for global warming and lots of other things. Maybe you will understand when I use this example (fictional):

January 5 2010: Surgeons transplant a whole face! [...] the only facial features not transplanted were forehead, eyelids and chin.

May 22 2012: Surgeons transplant an entire face! [...] the only parts that were not transplanted were: forehead and chin. It was the first time that a face was transplanted like this!

December 5 2015: Almost dead person receives a brand new face! [...] The face was complete. Only the chin was not included in the package.

June 30 2020: Big sensation: Patient receives an entire face from a dead person! It was the first time that a complete face with all facial features was moved from one body to another. It has never happened before in the history of the world!

This is how it goes... and when I mentioned global warming, it's the same thing: Scientists have found out that global warming is caused by humans... they are 60 per cent sure. Now they are 64 per cent sure. Now they are 68 per cent sure. Now they have new evidence, and now more, and more again, and yet again, and now they are totally sure, and now suddenly it's not the humans' fault, and now it is again, and of course it's the first time in history! Wow!

I'm going to write another entry soon, this time about science myths. I'm fed up with these things so I have to let them out.

No, not this...

Oh no... please no. Youtube did it. The same thing that Myspace did. This stupid "do you want to change the language" thing. When Myspace did it, it never stopped, it was as if everytime I went to Myspace, they asked me if I wanted to change the language from English to German. Why do they do that? It's okay once, but they do it all the time. Why? And now Youtube does it too.

So as you can see here, I'm about to watch a video. It has already been fully loaded, I just pressed "pause" because I can't stand this whole watching-waiting-watching-waiting routine. But I have this unsatisfying thing at the top of the page, I don't need this, it's already a long enough way from the comments up to the top where I can access my account, for example. So I press "abort" because I really don't need Youtube to be German, I got used to the way it is and don't want to get used to strange translations of well-known terms.

What? Why is the video loading again? It reloaded the whole page? Why? Why couldn't they make it like the "more info" button on the side of the video, where it just pops up and out when you wanna read more? Why does it mess with me here? Argh... and it always keeps happening, I don't want it in German, leave me alone!

It's the same thing like this annoying paper clip from Word:
"It looks like you are trying to write a letter. Can I help you?"
"No, thanks"
"It looks like you are trying to write a letter. Can I help you?"
"No, I didn't change my mind"
"It looks like you are trying to write a letter. Can I help you?"
"FUCK YOU!!!!!!!!"

Why do good things always have to change? Just like the websites that eventually get crowded with advertisements. Sometimes it's so bugged that the advertisements can't be clicked away so you can't even watch the video any more. Not on youtube, but elsewhere... well, until youtube does it too. They already use a lot of advertising.

Look at another mistake I found:

Don't mind that you can't read it, you don't know what it says anyway. It says: "as one of the most famous stars, Freddy Mercury 19 died of AIDS". Freddy Mercury 19? Is he a comet?

AND WHY DOES BLOGGER HAVE PROBLEMS TOO? Argh...

Enough for today. Maybe I will post something else soon.

Batman, Sex, Breasts and Ohhhhh God!!!!!!!

1. A Turkish city is trying to go to court against Batman. The reason? The city is called "Batman" and they claim that the name of the super hero was stolen from them. How pathetic. Batman is even an English word with its own meaning. Just a publicity thing, no meaning behind it. I once even knew a Turkish guy with a LAST NAME Batman! What is he going to do? I hope not the same as Bully and all these other idiots.

2.There was an article about Lewis Hamilton's team, McLaren. The article said that McLaren had been waiting for a title since 1998. WRONG! Very WRONG! I don't understand what they are saying. There are two titles in Formula 1. The constructor's championship and the driver's championship.

This year, McLaren only won the driver's championship (Hamilton's title). In 1998 AND 1999, Mclaren also won that title with Mika Hakkinen.

In 1998, they won the constructor's title also. But they didn't win it the year after. Just like they didn't win it in 2008.

Therefore: If you write about McLaren having waited since 1998, it makes no sense. Because you either say they ARE still waiting (because they have not won the constructor's title since 1999 until today!) or you say: They have been waiting since 1999. Because that was their last Driver's title. But you can't mix apples and oranges by saying "they had not won a constructor's championship since 1998, but now thankfully they won the DRIVER's championship this year". That's like forgetting about the title in 1999. Most illogical. And it shows again that the knowledge of a Formula 1 fan is worth more than the knowledge of someone who gets paid for knowing this. What an unfair world. If I was a marketing fan or a businessman fan (if that ever exists), would it be normal if I knew more than the people in the marketing and the stock market? No, makes no sense at all, bullshit!

3. Wow... should I skip this? Yes, I think none of my readers knows what an advent calendar is. No, I will write it here:

Okay, an advent calendar is a sort of calendar you put on a wall, like an ordinary calendar. And for every day between the 1st of December and Christmas, there is a small "door" that you can open with chocolate in it. There are different types of calendars, mostly they show a picture of a Christmas scenery full of people ice skating, going to the markets, celebrating, drinking whine, etc. And in this particular calendar here, there was a BIG scandal because it showed a mass murderer. I don't see what's so shocking about it though because this guy killed people 90 years ago! 90! I think everyone who was alive back then is dead now, and also everyone who was ever a victim's child. How can you call that shocking? Or a scandal. Bullshit again.

4. Now maybe to the worst. There is a new phenomenon with online articles. They have been using phrases like "Shock" or "Terrible" but now they are going one step further by putting stuff on the screen like "Oh God!". And I think that's very distasteful.
They have even opened a series, it seems. First there was this "Oh God! Sex can make you feel depressed" and now there is "Oh God! Coffee lets breasts shrink".



The "Oh God!" series starts off as "assholy" as it could. It says in the headline that it can cause depression. But only when you already enter the article in shock and terrible fear of never being happy again, you realise that only CYBER sex can cause depression. Whatever cyber sex is defined as, I already don't care while realising that the whole article was only supposed to get my attention.

By the way. just below the headline it says "the whole truth". That's either a lie because the above statement is wrong, or it's like "you know what, what we just said is bullshit, just read on and see what we are really trying to say".

A little different is the next "Oh God!" article, because at least it doesn't promise more than it keeps.

The headline says what the article follows. And now all the girls reading this (but it won't be many) will probably have their alarm bells ringing like crazy. Three cups of coffee a day can cause the breasts to grow smaller. Yeah. Big shock. I now know why I have never drunk even one cup of coffee in my life. Because:

-if female breasts + coffee = smaller breasts

then similar stuff will happen to guys. Because males also have sexual organs, they are just a little different, but the same rules apply to them. The only thing about this is that scientists first have to prove the obvious before we all know it.

By the way, notice how every article about breasts, no matter if it's medical or just for shock, always uses naked breasts to support the views and clicks? Sooner or later I will surely be able to show you an article about breast cancer, and they will joyfully use inappropriate pictures there to exploit the serious topic.

I already hate the "Oh God!" series. But they are not going to stop until they have found something new. Maybe in 5 years, it will be the "Shit your pants!" phrase instead.

Tired mind, unused body

What a day. Many things happened although or because I spend most of the time at the computer, hours and hours of it. I almost cried once, felt angry, felt discouraged, felt helpless, and now I feel tired. And everything is connected. Whatever you want to be towards a person, it has to stay in balance and go back and forth between them. If it's missing on one side, how can it come from the other side?

First I want to purge my soul with the usual rant about stuff in the media. I once mentioned this Bully guy, the comedian who went to court because a computer game carries the same name that he uses for himself. Yesterday I read he lost, which is what I expected and hoped for. Was there nobody of his rich friends who saw that coming? Well, I'm not going to to to court against all the love song writers even if I call myself Mr. Love.

There was a news article about Kim Jong Il. First it made a very neutral impression, they're wondering what's up with him. Some pictures showed him obviously watching a football match, but there seem to be no pictures with him AND the match in one picture, so people suspect the pictures are old ones. Some hours later, the headline suddenly says "new pictures: is Kim Jong Il dead?". A more drastic headline, but the article is still the same. "Dead" is a good word. If only there were rumours about him having cut off his head, that would be much better for them.

Before the last Formula 1 race of the season, they showed some clips on tv about other events when the last race of the season brought the decision. And there was once when the guy on tv said "Fuji, Japan". That made my blood boil because it was not Fuji in 1990, it was Suzuka. Dammit! Yes, they were right about Fuji 1976, and they even got it that it was Adelaide in 1994 and not Melbourne, but why this silly mistake? Fuji was in the calendar in 1976 and 1977, but after that no more until 2007. It has been only two seasons with Fuji being back, and they already can't remember Suzuka any more?
Why do these people get a job that broadcasts Formula 1? I was 7 years old when the incident at Suzuka was, and even I know that it was there. I didn't even watch the races back then. Why do I know more than these people? Does it mean I am also allowed to know less about my job? I don't think so.
There is also no excuse, even if the mistake is small. RTL has been televising F1 since at least 1992, that's the earliest cassette I have seen. They have to know their facts. But hardly one race passes where I don't get angry at someone's unqualified comments. And I also see things on the tv screen a lot earlier than they realise it in their seats.

So Hamilton is world champion unless he gets disqualified in the next couple of minutes. You never know. The big loser this year was the FIA with its decisions to penalize everyone for every mistake. In 1989, 1990 and 1994, the world championships were decided by accidents. Nowadays, if that happens the driver who is responsible will be disqualified and lose all points of the season, as happened in 1997. But what I don't like is where they draw the line. Every contact that leads to a spin is already worth an investigation. And I can tell you, in the 90s there were no display flashes saying "incident involving car x is being investigated". It's a shame.
Apart from that, it was quite a nice season. I still fell asleep during some races, but some others were great. The new race tracks were all great, and the final lap of the final race decided who won. It was good. Now I have to wait until March, I guess, before I see another race. I wonder what else I will know then that I don't know now.

I don't know what else to say now. I don't feel very confident about going to work tomorrow although I said to myself on Friday that it might be the best job I had so far. I just don't have so much confidence at the moment. I wish I could have some days off again and just retreat from everything... and with everything, I probably mean how it feels at the moment.

When scientists start thinking...

Melting polar caps: Man is convictable

A study provides new evidence that only man can be responsible for the rising temperature.

Hey, that sounds good. So finally scientists can PROVE that it is caused by humans, and not only claim it as before?

"The rise of temperature in the arctic and antarctic in the last few decades COULD directly be linked with human activities..."

Oh, guess not. Just the 10000000000000000000000th attempt to draw our attention to the subject of climatic change, and the 10000000000000000000000000000000000000th scientist who claims to PROVE that it's true. There is one thing I don't get: Scientists always insist that something is not true until you can prove it. That's why many of them laugh at religion. But why is it that there is so much about "facts" and "proof" when it comes to global warming if there is yet no actual evidence that the USA would acknowledge?

I once learned at school that 25% of the world's energy is consumed by the USA, while they only have a very small percentage of the world's population. So I guess it would help a lot if they changed something. But to my astonishment, they are the ones who ignore it the most. And that not only goes for their presidents, it also goes for the public. While it is commonly accepted here that global warming is man-made, the American media still argue about this a lot and even do satire shows about paranoid scientists who think they know what global warming comes from. Then they use arguments like "in [place in America] it's the coldest winter since 1855, so you're telling me we have global warming?". So yeah, you can tell nobody there is impressed.

If only this whole "proof" thing would stop. You know, I never hear anything new. It never progresses. Everytime there is something about global warming, it's this "now we have proof" thing. It always deals with KNOWING that it's caused by man. But while we can accept that it probably IS caused by us, we are still waiting for people to deliver rock-solid proof. Proof. Not assumptions. Because we need this before it's too late. And even then these guys will doubt it over there.

The media are going to keep milking this cow until nobody cares. And eventually, when one scientist is able to prove that global warming is caused by humans, it's either so damn obvious that it doesn't matter any more, or nobody will care because until then there will be more dramatic news about "hey, we got proof. You know, it COULD be caused by humans, we have just concluded that in our endless wisdom".

The worst rip-off I have ever seen

RTL is probably the one tv station that is unbearable at the moment. I have already mentioned to you RTLnow, the stupid internet service that allows you to watch the tv content for money in case you don't have the time to watch tv but enough money to watch anything anytime.

There was another commercial on tv about it now, and it is worse than ever. The new punchline goes like "click on it, choose it, watch it" and conveys the idea that it's just as easy as it sounds. It welcomes and invites you to take it literally. Just click yourself there, choose your show, watch it. The video will pop up.
I checked again in case I mistook it, but it's still the same. You need an account, you need to pay for it, you need to be registered. Does any of this spell "spontaneous" on it? I don't see that.

But there was something yesterday that was worse. While watching House M.D. (medical detective or whatever you English speakers need that for), there was a commercial for a tv episode of a show that has been on for 12 years. It's some kind of highway police, a German show. It's the most stereotype action show for German beer drinkers with no intellect. In every episode, cars explode in the most unrealistic way, and the only thing that changes is the angle in which the cars fly, the objects they fly over and some totally highway-unrelated topic like kindergarten kidnapping.
But this time, they showed a plot that gave me a dejavu feeling. It goes like this: There is a cop who wakes up in the dark, he lights up his sight with a lighter, then he realises he is in some kind of box or coffin. And then he screams and feels lost, and on top of all, his very own colleague can see him on a screen and wants to find him of course. Where have we seen ALL of this before? CSI.

I mean, it's not like this "woman gets kidnapped and guy has to rescue her" thing. Or this "scientist travels into a different world/time by accident" or "girl wakes up in the body of her mother/her 30 year old self". No... you can't just counterfeit everything. That's like me making a movie about a guy who travels from one country to the next, but while he is on the plane, there is a revolution in his country and he loses his nationality, therefore has to stay within the airport. Then he meets this woman and... oh well, I call this movie: "I wait". Great thing, huh?

Well, just now I went to RTL.de to complain about the RTLnow thing. That was something I have been wanting to do ever since I got fooled. But the funny thing is, it's totally hard to contact them. I tried going to "contact". It first promises you that you can give RTL your ideas and questions, but in the end they say "fuck you" by only connecting you to a FAQ (=fuck) section. After that, I have to click myself around the world only to send a message to some question service that's not even related to the sort of question I have. But then I don't care because if their internet service is so bad, then the people who answer questions about the weather service have to deal with my critisism. Then it's not my fault. Now I hope they got it because after I clicked "send" I only saw a white screen with the words "close window". Is that a good sign at all?

Anyway, it's interesting how they don't seem to care. Maybe they know it's just for fooling people. It's like some of the governments in this world. Pretend to be good, act like you encourage people to lead a luxorious life, but just keep lying and also don't offer any platform to discuss it.

We have heard it before

Two headlines that I have read or heard of before in almost the same way:

1. Dog saves family from fire
2. Financial expert (or anyone else) compares bank managers (or anyone else) with Jews (other minorities; Hitler, other dictators)

The first one was what I saw on the news. Actually, what was presented as yet another heroic story of a dog barking a family awake that was almost getting too warm in the fire at night turned out to be quite lame. The family had two dogs. One dog ran out of the house with the family that woke up by themselves (probably because of something that went like "honey, isn't it totally warm in here?") while the other dog refused to leave the house because some little kitten were still in there and the dog didn't want to leave them alone. All were rescued in the end. But I don't see what's so heroic about them. Sure, it's unusual, but it's still natural because also a mother would rather die with her baby in the flames than save herself for her husband, even if the situation is hopeless.

Well, I have nothing against the dog's fame, it's just that this story isn't new. The better version of the story is that the dog wakes up the family (and just let me ask you, why is it that family always need a dog to save them? Are they too drunk to wake up? Okay, I know, the smoke). It is this specific story that has taken place in several countries, and the news never fail to let us know about each of them.

The second story... ugh... don't get me started. It's always the same, especially in my country with its history. There are things you just CAN'T say. The most dangerous thing to say in front of a CAMERA is to say:"Haven't we had that before, about 60 years ago?". That's a reference to our Nazi time and usually means that someone shows the same behaviour as Hitler. Most famously, someone once compared George W. Bush and Hitler that way. Even though you might agree with this, the person who said this had to give up her position in our government.
It goes like this all the time, and I wonder how people can become politicians, financial experts or other types of "never have to work again after this" and still make the same stupid mistakes. You might as well erase "Jews" or "Hitler" from your vocabulary because as soon as you make comparisons, someone feels terribly pissed. It also goes internationally, someone makes a stupid drawing of a religious leader, and suddenly all the followers go crazy, even if they usually only look down ashamed and don't say a word when someone blows himself up on their behalf.

What do we learn: Just don't do it. No... don't. No... not even for fun. Just don't do it.

I could now compare the dog to Hitler, because they have things in common, or I could compare Hitler to Franklin D. Roosevelt, saying they have in common the exact same years of being in power and the same year of death, but that is the kind of stuff that doesn't come across the right way in public. See, you have to be careful.

I want to rant about some other things. Why do some things only get worse when they were so good? For example, the search function to youtube. When it was still the old way, you could type exactly what you were looking for, and whatever keywords in whichever order you used, you only got what you were looking for. Now they show everything, even things that are unrelated. If I look for some band starting with "the", I get all the thes. Uh... yeah.
On wikipedia, one of my favourite sites, it is the opposite. It is bad and stays bad. You misspell a name, you try right again because it gives you no correction clue. So if you don't know how to spell a name, and you misspell it without knowing better, it never helps you out, it's like you searched for something that exists by no means. What if I can't spell a name but I know how the name sounds? Can't there be some "did you mean this..." as in youtube?

Another thing got worse at t-online and it has to do with opening different windows. The old way it went like this: I see a headline, I right click on it and open a new window or tab. If I find another interesting thing I want to read, I directly click on it because I still have the first window (the one that I have been looking at from the beginning). So I had two windows with different articles. But now, when I left click the second article, it changes the OTHER window and skips the article I actually wanted to read first. So that one gets lost and I have to click "back" on that window, and I have to open yet another window for another article. Why? Why do you have to change what was good?
And just now I found another flaw. My cursor was strangely disappearing, kind of flashing. I thought it was a virus. But it's only one of these flash games (hence the name "flash", I guess) that pop up at the side of a page. Irritating and annoying.

I wonder what else I can talk about. But I think there will be more in the next days and weeks, because I have a new job and it deals with a lot of bureaucracy... I can tell you, working for a business that's run by the state means pure bureaucracy. Oh how I hate that stuff. I hope my tasks are at least okay.

Lawsuit against God - Again?

Booooring. Another American idiot went to court against God. I've heard this story before. Last time the reason why the claim was rejected was because "God is not a natural person". This time it's the fact that God has no address. But the person who went to court said that God, who is omnipresent, will have noticed what happened.

Why do we even have to hear about this? It's a lame joke. The only interesting thing is why such a mindless lawsuit gets rejected. Maybe next time the court will claim that you cannot go against someone who does not necessarily exist.

The reasons are also rather stupid: Accusations for bad things that happened, personal problems with God, or the fact that he threatened people with terror and admittedly killed people. What is the use of going to court against Him then? That's like ants going to ant court against the human baby that sat down on their formicary.

Some people have worse lives, even if they are richer

The MSN page today had one headline that said:

Radcliffe is mourning
"Harry Potter" has lost a beloved person

So who is it? Ugh... it's his grandmother. So if the German word for grandma is "Oma" and that is also what they use in the article, wouldn't it have been convenient just to say WHO he lost in the headline? Why are the news becoming a quiz game? ->because nobody would have read the article otherwise.

Another piece of news I read yesterday was that a millionaire in the USA, don't know where exactly, killed his whole family of 5 people, and himself, all because of the financial drama at the moment. He was said to have lost all his money on the stock market.
I don't get this. He is/was a millionaire, so how does he lose all his money in a short time? If he is a millionaire, I assume he must have been a very clever, smart, intelligent guy. Perhaps more intelligent than me, because I'm not a millionaire and probably never will be one. But then I ask: If someone is so clever, why does he not just put aside one million? You can live a good life with one million dollars, right? The word "millionaire" already implies that the person has at least one million. If he has one million, can't he just put it on his bank account and leave it there? He probably had several millions, so he could have used them after all. Why do people always need more, more, more? Such an idiot. Sorry, this is just so stupid. I know it's a process over time, you need to re-invest money you earned, but you can also draw the line. Then you can be sure never to have to worry about money, or working again.

It's amazing how people who have better lives than I do can still become so miserable in the end. You know, I told my brother that what this guy did would be the same as me saving 10 000 euros, then going to the casino and saying: I will play roulette now, I will put all my money on "zero", and if it's anything but that, I will kill myself.

Paranoia

I have a strange kind of paranoia that I don't take seriously, it's more like a joke, but I tend to accept it as a part of me to the point where I start to doubt I am making this up.

Many of you know the Truman Show, a Jim Carrey movie. It's basically the same thing that's going on with me. Even when I was a small child, I once had this idea that there were invisible cameras around me watching me. Yes, it actually happened to me before this movie was made.

The reason why I often thought everything is made up was because my life was always different from the lives of others. Other people always had standard lives. I know there is no "normal" life, but there are ordinary lives and extraordinary lives. Mine is most extraordinary.

It's like everything around me consists of actors who imitate a normal world. When they pass me, it looks like everything is normal. It's supposed to look normal. But sometimes people stare at me as if they are thinking:"Look at me! I want you to see my face! It's my once in a lifetime chance to be part of this show! OMG! He has seen me!"

The way everyday life is unusual is also how I run into people when I deliberately try not to. The staircase is always silent, but as soon as I open the door ONCE, someone else has to open their door. I step out of the house, suddenly everyone has the same idea. I walk into the most forsaken forest, and suddenly everyone is out to walk past me. Whether it's morning, evening, night. But after all I still know: If I ever break my leg in the middle of the forest, I'm going to crawl all the way back to my house before anyone calls the ambulance.

Then there is how my life develops. It's very unusual, just like you would imagine the life of someone who is followed by cameras but doesn't know. Imagine you are on tv and everyone is watching you, but you have no clue. What would the producers want? I guess an extraordinary life. So while other people get born, graduate from school without ever repeating more than one year, and getting a boring job and a boring family, my life is totally different. And like I said, it is very different.

Who would guess that all these things would happen to one person: Troubled childhood, goes through 9th grade three times (!), suffers from depression to the degree where he gets locked up like in prison, records his own music in a music studio, meets his idol in a cafe after talking to her online (which, at that point, she is infamous for not doing at all), falling in love with someone from the internet who is strangely connected to the whole story about the idol, unexplicable incidents happen that can not be explained with logic, and then the same person also fails and fails at finding the right job training year after year.

Okay, at first it sounds like a bunch of strange coincidences. I mean, I might have had a plane accident too, right? Yeah, I know what you mean. But I can't go so much into detail about everything, just trust me that some things just can't be coincidence.

So I decided to just write down all the things that are going to happen to me. You can see it as a humerous thing, or you can see it as me trying to spoil the producers' plans. At least I would then know that I was right and the whole pathetic theatre could stop:

Age 26: Fails again to be accepted in a job training OR gives up on another job training.

Age 27: Tries to get married but the authorities make it impossible after the laws have JUST been changed to the subject's disadvantage (what a coincidence).

Age 28: Suddenly seems to have found a great job training. But subsequently, the company dies and the job training cannot be finished. It would have been the perfect company, he already felt so unbelievably satisfied in this job.

Age 29: Starts studying since he is too old to be accepted for any further job training.

Age 35: Finally is able to get married and does so. Dreams seem to come true. Finally there is mercy in this world. The celebrations are private but joy is everywhere. After that, it's still a struggle with lots of work in a demanding job that doesn't make him happy.

Age 36: The economy is going down, which is a good excuse for getting fired from a good job he just had for a month. A hard time begins. At the same time, a baby is on the way, so the pressure is immense.

Age 37: Subject decides to send demo CDs of his own music to record companies. And oh, what a miracle, he gets accepted and becomes famous, although not so rich. The baby is born, it's a daughter.

Age 38: The wife dies in a tragic way, no idea how, but it has to happen, right?

Age 39: After having lost so much (and he also lost money and fame because of the economy collapse and private problems), he fights back, becoming a sportsman who eventually wins prizes. He releases a book on how to overcome so many struggles in life while being a single father.

Age 40: As an experienced musician, he fulfills his dream of taking part in the amazing process of creating a new music instrument, a synthesizer that doesn't have ordinary keys and is very revolutionary. He wants to use this to put his crazy feelings into music, but is too busy taking care of his daughter and trying to raise money with his bad qualification.

Age 41-45: Leads a normal life again, not being able to be very happy. Lots of stupid things happen. In this period of time, he suffers from lung cancer due to passive smoking (yeah, you bastards!), and has to fight back yet again. It just goes up and down, but he eventually defeats cancer.

Age 46-50: He is back to writing music again, and some people are even interested in his new, mature music, but in a bad car accident, he loses his memory and has to start over. Only after many months he is able to recall all the good and bad moments, which causes heavy emotions in him.

Age 51: He overcomes his fear of cars and drives again. At least, he thinks, he was lucky enough to only lose his memory and not to be severely injured. He tells everyone that THIS is what gives him a good feeling.

Age 52-53: Another bad accident, but this time he also suffers complicated bone fractures. He recovers quickly, but it takes a long time until the pain in under control. He feels very paranoid, but not paranoid enough to hide from everyone that he feels lucky not to have killed anyone in the accident.

Age 54: Having decided not to drive a car anytime soon, he gets involved in yet another car accident, this time as a passenger. As the driver falls asleep, he tries to steer the car to prevent a collision with another car, but tragically steers the car into a pedestrian who dies. He is totally nerve-wrecked after this and feels absolutely paranoid. After this, he has to admit himself to a mental institution for several months.

Age 55: His daughter runs away and becomes a drug addict. She blames him for causing all of her problems, also claiming that it's not possible to have an undepressed child if the father was already so depressed. She is also angry that he had a new girlfriend in between. What she does not know is that he eventually gave up the relationship because he realised he could never get married again happily. There is only one wife for him.

Age 56: A war breaks out, and the subject has to go to war against a far away country. While he is away, his home land gets attacked by another country and his daughter is abducted (she wants to leave the series).

Age 59: He returns after several years of prison. He accepts a crappy job and decides not to try hard on anything any more since everything is so useless.

Age 60: Since he does not get influenced by all the ups and downs around him, the producers decide to reveal the big secret to him that his whole life was just a show. While breaking down in tears, he has a heart attack and dies. What a dramatic ending! Fantastic!