harsh but true

Wow.

People -- particularly if they're under 40 -- have news priorities other than those of the editors of The New York Times or producers of the "NBC Nightly News." A new tablet from Apple -- or last night's episode of "Gossip Girl" or the adventures of the hipster grifter -- is a bigger deal than the latest petty scandal in Albany. You think that's a damning indictment of modern society and a recipe for idiocracy? Fine. Start a nonprofit to cover all the local-government news you think a healthy society needs. But don't expect advertisers -- or commercially-minded publishers or readers, for that matter -- to share your interests.

- Nick Denton, interview on Advertising Age

comics hitting too close to reality

compare the XKCD comic making fun of twitter and swine flu and the actual twitter search results page for swine flu.

ha!

SIM cards in Germany

I am doing this out of the goodness of my heart. And also because I enjoy complaining about it but people have stopped listening to me.

So, you're going to Germany. Great! Oh but you're worried about not having a mobile phone? No problem! SIM cards are easy to purchase and you can probably google around and figure out how to unlock your phone. Unless you have Sprint or Verizon, in which case go hide under a rock until you feel ready to join the rest of the modern world on GSM. Do not just "use" your regular US phone abroad (it will probably work), unless 1) you are very rich and 2) looking at ridiculous bills doesn't give you a splitting headache. If you're fine with that, then go right ahead.

If you hate actually talking, then clearly a phone is not enough and you also need a data plan. I recommend blau.de. Setup is a little tricky though, as all instructions and messages and the entire website are in German.

You can purchase a blau.de SIM card at places that sell ePlus once you're in Germany, which is nice. It's about 20 euros, but that comes with 20 euros of credit. The shop keeper can set it up for you, but he will need an address in Germany for the form.

Once set up, you basically just need the first PIN to activate the SIM card and be able to make calls. You can turn off the need to enter it over and over in your phone. At the time of this post, blau.de had 1 GB of data in a month for 9.90 euros, a pretty good deal. I even used it to tether to my laptop and I didn't use anywhere near the whole GB in two weeks. You order it by calling 1155, and following the menus: press 8, press 1, press 2, and then (THIS IS IMPORTANT) pressing 1 again to confirm. Do not use data until you receive TWO text messages (the first will come immediately and say that you ordered it, the second will come within 2 hours and say that it's ready).

To enable data, set up a new APN. APN internet.eplus.de, username eplus password eplus. Especially if you are using the G1 (google phone), DO NOT DO THIS UNTIL YOU GET THE SECOND TEXT MESSAGE. Otherwise your stupid phone will churn through your credit eating data while it downloads a whole new android operating system. Sigh.

Notice that I haven't told you how to reload your credit. At the time of this posting, they wouldn't take credit cards with an American address. I managed to convince them to do it once but I still had to call customer service number (which costs like 0,30 euro per minute) every time I wanted to recharge, and my friend couldn't do it at all. If you have a credit card attached to a German address, you can do all of this through the website. Run it through google translate.

Good luck and have a great time in Germany!

hallo von deutschland

Smaller pictures this time in an effort to save some of my limited 1 GB of bandwidth provided by blau.de! They have no English customer service and couldn't aufladen my guthaben (recharge my credit) over the web, but that's a whole other post.

In case you didn't know, I'm in Berlin! One of my favorite cities. I lived here for 3 months in 2001, and it's been cool to come back and see how things have changed in eight years. I still wish it were warmer.

A delicious way to start the day. Schokolade Croissant and a Kaffee at Cafe Impala.

Our neighborhood is fantastic! we rented an apartment near Nollendorfplatz, in Schöneberg. It's gorgeous and I never want to leave.

A bit of the Berlin wall at Checkpoint Charlie. The history of Berlin is absolutely fascinating; one of the things I love about this city is the confluence of old and new:

The Jewish Museum. An amazing piece of architecture by Daniel Liebeskind, and a must if you're visiting. I have never seen architecture so aptly represent pain and darkness:

The main hall at Hamburger Bahnhof, a contemporary art museum. It had a seriously amazing exhibit titled "Murder of Crows", which was a soundscape. 98 speakers and 30 minutes. It was incredible. We all loved it and I listened to a lot of it multiple times.

Tschuß for now!

baking

More cooking I've been up to. I had some bananas that turned brown, but I vaguely remembered that's the best for banana bread! I found an amazing recipe that involved cinnamon, chocolate chips, and candied ginger. oh yes. i am going to devour the remaining candied ginger soon.

Doesn't it look delicious? Check out the chocolate!

Crap. I have to get rid of this before I eat all of it.