Feeling better

Both Christopher and Scott are feeling better, says Scott. He posted a photo of Christopher wearing the hairnet and waving his hand, as if to say: “Don’t worry, folks, I will be back home soon!”

Hungry?

I’m just eating — um, reading my way through the Edible Journey through China. Very interesting site!

Link via Al on VanEats.

Need translations?

Take a look at YourDictionary.Com. The site has lots and lots of links to dictionaries for lots and lots of languages. Very useful!

Link via /usr/bin/girl.

Oh, and I just found another useful language-related link there: Common Errors in English. The author, Paul Brians, has links to pages about English as a second language: Curricular Resources in English as a Second Language and English as a 2nd Language (About.com).

Sechs Monate

Der Schockwellenreiter feiert heute halbjähriges Weblog-Jubiläum! Gratulation auch von mir!

More discussion

The Coke is evil discussion about politics in the USA continues…

Quiz
Answers to the questions I posed yesterday:

Do you know what a ‘Baker’s dozen’ is? – Thirteen.

Or who sang ‘Tainted Love’? – ‘Soft Cell’.

The name of the band Annie Lennox sang with before the ‘Eurythmics’? – The Tourists.

Which town’s football team is called ‘toffee makers’? – Everton, Liverpool.

What is celebrated on November 5th? – Guy Fawkes Day.

How many balls in a ‘cricket over’? – Six.

How many airports does Belfast have? – Two.

In which town is the Grand national horse race? – Aintree, Liverpool.

At the ‘Fiddler’s’

Yay, it was quiz day at the Fiddler’s. They handed a sheet with 25 questions out to every table, and the one with the most correct answers won 5 (imperial) pints of beverages. We were second best with 16 out of 25 points and won 2 pints. That was half a pint for each of the five of us.

The questions were all about Ireland or Great Britain, except for one that was meant to confuse people, I think: ‘Where was Beethoven born?’ – Even I knew he was born in Bonn, although I’ve only been living here for a couple of years.

The other questions were more difficult. Do you know what a ‘Baker’s dozen’ is? Or who sang ‘Tainted Love’? The name of the band Annie Lennox sang with before the ‘Eurythmics’? Which town’s football team is called ‘toffee makers’? What is celebrated on November 5th? How many balls in a ‘cricket over’? How many airports does Belfast have? In which town is the Grand national horse race?

Correct answers tomorrow, if I can still remember them then, heehee.

Found it?

Garret mentions that he and Sandra seem to have found a house. Good luck!

Silly Putty

And once again, I found a Silly Putty related link: Silicone Bouncing Putty on the web. It seems the owner is a serious Silly Putty fan because he has advice on how to order large amounts of Silicone Putty, 100 pounds and up! It seems they use a different kind of Putty than the one that comes in those little eggs.

Redesign

Whenever I go over to View from the Heart these days, I am surprised by a new theme. I’m curious about that new design Al mentioned the other day.

Slow day

Oh, what a slow day. I don’t seem to get anything done. No math, nothing to post on the weblog, nothing else.

Tonight, André and I will meet with some friends we haven’t seen in a while at the Fiddler’s. So the day will at least not be completely wasted.

Lost a sock?

“Where do all those lost socks go? Sock-eating dryers? Alien abduction? Runaway socks hitting the road and living on the streets? – Look in your sock drawer and drag out those socks for which you’ve lost the match. In all likelihood, your socks have ended up in…

The Land of Lost Socks“

The Coke is evil discussion continues…

Banana Bread

Rick Saenz teases me again with pictures of his daughter baking banana bread. It looks delicious!

Not long ago, I had to save a bunch of bananas from getting brown and not being eaten, so I made banana bread of them. Here’s my recipe.

All this food talk makes me hungry. I think it’s time for dinner! We’re having Sauerkraut-Auflauf today. (I think Auflauf is casserole in English.) No, it’s not a typical German recipe, but Hungarian. André made it, so I’m sure it will be very good! Guten Appetit!

Africa

Craig says he wants to go to Africa one day, and links to The Africa Guide. It has, among lots of interesting information, great photo galleries with an overview page with thumbnails. Choose between wildlife, places and scenery and people.

Another great source is African Vacation, which seems to be about Kenya only, but is a good resource nevertheless. Africa Online also has a section on travel in Kenya.

The Great Outdoor Recreation Pages have info on adventure travels all over the world, including Africa.

In 1995, I spent four weeks in Kenya and Tanzania. In Kenya, I went on a seven-day safari and visited the Masai Mara (see also here), the Northern extension of the famous Serengeti, Lake Nakuru (another page) and Samburu National Parks and saw all kinds of wildlife, from Dik Diks to leopards. (The Kenya Wildlife Service has a website, too.) In Tanzania, I visited the Ngorongoro Crater (picture gallery), Lake Manyara (see also here) and Tarangire (see also here) National Parks. In the Masai Mara I’ve seen the migration of thousands and thousands of zebras and wildebeest, and have been a fan of zebras ever since. The photo shows a Grevy zebra and was taken in Samburu on September 10th, 1995.

Here’s a site on Kenyan History and one about regional museums in Kenya.

I have about 500 slides from the trip, so I guess one day, when I have a lot of time to spare, I’m going to get a PhotoCD made and post some of the photos here…

Hey there!

I just found the Bumblebee Weblog in my referrer logs. For the second time. The author is Helena from Toronto, Canada. I wonder how she stumbled across my blog… but it’s nice to get to know a new regular (?) reader. Oh, and I just read that she likes sunsets, too.

Hello Helena! Nice to meet you!

Coke Discussion

Discussion is still continouing. Terry Henert found a web page with lots of numbers comparing the US to other rich nations: A comparison of the U.S. to other rich nations. The numbers are from 1992, but they’re still interesting although I’m not sure they’re all correct. For example, I believe the government debt per person is higher in Germany than the page says.

Update: Scott says he thinks the numbers for Germany are all pre-reunification, and for the Western part of Germany only. That makes sense. Thanks, Scott.

By the way, this discussion shows how useful the new topic view for the discussion group is. Now you can see all the messages of a topic at once, without switching browser windows or clicking back and forth.

Fall in Bonn

André and I went to Bad Godesberg by bike today. We bought tickets for the cinema, but had almost an hour left before the film started, so we went to the Rhine. Look at that beautiful weather!

Then we watched Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?. It was not quite as funny as The Big Lebowski, but still very good. We enjoyed it. I guess we have to watch Fargo next….

David Singer in Germany

I just read David‘s home page. He flew to Stuttgart today and had a very typical German lunch: Döner Kebab.

Judging from his photos, the weather in Stuttgart was as good as in Bonn today.

Ah, sunshine

It’s a beautiful beautiful day here in Bonn today. Clear blue sky, not a cloud in sight, sunshine, almost 20°C (almost 70°F). Lovely!

I think we will go out now – either for a walk or a little bike tour. Who knows when the weather will be this great again? Might well be in half a year or so…

Updates later…

This is not Billy Joel

I like this song. (You can even download the MP3 file.

We didn’t start the weblogs

They were always thinking

Of good sites for linking

We didn’t start the weblogs

No, we didn’t incite ’em

But we’re trying to write ’em

Hmmm… I just saw Dave linked to it as well on Scripting.Com. Now it looks like I found the link there, but I found it myself, honest!

Hiatus break

Hal posted a little update today. He writes about his thesis:

“The thesis continues on the logrithmatic scale, half the distance remains, half the distance remains. Work, work, work, half the distance remains.”

Somehow, this sounds familiar… I went to see my professor on Wednesday because I felt like I was getting nowhere with my work. Now we’ve worked out a plan for the next two or three weeks, and since then I’m feeling way more motivated and productive. I’ve actually been getting some real work done.

Everyone’s ill

Scott reports that his whole family is ill. Poor Christopher has pneumonia and has to be in hospital for the next ten days.

Once again, all the best for your whole family! I especially hope Christopher gets better soon! Poor little boy…

Coke and other evils

Terry Henert brought up the topic yesterday, and Garret, Brent and Sean have contributed so far.

Physik

Teilchenphysik in der Schule: “Diese Seite soll Informationen über Teilchenphysik für interessierte Lehrer und Schüler verfügbar machen und als Anregung für das Einbringen von Themen der Teilchenphysik in die Schule dienen.”

Mit vielen hilfreichen Links.

Science and religion

André pointed out this Metafilter thread about science and religion, a propos of Snake Oil and Holy Water by Richard Dawkins. “Are science and religion converging?”

Interesting article, interesting discussion.