Dear Friends, liebe Freunde,

Hope you all have a wonderful Holiday season. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Euch allen ein schönes Weihnachtsfest und ein gutes neues Jahr 2002.

Frohe Weihnachten!

Email
My e-mail address has changed from andrea@spicynoodles.com to andrea@spicynoodles.net. The old address will stop working soon, so please use the new one from now on. Thanks!

Meine Email-Adresse hat sich geändert. Die alte Adresse (andrea@spicynoodles.com) wird demnächst nicht mehr funktionieren. Bitte mailt stattdessen ab jetzt an andrea@spicynoodles.net. Danke!

Weblog Community

Wow, I’ve been nominated for the Scripting News Awards for 2001 in the EditThisPage.Com Pioneers category. Thanks, Dave!

However, I don’t think I’ve much of a chance to win because all the other nominations are such cool and great blogs as well. But I noticed that I’m the only person on the pioneer list who is not from the USA.

If you haven’t done so already, go and vote!

Instant books

Well, sort of. This is the coolest vending machine I’ve ever seen. Book Drop:

“University of Iowa bookCenter for the Book studies students are offering a unique holiday gift idea along with an unusual shopping experience. Handmade books and kits for binding your own books are available at a new Book Drop vending machine installed in the North Lobby of the University of Iowa’s Main Library. […] The machine is stocked with a selection of items bound to delight any book lover”.

I think the idea is awsome. Just today on my way home from work I stood next to a similar vending machine at the train station. It sells candy and cold drinks. Wouldn’t it be cool to have book vending machines at airports and train stations, too?

Link via Acme Book News via Craig (another of the nominated pioneers).

Money Money…

“Today, German banks started handing out the Euro to the general public in the form of a so-called Euro starter kit” – André has the latest news from Euroland. He also brought me a starter kit. I like the new coins. The coins have a common side that looks in the same in every country, while the other side is country specific I think the German coins are rather boring, compared to other countries’. For example, the Greek coins and the Italian coins each have a different picture, while the German coins show either an eagle, the Brandenburg gate, or an oak twig.

Oh cool, Susan (nominated in two categories, by the way) has a link to Eurotrash, a weblog “chronicling this historic leap [from old currency to new Euro] and the ensuing chaos”.

Email

There seem to have been a few glitches with my email during the last 48 hours. If you were unable to send email to andrea@spicynoodles.com or email was returned, please send it again, this time to andrea@spicynoodles.net. The first email address seems to work at the moment, but I don’t know whether any messages were lost. Thank you!

In den letzten 48 Stunden scheint es einige Probleme mit meiner Emailadresse andrea@spicynoodles.com gegeben zu haben. Bitte im Zweifel nochmal an andrea@spicynoodles.net mailen. Danke!

Update: I just knew it. Must be one of Murphy’s laws: As soon as you post a message about problems with email to your blog, it starts working again. I thought it was too good to be true that I didn’t get any spam mails today – well, here they are…

Chemistry

A Visual Interpretation of the Periodic Table of Elements is not only that, but has a lot of information about the 109 known and named elements. There’s a flash and a html version, and additional info is available as html and pdf.

The site is cool, fun and informative at the same time. Recommended even if you didn’t like chemistry at school (like I did ).

Link via Wockerjabby.

Travel Photography

Notes from the Road is a spectacular site of photos the author has taken around the world. I just started to look around, but the site looks very promising. I’m gonna check it out more thoroughly once I’m finished reading Marie’s World Tour 2001. I’ve made my way to Africa and August now – four more months to go.

Link via /usr/bin/girl.

If anything can go wrong, it will.

A site dedicated to Murphy’s Law. – “If its raining, or cold or both the bus will be late.” Also true for trains. It happened to me on my way to work on Tuesday. When the train is announced to be ten minutes late and you decide to take the (slower) bus instead, the train pulls into the station just as the bus is leaving. And of course, the bus gets delayed by traffic so you miss your tram anyway.

Link also via /usr/bin/girl.

Der Herr der Ringe im Kino

Zu meinem Job gehört es auch, jeden Morgen die wichtigsten Tageszeitungen durchzuschauen und einen Pressespiegel (zum Thema Bundeswehr natürlich) zu erstellen. Hier zur Abwechlsung ein Spezial-Pressespiegel zum Film The Lord of the Rings:

Stern: Der Zauber fremder Welten. Nicht nur ein ausführlicher Artikel, sondern auch Fotos und Hintergrundinformationen.

Die Zeit: Gnadenloser Angriff auf den Markt. “Die zweite Fantasy-Hysteriewelle des Winters rollt: Nach ‘Harry Potter’ kommt nun ‘Der Herr der Ringe’ ins Kino.” Von Jan Distelmeyer.

Mich irritiert es immer, wenn Harry Potter zum Fantasy-Genre gezählt wird… und generell der Vergleich der beiden Filme. Aber das hat sich Warner wohl selbst so zurechtgelegt…

Spiegel: Harry hat Fans, Frodo hat Jünger… “Mit Spannung erwarten Tolkien-Fans den Kinostart von Peter Jacksons erster ‘Herr der Ringe’-Verfilmung ‘Die Gefährten des Rings’. Vor der Weltpremiere in London geben die Stars des Films Auskunft über ihre Erlebnisse am Drehort und wundern sich über den Vergleich mit ‘Harry Potter’.”

Nochmal Spiegel: Ein Tattoo, sie ewig zu binden. “Das ist wahre Hingabe: Die bei der Kino-Trilogie “Der Herr der Ringe” mitwirkenden Schauspieler haben sich als Zeichen ihrer Verbundenheit allesamt tätowieren lassen. An welchem Körperteil und mit welchem Motiv, wollten die Darsteller nach der Premiere des ersten Films in London jedoch nicht verraten…”

Süddeutsche Zeitung: Überall ist Mittelerde. “Fans in aller Welt können stolz sein, wenn J. R. R. Tolkiens Werk nun als Film in die Kinos kommt –wie eine Subkultur Hollywood in die Knie zwang.” Von Ingo Mocek.

Die Welt: Sondermodell, handgefertigt. “Die Verfilmung des “Herrn der Ringe” hatte ihre Welturaufführung in London.” Von Hanns-Georg Rodek.