Yesterday

I woke up with a headache yesterday, and as it wasn’t getting better, I crawled back into bed after breakfast and watched Fargo on DVD.

Very good film! The characters sometimes make you laugh out loud because they are so normal it’s comic. However, the story itself is rather sad, especially because it is a true story. I wonder how ‘Jerry Lundegaard’ is feeling about what happened.

Now is this really a true story or not? At the beginning it says,

“This is a true story. The events in this film are based on a crime that has been committed in Minnesota in 1987.

To respect the living, the names of the survivors have been changed.

To respect the dead, the rest of the story has been told exactly as it happened.”

[My translation from German]

but there’s a disclaimer in the credits,

“The persons and events portrayed in this production are fictious. No similarity to actual persons, living or dead, is intended or should be inferred.”

Can anyone help me out?

Update: Scott posted a reply in my discussion group. He has relatives who live near Brainerd and points me to brainerddispatch.com/fargo/.

So I guess it’s mostly fiction…

Sunset

Craig has a wonderful sunset photo today!

As to your question about the election: I doubt anyone will ever know if Bush truly won.

Potatoes

Later in the afternoon [yesterday] I felt much better, so I did some experimental cooking for dinner. Inspired by Al‘s Potato Gratin recipe, I made a potato casserole. I put lots of carrots and celery in it and tossed some smoked sausages in as well. Then I mixed some eggs with sour cream, poured it over the whole thing and put some grated cheese on top. I think it turned out pretty well, and we have enough leftovers for dinner tonight.

We still have several pounds of potatoes left, so I’m thinking about trying Fresh Corn Chowder or Smoked Salmon Potato Patties next. Lots of great recipes to be found at VanEats!

One year ago…

… André started his weblog. Happy first weblog birthday, Spicy Noodles!

And there’s another weblog birthday today: Yay for NetDyslexia!

Going south

The Endurance – Shackleton’s Legendary Antarctic Expedition. The site is about an exhibition that’s touring the USA.

Link via Susan.

Politics

Today is the inauguration of George W. Bush as the next president of the USA. Sheila has a bunch of interesting links about Clinton saying good-bye and Bush saying hello.

Physics

New York Times: Scientists Bring Light to Full Stop, Hold It, Then Send It on Its Way, by James Glanz.

Link via Mollie.

Kino

Heute war ich mit einer Freundin im Kino. Obwohl gar nicht Kinotag ist, aber im Woki ist eigentlich immer Kinotag, denn jeder Film kostet nur fünf Mark. Dafür kommen die Filme dort erst später, und heute haben wir Der Krieger und die Kaiserin (Dirk Jasper Filmlexikon / Internet Movie Database) gesehen. Der Film hat mir sehr gut gefallen. Besonders interessant gemacht fand ich den Schluß – Bodo steigt zu Sissi und sich selbst (!) ins Auto, beobachtet die beiden, und schmeißt den anderen Bodo schließlich ‘raus. Der stellt sich an die nächste Bushaltestelle und wird von seinem Bruder abgeholt… geradezu bizarr.

Auf jeden Fall empfehlenswert!

Und als nächstes muß ich wohl endlich mal Lola rennt sehen…

Geography

The Degree Confluence Project:

“The goal of the project is to visit each of the latitude and longitude integer degree intersections in the world, and to take pictures at each location. The pictures and stories will then be posted here. […] The project is an organized sampling of the world. We’ve excluded confluences in the oceans and dropped some near the poles, but there’s still about 11,650 to be found. You’re invited to help. […] Contact us if you’re interested in photographing any one of these places (there is one within 49 miles (79 km) of you if you’re on the surface of Earth).”

Each picture has a little description of the area where it was taken, presumably written by the people who took the photo.

Hey, David, you could use your GPS receiver to participate!

Link via /usr/bin/girl.

Photos

Oooh, pretty! Look at the photos at Tarzan Panoramics. The photographer is named Stefan Tarzan, and he uses a Noblex panoramic camera. There are photos and QTVRs (most black and white, but some in colour, too), and they are beautiful! Look at this sunset over the Pacific, Olympic Coast.

Another site with beautiful panoramic photos (in colour) is Macduff Everton‘s. “‘Macduff Everton updates travel photography in the same way that Ansel Adams updated 19th century photography of the West. He captures strange and eloquent moments in which time, and the world, seem to stand still.’ – Andy Grundberg, NY Times Photo Critic”.

There are more of his photos in the books section, e.g. The Western Horizon. Click on an image to see more photos of the region. See another sunset, at Mono Lake.

Links via Jeff’s Weblog.

Socks

Addendum to yesterday‘s socks link: The Curmudgeon reports that Ren and Stimpy found all those lost socks!

Community

Get well soon, Susan!

And Kate, I hope your sinus infection gets better soon – and that you find Eliza!

Cinema

iScriptdb.com is a site that collects scripts of movies. Might be useful!

Link via /usr/bin/girl.

Heute in der Zeit

Nicht viel Ausbeute heute…

Dossier: Ein Mann wie das Land, von Andrea Böhm.

“Texas verstehen heißt George W. Bush verstehen. Der neue US-Präsident – am Samstag tritt er sein Amt an – ist geprägt vom Wesen seiner Heimat: Ruppig und fromm, staatsfern und antiintellektuell. Reise ins geistige Hinterland eines Weltmächtigen.”

Und noch ein paar Artikel, die interessant klingen, die ich aber (noch) nicht gelesen habe:

Bildung als Produkt: Next Exit Phoenix, von Martin Spiewak.

“Bildung als Produkt: Die größte private Universität der USA lehrt traditionelle Hochschulen das Fürchten.”

Rinderwahn: Schlachtopfer fürs Volk, von Harro Albrecht.

“Deutsche Bauern protestieren gegen die Tötung ganzer Rinderherden. Briten und Schweizer verzichten auf die Massenexekution. Aus gutem Grund.”

Astronomie: Das Zittern der Sonnen, von Ulf von Rauchhaupt.

“Planetenjäger streiten um ihre neuesten Funde.”

– Hier geht es um den neu entdeckten Planeten mit 17 Jupitermassen, der vielleicht gar kein Planet ist.

Und ein letzter Reiselink zur guten Nacht

Ingo Harrach ist mit dem Fahrrad schon in über 30 Ländern unterwegs gewesen. Seine Berichte (mit Fotos) gibt es unter BikeSite.de.

The Wave

It seems André and I missed one especially beautiful place on our trip through the western USA: The Wave in Paria Canyon – Coyote Buttes. Only ten hiking permits are available per day to see this extraordinary place. Here are some photos: Sarah’s Trip to Coyote Buttes.

Reisen um die Welt

Karstens Heimseite für Weltenbummler, von Karsten Rau.

“Wissenswerte über meine letzten Reisen kreuz und quer über den Globus mit Erfahrungsberichten, Things to do, Tipps, Links und Bildern.” Sehr schöne Fotos!

Besonders beeindruckend: The Wave! [Bißchen tricky. Die URL gehört zu dem entsprechenden Frame, aber man wird automatisch zur Startseite weitergeleitet. Also entweder im rechten Moment die Stop-Taste drücken oder unter USA auf ‘Wave’ klicken.] Auch die Fotos vom Upper und Lower Antelope Canyon sind sehenswert. Dagegen sehen unsere doch recht bescheiden aus…

Einmal um die ganze Welt…, von Achim Schaffrinna.

Schön gestaltete Site. Ziele: Island, USA, Chile, Australien, Neuseeland, Bali.

Die Sites habe ich auf Reiseberichte.com gefunden. Dort kann man gezielt nach Reiseberichten suchen:per Kontinent, Land, Fortbewegungsmittel und Aktivitäten – oder einfach nach Stichworten. Unterhalten wird die Seite von Globetrotter, aber es gibt kaum Werbung. Erfreulich!

Urlaub in den USA

Und noch jemandem hat unser USA-Reisetagebuch gut gefallen: Anna vom a-log.

Freut mich zu lesen!

Always worth a read

Jack’s Sea Cabin, Jack Roger’s journal. He writes about his daily life or tells stories from the past. He may well be the oldest Manila user!

Coke and other evils

Garret had this link for me: MoJo wire – Schoolhouse rot, similar to the article(s) that started the coke discussion a while ago.

By the way, the discussion is # 20 on my list of most read messages.

Lost socks

Garret also linked to the Bureau of missing Socks. Reminds me of The Land of Lost Socks, to which I linked a while ago.

Referrers, again

I found Tehnokratt in my referrers. They link to an entry from November, but I don’t understand a word on the site. Heck, I don’t even know what language they write in. Looks a bit like a Scandinavian language, but not quite.

They use both tehnokratt.ee and tehnokratt.net. A quick search at Google reveals that ‘.ee’ stands for Estonia. Then the language must be Estonian.

Learn Estonian. Tere hommikust!

Or use one of these dictionaries. Or read the Estonian Language FAQ. (They say Estonian belongs to the finno-ugric language group, like Finnish and Hungarian.) Some general information can be found here.