barely fatal

I finished Deus Ex 3 and Metro 2033 today. Both excellent games — Deus Ex is a worthy successor of the other two (yeah I actually liked Invisible War, believe it or not), but has its weaknesses. The story and presentation did not grasp me as much and they could have, too much repetition. And I’m just not a big fan of boss fights. [The concerns I had about the AI at first turned out to be relative, as it gets better later in the game.] Metro 2033 oozes atmosphere, and feels more … real. It’s “just” a linear shooter, and not too long, but a damn good one. Gotta love Steam sales.

Ok and this story I already posted on Facebook, but it’s so surreal, I have to post it here as well.

Last night, I dreamt that I met Zachary Quinto in a comic/book shop. He came to me and wanted to talk casually, but he made sure to stay close to an audio visual display which was playing some music or audio loop pretty loud. He asked something trivial (in English!) and I answered, but I could hardly hear him, as it was so loud next to the display. He asked something else, and I gestured him to move away from the display so I could hear him better. But he almost shyly gestured No and turned to leave, when a group of young people recognized him and started asking for autographs, which he gave them reluctantly but with a smile.
And there it ends. I have no idea why Mr Quinto turned up in my dream (I’m pretty sure I hadn’t heard of or thought about him the days before), but when Spock – any Spock – comes visit you in your dreams, you damn better Facebook it, I suppose.

I’m still trying to find the meaning of this.

I have quite a few friends and colleagues who are either new to Germany, or live outside of Germany. As one of them recently pointed out, there are a few things “typical German”, that visitors or new arrivals find hard to swallow (sometimes quite literally) or understand. Some misunderstandings are caused by the fact that Germans like to borrow words from the English language. Pop culture and Hollywood are here to stay, the 80ies and early 90ies brought an America-Is-So-Cool wave and the highly international internet firmly planted its foot in all our doors in the last decade.

Now, on German (pop) radio, you mostly hear songs in English. While German-singing groups have seen a revival, there is still no cure for Lady Gaga. English simply is cool. Germans learn English at school, I have 9 years of English classes under my belt. That does not mean that every one speaks perfect English, that would be far from true, even for politicians whose job it is to go and visit English speaking countries (in my experience, the Scandinavians are far better English speakers). Germans like German things best, and they twist things to make them fit. Movies and TV are always dubbed into German (more than often poorly), and the borrowed words have their meaning changed, as long as it fits with a more direct German translation or similar sounding German words.

So, here’s the biggest twists my non-German friend could come up with and short explanations for each.

A “Handy” is a mobile phone (or cell phone if you’re American). I can only speculate why this atrocity of a word stuck; I suppose it has to do with how you hold it in your hand. Handy was/is also used for the speaker part of a radio, that’s where this originated supposedly.

A “Body Bag” is not a bag you put (dead) bodies in, oh no. It’s a non-specific form of a rucksack, or backpack, which is usually smaller than your average travel bag. While “bag” is pretty easy to get, “body” never implicates a dead person in German, so clueless advertisers simply use “Body Bag” to describe a bag you wear on your body.

When you go to a “Public Viewing“, you won’t find any dead bodies there either. Clever Germans use a rather direct translation here: Public means anyone can come and it’s usually an outdoor event, and Viewing means the particpants “view” something, because “Watching” or “Showing” sounds strange even to German ears. So it simply means a lot of people come to together to watch e.g. a football game on a big screen.

A “Beamer” is actually a projector, which “beams” light, or projects light “beams” onto a screen. It most certainly is not a BMW, which is usually refered to as, well, BMW, or by using the model number, e.g. “3er” means a BMW model 3xx.

And the last ones for today: “Wellness hotel” means a spa, and the Gymnasium is a high school – although that last one is always pronounced in the German way, so the risk of misunderstanding it is low.

I’m thinking about changing to tumblr, or a more tumblr-like format. There is tons of interesting stuff on the web and short comments are what I have time for. I still want to blog in some form, but this kinda gets in the way and has too few updates… I started a page on Pinterest, but that’s really only for pictures (though a beautiful tool).

Does anybody know a good way to combine the ease of use of tumblr with a self-hosted WordPress blog? Wasn’t a there Blog This bookmark thingy somewhere here … but then there’s the question of ownership, linking to stuff just like that or posting images can get you in trouble in Germany, you’re pretty safe from that if you use tumblr.

Yeah I know, I’ve been quiet. A lot has been going on. And right now I have the worst migraene. I think it’s the weather change. Anyways.

Played, finished and sold Crysis 2. Yeah it’s nice but also forgettable, especially the crude story. And I really couldn’t stand the self-importance the series carries. Crytek guys, it’s a game. One amongst many. Yes it’s good. But it’s not the greatest thing since the invention of chocolate chip ice cream, and that’s the vibe I get from your game. A little more humor, originality and interaction, less pathos and cinemetic ambition would freshen up the whole thing. FarCry still is your best game.

Portal 2 is brilliant. Loved the story, loved the world, loved the characters and voice acting. It could have used a couple more complex puzzles. It was definitely easier than Portal 1 and while some of the handholding is welcome (it never gets frustating), a little more exploring, i.e. trial-and-fail would have been nice. Can’t wait for the (free) DLC coming up in summer.

So far Portal 2 is top of my list for best game, but more’s to come,and it’s gonna be a great year for PC gaming. Witcher 2 and Brink are next, and the Duke is lurking on the horizon. But after so many years, I’m not in a hurry.

I went to see Thor. Still don’t like 3D, it mostly blurs up everything instead of adding to the greater experience. The movie was fun, surprisingly solid given it’s eclectic settings. The humor carried the weaker parts.

Had a Star Wars night. Can you imagine, a friend of mine has never seen any of the “classic” movies I grew up with, including Wars, Trek, Indiana Jones, Back To The Future et al. So we started by force feeding her A New Hope first, of course. She seemed to like it. Then as if to take revenge, she forced us to watch the Eurovision Song Contest. Which wasn’t easy, due to my sat line currently being down, I had to hook up my laptop to the TV and watch the livestream. But as always, it was a disappointment. Moldava should have won. I mean, holy Spock, for the hats alone.

What else? I’ve started getting to know the region by visting a different place every week. With the black forest nearby, there’s ample opportunity to get out in this very summer-like weather..