Alien Ted

kitchen reno

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. J) — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 13:04:00 +0000

Okay, so it's time for me to do the update on the massive kitchen make-over. Just to address the major question that crops up from family and friends: yes, we rent and yes, we paid for all of this. But compared with the cost of moving to a place with a kitchen this nice, we've made our money back in ~two years AND we still get to take it with us when we move out (a major point in a city where apartments normally don't have kitchens installed). Anyway, the improvement in living quality makes it well worth while regardless.

Unfortunately, we didn't go with my initial colour scheme wish because it would've been a) too expensive and b) too expensive. Instead, we stuck with IKEA basics for the cabinets. However, we still wanted it to have SOME colour in it, we just couldn't decide what. So, eight months pregnant, standing tired in IKEA at 9pm I suggested we take an option they had on display and use their blue glass cabinet fronts and paint the walls a matching blue. Wow, did that decision make things easier.

But we still had new floor laid, had an electrician in to run new wiring around the room and had to work out the nitty gritty of what would fit where. And when Roxie came early and IKEA delivered late, we wound up spending a fortnight cooking in our hallway.

We called that Fun Times With Newborns or How I Learned to Stop Nesting And Start Wishing This Shit Would Just Be Finished Already.

However now it's MOSTLY done. We've still got to build the table and bench, but the rest has now been in place for a month and still looking pretty. So here you go, some before and after videos complete with scintillating commentary:

and then there were three

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. J) — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 09:45:00 +0000

She's here, a week old and currently knocked out on milk and breathing heavily into my ear. We did't call her Roxie after all, but for the purposes of blogging I think I'll stick with that pseudonym.

In the end, the whole story ran faster than thought. We knew she was a little baby, and figured she'd probably be late but two weeks ago my doctor determined that the placenta was not doing the expected sterling service and I shouldn't be allowed to go past my due date.

OK. Strike two weeks off our calendar - the kitchen renovation probably won't get finished and maybe we should consider buying a pram.

Three days later, the hospital checked it all out and decided that it should all be a bit earlier even than that. Like the following morning, or latest the morning after.

Right. Dog sitter organised, work informed, bag packed. I even shaved my legs. I mean, I should show some effort in getting prepared for such a big event, right?

The whole labour went way faster than anyone anticipated. Midwives examined me and determined I was at least eight hours away from anything interesting happening. Which explains why, two hours later when I was begging for an epidural and saying I was already getting pushing contractions, they told us to go for a walk and come back in an hour. They were also having the busiest day of the year - lots of babies, lots of emergencies - and I was, apparently, using the wrong word when describing pushing.

Note to expats: in this situation don't use "Druck", use instead "Press". It can be tough trying to use correct vocabulary and grammar in a second language when suffering the worst pain of your life, but it might help get you some drugs.

Anyway, forty minutes later - after trying to walk around outside as suggested; DrH finally making it clear that we were in a serious state; them finally getting me a delivery room; and me having to walk there - she was born. Roughly thirty seconds after entering said delivery room and therefore only thirty seconds away from having been born in the hallway.

To be honest, I was in shock. It went so fast, I wasn't taken seriously, had had no pain medication and - the worst thing - in the delivery room I finally got to see the hot tub that everyone had been talking about. The one that I never got to enjoy. Because, you know, they all though I was a whinging expat.

Ok, now I am whinging a bit. They were ridiculously busy and I was was ridiculously fast. But still - A HOT TUB.

As all the wards were full up, we decided to go home the next day and, sixteen hours old, Roxie enjoyed her first Berlin taxi experience. Now she's a week old, we're getting the hang of things and slowly getting to know her. Well, as much as you can when the primary interaction is her making squawking baby bird faces and then falling unconscious.

But we've got time now. Time to start building a family, loving each other and, of course, screwing our daughter up. DrH and I have already began putting together a medley of songs we will sing in the car, in public and around her friends so that the tween Roxie gets the chance to be just as embarrassed by her parents as every other kid is.

well sated stars

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. J) — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 08:12:00 +0000

Ok, I admit DrH and I have a pretty comfortabe lifestyle. We're, at least for the next few weeks, double-income-no-kids in one of the cheapest European capitals. Living costs are low (unbelievably low compared to über-expensive Australia these days) and it means we can afford to go out and spoil ourselves occasionally. So that, combined with my birthday and a reward DrH received recently, meant we spent Friday night in a Michelin star restaurant.

Admittedly, a wine bar is probably not the logical choice for a pregnant woman, but Rutz Weinbar is, according to the Michelin guide at least, not a bad place to grab a bite. We've eaten downstairs there once or twice, where the prices are cheaper and the food a tad simpler, but this time we chose the upstairs experience complete with Inspirations, Experiences and a sommelier called Billy.

The menu by chef Marco Müller is divided into Inspirations - which could be a product, place or feeling and we decided to go all out on 4 inspirations, figuring it'll be three courses and a dessert. And we all know how small the courses in top restaurants are. DrH even chose to have the accompanying wines, while I got a series of fruit juices.

What we failed to take into account - although we had understood it, we just failed to think it through - was that each Inspiration has two versions (Experiences) of it and we got both of those. And DrH had two different wines. Which means instead of three courses and a dessert, we had six courses and two desserts. And DrH had eight wines. And then came several different "greetings from the kitchen" which came to eleven courses in all.

Even with small, delicate, delicious servings, this was a little too much for my super-squashed stomach and the four-hour meal lasted till well past my current bedtime. I even had to turn down several of the petit fours.

But, gosh, was it an incredible meal. And the next time we can afford to blow half a months rent on a single meal I'll be doing it again.

loving interactions

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. J) — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 18:53:00 +0000

Me: Hey, you're not supposed to pick on your wife when she's pregnant.

DrH: That's exactly when I'm meant to pick on her because she can't run as fast.

no this is not nesting

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. J) — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 20:34:00 +0000

I've been planning on redoing the kitchen for years. Pretty much, since we moved in here. In Berlin, kitchens in rentals generally come with an oven/stove, a sink and maybe some kind of bench arrangement.

That's it. You rarely have cupboards, or shelves or any kind of inbuilt furniture.

So when we moved in we did it the cheap-arse student-styled way and threw some IKEA shelving up, stuck a freestanding sideboad in there and an old 1930s cupboard that my brother-in-law was going to throw out. Our kitchen is also our laundry, containing the washing machine and a clothes drying rack that we have to manouvre carefully around to get to the sink.

Also our kitchen is tiny, almost triangular, has a curved wall and a servants entrance. It's kooky, kinda cute and highly impractical.

So I've been planning on redoing it for a few years, but now that I'm actually sitting down with it, I'm stumped.

First off - the curved wall. It's, well, curved. It's a quarter circle surrounding the external servants stairwell and it has a door in it. Now, if it came with a servant I wouldn't mind so much, but it doesn't and I'm left with trying to sort out cabinetry there.

Next, the water connection where I have to attach the dishwasher and washing machine is in an awkward spot on the other wall from where I'd like it.

Thirdly, there is one tiny window and no space to put a table. And I'd REALLY like a table in the kitchen because we have an incredibly long hallway and it's quite a trek to the dining table with your tea and toast when you're still half asleep. And having to dodge dog beds and dog and his tennis balls and any books I may have accidentally-sort-of-forgotten to put back in the shelves the previous night.

So, finally, I started with the most important bit which was determining the colour scheme. To this purpose I've dived back again into ColourLovers and have gotten entirely lost in it. What do you think of this colour scheme? Or this one? This?

GAH! How am I meant to go about redesigning an entire kitchen if I can't even decide on a single colour scheme I prefer?!

home alone

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. J) — Sat, 28 May 2011 15:20:00 +0000

DrH departed this morning for a week of getting down and dirty in New Orleans with a bunch of other scientists. They're totally going to set the place on fire. I mean, I saw the jackets he packed and there ain't no pin stripe in there. There's a bit of check, but no pin stripe. No siree, it's going to be PAR-TY for the geeks in Louisiana this week.

What that means is that I get free reign here for a week and, boy, am I going to put that to good use. Just look at me start today... I slept late, baked scones and finished two novels. I've a bit of derby tonight, but then tomorrow I'm planning on embroidery, cups of tea and cleaning the front hall.

I'm telling you, if my twenty-three year old self could only look at the life I'm living.... well, I'm sure she'd roll her eyes in disgust. At somepoint in the last ten years or so it seems I've become middle aged.

headache

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. J) — Tue, 24 May 2011 19:35:00 +0000

After my wonderful discovery while Down Under that osteopathy does more for fixing up my neck than orthopaedie, physiotherapie and chiropractie (I'm going for the -ie thing here) do, I hunted out one near here. A few weeks ago an osteo listened to my tale of woe, pushed some fingers into my buttcheeks to straighten my hips; poked around my neck; wiggled fingers at the top of my head and on my lower spine; and massaged out an apparently sticky kidney.

For a fortnight, I had no headache.

To most people who are, I assume, normal, I probably need to emphasise that. I HAD NO HEADACHE. Not one. Not a scrap of tension in my neck or head. No pain in my eyes. No clenched jaw. I had the ability to concentrate on something for longer than thirty seven seconds.

I stopped wanting to smash my head through a wall to try and relieve the pain.

I can't believe most of the world manages to get up every morning, go through their day, and go to bed WITHOUT a headache. The idea was preposterous. Ridiculous! No pain? No, that can't be!

But the last two weeks I lived like that and it was heaven. I cannot believe how easy it is to do basic tasks when your frontal lobe isn't trying tunnel its way out through your forehead. With a very blunt spoon.

However, last weekend we were away and that was enough to cause me to screw it all up while asleep. For the last two days, my old enemy has been keeping me company again. So tomorrow lunch I have an appointment with a woman to stick her fingers in my buttcheeks, wiggle around my neck and massage my sticky kidney. I want to feel that no-pain high.

working title

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. J) — Tue, 17 May 2011 17:39:00 +0000

So this life thing that's started kicking me in quite a freakishly disturbing, not to mention entirely distracting, way is due for a name at some point. Up until last week I had given it the working title of Hieronymous Rex because, well, Hieronymous is just cool and Rex matches with it so well.

Go on, try it out. See? It just rolls off the tongue.

But that went out the window when we found out last week that it is missing certain dangly bits of anatomy. So I've switched to Hieronymous Roxie. Which is nowhere near as cool, and I've a feeling the Hieronymous might be dropped at some point. This greatly disappoints me.

Now, as this piece of life will be getting my surname, DrH has dibs on coming up with her given names. He's currently working on ways to put VW into the name (Veronica Wanda? Vanessa Willow?) and even asking if we could perhaps give it a new surname such as Wie, so it can then be Frau Wie.

That's a joke that only works if you know how VW is pronounced in German. And even then it's a pretty poor one.

Then one of his VW friends suggested that Westphalia would be a pretty nice sounding girls name and he's pushing that agenda at the moment.

Thank goodness I retained veto rights.

giving in

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. J) — Mon, 16 May 2011 20:49:00 +0000

So I've thrown my hands in the air and done it. Given in to one of the two mega-companies in the field BECAUSE PUBLISHERS HAVE LEFT ME NO CHOICE.

Except, y'know, for downloading all their books for free. Which I could do. But which I haven't. Because, y'know, I want to see authors get paid so they put more shit out for me to read.

See that Mr Publisher? I wish to give you money for books EVEN THOUGH I can get most of them for free. What was your reason for DRM again?

But I tell you, I don't think publishers care that much about selling books, considering how mother-fricking-arse-difficult they make it to buy one of their books if you are a) not living in the US of bloody A and b) haven't sold yourself over to one of the two mega-companies in the field.

So I did it. I gave in. I ordered a Kindle. Hopefully, I will now read books again. And hopefully in the future I will continue to be able to access the books I bought even though the company has gone belly-up in the meantime and the hardware and apps no longer exist.

I just wish I didn't feel like I need to take a shower now.

picket fences and singaporean naps

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. J) — Tue, 03 May 2011 11:35:00 +0000

So a fortnight in Oz and I've said nothing about it. Basically it can be described in two words: KIDS and PROPERTY.

The first because that's what we were surrounded by most of the time and the second because that seems to be the primary topic of conversation. Which probably makes them this years DrJs-Notable-Aussie-Trend-Which-Didn't-Exist-Last-Year, although it is more likely due to the age group I currently find myself in than any culture-wide phenomenon.

So, in fairness I shall instead declare Drinking Ciders That Aren't Strongbow to be the 2011 DNATWDELY (while admitting I saw this last year as well), joining the 2010 winner: Abusing Red Heads With Terms I'd Never Heard Before; and 2008's: Drinking Only New Zealand Sav Blanc Even If Before You Were A Dedicated Red Wine Lover.

Week One was family, involving DrH weasling his way into the nieces and nephews hearts by being "such a good drawerer", winning over five year old girls with ballerinas and fairies and four year old boys with flying robots and sharks. Even I was surprised at his skill with a half-dried-out texta, but then again, I've never really requested such accomplishments from him myself. Mr Cluckyness also attached himself quite firmly to our youngest niece, a fifteen month old with an almost permanent grin, who had him wrapped around her little finger.

Speaking of my other half, when not doting on young 'uns, he spent a vast amount of time hunting out Bulli's to photograph. For those not yet up on the news, we bought a second VW bus last year as restoring the first was going to be too expensive. Of course, this hasn't turned out easy either and he has the whole thing documented on his very own blog. Go on over, it'll make his day.

Meanwhile, Week Two was mostly dedicated to catching up with friends, which required a certain amount of timetabling skill. To those I missed this time, I'm really sorry, but time was tight and I managed to run myself down quite badly as it was. I'm not yet used to getting exhausted this easily.

The flight home was a bastard, with an eight hour wait in Singapore. This time we were smart and parted with $55sin per head to get a slumberette, a shower and a hot breakfast. While I didn't sleep soundly (the paranoid part of my brain worried about missing my flight and woke me up every hour), it was well worth it. Even for just a two-hour layover, a shower for $8 is heaven, and I'm yet to have less than a five-hour wait when returning from Australia through Changi.

Important note: take ear plugs. The slumberettes are in enclosed (but not locked) spaces in a general area. It's quiet, but you do get snoring. Of course, I don't understand how anyone travels anywhere without ear plugs and eye mask and this would be my Travel Tip Number One. Followed closely by Travel Tip Number Two which is: Make sure you travel with a loving partner so you can sprawl as much over their seat as possible as well.

On the road again

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. J) — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 06:16:00 +0000

We're off to Oz again, this time for a quick fortnight which hardly makes the journey seem worth it. Especially as I have to wear those bloody awful compression stockings due to my current condition.

And do you think I could get those in red and black stripes? No, I could not. Seriously, medical clothing manufacturers need to hire a new designer. I hear Galliano might be looking.

So we're arriving Saturday evening -yes, this time DrH is joining me, which means I get to use most of TWO airplane seats, because that's just the kind of wife I am. Currently we have very few confirmed meet ups with friends, so if you want to see us send me an email, comment or fb message. Otherwise I shall spend all my time playing with my nieces and nephews and going to the beach.

Yes, I know you guys all think it's FREEZING, but I had a lovely dinner here on the balcony the other night in a t-shirt while it was 18°C. A little perspective is all one needs and the perspective of the end of another bloody German winter is one way to find 23°C and showers bloody heavenly.

This is the news

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. J) — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 12:18:00 +0000

Dear Everyone,

I am going to have a baby. Should everything go according to plan it will be here and breathing on its own mid-September.

I shall be doing my best to mostly avoid the really annoying facebook entries concerning pregnancy, childbirth and child-raising. I doubt I shall fully succeed but hereby pinkie swear to try.

There will undoubtably be pictures of the child, but hopefully not that many.

I'm not exactly the desperate-to-be-a-mother type, quite the opposite in fact, so it is unlikely that I will be too overbearing with it.

So now everyone is informed. Have a nice day.

Because sometimes you need to remember when life was good

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. J) — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 15:39:00 +0000

With all the horror that's happened in the world in the last few weeks, I found myself on YouTube, watching the theme songs from a variety of cartoons from my youth.

Welcome to my childhood. Enjoy.

right now there's a solar eclipse

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. J) — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 08:06:00 +0000

At least that's what the radio told me this morning. I wouldn't know of course because I've spent the last half an hour underground, fighting for a seat on the u-bahn. Which is more crowded than usual because the S-bahn is continuing its fun and games by canceling entire routes and reducing the others to "it'll get there when it gets there".

So I'm down here while the sun is doing fun stuff above ground and my neighbours don't seem to realise that the reason I keep falling into then is because I have a busted ankle and they should bloody well give me their seat rather than the evil eye. Of course it doesn't help that the train driver is an overly aggressive sort and seems to think that braking occurs in binary. It's 0 or 1 only- there will be no gradual slowing down here.

Ahh, almost at the end of the line. Now, do you think the clouds will clear long enough?

i guess this is good news

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. J) — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 11:28:00 +0000

...no broken bones this time.

I didn't have a sonogram, so I don't know if I tore a ligament like before, or if it's just heavily overstretched. Whatever it is, I've got another air-cast on, this time on my left ankle and I'm considering spending the rest of my life in bed a la Sheldon.

Sigh.

2011 better be better.

so guess who slipped on ice and screwed up her OTHER ankle

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. J) — Sat, 25 Dec 2010 17:24:00 +0000

Seriously, this injury thing is getting old.

rollin' and rockin' and sitting in the penalty box

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. J) — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 07:00:00 +0000

I may have mentioned how awesome roller derby is once or twice, but just in case there is any confusion on the matter... it is AWESOME. Last weekend was the awesomest of awesome, with the first German Roller Derby Championships here in Berlin. Five teams, seven bouts and it was... wait for it.... awesome.

As I'm still not on skates due to the pain in my ankle which, three months later, still doesn't allow me to bend it comfortably in certain directions and therefore is not particularly suited to wobble about on the top of four wheels, I wasn't skating. Well even if I had been on wheels I wouldn't have skated as a) I suck and b) the Berlin Bombshells don't suck and therefore I wouldn't have made it onto the team anyway.

Maybe next year. Or the year after. Or once they perfect body transplants and I can swap out my broken specimen for some young, fit thing.

So over the last couple of months I've been doing Non-Skating Official (NSO) jobs, mainly sitting in the penalty box and trying not to be hit by derby girls flying in on their knees.

For the Championship, three full NSO/Referee teams were put together from all over Europe and, as a full team is eighteen people to run a single bout, there was a lot of us. TestosteRon Jeremy, a ref from Helsinki crashed out our place for the weekend and Leon Dog Wonder fell in love with him.

Personally, I think it was the moustache.

Photo by Michael Wittig

There was something about being part of that group. I think it harks back to my theatre years, where as a lighting tech you were part of a team that runs in the background. Tight-knit, functional, doing your job while others are in the spotlight. I still get a frisson of excitement when I walk into a dark, empty theatre and look up into the Gods, and this was pretty similar.

I'm sure most people who know me find it unusual that I enjoy the jobs in the background so much, as I think we can all agree that I do have an ego the size of a small planet. Of course, I do now have a hoodie with my derby name printed across the back in big-arse letters, so it's not like I'm trying to be particularly shy and unassuming.

Watch live video from euroderby on Justin.tv

he found a bunch of englishmen and led them astray

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. J) — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 18:06:00 +0000

"How're you going?"
"I'm drunk."
"I can see that. How much did you drink?"
"Well I had four beers but I poured half of one away so it was three and a half beers and then wanted a coke but he bought me another beer so I had three and a half beers plus one beer."
"So four and a half beers."
"No, it was three and a half plus one."
"Four and a half, then."
"It might have been seven."

berlin street view

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. J) — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 12:19:00 +0000

Well it's been a bit of a furor but street view is up and active here at last, meaning I'm not doing much else than trying to find interesting stuff happening in my town. This, I consider, is productive use of my lunch break.

Typically, I missed entirely the birth on the street in the neighbouring suburb and the naked dude in the car. Of course, the last one is understandable as he's not a Berliner. You can tell because of the lack of ironically worn retro-eighties clothing.

The most interesting thing I've found so far is this: a guy carrying an injured German Shepherd out of a vets near my place. Okay, so it isn't really exciting but give me a break. I only get half an hour for lunch after all.

Winding up somewhere totally unexpected

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. J) — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 17:40:00 +0000

I found myself the other day, for wont of anything better to do at the time, following a Hot List link on Delicious and wound up in the middle of a story about two gay male ballet dancers called Eames and Arthur. I'm sure you can see where this is heading but I didn't. Not even with the word Inception in the title. Not even with the thin characterisation and overly navel gazing narration. Not even after I read all twenty thousand words of this story and then realised there were more stories of Eames and Arthur, but written by a lot of different livejournal bloggers. In fact it wasn't until this morning when it suddenly dawned on me.

Ohhhh, it was slash fic.

Now I've had really nothing to do with fanfic and its raunchier slash brother. Which is almost a surprise considering that I'm a scifi fan, a wannabe writer and as much a fan of well written porn as the next girl. The story I'd stumbled upon was more of a Mills & Boon than eastern european porn mag, which is why I think I'm excused from recognising it immediately.

Of course the other reason is that the story was about two gay ballet dancers in London. Aside from having the characters vaguely resemble Leonardo and Joseph it had nothing to do with the Inception characters or their world. I mean, what exactly was the point of it?

If the writer had tried a little but harder s/he could probably have created characters from scratch that would have been more complete and actually produced something unique. Or as unique as any love/porn story is I guess.

So, meh. I've stumbled into the world of slash now, but I think I'll head out again. There's erotica aplenty elsewhere and while I'm not averse to a little Gordon-Levitt fantasy, I think I'll just stick with the less slashy variety.

so what do you think this post is about?

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. J) — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 14:55:00 +0000

Twelve years ago I got off a plane from four months backpacking around the world and one of the first things my mother said to me was "You've gone grey!". Which wasn't exactly what you wanted to hear as a spritely twenty-three year old, living up the jetsetting lifestyle of hostel dorm rooms, two-minute noodles and overnight Greyhound bus rides.

Of course, I did get my own back a minute later when I told her I'd spent her lovingly bestowed emergency travellers check in San Fransisco to get a tattoo.

But I digress.

Since then it's been a fight with the grey invader. When friends tell me they've got their first few grey hairs I scoff in disgust. For my regrowth is silver and I'm forced into a steady attendance at the hairdressers. Hi Kerstin!

So I came up with the plan of dying my hair grey anyway. I mean, I can't fight it, I'm sick of having to be at the hairdressers every four weeks. And if I manage to make it LOOK obviously dyed grey, then no one will think I actually AM grey.

Huh? Huh? See THAT'S some clever thinking there, that is.

It took me a while to talk over my normal hairdresser, a woman that deals with me coming in every month and saying "What stupid thing can I do to it today?".

Hi Marina!

Today, however, she was willing to give it a shot. Unfortunately, though, it took a long time just to get most of the colour out and we've decided to put off the next step - dyeing it grey - until my poor scalp has had a little while to recover. So for now I'm a odd kind of golden blonde with strawberry highlights and I must admit, for something different, I kinda like it.

A small deception

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. J) — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 22:39:00 +0000

A couple of weeks ago we had two teenage girls as guests and, as you can probably imagine, we were stressing out a bit as to how on earth we could make ourselves seem cool. Having been extremely uncool teenagers ourselves (although, to be honest, I'm not sure DrH actually noticed that he wasn't) it wasn't something we thought we could pull off.

In the end, I figured the worst we would come off as is middle-class, middle-aged folk trying to look cool, and that's at least one step up from old people still wearing tie-dye.

There is always further one can drop in the social strata.

So the night they arrived from their small town in southern Germany, we took them out to White Trash Fast Food, a bar-come-restaurant-come-club-come-tattoo parlour-come-burger joint-live band venue. It's full of native-english speakers covered in tattoos and kitschy chinese restaurant decor.

The gals loved it and, as an upside, a group of fifty-plus-year olds came in after us wearing North Face jackets and expensive hiking shoes, thereby officially making us NOT the uncoolest In the room. WIN.

By the time we'd gotten home, each had called their respective boyfriend multiple times and exclaimed on the coolness of the night and how much Berlin rocked over their teeming local metropolis of Koblenz.

Later, on our own in the bedroom, DrH and I totally didn't high-five each other on our success at pulling it off.

'Cause that wouldn't have been cool.

Doc, doc, doc, doc

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. J) — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 15:45:00 +0000

I swear I've spent more time with members of the medical profession in the last three months than in the previous thirty years combined. This is getting ridiculous.

So yesterday afternoon I was sitting at my desk talking to a colleague when my lower back twinged. Then twinged again. Then apparently decided I wasn't yet paying enough attention because it proceeded to grab every muscle in my lower back and give them a chinese burn that would make twelve year old every where go "Wohhhr" in awe.

I spent half an hour lying on the floor waiting for a muscle relaxant to kick in before I could hobble downstairs and get a colleague to drive me home.

And it was definitely hobble because, y'know, I still have that broken ankle thing.

Now you may ask why I happened to have prescription strength muscle relaxants in my handbag anyway. Well that's because my upper back was such a mess that I've been at the physio once a week for the past two months. Nicely enough I've an appointment tonight, so he'll get to work on all of my back for once.

I suppose it's a good thing that these have all been injuries as opposed to illnesses, but I'm feeling like an eighty year old. Hopefully I can heal in time to get hit by the real problems of aging.

doing it tough

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. J) — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 16:39:00 +0000

Gosh, life can just be full of hardships can't it? DrH and I have taken a weeks holiday and are currently sitting on a terrace in the middle of Barcelona. It's been terribly sunny and warm and occasionally we've had to wait, oh, at least four minutes before the sangria was delivered to our table.

The suffering, I tell you.

Of course it has actually been slightly harder than normal to do the tourist route, what with my broken foot. We've had to curtail the walking somewhat, and do things at a slower pacer than we might otherwise have.

Take today. After waking up at 10, we read books for two hours until deciding to go for breakfast. We walked about 125 metres to the market, found a cafe and then sat and read for half an hour. Walked another 55 metres and found a lovely garden, where we sat and read for an hour. Walked 500 metres or so gawking at stuff, then decided to have lunch. We ate tapas and then read for another hour. A slow stroll back to our abode, stopping off to buy some antique earrings, and now we're reading again.

I've almost finished my second novel since holidays started yesterday morning and, for the record, The Wind-up Girl by Paulo Bacigalupi totally deserved its Hugo and Nebula awards.

Yep, this holiday thing. Really hard.

because europe is just a small backwater

noreply@blogger.com (Dr. J) — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 21:48:00 +0000

Pretty much exactly a year ago I started looking at ereaders. Someone on twitter told me of the Txtr - a sexy looking little thing that was to be brought out by a local Berlin company. I was thrilled and waited about three months until I finally gave up on it as vapourware. As the same preregistration shit is still up on their site nine months later, I guess it is.

So I needed something else. For the previous year or so I'd been collecting the free ebooks that publishers and authors were putting out, and I'd reached about 150 of them. A significant amount to read, I figured, and worthy of an ereader purchase. But I'm unhappy with the idea of propriatary formats and I'm fundamentally aganist DRM, so the Kindle wasn't an option and neither was waiting for the then mystical iPad.

So I bought a Pocketbook 360 and must say I'm still really happy with it. It's small, light and robust and has a hard cover which is easy to remove. Readability is great and glare minimal. I use it in the simplest possible way - dragging and dropping ePub and pdf files and that's fine by me.

The biggest problem when I bought it was actually buying books. Open format, DRM free? Not so easy. But I found a few places that would. Then they started hammering in the geographical restrictions. And now it's almost impossible to buy books at all. Tor, a publishing company that put out a whole bunch of freebie ebooks as advertising has almost no ebooks available. Still. A year later. And those that are are only available to the US - with DRM of course.

Now I was very understanding of the whole copyright/different publishers/different countries thing for the last year but this has gotten ridiculous. They're destroying their own customer base. Who'll actually go back and start paying for books again when they've gotten in the habit of pirating them for free?

I've held off on the temptation so far - today I bought a huge number of books from Webscriptions, because now they're pretty much the only ones who will sell DRM free ePubs in Germany. Even thought the covers of most of those books are somewhat, well, cheap and off-putting, their sample novels given out via the Baen free library were convincing enough that I've now bought the entire back catalogue of several of their authors.

Y'know what Tor? I would've done the same for you. Only you don't want me to pay for your books apparently. So good luck with that whole surviving the demise of the publishing industry thing. I really reckon you're onto a winning strategy.