28 years later

One of my biggest wishes of all times has come true... Cat Stevens, now known as Yusuf, has released a new album. It only took 28 years, and well, what can I say... it was sure worth the wait.

Somehow, the world seems to turn into a better place for the time I'm listening to his music...

Check it out folks... and remember: You can't bargain with the truth!

Keep the lights on!

Today, I have played a concert... my first one since 15 months or so. It was GREAT!!!! What made it especially cool is the fact that all the people who were on stage with me, are really good friends of mine, who I have known for years.

Damn, I had almost forgotten how great it feels to perform in front of an audience... and even now, since it's over, I'm still totally excited.

I just made a decision... I have to get back to writing songs, recording them, and performing them. I think I missed performing in front of people more than I was willing to admit.

When we started the last song, a thought came to my mind... what if the concert never ended, what if that wasn't the last song... what if the stage lights wouldn't go dark after the show... what if they would keep the lights on forever...

Crikey...

I was (and still am) extremely shocked when I heard the news about Steve Irwin's death today. I have always totally loved the Crocodile Hunter on Discovery... and the fact that it wasn't a crocodile that killed him, but a short-tail stingray barb right through his heart (a "one-in-a-million thing"), is kind of ironic, don't you think?

I don't know why, but for some reason I was always completely convinced that Steve Irwin was invulnerable... somebody should have told the stingray that.

The final curtain

Hey, does anybody remember what happened today 29 years ago???

Well, today, 29 years ago, Elvis died... or should I say "he returned to sender"?

Since I'm a huge fan of Elvis, I totally HAD to mention it here.

Isn't it cool to have your own blog?

I haven't learned to say goodbye, hello itself is hard enough

I was too busy to write any updates these last couple of days. There's a lot of new things to talk about, but for now, I'm tired, so I'm going to keep this short.

My dad left yesterday to Argentina, so today was day one of my 5 week solitude. To tell you the truth, it's harder than I thought it would be. Maybe it's because I am getting older, or maybe it's because my dad is... but I really enjoy the time I can spend with my family a lot lately. Well... they will be back on September 16th... and due to the news I was talking about before, I have plenty of stuff to do that will keep me busy until then... at least that's what I hope.

More about that soon...

Feeling alone again...

On Tuesday, my whole family will leave to a seven week vacation to Argentina. Well... not my whole family, to be precise, because my dad will stay 'til the 11th of August, and then, he will be gone, as well.

The thing is, I would love to join them on this vacation. Argentina is a beautiful country, and the people are really a lot more friendly than the people over here in Germany. But... I don't have the money to go at this particular moment.

That sucks. What doesn't suck at all is the fact that I will be able to spend some time alone with my dad for the next couple of weeks... since my stepmom and the kids will be gone, we'll have time to talk about things that we can't talk about when they are around.

Don't get me wrong, I totally love my half brothers, and I get along with my stepmom really well... but my dad is my dad, and since my mom died in 1997, he is the only one of my parents who is still around.

What's really going to be hard is that when he leaves in August, I'm gonna be alone for four weeks, until they all come back again.

I really love my family, and I already miss them now, even though they haven't even left yet.

A perfect barbecue

What do you need for a perfect barbecue? Usually, a couple of steaks,
some beer, and a handful of very good friends will do.

Now, if I would ask our German chancellor, the answer would be slightly
different: For a perfect barbecue, you need a wild boar, 30 secret
service agents, 15.000 German policemen, some battleships, a few
helicopters, 5 welders (to seal the manhole covers in the area), 20 well
trained dogs (looking for bombs), 1.000 carefully chosen German citizens
who applaud for Bush when he appears, and countless roadblocks to hold
back the more than 5000 Germans who want to protest against Bush and his
politics.

How much money do you have to spend on a perfect barbecue? Usually, $100
will be more than enough.

Our chancellor just spent 30.000.000 Euros today. That's $38.220.300.

If that isn't a great way to waste our taxes, I don't know what is....

On Sunday, before going to my dad's place for the weekly barbecue, I'm
gonna call my dad and ask him to seal the manhole cover right in front
of his house... I want to know how it feels to be President of the
United States of America at least once.

It's only soccer...

Oh well... every good thing must come to an end sooner or later... and one of the best things this year has come to an end today: The FIFA World Cup is over.

Before I continue: CONGRATULATIONS, ITALY !!! And Zizou, you're still one of the greatest soccer players of all times, no matter what happened today!

It was an outstanding tournament, and I don't think I ever have experienced more passion, joy, excitement and happiness here in Germany than during these past 4 weeks.

It truly was amazing... and now that it's over, I feel a certain kind of emptiness. What will I do tomorrow, when there won't be any more matches to watch with my friends or family? What will the Germans do now, with the biggest party ever being over? Will they continue to live as happy as they did during the world cup, or will they be all depressed and reserved again?

I don't know... after all, it was only soccer... but in a way, it was so much more, especially for my country and the people living here.

Into the great white open...

Blogs are cool. Every geek has one. And when I started this blog here, I was totally happy that I, too, was part of that big online family of bloggers.

Well, to tell you the truth, this enthusiasm has vanished to a certain degree... it's like with everything you do: When you don't get any feedback, it doesn't make sense.

Unfortunately, blogger.com doesn't seem to give you the chance to see the traffic on your blog, or to find out how many people have come to your blog. If blogger.com does offer such a feature, I haven't found it yet.

Ok, the fact that I haven't received any comments on my posts yet doesn't necessarily mean they haven't been read.... but not to know whether or not other people read what I'm writing here, makes me feel kind of sad.

It might be a phase, I don't know... but at this particular moment, I'm not feeling like posting here. I mean, what's the point of writing stuff without anybody reading it?

Well, this blog is still pretty new, and it might take a while for people to find out about it, since there are so many blogs out there... I guess I'll just wait a few more weeks before deciding whether to stop my blogging experiment or not.

Ouch...

First, Germany loses against Italy in the World Cup, and then, the beloved weekly WWdN tourney on PokerStars gets cancelled.

One without the other would have been fine... but both things together are just a little too much for me today......

The only thing that can save me now is a bottle of excellent wine.

A BIG bottle...

Cheers!

A Hundred Highways

This one goes out to all the Johnny Cash fans out there: You absolutely have to check out the new album American V: A Hundred Highways !

It contains the final recordings of Johnny with Rick Rubin... completed shortly before Cash's death.

An amazing piece of music... probably the most intense of all the American sessions.

Here's what you gotta do: Buy album, insert cd in your cd player, push play, sit back, shut the f*ck up, and enjoy!

Kick and Crush

Sorry for another soccer post here... but I just have to comment on today's match Portugal vs. Netherlands.

Oh.My.God.

I mean, come on... what was that? The Netherlands had really surprised me during the qualification, because they played beautiful soccer. And today? Back to their old way of foul play. That's all they did today. They knew they would never be able to handle Portugal's genious player Cristiano Ronaldo, so they tried to get him out of the match as soon as possible by injuring him.

Unfortunatley, the second attempt to do so was a full success.

Damn... these players really should be ashamed of themselves... what they showed today had nothing to do with soccer AT ALL.

I'm glad they are out.

3

There's one thing I hate even more when it comes to poker than playing a hand in a bad way... and that's playing a hand excellently, and then getting rivered by some donkey who doesn't know anything about poker.

Well... that's what happened to me today. Three times by three different players on three different tables within the past three hours.

Maybe I should just stop playing for today... enough damage done to my bankroll.

Especially since it's past 3am over here... :-)

Goooooooool Rrrrrrrrronalllllldoooooooooo!!!!

That's exactly how it sounded today on Brazilian Television after Ronaldo scored his first goal of the World Cup. Pheeew... finally. Including the two goals he scored today, he has now scored 14 goals in World Cup matches. That makes him the best scorer ever in the history of the FIFA... there's only one player who has also scored 14 goals so far, the German Gerd Mueller (back in 1970 and 1974).

If Ronaldo scores one more goal during this World Cup, he will be the new record holder.

Shouldn't be too hard to to, or?

Happiness is a warm gun...

I told you I was an enthusiastic poker player, right? I usually play small stakes tables, low buy-in tourneys and an occasional heads up game over at PokerStars. You can find me there under the nick of Sires.

Once a week, I play in the WWdN: Invitational tourney, and I'm always looking forward to do so every single week. It's just the coolest tourney in the world... somebody once described it as "the bigges home game" ever, and he sure was right.

Last night, I finished in rank 41 (out of 63 players or so), and even though I got busted quite early, I was happy with my decisions. Now matter in what rank you finish in a tourney, the most important thing is to be happy with your decisions.

Always keep that in mind...

I'm not in love yet, but I'm working on it

Today, I read two posts over at Wil Wheaton's blog, and they brought back memories of my vanishing youth. They did so for two reasons: The titles of both posts, and the content of one.

When I was younger, I absolutely LOVED the music of Huey Lewis and the News. Totally. And I absolutely loved my Nintendo NES. Golf was one of my favorite games, along with Metroid, Zelda, and Wrecking Crew. To be honest, I spent hours playing Golf on the NES while listening to HueyLewis' albums... I wonder what Freud would have said about that.

If you are into those kinda games, you should check out Wil's "Games of our Lives" over at avclub.com, it's fantastic!

And if you want to listen to something interesting from Huey, check out "Plan B". Great album, that.

From dusk 'til yawn

Today was probably the most boring day of the FIFA World Cup so far. Thank God I spent the day at a friend's house... watching these games in good company prevented me from falling asleep. Unfortunatley, I have to say that I was disappointed by the Brazilian Team de nuevo. They started to play really good after Ronaldo had left the field... but the rest was just terrible, considering the players they have.

But then again, they seem to have a strategy... first game 1:0, second game 2:0... if they keep following that scheme, they will win the final by 7:0.

Under these circumstances, I would be extremely happy if Germany would NOT make the final this year...

Destination Germany

I think it's about time to talk about the biggest event in Germany EVER: The FIFA World Cup!

Wow... I mean, WOW!!! Haven't we seen great games so far? I'm totally watching every single game, and I am so fascinated by this whole event. Best team so far? Argentina! Ok, they didn't have much of an opponent in their last game, but boy did they play good. Let's find out how good they really are when they play against the Dutch team next week.

Brasil, in their first game, was really disappointing in my honest opinion. They scored one goal, and that was it. No more soccer, no more fun, just playing on a minimum level. Boooh...

I really enjoyed Italy vs. USA today. What a game... if Team USA would have played like that when they played against the Czech, they wouldn't have lost 3:0. And did you see Ghana today? Impressive, really.

Well, I don't want to say much about my own team (Germany), since you all know that they will be the next world champion, anyway... the question is not whether or not they will win, the question is how high they will win. :)

I can't wait for tomorrow, when Brasil will be playing again... hopefully, they'll play a little better than last time. After all, all the people, who spent tons of money to get a ticket, want to see something entertaining for their money.

It's so cool to have the world cup over here, watching three games per day on TV... actually, I'm a little afraid of what I will do with my time when the world cup is over.

You know what? What I might do then is step outside for a moment, and take a deep breath of fresh summer air.

"Welcome stranger, listen in...

... the presumption of innocence was buried again."

So, this is it: The first real post on my first real blog in my totally unreal life ( not sure whether it's my first life or not, hence the stylistic break there...). For further info on reincarnation, please visit www.elvis.com.

I am so excited... even though I don't expect anybody to read what I'm gonna write here in the future, it's still going to be so much fun. Ok, I could go and tell all my friends about the stunning fact that I have my own blog now, but that will take a while... especially since I would need to find me some friends to begin with. For further info on loneliness, please visit www.michaeljackson.com.

Anyway... I think that's enough for "first post". For further info on what you can expect to find here in the future, please check the title of this blog !