This is really the top news story today?
February 25th, 2009 nick
Google News headlines, 25 Feb 2009
Lulin
February 22nd, 2009 nickDon’t forget to check out Comet Lulin over the next few nights. This is a nice star chart that shows its path over the month.
Google…
February 22nd, 2009 nick…is slowly taking over my life.
- I’ve stopped using the Mac Mail program and now basically exclusively use the web-based interface for reading mail. I [heart] the keyboard shortcuts. You can basically read your mail without touching the mouse.
- I’ve started using Google Reader and am “sharing” items regularly. This means that other folks who use Google Reader who have me as a contact will see these items and any notes that I attach. It’s kind of like a second blog, but requires less time to maintain and post. You can see my recently shared items (including this one gem — really, watch it now) at this website. I guess even if you don’t use GR but use another RSS reader, you could still subscribe to my shared items at this page.
- I’ve converted everything to Google Calendar. I do miss the slick functionality where Mac Mail would know which items contained events and could automatically add them to your calendar (Gmail has something like it, but the current version isn’t as good as Apple’s), but not enough to go back.
- I have an iGoogle homepage where I track some investments, the news, keep to-do lists and check the weather. The MyListy gadget supports (1) multiple to-do lists (e.g. “school”, “home”, “grocery”, etc…), (2) prioritization, and (3) easily moving the items on the lists around. So slick.
- Also, I just passed the 100 threshold on Google Docs — I now do more word processing and spreadsheet work on Google Docs than I do anywhere else.
There you have it — the life of a Googaholic.
Germany
February 22nd, 2009 nickIt’s been far too long, but I guess there’s never a good a time to start blogging again as the right now.
We got back from a whirlwind five day tour of Germany on Thursday and, with the exception of me falling asleep at 11:30 on Sonja’s couch last night while everyone was trying to learn a new game of cards, we both seem to have licked the jet lag pretty good. But the game seemed kinda boring anyway, so maybe it doesn’t count. And certainly boring at least when compared with Shafkopf (a.k.a. “sheep head”) the new Bavarian card game that cousin Peter taught us and we were quickly addicted to. It’s like Euchre, only with a special deck with different-than-usual suits, 8 permanent trump cards (in addition to the “hearts” suit), and a backgammon-like betting scheme. The biggest twist on Euchre: the partners switch up and you don’t know who your partner is when each round starts. It was cool enough that we recruited Max, an environmental engineering student who was riding on the same train as us, to join us for a game on the way between Munich and Augsburg. Peter was a master of knowing all the little Bavarian lingo that goes along with the game. It appears to be an age-old cultural phenomenon in German that crosses all age-groups. Mandi played it when he was a little kid and knows all the ins and outs (although we didn’t play with him). Johanna insists she has a deck somewhere, although I haven’t seen it yet. Official rules can be found here.
We also got some good time with the grandparents (highlight for me: being able to tell Johanna’s grandfather that I liked ice skating : “Schlittschuh laufen macht mir Spaß.”), with Mandi and Hilde, Lemly and Peter. We traveled to Regensburg to hang out with Peter and he treated us right, cooking us up a traditional Bavarian breakfast: Weisswurst (white veal sausage, bought that morning), Butterbrezel (pretzels with butter, cooked in Peter’s oven that morning) and Weissbier (Erdinger wheat bear). I didn’t need to eat for the next ten hours.
a true Bavarian breakfast
We stayed up late the last night — out at the posh Capitol bar in downtown Augsburg playing Shafkopf until 1am with Peter and Lemly. Then left the house at 5am in the freezing cold to catch the street car to the train to the airport. We were pretty much in awe of the public transportation system and the bratwurst. Really, we had a brat at the cheap sausage stand right outside the Augsburg train station and it was amazing — no tough gristly pieces in the meat, subtly spiced, tender and perfect. We’re going to check out Binkert’s German Sausages just outside Baltimore to see if they can get close to replicating the true German deliciousness.
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