2004-07-03: Rheinkultur -- Bonn, umsonst & draussen -- leider war die Soundqualität nicht so berauschend. Und Wilco waren eher sonderbar, auch wenn sie sonst nette Musik zu machen scheinen.
2003-09-03: La Fura dels Baus - XXX, Heerlen (Cultura Nova Festival) [Flash] -- This is by far the most strangest thing I've ever, ever, ever seen and probably will see for a long time. Sorry, Papst Pest, only second place for you ;)
Removed some obsolete gunk - life turning interesting again - gotta get rid of those strike-throughs
Wild Rover Music Plan now reworked a bit to let Mason do the tedious stuff, e.g. keeping track of dates. Now if you could use a plugin to generate content... ;)
Ouch! I'm really building up a rather huge backlog of entries by now. Must.Work.Harder.
Oliver Uschmann: Voll beschäftigt -- zur Dequalifikation bin ich auch bald reif!
Oliver Uschmann: Hartmut und ich -- schwach zusammenhängende Texte, nicht sonderlich beeindruckend
Bill Bryson: Shakespeare -- yet another definitive account on the life and works -- or is it?
C.S.Lewis: Out of the silent planet -- old-school SciFi
Yasunari Kawabata: The Master of Go
Oliver Uschmann: Wandelgermanen -- hilarious!
Ryu Murakami: Piercing -- I got seduced by the garish cover design in the bookshop in Singapore. Poor read, The Guardian definitely gives it too much credit. The South China Morning Post was more on the mark, but requires registration.
Jim Butcher: Storm Front
Jim Butcher: Storm Front
Michael Crichton: Next -- Stuff you read when you can't get your hands on anything else.
Geling Yan: The Uninvited -- Might give some insights into Chinese mentality; I'm not sure if the style of writing is just attributed to the simpleness of the main character, it might as well be a bad translation, although it seems to be originally written in English already...
Tom Sharp: Blott on the landscape -- great, wet my pants already on the first few pages.
Neil Gaiman: Fragile Things -- very nice short stories and a few poems.
Terry Pratchett: Wintersmith -- for some reasone the phrase Wintersmith Testosterone keeps coming up in my head now.
Jim Butcher: Summer Knight -- see below
J.K.Rowling: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Nury Vittachi: The Shanghai Union of Industrial Mystics -- funny stuff, a bit haywire
Jim Butcher: Grave Peril -- Jason Dark meets JDATE.
Jonathan Franzen: Die 27ste Stadt -- conspiracies abound. Seems the editors were sleeping on the middle part. There's around 150 rather dry pages until speed picks up again at the end. Nevertheless, I wouldn't recommend it.
Nicholson Baker: Checkpoint -- is he going to kill the president?
Amitav Ghosh: Der Glaspalast
A.Oram and G.Wilson (eds.): Beautiful Code - Leading Programmers Explain How They Think -- Interesting insights
Andy Secombe: The Last House In The Galaxy -- quaint SciFi...okay if you can get it cheaply ;)
Ben Shneiderman: Leonardo's Laptop -- Interesting ideas.
Martin Gardner: Annotated Alice---The definitive edition -- Find out about all the things you missed when you (re-) read Alice in Wonderland, especially if you're not a native speaker.
Bill Bryson: The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid -- I'm not too much interested in life in America starting in the 60s, but as always, Bryson makes a very good read with lots of chuckles
Walter Moers: Die 13 1/2 Leben des Käptn Blaubär -- Ha :)
Jacque Berndorf: Eifel-Kreuz -- o.k. Eifelkrime
Tom Sharp: The Throwback--without Wilt, but hilarious from the start. The end turns a bit strange, though.
Jack McDevitt: Engines of God -- Insipid, nothing out of the extraordinary SF. Interesting twist at the end.-
Philip Short: Pol Pot -- preparing for next year's holiday.
Neil Gaiman: American Gods -- A road-movie gone wrong. Hilarious, to the general theme as Good Omens
Terry Pratchett: Thud! -- as always a good read, but he tries too much bring the morale across. Having to drag the supporting character of Brick through the story also has a forced taste to it. But then, maybe he got funding from the Royal Society for Political Correctness for the book ;)
Michael Palin: Himalaya -- nice read for travellers
Carlos Ruiz Zafón: Der Schatten des Windes -- interesting read on rainy, damp afternoons (or wherever you are anyway). May also provide insight into author's relation to the fair sex?
Kent Beck, Erich Gamma: Extreme Programming Explained. Interesting. But I'm not sure if I'll ever get to apply this...
Tony Hawks: Mit dem Kühlschrank durch Irland
P.J.Tracy: Mortifer
David Fromkin: A Peace to End All Peace -- interesting read, but kind of turns dry after the WW I ends.
Walter Moers: Die Stadt der Träumenden Bücher -- AWESOME!!!
Frank Schätzing: Der Schwarm -- well, what can I say? It's been on the Top Ten for a long time, which probably tells all. I was really smug when an interview revealed that he was indeed working on the story already in 1999, which I think explains why The Terrorist theories feel so tacked on to the story.
Kurt Lehmkuhl: Blut klebt am Karlspreis
Nicholson Baker: Vox
Ernesto Che Guevara: Diarios de Motocicleta
Michael Flynn: In the Country of the Blind -- Yikes. Bloody name dropper. I guess he'd have mentioned Google on the first page if that'd have already existed back then. Complex/contrived story. Given that the book was just 1€ at the pawn shop, I guess I shouldn't complain too much.
Kurt Lehmkuhl: Ein Sarg für Lennet Kann
Karen Pryor: Don't shoot the dog! -- Clickertraining for beast and men. Goes down well with my psych lectures.
Bernhard Hennen: Nebenan -- Herrlich, das ist was für die Rollenspiel-Freunde.
J.K.Rowling: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince -- ok.
Hugo Loetscher: Abwässer - Ein Gutachten
Tom Sharpe: Der Einfaltspinsel -- Wilt's latest adventure, although without him in the starring role.
Tom Sharpe: Trabbel für Henry -- Hilarious! Wilt is at it again. If you have a family like a natural disaster, even German terrorists cannot cause you, erm, physical harm.
Terry Pratchett: Going Postal -- Refreshing, although it's quite laden with allusions.
Terry Pratchett: Pyramids -- again.
David Wong: JDATE -- You can actually feel your brain trickling out from your ears, but you can't stop reading. I wonder if HRDATE.
Neal Stephenson, J.Frederick George: The Cobweb -- Good start, but in the end peters out like a bad Tom Clancy story. Stay away if you're more into Stephenson's bright imaginations and tangents, you'll be disappointed! I'd recommend that Bush-voters (both Sr. and Jr.) read it, though.
Simon Winchester: Eine Karte verändert die Welt
Joseph Heller: Catch 22 -- aborted...blame it on the edition: fine print, no margins, tedious. Will retry some day.
Margret Greiner: Miss, wie buchstabiert man Zukunft?
Iván Molina Jiménez: El Alivio de las Nubes y Más Cuentos Ticos de Ciencia Ficción
Sue Townsend: The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4 -- 'kay, so I finally read it, no big deal.
Terry Pratchett: The Dark Side of The Sun -- Pratchett doing SciFi? Actually his story is similar to other works on ancient races disappearing into god-mode and scattering hints all over the universe. But this time, he's pulling your leg and paying tribute to Asimov.
Nicholson Baker: Room Temperature - If you liked The Mezzanine and have a wife and a baby, this one might interest you. He's a bit on the family-side this time.
Rudy Rucker: Frek and the Elixir - Gnarly, but maybe he's just exagerating a bit...
Terry Pratchett: A Hat full of Sky - Crivens! We really should have made it to Uffingtonlast year, ye ken.
Alexander Tzonis: Hermes und die goldene Denkmaschine - Scientists shouldn't write books. Confused and convoluted, it feels like half of the pages are missing.
T.C.Boyle: Grün ist die Hoffnung - Nett
Hubert vom Venn: Wer stirbt schon gern in Düsseldorf? - Nicht gerade Weltliteratur ;)
Multatuli: Max Havelaar - Interesting, but tiresome to read
Herbert Feuerstein: Feuersteins Drittes - Travel stories, short and fun to read. WOLPERS!!!
M.Kerner (Hrsg.): ...eine finstere und fast unglaubliche Geschichte
N.Stephenson: Diamond Age. Re-read cause it's so good. Next time I'll have to write down all the interesting stuff going on in there...
J.K.Rowling: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Okay.
Terry Pratchett: Monstruous Regiment. WAR - what is it good for? Absolutely nothing.
George H. White: Mas Alla Del Sol. Rather flat story without big surprises.
John Derbyshire: Prime Obsession. Bernhard Riemann and the Greatest Unsolved Problem in Mathematics Things you never wanted to now about prime numbers, calculus and analysis. Good & easy read.
Ray Bradbury: Martian Chronicles ditto
Ray Bradbury: Fahrenheit 451 Interesting to read it finally. Many ideas.
G.K.Chesterton: The man who was Thursday. Entertaining nightmare.
Neal Stephenson: Quicksilver. Almost a thousand pages thick.
Horst Evers: Die Welt ist nicht immer Freitag
Bill Bryson: Short History of Nearly Everything. Thick book, lots of information. I'd rather the book would have more depth and less width.
Rudy Rucker: Hollow Earth. Erm...what've you been smoking?
Nicholson Baker: The Fermata. Mild erotica. Likes Suzanne Vega, too.
Robert Kanigel: Der das Unendliche kannte. Biography of S.Rahmanjuan, F.R.S. Interesting, but hard to read.
Terry Pratchett: Nightwatch -- Weak story. There's waaaaay much more room for interesting plots, but there are no surprises. The surrounding story drops you too fast into the main part and after returning from it, it's almost over.
Wolfgang Hohlbein: Der Widersacher OMG -- oh-kay, I needed something simple for the holidays, but once again my prejudice agains W.H. is confirmed. Crap.
Constance Reid: Hilbert Interesting and easy to read biography of David Hilbert. Kind of depressing to compare your own career to those of his contemporaries, though.
William Gibson: Pattern Recognition Quite different from his previous works and set in our modern past-9/11 days. High buzz-word density, some loose ends, but definitely still fun to read.
Roger Williams aka localroger: The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect -- you need therapy, man. But nice to see that some people are still able to put down several pages of (more or less) coherent thoughts.
Terry Pratchett et al.: Science of Discworld II: The Globe. The facts are really interesting, but the surrounding Discworld story is rather crappy. You should only read this if you are not easily disappointed and have read all the other books. Even more so if your edition is printed in the same fine print as mine.
Juan José Millás: El Orden Alfabético. Letters and words disappear in a fevery dream.
Bill Bryson: Mother Tongue
Steven Levy: Hackers. Well written historical account, funny & easy to read
Terry Pratchett: The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents
Jacques Berndorf: Eifel-Liebe - probably the worst Eifel-Krimi yet :/
Nicholson Baker: The Mezzanine; reflections on an escalator. Strangely familiar thoughts.
Jostein Gardner: Maya oder Das Wunder des Lebens - Didn't finish it, the guy likes to listen to himself write too much
The Gene Generation - OMG, I couldn't even finish that one. BAAAAAD.
Parasite Dolls
Toter Mann - Hollywood my shiny metal ass!
Lars von Triers Geister (Riget/Kingdom)
Amores Perros - Interesting movie, a bit on the violent side. Cool music.
Immortal (ad vitam) -- French movie based on comic-writer Enki Bilal's work, mostly rendered with few real actors. Must-see.
Dogville -- Disturbing, but you already know this when it says "Lars von Trier" on the outside.
Whalerider -- Excellent story
Towards The Within -- Dead Can Dance DVD
Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi (Chihiros Reise ins Zauberland) - Excellent movie from the maker of Princess Mononoke, but more child-friendly. Go see it!
Wasabi - Excellent movie by Luc Besson with Jean Reno. Fast & furious
Men In Black 2 (MIIB) - Complete waste of money
Flash Gordon - Finally in the DVD collection
The Man Without a Past - smooth and entertaining movie by Aki Kaurismäki (Leningrad Cowboys), a slow-moving picture set in Helsinki, Finland.
The Favour, the Watch and the Very Big Fish - Jeff Goldblum as a mad piano player who turns into a Jesus-lookalike. Funny!
Robotic Angel - Interesting Manga-version of Metropolis, although some of the dubbed German voices seem a little bit too young
