Losing My Virginity

I bet that title got your attention, eh?

So for whatever reason I decided the other day to get 2 books by Richard Branson, his auto-biography Losing My Virginity: How I’ve Survived, Had Fun, and Made a Fortune Doing Business My Way, and the summary of it, Screw It, Let’s Do It (it basically compressed the story of the first book into 106 pages of large type, readable in 2 hours and spoiling the thicker book).

Laying in bed trying to fall asleep after reading a quarter of the real book, I thought, “Man, this guy was sure great, but I think he could have done it better – if he had known what he was doing, he’d be number one e.g. in the airline business, instead of playing second fiddle to British Airways [I don't know if that's the real case, in my mind anyway the BA brand is more prestigious]. He failed a lot too during his record company years, struggling to stay in business, signing bad bands and missing to sign the ones that would be successful.” Then I had to laugh at my thoughts. This guy is about to be the first guy to launch a space-tourism business with Virgin Galactic (which, BTW, is the most freaking awesome name IMO) in 2 years, he owns his own private island and he was already running several record stores and a recording studio at age 20, how can I be calling him a failure?

I suppose that’s when I realized how true that old wisdom is, to succeed, you have to fail a lot, and only when you keep on going and keep on trying will you be successful.

Next Vacation Destination

Petropavlovsk (Map)…

Wish List

INSERT INTO `amazon`.`wishlist` (id) VALUES (SELECT id FROM `products` WHERE `name`=’Aston Martin DB9′);

jPod Inspired Nostalgic Blabber…

Yay, I got jPod in the mail today. I haven’t read it though, I just opened the Amazon-package (ah Amazon, the e-Santa) to confirm they sent the correct book. Wow and it’s thicker than I thought! Looking at the cover with the Legoids reminded me of Microserfs, which also had a Legoid on its cover, and that made me think of how I got introduced to Douglas Coupland… [cue flashback sequence...]

It felt nice, being a member of what I’d call the jet-set, lounging around the departure terminal waiting for my flight. Ah, those were the days, sitting at the airport in Sydney feeling like an international businessman. Was it pretense? I was going to take a jet, going home for my annual summer break. I’d get a bite to eat (even if it were only McDonald’s, hah), sit where you get to watch the planes, or browse the stores. I particularly liked the bookstore.

And that’s where I found Microserfs. It was probably the title that first caught my eye, and that it’s about (fictional) ex-Microsoft employees interested me even more. So I bought it, sat on a nice comfy chair, and started reading.

And read, boarded the plane, and kept reading. I wonder if I finished the book on the plane or if the plane made it to Jakarta first. It was funny, it was intriguing (I wasn’t sure if it was really fictitious or if the stroy was real, why haven’t I heard about their product, I wondered). I became a Douglas Coupland fan.

So there I was, holding the Amazon book-wrapper with jPod inside, it’s interesting how that random sighting of that book back then lead to that moment just a few hours ago, some 8 years and 16.5kkm (Kilo-kilometers, Megameters?) apart.

New Digicam!

Yay! Got my Powershot A630 in the mail today. And… that’s it. It’s not that exciting, it’s a Canon Powershot, just like what I already have (a Powershot A70, which died from the infamous CCD-defect), and, well, the options are just the same.

I still have to send the A70 to the repair center, they’re repairing them for free, which is nice of them.

Procrastination, Inc.

Isn’t the internet fun. You wander around aimlessly until you find something fun to do. In my case, that something is learn Dutch. How did I get there? Well:

• I was bored with my music collection, so I started listening to Last.fm‘s radio.
• The Corrs’ Only When I Sleep came on. Yay, great song.
• Looking at that song’s top listeners, the blonde with the nice name caught my eye. Hmm maybe she’s Scandinavian, and won’t mind some random stranger asking her if he could visit her.
• Her info page says she’s dutch. Oh well. But she has a website. With her own domain too. Techie…
• And it’s a blog. But it’s in Dutch. I start reading anyway. I remember from my visit to Belgium and Holland how similar the languages are. And wow, I could understand most of what she’s written there.
• And then came the brilliant idea: Maybe I should learn Dutch. It’d be easy, and it’d be an accomplishment after these many years of non-accomplishing

Then I remember that I had this same idea when I visited Belgium and Holland, when my sister got married to a Belgian. That was in 2002. That’s 5 years ago! Damn, I procrastinate too much.

Or is it just a case of forgetting about the idea?

Man, you realize you’re old, when you can remember how your life sucked 5 years ago. I mean, “5 years ago” for an 18 year old is still the carefree childhood.

Before that song from the Corrs came, All Saints’ I Know Where It’s At played. The great thing about Last.fm’s player is you get the track detail and short artist bio. “Hey, an oldie!” was the thought that came to my head. (That’s the first sign of trouble.) I looked at the player, “Released: 1997.”

“10 years ago! Fuck, have I grown old!”. Where did all that time fly away?

Easter Egg of Doooooom

So apparently, microwaving an unshelled, hard-boiled, egg is also a no-no.
I knew that microwaving eggs cause it to go kaboom, but I thought it’d be fine if I unshelled it first. The egg was already hard-boiled, it was just cold because it was exposed to the elements outside, and I was hungry, and i felt like improvising my dinner. How I came to possess a cold, hard-boiled egg? The easter bunny gave it to me.
So, 45 seconds, beep beep beep, use the microwave door as a face shield, poke, poke. Seems fine. Put it on a small plate, go back to computer, take a bite…
Bof! (That’s what “boom!” sounds like when dampened.)
“What the hell?”
“Hmm, why is there egg-yellow everywhere?”
OK, so the egg exploded, throwing the yolk (hard-cooked by the way, not runny) all over the table. All because I took a bite of it. I guess the yolk heats up faster than the whites, expanded as it does so, and took the smallest piercing as its chance to escape.
Leason learned. It really isn’t save to microwave a hard-boiled egg. Or if you want to do it, poke holes before, or afterwards (afterwards would be more fun, I guess).
But ow, now it’s 2 days later, and only now do I realize that it burned my lip pretty badly. It felt like drinking hot beverage straight after the incident, but my upper lip still feelS funny now.

Chaos

According to the New York Times, it’s okay to be messy.

Poet Laureate

There are two smells
One of them I’m going to miss
The other I won’t
Perfume
And cigarette

She said it was “pretty”. (Or was it, I don’t remember what she said…)

Song of the Moment

Stumbled upon FC Kahuna’s Hayling¹ yesterday, and damn, I’m in love with this song..

Don’t think about all those things you fear/Just be glad to be here

1: Funny how YouTube is also being used to share music on the internet.

Craziest Thing I’ve Ever Done?

I was in the shower just now when this memory popped into my head…

A few hundred meters away out in the open sea there was a giant yacht, it’s windows glowing in the pre-dusk sea, where a few hundred rich people were probably partying on board. Behind us were steep rocks, a small gate we probably trespassed to get here, and behind that, the richest small city and country in the world, Monaco. The water was cold and salty. We had been hitchhiking and fare-dodging for 27 hours, we were sweaty and stinky and there we were, our naked asses exposed in the open, trying to wash ourselves in the sea.

Some Italians watched us from above, amused. I wonder if there are pictures on the internet. It was the 2003 Formula One Grand Prix weekend, and the place was filled with tourists. Some were the filthy rich, most were just visiting from neighboring Italy, 2 were us who didn’t know where we’d sleep that night.

We did find a place to sleep, in a nice passageway that leads to a parking place, just outside a small theatre that shows “The Monaco Story”. Too bad it was too cold to sleep outside in the Mediterranean air.

What a great weekend that was. Some day I’m going to write the full story… ah, someday.

Hello world!

Welcome to WordPress.com. This is your first post. Edit or delete it and start blogging!

You have reached the very first post. Your journey ends here. Or begins here. Well, hi dear reader, I’m Louis, a 25 year old male living in Karlsruhe, Germany. Born in Jakarta, I got here 6 years ago after a detour from Sydney where I lived and went to highschool for 4 years (I miss that place).
This is probably my 4th blog (I was blogging before it became popular. ). The first ones ended up being filled with too personal content that aren’t really for strangers. Lately I’ve been reading so much junk on the internet that I’ve decided to throw myself into the ring and let my opinion be heard. So this is me going public. Let’s hope I’m not just adding to the junk.