I first blogged this from my new phone, the Nokia N95 8Gb, which I still love! I'm just editing the post to add some text, as you can see. We had a very nice Christmas, with some friends of ours coming over and doing a big Christmas dinner and then a "white elephant" type gift exchange where we drew numbers and the higher number could pick one of the gifts that had already been opened, which was a success. Then we moved to another friends and ate dessert and played some games. It was quite fun!
New Year's, we went first to a champagne party which was very posh. We tried champagne from several different countries and contributed a bottle of bubbly from Russia. Well, obviously, the only real champagne was from France, because it comes from the Champagne region of France, but what else ya gonna call it?
Then we moved to another friend's party, which they were just moving to yet another friend's place, where we would watch the fireworks from. They had a balcony from which I shot the above video. Nice, huh?
After the fireworks, the couple who's place it was announced that they had "Rock Band" for the Xbox 360...I think. I believe they had both an Xbox 360 and a PS3, and I'm not sure to which the wires went. Anyway, it was awesome and we played much longer than they probably would have liked us to, but we were having a legendary night. We finally packed it in around 4.
Just a close up taken on the phone. I'll use it for the profile photo.
Don't forget to check out the below video in "Videos" (for better quality):
This is a post from my new phone. I'm trying out the mobile blogging
feature out of both this phone and Vox. You'll have to leave a comment
or two to let me know how you like it. I'm afraid that it won't be
very long, since my words per minute aren't as great using the keypad
on my phone as on a normal keyboard, although I'd like to think I'm
better than average on the numbers. Anyway, it's a Nokia N95 8gb
phone, and I absolutely love it!
This was taken on the Wednesday before Christmas
Music-wise, what was the first 45, single or download you bought?
Submitted by Paddy Melt Wagon.
This is going to date me, but what the heck, it was a 45 and it was "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" by Cyndi Lauper. Great song.
I read a very interesting article in the New York Times about sleep and lack of it. I recommend reading it. People who get enough sleep live longer than people who don't. I've been interested in sleep for a long time. What does that have to do with the picture above? Absolutely nothing! I just got this picture and some others not too long ago, so since I didn't have 'sleep' picture to put with this post, I thought I'd put this up there. It was taken on the Heidelberg castle grounds.
Yesterday was our two month anniversary! Yay! We celebrated by going to dinner and watching TV! Yay! I love you, Natalya!
This was a picture that was taken at John's wedding that took place on August 31st, 2007. From left to right, there's Mark, Me, Paudie, Thomas, John, Alex, and Mr. Gentle (a.k.a. J.R.). Don't ask me what we're all thinking about or what we're looking at. I think what I was thinking at that exact moment was either, "How can I manage to look cool in this photo," or, "If Mark moves quickly, will I lose my balance and fall?" I just got the picture yesterday from the bride, Gillian, via email, hence the delay in posting. By the way, best wishes to John & Gillian for a happy and long marriage!
Poker night was Tuesday night. We had a good crowd—eight people, if I’m not forgetting anybody. I didn’t do so well. I didn’t have very good cards, but I suppose my betting wasn’t top-notch either. I went out either second or third. Not too good. Bill was all-in on probably four or five occasions, but somehow managed to grab third place. Jen was consistently good, and she ended up with second place. Natalya did very well, and luck was on her side, AND SHE WON!!! I’m pretty sure she didn’t cheat, too. :-) Just to show how her luck went, on the last hand, Jen went all-in and Natalya called. Jen had a 3 and another card, maybe a Jack, and Natalya had a 5 and an Ace. On the Flop came a 3, a 4 and another card that didn’t help either player. Then on Fourth Street, nothing to help either player, and, on the River, came a 2! Natalya had a straight! Amazing…Congratulations, Natalya!
Today (October 15th) is Blog Action Day, which is focusing on one issue: the environment. I thought I’d participate. I would like to focus on recycling. I live in Germany, where it is easy to recycle. It is pretty much mandatory. You can get fined for failing to recycle, although I’ve never heard of someone getting caught. We have a trash can for plastic & metal (aluminum & tin cans), a trash can for “Bio” (food/biodegradable waste), a can for Paper, and one for everything else. Not only that, but there are community containers for glass. Yeah, about once a month, we take our empty glass bottles to the big container and throw them into their respective containers (brown, white or green glass), which is pretty satisfying ‘cause you can hear them break as they hit the bottom of the container.
To a lot of Americans, I’m sure that sounds like a lot of work, or at least some extra effort. It’s really not a big deal at all. It was a bit of an adjustment when I moved here, but it’s just routine now and I feel less like of a contributor to waste sites (because I am).
Now all that work done by the general public (& government) makes it easier for the recycling companies to do the industrial recycling. That’s great! If you’re unfamiliar with the overall benefits of recycling, look here.
Why isn’t it like this in America? Maybe it is in some regions, but why not everywhere? I think it just needs to be socialized more and pushed by city councils and local government. That means you have to push for it. You have to ask your local government to push for it. If you’re a member of your local government, you have to push for it. If you’re doing a video for a YouTube debate, then ask the presidential candidates why it’s not federally mandated, or at least what their view of it is. If you’re in school, push for your school to participate in Recyclemania, and if it already is, then support it!
Make sure you check out the Blog Action Day website!
