6T7

THIS BLOG IS OVER!

2005-05-23T20:50:00.000+02:00

Ok I will not continue this Blog.

I'm maintaining mobifoto.de instead.

Please update all blogrolls etc.

Take care,

Steff

Rub a duck

2005-05-22T21:20:00.000+02:00

Something I just had to share:

Batteries are included.

Take care,

Steff

Colleagues - Part 2

2005-05-21T20:54:00.000+02:00

Continuing the picture series...

Some more guys I work with from time to time:

Guido Dirk

Torben Antoine

Take care,

Steff

To whom it may concern

2005-05-21T03:18:00.000+02:00

Well what can I say...

Even if it is not that new, many people who read this blog will think the image is hilarious. :-)

Take care,

Steff

Use the tissue, Luke!

2005-05-18T19:35:00.000+02:00

Zewa, a german tissue company, is a Star Wars promotion partner.

And yes, they also have toilet paper.

Ok, let that sink in for a minute.

Take care,

Steff

Colleagues - Part 1

2005-05-17T22:45:00.000+02:00

When I was looking for the venice image for the last post, I also stumbled into a directory with some pictures I took in Athens during the Olympics last year.

Just to give you an idea what kind of people I have to work with:

And yes, he won the gold medal in Patio Polo.

Take care,

Steff

Venice, no beach...

2005-05-17T18:39:00.000+02:00

Not much story here, just I photo I made when I was in Venice this January.

Take care,

Steff

Blöde Partei

2005-05-16T15:13:00.000+02:00

Sorry guys, but I have to do this in German...

Wenn man Wahlplakate gestaltet, sollte man darüber nachdenken welche Botschaft sie senden wenn man das Kleingedruckte aufgrund hoher Vorbeifahrgeschwindigkeit oder größerer räumlicher Distanz zum Plakat nicht erkennen kann.

Take care,

Steff

Burgers and beer, I mean... cocktails

2005-05-15T11:38:00.000+02:00

Yesterday evening started off with some serious junkfood.

We had decided to have homemade burgers before going out for some cocktails.

This resulted in something like this:

And both of us had two of them.

Before our first stop for this night we met a moving bachelorette party in the street and I was forced to cut this

from the brides suit over her right breast. Isn't the heart supposed to be on the left?

Right after that we went to meet with some guys at a fake russian bar called Hotel Lux.

Had some vodka cocktails there but it got a bit crowded after some time and we moved on to my favourite bar.

Oh yeah, these were the guys we met:

And this strange guy was there also:

Take care,

Steff

Photos, photos, photos

2005-05-13T21:08:00.000+02:00

Ok, I didn't post anything for some time now.

But I will post photos on a more or less regulat basis now.

The first is a scan of an ad for a french jeans company. Yes that is me in the ad and it is a slightly strange ad, but hey it was 1989.

Take care,

Steff

Made it back from Vegas

2005-04-24T15:37:00.000+02:00

I finally made it back from Vegas, the fligh was rather uneventful and actually quite fast. No delays, no long waits when changing flights.

And now I can share some crappy pictures I made with my cell phone.

This was my hotel floor in the Mirage. These endless floors are creepy somehow.

Apropos floor, we went to the Mix, a nightclub on the 64th floor of 'The Hotel at Mandalay Bay'. $20 cover charge, quite a nice view over the strip but the cocktails had some room for improvement. Still a nice view, did I mention the patio seating?

And I really did buy a PSP. And what a good buy it was. We must have found the last three PSPs in all of Las Vegas as the usual spots (EB Games, Circuit City) were all sold out.

And this is my PSP which already shortened my flight back:

Slightly jetlagged I had to work at another issue of the
Chart Show again. This time it was about the best music videos. Well what can I say, there were some live bands. Paul Anka also, which seems a bit surprising. But the after show party was nice and The Boss Hoss were performing an unexpected live session right there at the bar.

Damn, I really need a cell with a better camera.

Take care,

Stefan

First Night in Vegas

2005-04-17T20:58:00.000+02:00

I did not sleep the night before the flight and thus managed to get 5 to 6 hours of sleep on the plane.

I reserved a seat in Economy Plus months ago and got one behind the crew seating. That means you can't reach the back of the seat in front of you with your legs, even if you stretch.

The guy next to me asked if I would be willing to switch seats with his girlfriend who had a 'very similar seat on the other side of the cabin'. But her seat was neither a window seat nor had it the row spacing I had here, so I said I was sorry but no.

Turns out that, unlike her boyfriend, she was German. We did not talk a lot though, as I was sleeping (or trying too) most of the flight.

So he switched seats with his girlfriend. After we landed his 'girlfriend' was completely alone at the baggage claim, took her trolley and left equally alone.

The trip from Chicago to Las Vegas was rather uneventful.

Checked in the Hotel and then Heiko and I opted for a rather early dinner in the ESPN sportsbar. We hit a bar at the New York, New York after dinner and witnessed 3 simultaneous bachelorette parties with one of them having the bride to be offer 10$-20$ body shots.

But finally, three Long island Ice Teas later, the time zones caught up with us and we went to sleep.

Oh and this is a view from my hotel window. Strange reflection in the window btw.

Viva Las Vegas

2005-04-15T09:11:00.000+02:00

That's right, I'm going to Las Vegas tomorow.

The flight leaves Frankfurt at 8:25 AM. For a US-flight I'll have to be there 2 hours before departure. That makes it 6:25. The train from Cologne to Frankfurt takes about an hour and leaves Cologne at 4:40 AM.

Oh my.

This means I will hardly get any sleep tonight but maybe that helps me finding some sleep on the plane.

I'm going to Las Vegas for NAB, the biggest broadcast convention in the world. This year I'm staying at the Mirage Hotel which is located quite close to the Fashion Show Mall. That could easily result in a shopping spree as the US-Dollar is only about 0,78 Euro right now.

Should I really buy a PSP?

I will be back in Germany next Friday and I will probably have some pictures.

Take care,

Steff

Work In London

2005-04-09T20:20:00.000+02:00

Ok, what happened this week?

I went to the Champions League match Chelsea - Munich in London. I flew in on Tuesday, match was on Wednesday and back on Thursday. Work there went rather well but Munich lost 4:2 which now requires a 2:0 in the next match for them to proceed to the half finals.

Our hotel was the Chelsea Village which is located right at Stamford Bridge. That conveniently cuts down the time you need to get to the TV compound to about 150 seconds.

When we checked in Felix, the guy with the company credit card, told the manager on duty that he would pay for the rooms of our crew and that the invoice had to state the company address. The french guy (why is it, that there are so many french, italians and germans working in London hotels?) said that it would most certainly be no problem and if he would be so nice as to sign on this paper that he would pay for the 4 other rooms.

Checkout on Thursday, however, proved to be quite a problem as the girl at the reception did not really know what she was doing.

After 25 minutes we finally managed to have all the rooms on one invoice and all the extras on the other. To put in the company address was beyond her, though.

Very sad for a hotel with a room rate of 160 Pounds per night.

Heathrow was as horrible as always. I really think Heathrow is one of the worst airports in Western Europe. Although we didn't have to wait at all to check in at the BA counter. That actually was a first. The flight was delayed due to heavy traffic and we took off one hour after our scheduled departure.

Just to make the day complete my train from Düsseldorf to Cologne was cancelled and I had to take a completely different route.

So while the actual flight took only 50 minutes, the trip from the hotel in London to my apartment took about 7,5 hours.

BTW My Dell monitor is supposed to be delivered on the 14th now.

Take care,

Steff

Monitor Delivery Date - UPDATE

2005-03-31T11:19:00.000+02:00

Today I received Dell's order confirmation as a PDF via email.

The order confirmation states the 29th of March as the delivery date.

They'll have to be really really fast to make that date.

UPDATE:

I received an answer from Dell which says that they have some delays due to a material bottleneck in production. They are sorry for the delay but my monitor will leave production on 04/04/05 and then take another 3 to 4 days to actually reach me.

Online order status now states a delivery date of 04/04/05 though.

Take care,

Steff

Dell's Date of Shipping

2005-03-30T19:06:00.000+02:00

As I wrote in the last post, I ordered a nice monitor from Dell. It's the new 24" model and they had a good introductory offer so I thought 'what the hell' and ordered it.

That was the 21st of March and Dell's ordering system told me that the shipping would be in 8 to 11 days.

Today I checked the status of my order on their site and it told me that my monitor was 'in production'. The order date was given correctly as '03/21/2005/'.

The shipping date, however, was '05/04/2005'. That is about 5 weeks later than the original shipping date.

There are two possibilities here.

The first one is that, as I ordered the monitor with the german branch of Dell, somehow the german notation for dates was mixed up with the american notation in Dell's order status system. In that case the shipping date would be the 5th of April, which would be fine.

The alternative possibility is that Dell just changed the shipping date without feeling the need of telling me about it unless I checked the date for myself on a regular basis.

Interestingly enough Dell's US site states 'Usually Ships: 3+ Weeks' now, while the german site states not a shipping time but a delivery time of 5 to 7 days now.

Well I just wrote an email and asked them if it's just the ordering system that sucks or if it's Dell itself. I'm looking forward to their answer.

Take care,

Steff

The ultimate chart show

2005-03-22T17:54:00.000+01:00

We did the first rehearsals for "Die ultimative Chart Show" today.

I transferred all the graphics for the show from an old backup to a new machine.

Of course I had to make a lot of adjustments. The machines are supposed to be able to exhange layouts without any hassle but reality begs to differ.

Still a good day because the whole thing took only 3 hours but I am billing a full day rate.

Oh and I ordered this yesterday.

Take care,

Steff

Jake In Progress

2005-03-21T11:57:00.000+01:00

I saw some episodes of Jake In Progress and must say that it's really funny.

Jake is a celebrity PR guy living and working in Manhattan and the series tells us about him, his friends, their work and their relationships.

The whole thing strikes me as some kind of 'Sex and the City' for men. Less shoe shopping though.

Take care,

Steff

Virtual Camera Chelsea

2005-03-21T02:25:00.000+01:00

Just wanted to see if this works.

I made this really bad picture with my cell phone while working in the stadium of FC Chelsea London in 2004.

The two guys that are barely recognizable in the background are Oliver Bierhoff and Oliver Welke.

Take care,

Steff

First entry...

2005-03-21T00:42:00.000+01:00

I actually did it. I tried to start my own Blog.

Well it's most likely that I will post two or three entries here and then let it rot until eternity because I am far too lazy to maintain a Weblog with a steady stream of witty articles.

We'll see.

Take care,

Steff