randomosity

Sleep Tips

Local Heroes?

Naru Shiode from the University at Buffalo gave a spellbinding presentation on spatial-temporal analysis at the Centre for Spatial Analysis (CSpA) on Friday. Shiode is trained as architect and urban planner and finds himself in the Geography department at Buffalo. He has been associated with projects such as Digital Egypt and the Virtual Ryoanji projects exploring ancient historical reconstruction as well as time-based recremorphing. His current project is the 3D Buffalo project which allows a user to interact via a chronoslider that triggers time points for each building within a multi-block area surrounding downtown Buffalo. This project is only in its early stages, but the potential for historical analysis is tremendously promising.

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Naming Names

Starbucks Challenge

Dutch Tulip Island

Was out to the kino to catch something that I could claim as some degree of exposure to the German media scene. The redlight district probably could have provided some special, ;-) experiences, but went the other way. What are the kids watching - something German only. I found ‘Lissi und der wilde kaiser. It advertises itself as a parodie of the classic ‘Sissi’. I can only say that it takes serious license. As it turns out, it’s aimed at a little more mature audience than the normal animated show goer. I booked early. Circumstances. And with German efficiency had an assigned aisle and seat. Showed up close to time as I recalled that there is a sufficient period in advance with commercials, not trailers. Inside there’s three people in a 150 person theatre. My seat if right beside them. Another couple girls 13-15 come in and sit on the otherside of my 13-15 year old male friends.
Two adults come in. They are the seats in front of my colleagues. I can see that there is a system in the seat assignment process…but it sucks. Its starts from best seat and starts assigning in all directions. so you get 15 people all sitting right adjacent to one another despite 100 extra seats. And my German cimenagoers just went with it.
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One thing that really strikes me and I’m not sure I was as conscious of it before was that English holds a strange place here. There is the unique fascination with certain words that seem totem and symbolic rather than literal. In many cases, the words chosen have no context in English (don’t make sense), its almost as if they are perceived as more resonant when written in English. You see descriptive terms on clothing for example that are solid such as skiing on a jacket. Otherwise there are of course many words that may even have originated from German roots and are now borrowed back from the English. These have formed many of the words I have chosen to contribute to Geoffrey Rockwell’s Dictionary of Words in the Wild.

Well, here I sit at the Flughaffen Frankfurt. Its about 8am, and we got in a little ahead of schedule at 6:45am. No sleep, but then I decided that that would be best in the end and forewent the schlaffendrage (sic). Feel a wee bit fatigued, but not too bad yet. The 777 is a pretty sweet ride. The entertainment system has all the choices you could want for any length of flight. Seat pitch about the same, but it was one bumpy ride most of the way. Its just lightening up in FRA and I have a rather lengthy layover. Tried to move to an earlier flight as there are Lufthansa flights for München every hour, but they tell me that with my fare, I would have to pay a hefty surcharge. Not quite sure where the airline economy is in that, but alas. We’ll just kick back for a bit and wait it out.
Frankfurt always seems (and is absolutely) removed from nationality. Everyone is on their way somewhere or in between places. Its has that transient feeling about it.
Saw the final Pirates of the Caribbean, which was amusing then watched a string of sitcoms, including a British one about paleontologists dealing with dinosaurs in modern day England and a US one called 10 items of Less which seemed quite good as well. A couple Office episodes, a Eureka and ‘Til death. All good.
English is spoken in the airport here more than German it seems, but then that seems to be the memory for here. About an hours walk to get where I am in the terminal. We shall see what we find in München.
No wireless in the terminal that I can find.

8 Laptops in one coffee shop…every one a Mac.