Initially this whole thing was about communicating from Malaysia to Germany, to get my pictures from overseas online and to create some persistent viewable memories. So I started this blog project as my personal Malaysia diary.

I did never question, whether this was the right medium to keep my friends up to date. Guess some would have been happier to get individual emails or some monthly emails with reports about what would be happening abroad. From my personal experience reading such emails, I had decided that at least for me those mails were rather inadequate. When you finally invest the time to read through such mostly long summaries, the events which are covered are already ancient. There are also so many topics covered, that you just don’t know what to say. And if you read such a complex work, you will feel obliged to write back something rather highly sophisticated. Using a blog, you will have more short postings, and there are chances, that some friends would just write something less sophisticated.

Meanwhile I have learned, that blogging enables to far more than just an easier way of communication with friends. Actually it is only suited for this communication if your friends are willing to go this way with you – they need to read the blog and need to comment. I had to make the experience that the first of these requirements can be achieved. It is just a little less convenient. Although your blog might give the reading person many more features than just a simple email it is less convenient. The reason is very understandable – you can’t just force somebody to visit your website, but you can demand that somebody reads your emails. Anyway, if someone cares he will take his time to have a look on your blog from time to time. But the second requirement – to get feedback via your blog from these friends is a really invincible obstacle. Until today the majority of my readers has reservations against commenting on my blog. The number of people commenting on my blog, who don’t own their own weblog moves against zero!

But there are other users that can be motivated to contribute to your blog – people just like yourself – fellow bloggers. Initially I had hoped, that I could keep contact to my friends from Malaysia with the help of my blog – but not all of my friends down there seem to care very much about my writings here. But due to my blog I got new friends in Malaysia – bloggers like me

Posted by Jürgen Hösch in Things to know, Web-Site at 09:18 | Comments (8) | Trackbacks (0)

The summer is almost over, but I finally managed to compile a second CD containing my most favourite tracks related to “summer” and “sunshine” (See this post for the first compilation). After some searching it wasn’t too easy to find my favourite songs amongst all of the possible tracks, but I think I gathered together a nice collection of cool recent and past tracks.

Pohlmann – Wenn jetzt Sommer wär (a German singer-songwriter dreaming of summer time)
The Ataris – Boys of summer (just gaining more momentum than Don Henley’s original version)
Heiko and Maiko – Sonnenschein (light weighted house track dreaming of sunshine)
Luttenberger-Klug - Super Sommer (see this article)
Bananafishbones - 1. FC Sommer (this track is just relaxing)
Peter Licht – Sonnendeck (similar relaxing like the Bananafishbones)
Patrick Nuo – Five days (this track has no “summer” or “sunshine” in its title, but it tells the story of a summer love story.)
Katrina and the Waves – Walking on Sunshine (the classic track dealing with sunshine)
Kate Yanai – Summer Dreaming
Mungo Jerry - In the summertime
Laid Back – Sunshine Reggae
DMX – Ain’t no Sunshine
David Tavare – Summer Love
Milk and Suga – Let the Sunshine in
The Corrs – Summer Sunshine
The Underdog Project - Summer jam 2003
Texas – Summer Son
Los Massot – Un rayo del sol (first really noticed that song being whistled in “Lucia y el sexo”)
Ace Of Base - Cruel Summer (Hartmann & Langhoff Short Mix)
Bananarama - Cruel Summer
Dido – Sand in my shoes (Not necessarily a summer song – but it very well tells the story arriving at home after a great summer holiday)

Posted by Jürgen Hösch in Media at 08:34 | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0)

Although I didn’t manage to see the movie (yet?), I got myself the soundtrack to this remake of the old TV-Series. In my opinion gangster-movies playing in Miami always tend do have a very promising soundtrack. I liked the original Miami Vice Score, and I was not disappointed by Bad Boys and Bad Boys II. A short view on interprets of the Miami Vice score were sufficient to convince me that it was worth getting it: Moby, Mogwai, Emilio Estefan.

The first track a cover of Phil Collins “In the Air tonight” is a very powerful, rock-like cover with some strong guitar reefs. In contrast to this carrying along track Moby (featuring the beautiful voice of Patti LaBelle) achieves a more pensive mood with the track “One of these Moments”. Moby’s second track “Anthem” is pretty much more powerful. Although some sound elements remind me to “why does my heart feel so bad” the whole track adds up to an energetic Anthem.

Mogwai also contributed two tracks to the soundtrack. “We’re No here” strikes with it’s heavy rock sound surrounding the listener with deep melancholy. “Auto Rock” starts a very light weighted, but ends in a similar heavy finale. Those two tracks are not necessarily suited if you are seeking for easy listening but thoroughly recommendable.

Amongst the other tracks of the soundtrack Nina Simone’s “Sinnerman” (remixed by Felix da Housecat) could win my heart. Some might describe the main melody as nervous or being naffing but in my opinion it is just irregular enough to be trendy.

Posted by Jürgen Hösch in Media at 12:09 | Comments (4) | Trackback (1)

Quite interesting that I watched the seasons end of Alias season five yesterday, and once more the series played in Italy (since the whole series involves researching the works of a fictive ancient Italian researcher the story was set in Italy quite often). But this time the film makers got a blatant error into their script. The mountain scene visited in Umbria was set on a big glacier. None of the mountains in Umbria is high enough to have even a little glacier..

The city of Camerino is on the top of one of the mountains at an altitude of about 660m. The town once provided home for a pope and is university town since the 14th century. Walking through the narrow streets of that town there were indeed a lot of students and pupils on the road. It was a bit like walking through the old town of Bamberg, but the other way around. This time I was the alien trying to get pictures of all those nice sights, were all the other people were “just” living there.

Dinner: Pizza Rustica – Profiteroles

Posted by Jürgen Hösch in Sights at 08:27 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

The weather was a real dream – blue skies, temperatures above 25°C – only the relatively cold water at the swimming pool was a little annoying. Anyway, it was the perfect day to be lazy and to enjoy the sun. I managed to finish reading Gabor Steingart’s recent book, and was busy preparing some blog-postings.

Dinner: Spaghetti a la carbonara – Pizza funghi porcini - Profiteroles

Posted by Jürgen Hösch in Travel at 08:24 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Although we’ve been on holiday in Tuscany quite a view times, there are still a few spots we hadn’t visited yet - one of those was the city of Todi. Unluckily I’m a little too tired atm to give a detailed write up. But have a look at Wikipedia’s description here. or at my pictures here!

Dinner: Tortellini Freschi Panna e prosciutto – Pizza Ricca - Profiteroles

Posted by Jürgen Hösch in Sights at 10:33 | Comments (0) | Trackback (1)

On Monday the next bigger town with some decent supermarkets was our target to restore our almost empty food and vine supplies and to watch out for some local products. We first headed for the big Coop supermarket, which is part of a small shopping mall in Sinalunga. There we got almost everything we needed, but then our curiosity made us visiting the local branch of Lidl. Guess what – about half of the products are about the same… Even the pricing of the goods was similar – that’s globalisation in its pure form.

Dinner: soup – sausages – dark chocolate

Posted by Jürgen Hösch in Travel at 21:37 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Throughout Tuscany there is quite a number of monasteries. Years ago we had already been visiting the Abbazia but unluckily it was closed at that occasion. This year we gave it a second try. And this time we had more luck and the Abbazai was open, so we had the chance to have a look at the museum. Have a look at my pictures here!

Dinner: Antipasto della casa – Pizza rustica - Profiteroles

Posted by Jürgen Hösch in Sights at 10:18 | Comment (1) | Trackbacks (0)