This is the first day of the rest of your life...

Many of you already know that I'm no longer with CSB-System. My last day was last Thursday.

Thursday night I had an indoor game where I scored a goal and had a few assists. One of the comments was that I was much more relaxed and played better than I have in a while. Go figure..

So, what am I doing now. Well, I'm still working part-time for Google. I'm going to start doing some translation and now I'll have time to build my business. Blackbird e-Solutions I'm going to revamp the business to focus on Localization for websites and other materials, and Technical Consulting for German companies that want to establish a presence in the USA. So, it's really an excite time.

Online Addict Dies After "marathon" Session

Online addict dies after "marathon" session

BEIJING (Reuters) - An obese 26-year-old man in northeastern China died after a "marathon" online gaming session over the Lunar New Year holiday, state media said on Wednesday.

The 150-kg (330-lb) man from Jinzhou, in Liaoning province, collapsed on Saturday, the last day of the holiday, after spending "almost all" of the seven-day break playing online games, the China Daily said, citing his parents.

Xu Yan, a local teacher, said the "dull life" during the holiday prompted many people to turn to computer games for entertainment...

But I bet he had really good eyes!

Previous post:

You'll Go Blind If You Stare At That TV Any Longer!!!

Wed Feb 7, 2:52 AM ET

SINGAPORE, Feb 7 (Reuters Life!) - Video game addicts, rejoice: U.S. researchers have found that playing is actually good for your eyes, and despite all those dire warnings from your parents, it won't make you blind...

My Domain...

Slowly I'm increasing my power through the Ether.. HA HA HA! (That was my evil laugh. Not really so effective on a blog posting...)

Well anyway... I'm now the Organizer or Assistant Organizer on three networking sites:

Lancaster German Group
Netzwerk Philadelphia - The German Network of Philadelphia
Americans In Munich

There are links on the right side of the page too.

Check them out and join my dominions! HA HA HA H... oh sorry got carried away. ;)

"E-mail had me by the throat,"

This is my third post tonight! But I had to post this article too.


Twelve-Step Program Aims To Cure e-Mail Addiction

Ugh, Boy did we stink tonight....

Wow! what a frustrating night. We lost 9-2.

On the positive side I scored both goals. :) The the ball was passed to me right in front of the goal and I took the shot between the keeper and a defender. The second one of the other guys did all the work. The goalie tried to stop him and the ball rolled front of the goal and I just tapped it in.

I definitely made my share of mistakes too though. Towards the end we could have had another goal. We had a 3 on 2, but I held the ball way too long and lost it. Blah!

Miss Liberty has a lesson for you George!

AP - Mon Feb 19, 7:46 AM ET

A float depicting U.S. President George W. Bush being spanked by the Statue Of Liberty passes by during the Rose Monday carnival parade in Mainz, western Germany, on Monday, Feb. 19, 2007. Thousands of spectators attended the traditional street carnival parade in the state of Rhineland-Palatinates's capital. (AP Photo/Bernd Kammerer)

Will this finally rid us of all the bad drivers?!?

Probably not, well atleast not for a while....

This article sounds like something out i, Robot but it is real.

Urban road race to test limits of robotic cars

Wow! 1908 Ford Model T gets better gas mileage than many modern cars!!

I just found this a link to this article on a friends site. Can you believe that a Model-T from 1908 gets better gas mileage than modern cars. Hmmm... who do you think it is that doesn't want us to know this?!?

Car Mileage: 1908 Ford Model T - 25 MPG
2004 EPA Average All Cars - 21 MPG

Valentine's Day...The Day After.

For all of you who had a less than romantic Valentine's Day, and if you've tried Match.com, YahooPersonals or any other dating site wih now luck. Google has finally come up with the answer! Thank goodness for those guys at Google... (click on the link below)


Google Romance

Priceless!

Drive to the office in the snow and sleet: 2.5 Hours
Drive back home in the snow and sleet: 2.5 Hours
Call to say that the office is closed: 1 Minute

Would have been bloody PRICELESS!
If it had only been at 7am instead of 10!!!

How To Properly Place New Employees

1. Put 400 bricks in a closed room.
2. Put your new hires in the room and close the door.
3. Leave them alone and come back after 6 hours.
4. Then analyze the situation:
a. If they are counting the bricks, put them in the Accounting Department.
b. If they are recounting them, put them in Auditing.
c. If they have messed up the whole place with the bricks, put them in Engineering.
d. If they are arranging the bricks in some strange order, put them in Planning.
e. If they are throwing the bricks at each other, put them in Operations.
f. If they are sleeping, put them in Security.
g. If they have broken the bricks into pieces, put them in Information Technology.
h. If they are sitting idle, put them in Human Resources.
i. If they say they have tried different combinations, they are looking for more, yet not a brick has been moved, put them in Sales.
j. If they have already left for the day, put them in Marketing.
k. If they are staring out of the window, put them in Strategic Planning.
l. If they are talking to each other, and not a single brick has been moved, congratulate them and put them in Top Management .

Changes to the English Language

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5-year phase-in plan that would become known as "Euro-English".

In the first year, "s" will replace the soft "c". Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy.

The hard "c"will be dropped in favour of "k". This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter.

There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome "ph" will be replaced with "f". This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible.

Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.

Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent "e" in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.

By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing "th" with "z" and "w" with "v".

During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary "o" kan be dropd from vords kontaining "ou" and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensibl riten styl.

Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.

Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.

The Effects of Beer on Men

Click on the image to enlarge.

You'll Go Blind If You Stare At That TV Any Longer!!!

Haven't we all heard that as kids? I remember playing Nintendo and even Atari and hearing that from my parents. ;) Well, aparently they were all wrong! There is a new study out that says video game playing is actually good for your eyes. Man, I guess that doesn't include staring at a computer all day for work, because let me tell you, my eyes certainly aren't getting any better...

Study Says Video Games Are Good For Eyes

Wed Feb 7, 2:52 AM ET

SINGAPORE, Feb 7 (Reuters Life!) - Video game addicts, rejoice: U.S. researchers have found that playing is actually good for your eyes, and despite all those dire warnings from your parents, it won't make you blind.

A study by the University of Rochester showed that people who played action video games for a few hours a day over the course of a month improved their vision by about 20 percent.

"Action video game play changes the way our brains process visual information," Daphne Bavelier, professor of brain and cognitive sciences, said in the study published on the university's Web site, www.rochester.edu, on Tuesday.

"These games push the human visual system to the limits and the brain adapts to it. That learning carries over into other activities and possibly everyday life."

Bavelier and a graduate student tested college students who had played very few, if any, video games in the last year.

Test subjects were given an eye test similar to the one used at regular eye clinics and then divided into two groups -- one played shoot-em-up action games for an hour a day while the control group played a less visually complex game.

Their vision was tested after the study, with those who played the action game scoring better in the eye test.

The researchers said their findings could help patients with several types of visual defects.

Who will save New Yorkers from their IPODs?

Below is an article from Reuters about how a New York State Senator wants to ban electronic devices while crossing the street. Yes, ban electronic devices while crossing the street. Sounds a bit silly doesn't it.. I mean seriously, since September 3 people have been killed because they walked in to the street without looking and they couldn't hear people yelling "watch out!" They were wearing headphones. My question is: why does the government waste it's time and money to make laws to help people from being stupid? What's next no talking while crossing the road? No chewing gum while walking? It just seems a waste of time to me. Shouldn't they police be more worried the murder rate or theft?? Is this really a nationwide problem?

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New Yorkers who blithely cross the street listening to an iPod or talking on a cell phone could soon face a $100 fine.

New York State Sen. Carl Kruger says three pedestrians in his Brooklyn district have been killed since September upon stepping into traffic while distracted by an electronic device. In one case bystanders screamed "watch out" to no avail.

Kruger says he will introduce legislation on Wednesday to ban the use of gadgets such as Blackberry devices and video games while crossing the street.

"Government has an obligation to protect its citizenry," Kruger said in a telephone interview from Albany, the state capital. "This electronic gadgetry is reaching the point where it's becoming not only endemic but it's creating an atmosphere where we have a major public safety crisis at hand."

Tech-consuming New Yorkers trudge to work on sidewalks and subways like an army of drones, appearing to talk to themselves on wireless devices or swaying to seemingly silent tunes.

"I'm not trying to intrude on that," Kruger said. "But what's happening is when they're tuning into their iPod or Blackberry or cell phone or video game, they're walking into speeding buses and moving automobiles. It's becoming a nationwide problem."

Red Rose League

We had another game tonight at Red Rose.
This is the first time I'm played over 30's there. The game is very different because you can play off the walls. But, it is also very different because the refs are not real refs, and they don't call anything. I had a break away tonight and some guy took me out from behind. Anywhere else it would have been a yellow card. I barely even got a call. Since they don't call anything the game got really rough. We lost at least one player to injury too. And towards the end of the game our goalie got kicked in the face, and was bleeding. The guy reffing kept saying he definitely didn't get kicked. Come one he was bleeding!

Anyway, we tied. We could have won but the other team scored in the last 30 seconds. It ended up to be 5-5. I had 3 goals though! So far we have lost 2 games and tied 1. The next game we should win at this rate!

Lancaster German Language Group

In order to practice my German I have joined a couple of different groups that meet and speak German. The groups are made up of Germans living in the US, and people like me from the US, who lived in Germany and don't want to lose their German, as well as others that want to practice their German.

Today I just became the coordinator of the Lancaster German Language Group We meet every first and 3rd Wednesday at Macaroni Grill in Lancaster.

Back in the USA...

If you can believe it I was wide awake on Sunday morning at 8:50. So, I figured I'd go play soccer like I normally do on Sun. morning. It was good to get out and run around a bit, but I was pretty worthless since my sleep schedule was so messed up!

Man, the first day back to work after a vacation is always the worst. You never really want to be there. How about the second day? Well, it wasn't much better. :/ Have to try an make it through the week.

Tonight I'm off to an indoor game. Hopefully we will do well tonight. I think we're playing the crappy field though. It still one of the old ones with turf pasted on cement. Great way to get injured! Wish me luck!..

The joys of travel.

My flight today is all messed up because they had to replace the windshield in the plane. Somehow there isn't another plane available, so they had to get a windshield brought down from Frankfurt and that is taking a long time. I'm still not sure how I feel about flying in a plane they just had the the windshield fixed. As of now we are set to fly at 11pm! We are supposed to get an update at 7pm. There is also still a chance it will be cancelled. I wish they would just cancel it and get it over with instead of making hang around and wait.. If we fly at 11 I will arrive in Philly at something like 3 am and will then have to drive home. So, it is going to be a long long day. Especially since I didn't sleep much last night because I went out with a group of people for my last night. Maybe I can sleep somewhere in the airport for a while.


I'm almost falling asleep now.....

6 Years = 6 Minutes

I survived the events from yesterday. The process itself was actually quite painless. We were in the building for maybe 15-20 minutes and the actual thing only took about 6 minutes. It was the most expensive 3 minutes of my life, but it is finished now.
Afterwards I walked around Munich for a while and ended up in the San Francisco Coffee Company at Odeonsplatz Some of you might remember it from after my short walking tour. They have wireless so I went online for awhile and then later went back to where I'm staying to crash for a while.
Later that night I met my friend A from CSB to watch an Israeli movie since it is Israeli film week at the cultural center in Munich, Gasteig Oh, he's from Israel, that's why he wanted to go to see the film. It was actually interesting. It was a documentary about a street kid in Jerusalem.
After that we went to a bar that is modeled after the famous Brecht musical called The Threepenny Opera The place is pretty cool because every room is based on a scene from the musical.
So, it was nice to get out and see people. Sitting at home was not an option. Tonight I'm going to dinner with M. Tomorrow I'll go talk to some hotels about my Oktoberfest trip next fall. Then maybe the Hofbrauhaus...

Steh auf wenn ihr Bayern seid!

One of the highlights of my trip has been that I had the chance to go to an FCBayern game in the new stadium! It was great! It definitely blows away the old olympic stadium. It is really steep so you are right over the field. We were on the upper deck so we had a great view. Unfortunately the game wasn't that great since no one scored and they The were playing one of the worst teams! It ended 0-0. This means Bayern in now in 4th place and out of a position to get in to the champions league. So, the next day they fired the trainer. As you do, I guess.

After the games something a bit scary happened. I went with two Irish guys and a guy from Israel. So, we were all speaking English. On the way out we were in the crowd of people, and I smelled something burning. I turned to the one irish guy and said, "what the heck is burning." He says, "it's like it's following us." Then he looked at himself, " It's not me" Then the other Irish guy yells, "Bryan! It's you!" I look down and there was smoke pouring out of my jacket pocket! Someone had dropped a cigarette or something in my pocket it is was burning my coat! Now, I have a hole in the bottom of the pocket. It was pretty scary. I guess it was just some idiot playing a trick, but it is odd they picked me the only one from the US. But anyway, nothing happened accept the hole in my pocket. Thank goodness!