in which I quit my job and revive my blog for a bit

I haven't been around much lately. Due to the invention of twitter and facebook and other social networks I've reduced my brain waves to 140 character messages at a time and not much else.

I quit my job on Tuesday, I was urged to by my own body and my gf and for once I followed the advice given to me.
I feel a lot better now that I know my time here is finite. No more fighting for leave and no more fighting for paid overtime. Those are fights other guys fought for me decades ago - I shouldn't have to again, because of some colonists who haven't read the memo.
There were other things going horribly horribly wrong and I realised that I wasn't talking about much else anymore. It does put a strain on yourself, your partner and the relationship you lead. Not. Good. At. All.

Also, I was getting more and more exhaused until my doctor finally proclaimed that I'm her newest Burn-Out Patient. Great.

So, I'll still have to fight my way through July and the I'll be free. Free to sleep in, free to take time for myself, free of obligations, free of money probably too. But I don't care because I live in a wellfare state and if I really have to I'll find a job quick.

So, that's about the news I have so far, but I'll probably be back with some more soon and let you know how the trip to Budapest went.

Have a good Week-end.

random post # 3595: boredom

no I'm not in a blogging frenzy but I kinda have nothing else to do. Let me qualify that, I don't have anything else that I WANNA do.

Does that ever happen to you? You agree with yourself on having a slow day on the couch with nothing much to do, and then you're bored but not bored enough to actually start working off things on your to-do list?

That's what is happening to me right now. I played an old video game and now that I got bored with it I can't bringt myself to get up from the couch.

Oh, and by the way, how is it possible that the two biggest Austrian supermarket chains don't sell cider?

ultimate geekdom and buying presents

don't you love days that start slow?
It's not that I have nothing to do or anything (quite the opposite, actually), but my sister is sleeping over on the couch in the living room and that means I can't get up without waking her.
Now, that sounds worse than it actually is, because I'm well prepared.

Gf and I had our laptops ready for use at the side of our bed and are now in bed feasting on online procrastination. Other people have breakfast in bed, we postpone eating for computer time in bed (also, I'm not hungry yet).

Also, I wanted to clear up yesterday's crypic: It was a regular christmas thoughtfulness, about how people are showing their worst side instead of their most peaceful and lovable ones - all in the name of the most important holiday in the western hemisphere...
wouldn't you think that a financial crisis would lead to less people in the shops and a return to the more traditional values of this holiday season?
No, I was tackled by a hockey mom buying christmas presents on Thursday, because I was too close to her sons new favorite video game (of which were a thousand more on the display). I didn't even want that game, I was just passing by the section because I needed to in order to get to the concert ticket selling place...
damn, you anonymous hockey mom, I'll remember you for next year, you betcha!

The Viennese

I live in Vienna. I don't really like Vienna.
I'm officially Viennese as of yesterday.

I was born in Vienna because my parents are from here. But I grew up outside the city in Lower Austria. I went to school in Vienna, that's how near we lived.
Also it made sense to move back here when gf and I moved in together.
Yesterday, we went to get registered at the place we've been living in for quite some time. Getting registered just means that the state now knows that I live in Vienna and not in my parents home anymore.
So it hit me: I'm Viennese now. Now have something in common with THEM, who are grumpy in the morning, can't drive when it rains, snows or in general, who whine and bitch and moan all the time, who think they're so cool for living in a grey and dusty place.
Then again, nothing changes just because of a piece of paper, does it?

I had an appointment today

...but I couldn't go because I was sitting/leaning/lying on the couch hugging a hot water bag and popping painkillers....yay.

So instead of getting my hair cut and looking super cool afterwards, I'm in my PJ's and snuggly bathrobe under a blanket haunting the interweb, looking for distraction.

I hate days like that.

the joys of a proportional representation system

In Austria we don't have a winner take all system, we distribute our votes proportionally into seats in the parliament.
That of course means that after the elections it can tak forever until a coalition sees itself fit to go to work. That is why they prolonged the legislative period from 4 to 5 years. Nevermind, that the coalition fails every two years and we re-elect the same parties. I don't think I have to stress that not an awful lot of work gets done and quite a bit of controversial policies drop under the table.

Austria held elections on 09/28 and the parties are still working on a coalition. And that in itself would be worth a long post, rambling about how they started putting together their negotiation teams AFTER the election and so on and so forth, but I won't do that.

Instead I simply wanted to state that concerning economic policies the two people negociating are Doris Bures (SPÖ) and Karlheinz Kopf (ÖVP). The SPÖ is the leading party and I think we all agree that the economy is pretty fucked up right now and therefore the economy policy negotiations are important and should be viewed as such.
Doris Bures was a dental assistant before she became a politician. When she was a politician she was in charge of gender and housing issues - one might say the stereotypical "womens' issues".
Why do they put her up to discuss economy with a guy who worked in this field all his life in various positions? Is there a chance that SPÖ-issues will even be considered? Will she give in before he even has to argue? I don't wanna say that she's not good at negociating - I don't know that - but does she have any qualification?
Am I the only one who thinks this is a joke?

Did they think people were too busy standing in line to vote?

What were they thinking? I mean, seriously...seriously? Fireing Brooke Smith was about the most outrageous insult to anyone with a brain and half the wits to use it.
Did they think the story would just be drowned out by the elections? There are better writers all over the interweb, who expressed my feelings already to the core, so I won't even start with the raging and fury. If you wanna read more go to Dorothy Snarker.

On a more positive note, my current job situation seems to take an upward trend but not wanting to jinx anything, I won't say anything until I have or don't have the job...

Also, gf and I will probably be up all night (damn time difference) watching the election, maybe we'll also live blog a bit, giving an insight into how bad the Austrian Broadcast Company is and how Europeans see the whole thing...
Which means there is nothing left to do but to remind you guys to go VOTE!

how to go in circles and circles and circles again...

We're back from Sweden. We voted.
All these things mean nothing anymore after an afternoon at my grandparents.

I bought these pants that turned out to be good pants but a tad too long, so I asked my grandfather - a tailor - to make them shorter for me. In return for the favor I'd drop by for coffe and cake.
That may sound strange but it is in fact more fun for my grandparents to make coffee and cake than it is for me to be there and engage in a conversation most likely to make me go nuts.

So while grandpa was tinkering with my clothes, I taked to granny in the kitchen. She repeatedly told me that her neck hurts (what's new?) and that the went to a gym class today which she didn't like (no news there either). Mom and I think she's got some sort of Alzheimers or Dementia or something (test results still unknown) so I don't mind her being repetitive.

But then she started to tell me about how great the elections went yesterday because the social democrats won. She's right they won, but when I tried to explain that our great coalition parties may still come first and second, but they lost almost 6 and 9 percent of their votes, which technically makes it a loss for them, she started arguing that the front-runner of her preferred party (W. Faymann) is most qualified and that he at least is not as weak as his predecessor and all will be well now.
In an whim of attempted self-torture, I plunged into explaining that the chances are very real that her party will not be in government even though they came first (insert complicated coalition system here), and that we might very well have a right-wing government for the next period. Her mind bailed on me and she kept explaining to me that this won't happen because of her very strong front-runner. I wanted to give up on that issue right there and then and my mind screamed at me to let it go and be happy she didn't vote for the right-wing party, but somehow I couldn't and kept on discussing politics with her.
I do this every four years after the elections. Lately, I've been doing it every two years because of the instable governments we've had. I should know better by now. It seems I don't.

So coffee and cake was served and grandpa joined us and we started talking about the social justice problems in Austria and I was blind sided by xenophobic remarks. My grandfather had voted for the social democrats, I know that, because he votes for them since he turned 18. But somehow the xenophobic rhethoric of the right-wing front-runner of the freedom party (H. C. Strache) crept into my grandfathers vocabulary and stayed there. He probably had watched the speeches and discussions of that guy before the election and this is what happened.

In a way I'm thankful that this happened today. Because now at least I can explain to myself why those right-wing idiots increased their votes by 7 %. But on the other hand I still feel the urge to bang my head against a wall.

state of beaurocracy - University of Vienna

I've filled in all the paperwork today. On Monday, I'll hand it in and hopefully I'll have my BA within 6 weeks of hoping they don't bury my documents somewhere in their stacks of paper...

When I got myself all the empty paperwork before the summer I had the feeling that my department is at least a little more organised than the rest. I couldn't find those forms to fill in so I went to get mysefl new ones last week. I was handed a completely different type of form that I was sure is the wrong one but I knew better than to argue with the people there.
Today, I went again and was handed the correct form to fill in (I recognised it from before the summer) and filled it in when I came home. The strange thing...I have several classes that I was sure I would need for the BA that don't have any place on the form...Maybe, they forgot to hand me an extra sheet to fill in???
So, I'll have to go back on Monday to hand in the form and ask if they really don't need me to fill in the rest of my classes somewhere...
I hate beaurocracy!

The great country of Austria or why change will not happen here

As you may have known from my Shelfari on the right, I'm reading Valerie Plame's book about her being outed as a CIA officer. The book really got me thinking if it would ever be possible for such a thing to happen in Austria and I came to the conclusion that no, it really isn't.

We don't really have an Intelligence Service comparable to any IS of the States -that's how unimportant we are. We have only one Intelligence Service that can be taken seriously. They are part of the military which is a joke by itself. They are responsible for things happening abroad and apparently were (maybe still are) THE Intelligence Service to talk to when it comes to questions on the Balkan area. BUT here, no one gives a damn. Most Austrian citizens wouldn't even know the name of our IS (btw they don't even have a website, that's how secret they are!) let alone be interested in what they are doing.
I think - apart from it maybe being illegal to out a secret agent - no journalist would think twice about publishing the name of an agent if they had one, they simply wouldn't because no one wants to read a boring thing like that.

I could go on giving you example of how no one cares about Intelligence in Austria, but where I really wanna go with it is the level of political resignation here. There is a lot going on with the elections in September and all, but people are generally uninformed, me thinks.
I get the feeling that people only care about politics - and instantly become experts on the matter - in times of elections. I admit that happens quite often given the fact that we seem to have quite an instable government that can't keep it together for the 4 years of their legislative period (thank god they decided that with the beginning of the next, the legislative period will be 5 years). People love to complain though. Austria harbors the best complainers worldwide, we do nothing but.
Given the general sentiment of complaining about how bad it all is and that the parties really can't govern properly, I don't understand why people still vote for the same two or three big parties. Wouldn't it be logical to say, "It seems that these guys couldn't get it right for 60 years, maybe we should give the small parties a chance?". No, it doesn't happen, because that would mean change and a chance that everything might turn out for the better and who can guarantee that people will still be able to complain?

I'm thrilled to see a new party (LIF) on the ballot. It was there before (in the 90ies) but it's back again bringing fresh blood into the election "campaign". I'm curious to see how many votes will be taken from the other relatively small left wing party (Greens) and how many will vote for the new party only because they don't wanna vote for the same old big ones...My guess is the LIF will cause trouble for the Greens and no one will be in a position powerful enough for a strong opposition.

I'd really love to see this country change and open up and make step into a modern future, but I'm too frustrated and too disillusioned to really believe that can happen. Because if you get honest answers from Austrians, THE DON'T GIVE A DAMN about anything if it doesn't directly concern them.

My guess is, that being a neutral country fed the Austrian tradition of looking the other way with a concerned face. "We can't do anything, our hands are tied because we are a neutral country, sorry!" Over time this has trickled down from high ranking politicians to the average joe on the streets. People will not help you or do anything to improve their situation, because they don't care if they are not the victim and when they are they will complain a bit to vent. They are bored with foreign politics because we are neutral and nothing will happen to us anyway. They are not the victim, they don't care. They are bored with Austrian politics because politicians are all liars no matter which party they're from, what can we do anyway, let's whine and complain a bit.
Austrians are passive, we didn't even have a revolution back in the days. It even seems that Enlightenment is a strange concept to some - it's too risky, let's not think for ourselves and demand a change for better or for worse.

the political dilemma is slowly kicking in

so I'm at my parents' place in Lower Austria enjoying the fresh air and the quietude. Also I managed to master twitter and successfully use my account (feel free to follow me!).

Earlier today, I joined my grandmother watching TV. There was this political debate thing going on. The head of the Green party was facing the head of the social democrats. I'm telling you, I've never seen such ignorance and pseudo-intellectual discussion that my head started spinning.
They were talking about "non-issues" in such detail that I wanted to scream at the TV.
These people are supposed to run our country. These people want my vote come September 28th - I really have no idea what to do.

spoilers schmoilers

so the new Buffy comic is out and of course I read it asap because I was spoiled by afterellen. And guess what, they spoiled me way ahead. What they said was gonna happen will happen in another issue because it really wasn't in this one or I would've noticed!
GRmpf.

split city

Usually, Vienna is a dead city - music wise.
Also, the gay pride parade is traditionally lame.
This year, there will be an astonishing line up at the parade (if your expectations are withered from the last few years) and they'll have kosheen playing and some local but really good bands. Also this year most of the acts playing will be eye candy for the girls. This must've been an accident or a small miracle because usually it's a boys event where women are welcome and will show their support but will not get much in return. So all of that will happen on Saturday and usually gf and I don't go because it's so lame, but this year I'd really like to to go to the after party thing because of the good music, because I like to support local artists that are surprisingly good and because I want to support the new trend of good music at the parade.

Today, while cleaning I listened to the radio and was informed about a huge music charity event organised by this particular radio station and that kosheen, sean kingston, jodin sparks, pharrell williams and some other artists are going to play. All this for 2 bucks a ticket. The parade starts at 3 pm and the whole music thing won't start before 5 pm. The Charity thing starts off at 4.30 pm.

Once in my life there's something I wanna go to and then I find out that there's something else to go to too...At least kosheen are playing at both parties, so I won't miss them. Also, this explains how the parade people got kosheen to play at the parade...

In defense of Lisa

gf and I devoted 40 minutes of each week to Bravo's Top Chef. We both don't like Lisa. Since we are not alone in that perception I kind of wanted to know how that happened. I was really pissed that Lisa stayed and Antonia had to leave.
After a while I at least got myself to think that it wasn't the time for mistakes and Antonia had a bad day...
So today when reading Dorothy Snarkers recap of the last episode I found out that apparently Lisa is a nice person who gets edited to be the angry lesbian. Why on earth does that happen?
I mean, the few times she got to smile she looked really nice. No doubt she's a fierce person, but we don't get to taste her food and so we don't know how good she really is.

I'm still pissed about Antonia leaving but after reading about the editing job on the show I'm more pissed about that than about my fav chef having a bad day.

living on the dark side of the moon

usually, when a movie starts in Germany, the movie hits the theaters in Austria one day later.
In these cases there is no air date for Austria. none.
They will play this movie in Germany starting May 24th. Let's hope for the best.



They Germans also have an air date for wanted and we don't. Now, this bugs me a little less, but both are movies that I wanted to see on a big screen and not just on my computer at home...so get an air date, dammit.

My week, so far

As I left for work this morning gf claimed that I look unhappy and that she wants me to cheer up because she'll start worrying about me if I don't cheer up any time soon.
I told her that I didn't sleep well and that that's probably the reason, nothing to worry about.

On my way to work I started thinking and concluded that my week so far was pretty bad and maybe that's why I'm not all chipper.

Ironically, Monday was a good day. I left work on time and got myself a snake board.
Tuesday, I forgot my little sisters birthday. Well, I didn't forget it, really. In the morning I thought of it but I don't like texting in general and much less if it's a happy birthday text, it's not personal enough. So I thought of calling her later when she leaves school. Naturally, I got caught up in stuff I needed to write for Uni and completely forgot to call. So at around 10 or so she sent me a text to ask if I had forgotten. I called her back and apologized and she wasn't mad at all, but I still felt very bad about it. She turned 18.
Wednesday, I had to wait 45 (!!!) minutes for the bus to come. Luckily, I was only 5 minutes late for work but even that is too much for a punctual person like me. Also, the bus schedule was fucked up for the last three weeks already so I called and asked and even though the person on the phone was a real sweety it didn't lift my mood. I thought to myself that at least I'd be able to leave work on time. Ha! I didn't. I stayed an hour longer than I wanted to and came home beat.
I didn't sleep well last night, god knows why and so today - although it's a sunny and so far ok day - kind of pisses me off too.

I HATE it when I am that way. I am a fairly balanced person usually, but when at some point I somehow fall out of balance it takes me forever to get back...Does anyone have a suggestion on how to stop this mood of mine?

my 2 cents

I called in sick today. i'm not acutally sick. I'm sickened. I found that counts too.

Thank God it's not my own thesis but yesterday I realized what I should have known one and a half months ago. Mr. Advisor is not qualified to be an advisor.
The Vienna University, where I'm still enrolled because I haven't yet done my last to term papers, one of which is due today (do I really need to mention that I'm not done?) - bach to the point - the Vienna University is a chaotic and unorganized lot of people who usually don't have an idea what they are talking about. I was lucky enough to have found some professors who know their trade and therefore taught me at least a little bit of scientific knowledge.

Mr. A* (insert *dvisor or *sshole here) told the gf that she wouldn't be able to write thesis one and a half months back. fair enough, it seemed undoable. But when the gf came home from the meeting without any real input from A* I should've known something was fishy. I have someone stepping on my toes with every term paper I have to write. that unnerves me but it at least makes me finish the papers sooner or later.
Mr. A* was never heard of again until gf handed in a first version of the thesis last week. Back came the famous e-mail in which he elaborates that it's a little late, isn't it. Hmm. let me think a bit, who set the deadline again?
Well, some hours ago he sent another e-mail claiming he read the thesis and had some things to critisize. I was shocked, literally.
I knew that the University gf went to is organized differently from mine, but her kind of Universities are rumored to be less unprofessional and yet it was possible for that A* to send gf a completely useless piece of shit called feedback. where he claimed that the thesis lacked structrure while his own feedback didn't even have so much as a thread to work by. If I hand in on time I get back my hard copy of the paper with comments, or I get an e-mail sticking to the structure of my paper explaining in the last bit of detail what was problematic and what was good. Not doing the corrections for me, but at least so that I know what the problem was. The mail of Mr. A* was a guessing game, mixing layout with content and much worse stuff too. I read the mail and while gf was shocked because it said that the work wasn't good enough (which I strongly disagree with), I was shocked because of the way it was written. I honestly thought there was some sort of attachment that I hadn't seen yet, something to work with.
Well, acutally I wanted to leave the ranting to the gf but after staying up almost all night to correct the whole thing with her, I have a right to rant too.
And bless my good Dr. P, who's organized ways are valued even more now.

that also means I'll go work on my paper now, so I might even hand it in today or tomorrow.

crap. shit.

so I had my laptop "repaired" for the second time. we (the IP-tech and I) are trying to find out what is causing the troubles by changing different components. so far we've changed everything but the main board (which will cost a fortune).

I have this thing for a year and a half. warranty is over but that's no reason for the thing to go hay wire just yet.
It wasn't the most expensive thing but it was not cheap enough to be dead already. crap.

Now I have two things to choose from. I can change the mainboard and pay at least 500 bucks but relatively probable it will be around 700 €. shit.

I could also buy myself a new one (somehow we'll come up with the money, I guess) but something in me just isn't ready to stop fretting about the fact that this laptop I have is to young to die.
Also, would I want an Apple or Vista? this is another choice I don't feel I can make at the moment. I don't really want either. I want my laptop to work but not for the money of half a new one.

Does anyone of you use Vista or a Mac? Are you content with it?
(This is a question even our self proclaimed queen of indecision - yes, shazza, you - will be able to answer, I hope)...

Random rant # 1

Dear Dr. P.,

Thank you for suffering from the usually extraordinarily annoying habit of underlining the important parts of a book with pencil. It comes in so handy when reading these books of yours, because it seems I'm always looking for the same answers that you were when reading your books.
It makes my life so much easier not actually having to read all the stuff in the book and being able to skip the unimportant pages. Thank you again!

Dear everyone else,

stop underlining random words in books that are not your own and that are of no value to me! It irritates me and everyone else who reads the book after you! I hate you.

We shall work late because we have to write something...

I can't say that I like my job especially much. Not anymore. It used to be fun for a while, but like all student jobs, it grew boring, exhausting or both.
When I came to work this morning I was surprised to see that there was not so much going on and that I'd probably be able to leave on time or maybe even earlier...then my boss called.

Now I'm drowned in work. NO, no work. Little errand phone calls and internet searches for his friends and other people he knows.
He even asked me if I could stay a bit longer today because he had this lunch date and would be at work right after that and we will have to write some sort of letter or two. I used to find it fun when he used words like "we" when referring to something I would have to do.

So I'll be sitting here like an errand boy waiting for my bosses return from lunch so that I can write these applications of some sort for a friend of his, who apparently has no money to afford an errand boy for himself.

I hate work on days like this.