Life is a LOLhamster

Today local paper DerStandard reported about the ig Nobel prizes being awarded - among others to a research project showing jet-lagged hamsters could be helped with viagra.
And of course they had to run this silly pic I couldn't help LOLifying!

Life in a Parallel Universe

Parallel Universes do exist.
And in one of them Stephen Colbert is a pipe smoker!

Happy Happy Life

Whoah! I've got Ben&Jerry's!!

My freezer is stacked with delicious ice-creams which arrived perfectly freezy this morning - still plenty of the dry ice in the parcel was left after less than 48 hours since it's departure from Duisburg, Germany.

Nevermind that a pint costs me almost $10,- ... the fact I can have Ben&Jerrys at all makes a world of a difference.
No one interesed in investing in a Vienna franchise?? Schoenbrunn castle would be a cool location (and I could walk there from my place).

Link: Food from Home - The International Store, Duisburg.

Life More Bearable

OMG! Ben&Jerry's for lowly Austrians (B&Js not available in stores here - and this sad list of countries with shops is depressing to read: Aruba - Belgium ...)!

I just ordered ten cans of deleeeshous creams o' ice ... Chocolate Therapy, Half Baked And Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ... alas still no Americone Dream or Dublin Mudslide (but I have some Bailey's in my kitchen, he!) from a german shop and hope they pack enough dry ice to last the trip!!1!

Thanks to the Internets and especially the guys from google, life in Austria might be getting a little more bearable.

Insecure Life

For sure they make you take your shoes off twice on your flight from San Francisco to Vienna, transferring at London's awful, awful Heathrow airport ... but if you forget a lighter and a nail-file in your carry-on luggage none of their scans will reveal that.
I had been loking for the file for roughly over a week - except in the front-most compartment with the vertical zip, which I still find it strange I put it in!
Actually I had thought to myself once when I was looking for it in the rucksack "Ha, maybe they'll find it at the airport, that would be one good thing about the security frenzy at airports."

On another note the suitcase with Cockbot One in it, which went missing on the journey back to Vienna turned up and will be delivered to my house this evening.
Phew!

Americano Life

One more week in SF, which has become significantly sunnier and warmer compared with the week before last.
Time to treat myself to another round of Burger 'n' Shake at St. Francis Fountain - now I'm sitting across in the sugarlump coffee lounge, which provides free WiFi and a fine Americano coffee (double Espresso with extra water/steam, same as Vienniese "Verlaengerter").

After this one and the previous ones I had for breakfast, which I picked up from the Parkbench Cafe I should be coffeinated enough for some transport action to be done - build-up for RoboGames has startet!

Doppelganger Life

My SF host David likes to dress like a LOLcat some of the time, the rest of the time he and Simone are getting busier and busier towards the upcoming RoboGames (see also SHIFZ-blog).

Dildonic Life

monochrom's Johannes was caught checking out the 7-motor artificial vagina, disguised as a bowling pin, which Kyle Machulis had presented along with other tele-dildonic gadgets at Wednesday's DorkbotSF meeting at Porn Palace.
Kyle demonstrated the synchronisation of the device's motors to the movements in a porn movie - after marking a spot on an actress's body, the actress's movements were mapped and converted into cyber-pussy action.
Johannes is reported to have found it "Wunderbar."

Cliché Life

St. Francis on 24th St., Mission District, San Francisco, is so cliché it's already cool again.
Taken for lunch by David Calkins, Chris and I enjoyed the atmosphere of a 50s American Diner at it's best.
Previously the "Burger & Shake" classic American meal never made much sense to me - but after having one of St. Francis' burgers along with one of their deliciously old-fashioned ice-cream milkshakes, I perfectly understand the concept!
This one is definitely worth going back.

Pacific Life

Having arrived in San Francisco yesterday for Maker Faire and RoboGames, I was a bit surprised how much the Pacific Ocean cools down things here - had to buy a warm jacket today before anything else!
Otherwise SF is as awesome as I remember it, not that we would have seen that much of it yet, but you get a good feel of the flair here in Mission District, where Chris and I are lodged at Mr. Robotics and Missy SuicideBots' house.
(Photo of downtown skyline taken behind the house)

Life Letting Go

My 3-6 is gone. After more than a year of root-canal treatments it was considered hopeless and possibly fractured and being pulled.
And it didn't go without putting up a fight too. The use of a scalpel was unavoidable.
So - haha, Mr. 3-6 troublemaker, mothafu*ka, who's laughing now!

Space Life Invading

... video that recreates an exciting game of Space Invaders in stop motion, using people sitting in theater-seats as pixels.
(via)

Overclocked Life

Overclocked by Sheepfilms - Found on Neatorama.

Life on Drugs

Nancy and Ronald Reagan have a surprising message for us - coming straight from the year 1988 ...
Just say Yes! ... After about 5 minutes of talking about Nancy's pot-use and the merits of crack cocaine Ronald has another revelation: "And there's one more thing - Nancy and I are hooked on heroin."

(via)

Chillin' Life

A low-tech and aesthetically pleasing solution for the slow-drinking Martini-lover's chilling problem comes in form of SwankMartini's Chillin' glasses.

I just signed up with their affiliate-program so click through and buy a dozen to earn me some credit so I can get myself some - I suffer from the slow-sippin-syndrome badly.

Durable Life

The front side of this vintage bamboo tablet used to show an exotic (Chinese) landscape with houses and there was a block of Chinese characters which in my infant imagination more than 30 years ago used to form the shape of an English doubledecker-bus.
Unlike the print on the back side it has suffered from repeated washing though - so I have a hard time re-imagining that landscape ... but the mere fact the tablet itself withstood over 30 years of use amazes me.

Tiki Farm Life

Cross-breeding Tiki and Science (Fiction) culture - does that ring any bell?
These "Robotikis" - Tron the Beachcobmer and Radar Vic are beautiful reminders of a modern global cocktail culture.

From the product page at Tiki Farm: "Our Marquesan Space Invader comes at you in Intergalactic Green and is ready for Blast-Off! Radar Vic & Tron the Beachcomber are designed by one of the Tiki movements most talented artists, my pal Scott Sheidly"

(via)

Student Life

Among the stuff my grandmother handed down to me when I was a teenager, that belonged to my grandfather was this set of a Schnaps-bottle and shot-glasses. It was apparently part of his student fraternity paraphernalia as the little skulls rest on books on which's spine the slogan "Gaudeamus Igitur" is inscribed, the title of a song in ancient Latin that used to be (is?) popular among the members of student fraternities.
(I remember the first line from my Latin-lessons in school: Gaudeamus igitur, iuvenestum sumus - Let's enjoy ourselves as long as we are young!)

When I moved out of my parent's home 1990 I left it there (unlike this tobacco-jar), which I'm rather glad about - I'm sure every piece would have been broken twice by now.

Life in other Dimensions

This animation, published as an illustration of the first chapter of the book on superstring theory Imagining the Tenth Dimension shows how to imagine the tenth dimension, walking you all the way from dimension 0, the point:

Nice!

(via)

Life Viewed From Orbit

Don't those Tikritians have other worries than erecting space art?
This face of a duckie was found on an island in Tigris river in Tikrit, Iraq.

If you have Google Earth installed just right-click and open THIS.
If you want to check out what it looks like on the ground go to lat=34.6078411731, lon=43.690757344.

(thx poetina)

Celeb Life

Two professional bloggers I had the pleasure to meet through my roboexotic activities are listed in Forbes's The Web Celeb 25: CoryDoctorow and Violet Blue.
Now ... is that a good thing?
Oh yes! Forbes is obvy a quality publication, having run an article on ROBOEXOTICA 2006 on their webpage. Congrats Violet, Cory!

Oh, and they say ZeFrank's real name is Hosea Frank.

(via Laughing Squid)

Life is Tough

And only the toughest duckies survive.
It was more than clear that zefrank wouldn't let this brave duckie pass unmentioned - sure enough it headlines monday's show with a dedicated "duckie in the freezer"-intro:

(duckie in the freezer story originally spotted on boingboing)

Sticky Life

I had stickers printed of my successful art print Ceci N'est pas Une Pipe - anybody want any?
I'll send one to you inside Europe for €2 including shipping, 50ct for every additional sticker. (US: double the amount for $$)
Just drop me a mail at magnus[AT]shifz.org ...

Update: Yay - the above photo is linked to from an update to Boingboing's post on a current Los Angeles County Museum of Art Magritte-inspired exhibit ...

Metric Life

Hehehehehehehe!
Quoting robots.net: "The only areas left not using the metric system are Burma, Liberia, and the US."
And that's not "the only areas on earth" but includes the moon, as "NASA and 13 other space agencies from around the world have come to an agreement that the Moon will use the standard metric system of measurement."

Hopefully this will prevent future moon citizens from having to worry "about trying to fit a 15 millimeter nut onto a 5/8 inch bolt."

Life Is Making

Make:blog thinks these pieces of Marbelized Latex with Embedded Magnets look cool ...
Thanks a lot! :)

Started using oblong and round forms to pour latex and embedding neodymium (rare earth) magnets a few days ago (after working on a series of latex bugs based on spoon forms), which gives pretty cool fridge magnets.
Still experimenting with different magnets and multi-magnet set-ups; using latex of different colors keeps the process interesting!

Life Does End - Still!

Robert Anton Wilson is dead after suffering declining health for an elongatd period of time.
As an author RAW introduced me to amazing philosophies and woke my interest in a lot of things, among them longevity/immortality.
Unlike his pal Timothy Leary, Wilson is not reported to have his head frozen for cryogenic storage.

Thanks for the inspiration, Bob. Hail Discordia Forever.

(via boingboing)

Life on the Dark Side

The Truth about Darth Vader is an Ask a Ninja "special delivery" by Doogtoons.
Around since last July, I just discovered this video on Revver browsing the featured creators.

Life's Waste

Making up for many years not dumpster-diving, I rescued a stack of 78rpm records recently.
Someone in the house I live in had put them in the trash and I saved those on top which obviously hadn't come in contact with any yucky spoils yet ... haven't counted them yet, but I think it's a couple dozen of them!
I am only beginning to browse through them - the first two I brought up to the light from the basement were one with Zarah Leander - a singer popular in the 1930s and 40s, and the other one featuring the well known "Wienerlied" (lit. Vienniese Song, a local genre) Ich brauch' ka schöne Leich ("I don't need no fancy funeral").

Currently I'm trying to auction the Zarah Leander one at eBay: Link

Martini Life

I have made the first footsteps in my quest for the perfect Martini, executing my new year's resolution:
The last few evenings have seen me fixing Martinis both with the gin and the vodka I have at home, mixed in a ratio between around 6:1 and 8:1 with extra dry vermouth. Stirred.

Apropos, there is a clever three-stepdrink tutorial "... to understand the Martini, and to understand the concept of a balanced cocktail ..." at Drinkboy.

Happy New Life Year!

This turn of the year marks the start of my personal pursuit of the perfect Martini.
I did already find out my taste is on the dry side (less vermouth) and I like more than one olive going with it (before running out of olives which should not discourage further, even purer experiments).
With a new purpose in this life year, I want to keep the game fair and the recipe open to both gin and vodka ... starting with left-over Bombay Sapphire from ROBOEXOTICA and the russian vodka Sergey brought from his region.