Covert Animal Life

Introducing the Pooderman ...








This Poodle Disguise for Doberman Dogs might be a giant leap in the Public-Relations-For-Deadly-Dogs Department!

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Life, Resurfacing

Wow. I mean - wow. Austrian news have been abuzz all afternoon with the possible reappearing of a girl gone missing 1998, ten years old.
Just ten minutes ago it has been confirmed, relatives (parents) have identified her (DNA test still awaited).
The story seems grotesque: A "confused" young woman is found stumbling through someone's garden in a town outside Vienna. She had jumped out of a red BMW a short distance before a spot traffic check. When police arrive, she tells them she's Natascha Kampusch, who had created grand search efforts and media coverage, when she disappeared more than eight years ago. She reports she has been held in a basement and was educated by her captor.
By the time of evening news the young woman's statement about her captor tinkering with explosives has reached media. The red BMW has been found abandoned, the manhunt is underway. A foto of the suspect has been published.

Wow again. I mean, I'm usually not so much into being touched by tabloid-oid news-items, but I have to admit - I am moved.

Update: First english media report

Update2: The culprit has commited suicide, throwing himself in front of a train during the evening. The talk of explosives merely served to intimidate the girl, none were found in the house. The girl seems to not have jumped out of the car, but got a chance to flee from the house, the guy seems to have taken off with the car then ... or so ... more details will emerge during the coming days, this is still just unfolding. Did I say wow yet?

Update3: The delight of having a CNN narrator pronounce Prikropil (the dead kidnapper)! The story is indeed bizarre enough to have Matthew Chance report from Vienna.

Life Welcomes New Reader!

In the first 24h-period that I'm tracking this page with Google Analytics, The Life has had a visitor from the U.S. Department of State, dutyfully surfing the blog-o-sphere for posts on North Korea.

I hope I could help - I promise to keep you updated about the embassy's showcase!

Any sponsors interested in advertising here with the keywords "North Korea"?

P.S.: A google search for "north korea robots" turns up a blog-entry titled "Wonderful North Korean Propaganda Films at YouTube" as #2 entry. Hmm.
For frequent news about South Korean bartending robots turn to SHIFZ-Blog.

Covert Life

Robot ..... Camera ..... Robot ..... Camera . Robot .. Camera . Robot . Camera . Robot . Camera ... Robot ... Camera ...

I could go on forever!

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Mysterious Life

Hm, today police inquired about my next-door neighbour.
When I came up from my basement, I saw a policeman standing in my neighbour's apartment, with his back turned to me, so I didn't say hello and ask what they were doing right away ... ten minutes later the cop rang my doorbell and started to ask questions like: do you know the guy, does he have to do with tools?
At that point a thought balloon appeared above my head, reading "Are you looking for the guy inciting his faithful to build WMDs (Weapons of Mass Drunkenness aka Cocktailrobots)? I know him - IT'S ME!", but I managed to truthfully answer I knew of nothing like that.
When the officer put the statement "He claims he doesn't have a cellar compartment" in question form, I replied I didn't either ...
My attempts to find out why they were asking that stuff - "Did he build something evil?" - were basically ignored.
Although my first thought, being indoctrinated by western media, was of course my friendly neighbour might be manufacturing hair-gel bombs or interesting stuff like that, I suspect, they might as well suspect him of something profane such as burglary (which would actually be a shock).

In the light of this event, the "pest exterminator" who rang my door about a week ago to ask if I could open the door to the cellar floor for him, seems even less likely to be real, than I had suspected from the beginning. Why would a pest exterminator show up during the building manager's holiday, obvy not on appointment?
Must admit I'd rather thought he was a burglar than a cop.

Caleidoscopic Life

This cartoon becomes REALLY funny, when you read the caption going with it!

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Life Visiting Town

Things I didn't mention at the moment ...

... at Votivkirche: Boah, I don't know any interesting stories about Vienna churches. Whereas in my hometown Mödling though, at the main church, there's a metal door to the basement, in which you can still see the dents inflicted by Turkish weaponry, when they tried to get to the people who had found a retreat down there. So the story goes.

... when the Kahns told me that at their friend's 50th birthday-party (which they came to Europe for) along with a whole lot of other gigs, some girl - like the winner of the german American Idol rip-off - had been performing: Probably it was the Austrian Christina Stürmer, who left the Austrian rip-off version as 2nd or 3rd, but has become a "real" pop-star, and the Germans love her.

... when I talked with Gina about her skull-decorated bag: That the ubercool button with the pixelated skull I carry on my bag, was designed by Vienna's motmot-Design, 50% of who are from the U.S., I even think, Steve is from LA! (there's more: That day I wore the official ROBÖXOTICA-tee, which was printed by motmot right at the festival last year!)

What I forgot to do:
- Make more forbidden photos inside Schönbrunn palace.
- Have an accomplice stand outside art history museum, so I could through out valuable stuff through the open windows all over the place.

(4yr. old Maddy, Gina and Kenny are friends of my halfbrother's family from LA, who showed me around Vienna this week.)

Update: What else I forgot to mention!
When we talked about Arnie, I should have told of the renaming of the Schwarzenegger-soccer-stadium in Graz, where they removed the giant letters after Arny commented "Yeah go ahead, I'll sue you if you DON'T" when the city was considering it around the time of the first execution under Gov. T-850.

Life on the Move

Runch Comics, one of Vienna's long-established Comicbook-stores, are moving their quarters a few blocks from Burggasse to Kaiserstrasse - and is offering discounts of up to 90% in the closing sale.

New address, opening Aug. 26th: Kaiserstr. 5, 1070 Wien / Old address sporting sale: Burgg. 62, 1070 Wien.

Playground Life

Titled Robot hide and seek, this painting by Toronto artist Graham Roumieu comes via a BoingBoing-exclusive.

Nice variation on a popular game indeed! I can see not-so-distant future kids playing this with their upgraded Robo-Ones ...

Life as a Sith Lord Grocery Store Manager

Chad Vader, Day Shift Manager is a two-part mini-series depicting the trouble one has to undergo if one happens to be a Sith Lord managing the day-shift at a grocery store ...
From having to call your boss "Randy" instead of "Emperor" to being plotted against by the begrudging night-shift manager - it is a hard job!

Part One and Part Two YouTubed.

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Physically harmed Life

I hate Vienna! I hate Europe and it's culture of dwarfs!
I almost can see and hear the tiny dwarf foreman with his measuring tape, going "Aw, it's high enough for the likes of us to pass - quitting time!" to his jockey-sized workers.

The vicious thing is, most street-signs are in fact high enough for me to pass beneath them. But over the years I have hurt my head on more than just one - without a construction site adding height to the sidewalk.

I have cried out from pain on open streets and asked myself, do people of 194,5cm (AGYTCI - ask google yourself to convert it) have no right of walking the streets of Vienna without being physically harmed by streetsigns overhead?!

But the beastliness of adding 2-4 inches under a sign, so 6ft4"ers who were used to passing unharmed would scratch their skull!

I curse you, generations of european mites, line of tiny ancestors!

Life is War: Robots vs. Children - Round 7

A Boingboing-reader sent an update on the child-eating robot-invasion - from the 1970s!
Obviously our governments have done a real great job covering up these incidents all those years ...

First previous post - Last previous post

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P.S. an interesting sideline, also on Boingboing today: NASA officials removed the phrase "to understand and protect our home planet" from their mission statement

Life on Porkbutts and Taters

Charles Taylor, former Liberian dictator, is unhappy with the meals served at the rather eurocentric facility in the Hague.
Well, we're crossing our fingers, that once convicted, he will be able to choose from a more multicultural menu.

Graffiti Life

Graffiti on Währinger Strasse: This is not a gallery / Ceci n'est pas une galerie.

Snack Life

In the space at Vienna's Westbahnhof where Subway used to run an obviously unsuccessful franchise, an asian snack-bar has moved in.
I tried the Peking Duck in a pancake and I'm encouraged to move on to trying something else next time, as it wasn't bad at all.

Had to go to Westbahnhof for Sunday's shopping, and the weather being sunny but pleasantly cool I strolled through Auer Welsbach park on my way back, where I had a little picknick.

Celebrating Life

Valie Göschl had her birthday party yestereve at the transacoustic research's headquarters ...
where this interesting installation captured everyone's attention, not only with it's by-product, a dangerous herbal spirit, but also with it's musical side - the bottles in which bubbling was going on were wiretapped.
I actually listened to it before knowing where the pickups were placed and was wondering really hard, what could produce such a spirited percussion session.


For the record, I have documented my present.

Life being Putin (file also under "Cthulhu awakening")

From TheMoscowTimes.com:
After wrapping up an online conference last Thursday, Putin took a few minutes to answer several of the most-popular questions sent in by Russian Internet users, Kommersant reported Friday. The two journalists who hosted the 130-minute webcast had largely ignored the top-rated questions submitted online from around the world, focusing instead on foreign and domestic policy issues.

"Yes, we will use the latest technical devices. Already now they are being stationed, for example, in the southern parts of our country," Putin said when reporters asked him after the conference whether Russia planned to use "gigantic, humanoid war robots" to defend itself.

Asked about the possible awakening of the giant mythical octopus Cthulhu, the fourth-most popular question among the more than 150,000 sent to Putin, he said that he believed something more serious was behind the question. Cthulhu was invented by novelist H.P. Lovecraft and was said to be sleeping beneath the Pacific Ocean.

Putin said he viewed mysterious forces with suspicion and advised those who took them seriously to read the Bible, Koran or other religious books.

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Update: pictured to the right - a leaked humans vs. gigantic robot scenario from the russian "humanoid war robot department" ...
(via Sergey Teterin)

Latex Life updated: Paint It Black!

When ca. 9/10 of the 1L latex were gone, I thought I had to try the black color that came with it - and so I gave the magnetic thingies I'd made an additional layer of black latex.






I still think the transparent thingies were pretty pretty too, but black, of course, is my favourite.

Rotating Life

Can't help sharing the development of this Popelismus-painting ;)

North Korean Life

I must say the hype with which CNN and probably other american media are covering an unsuccessful test of a missile, which is by no means a new contraption, disgusts me.
I'm aware it's about how DANGEROUS such a (functional) missile could become loaded with nuclear warheads. Oh-kay. Would it mean North Korea would have even 1% of american nuclear firepower? I don't know. It seems it's a long way to go anyway, so please, 2 days headline breaking news?! Fook.

So, for a brighter view of North Korea let's turn to Vienna's North Korean embassy's showcase again.




Here we can see brave little Koreans boiling their brains with old radiation-spilling, eye-wrecking CRTs ...




... and here's where they might move on to - the technical U's modern E-library where anything including book-reading is computer-aided.