The first American on Mars

You have to know about German pastries to get the this: The title is "Der erste Amerikaner auf Mars" which translates to "The first American on Mars" and it's one of the first images recently sent back from the red planet. BTW, German pastries and cookies are among the very best I ever ate! Check out my home town's specialty!

NetFlux

I am wondering if NetFlix is still for me. Though their service is great, I often find myself holding on to a movie for weeks because I am not in the mood watching it. On the other hand, instead of returning it right away, I keep it and keep it and still keep it, hoping to get into the mood until I finally send it back without ever having watched it. In fact, after having subscribed to the service for years, I am not watching more than 3 NetFlix movies per month.

Sundays

I used to get depressed on Sunday afternoons mainly because another weekend was about to go. I heard that this is common to many other folks. The best cure I found against my Sunday afternoon blues was a fairly dramatic change in life style. Instead spending most of my time waiting for Friday, I now work from home most of the time. Since I (almost) exclusively control my own schedule, I often do work on weekends. In return, I don't have to ask anybody if I want to spend leisure time during the week. Sure, being your own boss is a little more scary than the security of working for a bigger company but boy, the price for this little bit of security is high!

Sand

I found this on j-walk, check it out, it's amazing: this guy paints with sand on a projector ...

I love my iPod but ...

No question, Apple Computer’s iPod is the world’s coolest MP3 player. I love my iPod from my first day of ownership, some time late in 2002. However, as much as I love my iPod and admire the design, I get upset about two separate issues: the first is that Apple requires me to buy the latest model in order to be able to use the recently released docking station and the second is the fact that my iPod’s battery is about to die. Of course, Apple will replace my battery but they would charge $99 for the service. I wonder if these two issues together are designed to force early adaptors such as myself to go and buy a new iPod.

King of Queens

I just bought The King of Queens - The Complete First Season and there is no question: it is absolutely hilarious, I love this show. The show revolves around the daily lives and struggles of Doug and Carrie, a typical middle class couple. My favorite character is Carries’s dad, played by Jerry Stiller, Ben Stillers dad. In fact, for me, this is my second all time favorite sitcom after Seinfeld. I wish Seinfeld would be available on DVD but while we are waiting for it to be released, we should treat ourselves with King of Queens.

Years of procrastination

It seems that the time we [engineers] spend designing and specifying projects is proportional to the amount of our experience. Often, we consider cases during the design phase which turn out to be irrelevant once projects complete. I miss the days where we enthusiastically could start projects out of a vague idea or a gut feeling. Do engineers eventually end up as procrastinators?

Right now!

Living means to live in this very moment as if there were no yesterday and no tomorrow. We tend to believe that once a certain event occurs, things are going to change for the better. We can't wait to be old enough to drive, to finish school, to get married, to have kids or to retire from work. But the truth is that if we spend our lives waiting for something, we don't see all the wonderful things which happen to us in this very moment.

Hi there ...

and welcome to my new blog. My name is Stephan Brunner and I am a freelance programer. Currently, I am invloved with a new startup developing a patented electronic stamping patform to address the growing challenge of spam. Other recent projects include a Massive Multiplayer Online Game called Soul Fire which will be published by Strategy First later this year. Soul Fire will be a lot of fun and I enjoyed building the technology behind the game.