Message in a Bottle

Wow it has been a long time since I posted anything here. I do check once in a while when someone posts a comment or so.

I know that there are a lot of people out there who have posted some unkind things to some of my opinions and honestly I’m glad they did because that is what the internet is all about.

Today’s post is something different however. While on vacation with my family in Denmark this year I was fortunate enough to find an actual message in a bottle. It was on the last day of our vacation and before we left we decided that we wanted to take one last walk along the beach. The weather had been stormy for the last two days so we didn’t spend much time there. While walking along with my wife, kids and in-laws I was looking down at all the mess that the sea had spread along the beach. I saw a plastic drink bottle laying in the mess and decided to do the right thing and throw it away. When I picked it up I noticed that there was a paper in the bottle. I was pretty excited about this, as I had always wondered what it was like to find a message in a bottle. I was also prepared to be disappointed because I figured it most likely wasn’t very old and that the person who sent it probably threw it in the water only a couple of days before. How wrong I was.

Diskeeper to Fix Exchange Rate Problem.

So if you actually read my post about Diskeeper’s European website not having accurate exchange rates. So I got an email today about it from their Public Relations Department with an apology as well as a little surpise:

Diskeeper Corporation Has No Concept of Exchange Rates!

Ok this irks the hell out of me.

In the past I’ve used the trial version of Diskeeper and was really happy with how well it kept my hard drive in order. However, I wasn’t sure if I really needed it so after the trial I removed it from my computer.

Fast forward to today when I realized that my hard drive is more fragmented than china plates dropped from the Empire State Building. So I decided maybe I should give another check on the costs for buying a license for Diskeeper since I was pretty happy with it. So I look their website up and they offer a European website for buying their product, and since I live in Europe I figured I should look their. The first thing came up was the British costs for the software which for a single home license was 28.56 British Pounds which converts to about $56.13. Ok but I don’t live in England but in Germany so I click on the German flag and get the price there. The price in Euros is 40.91 which converts to approximately $60.12. Wow so it costs about 4 dollars more to buy it in Germany than in England. So out of curiosity I decided to look at the original United States site where the price for a full version cost $29.95!

WTF, FTW Have the people at Diskeeper Corporation ever heard of a conversion rate? Why are we in Europe paying approximately 1.5 to 2 times more than the United States? Do they think people are really that stupid? Is it any wonder why people pirate software like this when they add such a high markup on it?

Of course nothing would stop me from actually buying the software from the US Site where with the exchange rate it would charge my credit card for 20.37 Euros which is much better than the rate they are offering as mentioned above.

I’m going to attempt to contact the company to see what they think about this problem. I would like to hear how they justify charging so much just because people live outside the United States! I’ll keep you posted.

P.S. So you can see the pricing yourself here are the websites that I’m referring to in this post:
Diskeeper Corporation US
Diskeeper Corporation Europe

Happy New Year and All That Stuff

Wishing everyone a Happy New Year.

If you want to see a funny video that is shown every year in Germany on New Years Eve called “Dinner for One” (Yep it’s in English go figure).

iPod Nano Video Vs. Kaleidescope

So there’s a new commercial on German TV for the iPod Nano now with video. My wife had a wonderful comment about it, “A kaleidescope is cheaper and is basically the same thing, dancing colored dots”.

I can agree with that I guess.

iPhone in Germany open to all!

Yep I saw this coming a while ago. When Apple first announced it was intending on selling its iPhone here in Germany I figured that if they attempted the same type of forced deal here that they have in the US that the German courts would have something to say. Man I love being right.

So as a brief summary I’ll put it to you this way. Apple and T-Mobile entered into an agreement similar to that between Apple and AT&T in the US concerning the selling of the iPhone. T-Mobile rival Vodafone protested that agreement in German court who then issued an injunction that requires T-Mobile to allow people to opt out of the two-year contract, as well as preventing them from selling the phone with a SIM lock, so that people can use other carriers. Now the kicker is that T-Mobile doubles the price of the iPhone for those people who opt out of the contract so now they are looking at 1000 Euro price tag.

Not sure how this is going to end up but I’m putting my bets on the iPhone being much less exclusive on who provides service here in Germany than else where. Sometimes you just have to love German business laws.

A Mars is a Milkyway, A Milkyway is a 3 Musketeers, but a Snickers is a Snickers

Yep I’m talking candybars. For some reason here they just aren’t the same as I remember them. Some time ago my wife and I were in an argument about Milkyway candybars. I swore up and down that they had caramel in them and not just nougat. My wife said no no they only have nougat. So we went to a store and she bought me one and sure enough there was no caramel. So basically here in Germany a Milkyway is nothing more than a miniaturized 3 Musketeers bar.

So later in my I’m about to eat Mars bar. Mostly because we had them and needed to get rid of them, because I’m not overly fond of almonds in my candybar. What I come to find is that Mars bars don’t have almonds here. However, they do have caramel so basically a Mars bar is a Milkyway.

I am very thankful that my favorite candybar is the same here as it is back where I grew up. That is the Snickers bar. Still has peanuts, still has caramel, still has nougat all covered in milk chocolate. I wonder why they didn’t change it?

Interior Decoration From the 70’s gone MAD!

 My wife and I are planning on eventually buying a house, once we get enough money for such an undertaking. We were looking last night at a website that posts property for sale here in Germany. There were some nice houses and some that weren’t as nice but this one stood out and had us almost in tears when we saw the interior decoration.

The outside of the house doesn’t look too bad, sadly the housing agent didn’t use this as the first picture instead they used this one.

This is where we started laughing. We have referred to this as the Red Room and is a place where you could film 70’s style porn. The red satin wall paper really does it for me as well as the 70’s era television on a stick sitting in the corner. Now if you think that this is all and that the rest of the house is better you should just keep reading.

This next picture is the reverse of the last. I’m not quite sure what the lady on the left hand side standing in the window thinks she is doing. Escaping most likely. The arch really is something though I’m not quite sure why the rest of the wall is black. At least it isn’t as red as the rest of the room.

The Red Room also has an annoying little corner that leads to … even more hideous red satin wall paper.

Now if you think that is funny let us take a look at the rest of this color coordinated house. Following the Red Room we come across the Blue Room or Maybe it should be Sapphire I’m not sure but it is definitely blue.

Follow the blue room with the Green Room. And what a disgusting shade of green too. I’m pretty sure that the previous owners were either 1. Very proud of how uniquely decorated their house was, 2. Extremely old, or 3. Blind

The bathroom left me completely speechless. My wife giggling over my shoulder and I couldn’t say anything my mind was lost in the thought that someone would mix sand brown with black in such a terrible way. It kind of put me in the mind of a Hundertwasser house.

This is probably the least eye injuring room in the house. The thing is I’m not sure what it was suppose to be used for.

Here is an example of the entry way. The mixture of red brick and green was again really hard on my eyes. It kind of looks like a waiting room in some old doctors office or worse.

The saving grace for this house (cough) is that it comes with its own little swimming pool.

I’m not sure what to make of this house other than I would not spend 218,000 Euros on it. EEEK

Open Letter to the Munich Mass Transit Group MVG.

I’m going to be honest with you, I don’t expect anyone from the MVG to actually read this post let alone respond to it. I do hope that some one else living in Munich reads this and starts thinking and possibly continues this on. Even if they don’t oh well at least I’ve got it off my chest.

Tonight my family and I were leaving from the Frötmanning U-Bahn station to where I had parked the car. As we were crossing over the tracks we could see numerous U-Bahn trains that were off duty sitting there lit up like proverbial Christmas trees. I’m not just talking about break lights or warning lights but ever single light in every car all the way down the train. These trains are fairly long and that is a lot of energy being used up. Now, I’m not really that much of “Green” person however, with the current raising costs for energy I can’t understand why a company that seemingly raises ticket prices every year can waste so much energy.

So this is for you MVG, turn off the lights when not at use so that I don’t have to pay higher ticket prices next year!

Beware of Mail Fraud!

Today my wife received a letter from Spain saying that she just won 1 million Euros. They provide a form that you must fill out and fax to them. When you look at the form they are asking for your personal data.

It is an obvious scam. First off the letter says that they got my wife’s name and address because she flew on an European Airline in the last 10 years. Which is funny because my wife has only been using my last name since 2003 (when we were married) and we have only lived at this current address since 2004 (since our son’s birth). In that time my wife has not flown on a European Airline.

So if you are living in Germany and you get a letter Spain saying you won 1 million Euros. Take the letter to the police to take care of.