Is that even a word – normalcy? Well, even if it isn’t, the 2006 World Cup is over and Germany will slowly get back to normal life. The traditional summer proceedings of politics-bashing have already started and life at the university is returning to normal as well.

What this means is that students are realizing that exams are around the corner, the one thing we all dread.

I realize I haven’t updated this blog in quite a while and I have a lot of things to catch up with. I promise to do so, soon…

-Jan

I’ve been trying to figure out what kind of features I wanted in a new cellphone for the last couple of months, as my contract has been up for renewal for a while now. When I saw the announcement for the Nokia E-series phones, I knew immediately that I would be going back to more functionality, size and weight.

Although I’d first settled on the E60, holding the phones in my hand at CeBit last month convinced me to consider the E61, which is a BlackBerry-style smartphone. It has basically everything one can wish for:

- Quad-band GSM/GPRS
- UMTS
- WLAN (b,g)
- Bluetooth, Infrared and USB connectivity
- No camera
- full QWERTY/QWERTZ keyboard

That’s the hardware side. Software-wise, they’ve been announcing support for every push-email system in existance, including MS ActiveSync, which should be interesting for me as it would allow me to use the thing with my Exchange server. Also, it includes VoIP capability based on the SIP standard and supports instant messaging – basically covering all the communication needs I have.

Best thing of all, it’s been announced Q1 2006 and, given that they’re trying to compete with RIM for the enterprise market, should be competitively priced.

Only, yesterday and today, articles cropped up all over the net confirming that Nokia is still doing testing on these machines and the shipping date has been pushed back, at best a few weeks, at worst… well I don’t want to think about that.

So that’s my luck,

-Jan

(I think I’ll write an exhaustive review of the thing once I get it, if I get it…)

And on goes the saga of the great-big-fucking waster my life seems to have become. Today I realize that, apparently, the exam I’ve been preparing for the last couple of days, does not exist this semester.

Let me get more specific: I seem to have left the sphere of things where you notice such trivial details such as an exam’s name and do not enter it into your calender.
The exam I wanted to take is called Marketingmanagement und -strategie, or as it’s mainly referred to: MMS. The exam I put into my calendar is called Marktforschung und Marketinginformationssysteme, which can also be abbreviated as MMS. Of course, I only realized the difference 1.5 hours before I was going to take the exam – which doesn’t exist.

What this means is that I spent the last few days doing nothing useful at all and will have to do it all over again in about half a year. Splendid.

-Jan

I haven’t been quite this exstatic about anything on TV for a long, long time. But news is that this fall, a new series by Aaron Sorkin will go on air: Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip

Now the main problem is the wait… damnit.

-Jan

Just noticed something I think I have to share:

Sarkasm only works on TV, never in real life. People will just assume you’re an ass instead of just trying to be funny (in a weird way).

Anyway, I’m back in Germany.

-Jan