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Yes, today was the last day of the Oktoberfest. I have been twice this year. Each year I end up going at least once. This time, the first time I have been with work colleagues (and had my, very standard for the event, 2 liters of beer), the second time today just visiting the fair, were I got a friend of mine almost sick after a bit-too-spinning ride. I was on the verge of being sick myself as well. And I am a somewhat "roller coaster freak".
They estimate that more than 6 million liters of beer have been sold, the most liters ever. Each liter costing about 8€ (depending on the tip). And this does not count all the money made from food, ride tickets, souvenirs, etc.; you name it. How many million visitors? I have no idea. Possibly 4 to 6 million. Maybe the statistics will come out later this month.
It is now over, and Munich will wait once again for the Oktoberfest to come next year. They are even talking about expanding it, since last Saturday 600.000 people visited it. It is starting to be, to put it simply, a bit tight. And nevertheless, being overall extremely safe.
I even ended up buying today the original Steinkrug of 2007 as I liked its design since the first day I saw it. For once, a truly modern, but not forgetting tradition, design. Because after all, the Oktoberfest is about tradition. And to my surprise (see my previous post) I have discovered that some rides have even changed location this year. But the bierzelten (beer tents) were exactly in the same place.
Happy that it's over, no - not really. It gave Munich a bit of needed "noise". Sad that it's over, no - not really as well. I am not really a party animal. And as some Germans say "Oktoberfest: once a year is more than enough".

Here it goes - after 7 years, I have finally had it - here comes the truth.

Recently the International Herald Tribune has written that Munich is the most liveable city in the world! Can you imagine how lucky I am living here?

Sure it is liveable. But they forgot something that actually doesn't make it also the "best" city on the planet. They forgot to mention that it is also the most boring city on the whole planet. And thus, not really "liveable".

Being Munich not a village in the middle of a field, my statement is even more true. Actually germans here say that Munich is a "großes Dorf", a big village. And I think they are dead right.

Munich provides undeniably a very high standard of living, and every day life here is extremely trouble-free, pleasurable, stress free. Everything works, everything is "clean", nice, safe, green. I know, people would pay to live here and I know I am extremely lucky to live here. So why complaining? why this post? what is wrong?

I have come to realise that all this comes at a very, very high price: it is a lifestyle that removes any joy of active living, any initiative, any fun from people, any networking and willing to be together, to emphatically connect with the other. There is a pervasive repetitiveness, a "being conservative", a being in a closed group, an underlying loneliness, a separation between people, a lack of interaction that, surely I have noticed in other towns elsewhere on the planet and at different levels - but here it is probably amplified by the city's size. I feel that "out there" things are happening and I am trapped here in this cocoon of stillness.

I am not the only person saying Munich is boring. That is why I waited so long to come to my conclusion - I wanted to verify, check and see what other people thought and did in their everyday life. Maybe I am boring, maybe I complain (as usual) too much, maybe people's lives are becoming boring and isolated world wide, maybe I know boring people, maybe I expect too much from life and my relationships, maybe it is my fault, maybe I am looking for something this city cannot offer, maybe I am getting old and grumpy, maybe...

In seven years here, I have never felt so bored in my life and never been surrounded by so much boringness. I see it in the faces, I hear it in what people say and tell me, I see it in the general lack of initiative, in the repetitiveness of everyday life. Maybe I am discovering "hot water" - Germany and germans are not know, as far as I know, as the most funny and entertaining people on the planet. Maybe it would be the same elsewhere on the planet. But...

And don't tell me about the Oktoberfest - since 7 years it is always the same - the tents, the food stalls, the attractions are always the same and always in the SAME position - nothing ever changes (and BTW, why should it? with 6 Million people visiting it each year, why changing even the position of a single spec of dust?). They need this 2 week orgy of beer to lighten up.

Oh BTW, generically speaking on the matter of drinking: here if you don't have a beer in your hand (and one already in your stomach) you cannot have real fun or a decent talk that goes beyond the surface. Germans tell me people here are very superficial - apart, thank goodness, obvious exceptions. Now I think I start to understand what they mean.

People that arrive here from elsewhere (Germany or not), have enthusiasm, bring in new ideas, want to do - after a couple of years, they fall into the same "boredom" trap. I have seen it in more than one person I know. It is even more visible in the Italians I know. The transformation is amazing. And people that once lived here and then moved elsewhere say that they would never come back to live here (from a social point of view). The attractiveness of a city that is certainly the most liveable in the world and with many job opportunities in different fields, comes with a high price tag (in every way), resulting unfortunately in drop dead boredom and social networking & mind numbness.

Time to move? where?
I would be interested to know the opinion of other people living in Munich on this blog, but apparently having a blog is a too far fetched concept/initiative for people living here...
I might be wrong about all this and I might have done everything wrong here in Munich, but my gut feeling and all the years here tell me I am instead dead right.

This past 2 weeks my parents came to visit me here in Munich. I took last week off to stay with them and we went a bit around South Germany.

We visited the city of Passau (known also as the "City of Three Rivers"), close to the German/Austrian/Czech border, where the Danube is joined by the Inn and Ilz rivers.
The Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart was also on our list.
I have taken pics in both places and will post them sometime next week on Flickr.
Of the two I preferred much better the Mercedes-Benz museum, a must see for anybody interested in design, modern architecture and, why not, cars. ;) No matter all the PR from Mercedes, I am still not a big fan of their design. In that respect I prefer BMW and probably even more Audi. Though all 3 show a very traditional and somewhat dull design philosophy compared to french, italian and maybe even japanese car manufactuers selling here in EU.

We also visited a Maya exhibition in nearby Rosenheim (which unfortunately was not that great) and today the Staatliches Museum für Völkerkunde (State Museum for Ethnology) in Munich - the second biggest in size in Germany (after the one in Berlin).

Unfortunately, based on my experience, most museums in Munich for some reasons do not have english translations for any of the exhibits, or seldom, only partial translations of summaries. This is even more evident at the Deutsches Museum, the biggest science and technology museum in the world!, where even there, at least the last time I was there a few years back, everything was described only in german.

Considering the amount of tourists, the importance of certain museums and the overall international nature of Munich - it is a shame that nothing is presented fully in at least another language, at least covering the basics. One specific problem of the Museum of Ethnology is also that exhibits do not have descriptions close to them, but share common list of descriptions hanging on walls not necessarily close to the showcases - and everything is referenced to a "catalogue" that you can apparently buy at the entrance. Moreover, the german descriptions lack often a clear description of place of origin and date, making the overall visit a bit, to say the least, disappointing. OK, we paid only 1€ each because today is Sunday, but labeling of exhibits should be much improved (forget about a second language...).

Today it has been revealed on italian newspapers (sorry, the link here is only in Italian - I need to find one in english) what Meterazzi told Zidane during the final match of the Soccer's World Championships in Germany last year.

It goes more or less as follows, after Materazzi pulled his shirt several times while fighting for the ball (or whatever they were doing - and this detail is not really important):

Zidane: "Do you want my shirt or what?! I will give it to you after the game"
Materazzi: "No, I prefer that bitch of your sister instead."

Follows, the famous headbutt from Zidane to Materazzi.

Now, whatever Materazzi had told Zidane, during the final match of the Soccer World Championships, NO WAY a professional player would reply to ANY verbal or physical insult/attack/etc like Zidane has done. Especially if this means undermining the chances of winning the match by being expelled from the game.

So certainly Materazzi is not a gentleman and I don't approve his behavior, but Zidane is way far from being a professional soccer player. Not only Materazzi shows, in the worst of ways certainly, that he is more professional using psychology and his brain, and not just the legs, to win THE match, but he also found a sweet spot that he could use to his advantage. Playing soccer is also this. Players tell each other all sort of things, at all levels; soccer is not only "following the rules by the book".
Zidane, by reacting like he did, not only got himself expelled, throwing the whole French team into panic, but also by having them loosing all faith in themselves (Zidane was the captain), ended up offering the World Cup to the Italian team on a silver plate...

PS: many things have been written in these past months about what Materazzi could have told Zidane to get this kind of reaction; people have speculated all the way, even saying that he offended Zidane by being racist, or similar. Now, I do hope that the above is the reality, but I wasn't really that surprised that Materazzi "simply" offended his sister. Offending one's sister (even imaginary one) or better, someone's mother, is not at all uncommon in Mediterranean countries during soccer matches (at all levels). So even more, the reaction of Zidane was, even more, totally out of place.

PS2: to be a bit more nasty: Materazzi has been a "gentleman" disclosing only now what he said Zidane and why he was headbutted by him. By delaying the disclosure of these details, he has prevented that Zidane would be ridiculed for his behavior during the final, actually getting some of the blame himself...

Very recently hard drives built completely out of NAND Flash chips that maintain the info when shut off, have started to be launched on the market. Currently a 32GB drive is about 400€ here in Germany, but prices are plummeting fast. Samsung SSDs are currently, to my understanding, the only market leaders. Another reason probably for the hefty price.

Why an SSD on a laptop? Laptops have possibly 2 main sources of power drain:
- screen backlight
- hard drive

By using an SSD you get the following immediate benefits:

So, if I then keep an eye (as I already do) on the brightness of the screen, my battery life as well as responsiveness of the system will increase by quite a bit. This is truly worth the upgrade!
The only problem is capacity and current price. 32GB is a bit small - I currently have a 80GB drive which is more than enough. A 64GB drive will do - what I need now is lots of patience before these drives are available at accessible and more reasonable prices...

Today I was wondering whether olive oil or butter are better or worse compared to each other.
Coming from Italy but with my mother mother-tongue french, I have been using both when cooking, as my mum does.
We both consider the two very tasty and have their important place in our daily kitchen recipes.
So I checked out on Wikipedia about the nutritional properties of both and this is what came out (see tables on the right).

As you can see, butter has 19g less fat than oil, contains vitamin A, instead of E and K, and 215mg of cholesterol. Butter has more saturated fat than oil. It provides nevertheless less calories.
So clearly olive oil is healthier (no cholesterol and less saturated fats) but from an overall diet point of view, it doesn't mean that you can use it by the liter.
I would say that one needs to use about 20-30% less olive oil compared to butter when cooking to have the same fat content, but in both cases you cannot make a feast and not worry about possible side effects.
In the case of butter, because it might clog your arteries; in the case of oil, because it will make you get fatter faster... ;)
But...if you have an "healthy lifestyle", and want to check out your weight, you can use butter or simply less olive oil.

Therefore I think I will now have a slice of buttered toast and a salad with vinegar and olive oil....

PS: in our family we never used margarine or, seldom, peanut (mainly frying) or sunflower oil. Margarine has no cholesterol, but God knows how they make it (as with all other food...) - as for peanut oil...I don't fry and after all...I am Italian... ;)

Actors Simon Pegg and Nick Frost together again for another great one, after "Shaun of the Dead". Rated for me best movie so far for 2007!

The super-market scene at the end is just excellent!

Currently rated 8.4 in IMDB and ranking Top#250 at position 115!!!
A must-see!

For all those interested in these kind of things - here you can see a pic I took this past Saturday of the construction site of the new Apple Store in Munich due to open in 2008.
For details follow this Flickr link.

"The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder."

Apple has already announced all hardware updates possible - the iPhone (selling in the US end of this month), the MacPro, the MacBook hw update and today the new MacBook Pro hw update.
I don't think that a new iPod will be announced, or for that matter a new iMac or new Mac Mini (or as some predict, the death of it).
So now what? is the WWDC next week going to be a "Leopard only" show? an entire key note speech from Steve about the new OS version (bum!) whose release has been delayed (read neglected) to October (bum!) because of the iPhone development (bum!!)?

BTW: one reason, apart the whopping high price tag, I will not get an iPhone - if they do like in the US, NO WAY I am getting a 2 year contract with any phone operator in Germany for the joy of Steve - I love my free and no fixed monthly payments virtual operator Simyo...

Adding to the already interesting and helpful hints from Matt's blog regarding wedding photography, I would like to add a few hints from my side about the topic. I was last Friday at the wedding of long time friends Carlo and Katia near Verona. You can have a look at the pics here (this is NOT a reduced selection for Flickr!).
If I manage I will post on Flickr other pics I took always at wedding with my P&S cameras (Canon S3 and Exilim EX-Z500).

A few pieces of advice from my side to all those out there that do not have a DSLR and find themselves in a wedding with a Point & Shoot camera, that - trust me, no matter how good it is, it will make you go crazy at the wrong moments!:

- first and foremost - make sure you are NOT "the" photographer (thank goodness I never am...) - don't even think to be THE photographer; with a P&S, no matter how good it is, nobody can ask you to THE photographer at their wedding; make you and them a favor and save on the flowers and get a professional do the work or a friend that has the right equipment (first and foremost a DSLR and a good flash)

- the places were weddings take place sometimes are not enough lit for P&S cameras - the sensors these cameras have are not big and sensitive enough to the available light - therefore:
1) shoot with the highest possible ISO that doesn't produce funny looking pictures, ie. the setting that introduces a reasonable amount of noise (on my Canon S3, that is ISO400), and live with it!
2) if concerned about noise, shoot B&W - noise will be more acceptable in this case;
3) choose the lowest F# if possible (or choose the "portrait mode" even if you are shooting groups, to force the camera to lower the F#): this will make the diaphragm open to the max making sure the most light reaches the sensor - forget about using the F# to control depth of field - in these cases you will not be able to control much of it in any case - let alone be able to take significant pics; moreover, if you raise the F#, less light gets in, the exposure time increases -> blurred pics - and nobody will be still enough (especially at a wedding) for you to take their pic!
4) try to avoid flash if possible (if you don't want washed out pictures - and in any case a P&S flash will never be enough in high ceiling, big celebration halls & churches);

- because of the above and because you never know what people do: use the multiple shot mode - one of the several pics might look good, not blurred and you might catch a nice face expression that you were not expecting at all;

- play more with your camera's settings before getting to the event - things happen so fast when you are there that if you start fiddling with your camera while things happen you will loose every valuable moment...;

- for the above reasons - this is really the case where shooting more, really can pay off big time - I have sometimes shot up to 10pics for a given scene, and yes, I managed to get out a good one; this is particularly true when the couple gets out of the church and the rice is thrown at them - fix exposure, focus and just shoot continuously - you will certainly get a good pic out of the (long!!) series;

- people hardly feel comfortable in front of the camera (this is especially true for women) and don't really know how to smile "on command" (a problem for adults - kids are never a problem) - get them to laugh by saying something nice/funny, or take a pic when they are not aware of it - that is actually when you get the best shots;

- a second set of fully charged batteries ready at hand are a MUST;

- don't waste time composing a shot of people; you will not have the time (and in these occasions, you NEVER have the time) - you can crop the pic later...

- if there is (hopefully!!!) an official photographer, let him/her take the standard pics and try to focus in taking the "odd" shots or those that require a little more time to compose - let him/her take responsibility for taking the really important pics, concentrate on getting the "other" pics

- last but not least, if AF is not working that well in low light or is not fast enough (the definition of "fast enough" during weddings reduces of a factor of 10 compared to when you shoot pics in a normal situation...trust me), set manually a fixed focus (if possible) that you think will work for the set of pics/distance of subjects you are going to take and gain that extra few bits of a second that might let you take that "special/meaningful shot".

Having said all this.... I do need to get myself a DSLR with a decent ISO1600/ISO3200 with good lenses!!!
BTW: I will have another wedding coming up at the end of June and another one in mid-July - both in the late afternoon/evening - another good occasion to show all the limitations of my P&S camera...

I read on Appleinsider today the following article. I completely don't agree on the following closing statement:

I don't know how the sales of the Mini are going, but to me the Mini is well alive!

I currently own one and I use it as my media center in the living room, connected to my TV and Stereo. The Mini is the reason I MOVED TO THE MAC. The Mini is also the only real desktop offering from Apple.


Certainly the Mini doesn't have the fastest Intel processor, or the biggest hard drive or best graphics card. But what it does it does good and quick (with enough RAM!!). iTunes, iPhoto, watching movies/DVDs, internet, email, office applications, image manipulation, Parallels - you name it. And if you "wait" a few seconds longer, even video/audio enconding. It is comparable in terms of speed in everyday use to the MacBook.
If you want something faster - either you buy a monitor (ie. the iMac) or you get a workstation (MacPro). MacBooks and MacBook Pros are still laptops - read again, laptops - not desktops.

That is, when you receive 90% emails that have nothing really to do with your work, but that are connected to it enough to waste 90% of your time. Leaving 10% of the time for the things that are really related to your job description and what your boss would like you to do. Ie. I am in marketing now, and I have been working for the past 2 months 90% of the time on logistics issues, planning, pricing problems - you name it - but forget about market and competition analysis, new product launch, strategy... Man it is frustrating at times!
Is it the same at your workplace?

PS: yes, I know, it's part of time management and understanding what is important vs. what is urgent (everything is urgent) - but it's not easy to distinguish, especially when you are learning the job and "how it really works".

PS2: I have an old couple living in the flat above me - we both have the kitchen windows on the same side and one on top of the other - they're on the 4th floor, I'm on the third. Above their window is the border of the roof protruding outside the building. They have told me that in the evenings when I cook and I leave my window open, the vapor (say, when I cook pasta or rice) goes out of my window, gets "blocked" by the overhanging roof and gets into their kitchen (if they have the window open - which is obviously what people do in the kitchen after they cook). Because we cook at different times, that is, I cook later than they do, they get my vapor inside their kitchen in the evenings. Now what? should I cook with my window closed and then open it at a later time? or buy a ventilator/filter to install over the stove so that it can "trap" the vapor? will it work? or they have just gone insane and they found a wrong explanation for another problem (maybe they get the vapor in the kitchen for another reason?)