Sometimes perfection has to take a holiday

The last week was a bit annoying – I learned that I have to become a VAT payer, which, even though it is normal in the rest of Europe, is a catastrophe in the Czech Republic. I think it is quite telling that most people who have to become VAT payers according to the new Czech VAT law don’t actually know about it.  It is also interesting that – and I really don’t pretend that I understand what I am writing – you have to become a VAT payer if you send an invoice to someone in another EU country who is in this country a VAT payer (i.e. basically everyone), but – because logic is not on our side – you don’t invoice the VAT, because it is an EU-international transaction and therefore you just don’t.
Anyway, before I realized this, I had a little fun in Moravia – I borrowed Ondrasek’s snowshoes and went on a little walk with Martin (see here).

And I also found out that Magda’s cousin has a daughter that looks like the Dalai Lama :)

Today it became clear what exactly this police tape meant… So I suggest you don’t park in our street.

Yesterday, I went to watch the new Sherlock Holmes, and, not unsurprisingly, I liked it (it’s got Robert Downey Jr. in it). The only thing that spoilt the experience was the fact that the film broke of five minutes before the end (some technical defect, it seems), and the choleric guy in front of the  entrance that screamed at the poor guy that seemed to be in charge and couldn’t do anything about it.  Anyway, after ten minutes we got back in and saw the last five minutes, though I have to admit it would have been better to end the film with the scene where it broke off.

Also, the other day I watched The Prestige with Christian Bale, Hugh Jackman and Scarlett in it. That’s another one you should watch, and I think I’m getting a bit obsessed with movies. Not good.

But at least I’m back to a two phase climbing training programme (plus a dreadful ten minutes of training every day to improve my body muscle structure or whatever it is I am suffering for), and I can now (with only minor difficulties) play a Malaguena theme. I also seem to remember how to say “ocean” in Japanese (very useful if you want to say “I don’t eat saltwater fish, thank you very much, but I will have some of that delicious tuna nigiri over there :)), and Lenka’s back from Chile.

I also wanted to complain that all the snow is melting, but it just started to snow (Marcial, do you want me to send some over to you? :)), so I’ll keep my digital mouth shut and want you to imagine all those wonderful iciles on the roofs of Prague, which you recognize by the police tape or other obstacles (mostly Christmas trees) right under them, or by the fire brigade in front of the house trying to take them down – not so easy if it is frozen to one of the cables hanging from the roof and leading to the ground floor, I suppose.

(And this post is what happens when your New Year’s resolution is to post on a more regular basis, plus lazyness to write everything twice, plus reading China Miéville’s Iron Council.)

Nach aufregenden Wochen ein paar frohe Nachrichten:  Ich habe es endlich geschafft, die Japan-Bilder online zu stellen, und außerdem einen natürlich supertollen Artikel über tschechische Filme nach 1999 zu schreiben, den ich nach seiner Veröffentlichung vielleicht auch hier verlinke. Bis dahin ein paar Empfehlungen, welche tschechischen Filme man sich nicht entgehen lassen sollte (die Reihenfolge ist zufällig):

I finally managed to upload my Japan pics to Flickr, and I wrote a wonderful article about Czech cinematography after 1999, maybe I’ll even post a link here after it’s been published. As it is in German, you will have a lot of fun with it :). Meanwhile some suggestions for you, if you want to expand your knowledge (or are bored), and the order of the movies mentioned is completely random:

• O rodičích a dětech (drama)
• Nejkrásnější hádanka (Märchen/fairy tale)
• Karamazovi (drama)
• Vratné láhve (Komödie/comedy)
• Český sen (Doku/documentary)
• Rok ďábla (Komödie/comedy)
• Obsluhoval jsem anglického krále (Literaturverfilmung/literary)
• Samotáři
• Hórem pádem

Und wenn wir schon dabei sind, hier noch meine All-time-Favourites/And while we’re at it, these are my all time favourites:

• Limonádový Joe
• Pelíšky
• Adéla ještě nevečeřela

und noch ein paar mehr, an die ich mich gerade nicht erinnere/and some more that I don’t remember at the moment.

Aber um zu den wichtigen Dingen des Lebens zurückzukommen: Die Festivalsaison beginnt demnächst. Hat jemand Lust auf WFF? Beim Graspop kommt irgendwie nur dummes Zeuch, hab ich den Eindruck. Ebenfalls einen Gedanken wert wäre Wacken, da scheint es noch Karten zu geben (und es kommen Slayer!).

But to come back to the important things in life: Festival Season is on soon. Is anyone interested in going to the WFF? At Graspop, there seems to be only weird stuff. Wacken would also be worth a thought, there seem to be tickets left (and Slayer’ll be there!).

Und übrigens, wie im Rest Europas wohl auch, liegen hier 40 cm Schnee!

Oh, and as in the rest of Europe, there are 40 cm of snow here!

This is what I was told by Ondra (follow this link only if you have strong nerves), and I think he was right. But I don’t think I’ll go deeper into that right at this moment, I just want to apologize that I haven’t written anything for quite some time – I think I start to hate my computer, which is why I try to spend as little time as possible in front of it, and unfortunately, this is no “quality time” (i.e. I spend it playing stupid facebook games or watching cheap US serials instead of doing something worthwhile).
From this, I learned that it does not make sense to promise anything, but I think, at some point in the near future I will upload some pictures from Japan (which is, by the way, a great place to eat so much that you’ll explode and still want more, and if you like temples and shrines, it is perfect for you too).
Anyway, I really enjoyed this.

Ich fahr gleich nach Japan, vielleicht werd ich es ja zwischendurch schaffen, mal was zu schreiben….

I’m off to Japan now, maybe I’ll manage to blog something on the road…

Manchmal habe ich tatsächlich den Eindruck, in einem 3.-Welt-Land zu leben: Nach den gefühlten 20.000 Tagen ohne Wasser dieses Jahr, die immerhin vorher angekündigt wurden, haben wir heute mal ausnahmsweise ohne Ankündigung kein Wasser, und morgen auch nicht.

Sometimes I really have the feeling that we live in a 3rd world country: After probably 20.000 days without water this year that at least were announced beforehand, today (and, it seems, tomorrow as well) we are without water just like that.

Nur gut also, dass ich eigentlich noch ein paar Sachen waschen müsste, die ich nächste Woche mit nach Japan nehmen will, und morgen Abend nach Leipzig fahre (20 Jahre StuRa! Beyerhaus!).

So it’s just as well that in theory, I have to wash some clothes that I want to take to Japan next week, and that I’ll go to Leipzig tomorrow (20th anniversary of the Student Council! Beyerhaus!).

Am Wochenende habe ich einen Arbeitseinsatz bei Lenkas Eltern geleistet (und meiner Umweltbilanz vermutlich keinen Gefallen getan) und ganz viele tolle Fotos gemacht (toll, wenn man die Kamera, mit der ich sie gemacht hab, und meinen Unwillen zum Einsatz von Photoshop in Betracht zieht).

Last weekend, I did some work on Lenka’s parents’ farm (and probably made a really bad impression on my carbon footprint) and took a lot of amazing pictures (well, amazing if you take into account the camera I took them with and my lazyness to photoshop them).

Nennenswerte interessante Ereignisse: Wir sind mit einer Katze Zug gefahren (die am Anfang weiß war, dann unter den Sitz kroch und anschließend aussah wie Kurtjak), haben ganz viele Schneeschäden verbrannt, Drachen steigen lassen und Fussball (Ostrava gegen Sparta) geguckt, wobei letzteres ein Fehler war, denn das Spiel war einfach nur schlecht.

Events worth mentioning: We spent a train ride with a cat (which was white in the beginning, then decided that it was a good idea to investigate the area below the seats, and then came out looking like Kurtjak), burnt a lot of snow damage, took our kite for a fly and watched a football match (Ostrava vs. Sparta), which was a mistake, because they played really badly.

Ich habe heute wundervolle Dinge herausgefunden:

1. Gehe nie montags in den Albert, wenn Du tatsächlich vor hast, etwas zu kaufen. (Ich dachte immer, diese Regel gilt nur für unseren Albert, aber nein, sie gilt für alle.)
2. Die Blutspender-Betreuer am Karlovo nám. sind sehr nett, selbst wenn man ihnen sagt, dass man nicht mehr zu ihnen kommt.
3. Der Gitarrenladen im Jungmannovo nám. hat offensichtlich nur teure Dinge (und ich habe jetzt einen Capodaster, ebenso wie einen neuen Ständer und eine neue Gitarre, letztere allerdings nicht aus diesem Laden).
4. Der einzige Nachteil des neuen Capodasters ist, dass ich jetzt keine Ausrede mehr habe, warum mein “Scarborough Fair” so klingt, wie es klingt (abgesehen von “Ich kann nicht singen” und “Wer hat sich denn diese doofe Melodie ausgedacht, wer soll sich das denn merken?”)

I found out wonderful things today:

1. Never go to Albert on a Monday if you really want to buy something (no matter what you want to buy, they won’t have it). (I always thought this rule is true only for our Albert, but no, it seems all Alberts in the whole town go by this rule.)
2. The blood donating people at Karlovo nám. are really nice, even if you only go there to tell them that you won’t go there anymore.
3. It seems the guitar shop at Jungmannovo nám. sells only expensive things (and I now am the proud owner of a new capo tasto, a new guitar stand and a new guitar, although I did not buy the latter one – and no, I didn’t steal it there either :))
4. The bad thing about the new capo tasto is that now I don’t have an excuse anymore why my “Scarborough Fair” sounds the way it does (other than the simple: “I can’t sing” or “This is a stupid song, who’s supposed to remember this melody!”)
   

Es sind schon wieder so viele Dinge passiert, dass ich gar nicht weiß, wo ich anfangen soll. Die weniger wichtigen vielleicht am Anfang: Ich habe zwei neue Süchte, nämlich “Türkisch für Anfänger” und “Zaklínač”. Letzterer hängt mit meiner neuen Grafikkarte (und dem dazugehörigen neuen Netzteil) zusammen, die ich in einer lustigen abendlichen Aktion in meinen Computer reingebastelt habe: Die Karte ist nämlich so lang, dass ich sämtliche Festplatten umstöpseln musste, nur um dann festzustellen, dass das IDE-Kabel zu kurz ist (hier auch: Danke, Mario, für die Instruktage, wie der Tscheche so schön sagt)… Um dann wiederum festzustellen, dass die Grafikkarte ein Netzteil mit mindestens 550 W braucht, meins aber nur 430 hat. Aber nach einer Woche Computer in Aufruhr verbringe ich meine Abende jetzt endlich (nachdem das Spiel drei Jahre lang im Schrank verstaubte) mit dem Morden von Monstern in 3D, und der Bildschirm hat plötzlich beim Filmegucken auch keine blauen Pixel mehr.

Letztes Wochenende waren MaMaJa da (was meinen Nerven leicht geschadet hat, weil Janek offensichtlich mit zunehmendem Alter immer schneller und schneller wird), und ich habe mein Ticket nach Japan gekauft (Hurra! Hurra! Ich fahr nach Japan!!!), zum Schatzi-Besuchen und Teekaufen.

Was mich daran erinnert, dass ich vielleicht tatsächlich mal damit anfangen sollte, meine Japanisch-Hausaufgaben zu machen (nachdem ich ungefähr 1,5 Jahre damit zugebracht habe, verschiedene Ausreden zu implementieren: Hausaufgabe vergessen, vergessen, was ich machen sollte, die Katzen haben sie gefressen, “die Aufgabe war doof, und deswegen hab ich sie nicht gemacht”, oder meine Lieblingsbegründung: “Aiko, du hast nicht wirklich erwartet, dass ich dieses Zeug mache, oder?”), oder zumindest ein paar Vokabeln wiederholen…

In the last few days, so many things happened that I have no idea where to start. Probably the most unimportant first: I got two new addictions, one is “Türkisch for Anfänger”, a German sitcom, and the other is “Zaklínač”, a Polish computer game. The latter one is connected with my new graphics adapter (and the new AC adapter, of course), which I mounted on one happy winter evening: The adapter is so long that I had to reinstall all the HDDs just to find that the IDE cable for one of them is too short (thanks, Mario, for the advice!)… just to find out later on that the graphics adapter needs a AC adapter with min 550 W, but mine had only 430. But, after one week of “Computer in an uproar”, I can now spend my sad winter evenings with killing monsterns in 3D (after it spent 3 years in my shelve because the old graphics adapter would kill the computer if I tried to play it), and for some reason the screen doesn’t show blue pixels anymore when I watch movies (wonders still happen!).

Last weekend, MaMaJa came over to visit (and my nerves suffered a bit, because the older Janek gets, the faster he is…), and I bought my ticket to Japan (Hurray! Hurray! I’m going to Japan!), to visit my Honey and to buy tea. :)

This brings me to the fact that I probably should start doing my Japanese homework (after about 1.5 years of pretending that I had forgotten the homework, or forgotten to do it, mislaid the piece of paper, the cats ate it, saying that it was stupid and I didn’t do it because of that, and my favourite “Oh come on Aiko, you really didn’t expect me to do that, now did you?”), or at least do some vocabulary repetition.