Mike’s Blog

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This list has been compiled on the “You know you’re from Luxembourg when…” Facebook group. Parts of the list have been published at other places already, but anyway. I find it very amusing, especially since somehow I agree to most of the statement..scary (because most of them are true) and funny at the same time. Enjoy.

1. You absolutely hate the Germans, although you constantly watch German TV, read German newspapers, listen to German music and know more about what’s going on in Germany than in your home country.
2. You call lasagne & spaghetti meatballs “Pastaschutta”.
3. Your national football team makes it to the front page of your newspapers after they’ve won a game. Once every twelve years.
4. Everyone’s proud of your national football team after they lost 1:0 against Lithuania.
5. You love your Prime Minister, although you didn’t vote for him.
6. You use articles with given names.
7. You think that your hands and your pockets are inseparable.
8. You call UK England and won’t admit that Scotland, Wales or NI exist.
9. You think Mr. Bean is hilarious.
10. You like it when Luxembourgish people become famous, but when they get too famous you don’t consider them Luxembourgish any more.
11. You think that Fränk Schleck will win the Tour de France 2008.
12. You constantly joke about government employees, but eventually end up being one.
13. You think that passing your driving license implies you being the best driver of all times.
14. You have to drive at 180 km/h as soon as you cross the German border.
15. You drive as a group from exactly the same starting point to the same place and everybody takes their own car. Then you complain about the lack of parking lots.
16. You want to buy drugs, you take a one day trip to the Netherlands.
17. You cannot order a croissant in your mother tongue (except if it happens to be French).
18. You worship “Kréckel Néckel”, “De Bip bei de Wiichtelcher” and “Tatta Dillendapp”.
19. You like the band Placebo, although you know that Brian Molko hates you. He does.
20. You’re allowed to drink alcohol at age 16, but people motivate you to start drinking at age 13.
21. You never drink foreign beer. Yours is superior.
22. You think that studying for at least ten years without doing a degree is quite a common thing.
23. You’ll NEVER leave your home country for good.
24. You go abroad and you have to tell people that you’re mother tongue is neither French nor German, but Luxembourgish.
    And NO it’s not Dutch either.
25. You get rather upset when you notice that you’ve forgotten your “Ökotut”.
26. You use two different words fir “2″.
27. You know the correct answers to the questions “ça geet?”, “wat ass lass?” and “wat leeft?”
28. You use the present continuous inappropriately when you speak English: ‘I am coming from Luxembourg.’
29. You use the sentence ‘Yes, it’s a real country’ at least once a week.
30. You use the same words to express ‘I like you’ and ‘I love you’.
31. You don’t bend to pick up any amount of money which is inferior to 1€.
32. You participate at the dancing procession in Echternach, but not because you’re religious, but because you want to get drunk afterwards.
33. There is a prison break and your first reaction is: ‘Again?’
34. You know that it will take you 30 mins max to drive to either France, Belgium or Germany.
35. You consider Trier a Luxembourgish city.
36. You go shopping in Trier and curse about the far too many Luxembourgish people in the city.
37. You hate the Germans for blocking your local petrol stations.
38. You know that the University of Luxembourg is merely a joke.
39. You stop zapping whenever Luxembourg is mentioned on TV.
40. You know at least 5 jokes involving stupid Belgians.
41. You pronounce Lloret de Mar ‘Lorré del mar’.
42. You are unable to pronounce the following sounds: the German ‘ch’, the English ‘th’ (neither of them). Furthermore you can’t tell the difference between the letters ‘w’ and ‘r’ in English.
43. You put the stress in pizzeria, cafeteria and any other Italian word on the wrong syllable.
44. You buy at least one new mobile phone per year, but still consider Nokia 3310 to be the best phone ever. (It definitely is!)
45. You’ve been called Luxlait, Luxair or any other brand name with the prefix ‘Lux’ by a Portuguese person.
46. You call Portuguese people ‘Guallen’, Italians ‘Biren’, Germans ‘Preisen’ and the French ‘Heckefransousen’.
47. 1€ McDonald’s cheeseburgers are an important part of your nutrition.
48. You know that there’s nothing better than a good ‘Bouneschlupp’, apart from a ‘Paschtéitschen mat Fritten an Zalot’.
49. You despise any sparkling water other than ‘Rosport’.
50. You know at least four languages, but can’t write in your mother tongue.
51. You know Fausti lyrics better than your national anthem.
52. You know Fausti lyrics in the first place.
53. One of your childhood memories is having a ‘Jean la gauffre’ waffle at the ‘Schueberfouer’. Once you’re 16 all you care about are the “Dikkrecher Béierstuff’ and the ‘Schwarzwaldhaus’.
54. When you talk to your friends, strangers think you’re drunk.
55. You remember ODC.
56. You don’t sing. You shout unintelligibly.
57. You hear the sentence ‘You’re the first one I meet from that country’ once a week.
58. You hear the sentence ‘Tell me something in your mother tongue’ once a week.
59. You put a conditionnel after ’si’ in French.
60. You have to translate texts for your professors.
61. You think it’s quite normal to have your own car, even if you’re only 20 years old.
62. You visit Paris, London and NY for Christmas Shopping.
63. You think that paying 500€ for your one room flat is a pretty good deal.
64. You study abroad and speak more in your mother tongue than in the foreign language.
65. You complain about your 3star hotel, while you’re on holiday.
66. You know the police officer who arrests you and the judge who judges you.
67. You always meet somebody you know when you go out.
68. You think that Starbucks is something special.
69. More than 70% of your friends study economics or law.
70. You realize that a city with more than 475′600 inhabitans is bigger than your whole country.
71. You think it is normal that 50% of the cars on the streets have foreign country code plates.
72. You are referred to as ‘Luxos’ by the French.
73. You call your ministers ‘Jang’, Erna’ or ‘Mady’.
74. You love Europe, but hate most other European nations.
75. You think Bin Laden is a schoolboy as opposed to the Bommeleeër.
76. The Bommeleeër is the most noticeable figure in your country’s history.
77. You hold a Karlspreis (when born in 1986 or earlier).
78. You think it’s normal that teachers and social workers can afford fancy cars and houses.
79. You care about what your neighbours will think.
80. You use ‘d’Sau’ to refer to other people.
81. You used to watch ‘Häppi Diwwi’ as a child.
82. You’re fluent in sarcasm.
83. You study about 200km away from Luxembourg and go home every single weekend.
84. You think the Luxembourgish high school diploma is the most difficult and valuable in the world.
85. You refuse to use public transport on principle.
86. You’d rather drink expensive wine mixed with coke than cheap wine.
87. You say “I’m going to the city” and everyone knows exactly which city you’re talking about.
88. You know that the Luxembourgish flag is soooo different from the Dutch.
89. You don’t like to bump into Luxembourgish people when you’re on holiday.
90. You can’t get to know anyone you don’t share at least one friend with.
91. You say “vu que datt”. (Either the “que” or the “datt” are superfluous. So stop saying it!)
92. You think that Thüringer with chips and side salad is a hell of a dish.
93. You’re in a seating concert and the person behind you will complain the second you stand up to dance.
94. You have prepared a speech in Luxembourgish. But, at the last moment a few unexpected people join the audience.
    a) If 1 out of 100 auditors is French, you will perform your speech in French.
    b) If 1 out of 100 is English and 10 are French, you will address the audience in English.
95. Your names and surnames are not in the right order, because the way you entered them is the way you are used to.
96. You don’t drink tea - after all, you’re not ill, are you? So there you go. Coffee, please.
97. An “old” car means it’s over 5 years old.
98. You’ve told a million jokes starring a certain kid named “Pitti”.
99. You pronounce Montpellier “Montpällier”.
100. The person who runs your country doesn’t speak the same mother tongue as you.
101. You can ride all the buses and trains in your country for 50€ a year.
102. You have a customised car matric plate with your birthday on it.
103. You blush everytime your country is mentioned in a book, a film, a lecture, a TV programme…
104. As a child you were confused by the fact that Santa Claus (a.k.a. Kleeschen) doesn’t have a donkey, but a sleigh and reindeer in most films. Furthermore he is assisted by elves instead of Housécker.
105. No matter where you are and what the weather is like, you have to complain about it.
106. When speaking English, you wonder why the other person doesn’t understand you when you say “Handy”.
107. A “Rieslingspastéit” is nothing unknown to you.
108. You’re in favour of monopolies: one company selling electricity, one selling gas, one selling telecommunications, one post office. You don’t get this whole “shopping for utilities” thing.
109. You’re truly obsessed with speaking Luxembourgish at your baker’s. It also usually involves buying “eng Mëtsch” (a pastry), but it rarely involves bread, and it’s never a situation at the butcher’s.
110. You believe Luxembourgish is in the heart of Europe.
111. You get offended when North-Americans don’t know where/what Luxembourg is, yet at the same time, you wouldn’t know where Virginia or Manitoba is.
112. You actually celebrate your national holiday, whereas most foreigners don’t even know when theirs is. However, you celebrate it the day before in order to avoid having to go to work hungover. On the actual day of your national holiday you don’t stay in Luxembourg, but go shopping to Trier.
113. The football game Portugal vs. Germany seems like a true catch 22 situation for you but you know that deep in your heart you hate Germany more than Portugal.
114. There’s no public event without a “Éirewäin”.
115. You call the Luxembourgish university according to its website address.
116. You would never write the number 7 without the horizontal dash and the number 1 without the top hook.
117. There’s only one phone book for the whole country.

Until today jailbreaking your iPhone running 2.0 or higher did not offer many exciting applications.
of course there was winterboard which allows you to use thems and personalize the look of your phone, which is really nice (like summerboard on the old software), and of course there is ssh, terminal, Bossprefs etc..but still noting the everage user would desperatly want.

Well, this has changed today!

Tunewiki is back! And I love it!

And, qik is finally available on the iPhone! Really cool! qik was the main reason why I was sometimes missing my old Nokia N95, but that has now come to an end!

qik on the iPhone

Read the Techcrunch article for more info on qik on the iPhone.

Well, after having had my little blog for nearly two years now, It was time to refresh the design a little bit. I hope you like it, although I am still tweaking it here and there.
At the same time I have also decided to move the blog to a different, more obvious domain name.

Update: I am not too happy with the look yet. I will be modifying the template (or go for another one) in order to make better use of teh screen-estate. Stay tuned….

Suzanne Vega - iTunes Live - Koko/London

I got two tickets yesterday to go and see tonight’s concert at the Koko in Camden/London. The gig, which was part of the London iTunes Live Festival featured Seth Lakeman and Suzanne Vega!

To be honest, I didn’t really know Seth Lakeman before, but it was a wonderful concert, and will certainly invest some of the 10 free songs on iTunes that every guest at the concert got in some track from him!

The main act was Suzanne Vega, which was excellent! A lot of the songs she played were recent, and as such not so well known for me, but she didn’t miss to play the classics, that we all know from many years back, including Luca! Listening to those songs brought back some old memories! Really nice evening!

After Kim Kirchen managed to wear yellow during 4 stages, he lost if to Cadel Evans. Well, Today, on stage 15 up to Prato Nevoso, another one of our three riders from Luxembourg managed to take the lead and is now wearing yellow: Frank Schleck! With a lot of help from his brother Andy, he manged to take a few seconds off Cadel Evans, and is now leading The Tour 2008!
Rather amazing! for nearly 50 years we did not have any success at the Tour, but this year it is all set to change!
Good luck to all three of them!

For the first time since nearly 50 years, a rider from Luxembourg is in the lead of the Tour de France! 1959, Charly Gaul was wearing the yellow shirt for the last time for Luxembourg, but since Thursday, we are back!

Kim Kirchen is currently leading the Tour, and although it is still a long way to go, we are proud! The other two participants from Luxembourg at this years Tour, Andy and Frank Schleck, are also still in the top 20, not bad for such a small country!

Enjoy the following short clip, recorded from RTL, our local TV station. Commentary is of course in Luxembourgish!

It isn’t really getting any better.

O2 informed their potential customers today about the latest status.

You can go to http://shop.o2.co.uk/info/ to read it for yourself, but it isn’t good news.

Read the following to get an idea:

we’re confident that everyone who wants an iPhone will be able to get one by the end of the summer.

O2 also indicates some numbers regarding the availability of the phones in the stores on Launch day:

On average, we will only have a few dozen iPhone 3Gs per store (some stores more, some stores less, dependant upon store size so we expect to sell out quickly). Sales of iPhone 3G will be limited to one per customer and two for business customers.

And finally also a confirmation that you will be able to buy teh phone inthe Apple stores, but only if you are a NEW customer, and do not want to upgrade your current contract!

Apple will be selling iPhone 3Gs in their stores, but please note that existing O2 customers can only upgrade in an O2 or CPW store.

Well, good luck to everybody who wants to get one tomorrow, or who is, like myself still waiting for some kind of a confirmation from O2 regarding the pre-ordered phone.

As a lot of you know, I was a happy owner of the first generation iPhone since summer last year and was looking forward to the new 3G iPhone!

Some time ago I “registered” my interest to pre-order the new iPhone from O2 here in the UK, and as rumours predicted it, on Monday morning I received an Email from O2 informing me that I can pre-order the phone at their online shop.
This is where the terrible experience starts!

The O2 online store was unusable! I took me 30 minutes to successfully put through the order! During that process I had to start from scratch several times, re-entering all of the information again and again!

Well, at least I managed to put an order through, which apparently wasn’t the case for many other people, so I kind of thought that I was lucky, but as mentioned, we are not done yet!

Shortly after placing the order, I received the first confirmation Email from O2:

Dear Mr Mike Hellers,

Thanks for placing your new order. We’re just currently processing your request and we’ll be in touch shortly to let you if it’s been accepted and when it will be dispatched.

Yet again, shortly after that, I received the second confirmation Email from O2:

Dear Mr Mike Hellers,

We just want to keep you updated on the progress of your order. Your order has now been passed to our warehouse for processing and we’ll let you know shortly if it’s been confirmed and when you can expect to receive it.

So far everything seems to be working fine, considering the tremendous amount of orders that O2 apparently received that day.

Later on Monday, I received the third update from O2:

Dear Mr Mike Hellers,

Your order is still being processed and, if accepted, should be despatched to you within the next 5 days. Any iPhone 3G orders will be delivered on or after 11th July.

We’ll email or send you an SMS to confirm when your order has been accepted and despatched so that you’ll know when to expect your delivery. You will need to sign for the delivery, but don’t worry if you’re not in, the courier will leave you details to rearrange delivery.

If you selected a chargeable delivery option a refund will be applied automatically to your credit/debit card within the next 10 days.

But, knowing O2, I kind of had my doubts that it would continue as easy, and guess what, I didn’t get disappointed.

On Tuesday evening I received yet another update from O2:

Dear Mike,

Thank you for your recent order with O2.

To process your order we require some additional information from you. It is important that you contact us within 2 working days of receiving this email, or we cannot guarantee delivery within your stated timescales. Therefore please can you contact us on 0870 4444713 between 8.30am and 4.30pm, Monday to Friday.

We need to check 1 proof of Identity and we need to check your residency. Please have the below with you, when you call. Proofs acceptable to O2 are listed below. Please make sure your proofs are for your address where you have applied for service and are in your name, and that all address details are complete.

This is where the trouble starts! (funny side note: Instead of addressing me using “Mr Mike Hellers”, the Email now simply starts with “Dear Mike”…)

I received the above Email of course after 4.30pm, so no chance in calling them them on Tuesday. I tried reaching them several times today, but it seems impossible to reach somebody at O2 under the mentionned phone number, and there is no other way to contact them!

Instead, they keep on sending me the same Email. I have received it two more times today! Not really funny!

Oh yes, of course, although they claim that these problems are caused by the fact that they have to handle an unprecedented amount of new orders, they obviously have now problem at all to collect the money! Already on Tuesday they cashed in the money from my debit card!
Pretty amazing to consider an order still as being processed, and waiting for additional information (among them a proof of address in the form of a Debit or Credit card), but at the same time they have no issues using the provided debit card information to cash in the money!

I will keep you updated on the progress…not really looking good so far: I am not amused!

UPDATE:
After another 45 minutes calling O2 this morning, I was finally able to speak to somebody! And after a very efficient process to verify my address and identity (they were even able to check my identity using my non-UK passport over the phone) I received the confirmation that my order is now complete and they will send the iPhone to my address tomorrow.

We will see if it will actually happen. But things look at least a bit more positive again!

O2, who will still be the only carrier offering the iPhone in the UK has published the prices for the phone and the corresponding tariffs:

There is also an offer for existing iPhone customers to upgrade, and the phone will become available on PayAsYouGo, although there are no details about the price of the phone for PAYG yet.

In addition, Business deals are available.