Mike’s Blog

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.

One of my favorite shows is still “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart”.

Have a look at the following clip to see what I mean. In his typical way he is taking on the stock market, Bush, Cramer and the Bear,Stearns crisis. Enjoy!

Let the fun begin….

Go over to backbone-news.com for further details….

Do you want to save yourself some time? Instead of watching the whole 90 minutes of Steve Jobs Keynote at this weeks MacWorld, have a look at what Mahalo Daily did with it. All the facts in 60 seconds

Those of us who are “old” enough to have been part of the Internet bubble a few years back are most certainly recognizing a lot of the signs of another bubble…as such the only question is: When will the crash follow?

The below video is a rather funny approach to explain the current situation. Have fun.

Created by Matt Hempey (http://www.richterscales.com)

Below is a short time-lapse video that I took last Sunday. Nothing spectacular, but anyway, I hope you like it. It was taken using an old Sony PCR-100E camera. The actual recording was done one a MacBookPro, capturing 1 frame every 10 seconds.

I found this sign recently on a wall here at the Isle of Dogs/London.

You really have to love the Brits and their fantastic sense of humour! When I first looked at the sign, while passing by in the bus, I only saw that the “Anti climbing device” was treated with Anthrax!

Only at the second view I read the last line of the sign..I love it.

I went to the Apple Store in London (Regent Street Store) tonight after work to pick up my copy of the new OS as soon as it became available..and also maybe to get a free T-shirt.

The store closed at 16h00, I guess mainly to allow them to upgrade all of the machines at display in the store to Leopard. I arrived in front of the store at 17h15, and I was expecting to see some people standing in the queue already. Well, yes, that was definitely the case..the queue went already around the whole block!

After having some fun in the queue, especially answering to all those people who passed by asking what we are queuing for, I finally made it into the store at around 18h15. The store was obviously already filled with people, but it was still easy to get my copy of MAC OSX from one of the many apple employees with they hand-held devices, allowing quick and easy credit card sales.

Every single Computer in the store was of course running Leopard already! In the theatre area, one could assist a basic introduction to the new features. But all in all, the most amazing experience was the number of people in the store taking pictures, filming etc…I guess YouTube, Flickr and many blogs will be filled with pictures and Videos covering this.

Well, here is my part…

And yes, I got a free T-shirt..actually even two.

Halo3 has been finally released on the Xbox360. Halo and Halo2 were the best selling games so far on the Xbox platform, and Halo3 is expected to do the same!

Although I am not really a gamer, I have to say that Halo 3 is a nice piece of software. So far I have only tried the single player modes, and it is really nice. The graphics look nice and clean, gameplay is fun and the soundtrack is simply amazing!

Anyway, the guys over at LoadingReadRun have done a video “looking back” at how Halo has changed the world. Fun stuff.

I found the following video on John Dvorak’s Blog, and kind of had to post it here.

One of the comments describes it as it’s best: “I know, it was a bit unsafe… but, Boy!!! Was it COOL? Yeah!”