Quote from: chemicaloverload on June 06, 2023, 09:44:16I enjoyed your update about the Damned which was lovely. Glad they were on form for you 

Good to hear you received and enjoyed this!

I am sorting my photos as we speak...

This trip is of course still on my mind. My mum's cousin didn't know me well (if at all, we might've met when I was a kid), but she treated me as if we'd known each other for a long time.

On the way back, I took a wrong turn somewhere (signs weren't too clear or missing completely), thus we ended up at the lake of Starnberg (instead of Ammersee), but never mind, it was nice. 

Plus, again a few miles later, I found us a nice "beer garden" to have something to eat (and alc-free beer for me as the driver).

I just have to think of someone who recently became an honorary citizen of a city in Lower Saxony, and yet is no longer up to his/her responsibility. Time for a generation change. 

Day 3 of the so-called "exercise": we don't have more flight operations than usual. On the other hand, there is more movement in the night sky. At 12:50 am I may have seen a reconnaissance plane flying in a southeasterly direction. The many tankers in Wunstorf and elsewhere suggest that the four-engined planes are mainly used for aerial refueling. Sequel follows...

Day 4: Saw a A400M at 08h39 high altitude (Course: UK?) and 18h09 low altitude (landing approach). Possibly the same plane.

Day 5: Cloud cover has increased. No activity except at 5:26 p.m. at high altitude. Hardly distinguishable from a normal airliner. From the press we see how our friends from the USA, Italy and Poland fly in formation. "Where is the Luftwaffe?" used to be a dictum. Where are the Norwegians? In Laage?!

Day 7 (Sunday): practice only on weekdays and then by the hour? Saw a twin-engine aircraft heading northeast at 0737 this morning at very high altitude. Not a passenger plane, but possibly an F-15 from Volkel?

Day 8: A kind of Learjet flies over our house (6:15 p.m.). I have the feeling that the "exercise" is largely over.

Day 9: Allegedly, eight B-52s were transferred to Latvia. That leaked. It is becoming clear that "Air Defender" was a large-scale air-transfer exercise and not a classic exercise like in the 1980s. I hope the whole number doesn't fizzle out during the summer break, but instead a TV team is making the effort to work everything out for us tax and fee payers. 🤨

END.

 

What's wrong with our media? A 3000-year-old sword is found and I find out about it in an article from an English newspaper!

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/16/till-shines-3300-year-old-sword-found-in-germany-bronze-age-grave-bavaria

QuoteA bronze sword more than 3,000 years old , which is so well-preserved that it "almost still shines", has been unearthed in southern Germany, officials say.

The Bavarian state office for the preservation of historical monuments (BLfD) said the sword, which is believed to date back to the end of the 14th century BC — the middle of the bronze age — was found during excavations last week in Nördlingen, between Nuremberg and Stuttgart.

Addressed to someone outside the forum.

Quote from: T*m*r*The cat is out of the bag

The news of the year for me. After five years, the evidence is overwhelming. Fortunately, my social circle is large enough to cushion the whole thing. I don't feel resentment, probably also because I know my birth chart. It remains to be seen whether this will change the status quo. 
     When the first two hints came in February, I could already guess it, but now someone is the first to say it. That's what's special. I had to experience myself what it means when someone gets out of the dating process or when you become a doormat. I don't want that again. But that someone would fly so under the radar when he/she is merely being sustained by others, which is more likely, surprises and upsets me.

PS: I've thought about it for a long time and can hardly find any valid reason against it, except for the position of the sun. I think adults should be able to talk about it. On the first date, I don't ask "how much?". That would be an insult. I think prostitutes should identify themselves as such, especially when attention is not desired. The opposite is the case. 🤔

Now the North American leg of the Cure tour is a wrap (well they will return later for a festival before heading to South America), I keep thinking of all the time I invested in updating the setlists, finding videos or reviews. (Sometimes I went actively searching, while sometimes things would be "suggested" to me by FB or friends.)

At first, it was a bit like a "job to be done" (because I felt the "duty" to be up-to-date for all you Cure fans out there), but since early-mid June, I had fun doing it, I really enjoyed it! 

P.S.: Now I posted something "on topic" in the "off topic" section, please ban me!! 

Not bad for a Monday: quite some work done & a few nice emails written, listened to a new song by Lol & Co., one person was blocked on FB. 

Addressed to someone outside the forum:
good to see you prove (again) what kind of troll you've always been (and always will be). I gave you a little chance by un-blocking you after 5 years, but it was useless... I ask one simple question about a movie (from a director you allegedly like), but you go on about this and that (uninteresting), even tell me how you don't do much on FB while others post videos and stuff (how's that your f***in' business what others do?) and so on (yawn)...           

Addressed to someone outside the forum.

@T*m*r*

First of all I want to thank the mod for the transition.   After I on 11.07. received a direct threat, I thought it wise to remain silent. Things like this don't get any better if I or others 'poke around' in them. Still, I advise those who want to talk incessantly (on yt) and muzzle others to moderate themselves and look in the mirror from time to time. Yes indeed! Apart from that, not much has changed in the status quo so far. But I would also like to tend towards the fact that it is a profession like any other. Children and young people must be protected. The protection of adults, on the other hand, certainly has room for improvement.

Quote from: MeltingMan on July 27, 2023, 11:08:11...received a direct threat, I thought it wise to remain silent. Things like this don't get any better if I or others 'poke around' in them.

Wise indeed! 

For all those who are a little older than Ruben (see post #850 in this thread) and bibliophilic 🤓 or have just started their professional life, I have this beautiful aphorism from Balthasar Gracian's hand oracle, P. Neff Verlag Vienna:

Quote229, to know how to divide one's life intelligently;

not as opportunity warrants, but with forethought and selection. It is difficult without rest, like a long journey without inns: manifold knowledge makes it enjoyable. The first day's journey of the beautiful life is used to entertain the dead: we live to know and to know ourselves; so true books make us human. Spend the second day's journey with the living, seeing and noting all the good things in the world. Not everything can be found in one country, the father of the world has distributed his gifts, and sometimes the ugliest is the richest. During the third day's journey one belongs entirely to oneself: ultimate happiness is to philosophize.

I'm recovering from another surgery. Unlike 15 months ago, the procedure was planned in advance and I was allowed to stay in the hospital for a total of three nights. Actually, the surgery can be done on an outpatient basis, but since I've had to take anticoagulants for a long time, and that until the end of my life, it's not entirely safe and it's better if it's done on an inpatient basis. Appropriate for the occasion I wore my The Cure t-shirt and black underwear.   I would like to thank all the doctors and nurses who did their best and hippiecat for the mental support. 

Hope you will be recovering completely as soon as possible!
Best wishes (& thanks to hippiecat as well).

QuoteCSU politician wants to prohibit buying s*x

I read this headline today. I am not sure whether this will find a majority in parliament.
However, if I only look at the numbers for Germany, I will 🤢.
Something has to happen. Only every ban has far-reaching consequences. The problem is that the trade is flourishing where you don't suspect it at first. If the state wants to tackle this gray area through appropriate laws, I would welcome this.

Quote from: MeltingMan on September 12, 2023, 16:40:01I read this headline today. I am not sure whether this will find a majority in parliament.
...tackle this gray area through appropriate laws...

First of all, they should make sure existing laws are enforced, especially in that area. (As far as I know, human trafficking is not allowed, same as forced labour. But it looks like the staffing level of law enforcement is low, thus they should be made stronger before making new laws.)

Plus, in my opinion, they should speak with the prostitutes first, before demanding new laws.
(P.S.: If this would happen and the whole thing would go "underground" because of being illegal, things would get even worse. Just like they did with prohibition in the U.S.)

Quote from: Berliner ZeitungAccording to Dorothee Bär, there are 250,000 prostitutes in Germany, only a fraction are reported as s*x tourists coming to the country. The CSU politician therefore wants a complete ban.

There were once 400,000 (source: BILD). So the number has almost halved.