You may or may not have heard of it, but Berlin (well, Europe, let’s not be too selfish) has been hit by a pretty bad storm. The storm was called “Kyrill” (don‘t know its last name though).

Anyway, it was that bad that I crashed for the night at the friends place I was visiting that night — as, when I was about to leave, the radio said that it would be suicide to leave the house right now.

I took a few nice photos that night, but — as my MacBook Pro is still in repair — I can‘t postprocess them the way I would like to and hence don‘t want to upload them yet. Besides, there are soooo many other pictures on my camera that are grounded too… Come on Gravis, fix my damn laptop! Actually, come on Apple, deliver the bloody screen panel that’s holding them up! AAaaaarrrrrrrr!

If you pin your hopes on someone, you often wind up full of holes… [wind, get it? ;-) ]

Oh boy, so many papers to shift through… Not only that, but two more books, a seminar to prepare and a paper I would like to contribute to the 2007 RoboCup…

Plus there is so many things to do every day in Berlin. The city never sleeps, the opportunities for some cool night time undertaking never cease to be pop up… So many people to meet, so many concerts to go to, so many pubs to stop by. Oh, how I love that city.

If only I didn‘t have to get up half past seven the next morning. But that’s part of growing up I guess. More things to do, less time for it, more responsabilites, less room for trivial stuff. But why not, I like it. That’s what we‘ve all been working towards, right?

It’s always humbling to remember that anytime you think you‘ve gotten away with something, you really haven‘t.

As I told you, I got myself a new, decent camera. It’s a Sony Alpha 100, Sony’s first DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex) camera. Well, “first” is not entirely true, as at some stage Sony bought Minolta of course including all the intellectual property…

Anyway, I‘m super-happy with it, it’s just so much fun to use and the pictures are great. I know that’s rather superficial and subjective, but who of you really cares about more details ;-) Along with the camera I got the standard Sony 18–70mm lens, a 70–300mm Tamron zoom/macro lens and an old Minolta system flash, besides a bag and some memory.

What I like most about the camera is the built in anti shake system. It physically moves the sensor in opposite directions of your shaking and allows you to take pictures (depending of course on the focal length and how well you can hold still) of up to 0.5s of exposure without a tripod, i.e. from bare hands! That way I could take some nice, crisp shots in low light conditions, such as the rose on the left (1/6s exposure at 70mm focal lenght, bare handed!).

As you can see, I would recommand that camera to almost everyone right away, and it’s not that expensive either!

It’s easy to get married; it’s hard to be selective.

And again it’s been yonks since I last published a new episode of Podpourri…

And, even worse, all I do in todays episode is ask for some more patience, mercy, or whatever you want to call it.

In fairness, I don‘t think there will be a new episode before February, as right now my MacBook Pro goes to the “doctor” (Apple technician that is) to fix a number of issues, and also I will be super busy getting an annoyingly large number of things sorted concerning my semi–permanent move to Ireland (which will happen on 1 Feb.). All will be good… I hope…

How to make a cat drink: Put it in a blender, strain off the fur.