Halloween may be a great tradition in other parts of the world, but apart from each and every store jumping onto the jack-o-lantern bandwagon, there’s not much enticing about it here. And after witnessing five girls in the tram, aged approximately 13, chugging some vile stuff that looked like strawberry champagne, and showing their contempt for the limitations of an oppressing society by openly smoking (until the conductor told them off, that is), I’m convinced more than ever that Halloween is not much more than yet another excuse to go crazy. Which is actually quite OK.
Monthly Archive for October, 2005
Well, yesterday was Culture Saturday. First we went to see a play, then we witnessed a great performance by a band called East Rodeo, featuring none other than Imre LB. It’s mostly instrumental, lazed with flavours of jazz, rock and Balkan influences, and on their website they aptly name their style “psycho balkan”. I agree, but it’s psycho in a very good way. I especially liked the percussionist’s performance. I’m always fond of drummers who plow through their set like a workhorse.
The downside of the performance was that it all took place in a club which must have either extremely bad or extremely ignorant management. Whatever it is, fact is they booked another event into the same room at midnight, meaning that the band was forced to quit playing approximately 45 minutes after starting. Which of course resulted in everyone involved being pissed off, a sentiment totally out of place at the end of this great performance.
In yesterday’s Daily Source Code, Adam Curry said something to the effect that podcasting was created because people were fed up with what mainstream radio had to offer them. Incidentally, today I saw a commercial for something the overexcited voice on TV called “the first Austrian podcasting platform”. The ad was for a website created for the worst Austrian national radio called OE3, where they simply put up recorded, distilled, concise versions of their awful programming. Among these recordings are highlights such as “Transatlantic Sisters”, a gossip podcast, or “Best of Comedy”, something I can only assume refers to what these people regard as funny.
Now, calling this mess a “platform” is so ridiculous. It’s not a platform, it’s a closed website which lets you download parts of their programming. There is no, say, option of rating these shows, there’s no possibility of uploading your own shows, there are no shownotes or anything even remotely close; it’s simply part of that radio’s godawful website. It is, plain and simple, bullshit. I can envision the marketing hacks being all giddy about having once again managed to take something new, interesting and genuine and then turn it into another tool to promote their own creativity lacking, bland, gruesome piece of mind-numbing mainstream crap.
By the way, while researching Austria’s podcasting community (which by the way doesn’t need its own platform, because, and I guess that’s another thing the good people at OE3 haven’t noticed, the Internet doesn’t need national restrictions; there’s a shitload of podcast directories out there containing Austrian podcasts as well), I stumbled upon the BZÖ podcast. In case your memory is failing you, the BZÖ was founded a few months back (which I, being the ever so Austrian political commentator, of course mentioned here) and has been more or less ignored during the last few local elections. Well, and now they have a podcast. I listened for a minute or two, and it’s basically mainstream news read by some guy with an extremely drab voice and from a right wing angle. Go figure. If you want a taste yourself, here’s a direct link to an MP3.
Google apparently launched a quick test of a new service called Google Base (which at the time of writing is down). From what I gathered, it’s supposed to be some kind of database service. If you’re as confused as I was when I read it, check out the articles on the Google Blogoscoped and on this person’s blog, who is really quite excited about the whole thing.
Tomorrow is Austria’s national holiday. In case you don’t know how that came about, it’s the day when we’re supposed to commemorate the signing of a treaty including the law of permanent neutrality (and a few other things). Since the signing happened 40 50 years ago (edit: Did I really write 40? Well, good thing I noticed it before anyone else did!), the government has decided to hold a big military parade. Because, as you are all aware, commemorating the anniversary of permanent neutrality practically screams for a display of military power. And that’s what’s going to happen tomorrow. According to the ministry of defense, tomorrow’s parade through Vienna [DE] will contain the following:
* 4010 soldiers
* 195 tanks
* about 100 air-crafts (apparently they don’t know exactly, which is quite understandable, considering the fact that Austria’s aerial force is impressive like that. I looked up the precise numbers [DE], and they amount to exactly 163, including planes used for transportation and training purposes, for example this one here)
There won’t be any concrete numbers as to what the whole thing will cost, because according to the ministry, the costs for the parade are incorporated into the training budget. Which of course warrants a serious: “What the fuck?” I mean, apparently the Austrian military has a budget so bloated they can afford to parade practically its entire aerial and land force through Vienna.
What if universities had that kind of budget? How bloated would a budget for the University of Vienna have to be in order for them to organize a parade of all its staff through the streets of Vienna, just so people could gaze in amazement at the extreme number of people working in administration? Hell, in today’s seminar people had to sit on the floor because there’s just not enough space, and the government spends millions of Euros on useless parades of a useless military force. It’s a mess, it’s a damn mess.
![Medienschelte.at [de]](http://stormgrass.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/medienscheltebutton.png)
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