After I locked down my mail server as much as possible (use of various RBLs, no fallback MX’s), I still receive the occasional Spam mail. Almost all of this seems to be from Brazil and China, with an occasional mail originating in the US, Denmark, or Singapore. Now some of these countries are part of the civilized world – The US and EU are working on anti-spam laws, and what we really need is a department of the police that will track down Internet criminals – illegal spamming, pyramid schemes, and other fraud. If such a unit were to be established, I’d gladly apply for a job.

However, some of the problem will always remain. How do you crack down on a spammer who lives in China? My solution to this problem is very, very simple. Force these countries to take drastic action against spammers. If they do not comply with our demands, declare war on them. If we take out their NOCs with precision guided bombs, that should very nicely solve the spammer problem. I am quite serious about this. Wars have been fought over much less annoying things than spam. After living for like eight years with this crap now I am really fed up. Give me a spammer and I will cut off his hands so he never uses a computer again.

Hey, a frustrated geek may dream, no? :-(

People – I really appreciate it when you send me feedback on my site, and I am happy to answer any questions and help you where I can, but if you include a return email address that doesn’t work, then you will never hear from me. Latest in the series of people who do this is a Tony from San Antonio, Texas. So, send me your correct email address and I can send you a reply too.

It cannot be that hard to get an email address right, now can it?

Well, the holidays are finally over. I spent most of my time playing Neverwinter Nights – and scripting Neverwinter Nights. More on this topic later.

This year I was able to (almost) totally ignore Christmas. I really hate this holiday, for various reasons, so it was rather refreshing not to celebrate it at all – living far away from one’s family and all.

Just because something is the norm of the society doesn’t mean we wouldn’t be better off without it.

The well known time-travel comedy series has been released to DVD. Review of the three-DVD widescreen boxed set.

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p>I actually borrowed this (German) DVD set from a co-worker a while ago, but only now got started: Last night, I watched DVD 1 of the set containing (naturally) three DVDs.

I think the story is by now well-known: Marty McFly, high-school student and aspiring rock-singer gets stuck in the year 1955 when he flees from Lybian terrorists in a time machine his friend, Doc Brown, built – out of a DeLorean. Not only doesn’t he have any means to get back, he also accidentally interferes with the first meeting of his mother and his father, messing up the course of history. Now he has to try to get back home, with the help of a younger version of Doctor Brown, he also has to fix things with his parents if he ever wants to be born.

The movie itself is excellent, a wonderful exploration of time-travel, and very humorous, without going over-the top: Never does it slide from funny into silly. The characters are memorable and well-played – especially Emmett Brown – the pacing of the story is excellent, what can I say, it’s one of my all-time favorite movies, and it isn’t even the best in the trilogy.

Now, about the DVD. It contains the movie in brilliant picture quality, and a load of extras. I didn’t try the animated anecdotes; the outtakes are okay, the deleted scenes are not really missed – the making of is interesting but not that big of a deal. My favorite extra on DVDs, the audio commentary, is also only so-so – it’s basically a Q&A session recorded at a Californian university. Really, this could be better! Still, it was rather interesting and even funny in parts; it was not nearly as bad as the audio commentary on the Blade DVD.

I would give DVD 1 an Okay rating. The combination of so-so extra features with the movie in brilliant quality makes it a worthwhile addition to a DVD collection, but it isn’t a must-have.

Update December 24th, 2002: I’ve now seen discs two and three as well, and am left with a bit of a “so what” feeling. There are not any really great extras on either of these DVDs, moreover, instead of the crummy “we’ll use whatever we have at hand” audio commentary, the DVDs have none. Pretty weak for such a successful series, I must say. To me, overall, the DVDs are mostly interesting because I finally got to see the movies in the original English (the German dubbing of the three movies is not all that bad – I have seen much, much worse). So, overall, I can only recommend the DVD boxed set to fans – everybody else should wait for a low-price deal, or do what I did – borrow them from someone else.

601Two days ago I watched the japanese anime movie “A Kite”. It’s about two assassins and – without wanting to spoil anything – their dirty jobs. There really isn’t much more than that to the story – no big surprises, no spectacular ideas. The main ingredients to the movie are, to be blunt, violence and sex, and plenty of ‘em in graphic detail.

A kite features a few rather graphic scenes of sex, basically nothing wrong with that but it was a little too much in my eyes. I just don’t get off by watching other people copulate, and cartoon characters hold even less appeal. Whatever floats your boat.

Much more interesting are the action sequences, when Oburi and Sawa, the main characters, carry out their assassin missions. There’s a lot of gory detail here and what can best be described as blood by the bucket-full. The scenes are nicely choreographed and quite a ride. Definitely nothing for your average spoon-fed disney teen, but for the more adult audience this is quite a ride. It doesn’t compare to Trigun or the scenes in Episode 1 of Blue Submarine No.6, but it’s okay.

There are also some nice background jokes in the movie, for example in one scene a character is eating “Make Fat” french fries.

Basically, if you can stand cartoon sex and enjoy violent action, then you might want to check this movie out – otherwise, keep your hands off. I watched the German DVD, but I could not stand the German dubbing. The voice actors are terrible – on par with the german version of Futurama – so actually watched the original Japanese version with German subtitles; there was no English dubbing on this edition. The DVD is also pretty much devoid of extras, just a few trailers that are not worth watching. The menues are nicely done, though. One thing of note about the German edition of “A Kite” is that – according to my information – it is the only version released that is uncut.

Update, July 28th 2003: Since I have received quite a number of inquiries on this subject: Unfortunately I do not know where someone might obtain a copy of the German Kite DVD. There are some stores that sell it but most of them are small and won’t ship to foreign destinations. As far as I know, Kite is “out of print” and thus mostly a second hand item. Sorry I can’t be of more help.

It’s the time of the year again when my dreams are filled with scenes that would probably give any psychoanalyst a field day. I don’t know whether they’re a good or a bad thing. For example, last night I dreamt of being stranded – which is pretty abvious in it’s analysis – but I used technology at my disposal, like a mobile phone, to handle the situation. So take your pick, the dream ended before I could resolve the situation in either way.

I am just hitting two milestones. In just under 10 months, I managed to add 150 entries to my weblog. Amazing. This means, naturally, that I post a new article every other day. Mh, I guess I have no life.

I will also hit 10000 readers today (Right now 9979) – this is only counting pageviews of the news script. I’m not entirely certain anymore whether I started counting on day one. Either way, I think that’s quite a bit. Thanks to everybody who’s visited. I hope you found what you came for. And remember, I’m always open to contructive criticism.

I have gone up the main tower skyscraper once before, but last time, I didn’t have a camera. Well, today the weather was surprisingly nice, I have the week off, so I decided to take some photos.

As you can see if you check out the photos, the weather was a bit hazy, so visibility was limited. Still, I think I managed some nice shots. I wanted to stick around a little longer, so it would get darker, but it was just too cold up there.

I like skyscrapers. I have no idea why; but I like being on the Tower. Another example is the town hall of Tokyo, which has an observation platform on the 100th (or whatever it was) floor. There’s just something fascinating about these huge buildings.

I finally got around to watch “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”, one of the big geek movies of our age and inspiration to the fabulous TV show “Parker Lewis Can’t Lose”.

The story: Ferris Bueller doesn’t want to handle school on a beautiful, sunny day, and so takes his friend Cameron, his girlfriend Sloan, and a Ferrari on a trip to Chicago, where they go to a baseball game, a museum, a high-rise, the Steuben parade and whatnot. Of course, there are complications, like Ferris’ principal, who is out to prove that Ferris is dodging school.

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is really just one of them silly teenager sitcoms. Unlike many other movies of this genre, it’s actually amusing, I have to say. Some good quotes, and lots of fun. Had I seen this movie in the cinema, I’d probably be disappointed, but for free, at home? Not bad at all, especially, if you’re after Attitude. Of that, this movie has plenty.

My only regret is that I didn’t watch this movie when I was younger. I mean, how is a kid supposed to grow up decently without good idols are role models? Ferris Bueller makes a wonderful example of what life ought to be like… :D

I had my daily “bad service” experience, and this time it was with the Deutsche Bank online banking technical support hotline. The Online Banking website of Deutsche Bank 24 is down tonight, so I thought it’d be nice to inform the guys and also ask how long they think the problem might last. I called their technical hotline and got a lady who sounded very annoyed. I explained to her the problem.

Her reply: “Yes some providers have problems tonight.”

Me: “No, not some providers; it’s COLT, your ISP.”

She: “No, no, we tested it, and it works with T-Online, we do not have a problem.” So I tried to explain to her why I thought it was a COLT problem. But she rudely cut me off: “Yeah, yeah, you are right, good evening.” – and hung up.

Now I was getting annoyed.

So I called her back and demanded to know why she had hung up: “You can’t just kick people out of the line.”

She: “Yes, I can, and I will do it again, I do not have to discuss anything with you.”

So I hung up this time.

I then proceeded to call the general support line, and a very friendly guy listened to my complaint. He asked me to send this to them in writing. “I completely agree,” he said; “that is not the way to treat a customer.”

So, tormorrow Deutsche Bank will get an official, written complaint from me. I hope this woman gets sacked immediately. Sorry, I know she might have been stressed, but that really is not appropriate at all. besides, she just missed out on some free help by a network/system administrator. Stupid bank.

So, if anybody can recommend a bank which has a decent service and operates on a federal and international level, please let me know. I am very tired of bank employees acting as if they are some sort of small gods and treating customers like shit.