Shopping in online German shops
Life in Slovenia is becoming more expensive. A few years ago, as a rule, if you were buying one piece of something, say a computer or other electronic piece of equipment, it was cheaper in an online German shop than in a Slovene shop, online or classic brick-and-mortar, but due to shipping expenses it usually evened out.
For example, I bought 3 hard disks two years ago from a German shop, 57 € a piece and 15 € of shipping. Because of the amount of disks, shipping per disk was reduced to the level where it was more economical to buy from the said online German shop, than it was to buy them anywhere in Slovenia. I saved approximately 20 €.
This week I bought running shoes, Adidas Response Trail 19 GTX, for 80.56 € from javari.de. Leaving aside the great user experience of the shop (which is subjective anyway), free EU-wide shipping, and free returns policy in 365 days, it was just cheaper than buying them in any Slovene shop. In Slovenia this model was selling for 129 €, and I couldn't find any place where they'd be on sale, for a reduced price. Now I can't find them at all anymore. If they were on sale, this was only for a few days, and judging from other similar models that are still on sale, the price was probably reduced to at most 109 €.
Then there's the multifunction device (printer, scanner, copier, and even faxing) Canon Pixma MX925 I bought from a German online shop for 139.91 €, with 9.95 € shipping. In Slovenia I couldn't find it selling for less than 191 €. So I bought it online from this German shop, voelkner.de, that had it the cheapest at the time (but not anymore, for some reason).
All in all, I saved around 90 € by ordering the printer and running shoes from German online shops. I don't understand why this practice isn't more widespread. What are people afraid of? Whatever. I guess it's true, fear has its price.
Let's resume this
Instead of the usual lamenting about the lack of time to blog, I'll just say I'll try microblogging from now on. I see there's a blogger app for iPod, just the thing to use while I commute to and from work.
Making Tea, Office Style
I've been kind of hyper-busy the past 80 weeks or so, so I needed something to zap my brain to be able to handle mounting work. A good black tea would do the job, and the best tea always comes directly from the source. So I waited for Dav to send me some...
The package with the tea arrived in a week. Not too shabby. Look at all the stamps. Dav really made the effort to deliver the tea ASAP.
I unpacked it right away. Nice tea. I love it already. Let's make some tea!
You'll need a tea cup. Don't mind the dogs. They're there to keep watch on me. If I stray away from my work, they give me some tea to bring me back in line. Kind of like those big wooly alpine rescue dogs with a small barrel of schnapps attached. But schnapps works only on lost mountain climbers, I require tea.
And a tea strainer that we'll use as a tea infuser.
And some milk. You cannot have a proper black tea without some milk.
And the tea, of course. This package opens at the side pictured.
Opening the outer cardboard reveals the inner bag. Nice packaging.
You have to unwrap the bag.
There's some fine Broken Orange Pekoe inside.
Fill the tea cup with water, but not exactly to the brim, leave some space for the milk that we'll add later. Basically, just drown the dog's feet in the water, but not the whole dog. Now put the cup with water in a microwave and engage it at the highest setting for about 2 minutes. It should make the water boil. Black tea is brewed at a higher temperature than green tea.
In the mean time sip some tea in the strainer. Not much, make it two teaspoons for some quite strong zapping tea.
Here, a closeup. I'm not sure whether this is two teaspoons, perhaps a little less. Two teaspoons is really a lot for one tea cup. But then again, I don't know what size tea spoons you have.
Start brewing the tea by putting the tea strainer with tea into the tea cup.
Here is a close-up. Leave it like this for 3 minutes, not a minute more.
And then pull the strainer, that we used as an infuser, from the tea cup.
Now we have the pure freshly brewed tea. But that's not ready for consumption yet!
Pour the milk into the tea cup, just enough so you drown the whole dog.
And the tea is done.
Don't forget to send a Thank You note to Dav, so you get more tea from him.
Visiting Puppies
Me and my girlfriend went for a visit this past weekend to see puppies at my mom's place. We took the train, so first a few pictures of landscapes. I'd have published more of them, but the train was fast and as a result most of the pictures are blurry.
A small house on a hill.
A creek in the middle.
A fancy house on a hillside.
A curvy road through the land.
Going over a snowy road.
Now that we finally arrived, a wondering cat met us.
Also, a few ducks were in attention.
We found the puppies! Scrupulous beasts at eating their lunch.
And their mother beast watching over them.
Uh-oh, a puppy heard me.
Now he's sad.
He's asking me to apologize. OK. I'm sorry. It was the devil speaking through me!
The puppies were satisfied with my apology and went on with the feast, and the big Nero playfully joined them.
Ducks weren't impressed.
A closer look revealed they were completely untouched by any of it.
Coming inside I found a dead cat.
It shook its head. Oh, no! It's a zombie cat!
A Parked Cloud
A cloud must have felt heavy this morning, so it decided to park itself in front of my balcony.
Summer Panting
Whoa, passed three exams already this year! Just got the result of the latest exam. Okay, I officially passed two exams, but because one double-semester subject got divided into two one-semester subjects per the new programme, I had to take two exams for that subject. Yay for me! Two more exams remaining... And a diploma. I hope to pass both remaining exams this year or at least till February, and then start working on a diploma. And then this big chunk of my disgrace will have finally fallen off of me. C'mon, studying for 15+ years isn't exactly what I had in mind when I enrolled.
I had to invest my summer vacation time and a chunk of overtime work into having a month off to study, and I think I can muster at most 3 more weeks off this year. I hope it'll suffice at least for one more exam this year. But then again, I must not stop now... Full speed ahead!
Seasopause
The latest weather extremes are just that - extreme. One day 33°C, the next day 13°C. Hot burning sun to cold rain. Up'n'down'n'up'n'down. I even caught a cold. I don't know what to wear anymore! Oh, and I saw this guy a couple of days ago, who was wearing a winter coat! Considering that I was freezing at the time, it wasn't a bad idea. Only, it's officially summer! It used to be quite hot at this time of year. But now, a week of rain, with floods in some places. Oh c'mon! It's just like... seasons stopped! Were put on hold! Pause! And now we're having hot and cold flashes. Wait. Oh no! The weather is having a seasopause!
I'll Be Back!
Whoa, I almost forgot I had a blog. The usual busy excuse applies. Hey, did you know that now I can handle
Java,
JBoss,
HTML,
SVG,
CSS,
JavaScript,
C,
Delphi,
Python,
XUL,
SQL,
XML,
Debian,
XPCOM,
COM and Bob knows what else...? (Well, I just don't want to enter even more links.)
Have you ever tried to implement a simple videoconference-like thingy using
Firefox/
XULRunner,
VLC plugin and a webcam? Well, I have, and it's a biggy. I'm down to researching how to decrease latencies... 2 second roundtrip is not something we can call interactive, and noone believes me it's because electrons are exhausted and slow so we should try to change electrical company to get electricity of a different, more lively, aroma.
While at the subject of webcams, did you know that
Theora is going the way of the
Dodo, to be replaced by Thusnelda (no, not
that Roman woman)? The
latest project update shows it to be quite promising, rivaling the famous
H.264.
And now, back to my meager existence, which I'm trying to improve by finishing my degree. 4 exams to go, 2 of which I plan to take this June. And I have until the next June to complete my degree, after that the course I enrolled in becomes... expired. Like milk, sour, and after a while, yoghurt. No, wait, that's what I'll become if I don't finish it.
