$ cat /dev/brain > /dev/blog

Me goes a light up

I am laughing my … off reading the tweets of Sebas_ on twitter and Unanswered Google questions on Nothing For Ungood. They made my day.

No more GMail.com in Germany

Due to legal skirmish, Google’s mail service (called “GMail”in the U.S. and “Google Mail”, e.g., in Germany and the U.K.) cannot be accessed [from German ISPs] by gmail.com anymore. Instead of the GMail UI, you see that error screen shown above. Pointing your browser to mail.google.com works fine, though.

Unfortunately I’m so used to type “gmail.com” — luckily, in Firefox 3 you just need to type “gmail” into the URL input field and then choose the correct entry from the drop-down menu (if you ever have visited mail.google.com before).

Mountain Dew in Germany

One thing I really missed from living in the U.S. once I returned to Germany was Mountain Dew, a caffeinated soft drink from PepsiCo. (Yeah, of course I also miss the low gas prices, the great Californian weather, 24-hours stores…)

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw Mountain Dew bottles in a fridge at the local Shell gas station in Biberach this morning. It seems a little bit overpriced (1.49 EUR / 2.20 USD) for 0.5 l / 17 fl oz., but it tastes soooo good Grab it while it’s hot.

Waste Separation in Germany

Almost everything is regulated in Germany and in some districts like Biberach (BC) some people tend to have too much spare time. So they spend their Saturday mornings at the local recycling site (“Wertstoffhof”) to separate their garbage.

We don’t only separate paper, glass and plastics (well, I’m used to that and think it’s a good idea)… You have to put all different sorts of garbage into the right container: Newspapers, packages, mixed papers, glass, tin foil, PE foil, other plastics, glass (again, this time only if in flat shape), cans (made from… tin foil), plastic containers with a volume of less than 5 liters, styrofoam pieces, CDs/DVDs, … You get the idea