year 2010

Hejsan alla!
Since the 18th of december last year I've been in Germany, we have had a really great time but tomorrow evening we'll fly back to Sweden. The first few days here Antonia was extremely busy, she had to work almost all day long for a few days. I was whining about that alittle, but not at all because I was bored or anything, I just wanted Antonia to have a relaxed vacation :)

One day when Antonia was away JT came by, he stayed for a few hours and we had alot of time to talk about his new company, I had tons of questions and it was really exciting to hear about it. They are already very successful and I am very proud and a tiny bit jealous :)
Whenever JT wasnt around I was most of the time either sitting around with "mom" (Antonia's mom) and Petra and talked about all kinds of things, or I played cards with mom for hours and hours. Tons of fun! In the beginning, she completely dominated me, I had no chance, but after a while it got more and more even and in the end I won most of the time :)

kindergarten

I also had the chance to visit the kindergarten I used to work at! It was the very last day the kindergarten was open and it was a very small group of six kids or so, but when the rumor that the incredible J0k3 was in town started to spread, more and more kids quickly showed up to say hi and recive some hugs :D
When I was there, I realized how extremely much I miss them - its so amazing to be surrounded by those kids, I love it! I am really glad that I did the internship there for a year, it was a very important experience for me and I dont think I'll ever forget it.
I wish I could visit them more often, it felt truly great and I miss them alot.

christmas

Last years christmas (2009) was really great, we were having a really relaxed day together with Mom, Petra, JT and Katrin. It was very nice, I dont like it so much when there are millions of people everywhere - it was perfect!
What I missed most was the Swedish christmas food, its just so much better than any other food! Speaking of eating - we eat ALL THE FREAKING TIME! They eat like sixty times a day and between the food there are cookies and candy and cake and icecream and aaaaaargh... TOO MUCH food for my taste! I am sick of chocklate (!).
I love it here - It really feels like home and the people are wonderfull.

social activities

The last couple of weeks have been completely FULLY BOOKED! Almost everyday we meet people, spent all day with them and it has been really really great but two days ago or so I ran out of energy - needed some downtime and not be surrounded by 5+ people all the time. So today I have been relaaaaxing all day, just been watching Starcraft VOD's all day and drink cola. Hurray for that! Antonia went to her friends birthday party today - Happy birthday Beate!! - but I stayed home because I was quite beat plus they really wanted to have some alone time together, since they hardly ever meet. Girl talk I suppose. Anyway, we all had a wonderfull time and now Antonia is home again so we are soon gona lie down and watch some "Friday Night Lights". So, who have we been meeting so far?

# JT & Katrin #
We have met JT & Katrin a couple of times already, the first evening we watched "Pay it forward" together and talked and just relaxed and had a good time. Whenever we go there to hang out we always end up staying really late and just discuss different things, order pizza and watch stuff :) Really really nice!
JT and I also like to discuss game ideas alot, and his latest idea is really cool and hopefully he will keep working on the idea and one day try to actually make it. Monkeys ftw, whatever Ray says!
They are living in a really nice little apartment, in their living room they have a big comfy couch that we always end up in and there is a giiiiiiigaaantic window that displays a beautiful view.
Last time we met we also played a couple of rounds of "Magic", JT really loves that game and it was alot of fun to play with him, especially since I won two times in a row! Moaahaha! Since we always stay so late, its always nice to drive home - I love sitting in the car and drive around in the night :)

# Jasmin & Justin #
Two days after christmas or so, we went to visit her younger siblings, I always have alot of fun there, its so very nice to have the two of them around. Justin is very much like me (awesome and funny) and Jasmin has this aura that makes you smile and enjoy yourself whenever shes around. When we got there it was full house, like five hundred people or so in a small room - was quite weird - but it didnt take long till they had to leave so we could enjoy the company of J&J.
After a little while JT & Katrin came by aswell and we all sat down to eat together, yum yum, chili con carne!
They had a new Mario game for Nintendo WII (New Super Mario Bros. Wii) that we started playing, and OMG it was VERY FUN! We started on the very last world though because they had completed all the worlds before that, so it was quite difficult till you got used to the controls. We played for hours and ended up killing the final boss very late at night. It was insane how emotional and passionate we were about the game, everyone screaming and yelling and jumping up and down at times :D Quote of the year = "BUBBLE!! BUBBLE!!! BUUUUUUUUUBBLEEE!!!!", everyone who played the game probably knows what I mean :)
We also watched some talent shows together and played the first chapter of the new adventure game, "Runaway 3", it was in german though but Jasmin kept translating everything for me :)

# Ray & Family #

We have also met Ray and his family a couple of times during these weeks, doing all kinds of things together - playing cards, going out to a chinese restaurant, meeting for christmas and new years etc. His three daughters are really sweet, one of them can be really loud some times but thats something I can live with :P His youngest, Johanna, is incredibly cute AND I WANT TO HAVE A BABY TOO!!! :) We also managed to have Ray for ourselves a few times, he showed us this article which is pretty interesting, http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/12/fail_duke_nukem/ . He asked me if I'm doing anything creative lately and I said no - he thought that was abit sad because to create things makes you feel good in a way, atleast if your proud of what you made - so I have been thinking about that for a couple of days, because I know that back in the days when I was mapping alot, I loved it so much.. Unfortunately though is, that I'm kind of as creative as a dead donkey.

# Uschi & Turney #

Uschi and Turney are Antonias godparents and they are wonderfull people. We had the luxury of meeting them shortly after christmas and it turned out to be a very emotional evening. I think we all cried that day, but we werent angry or hurt, we were honest and understanding and open to each other. It was a beatiful day. We talked very much about studies and plans and also about the past. We were telling them everything about the Swedish school-system and talked about different jobs and studies. Since they were coming by we also wanted to offer them something special to eat, so we woke ourself up early in the morning to prepare a dish that we also made for Petra and Antonias mom when they visited us in Sweden. Everybody loved it. It was a great day. I hope to see them in Sweden sometime soon ;)

# Hans & Moni #

Hans is Antonias uncle and hes a really cool dude, Moni is his wife. They came by to spend new years eve with us and it was nice, I like them alot, especially Hans :) We played some cards together and also operated on Petras laptop (installed more RAM).

# Patrick and his family #

Patrick is an 11 year old boy who's a friend of the family, he drops in every once in a while and we play cards together. We have probably played like 6-8 hours in total and its really fun. He's a really quick learner and he also taught us some games that were really fun. Once his family came by and his father joined us and owned us hard in every game we played! Grr. But to not make it too horrible - we didnt let him leave untill a game ended and he wasnt the winner.

# Oma #

We didnt meet Oma yet, but tomorrow we are spending pretty much the whole day with her till its time to drive to the airport.

new years eve

When it was time for new years eve I was pretty beat already, I didnt feel like being social but people kept coming by all the time. But it was fun to see the children smile when it was time for fireworks - made it worth it :) Something I really hate about every new year celebration is how dirty everthing is the day after. The snow is all gray and there is burnt stuff lying around everywhere.. I dont like that at all, and I also dont drink and thats what everyone does at new years so... meh. I also dont fancy fireworks at all, its loud, boring and expensive. Oh well - best thing about this years new year was that I got to meet Millow again!! Millow rox.
The other day or if it was this morning, I dont really remember, I had a theory about why I dont like new year celebrations.. When I was young we used to have a dog which I was completely inlove with, and as everyone knows, fireworks + dogs = bad combination. Maybe my beloved dog got all scared by the noise and therefore I started to dislike it. No idea if that theory is correct though :P

notebook w. ubuntu

I am at the moment using a tiny little notebook (Asus Eee PC 1101HA) that Petra bought. It is so beatiful and cute and neat, but it has been giving us tons of problems. She got it with Windows 7 but she wanted to have WinXP so Ray installed it for her. Problem is that the sound stops working after a few minutes and wont start working again until you reboot.
We tried around alot with reinstalling drivers etc but we couldnt get it to work. At last, we decided that we'll reinstall WinXP again. Since we would sweep the HD anyway, I asked if I could install Ubuntu and play around with that for a day or two. So I did. It is fun :) I am thinking about installing Ubuntu at home, its so sexy.
Anyway. When we decided to reinstall WinXP we were having tons of problems, because now we realized that this little notebook doesnt have a CD-drive ^^. We started trying to boot from USB and read some guides but for some reason it doesnt work.. Poor Petra ;/

curling

I got an email from an uncle of mine, he is hosting a curling-party and invites alot of relatives. So Antonia and I are gona go and play some curling a few days after we got the Sweden. I think its gona be pretty fun, but how weird is it? I mean, curling? wtf! Its like the last sport I would ever think of trying. But it might be fun so we're giving it a try :) I guess in my next update you'll see some pictures of us owning hard.

shows & movies

While we have been in germany we have been watching Lie to me in the evenings, a really really good show! I would like to have an office like his one day ^^. After we ran out of episodes we started to watch "V", which is a very cool sci-fi show that seems to be really good. But we soon ran out of episodes of that aswell so we watched the end of Survivor season 19 - really good season but O M G we are really really looking forward to season 20, its gona be so awesome!
I have also watched plenty of Starcraft games while Antonia has been busy doing other things, I really like to watch SC games, its relaxing and exciting at the same time, but I do miss the english commentary by Tasteless.

spain

Today when Antonia was at her friend, Petra and I watched some photos from their house in Spain. It is extremely beatiful, and its crazy how much work they have put into it. It is something I am definitely looking forward to see for real, and experience the spanish lifestyle they are about to take part of.

a little piece of me.. (antonia)

The first 3 Days of our stay in Germany I was working for a company called "photo Porst" which I have been part-time hired by for almost a year now. I usually just retouch pictures that they make in their professional studio but this christmas I was supposed to install 2 new Desktops for them and - additionally - teach them my ways around photoshop. So on saturday, the first day in Germany, I went there and gathered all the software that they wanted me to install. On Sunday I put up both PCs in my mothers livingroom (she actually hates PCs and all the accompanying cables, but she allowed me to do it there anyway) and on monday I handed in the PCs, hoping everything would work.
Ofc it did not and I had to stay there another 5 hours just to add/adjust several things, that they forgot to tell me about beforehand. We even had a black-out at one point, which prolonged the charade exorbitantly.
And in all this time I never once got to show them any of my photoshop know-how so we had to meet again between christmas and new year. All of this sounds pretty bad now, but actually all of this earned me a pretty penny. so pretty, in fact, that we went ahead and bought me a new pc! But I am sure joke told you all about it, since he persuaded me to buy it in the first place.

EDIT: Now I have to write it after all, because he is so lazy. Okay well, It all began with my laptop, which I had for almost 2 years now. It tends to overheat a little bit and there were some issues with it, such as wireless, so I considered buying a new laptop. Then I had a talk with my brother JT who convinced me to look for a desktop instead because u get better performance for the same price. So my 600€ laptop turned into a 700€ monster machine with a new 24inch screen for 200€ and a better mouse.... just because we can.

Don't ask me where the sudden shopping addiction comes from, because I'm not so sure myself. I blame it on joke, though. because he just kept on looking for better PCs on the internet. Anyway.. once we get home we will have a very fun day (and I mean this in the sincerest way possible) of PC-assembly and driver installations. It'll have roughly 400gb harddisk (which is more than enough for me since I got an external harddrive from PhotoPorst), 3,0Ghz and 4gb ram, upgradable up to 16! :D and, most importantly for me, dual DVI meaning: 2 hd-screens for one PC - a show or movie on the left, photoshop work on the right! I am very much looking forward to it and I really hope that everything will be ok with it.

What I really want to tell you about is my creative work for Photo Porst, which, opposed to all the hands-on IT service, does not make me very rich but is a lot of fun, instead. I have been feeling my passion for this work drifting away for some time now and instead of dealing with it and getting creative, experimenting a little with the pictures, I just did my work and was glad when I was finished with it. I am happy to tell you, though, that I found inspiration not only with the work of other professional photographers that I found on the Web, but with Katrin, my brothers girlfriend. We met shortly before we left for Sweden and - as it turns it out - we work very well together. She is a true fountain of creativity with no real means of exploring all the digital opportunities and I bring forth pure talent, raw and without any creativity to back it up. Obviously we make a great team and so we sat down and worked on some ideas together. I will publish some of the work I did - be it with or without my human creativity-fountain - so that you can tell me whether it is any good or if we just aimed to please our own eyes. :)


This is my first collage-Design which i've used on all of my assignments so far


This is my new Collage-Design which is pretty much based on those Thank-You notes from Weddings etc.


This was the Picture that Katrin and I worked on together


There I used a picture which was going to be a simple cut-out project and put it in this - what I think is a nice frame


Here I challenged myself to do some more complicated cut-out work on a picture of my brother and his youngest daughter. (Love you guys!)

Well, this is it for me

- Toni out

random

German kebab ftw. When I'm old I'll have a boat. "Epic" is a sentance.