I stopped smoking on Tuesday 4 pm That's one reason for the lack of updates. The other is that I am uninspired and a little tired of my blog. Hopefully that will change soon. The first anniversary is not too far. I have been listening a lot to the first two New Order albums in the last days. Especially Movement is one of those records touching me deep inside. Maybe more on it later.

Blogger Insider I am a little late on the latest round of Blogger Insider questions. The questions from Laughing Muse (the answers to my questions to him her will be on his her site) date from April 17th. But I had a reason. I did not have access to my pop3 e-mail account in Greece. Let's go.

Q1: You're thinking of switching to a new blogging tool - which one, and why? (I ask because I'm one of those odd folks who runs a nonstandard blog script off of her own server.) A: From the start I have been using Blogger, the most widespread blogging tool available. I used it as it was piss-easy to get started but realized after a while that in the end using it involves a lot of work as there are many features missing in Blogger and I had to get them from other free available sources. Examples are a search, a referral tracker, a comment system, an e-mail notification service, polls, a ping bookmarklet etc. Additionally Blogger is not always reliable (esp. the free version I guess) and pages load quite slowly (maybe because I am in Germany?). Other areas where Blogger has problems: archive links are lost often when publishing, publishing is not always available etc. I want to move to Antville, a weblogging tool from Austria mainly used by German speakers. To create a weblog there is even easier than with Blogger. You just choose a URL which is still available, a user id and a password and that's about it. Weblogs are hosted on Antville. I really like about Antville that it is much more communicative than Blogger in its design. There is an integrated commentary system and there is a section called "recently modified" in the sidebar which gives you the latest changes/additons to the weblog be them posts (in Antville called stories) or comments. You can also have a completely open collective weblog where everyone registered can write stories (like in Blogger). Additionally you can create topics to order your stories by subject. A search which also searches the comments is integrated as well. The referrers of the last 24 hours are accessible. You can post your own images or media files which reside on Antville. A new feature is the automatic pinging of weblogs.com which is very useful for readers if they use a weblog monitor like blo.gs where they have created their own blogroll with the last updated weblogs on top of the list. Polls are integrated as well. These are just the easily usable features. The layout of the weblog can be changed with the so-called skins. Macros can be programmed (don't know really what they do but anyways). In one sentence Antville integrates the most important features of a weblog seamlessly whereas Blogger is very crude in comparison and blogs at Blogger become patchworks if you want to have all these options. Antville weblogs load much faster because of that as well. And they are free of course like standard Blogger. The only two things I would be missing right now are an e-mail notification service for the readers if a new story has been posted and a bookmarklet which lets you post links easily like in Blogger. In the standard Antville weblog you still have to type your tags yourself. The only reasons I haven't moved yet are my laziness and my vanity as "sex and sunshine" is known in the music weblog circles.

Q2: What's your first conscious memory that focussed on, or included, music? Why the "music blog" focus? A: Don't remember my first conscious memory of music. Probably a Christmas carol or something stupid like that. My relation to music is almost purely passive. I am a listener but not a composer or interpret of music. I never played an instrument though in my family (including uncles, aunts and cousins) most people play instruments and classical music is quite important. I think with my blog I want to compensate for my unmusicality. As I am unable to make music I want to describe it and put it into words. To grasp it by transforming it into language. Though this is really hard as well and I hardly ever succeed. Maybe the focus is on music as I am an auditive person. Sounds and voices have always touched me much more than images. They have a depth to them which has an immediate impact on my inner self whereas images mostly leave me cold and I usually find them superficial. I really hate TV by the way but I like movies in the cinema.

Q3: "sex and sunshine" - sounds like a new kind of bar drink ;-> How did you come up with the name for your site? A: Nice question. My favourite cocktail is "Blue Lagoon" by the way. I think I have answered it in one of the first posts of my weblog: "But actually THE reason for calling this "sex and sunshine" is that this can be abbreviated to SAS and this stands for at least two totally different things. One of the two can give you a clue about my studies and work. All the above is of course bollocks. I chose sex and sunshine as name for the blog as I hope to attract much more traffic with such a fancy and slightly frivolous title."

Q4: What's the best personality test you've taken? The worst? (Use your own criteria for this one - just define them a little bit for us.) A: Another short question which hits the nail. I like that. My favourite was the first one I took on the internet where I happened to be a painting of Monet. Different shadings of blue and a little blurred. Flowers floating on a pond. The worst was probably "Which rock chick are you?". My criterium is the result of the test. If I don't like it the test is bad. I don't care for the questions. They can be stupid as hell. I usually forget them immediately afterwards anyways.

Q5: Reality TV - innovative marketing ploy or sign of the apocalypse? Which show(s) (if any) did you watch? None. Big Brother was a big thing in Germany a couple of years ago but I already had abolished my tv. I think reality shows are just the logical further development of tv. The tv audience is curious and the actors in the shows are vain. What a perfect combination. It didn't last long though.

Q6:The RIAA - careful corporate citizen, just another business, or rabid bunch of troglodytes out of touch with technology? That's the music business isn't it? Never cared really but good music can be published anywhere. On a major or at home.

Q7:Do you own any albums in more than two formats? (Not counting self-made CDs or tapes). Not so many actually as I am a miser. On vinyl and CD I have Nick Drake's "Five Leaves Left" and "Pink Moon", Joni Mitchell's "Blue", "Hejira" and "The Hissing of Summer Lawns". Brian Eno's "Before and After Science", Keith Jarrett's "Sun Bear Concerts" and Giant Sand's "Chore of Enchantment". Maybe some more but those are the most important.

Q8: Was your first language English, or German? Just out of curiosity, why do some of your blog entries appear in one language, some in another (with no translations?) Thanks for the compliment. I write this weblog in English to practice the language. I always loved English as I found it much more succinct and to the point than German. I also write this weblog in English to conceal how bad my German is ;-). At least in comparison to Goethe's. But I am 100% German. I also hesitate to move to Antville as in Antville I will definitely have to write in German and will lose my small but dear audience I have gained here. But I really want to write in German. But I am afraid that the emptiness of most of my posts will become much more evident in German. The personal sometimes almost philosophical posts here have mostly been in German. I wrote them in German as I couldn't have written them in my poor English. There is Babelfish for that ;-). German is my mother tongue and I can obviously express nuances much better in it. My English will always be superficial I guess.

Q9: How are you enjoying Chiros? We want a post card!!! Chios is a good place to forget the world around you. Like Hydra was for Leonard Cohen in the 60s/70s. In terms of square miles it is about as big as Berlin, but outside the capital there are maybe 10,000 inhabitants. The Northwest is almost unpopulated. Most villages there are deserted. Chios has suffered a lot of a Turkish massacre in 1822 when 10,000s were murdered. If you are looking for loneliness you can find it there. And sea and sun (the light is very bright) and wind and quite barren mountains of course. Not to forget the cats.

I really enjoyed the questions Laughing Muse. Sorry it's late and I can't hold my promise. I will send you my questions tomorrow. For sure.

Back from life to reality Today was my first day at work after three wonderful weeks on Chios and Samos in the East Aegean. The bright light of the sun has been replaced by the glowing monitor. The clear blue sea by the pouring rain (at least on Saturday). The chaotic hooting traffic with zillions of motorbikes and mopeds coming from nowhere by a traffic like a silent movie with actors as disciplined as robots. I was in between Germans speaking my language again after having not met one single German on the whole trip. This has never happened to me before on a holiday. I was taken for a Norwegian by the Norwegians on Chios and the Dutch on Samos talked in Dutch to me which I don't understand. When I entered the gate of my employer with my huge (in comparison to the Suzukis and Daewoos I had driven in Greece) Passat station wagon for a moment I thought what would happen if they had sacked me. A very worrying and liberating thought at the same time. Like the last revolt before accepting the fact that the holidays were over. I am writing this sitting on my new orthopedic "Balance" swivel chair at home. Its seat topples sideways and back and forth which is supposed to be good for my bad back. A strange a little unstable feeling in the beginnng but I am getting used to it and I think the 500+ € were a good investment.

Nothing happened I did not smoke on Thursday and I only smoked half a recycled cigarette butt yesterday night. But tonight I had to walk to the cigarette automat close to our house. It was something like ten degrees Celsius below zero outside. I was surprised that the machine accepted deutschmarks, euros and a mix of the two. I paid for my Lucky Strikes with five deutschmarks and a 50 cent euro coin. On the way back I had a strange experience. I sneezed the earth away. What I want to say is I sneezed and I had the feeling my sneeze was so strong that the earth moved away from me. I was on my own suddenly standing in the middle of nowhere. Hanging in space. I swear you that I was not on drugs except some red wine. Some bands (mp3s) I listened to which really impressed me: Microphones (bloody amazing drum and percussion patterns), American Analog Set (The Kindness of Strangers starts like an instrumental but the voice which joins in later on does not disturb the impressionist picture of the song), Dismemberment Plan (especially Time Bomb captures a nervousness and anxiety of a youth I have grown out of), The Shins (New Slang, a melancholic pop gem which speaks to me much more than anything by the Go-Betweens) and Black Heart Procession (the darker half of Three Mile Pilot whom I only like for the two members who play in Pinback).

Circulus vitiosus I am still fighting with nicotine. For the time being it is a lost battle but somehow I enjoy it. Last time I posted on this (three entries down) I had not yet started smoking before 12 o'clock. Today I started at 10 am. The first cigarette of the day really cuts the day in two. Up to the first cigarette I feel like a virgin. The world is an extremely slowly moving place before the first dose of nicotine hits my brain. The first cig is like a second wake-up. Before I feel like in a world of dreams. I am very relaxed and the time passes very slowly. The later I smoke my first cigarette the lesser I enjoy it and the more it makes my head spin. Almost every night after having smoked my last cig of the day I swear to myself that I will stop tomorrow. And the next morning I really hate the smell of the smoke in my room and my clothes. I usually change clothes completely as the stench of cold stale smoke really disgusts me in the morning. There are places where I do not smoke like my car or all rooms at home except two. The last bastions which have not fallen yet. My relation to smoking is really bizarre. I think I smoke only to stop smoking later on. When I have stopped smoking I do not really miss something. I enjoy stopping smoking. It is like a challenge. My sense of smell comes back slowly. I can suddenly smell the damp leaves in the road, the bouquet of a red Bordeaux wine, the smell of cigarettes other people smoke etc. But after a while I am bored. I restart smoking which is a challenge again as the first cigarettes (maybe even hundred) are so disappointing and disgusting. But then the floodgates open wide. And I am back to my 20 or more cigarettes by day. That is when it is about time to stop again. When will it end?

Smoking is a bad habit Do you know this setting? Having smoked a cigarette and having put the cigarette butt in the ash tray. And the butt is still burning. And there are ten other butts in the ash tray which are dead. And you try to find the one which is burning. And you cannot find it. This can be a real nightmare if you are in the wrong mood. In that case I cover the ashtray to suffocate the butt. And it works. A fire cannot burn without consunming oxygene. Sometimes the knowledge of natural science can be useful. Thirteen years of bloody school were not completely useless.

Another smoker's experience I like to tell you. Infinitesimal smoking. You have finished your packet of cigarettes or your tobacco. It would be too much of a hassle to buy any more cigarettes. But you have got cigarette paper. What you do is you take the finished cigarette butts and squeeze them to collect the tobacco which is left. And you can roll another couple of cigarettes of it. When those cigarettes are finished some tobacco is left and you can roll another one...

I take a transatlantic flight. Smoking is prohibited on these flights. I arrive on an American airport. No smoking again. But there is a crowded room somewhere full of smoke. I cannot distinguish the faces of the people as there is too much smoke. I light the cigarette I have dreamt of for ten hours. And the taste of the cigarette is such a deception. My body needs the nicotine but the taste is so disgusting. I smoke another three cigarettes and the last one tastes ok again.

I had stopped smoking more than one year ago. But recently I have seriously restarted again. In the beginnimng I had one cigarette per month, then one per week, then two or three per week. Then it was one almost every night. Then I smoked every day but never before 6 pm. Then I started smoking in the office after 3 pm. Then after lunch. That is where I am now. I do not smoke before midday. But I smoke more than ten cigarettes per day. I am looking forward to my last cigarette again. Like in this New York movie by Wayne Wang co-written by Paul Auster. Who was it again who wanted to smoke his last cigarette? Jim Jarmush? Lou Reed was cool as I remember.

P.S. I WOULD REALLY APPRECIATE SOME MORE ANSWERS ON MY BEST SONG QUESTION TWO POSTS DOWN. I KNOW IT'S HARD BUT THAT'S LIFE! P.P.S. Thank you Absintheur for mentioning my question in your blog. And thanks Phil and Starchild Starfinder for the answers. Don't you have a favourite song Absintheur?

ILM thread I have contributed to recently: When did music cease being furniture? I love the title of that thread. And Dr.C. has got a very decent taste of music. But our tastes just do not overlap 100%. Gottseidank.

the squirrel's hiding
up in the hazelnut tree.
we cannot see it.

DE
ein neues auto
steht in unserem garten.
das eichhörnchen lacht.

Happy birthday mon amour
Did you know what happened today in history?

Cleopatra committed suicide 30 B.C. aged 38 or 39, probably by means of a poisonous serpent.

Almost funny is the naiveness 855 years ago:
1146 - A conference of European leaders outlawed the crossbow. By banning the effective weapon, it was believed that the leaders had ended wars for all time.

It is Frankenstein day today. Mary Shelley, the writer of the infamous book was born in 1797.

50 years before your birth Lenin was shot but he survived.

In music your exact day of birth featured the first recordings of The Beatles for their Apple label. The initial session included Revolution and Hey Jude.

Cameron Diaz is exactly four years younger than you (but I can assure you any jealousy would be totally unfounded ;-)).

god. i am tired.
shit. had to work all weekend.
hell. need a break soon.