A very common drink during Christmas time in Germany, especially at its infamous ‘Weihnachtsmärkte’ ( Eng. Christmas Markets ) is ‘Glühwein‘ ( Eng: Mulled Wine ). Creating some Christmas spirit in California is quite challenging and making some home-made ‘Glühwein’ definitely helps a lot. I found a nice recipe on a German web page. Yesterday, I gave it a try and I can say it turned out fantastic. Here is the translation of the recipe into English to share with you. Give it a try…

Ingredients

• 3 Bottles of Good Dry Red Wine
• 3 Oranges
• 1 Lemon
• 1 Apple
• 3 Small Cinnamon Sticks
• 1 Star Anise
• 4 Cloves
• 1 String of Saffron ( pricy but worth it )
• 3 Table Spoons of Raisins
• 8 Table Spoons of Sugar ( or sweetener to avoid next day head ache )

Pour the red wine into a big pot and heat up slowly. Do not let the wine cook! Wash the apple and one orange. Cut the orange into slices. Remove the core and cut the apple into slices. Squeeze the juice out of the lemon and remaining oranges. Put all remaining ingredients into the pot ( except the sweetener ) and let them simmer for approximately 20 minutes. Taste the concoction and slowly add the sweetener. Remove the cinnamon sticks and star anise when the spice reaches your desired intensity. The fruit can continue to stew. When serving, the fruit should not be poured into the mugs ( strain if needed ). Pour the hot ‘Glühwein’ into pre-warmed glasses or mugs and the cold will be taken from your bones. Serve with a piece of dark chocolate to round out the experience. Guten Appetit!

There is currently a really nice exhibition on data visualization at the PCMA in Pasadena that I can recommend. The displayed pieces include art work of Dan Goods, Aaron Koblin and Takashi Kawashima. You’ll find the latest Radio Head video “House of Cards”, which was made completely without film cameras. But instead with digital scanners. One of those scanner is set up, which allows you to experience your movement in front of the scanner on a huge screen. Live, direct and interactive. Really neat.

Last Wednesday, I had the chance to see the Dirty Dozen Brass Band at The Mint in L.A. This was a truly amazing band performance bringing the Soul of New Orleans straight to the heart of Los Angeles. The unbelievable talented musicians turned The Mint upside down and brought every piece of Mardi Gras they could bring on the tour bus to the Los Angeles audience. An amazing party over all and Jake Eckert on the guitar simply rocks! If your watching the Grammy’s this weekend, then you’ll see them perform together with Lil’ Wayne. Enjoy the show…

What a relief! Finally craigslist has been introduced to Germany, currently supporting eight major cities. This simple portal allows to post basically anything free against charge and to search for anything you want. No fancy graphics no costs, just a simple flea market for everyone and everything.
I personally have used this platform several times while living in the States and I can confirm the benefits society gets out of it. Furthermore, I truly believe this will conquer Germany as it has done for many other countries around the world. Have fun buying and selling everything. Is this the end of eBay?

One of my greatest dreams have come true: after 11 years RATM is touring again!!! I never had a chance to see them for myself and I’m really excited, when I saw this:

check out their webpage for more tour dates. Australia is next. Shows are almost all SOLD OUT. I bet they’re touring the world and ending in USA shortly before elections…

I have a strong feeling that future social networking sites are increasingly going to have strong visual enhancements and a more playful touch and feel to them. An important role will be using vector graphics, which aren’t being used that often on the client side for functional reasons. The most obvious benefit of using vector graphics is the scalability of the graphic without loss of quality. It is mostly known in Flash games or Flash Ads, where it serves it’s purpose really well. But many web developers haven’t realized the power of vector graphics used in a functional manner that contributes directly to the application itself.

A nice example of this is what Geni.com implemented using ActionScript. Their usage of the scalability makes the whole web application actually interesting and is the core of their user experience. The basically same application was implemented in Flex by verwandt.de (or the English version itsourtree.com).

Unfortunately most browsers don’t support vector graphics without a plugin, like Flash Player or a Plugin for the SVG-Format. You also have to use some tricks if you are dependent on Search Engine Optimization (SEO). But sometimes it’s not necessary, too. Think about it.

The “Black Book on Brand Companies” gives a deep view on how leading brand companies operate in the world economy. The scary truth behind the scenes with tips of what every single one of us can do about it. Unfortunately not in English yet, but some information in English is on the official homepage of the book. There you can also find a good link list for more background information on brand companies and organizations fighting for a better world.
Amazon.de

• http://www.net-games.biz/
• Sudoku Killer (ActionScript 2.0)

When moving to the US, many things are different than from the country you come from. One of the most important things, is to keep you credit record as clean as possible. Here is what that is all about:

There are 3 credit agencies ( Transunion, Experian, and Equifax ) in the US. When you have a credit card, phone bills, electricity, loans (such as for car, house, education) or anything that you would pay on a regular basis, those companies with whom you have a contract or get a bill from report to the 3 credit agencies whether you pay on time, your credit limit, your high balance and your current outstanding bill amount. The credit agencies keep this information for 7 years.

If you pay on time and keep relatively low amounts on your cards, then you have a good or high credit score. Whenever you want things like a new credit card, a loan to buy a house or car, etc, that company asks the credit agencies what your score is. The higher the score, the better interest rate you receive for the new loan or line of credit.

So you are allowed to get 1 credit report per year from each of the 3 credit agencies. Normally, you would request this report and then check through it to make sure it is correct. If there is a mistake, then you call around to get it fixed. Since you’re only allowed 1 free one per year, it’s best not to request all 3 in the same month. You normally request 1 credit report and then 4 months later request another credit report from the 2nd agency and then 4 months later request another from the 3rd agency. They might have changed their policy by now, not quite sure…

The problem with making a bad record is that when you return to the US, you will have trouble again getting credit because now you have a credit report that has bad stuff on it. The way to fix this is when you do start to have an apartment or have to pay electricity, you should get it in your name and then make payments on-time so that you start to build up a good credit history. So make sure you can pay your bills and play it smart.

It is also a good idea to request a credit report every 4 months in general, so that you can also see what is going on and what record you have. The only thing is that they appear to have just changed this recently, so that only US IP-addresses can request the report.

Note: Thanks to my sister Gabriele for this information.