Philips Design-I See the Light

This is purely a fan mail to Philips, but should also be under the category ‘Things I want so bad but cannot really afford’.

The association most people have when it comes to Philips, is probably nothing more than a light bulb. But i’ve been constantly fascinated by the new Philips Design. My personal amazement started at Christmas 2007, when I heard a friend of mine talking about the best-selling Xmas gift in the Netherlands, which was the ‘Wake-Up-Light‘ series from Philips. It simulates the sunrise, and the whole gradual lighting process can be set to 15min, 30min, or a whole hour.

What a perfect and natural way to fight winter depression! Austria and other winter-depression-prone nations should give Wake-Up-Light to every resident!

And just last week, I got to know the wonderful Living Colors at a friend’s place. You know a design is timeless when you see a good one. This energy-saving atmosphere lamp has 16 million different colors to offer, and comes with a remote control, so you can control and change the atmosphere of the room according to your mood. I find it such an efficient way to change the colors of the room, and so much easier than repainting. What’s really a big plus is also the interactive website: www.lighting.philips.com/microsite/living_colors/?lang=e

During my climax of fascination of Philips Design, I looked up their other products online, and read their wikipedia page. Did you know that together with Sony, Philips invented CD? The company has a pretty interesting history, especially concerning the Nazis:

• The only Philips family member who did not leave the country, Frits Philips, saved the lives of 382 Jews by indicating to the Nazis that they were indispensable for the production process at Philips’

• Also on March 11th, 1927 Philips went on the air with a station called PCJ now known as Radio Netherlands. It was broadcast to the Dutch East Indies. The only time the station went off air was when the Nazis invaded Holland. At the end of the war PCJ changed its name to Radio Netherlands and has been broadcasting to this day.

Nice stories hey.

Another fancy and even award winning Philips product: AUREA

with its illuminating frame, with colors changing according to the film, you not only get the HD quality, but also the aura of the video you’re watching. The demo flash on their website is astonishing. Such great combination of Aurea and Wong-Kar-Wai. http://www.flattv.ce.philips.com/en/au/ambilight/discover.html

In the dark difficult time, the business of light gives the soft touch which I think is an essential need of our modern times. Some might say the design is feminine, and it could be true in the tech-geek world: first the bulky product for the geeks, and sharp edges for tech-loving guys, and then poshy designs for the girls.

What attracts me is definitely Samantha’s word of truth: First the gays, then the girls, then, the industry.

If all industries reach us in the elegant, and new classic way as Philips, we are truly blessed.

Couture Teddy Bear…gimme Marc Jacobs!

The famous teddy bear producer Steiff has launched the Couture Teddy Bear that represents Karl Lagerfield. $1500 each, limited of 2500 pieces.

Nothing against uncle Karl. But i’d rather have a MARC JACOBS doll, in rubber, with his perfect torso, dashy eye lashes, three rocks on the right ear,  and few outfits to play with.(including that skirt he pulled off)

Certainly therre’re just many others also think that Marc is the hottest man in fashion industry.

So please, give us little gay boys a nice Marc-doll to play with. PLEASE!

Gyke

there should be a term for gay guys who like to hang out with lesbians. I mean, not the hardcore ones who actually detese men. Just the really nice women who happen to be lesbians. There’s faghag alright. But what about us? Correction: What about me? (sadly so far I haven’t found any other Gyke except myself)

Gyke rocks!!!
and check this out. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Gyke

Kauf dich glücklich!!

lovely waffle shop in Oderbergerstraße 44. Perfect place to sit down and relax after shopping on Kastanienallee. A bit of retro furniture, beautiful waiters, various yummy yum yum waffles, and old Wallpaper magazines fixed with scotch tape. Just relaxing. Luv it.

They started as a second hand furniture shop. But somehow turned into a professional waffle shop. But doesn’t mean you cannot bring the comfy maker beneath ur ass back to ur already crowded living room. Just pay, and be happy.

This is also a place to be creative with your secret love for alias. Coz they ask your name when you order, and shout out the given name to find the right person to bring the right waffles to.

‘Brad Pitt’, ‘Madonna’, ‘George Clooney’. Whatever. As long as you enjoy the sudden attention from the crowd, followed by the collective rolling eyes movement. Isn’t this fun? Kauf dich glücklich!

柏林的韓國基督餐廳

柏林行是美食行。被台灣人熱力推薦的其中之一就是在maßenstraße上的韓國餐廳。
菜單上東西該有的都有。大部分是jigae類, 石鍋拌飯。

重點來了……

這家的的老闆們是超虔誠基督教徒，菜單上的前幾頁哩哩辣辣寫了好幾頁介紹他們宗教的東西。連牆壁上都貼滿了神的話語和文字。在一家飄滿著濃烈蒜香麻油香泡菜香，色澤從桌子到湯頭都是大紅色的夠味餐館，被那些牆上他們親手寫的大海報環繞，面對我面前的湯麵，心中莫名其妙的感到有被保佑到的感覺。 那種感覺應該就像是小時候過年去廟裡拜拜，吃到廟方提供的一碗羹湯類食物的那種，心甘情願想暫時當個虔誠的教徒。

於是我用力吃之前有禱告了一下，感覺心中有踏實。

對於廚房東西不多又想偶爾來解個饞的異鄉遊子遊女們，快來這朝拜一下。

p.s 南韓的基督教人口占總人口的29.3%. 台灣的是4.5%

Korean Restaurant with Christian flair (Korean kind of way)

Compared to Vienna, Berlin just seems to have endless little nice restaurants, and endless people hanging out. Every time I go to Berlin I cannot help but noticing that country, provincial part of me, which is a funny mixed feeling. Raving about this kind of stuff is one one of symptoms. So here it comes.

There’s this tiny restaurant in the Maaßenstraße. The food is basic korean, jigae pots, bulgogi on rice, you name it. What’s unusual about this place is that it’s surrounded by Jesus Christ’s words, in the first a few pages of the menu, and on the posters on the walls. All hand written. Religious, and Asian diligence.

The interior is simple, mostly just garden furniture with red surface, just like my jigae pot. Somehow it’s just a very peculiar atmosphere being surrounded by all the warm red tones, intense smell of chilli, garlic, and chimchi, and last but not least, God’s words. For many moments I did feel blessed so I did say my prayers before digging into the hot jigae.

We should really appreciate food more while there’s nutrition shortage worldwide, and when there’re bulimic, obese and other people with eating disorders out there.

This unexpected gratitude I felt reminded me of one Chinese New Year when I was still a kid, visiting a temple in Keelung with my family. It’s traditional for the temple to offer every visitor a free bowl of hot soup. Supposed to bring good luck and all. Getting free food has always been one of my favorites! Course I enjoyed it. But as I was slurping down the goodie down to my tummy, I felt more something more than the physical warmth that came with the soup. It’s the sudden lovely fuzziness that almost made me very religious at that single, specific moment.

That moment is worth searching for in the same way as going to the Christian Korean. For hungry and lonely Asian souls who study abroad, the smell and taste of finely cooked jigae provides instant comfort.

yeah, that’s our kind of comfort food. Get yourselves away from fries, chubby whities!

p.s 29.3% of Korean population is Christian, while only 4.5% of that in Taiwan.

The Lovely Lovely Mietervereinigung

When there’s housing trouble, whom can you turn to? How much do you really have to pay when the water heater breaks down, or how can you find out if your rent is actually too high? What if your greedy landlord or landlady refuses to give your deposit back? Those were the troubles I had. I lived in a small apartment in the 9th district, Alsegrund of Vienna, on a normal 3-year contract. It was going well until the water heater broke down after just one year. My landlady, Mrs. W, insisted I should pay for half of the new water heater, which I found naturally bizarre.

So I went to the free consulting in the Bezirksgericht, in Florianigasse in the 8th district. And according to Mietrecht, I would have to pay only up to 20% of the new heater, since I was going to use it only up to 2 years. The strategy they recommended was, that I’d first agree to pay the 50%(that’s about €1000,00), and ask it back when I move out. My obligatory question to this strategy was of course, what if the b**** doesn’t’ pay it back! The answer was, ‘Well then, you can go to Mietervereinigung. They can help.’ And that’s exactly what I did. And after two years when I moved out, that’s the place I went for help.

Mietervereinigung is an organization sponsored initially by SPÖ and now by its membership. According to their website(http://www.mietervereinigung.at), they are not aiming to make big profit, but just help tenants. The membership for one year is about €140, and only about €46 for students!

So I made my appointment, talked about the troubles I had. (1. the cost for water heater 2. the landlady refuses to pay the deposit back, and most interesting 3. if my rent was too high) I know it sounds absurd that if the rent can be regulated nowadays in western world like Austria, but actually it can! And probably only in Austria and Germany, such initially socialist concept of renting a place is put into practice, and not just in the law.

There’s an application you can file to ‘investigate’ if the rent is too high. A guy from the Schlichtungsstelle(arbitration board) came to the apartment with presence of me and Mrs. W, to take measure of the whole place. The idea is about ‘what kind of apartment is it anyway?’ There are 4 categories, A, B, C, and D. And each category has a maximum amount of rent per square meter. ‘A’ being the highest.

It turned out I was paying too much, about €3 more per square meter, times 40 square meters, times 36 months, that’s more than €4000! Plus the deposit, and €800 back for the water heater, it did make Mrs. W nervous, and she hired a lawyer:-)

On the day of arbitration, Mrs. W came with her lawyer, and I was there with a lady appointed by the Mietervereinigung. There must have been enough cases to have Mrs. W’s lawyer convinced that a extra-judicial agreement is a better solution for both of us. It’s true that extra-judicial agreement is the better solution in such cases, based on the adequate amount of stare decisis on housing issues in Austria, Mrs. W knew that it’d have costed her more if we bring the case to court.

Their offer was a lump-sum of €6000,00 which I accepted. Had such a great smile when I, being asian, foreign, and seemingly the perfect candidate for becoming a victim of some greedy schemer who lives in Niederösterreich(lower Austria), had a successful negotiation.

My advice on the subject in a nutshell: you’ve got to have the right attitude. Just find out about your rights, and don’t get crossed too much by some necessary formality. What seems most tiring is actually the mental pressure of the hassle you think you have to go through, and that stretched in certain tiring length of time..But the Mietervereinigung can offer substantial help. And from the cost-benefit perspective, the attractive membership fees did bring out highly satisfying outcome. Generally in Europe it’s a lot cheaper to deal with legal matters, so seize the opportunity and don’t let those greedy old landladies get their way!

P.S
1. you need some good German for such matter. If not, get a friend who can do this for you.
2. according to the new law, if the water heater breaks down, the landlord has to replace on his/her own cost. This new law is definitely one of the achievements of the Mietervereinigung, and all the tenants who refuse to get ripped off. Stare Decis does add up to something sometimes in a good way, So react when you have to!

Tram 67

March 14th 2008 Friday.

I was hanging out in the 10th district, and took a ride with tram 67. As soon as I got on the train, a drunken guy of age around 25 said some of those typical stupid lines to me, such as ‘where ya from you faggot!’ I ignored, and went to the first train of the tram. During the ride, I could still hear him repeating the same lines from the back of the train, even with my earphones on… ‘Na woher kommste du Woamer? Österreich ist nicht dein Land! Woher kommste? Aus Tokyo? Geh z’rück nach Tokyo!’

I ignored, and calmed myself down, reminding me every split of second that I should not say anything back, coz it’s just gonna be a reason for those crazy people to pick up a fight.

Apparently, my ignoring + fiercely listening to iPod didn’t work out completely. After 3 stops or so, he came up to me, drunkenly stupidly asking me where I’m from, in Austrian German, which I actually understand. I didn’t bother to answer, so he took off my earphones and asked me again.

‘None of your business’ I said, coldly. He repeated the question again with calling me fag. All this time everyone else on the train just looked, of course they were afraid too.

Finally, the driver stopped the tram and came to ask what was going on. The drunken guy said he just wanted to know where the god damn fag comes from and he wants me to return there. The driver asked again, and the drunken guy finally went back to the back.

The old lady sitting across me made a gesture of ‘craziness’ to show sympathy to me. I appreciated that with a smile. Very mild, very Austrian, if I can out it like that.

It was such a great relief when I got back to Neubau, the 7th district. The air just felt much more modern, and free. When I got out of the station and lit up a cigarette, a black guy asked me if I could give him one of them. We started chatting and he shared my hatred against racism. He and his friends were on their way to a party, and asked if I wanted to tag along. I couldn’t though unfortunately, but really appreciated the kind offer from strangers. When I was about to leave, his cute half Nigerian half Austrian friend hugged me. That did rebuild my confidence on strangers.

So yes, I had a great day that day.

First Entry

this is my very first blog. I have been in Vienna, Austria for some time and just wana share some useful information with others. Hope you’d find my little contribution useful!