Slip under my cloak of boringness.

Yesterday, May 24 2010, I had the honor of seeing Lady Gaga playing one of her three shows in Germany, in the arena in Oberhausen. When the tour was announced, I wasn't too sure if we should go, because ticket prices were really steep, compared to other shows. A Twitter poll I did urged me to go anyhow, and so we got us some tickets. I have always enjoyed her music, but I have to see, seeing the whole package was a lot more than a concert with some great popsongs. It wasn't just a concert, it was show, entertainment, art, all in one package.

As milkchokolate demanded tons of details, I will just go to the setlist, and through the magic of teh Intarwebz you can get clips of almost the whole show that she's done on her current European leg of the tour.

( All the concert details )

Like many people, I am letting blogging slide. I usually am breaking my head to fill my 2 posts a week quota in my WoW blog that I forget to blog about life as it happens. As the past weekend was a break from the monotony of the normal life, I'll post a bit about our short vacation.

It started with a Thai cooking class that Cinna had given me for my birthday. In retrospect I wouldn't exactly call it Thai cooking but more Thai inspired. It was a class of 12 people in one of those fancy show kitchens. Everyone got to chop stuff, got instructions and time passed really quickly. The full meal was a nice soup based on coconut milk with chicken, followed by skewers of meat and veggies (chicken and pork filet) with a side of freshly made spring rolls. Main course was white fish with a green herb-chili crust, with pomegranate-couscous. Dessert was a cherry sorbet, plus mascarpone cream with fresh mint. The latter was unbelievably delicious. Nom nom nom.

The class started at 7 pm and we were all done with eating and drinking and espresso at 11:30 pm. A great evening, and we both definitely would like to do another class. They're having a pasta class soon, so maybe that'd be fun to do.

As soon as I get time, I'll post about our three day Berlin trip, which was also great.

We have been without Internet at home since Tuesday now. As net access at work has been restricted for both of us, this makes for sad times. Did you know that a computer is pretty boring when the window to the outside world is suddenly locked? I have been bored out of my mind.

Last year, I received mail from T-Com, informing me that my broadband plan was ending in April and that I need to choose a different plan until then. What they did not tell me was that they would actually cancel the Internet access a month prior to that. No one at T-Com seems concerned that this happened. So when the net stopped working on Tuesday, I changed the broadband plan, and they informed me that this would take 6-14 working days. No joke.

To make matters worse, on Saturday one of T-Com's telemarketers called to try and sell me the broadband plan I signed up for on Tuesday. When I told her that this must be a joke, she checked and voila, they had computer problems on Tuesday and my order had not actually gone through. I am so worked up over this, you have no idea.

Today, I will raise hell, seriously. I want net access this week, if T-Com can't offer that, I am going to cancel the order and will order cable access instead, from a company that actually manages to install such things very quickly.

Aaaargh.

On top of that, I have an infection in one of my teeth, have to take antibiotics before they can do a root canal in two weeks, and have been in pain since Thursday night. March sucks.

I like this meme, so I'll just join the me-me train for this one. My full name is Andrea Stadtfeld. I think it was in 8th grade that some guy from my class came up with short names for people based on the first couple letters of first and last name. In my case, this was Asta. None of the other names stuck around, but mine did and from that point on everyone but the teachers called me Asta, all through highschool. When I graduated from highschool and moved on in life, still everyone called me that name. My ex-husband only called me Asta. Tonight I am going to Dortmund to a birthday party of old friends, and I bet everyone there will call me Asta.

I shed the name like an old skin when I left my ex-husband. Bad memories, what have you. Maybe a process of growing up. Nowadays, I have other nicknames. Just Andrea, or Andie, or if I play WoW I am T, or Kadomi. astalavista was a play on 'Hasta la vista' and my nickname, and it was the name of my very first website in 1995, which mostly stored MU* logs and wedding pics. It's still my default username where it's not taken.

Yesterday was my birthday, and I got a lot of birthday wishes, both here and on Facebook (which I really never ever use. I don't get Facebook). Thanks everyone, appreciated. :)

I didn't really do much. I asked at work on Monday if I could leave early on Tuesday and they told me to stay home, which I happily embraced and ran with. It meant I got to stay up really really late on Moday (5:30 am, haha) and run instances with my guild in WoW. Good times. I don't know if it's retarded or funny that I turned 38 and still stay up late to play a computer game.

I slept in late, tidied up a bit, waited for our cleaner to come help us get the house spiffy for my birthday party on Sunday. Then I went to D'dorf to pick Cinna up from work, as she had promised me the most scrumptious Italian food ever.

Then it turned out this Italian place only offers lunch service, and one of my biggest personal flaws showed up. I am a bitch from hell when I look forward to something and it doesn't happen. I turn back into the four-year old who doesn't get the toy she wanted. We walked around the streets of D'dorf snapping at each other pissily, me doing most of the bitching while Cinna tried to cheer me up. Took about 30 minutes of me cheering up again. We finally went with the upscale Indian restaurant I had wanted to try for ages. They had a very quirky guy there who explained all the dishes on the menu and did the silliest smalltalk. Food was excellent. Good times.

Then we went home, watched the L-Word, cuddled and had a good time. I love Cinna, because she makes me laugh so much, and I think I make her laugh, and that's a good thing.

And that was my birthday. We have a bunch of things coming up on the weekends, which actually means I am pushing back raiding in WoW a couple weeks. Amazing stuff, that.

I visited my mom on Saturday. All my angsting that I would run into my brothers was for nothing, because Lothar is off skiing for a week, and Thomas is on some 3-day vacation. My mom was fine, looking roly-poly happy. She actually gained a -lot- of weight there, a ring around her hips, from the 3 meals a day plus cake and coffee. Just like the last visit I really got the impression she is so much happier about where is now than when she lived by herself. She was a bit sad though when we showed her pictures of Jenny.

Cinna took a couple pictures of us, and it was almost embarassing that we have the same crappy posture when sitting. Hee.

Our visit was a lot shorter than expected because the unthinkable happened. My mom actually ushered us out because she was late for her daily boardgame in the afternoon. Playing Pachisi > visiting family. It cracked me up.

We actually have been hit with a real winter this season. This is highly unusual, because we do not usually have any kind of temperatures below freezing. But now it's been really cold for about...two weeks, I would say. This morning, I forgot my scarf, and really regretted it. I had to pull my hood up, because my ears were freezing. Once I got to work I found out it's actually -17 C out there, which is about 1 F. Brrr. It just started snowing again. Yay for fresh layers of snow covering up the treacherous packed ice that makes me slip and slide on my way to work from the bus stop and vice versa.

I think I prefer snowy landscapes when I am just gazing out at them from the window. I'm still sick and just want to be in bed at home, with kitties curling up with me. Aaah. Six hours to go.

I've been a fan of webcomics for many many years, and reading comics via RSS is still one of the things that I do everyday. Darkgate Comic Slurper, how I love thee. But I haven't started reading any new comics recently, so it was quite lovely to read a great article in Smashing Magazine. There are some real gems there. I have been spending most of my downtime this morning reading the archives of Gunnerkrigg Court, which I had seen ayashi mention recently. It's really good.

There's only one German comic on the list (go figure) but it's the really funny Not Funny. If you enjoy bizarre humor.

I am such a spoilerwhore. Every year it's the same. Come November, I remember that TwoP exists, end up looking under every spoiler tagged entry, gawk and gape. And then I watch spoiler videos at work and want to go home and replay a million times. What the fuck will I do in March when L-Word is over forever?

Hot diggity damn, Tibette. When can I watch that video again?

Fandom, such a horrible thing.

This, dear people, has me laughing a lot. But I also cannot help staring at the picture as if hypnotized. Surely you want to assist with this noble cause. :D