The year 2011

26 Dec

It was an eventful year generally and personally, and even though there are still 5 days left of 2011, I think it is time for a little retrospect.

I am more than thankful for the things I am blessed with, I am extremely lucky and I am aware of that. My family and loved ones are well, healthy and happy and that’s the most important thing.

I am also very thankful for the incredible year I had. Even though it started unexpectedly heartbreaking, it turned around and continued to be the best year I ever had.

Thank you to everyone who played an important role into making this year that incredibly awesome. Thank you to all my great friends, the old ones and new ones, thank you to everyone I met at Gamescom, which was certainly one of the coolest experiences I ever had. I am also really happy about meeting so many extremely cool people.

But nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing was better than the time I spent in the US. Seattle had so much to offer, so many  I will not ramble on much longer, because I’ve said it more than once that NYC was incredible, actually beyond incredible for various reasons. Every second there was filled with happiness and joy and every second I am not there, I miss NYC.

Coolest fan girl moment of the year: Meeting Major Nelson and speaking to him for about 30 to 60 seconds. He’s as nice and cool as I expected.

Most Epic (lol pun) fail:  I met Mike Capps. He asked me if I have played any of the previous Gears of War games and my answer was “No”. I played Gears of War and Gears of War 2 and in this moment of sheer excitment my mouth just uttered the words “No” without my brain being involved. Though I was able to correct my mistake by saying I never really played the campaign of the two games.

The coolest bar on earth: The Unicorn in Seattle

Funniest place on earth: Kirkland, WA, but I think it’s only funny when Aisha Tyler is in town.

Coolest tech moment of the year: When I was in Seattle, I visited a California beach, virtually, via Facetime. Cool, huh? (Thank you, UnrealCh13f!)

Happiest place on earth: Central Park, at least in daylight I guess.

And that’s why this is my picture of the year…I’ll never forget how happy I was the moment I took this pic.

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Happy Birthday, Xbox!

17 Nov

The baby has gotten so big! This week was the 10th anniversary of Xbox. I haven’t been around at the beginning, because my childhood and teenage years haven’t been influenced by gaming. Occassionally, I’ve played Tetris as a child and some Formula 1 game on the pc, but I started to regularly play console games in 2006 or 2007. For a short period of time I played on the original Xbox, before it was traded for the Xbox 360.

Even though gaming on my 360 is not a daily thing for me, I very much love my Xbox. I love these little boxes that much, I give them names. My first ever own Xbox 360, PrinceeeeesY was with me for over 2 years and I have to thank her (a girl obviously) for many wonderful hours of fun with great gaming friends.

My new companion, a Gears 3 console with the name GeaaaaarY, will surely be a wonderful new friend as well.

To me, Xbox not only means entertainment. Thanks to the Xbox console, Xbox.com, Xbox LIVE and everything Xbox related, I’ve found a lot of like minded people who turned into real friends. Friends from all over the world who I talk to daily and who I have a lot of fun with in the various Multiplayer games we are playing together.I think you all know who you are. I love you all!

Thank you, Xbox, for so many great things you have brought into my life and the lives of others!

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Occupy Wallstreet

17 Nov

From day one I have not been a supporter of Occupy Wallstreet and normally, I would be in favor of any kind of protest or demonstration. Today’s society has many flaws, and these flaws have been growing for many decades. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, especially in the last 5 to 10 years. It’s our own fault though, we’ve been quiet for too long. We’ve just accepted any kind of tax increases, welfare cuts and all the other bad decisions our politicians made.

But occupying places in New York City or anywhere else in the world is not the answer to protest the lack of jobs and financial problems. The only people who are actually hit by these protests are the police men and women who have to be on site, who get injured or attacked, the daily commuters who have to deal with delays and those people living in the concerned areas. The big companies will continue making money, the governments will continue making the wrong decisions. Actually, having police on site and having to clean the mess the Occupants leave behind costs the city money. Money which could have been on schools or environment.

To occupy a street for days or weeks, with a chance to get arrested, is probably not the most effective thing if you are looking for a job or trying to keep a job.

With that said, I think demonstrations and protest are necessary in democracies but unfortunately, Occupy Wall Street won’t change anything and all it does is cost money and the wrong people are negatively affected.

Update: I have been asked what I think would work instead of Occupy and my answer consists of several approaches, so bear with me.

At first, people have to realize that the world has changed and cannot be compared to what the wolrd was like in the 50s or 70s or even the 90s. I can only speak for Germany now, but I remember when things were cheap. The welfare of this country was extremely good, and actually is still rather good compared to other countries, but things have changed here as well. Welfare is great and absolutely necessary but we have a reached a point where countries are just out of money. Germany has several billion in debt and I am not sure how long we can continue to be a welfare state with a debt as high as that.

But to change the decisions our politicians and big companies make requires more than occupying a park or some streets. Parts of a country have to come to a stillstand. It is comparable to strikes. If employees of a company aren’t happy with work condition, they have to collectively stay home for just one day. I know this is hardly feasible in reality, because there are always some party poopers, but I think that’s the only way to take a stand and wake the ones in charge up.

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My personal iFail

31 Oct

Before anyone expects me to bash Apple here, move on, because I will not bash Apple. My overall experience with Apple products has been more than delightful and positive, so I will continue to recommend the iPad and iPhone to everyone who is asking me for their opinion.

 

This blog post is more of a summary of the problems I had with my new iPhone 4S and why I switched from the iPhone 4.

I had my iPhone 4 for almost one year and absolutely no problems with it except for the home button which started to be a bit dodgy recently. At first, I didn’t want to switch to the 4S but then I realized that I would have to switch at some point anyway, and as my phone is not tied to a contract, I need to buy a phone separately anyway. So I made the investment now, at the point I still get a good amount of money for my iPhone 4.

I got my first 4S on October 20 and I noticed a crackling noise coming from the part of the phone I hold to my ear. It was noticeable when I made calls, but also when it was just sitting on my desk. It was a little bit irritating, but not too bad. But the sounds of the phone, i.e. the unlock sound were randomly changing volume. I was sure the speaker is broken, so I requested my carrier (o2 Germany) to send me replacement. Though, today I found out that several phone seem to have this problem.

 

A few days later I got a replacement phone, again a 16GB 4S in black and I suddenly noticed that I have no signal. O2 has sent me a new sim card as well, so I hoped that would solve the problem. I activated the card and in the next morning I turned the phone on and no signal. I called O2 and I was told that it is a common problem and I was given a workaround. Apparently, deactivation of sim pin as well as automatic cell network search should fix it. I performed those steps and it worked.

Though, the battery life of the phone was pretty bad. It drained about 25-30% over night with just one email and one tweet coming in. It was worse than the iPhone 4. I read about possible fixes online, and one of them suggested that imported contacts from the iCloud could be the problem. So I deleted the previously saved contacts and and reset the phone one more time to wipe it clean.

When I turned it back on, I had no signal. I performed the workaround again, but no luck. I tried everything I could but I had no signal. Once in a while the signal would come back, but making calls wasn’t possible and 3G or Edge didn’t work at all.

I decided to try the first phone I got and just use that one, because, as stated previously, the crackling noise was “normal”. I put the sim card in the first 4S and I got “No Service”. I called O2 again and I was told to turn the iCloud use off completely, which was supposed to fix it. I tried that, but again, no signal.

When I tried my dad’s T-Mobile sim, BOTH phones worked perfectly fine. I called O2 again, to figure out what to do now and the 3rd(!) customer support employee was able to tell me after half an hour that the O2 network is experiencing some issues in my zip code area.

Now, a few hours later, my 3G, as well as my normal cell phone network seem to be stable. I have sim pin and iCloud deactivated though.

The battery issue seems to be solved as well. I have actually typed all of my contacts in manually, and I also turned off most of the location services, as well as the notification center.

My phone was fully charged an hour ago. Since then I set up Twitter, Facebook, GetGlue, Dropbox, all of my 5 or 6 email accounts as well as Kindle and downloaded several books on 3G. I received about 10-15 tweets during that time and I am down to 93% which seems normal for the stuff I did.

I cannot say for sure what exactly solved the problem, but I followed all the steps I have been reading about and I am happy with my iPhone 4S now.

 

If anyone asked me right now if I would recommend the iPhone 4S, I would say yes. Though, I would advice everyone to wait for a bit if possible. It is a brand new phone, at least inside, and it runs a brand new software. Of course, occasional problems will show up and I am absolutely sure Apple will address these issues and fix them.

 

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Gamer Spotlight – Inbox’s finest

15 Oct

A few weeks ago, I had the honor to be in the Gamer Spotlight on xbox.com and the US dashboard. I received approximately 1,000 to 1,500 messages during that time. In the beginning, I tried to reply to everyone, because quite honestly, the majority of messages were absolutely lovely . Well, no surprise there, it’s the Xbox Community. The best community in the world. For every bad message, I got tons of wonderful messages.

I also received a bunch of nasty messages, a lot of funny ones, and then there are a bunch of really strange and eyebrow-rasing ones.

Here’s a collection of the most funny and most unbelievable message I have received. I left out really nasty ones.

 

Make y0ur girl skinny YOU FATASS

Al make ya famous

Hey the reason U should add me is because IM the man of ur dreams

I LOVE yOU

Spit in that butt

A QueeeeenY SAY HELLO TO MY BIG FAT WeeeeenY 8====D~~~ I KNOW U LIKE IT…….

I WISH YOU WERE MY GIRL FRIEND

HOW TALL ARE U

wow what ah pretty girl love your face&outfit. pair of flip-flops and i’ll be glad to be your royal subject “you got my vote mydear” peace & love…..

i have a theory that the gamer spotlight is always a girl cause gamer girls are just girls that are attention whore that are not wanted in real life and they feel wanted on xbox now is my theory right

can you please say sperm in a voice message

and i luv the sexxxy avatar outfit ; ) lol

HELLO ur my beautiful hero please save me from loneliness n hold me in ur big strong arms (=^_^=) n yes I’ll be ur sidekick n virtual friend ;)

Cheeseburgers from tacobell

hey ur beast

if i kill myself because one of my friends is annoying wil he get banned from xbl and why the fuck dont u have halo reach

Please add me as friend because I am your guardian Engel proctecting you! (\(^_^)/)

can i marry you

ohh and my avatar is in love whit yours !!! ;)

I’m using my IPhone :P oh yeah friend me now or die foo…….

hi y0ur avictar is cool ep :}

We are meant to be together. I love you.

Really..? Marilyn Manson fan? Thats kinda fucked up.

The spotlight has been eclipsed Time to witness the face of fear and Rejection just makes me pissed Ad me hear

 u gay. u gay boy. u gay.

what r u talking about hitler was germanys best president thats what they taught us here in the states (Note: He sent me something about Hitler and I aksed if he is joking to which I received this^)

Germany is full of homo people. Russia is better and if Russia still had control of east germany, then germany might be a little less gay

dike as bitch but you do play gears so that makes up for it

i wonder if u want the wood

ur german im not racist its that ur speaking English

YOU SUCK FUCKING BALLS YOU HORE GO MASTERBATE

change ur zone u hippy

perfect u like xmen gears manson and ur german marry me!!

FUCK U NAZI!!!!! URAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 what are u feel =s WTF

Nazi bitches die in HELL with Hitler ;€

your avatars a fatass

show me your tits why because im horny

Hello! you basicly own the Dashboard! Haha

xbox moderator? meaning u dnt shit except sit on ur ass an run ur mouth about microsoft an its products?! lazy bitch

so u got money

hay cutie got a cam…

Y U NO EAT DA POO POO? IT LIKE ICECREAM

IN RUSSIA ICECREAM EAT U

R U A LIZARD FROM OTHER DIMENSION?

HOW OLD R U NOW LIZARD? U C ME WITH 3rd EYE

hi queeeeeeeeny, ur awesome sauce

 bitch u r fat and have 2 many backs

congrats u won!!! neways i was born n wurtzburg germany n itd b kool to talk to u sometime n play halo or watever!?! neways yea idk? neone there nemore but neways gdday hope hear frum u : )

are you 8

stupid natzi

I BET U HAVNT RECIECE THIS YET SUCKET EAZY GIRL

Queeeeeny i have been really bad please give me a spanking and maybe i could really be the man you want me to be cause i want to make all you fantasys come true

 i would love2 fuck u just saying

 God bless u

 i have a xbox live question why did cliff break gears 2 with title update 6? is it because noobs wanted to feel like they have skill or cause cliff sucks at gears 2 anyways i saw you on gamerspotlight thought you could explain thank you have a good day

 Oh Hai!!! I saw you on the nominate the gamer thing and it said to say hi so thats what i decided to do. and thats what im doing. yeah i probably sound like an idoit right now but thats because i took a turbo shot coffee thing wnd had a lot of soda afterword. (yeah i know not the best idea) so i am sounding this way right now because of a caffine rush so woooo. in short just felt like saying hi so yeah HI ^_^

marry me

you should add me cuz im the most”AMAZINGIST”person bhind you…of course.

get gold bitch slut…

whore ass cunt

Get a life and im reporting you.

u dbag

why is your avatar so fattttt??

 hey wanna sext?

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Emergence Night – Gears of War 3 Community Event

25 Aug

On Thursday, August 18th, 2011 Emergence Night took place at Filmhaus, Köln and it was the coolest thing I’ve ever witnessed.

I was lucky enough to be involved in the planning of this event and I am extremely happy with the result. I mean how could I not be happy with Gears of War 3, in Germany, and on a huge cinema screen?!? Yes, it is a huge deal that Germany finally gets a Gears of War game. I have been a fan of the series since the first game and even though I haven’t finished the campaign of either of the two games, I can say that I love the games.

I saw a bit of the campaign of Gears of War 3, demonstrated by Mike Capps, president of Epic Games and it looked absolutely amazing. My favorite scene: one of the Gears dudes (yeah, I really don’t know much about the story) is sliding down a slide on a playground. That’s epic (pun intended)!

But there was not only campaign, we also had Horde 2.0 and Beast mode there, playable for every attendee of the community event. And the best thing about it: A few people were able to play on the big cinema screen. To play any game on a big screen has been my dream for ages, and now it has come true…and I think the rest of the fans loved it as much as I did.

Mike Capps and Chris Kimmel, executive producer at Microsoft Games Studios, were in attendance throughout the night and happy to answer everyone’s questions and posing for pictures with every fan…and for us gamers taking pictures with Chris and Mike is like meeting Brad Pitt for movie fans! In fact, I was probably more nervous to chat to Mike and Chris than I would have been with Brad Pitt.

It was a wonderful evening and I would like to thank everyone who was there to hang out and special thanks to Mike and Chris for being cooler than Brad Pitt!

 

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Gamescom 2011 is over…

24 Aug

…and I finally found some time to write this blog post. For me, it was the best week I ever had. I am not exaggerating here, it was absolutely thrilling to meet so many wonderful people who like the same things that I like.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have the time to play many games there. The only game I was able to play was Gears of War 3 and I will write about it separately. I saw some footage of Halo. Anniversary, Forza 4 and Modern Warfare 3. But I am not overly sad that I didn’t get a chance to play some games, because after all I do know which games I will buy on release day.

Everyone who knows me, is aware of me being a big fan of Modern Warfare 2 and Black Ops and that I’ve been hyped up for Modern Warfare 3 for ages. I have to admit it pains me though that I wasn’t able to give Battlefield 3 a try. Again, most people will know that I am not a fan of Battlefield Bad Company 2, but the footage I have seen of Battlefield 3 so far looks extremely promising. But knowing that Robert Bowling aka fourzertwo was at EA’s Community Lounge to play some Battlefield 3 is making my little fangirl heart cry. Anyway, MW3 and BF3 are two definite buys this fall.

The Xbox booth was amazing as always, lots of space to try out all the upcoming Kinect games, and even though I was too shy to try out Dance Central 2 in front of a bunch of people, this game is another definite purchase. It has “Like a G6″ and “Born This Way”, so how could I not buy this?

Other than that I did not see much, well not much else than the booths of some other big games like Bioshock Infinite, the new Metro game and Saints Row.

But what made my time in Cologne (or Köln) so awesome was the time I spent with incredible new and old friends. You all know who you are and thank you for the memorable time, I hope I’ll see you again soon.

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Facebook, Twitter and Google+

15 Jul

Last week the world has been introduced to Google’s newest product: Google+. If I had to describe it, I would describe it as Facebook and Twitter mixed up with confusion.

What I do like about Google+ is the clean look, the lack of spambots and Farmeville-games spammed all over my feed. I do love the Circle-feature, but it is still a bit confusing. What I dislike the most about it is the lack of a possibility to private message someone. Another thing that makes me avoid using it, is the type of info people seem to post there. I’ve seen lots of videos cluttering my feed and I just miss a lot of other posts.

What I love about Twitter is the compact size of the information I want to get. This might be due to me being the worst case scenario of a user or it is the lack of an app. I pray to the Gods of Gadgets that I’ll get a Tweetdeck integration soon.

So all in all, I think Google+ might become a success if they fix a few small things. But it is doubtful it will be the new Facebook, the user base of FB is too big for that.

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Alice: Madness Returns

14 Jul

This is not a review. I am not even far enough through the game to write a review. But I am far enough to decide that Alice: Madness Returns is my new favorite game.

I talked to a few people about this game, some of them seem to love it, some of them thought it was too boring and repetitive. I am normally not a person who enjoys sitting through the story of a game, and I’ve gotten a lot of criticism for it in the past. I simply don’ have the patience to watch cut scenes and listen to dialogue. Bioshock was the only game that managed to get me hooked, made me look for collectibles and I enjoyed watching cut scnenes and sitting there for hours to see what’s going to happen. And since Bioshock there has not been one single game that was able to get me hooked with its graphics and amazing atmosphere. Until I started playing Alice: Madness Returns.

The graphics and the look of the game are so, so pretty. I notice a lot of details which make it extremely enjoyable to look around a certain area. The look in combination with the music creates a breathtaking atmosphere that fascinates me and makes it one of the best games I have ever seen.

I am only about 150GS away from 15,000 and I decided that Alice has to be the game I am breaking this milestone with.

EA has made me extremely happy with this game. Alice has been a “hero” for me since childhood, I remember watching the animation movie over and over again. I had a book and my mum had to read it to me every night…and now I have a darker Alice with a huge knife slaughtering her way through my xbox. I can’t wait for the art book.  Thank you, EA and American McGee!  <3

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Equality

27 Jun

I’ve been reading a lot about same-sex marriage in the last few days due to the fabulous decision New York has made a few days ago.

Equality is such a simple word, but in reality it is quite complex. Equality isn’t something a judge, a governor or a law can create, even though it is the step in the right direction, but equality already starts to happen in peoples’ minds. I am a fan of freedom of speech, because that’s what I am doing right now, but my support for freedom of speech ends exactly when freedom becomes hate. No one has to support gay marriage, or any other type of alternative way of living, but people should be able to tolerate other peoples’ way of living as long as it is some consenting way of living among adults.

Of course, there are arguments against it, I could think of religious aspects and they make sense. But if we are getting into religious arguments, then there is one thing to ask: God creates life, and God loves ALL his children. Why can’t we just live our lives and tolerate everyone else?

Germany’s Secretary of State is gay and even though I am not a fan of his politics, I am more than proud that we have a gay man in a position like this. It shouldn’t matter anyway, and I absolutely don’t know why it actually matters if a person is straight or gay. It’s none of their business and the sexual orientation doesn’t change the character of a person.

To sum it up, I think no government, no president, no law, no person has the right to judge love between two people who would like to live the rest of their lives together as a married couple.

 

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