heating oil and free webpages

This is a fun day.
I slept really late, which wasn't too bad. Even though I dreamt about messing the job interview up bigtime. Being there late, wrong clothing, stupid answers to questions. Everything that can possibly go wrong, did. Let's hope I'll limit this to dreams and real life will be ok.

I am looking for free webspace for the dog training club my Mom is a member of. The host where I have the page up has too little webspace, and we'd like to put up pictures.
Just googleing something sucks, because you don't know how good they are or even how true it is what they say on their pages.
I should also go and get some new pictures, and change some of the texts.

While I was trying to find that there was a ring from the door. And this is where the real fun starts.
It was a guy with a truck with 18,000 litres of heating oil for us.
The problem is not to put that oil in the tanks. The problem is in which tanks to put it.
For the three buildings, we have two heating systems. Each has two sets of tanks. If you put oil in a tank that is currently used, there is a danger of the whole thing blowing up.
And we don't want that, do we?
So the first thing was to figure out which tanks were to be filled and which were in use. In one system, that was no problem. In the other, I had to switch over from one set of tanks to the other.
I am able to figure these things out, but I would prefer some kind of warning beforehand.
My Mom ordered the oil. But as the price per litre gets cheaper the more the company brings, they usually wait until they have several orders in one area, and then deliver all on the same day.
I would have prefered a call.

I just hope I figured it out correctly.
And now my brother is here to bother me.

presidential debates and birds

I've read the transcript of yesterday's debate here.
Really interesting. I'd vote for Kerry anyway, but I think he did a much better job at the debate than Bush.
Bush just seemed too much like a stubborn teenager who, even if he was proven wrong in something, could never admit that he was able to make mistakes.
I haven't watched it, but I have heard that Bush was very nervous. That is a good sign, I think, because it means he sees Kerry as an opponent who needs to be taken seriously.
I don't know how much the debates will matter in the elections. In Germany, I fear people go for short and simple messages rather than for actual political discussions. But there's hope.

On top of my monitor I have three figures of birds. An eagle, an owl and a falcon. As the light is behind me, they cast shadows on the wall. Looks really great. I have a weakness for large birds, birds of prey especially.
Funny, really, as I can't stand most birds. Chicken and other poultry is plain disgusting, all the birds people have as pets are, in my not so humble opinion, poor creatures that are forced to a way of live totally unnatural to them. (Yes, there is a difference in my eyes between these birds and a cat or a dog, as cats and dogs are bred to live with humans, and they are genetically not the same as wolves or wild cats, lions, tigers, pumas or other Canidae and Felidae.) But seeing a falcon or a harrier or even an eagle gliding over a field and than going down to grab a mouse and gaining height again in one gracefull movement, that is something really special.
Just wanted to say that.

Also: I haven't listened to the Lord of the Dance soundtrack in ages, I've forgotten how much that makes me want to dance myself.

weird things

I just discovered there are playing cards with anti-Bush or anti-Kerry pictures and there are "Kerry flip-flop shoes".
Gmail displaying ads that have something to do with the email you read does have its advantages.
But I wonder what you do with this stuff after the election.
Same with bumper stickers.
Even though, once I have seen a car with a sticker saying "Bush for lawn ornament". I thought that was pretty funny.
As well as the sticker I've seen around in Germany: "Don't wail in front of me, I've voted for the CDU".
No matter whether I agree with the political messages behind them, I think that's a fun way to make a statement.

And while I am listening to Roxette, I'll never understand why there are so many bands from Scandinavia and, currently, Finnland.
Roxette, A-HA, Vanilla Ninja, Evanescence, Nightwish
Just the ones that come to my mind right now. ABBA, of course. And I like most of them, too. Strange.

WTF??

We just watched a show on TV abut the 5o most favorite books of the Germans.
Two Harry Potters in there. Some Thomas Mann, Hermann Hesse, not to surprisingly Goethe's Faust. That's a queation of answering what you are supposed to answer.
On three: Ken Follet: Pillars of the Earth. A book I like, but wouldn't have expected this high up.
On Two: The Bible. I'd definitely hadn't suspected it there, and I wonder how many people just said that because it was the first thing that came to their mind when hearing the word "book". But then again, even that says something about the meaning of it.
On First place, I can't believe it, The Lord Of The Rings.
Not that I don't like it. But in first place??

Interestingly, a lot of books that were in the top 50 were books that have been made into movies.
I suppose part of it was naming a familiar title, probably without ever having read the book. But then I am a pessimist when it comes to the reading habits of my contemporaries.