http://www.hesspoint.com

On the weekend I payed my visit to this year’s CeBIT in Hannover. Well, let me tell you it was not very different from all the other years before, except that the companies were even more close-fisted then before. While a few years back, you normally went home with a bag filled to bursting with cool giveaways, DVDs, Software etc., this year I did not even get a free copy of the "Connect". A thing that did not change is the knowledge, or should I better say not existant knowlege, of the nice looking girls at all the stands and booths. Here a typical example of a fair-talk with a hostess at the CeBit (This is not a real situation but fictional and purely satirical and not meant to insult anyone):

Me looking at a new cell-phone. A hostess is coming towards me.
Hostess: "Hi! Do you like it?" (of course she was referring at the cell phone at my hand ;-))
Me: "Yeah, it looks quite nice…"
Hostess: "Look it even has a touch screen and it comes in lots of differen colors"
Me thinking: "Yeah, great. I hope they have them also in pink…"
Me saying: "Can you tell me something about the features?"
Hostess thinking: "Oh shit, I hate when they ask me that…"
Hostess saying: "Suuure! As you see it has a touchscreen…"
Me thinking: "Yeah, we got that already, yeah and the different colors".
Me saying: Yeah, does it have WiFi?"
Hostess (looking puzzled): "No. Sorry, It can’t make coffee, the next model certainly can do that. We show that in 07"
Me thinking: "Arrrrgghhhhh!!!".
Me saying (surpressing to ROFL): "Ok what about the internal harddrive?"
Hostess thinking: "Ugh! What does he want from me? No I am not that kinda girl!"
Hostess saying: "Sorry I cannot say anything about that, you should go to the main information and ask them."
Me: "Welllll, thank you for your kind help".
Me thinking: "Oh my goooooddddd!!!"

Now you got some idea of the mental state I was in after a couple of talks like that. Something inside my head told me "KILL KILL KILL". Well I supressed that fortunately and rather took some photos to calm down. The results you can see in the photo section. But anyway it was a nice day. Here come my personal CeBIT 06 highlights:

• The UMPC
• Samsung SCH-B600 (cellphone with 10MP camera)
• Samsung YM-P1
• Nokia E61
• Garmin GPSMap 60CSx

So see ya at the CeBIT Asia in Shanghai in September.

I just got back from my latest trip to the Eternal City, where I enjoyed somewhat that felt like spring, some sun, good food and of course, the main reason to go to Rome, good Cappuccino, Espresso and other Italian cafe specialties as well as Italian Ice Cream. Yummy!

While sitting in a little restaurant in Trastevere I found something quite funny on the menu:
"Bruschetta with Oil and Pillow". Actually the bread was fine, but the pillow was a little stringy

One last oddity I found was a store, whos owner might have immigrated from "Down Under" . Or  to put it with Asterix and Obelix: "These Romans are crazy!"