http://www.hesspoint.com

The hotel chain Ibis has a special promotion: You can book a room in any German Ibis hotel for just 1 €. You can book the room for the time between the 24th of December and the 6th of January. Each person can only book one night. But hurry, there are only 10,000 spaces.
Click here for their website!

Yesterday, I watched the news and saw a report about a website called NewSevenWonders.com where you can vote for the world’s seven wonders of our time. The idea is that since the seven wonders of the ancient time are all gone but the pyramids, it is time to find the ones of our days.
A cool idea I thought and visited the site this morning. I clicked on vote and then… What a rip-off!!! You have to call a 0190 number for 0.62 €/min. to get a code to enter on the site. I get the strong feeling that the sole purpose of this site is to make money. Why do I have to pay to vote for a world wonder? They say that they don’t really make lots of revenue but I don’t quite belive it. Besides, did anyone tell these guys that 0190 numbers will be abolished by the end of the year (Read here)? In the US and other countries you have to call overseas. Why does Germany have an expensive number where all other countries can just call abroad for one or two cents? Click here for the list of numbers.
It is very sad that a really nice idea is misused to rip people off in this way.

Today a courageous campaign was launched by the largest German media companies. "Du bist Deutschland" (in English that means "You are Germany") is the message to make the Germans realize that only if everyone makes some effort and is willing to get himself up, Germany can get back up on its feet. I think a very good campaign with great TV spots. Now its up to the people to take some action. First step is to think positive and not to resign.
Click here for the campaign’s website.

Stefan Raab is undoubtfully one of the greatest talents in discovering trends. After the legendary TV total sport events like boxing, Wok WM, Stockcar Racing and manymore, he held his own early elections yesterday night in the TV total Bundestagswahl show. Though it was far from being representative it was still interesting.

 

Why not representative? 1. Everyone could vote (also foreigners and minors), 2. Everyone could call as often as they wanted and 3. the avarage TV total viewers are younger people. But exactly for that reason it was interesting because the results more or less reflect the votes of the youger generation.
Click here for the show’s website and for an article on Spiegel online.

One last thing (if you are German):

I alrady made a post about the Wahl-O-Mat a few months ago. Now it is online again for the elections 2005. The tool lets you agree or not agree with polical statements. According to your answers, you get to know what party you are close to. The tool is certainly a rather superficial approach to something as complex as politics but on the other hand if you have absolutely no idea who to vote, it gives you some ideas.

If you prefer offline, here is a download version.

Also read the article on heise news.

If you want to get some more Infos on who you are voting for on 18th Sept. here are links to all major parties:

• CDU
• SPD
• FDP
• Die Grünen 

The Bundesverfassungsgericht just accepted new elections in September! A good day for Germany! Read here.

No that is not what you think it is.  No nude girls on this blog!

No seriously, eBabe is a searchtool for ebay auctions. A great way to find real bargins on ebay is to seach for misspellings in the titles. Normally nobody finds these items and therefore they end up being sold at a very low price. eBabe deliberatly creates misspelled versions of a search term you enter and looks for all these keywords, turning up some real bargins. You can downoad it here.

Another one is Fat Fingers, an online search tool that does the same thing. 

Ok, ich weiß, die NRW Wahl ist vorbei, aber wie heißt es doch so schön: “Nach der Wahl ist vor der Wahl” und es stehen ja bald die Bundestagswahlen an. Daher hier der Link zum Wahl-O-Mat. Hier kann man seine Meinung zu einer Reihe von politischen Statements abgeben und hinterher bekommt man als Ergebnis welche Partei am besten zu einem passt. Ich bin sicher, dass auf der Website in einigen Wochen auch eine Version zur Bundestagswahl zu finden sein wird.

Wahl-O-Mat

Update: Unfortunately the 0 cents offer is history. Now they charge at least 1 cent

With the telephone service provider 01081 you can call to some countries for 0 cent!! Examples are China and Australia, for a complete list see their website:
01081… macht sparen einfach!

There are a couple of online bookstores around that sell books very cheap. Mostly they carry IT and Business books.
Here are two of them:

• karrasbuch.de
• unifachbuch.de

If you know others or if you have experiences (good or bad) please comment!