See the trailer

posted by lazlow at 3:30 PM  on Friday, March 30, 2007

The man with the machine gun took my vodka. The Krakow airport is so small i could have thrown the bottle and hit the plane. Maybe that was his concern. The United States sets the rules on air travel worldwide, and the liquid law has to be the most ridiculous. After changing planes, you go through even tougher security to board the international flight back to the US. Here they won't let you even buy water after you go through security. You know. Water. As in, necessary for life. Instead I have to beg a flight attendant for hydration in 3 oz servings like a prisoner. The beer, however, is free. Figure that one out.

Cebit was stellar. I did 30 interviews and will have all kinds of stuff coming up on the Technofile. Laptops with 2 screens, ringtones for your car, LCDs for your pool - there was a ton to see. After CeBit we went by rail to East Berlin, where i was promptly solicited by a prostitute. Good to know i've still got what it takes to be noticed by women. The next day we went on a train that looked like it had served the Soviets in the 1960s. This thing was OLD. You could hang your head out of the car and get it knocked off. What a rush.

Everything in Poland looks like the Soviets left 2 years ago and everyone started to remodel. The entire place is under construction, depressing and gray. Once we arrived in Krakow i knew this was now my favorite eastern European city. It's a great vibe.

An hour and a half from Krakow is Auschwitz.
I have never been in a place that felt so deeply evil in my life. Well, maybe Branson Missouri. The preservation of Auschwitz is stunning, and you can walk for ages across prison camps that stretch for a mile, even stroll into abandoned bunk houses that look like they were vacated yesterday. It's truly eerie. To make things really vomit inducing, they left the piles of human hair for you to see, literally rooms of the stuff shaved from the heads of people before they were gassed.

The train tracks lead right through the front doors of the place and head to the back where the gas chambers and ovens were.
Most interesting was the museum that showed the propaganda used to win the minds of people. There seemed to be an interesting method.
1. Convince the populace they are threatened by an outside force.
2. Denounce any media that criticises politicians as unpatriotic, liberal and a danger to the country.
3. Announce that certain laws and freedoms are being suspended indefinitely for the safety of the nation.

The parallels were astonishing. Too often people make comparisons to Hitler or Nazis. It's been said an online political discussion almost always results in someone calling someone else a Nazi. However, visiting Auschwitz was a bleak reminder of how politicians can whip a populace into a frenzy through fear and patriotism to terrifying results. I highly recommend a visit.

posted by lazlow at 9:04 AM  on Thursday, March 29, 2007

It begins in Asia for some reason.

posted by lazlow at 6:14 PM  on Monday, March 26, 2007

When you are doing death-questing speeds on a motorcycle - it's the perfect time to tap out some text messages on a screen mounted to the gas tank. That seems to be the message from one of the booths here at the CeBit convention. It's day 2 of my coverage and I got some amazing interviews. I saw some phones that have breathalyzers(for random testing, not to see if you're arsefaced drunk when you decide to ring up your ex girlfriend at 2 in the morning.) There is a cool biometric application that can tell if it's you typing at your computer or if it is someone else. The number of booths here based on paranoia and security is staggering. What is also entertaining is trying to type on a German keyboard, where the y and the z have switched places and most everything is moved around for that matter. Though i can say äwesöme. I don't know why these people put döts över ö's, but it sure feels fancy.

More from CeBit soon.

posted by lazlow at 8:26 AM  on Monday, March 19, 2007

From: Hannover Germany

I'm still wearing the same clothes I put on Friday morning, as KLM lost my luggage somewhere around Amsterdam. It's Sunday afternoon and the Cebit convention is in full swing. With miles of tech booths to check out, it's always a marathon to try and cover it all. I'll have some audio from the convention on the Lazlow Show March 31st, including interviews that include some pretty funny stuff. Plus the Technofile will have interviews there as well.

The weiss beer is flowing - and the German waitress last night looked at me like I was missing a DNA strand when I asked for lemon for a wheat beer. "No lemon! You put lemon in ze beer? No! We put in ze banana Jews."

"Excuse me?" I asked.

"You have banana Jews in America, yah?" she replied confused.

After some sign language I determined she meant Banana JUICE. I was unaware you could squeeze juice from a banana, but in a Paulauner Heifeweizen it tastes surprisingly incredible.

More from CeBit soon.

posted by lazlow at 6:33 AM  on Sunday, March 18, 2007

Every year I head to CeBit -the biggest tech convention in the world, held in Hannover Germany. This year I'm scheduled to go, but the weather here on the east coast is a "Wintery Mix" which is the weather dorks new name for windy, driving sideways frozen madness. CeBit is my favorite show - it's tech you get to check out without PR vampires sucking the fun out of it. It's little wonder tech conventions in the United States have gone the way of Derrick the Dodo. What I really love are the suggestive cigarrette ads. Brilliant! I've always wanted to smoke like Prince. Purple midgits in bathtubs totally rule.


Activists build all kinds of nutty stuff outside the gates of this convention. Standing by are gypsies who will ask for your pass so they can go inside and steal stuff. There are signs posted to beware of gypsies. It's bizarre. They look nothing like the cartoon gypsies.













One thing the Germans love is their techno. You can go into a store selling dust, owned by an 85 year old woman and she's totally rocking out to Kraftwerk. Uber man. Totally Uber. With like, dots over the U and the ER.

Updates from the show will be appearing during the week.

posted by lazlow at 3:08 PM  on Friday, March 16, 2007

posted by lazlow at 3:01 PM

Remember when everyone loved America? Here's a photo from our president's trip to Brazil as lunatic protestors rioted in the streets upon finding out Bush was playing Wee for a Wii with the leader of their country. More here

posted by lazlow at 3:44 PM  on Wednesday, March 14, 2007

When the trailer for Star Wars Episode One came out, my friend Reed Tucker and I would watch it every day with enormous speakers cranked up to subhuman bass levels. We were so psyched. We bought tickets for the first showing. 10 minutes into the movie, i looked at him and said, "you've. got. to. be. F*&%ING. KIDDING. ME!!!!" so began the death and dilusionment of the dream. Then there was 9/11, a plague on the land called American Idol, Britney shaved her head, and everything went into a slow motion spiral to the murky depths.

As the action figure/licensing juggernaut continues, check out this merger between Star Wars and the post office! Expect to see Star Wars themed mailboxes! R2-D2 will eat your letters but he won't be able to explain why nobody caught the Anthrax mailbombers.

posted by lazlow at 9:33 PM  on Sunday, March 11, 2007

since vista came out, i've gotten nothing but panic emails from people wondering why their computer doesn't work when they decided to become a beta tester for Microsoft. i never understand why people upgrade so fast. it must be some weird Darwinian competition that makes you want to feel superior to the jackass that lives next door.

my friend Anthony made a great video about his vista experience - he explained the 12 hour horror that led up to this vid while we had some beers. it's been around for few weeks, but for those people emailing me asking if they should upgrade yet - here's a reminder.

posted by lazlow at 10:58 PM  on Wednesday, March 7, 2007

Working on video games is a blast. Getting to help make the trailer is even cooler. GTA VCS is now available for the PS2.

posted by lazlow at 1:27 PM  on Tuesday, March 6, 2007

on toast. all will bow down. Ponch would have caught OJ if they would have let him.

posted by lazlow at 5:43 PM  on Sunday, March 4, 2007

The countdown begins

posted by lazlow at 9:57 AM  on Saturday, March 3, 2007

if only kids educational shows where this trippy today.

posted by lazlow at 9:55 PM  on Thursday, March 1, 2007

posted by lazlow at 2:18 PM

I got this fired up email today:

Lazlow- I listen to your XM snippets all the time, and they are usually insightful. But this one about online shopping being hard to go…(and pardon me…you’re about to find out that I’m a typical O&A fan)….BULL*%$#!!!! Are you serious about this? It seemed like something you HAD to say, but didn’t believe.

First of all your TV example is just crap. Online in 20 minutes you can quickly narrow down the brands and models you want, so that when you DO go to the store, you don’t have to spend 3 hours getting the tour from the dip sh%$ sales guy. I like to walk in and already know all the stats on the tvs I MIGHT want, then if I need anything from the sales dudes, I can ask then.

The point I made with the recent Technofile about online shopping vs buying in the store is that there are products that make it as difficult as possible to comparison shop online. I tried to buy a stupid mattress online and comparison shop but manufacturers give different names for the same mattresses in order to confuse things. As for TV manufacturers, I'm good friends with people at several TV manufacturers and guess what? NOT THAT MANY PEOPLE MAKE TVS! Companies buy them and put their stupid brand name on it. And each TV manufacturer makes up inane product attribute names that mean NOTHING. Like "Diamond vision HD color correction V." Oy.

posted by lazlow at 11:33 AM