Conny has just flown over to my parents for a stay of a couple of weeks. She flew from NY to VIE (with a stop in London, AFAIK), alone (modulo stewardess keeping an eye on her). Amazing: she's now 9 years old and has seen more of the world than I did until I was 25+. I hope she enjoys her life.

Apropos flying: winter flying here seems to be more hazardous than the wilder conditions in summer. One of my friends recently tested how well a paraglider flies through high-tension power lines (It doesn't.). Apart from causing a power outage for some country folks, a big scare for his wife and children and a black hole vortex in his wallet he's fine.

And on tuesday another friend of mine decided to decorate a tree with her glider; nil damage in that case (except to her pride) and not even overly much work to retrieve the flying machine from its lofty position. Amazing. I just hope that I don't joing the "Hug the Koala" club anytime soon.

Got a late birthday present from my sisters today: a mix CD with 1972's wor^Wgreatest hits. Boy, some of them are so bad that they're actually fun to listen to :-)

The Fog of War is a great film, a documentary about R.S. Mcnamara and his role in the post-WW2 America. Brilliant, and the Philip Glass soundtrack makes it even better. Of course, living in the cultural wasteland way south of Brisvegas, means that no cinema ran it. Zip, zilch, zero, naught, none of the chain cinemas and no for the one "artsy" cinema on the GC. But if the viewer can't come to the movie, the movie has to come to the viewer. And it did.

Anything else? hmm, nothing of real importance. Austria is now short one top pollie bastard, but it's not the bastard. Pity. But at least it's one less polly crook. Der Blitz soll sie alle beim Scheißen derschlagen.