Quarter Life Crisis

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Over Ground¶

492 words

• This 50 quid man thing is really scary. Feels like my disguise has been blown.
• A cool game for the fontohphile. Never underestimate the power of type and logos. I am always amazed how many ads I can guess the brand for just be seeing a single word in their standard typeface. On the other hand I must admit that I only managed to get half of the quiz right and even there the additional graphical context was quite helpful. (via wil)
• The world’s underground lovers comparing maps of the different systems. Most of the plans look like little monsters. Moscow’s looks very well planned but coarse. And the remark says that Berlin’s skips the S-Bahn. Which is missing half of the story I guess. But their system of distinguishing between S and U Bahn is a bit confusing, particularly as both systems run under and over ground. Historical reasons or so. (via 2lmc)
• And, yes underground trains running over ground is cheating. It should be forbidden. I am totally with Element of Crime on that one:

  Alle vier Minuten kommt die U-Bahn hier vorbei
  und alle dreineinhalb Minuten kommt ein neues Bier
  und ich sage dir: das ist ungesund.
  Weil es nämlich irreführend und gefährlich ist,
  wenn etwas U-Bahn heißt, das über unseren Köpfen rattert –
  schließlich steht das ‘U’ für Untergrund.
  
  Laß uns nochmal um die Häuser ziehn
  schonungslos und ohne Hintersinn
  willenlos und immer mittendrin
  an den letzten warmen Tagen in Berlin
  
  Andererseits sagst du zu Recht,
  daß die Bezeichung Hochbahn auch ganz schlecht ist,
  wenn man erstmal klärt, daß dieser Zug kurz vor Schöneberg
  in den Abgrund fährt.
  Abgrund ist ein gutes Wort
  für die Beschreibung jenes fortgeschrittenen Verfalls
  der guten Sitten im Bereich des öffentlichen Nahverkehrs. […]
  
  Soll man nun der Sprache wegen
  diesen Teil der U-Bahn
  unter Schmerzen in die Erde legen
  oder reicht es wenn man kurz vor Schöneberg
  die Linie einfach sperrt? 
  
  Sicher gibt das böses Blut,
  doch Sprache ist, das wissen wir,
  das allerhöchste Gut.
  Und ohne Klarheit in der Sprache
  ist der Mensch nur ein Gartenzwerg. […]

  Element of Crime – Alle vier Minuten

• Looks like Scott got the same fun spam/virus e-mail we got recently. When playing with our new server, Steffen also discovered that while ‘catch-all’ e-mail addresses look like a neat idea, they mainly seem to catch any randomly sent spam that you might have missed otherwise.
• In the wonderful world of vanity searches, this site is number one on a popular search engine for its name currently and unjustifiedly, I guess. And straight from our referrer logs (starting from a clean sheet thanks to our new server, thus enabling me to see those with a few impressions) someone else who googled for the expression and linked to me among others. At least that’s as much as I hope to have understood on the page, which seems to be in Indonesian with occasional English words.

March 5, 2004, 2:39