I just read AGAIN* how Google is taking on Microsoft and going to win.  Hello?  HELLO!!!  Get a fucking grip people.  Google makes web pages and services. Microsoft makes Operating Systems. Enough said. Microsoft may percieve Google as a threat, but that's their problem.  Google do search awesomely well.  The one thing I can pretty much guarantee you is that Google aren't going to start doing Operating Systems.
* It was on BBC, and I won't even bother linking to it.

OK, so where are we?  Back in London again, after a week in Munich.  It was Andreas's birthday so there was a big party for him in Ismaning.  I discovered an interesting tradition while I was there - at birthday parties, the birthday boy (or girl) pays the tab for the meal for all of the guests.  I found that surprising, as it would limit the amount of people at a party to the financial constraints of the host.  I don't know if I'd want that to be the case or not… I might prefer to have more friends pying for themselves.  Anyway, it was a good party, with plenty of great food and loads of fantstic beer.  More about the beer later.
Something else that we did, was go to see an exhibition called Lights of Joy which was one of the strangest things ever.  You have to close your eyes and imagine this scene, because even the photos won't do this any justice.  Munich Olympic Stadium is a very modern tented structure that is fabricated from lots of concrete and metal.  The roof structures are almost like a huge metal spider web, spread over the complex like a huge blanket.  Its imposing, but you never feel too small because you are constrained within a small visible horizon.  There aren't any flat surfaces, its all curves and hills.  Until you get over the lip of the final hill before the athletics stadium that is.  Then it opens up into an immense arena, with what looks like seating for a hundred thousand.  Its truly enormous, dwarfing anything you could have imagined the stadium would be.  Its all dark, though you don't have problems seeing anything.  The far wall where the roof is so big that the mind blanks it out, perceiving it as background.  And way down deep, down on the floor of this cavernous structure, there it is.  Glowing painfully and clinically bright in the darkness, casting light on the ground around it, looking so completely out of place that I had to remember for a second what I was looking at.  It was a group of Chinese buildings, all illuminated from within.  
It was one of the strangest shows I've ever seen.  These buildings were decorated with statues made out of Chinese crokery; bowls, plates and soup spoons.  I'm still not sure what the whole purpose of the exhibition was, but it could only have happened in Munich.  There was food there too, and (of course) beer ;-)
Did I mention beer?  I think I drank about 50 times my usual rate of alcohol over the week.  Beer for mid-morning snack, lunch, afternoon, dinner (a couple), afters, pre-bed… it was awesome.  I think I've decided on Wheat Beer as my tipple of choice.  Dark beer tends to be a little bit more bitter, and Helles just doesn't work for me.  Dopple Boc and Dunkles Weiss are good too, but I'm definitely developing a taste for Weissbeer.
There's talk again of AOL being sold off to Microsoft or Google or who-the-fuck-ever.  I always find these little rumours fascinating.
I'll post the pictures this weekend, I promise.

It seems like I haven't updated my blog in a month.  Damn... I'll get it all done tomorrow.  Have some photos to post too...