Writing for Metblogs has the potential to be the most rewarding experience in your entire life. It’ll make you rich, famous, good looking, will help you lose weight, make your clothes fit better, and get you a super good deal on a new car. It will make you the most well known person on the entire planet. Yes, each and every one of you. Really.

OK maybe not. Actually those are all lies, but it’s fun at least. The truth is Metblogs is the largest network of locally focused blogs on the web, covering almost 60 cities around the world and we’re looking to add a few new bloggers/writters/authors to this fine site. If you wanna know more about us check out this wikipedia entry but it’s kinda boring so I won’t waste time repeating it all here again. If you wanna write for us, here’s the scoop:

• All author positions are volunteer. That means you don’t get paid.
• You must live in (or very near) the city you plan to write about.
• Anything you post must relate to the city somehow. That means you shouldn’t post a movie review, but talking about going to see a movie at a local theater is fine.
• There’s no requirement for how much you can or should write, but we ask that if we set you up as an author you make about 3 posts a week.
• You can post about things you love, you can post about things you hate. It’s entirely up to you

Additionally, because of our global network, there’s plenty of options for things you write to be read by people all over the world. Interested? Want more details? Post a comment and we’ll be in touch!

Anyone notice? People outside, coffee places are packed, there is even sun. I am thinking we made it past the winter, without greater winter snow. Spring is here, spring is here!

I hate venting about the weather because the weather is obvious and you can do little to change it (aside from this global warming thing), but I had this post sitting for about a week and a half now since this other thing, which I like to call Not-Spring, came back. Brr…

Just had to get it out.

Now continue.

Tags: berlin, weather, cold, spring, winter

After my heating stopped working Sunday, and I had some issues to fetch someone to fix it, I just experienced a power failure, sponsored by Vattenfall. Vattenfall is the “local” supplier.

So all in all the rest of my house, the street and one next to it - all without electricity. And it lasted from around 2:50 PM to 3:30 PM until they fixed it. Which is pretty fast since they estimated about two hours when I asked.

I don’t remember the last power failure I experienced in Berlin - but there must have been at least one or so in the last six years. Though I think I slept right through it.

berlin, power failure, stromausfall, vattenfall

Ran into this piece yesterday morning. The door was open so I had a look inside. Supposedly it is an old building by the Deutsche Post, it’s located at Schamhorststraße and has been deserted for the past ten or 15 years.

Recently I was told that the Bundesnachrichtendienst (German intelligence company) purchased lots of ground around the area and intend to move there in the near future. There are town houses being build left and right, some pretty luxurious (can you say ‘jetty’) so I guess in the near future from being deserted, the area will be flooded with people.

Interesting fact about this building - 30 years ago, they also had intelligence services there. On my way out I ran into a guy who was looking around the house, just like I was. He told me that he did training for intelligence services about 30 years ago, but had not been to this place since then.

More pictures here!

Tags: Berlin

I call this, the ever changing wall. I’ll post more of it later on. When I was there the last time, it looked totally different.

Tags: berlin, streetart, graffiti

“Graffiti is the power” - it makes more sense in English. And that’s probably where it comes from. In German, it has a touch of analphabetism and looks pretty weird. But this is just one of the pictures I took yesterday when we spent the day in 36 - if you are interested, check my Flickr. I’ll post more my favorites later on.

Tags: berlin, graffiti

Tag: berlin, brandenburg

So last night I witnessed ELECTROBUNKER at Maria (am Ufer).

When we came KAINE was on the decks rocking the house with only maybe 30 people in total at Maria at that time, but 20 of them on the floor. Around 1:30 AM Airliquide (Dr. Walker), L Niño (SISTERS OF MERCY), Toktok and Dennis The Menance claimed stage, keyboards and decks and lit the room on fire.

So far out. Mashups rock so bad.

I think we left 4:00 AM-ish. And if you missed this, well - you’ve missed a lot then. (AND YEAH, NEXT TIME I WILL POST IN ADVANCE.) If you digg electro, try to follow them around, they are touring more cities, or just wait for next year when they’ll be back in town.

Tags: berlin, music, electro, maria, mariaamufer

… or country! Celerbrate, rejoice, happyness! I know this is not late-breaking news (as usual), but I still found it worth a small post since this is almost a primer world-wide, Walmart retreating!

Walmart’s assets in Germany were taken over bei REAL. And it looks like REAL used this opporunity to get rid off most of the people who worked at the stores. At least most of the Turkish people seem to be gone and were replaced by regular (har har) Germans. One of them said, that little people stayed, most are indeed new on the job.

So I went to Walmart REAL last weekend, not remembering the change at all and I was surprised with lots of (really stupid) tombolas and lotteries inside the store, swamped employees and of course the places where things used to be were switched (!!!).

Last but not least, what was kind of surprising: Walmat used to enforce their goods on you - if you can say that. In general, Walmart left little room to navigate through the store and cluttered your way with (OH MY GOD) deals everywhere. REAL has the store more open, sometimes wide and often looking like something is missing. Which is pretty strange.

Tags: berlin, walmart, wal-mart, real, change

Anne’s post inspired me - I guess I need to get out more, so I was talking to a friend about going some place else, leaving the ci-ty,- and why not visit New York City? This is what Google Maps tells me. Note, check especially #40. ;-)

Tags: berlin