And happy birthday, Nico!

Did you notice? There were almost 10,000 empty seats at last night's Euro 2004 match Italy : Sweden. Yet technically, the stadium was sold out. That's a tad bit difficult to explain to football supporters waiting in lines in front of the stadium offering premiums in order to get one last ticket.

Then again, watching the match on large TV screens at a local pub or bar is also fun, especially if you get the benefit of a news broadcast during halftime. Oh, another decapitation in Saudi Arabia? One beer please!

The German Social Democrats launched an election blog focusing on the upcoming local elections in Germany's most densely populated state, North Rhine-Westfalia (NRW). Michael Groschek, Secretary General of SPD NRW, officially inaugurated the weblog today, 100 days before the elections.

From the recent Zeitgeist:

... is not as big as you think.

TIME: Meet Joe Blog

Why are more and more people getting their news from amateur websites called blogs? Because they're fast, funny and totally biased.

Exhibit A: Big White Guy
Exhibit B: A troubled teenager

I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.

Why don't you just blame it on...

1. immigrants;
2. Osama bin Laden;
3. the police;
4. baby boomers;
5. the ozone hole;
6. the Catholic Church;
7. women;
8. Modern Talking;
9. jet lag; or simlpy
10. Germany.

Cologne police have published several images showing the main suspect in the bombing that shook the city earlier this month. Funny enough the image was taken by a surveillance camera used by Cologne-based VIVA TV that has offices close to the restaurant which was the targeted in the bombing. Minutes after this image is taken the suspect allegedly parks the nail bomb, believed to be attached to his bike.

Now don't get me wrong. I hope this terrible crime will get solved. I hope the right person will go to jail. I hope police are successful in finding the bomber.
But let this also be a reminder that public surveillance may have an impact on all of us, being filmed and photographed whereever we move whenever we enter public (or not so public) space. And let this also be a reminder that we all are innocent until proven guilty. Next time you get filmed by CCTV, you may find yourself on newspaper frontpages throughout the country. Another price of freedom I am not sure I am willing to pay.

Greece just tied against Spain (1:1) but the local Greeks are going nuts like Greece won the entire tournament. That's what I call passion.

UEFA's Disciplinary Commission is investigating a spitting incident and the TV evidence is pretty obvious: Francesco Totti spat Denmark's Christian Poulsen in the face. Totti go home, you pig! Euro 2004 doesn't need that kind of rude behaviour.

PS And get a new haircut while you have some spare time.

UndergroundBattle is coming to the Cologne underground. It will happen on 25. June. It will happen after sunset. It will be fun. Watch out.

A nice example of the powerful new plug-in architecture behind the MT 3 platform is SubCategories 1.0 by David Raynes.

Related: Unterkategorien für Movable Type (TypeBlog)

DMC Weblog reports on rumors that MTV is getting ready to announce an acquisition of their German rival VIVA. Under the deal Universal and Time Warner would sell their VIVA shares to VIACOM (46.3 % of shares). If the deal comes through, MTV / VIACOM would have a monopoly on the German music television market.

It's what you blog about that makes you interesting.
It's what you don't blog about that makes you suspicious.

In English: Announcing Pricing & Licensing Changes to Movable Type

In German: Lizenz- und Preisänderungen für Movable Type 3.0

Less than one hour until THE match. Germany is coming to a standstill. People are doing last-minute shopping to stock up on beer and chips. Friends and families are gathering in front of TV screens. My hands start to sweat. I am a nervous wreck. It's just a game, right?

Life will resume after we beat Holland.

weblogs.se is a nice Swedish weblog directory in elegant Scandinavian pixel design.

Now that Dave Winer has suspended the hosting service of Manila blogs at weblogs.com, the entire link cosmos of the service (hosting many of the oldest weblogs around) will be, poof, gone. I respect Dave's decision (which, as he explains, wasn't an easy one), it's just a shame to see it disappear. I wonder how long it will take for those old sites to regain Google juice and PageRank. Six weeks? Three months? We'll see.

Related link: The End Of Free

Blogs that don't ping are like fake tattoos.

Cameron Barrett built a forum dedicated to Michael Moore's new movie: fh911.com