• Photo Post

    Leveled up my cycling gear again this week with thermal tights and undershirt. It’s fine for now, but I think I’m gonna need another layer for my legs if it gets much colder. 🚴‍♀️🥶

    Leveled up my cycling gear again this week with thermal tights and undershirt. It’s fine for now, but I think I’m gonna need another layer for my legs if it gets much colder. 🚴‍♀️🥶


  • Shared today on Twitter

    @sarah_federman @canva @steveathon Congrats!!


    @sarah_federman @canva @steveathon Haha, yeah, I still see myself occasionally in stuff! It’s so much bigger these days, but I’m really proud to see the team continue to evolve and add in great people. ❤️ I’ll definitely swing by for a visit once we get back Oz in a year or two!


    RT @ziniman: איזה כיף זה לראות תוכנית שהתחילה בישראל הופכת למשהו שכל סטארטאפ באירופה יכול להנות ממנו!
    כבוד לצוות הישראלי של AWS Builder Sp…


    @mike_julian Only if @QuinnyPig does it in full costume and pith helmet.



  • Shared today on Twitter

    @NatDudley Gorgeous! Reversible front-back or inside out??


    @NatDudley Amazing! How did you handle the ends? Felt/splice them all together?


    @jennapederson That’s why I was so keen on Halloween to establish itself in Australia. Without it, Christmas stuff literally went up in early October there.


    @NatDudley Good grief, I didn’t even think about seams! In my mind I just assumed it was knitted in the round. Wow, even more impressed!


    Not only was I a big fan of this film when it came out in uni, I remember the soundtrack was an “Enhanced CD” and came with a screensaver and a Windows desktop theme. Remember when that was a thing? I felt very cool for having a customised PC. https://t.co/6w3reMyLRf


    @MelissaKaulfuss I haven’t tried that yet! We’ve been getting the Edeka supermarket brand that has dried strawberries in it. I’ll look for this one next time…


    @pixel_boy HA! Well it was still a couple years pre-Napster. (That really didn’t hit until the year after I left uni.) There was MP3 downloading at the time via some very dodgy FTP sites though… not that I would know anything about that. 😜


    @stringy I definitely do, back in storage in Oz!


    @The_McJones Do you bite your thumb at me, sir?! ☹️


    RT @GoodOmensPrime: There’s just one word for this first look at Season 2: ineffable. #GoodOmens https://t.co/tI0lKcnhQk


    @lynnlangit Awwww! I wish I could hang out with you and @jennapederson in person! ❤️


    Ohmygod this is astounding. What a miracle! https://t.co/9HCcLjuQ20


    RT @sanjanacurtis: yes I’m a woman in STEM

    So
    Tired of
    El*n
    M*sk



  • Shared today on Twitter

    RT @ChicksRule: I never needed anything more in my life https://t.co/FBrGsvoDnl


    RT @riffreporter: Euch einen guten Start in die Woche! #MondayMotivation https://t.co/LqcHFWtzl7


    RT @ASpittel: New blog post! What is the cloud?

    https://t.co/NXXSJZFhyU


    Bean Soup – adapted from the El Bulli recipe – with homemade bread courtesy of the Snook! Just the thing on a cold Autumn night… @ Munich, Germany https://t.co/sJ0rc6DKgw



  • Photo Post

    Bean Soup – adapted from the El Bulli recipe – with homemade bread courtesy of the Snook! Just the thing on a cold Autumn night…

    Bean Soup - adapted from the El Bulli recipe - with homemade bread courtesy of the Snook! Just the thing on a cold Autumn night…


  • Shared today on Twitter

    Happy Halloween! I suspect this will be the last Biergarten of the year for us. Final 2021 Biergarten count: 20! 🎃🍻 @ Augustiner Schützengarten https://t.co/c3e32Y9K5r



  • Photo Post

    Happy Halloween! I suspect this will be the last Biergarten of the year for us. Final 2021 Biergarten count: 20! 🎃🍻

    Happy Halloween! I suspect this will be the last Biergarten of the year for us. Final 2021 Biergarten count: 20! 🎃🍻


  • A day at Bavaria Filmstadt

    A day at Bavaria Filmstadt

    At some point during our first six months in Munich, the Snook casually mentioned that we should go ride on Falkor. I was like, “Wait, what?!” He’d somehow learned about the existence of Bavaria Filmstadt, the local movie studio facility, and that it had a tour where you could literally sit on Falkor the luckdragon from The Neverending Story. I was all in on that idea.

    Bavaria Filmstadt has been around under various names for over 100 years. Alfred Hitchcock made his first film there, and the many notable productions filmed in part there include The Great EscapeThe Sound of MusicCabaretDownfall, and Das Boot. And of course, relevant to my own personal interests – a little 1971 movie called Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

    Bavaria Filmstadt

    The film studios are south of the Munich city center along the Isar, and not that far from where we live. We picked a nice autumn day and had a nice slow 45min pootle along the river on our bicycles.

    Filmstadt Bavaria entry

    Here’s the entrance to the studios. We had pre-booked tickets for the 90min tour. The website mentioned English tours once a day, but we discovered when we got there that they weren’t happening anymore because demand had dropped during Covid. Thankfully they had an app that provided some English commentary so we wouldn’t be completely lost.

    U-boot

    The entranceway has some fun exhibits set up, like this scale model of the U-96 from Das Boot. There were also a couple food trucks, so we grabbed a quick lunch before the tour kicked off. Then we were ushered onto a little train which drove us around past some of the studios and offices. Our first stop was a “4D Motion Ride” called Mogli’s Dschungel Abenteur. It’s one of those things where you’re watching a very disorienting 3D movie while the seating moves up and down and water occasionally sprays in your face. It was… not my favourite part of the day.

    Die Zauberflöte

    Then the actual studio tour began. Our group weaved our way through different film sets and props from the movies over the years. I got the impression that the layout depends greatly on what’s been filming there recently. This was part of the backdrop for the upcoming filmed version of The Magic Flute that had filmed six months earlier.

    The White House

    From there we shuffled straight into the White House! This hallway had apparently featured in the upcoming Kung Fury 2 featuring none other than…

    President Schwarzenegger

    President Schwarzenegger himself. 😂

    Emma the Locomotive

    They had a large exhibit of set pieces from the Jim Button German films, including Emma the Locomotive. I haven’t read these books but they’re by Michael Ende, author of The Neverending Story. 

    Nepomuk the Dragon

    I believe this was Nepomuk the Dragon.

    The Southern Oracle

    We were were shuffling between rooms when I glanced upwards and stopped dead in my tracks. The Southern Oracle!

    The Auryn

    At one point we shuffled down a hallway with lots of photos from past productions. At the end of it was a small exhibit of items from The Neverending Story, including a mural of the Auryn.

    Morla

    Morla, the Ancient One! Just looking at that face, I could hear that wheezing voice in my mind.

    Rockbiter

    The Rockbiter! I like that they included a joyous representation of him, rather than the sad “They look like big, strong hands, don’t they?” version that makes me want to cry.

    Willy Wonka

    I didn’t spot any props from Willy Wonka but I did see it represented in a photo on the wall.

    Das Boot turret

    They had a major exhibit from Das Boot, including this scale (I think?) model of the turret from the submarine.

    Scale model

    Another scale model of the sub. They had exhibits outside showing how the crew filmed shots from the movie as well as the 2018 TV series. We then joined the queue shuffling into the long building behind…

    Inside the sub

    …which turned out to be the actual set of the submarine!

    Submarine

    It was a pretty tight fit!

    Handsome Snookums

    Would it surprise you to learn that he was actually quoting lines from The Hunt for Red October the whole time? “One ping only, please,” I heard him growl. ❤️

    Tight fit

    Note: the sub is pretty small, and there are places where you have to climb through low bulkhead doors like behind the Snook here!

    Stowaway

    Another studio had sets from the recent sci-fi film Stowaway.

    Gaulish village

    The Snook was very excited by this exhibit of sets from Asterix and Obelix vs. Caesar. We walked through the mock Gaulish village…

    Menhir

    …and found Obelix’s quarry where he works on the menhirs (standing stones)!

    Caesar’s dungeon

    They also had the set used for Caesar’s dungeon…

    Crocodile pool

    …including a pool filled with (thankfully fake) crocodiles!

    Viking boat

    Another outdoor set was a Viking village from the Vicky the Viking film.

    The tour also had a couple interactive areas where I didn’t take photos. One was the classroom set from the German film trilogy Fack ju Göhe (which translate to, I kid you not, “F**k you Goethe” in English!). There a couple volunteers sat at desks and recited lines which were then edited into a scene from the movie. Another was about special effects and had a few of us (including me and the Snook) in a mock train carriage while a guy scrolled scenery out the window. (Apparently you could download these clips when you left, but we didn’t bother.)

    Gift shop

    The gift shop also had some fun Neverending Story merch, including a box full of Auryns and some very cute little Falkors!

    Falkor

    Our final stop was to visit the luckdragon himself. They had him set up in a small building near the entrance to the studios, and to my shock not many of the tourists there that day seemed very excited to visit him.

    Riding Falkor

    A couple stuck their heads in as we were geeking out and taking photos of each other riding Falkor. The guy nicely offered to take one of the two of us, then grudgingly admitted he’d never seen the movie! 😱

    Falkor’s face

    Look at that face! Can’t you just hear his voice? I felt like a kid again.

    Happy Halloween!

    I forgot to mention – we were there a couple days before Halloween and they were prepping for a special event. The whole tour was being made over with a haunted house theme for a “Spookytour,” and we saw lots of creepy props and zombie cast members getting ready. The Snook didn’t want to particularly do that, but I couldn’t resist saying “Spookytour” over and over. And wow, special Halloween Dunkin’ Donuts!

    Biking home

    And then we headed home, enjoying a very autumnal ride through the Bavarian forest.

    Rail bridge

    We crossed a high rail bridge and you can see that the trees were really changing colour.

    The Isar

    And a final view of the Isar before we got home…


  • Shared today on Twitter

    @acgibb OMG Snopes references my tweet! That’s a bucket list life event right there.


    HA! As expected, the Hallowieners are indeed fake. @snopes has weighed in, and the referenced my tweet! 😂 Bucket list life event there. (THANKS DAD.) https://t.co/6bWmu9P2MQ


    @zbendr 🤮


    We ride our bikes to the Bavarian Film Studios today. Many famous films were shot there, including Cabaret, Das Boot, and… The Neverending Story! 😍 #falkor #bucketlist https://t.co/WjG2hOJ7ud


    Did I pay way too much for my very own Luck Dragon (Glücksdrache)? Yes. Yes I did. https://t.co/8L8XnSAFec


    @ListenToSassy I got exclamation for Christmas and I definitely reeked of it for a good year!



  • Shared today on Twitter

    RT @timfoster: Ok, then. Fine. https://t.co/1Wn5cfA2uf


    RT @GunnarGrosch: Join us at AWS Resilience and Chaos Engineering Day on November 4! We’re closing the day with a Live Q&A, where you can a…


    My Dad sent me this and claims it’s actually a real thing. HALLOWEINERS. Someone please buy these and try them. (I 100% would.) https://t.co/z2OOPzG7v8


    Okay, it seems possible that perhaps my Dad fell for a Photoshopped image. 😂


    @40PercentGerman Alas, I think they’re fake. 😰


    @AuerSusan @40PercentGerman 😵




ABOUT

My name is Kris. I’ve been blogging since the 90’s. I live in Sydney, Australia, and I spent most of my career in the tech industry.

No AI used in writing this blog, ever. 100% human-generated.


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