Right around the time I turned six, my dad also read The Hobbit to me and my older brother. I don’t have a ton of memories from that age, but that is one that has always stuck with me. I can’t wait to read it, and all sorts of other books, to my kids. Great to see some lists of good books to start out with.

The water point is also a good one. Typically they will ask if you want “still” or not, but it is always good to specify. Free water is definitely not the norm. At smaller, more local places you can find it more often, but it is atypical. If you are coming from the US, be prepared to be paying a lot for basic drinks…

My favorite tip for when people come to visit is the former Stasi prison in Hohenschönhausen (http://www.stiftung-hsh.de). Is the best of the historical tours I have been on in the City and provides a super interesting glimpse into the more recent history of Berlin. Tours are often guided by former inmates.

One of my favorites that I played with a friend was the original _Splosion Man_.

I tried the lightsaber one at IFA a while back. Left feeling massively underwhelmed. It didn’t work particularly well for me and I was pretty quickly ready for the demo to end. Perhaps the other modes are more interesting.

More than that, what happens next is _exactly what I expected to happen_...

One of my favorites — particularly due to the content:

I used a site specific to expats in Germany (toytowngermany). It is a good way of meeting English speakers here, which is great if you aren’t yet too comfortable in German. The first group I ended up meeting was for kickball. I think it helped that it was a sport/activity — makes it easier to chat with new people and…

Same here. While I can understand how people might perceive it as blue and black, but I can only see it as white and gold or blue and gold.

I am a native English speaker (American) and learned German as a second language in school (a bit in high-school, then earnestly in college). I have lived in Germany for a couple of years now and do find that I get brain farts quite a lot when it comes to language.

I have noticed that I drink much more water since starting my current job — they have a water machine in the kitchen that dispenses water with and without gas. I keep a glass at my desk that I refill multiple times a day. It gives me a reason to get up and walk around as well.

Have yet to read either. I saw the Dresden Files show... but never read any of the books. I would say they are worth reading, regardless, though. They were pretty quick reads.

Rereading Garth Nix's Abhorsen trilogy at the moment. Read them when I was much younger and picked one up to reread on the long place ride back from visiting the parents — after finishing it I felt the need to read the rest of them again, too. Others from the past few months have been: Dune (another reread, because…

Just read the Peter Grant series (the books that are currently out) based on randomly picking up the first one while at the bookstore. I quite enjoyed them. Not on a list of my favorites, but will definitely pick up the next book once it comes out.

I quite like the new art. It at least has a lot more color depth and contrast than the original covers (of which I was never a huge fan).

They always do have the suction thing... it is purely irrational. But all the back of my mouth knows is that there is saliva there (even though it isn't much before it slides to the sides to get sucked up) and that I can't swallow to get rid of it.

I am generally OK with the pain factor, but I hate the discomfort (and cost) of laying on my back with my mouth open for long periods of time... I invariably hit a point where I fear I will drown on my own spit. If they could make the current process require me to hold my mouth open for less than a minute, I would be…

This is my game, too. As a kid I always played as Yoshi, but picked the game back up in college (and was forced to pick someone else). My roommates and I became insanely good at this game. We all ended up in a University Mario Kart N64 tournament. I got first place, my roommates got 2nd and 3rd (out of 250). I won a…

Love a Chimay Blue... delicious Belgian beer.

I had my hopes dashed many times while still on Verizon. Honestly, this should be a quite great performer, too, with 20mp oversampling. Not quite the 1020, though..