Lorenzo von Matterhorn

Lorenzo von Matterhorn is a fun little piece of character creation from "How I Met Your Mother", the US TV show.

Within the show Lorenzo von Matterhorn is a fictional name (within the show this is) for one of the characters which he uses when attempting to date. He tells a girl this name and she is sufficiently intrigued to go off an Google him. Wehre she finds a series of fake websites mentioning Lorenzo von Matterhorn as being a billionaire, lover of animals and even a page with a warning by doctors that penis reduction surgery would not be a good idea.

Of course, the next time he meets her and asks her out for coffee she agrees instantly.

OK, cute joke: but the amusement goes further. As part of the creation of the fake character the show put up a Wikipedia page for Lorenzo von Matterhorn: in our world, not the TV show one.

This has of course been taken down because it's against the Wikipedia rules. But, umm, now that we're all writing about it, does this make Lorenzo von Matterhorn famous enough to have the whole story explained in Wikipedia again?

Brit Brit on tour

Having recovered from nervous breakdown, a failed marriage and various other tragedies Britney Spears is back on tour which her show "Circus". It's rather better to call it a sho than a pop concert, for of course what with all the dancng that she does she doesn't do much singing (an you say "mime"?).

But that's not the point of course, no one is going to go to a Britney Spears concert to check out the finer points of her singing technique. What matters is the show, the razzmatazz, and reports are that this is just fine.

Circus is currently touring Europe and will be back in the US for s second run around the country in august.

Ain't Globalisation Great?

There are, sadly, those who think that globalisation is a bad idea. Even, that something ought to be done about it.

However, given the technologies available to us all these days, what, exactly, could be done about it?

For example, have a look at this website, one for India translations. Now, let's say you have a piece of Arabic translation that needs to be done. Or perhaps Farsi translation. You could scour your neighbourhood for someone who knew either of those languages and then pay them to do the work, for sure.

But here you have the opportunity of simply sending the work to India and of thus paying Indian wage rates to get your translation done.

Of course, this also works for Hindi translation. But the point is that you get the work done more cheaply, the translators in India earn better wages than they otherwise would have done....you're all better off.

And short of closing down the internet there's no way of stopping it. So a lesson for those silly enough to think that globalisation is a bad thing: well, what you gonna do about it?

Hawaii Real Estate

Now here is a real estate blog and site that does something really useful and valuable. Yes, it has all the usual search facilities and so on, you can scroll through listings, look only for apartments, condos, 3 bed houses, or by area, etc etc.

Further, it's all Hawaii real estate, so you're not looking through areas that aren't what you want or anything, wasting time in doing so.

But most importantly, it gets over the biggest problem we all have in searching for real estate for sale. What happens if a place, perhaps the exact place of our dreams, is listed with a broker that we don't know anything about? It's quite common that we don't know about every real estate broker in an area, we cannot read every newspaper and find every website.

So what this Hawaii real estate site does is list all active listings on each of the islands. So there isn't a single place up for sale that you won't see.

An excellent idea and strongly recommended.

New Real Estate Site

As we know, the US real estate market is going through some turbulent times: perhaps even that is an understatement. However, what turbulence in a market does allow is those with the best information to get good deals. That's why anyone looking to either buy or rent (ie, everyone, as we all have to live somewhere) should be looking for the best souces of information.

I've found one that's worth adding to your list of sources: indeed, it might be the major source you need. It's at www.nationalrelocation.com and has a number of very useful sections. For example, you can look up real state values for different States and thus find out whether what is on offer is a good deal or not. You can also get mortgage quotes, to see whether you can afford what you're interested in or not: or whether there's a financing house willing to offer you a better deal.

The final part that I find interesting is their coverage of houses to rent. Even in today's markets (perhaps especially in today's) it can be a good idea to rent for a time in a specific area, to check that you actually like it. You can also see the trade off between owning the house and building equity and not being responsible by comparing rents and mortgages.

It's a very useful resource: make the most of it!

Katie and Baby Make Five

In all this news about Katie Holmes and her marriage to Tom Cruise there's one bit that always seem to get forgotten. Or rather two. The children Tom adopted with his previous wife, Nicole Kidman.

According to Katie Holmes the new baby, Suri, gets on really well with the older two children.

But one thing that still puzzles me: if the reason that they did adopt was that Tom Cruise can't have children, then where did Katie Holmes' baby come from?

Arise Sir Stewart?

Given the way things go in the UK Penny Lancaster won't have too long to wait to become Lady Stewart.

Rod's got his CBE and so is in the waiting room for the K. Another decade or so should see it happen.

So not bad timing for Penny Lancaster to bcome Mrs. Stewart. Well, maybe not actually, Rod's not been known for managing tokeep a marriage going for a decade, has he?