Ah, here’s a nice one. My former colleague and Britmusic inspiration Daljit has tagged me in what looks like a chain letter, only that it happens on (currently mostly media and PR people’s) blogs and will not bring anyone money, luck or other benefits associated with chain letters. Just some insight into media consumption (and digestion?) habits of some heavy media carnivores (or scavengers?). Anyway, the question is simple: “What do you read, listen to, watch, during a typical week or month?”. James started the whole thing on his blog and it’s taken off and growing to become a proper meme. DrewB has contributed his view, so have others that are being tracked by James’ colleagues here.

Alright, so here’s my weekly intake, and I’m happy to bring in a continental and German perspective to this, hopefully to expanded by my tagged-ones.

What I’ve read (includes surfed)
Over the holidays I’ve read a whole lot of blogs and tried to acquaint myself with the benefits, purposes, nonsenses and opportunities of Twitter (you can follow me here, or in the box on the right). I read the year-end issue of Wirtschaftswoche, a weekly business mag here in Germany, with their review of 2007 and 2008 outlook. I’ve subscribed to Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung (FAZ‘s sunday edition) at home as a sunday breakfast and afternoon read. In general I think Sundays are great for catching up with the in-depth view of world happenings and balancing the shorthand-style news influx that floods us during workdays.

Back in the office I scanned a few key business papers like Financial Times Deutschland and Handelsblatt for their year-end reports. My daily news update comes from Spiegel Online, and Computerwoche provides me with IT industry news for my work. I occasionally read CW Notizblog, a blog maintained by Computerwoche’s editors, for a more personal view from the guys we talk to on behalf of our clients on a daily basis. Unfortunately they’ve grown a bit calm in the past few months. As I’m a Mac geek, I’ve scanned MacWelt for the latest round-up on Apple’s alleged product strategy in 2008 and sometimes I check out macnews.de for hot news on the upcoming MacWorld in San Francisco, for instance.

Books, I almost regret to say, are scarce in my reader’s digest. Even a short crime story of just 125 pages has by lying around for 3 weeks now, stopped at page 40. Is that the price book publishers will have to pay? Oh, and there were SMS text messages, emails, a new year’s postcard from friends (nicely analogue), etc…

What I’ve watched
Speaking of Apple, I’ll certainly watch Steve Jobs’ keynote. He’s a revelation when it comes to orchestrating presentations to the minute, although his ever exaggerated superlativisms are a bit over the edge for a German.

TV is for the evening news, sometimes a bit of comedy and music. I prefer movies in the cinema, although I don’t go very often (but did just a few days ago, saw Lions for Lambs). My DVD collection is growing slowly but surely and my DVR helps me select the stuff I like and watch it when I like. Just as I write this, I watch a cut-down version of “Queen – Live at Wembley” broadcast by 3Sat on New Year’s eve. Whish I had been there… YouTube has something to it, too. Over Christmas I watched snippets of a show from comedian/musician/stage performer Rainald Grebe. I’ve seen him live in Berlin before Christmas and YouTube helped relive those fun moments for a while.

Actually, buying the DVR, in the end, was more than just a matter of comfort and flexibility, but definitely keeps all the shit out of my life and brain that’s beeing broadcast 80 percent of the time at least. A typical example of technology changing media consumption habits, and yes, I do skip advertisements.

Oh, and watching can also mean going to an exhibition, art, photography, architecture, theme exhibitions. On my list for January is the major Lucas Cranach the Elder exhibition in Frankfurt’s Städel Museum.

What I’ve listened to

Since I moved house in November, the radio has been disconnected, so I’m depending on CDs (currently back Swing, some classical music, French Chansons, Motown stuff, had too many guitar-laden bands in my ear recently) and iTunes shuffling a surprise selection from my harddrive to my iPod. I’ve also listened to my parents and Grandmother speak and my brother’s jokes over Christmas…

My Kit – (Bonus)
Home: PowerBook G4, Panasonic DVR, Grundig TV
On the go: iPod nano, SonyEricsson mobile, BlackBerry (iPhone maybe in generation 2 later this year)
Work: Toshiba laptop with a 17” screen docked to it

Who I’m tagging?
The even bigger Mac-Geek on my blogroll, Thomas “TeeZeh” Cloer, Edelman Germany’s Chief Blogger Wolfgang Lünenbürger-Reidenbach, and of course the man with a 91% guarantee to have me interested in his posts, Thomas Knüwer. Oh, and not to forget proud dad and avid Twitterer Sebastian Keil.