It's Emo Time

The guys from the department of Sarcasm & Cynicisms have been given a day off, today this space belongs to those friendly chaps of Drama and Cliches.

Sooner or later prologues end and turn into the actual story. This prologue is no different. This will be the last entry of this prologue, within a couple of days it will make way for Chapter 1.

As the cliche goes: the last few months have gone by in the blink of an eye. I've spend these days packing, arranging but above all saying goodbye to the people here in Europe I care about. Sadly I haven't had the chance to see all of you; I guess that leaves you no other option than come visit me in Canada as soon as possible. To those who have been visiting or have been visited, I thank you for your time, efforts and hospitality. If anything makes this departure difficult it's thanks to you.


Although we should have an opportunity to meet again here, in the Netherlands, in six months or so, I'm pretty sure that in the meantime I will miss all of you. A lot.

We'll be in touch...

Action This

Next year, same time, things will probably be somewhat different from where I am now. These are the attempts to write an entertaining collection of meaningless contemplations and tales leading up to the coming changes...

What does this look like ? For those thinking: “a twelve year old Park Bass 15w amp series GB 15-10, two outputs, 1 head out, 3 way eq and one on / off switch, bought at the now late feedback music store in The Hague, Holland”:

You. Are. So. Wrong.

This is, in fact, -the- -little- -brother- of this big huge powerhouse, who's now touring the vicinity of Zaandam as J.B's new best bass friend. If you ever come across it, please tell it I said “hi – no hard feelings I hope”. Yes I sold my good old amp.

Selling, the big amp was one thing, however it is not the only thing I need to action of my to-do list.

One of the most frequently asked questions these days next to: “is that your real face ?”, is, “do you still have a lot to take care of before you leave ?”. I usually sigh heavily, rub my eyes, give them an extremely tired stare and mutter “yes”.

While for the time being, I'm just taking two suitcases, there are quite a few things to think about before the good old Canadian Govt accepts you and mother Holland lets you go. Although most of the actions range from irrelevant to not relevant at all, it quickly adds up. Here's the short list of the twenty most time consuming actions, in a yet to be determined order:

1. Figure out the transportation system in Vancouver, from a distance, over the Internets.
   (Find out how much my own moose would cost me.)
   
   

2. Determine what to bring from civilization.
   (and what you can get there for glass beads and shells.)
   
   

3. Install the new webcam I got from friends.

   (Curiously enough they don't have a webcam themselves ... or so they claim.)
   (note to self: keep the moose in the closet)
   
   

4. Call (that last) friend I haven't spoken to yet.
   (hope he remembers who I am).
   
   

5. Pay one more visit to the dentist,
   (I heard lumberjacks have their own way of getting rid of bad teeth)
   
   

6. Book flight back.
   (you know just in case)
   
   

7. Have a slothy civil servant validate that another slutty civil servant, is actually allowed and entitled to give me a birth certificate. Both of them only work a negative 1 hour a day and are continuously on a coffee break.

   (No I'm not kidding.)
   
   

8. Pack stuff. Pending 2.
   (note to self 2: bring toilet paper)
   
   

9. Arrange an apartment in Canadia.
   (Found a nice log cabin for a reasonable amount of beads and a camel, don't ask)
   
   

10. Book a place to stay for the first night, since I won't have my keys until day two. Working days in Canadia go from 9:00 to 17:00; I arrive at 16:30, by the time I arrange a transport to the city center it will be 17:01...
    
    

11. Get a bear proof suitcase.
    
    

12. Update wardrobe.
    (Canadian tux is already accounted for, as shown here by this model, but I need more stuff.)
    
    
    

    hot model demonstrates my Canadian outfit, bag provided by the SO's
    

13. Get gifts for the locals who helped me. I heard the savages can be appeased with sweet stuff.
    (Hope I have enough)
    
    

14. Find an obscure whiskey brand which could fuel the economy of three sub Sahara states, for a specific local.
    (to do when at location: Hire guards to protect the shipment from my apartment to hers)
    
    

15. Get documents from bank, proving I actually have some savings. Same problems as 7 apply.
    (Problematic one, spend one day photoshopping my bank statements so the red color won't show)
    
    

16. Arrange for a bank in Canadia.
    (Figure out what the conversion euro to bead is)
    
    

17. Get Canadian currency
    (Go to the beach to collect some currency (shells) and pillage SO's jewelery for beads.)
    
    

18. See if I can find an agency to insure for misplaced chopped down trees, bears, husky bites, and mooseknuckles. Seems normal travel insurance doesn't cover this.
    (The SO considers this a typical case of Dutch overinsurance)
    
    

19. Go over tax effects when leaving Holland with tax adviser.
    (Make the Dutch govt go for the old “hey look at that”-trick)
    
    

20. Cancel blood signed contracts which cannot be canceled, ANWB (roadside assistance), insurances, webservers, retirement plan, Donald Duck comic book subscription. Cash in Hoogvlietspaarzegels.
    
    

21. Repack stuff because I'm taking more than I can carry.

Part 3: Forest
Exposition of a friend of mine, Oscar Stegehuis. You can find more work of him on his website or on YouTube.

The Private Party

Next year, same time, things will probably be somewhat different from where I am now. These are the attempts to write an entertaining collection of meaningless contemplations and tales leading up to the coming changes...

w00t ! The first milestone has been reached: Ten blogs of no sense. Ten blogs using up terrabytes of storage space which might have been used for good use. Ten blogs of more opinions no one is waiting for.

Drinks, my faithful readers, are on me !

I've lied about my intentions (blog 1); questioned the ways of the devious meat industry (blog 2); disclosed what I do when I'm genuinely, utterly and totally bored out of my mind (blog 3); I showed you my failed attempts getting a good shot of the lady who lies naked in the garden across the street all the time (blog 4); tried and missed at an attempt to copycat a truly successful and funny formula (blog5); wasted my only slim chance on becoming a groupie god by giving away top-quality music for a mere click on a link (blog 6); I got censored through peer pressure and had to give him dinner (and beers) too (blog 7); found out that writing blogs drunk (blog 8) results in even worse blogs (blog 9) the next day; made tasteless fun of only sad social activity of a defenseless crowd (blog 10); and still, still I'm not filthy rich from all the adsense click through ads on the side that none of you press.

Even at this commemorative moment I fail you again, by committing the worst sin a true blogger can commit: writing a meta blog. I should be ashamed of myself.

The next milestone is 25 blogs. Don't expect any increase in quality though; I'm fully aware of the fact that all the cynicisms and sarcasms get old really, really quick. However, I heard repetition is often mistaken for a theme, and most of us take theme for a style, then people tell me it's important to have a style.

Therefore, I really have no choice to continue what I started more than a month ago.

So if anything good comes from the next 15 blogs, it will be thanks to the SO (how's that for a 1 degree palinsentence). She's the only reason these ramblings show any sign of coherency, I'm just filling the gaps between the punctuations...

From between the punctuations, have a good night/day/morning.

Meritocracy is a system of government or other organization based on demonstrated ability (merit) and talent rather than by wealth, family connections (nepotism), class privilege, cronyism, popularity (as in democracy) or other historical determinants of social position and political power.

WikiLink

a Chatter Dutch Love

Next year, same time, things will probably be somewhat different from where I am now. These are the attempts to write an entertaining collection of meaningless contemplations and tales leading up to the coming changes...

The Undutchables gave a nice perspective on us Dutch but not necessarily a nice, acceptable perspective. Apparently we have a quite a few quirks accumulated in our cultural blind spot. Quirks which are extensively discussed in an oft heated matter on sites like Expactica ... the word Dutchybashing comes to mind in those contexts.

We Dutch tend to praise ourselves as a bunch of blessed people, cherishing concepts like liberty and acceptance of other cultures. Or ... was that praised ? Whoever took the effort to keep an eye on Dutch politics lately, may have noticed that fairy tale should be taken with a grain of salt or two. But then again, when it comes to the narrow mindedness of our nation, we cannot make any big claims without, in all lameness and correctschaft, realizing that this concept is "relative".

... Meanwhile .... Racing towards the spotlight of attention was our friend: the point.

Snide remarks regarding our small scale politics aside: nothing symbolizes the in-the-box thinking of the Dutch as the Dutch Elevator Chat (the observing reader will immediately recognize what this anagrams (*) to). The SO pointed out that this typical habit, is not that common outside Holland. In fact she claims, it is considered somewhat freaky or even as psychopathic behavior everywhere else but Holland.

For those unfamiliar with this concept: a Dutch Elevator Chat occurs when two unrelated persons meet in an elevator and one of them feels the social need to start a conversation. For your reading pleasure, Canadian Update presents: a prototypical Dutch Elevator Chat scenario (tm).

Person A, being totally awesome, enters the elevator minding himself.

Person B enters shortly after.

Person B can be best described as a combination of wrinkly -, uninteresting -, slightly retarded - and socially challenged tissue. It's not uncommon that B forgot to take that much needed shower that morning. Again.

Person A, being totally awesome, greets B politely.

Person B, mistaking this for an open invitation to start rambling on nothing in particular opens with a generic complaint.

Person A, being totally awesome, looks around the small box, checking if it's really him B is talking to.
Person B, detecting a weakness, now directly cuts to how everything was better in the old days.

Person A, being totally awesome, checks how many floors there are left.

Person B, getting on a roll, feels comfortable enough to discuss a random but disgusting ailment.

Person B opens its mouth for more tortuous interaction, only to be interrupted by the elevator coming to a halt. Lo and behold: Person C enters. Being of the same species as B, the air is filled with shrieks of joy and recognition. The newly formed tag team wastes no time. Complaints are exchanged, misplaced melancholy finds recognition and bodily defects are compared...

... somewhere between the ground floor and the elevator someone's sanity whithers away

It is said, that Dutch Elevator Chat victims rarely stand a chance. Sooner or later they succumb to their inflictions and join the ranks of the elevator surfing undead. Rumor has it, that the disease has mutated and found new despicable forms.

I wish I could conclude with a happy end ... but I fear, it's all too obvious there was none.

Dedicated to that friendly old geezer, who always had a quaint story to tell.

Waste three non refundable minutes of your life to give politically correct answers and reap the rewards:

http://www.blogthings.com/howopenmindedareyouquiz/

(*) To anagram; to make an anagram out of something. In this case "Dutch Elevator Chat" anagrams to "a Chatter Dutch Love".

Ah, Culture ... (2)

Next year, same time, things will probably be somewhat different from where I am now. These are the attempts to write an entertaining collection of meaningless contemplations and tales leading up to the coming changes...

Forget for a minute those museums that you would go to anyway while in the Netherlands, to stand in line for hours to see a painting or two. Here are, in no particular order, three suggestions of museums you might want to visit one day for various reasons.

The Kröller-Möller museum offers a wide selection of paintings and sculptures. Here one can find works of Berlage, Gauguin, van Gogh or Picasso (amongst many others). The website contains an overview of the paintings on display.

One of the attractive features of this museum is its interior and an exterior exposition. The interior contains some interesting paintings, while the exterior has some impressive sculptures ... well large at least. And since it's bigger it must be better, or so I've been told.

If you get fed up with all that art and sculptury, you can just take one of their bikes and set a course through the few places in the Netherlands where nature still covers more than one square kilometer.

Being an individual with a certain inclination , I have a special soft spot for the art which displays a little bit more thought than the overvalued and pretentious expression of an artist having a bad day (too many examples to pick from I'm afraid). Enter my favorite M.C.: MC Escher.

The Hague currently has most, if not all, of Mr Escher's work on display . Besides all his well known works, the exhibition contains some extras. While going through the museum, one gets a good picture of the evolution of his art, starting from his early displays of landscapes to his experimentations with dimensions, concepts like infinity and progression. As an interesting bonus, you can experience Escher through a virtual reality show.

Not too far from the Escher museum, one can find “het Mauritshuis”. This was a pleasant surprise to me, as you can get up close and personal with some of the Dutch and Flemish masters, such as Vermeer, Brueghel, Rembrandt or Steen. Whereas the van Gogh museum or the Rijksmuseum, attract a large contingent of tourists, one can easily breathe in this museum.

In the museum there are free audio tours giving some interesting background on the artists and paintings. While it's not a big museum, one can easily spend one or two hours there.

Anyway... Vancouver offers quite a list of museums itself ; I'll keep you updated on the first three good ones I find.

Why everything we think we know is wrong, expressed as my-first-website powered by look-at-what-i-can-do-with-html technology. There is only one truth... and no spoon. http://www.fixedearth.com/index.html

Ah, Culture ... (1)

Next year, same time, things will probably be somewhat different from where I am now. These are the attempts to write an entertaining collection of meaningless contemplations and tales leading up to the coming changes...

The Netherlands actually has a history , which results in a fair share of culture... Now there should be a point here about how valuable and important culture is. But I'm afraid there isn't.

Feel free to contemplate the need for patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activity significance [wiki] . By all means discuss your contemplations in the comments, it may prove to be quite interesting. Especially if someone could do that discussion a favor and introduce elements of superiority of one culture versus another or mention the absolute lameness of cultural relativism (or was that moral relativism ?).

All that and more left as an exercise for the reader.

Anyway, while I'm still in this country, I decided to absorb as much culture as I found convenient. The last two weeks I happened to find myself in an unbelievable one museum per weekend. This unsurpassed level of cultural exposure can't pass without dreadful consequences. So let me abuse this minute of your attention by addressing my audience who take an interest in art.

Forget for a minute those museums that you would go to anyway , to stand in line for hours to see a painting or two. To you, my faithful reader, I'll disclose three museums that actually left a memory... next time. Maybe I'll even include somewhat of a point, or subliminal message.

Nevertheless here's an impression of the upcoming blog...

---

something random:
http://www.bash.org/

Guo_Si: Hey, you know what sucks?
TheXPhial: vaccuums
Guo_Si: Hey, you know what sucks in a metaphorical sense?
TheXPhial: black holes
Guo_Si: Hey, you know what just isn't cool?
TheXPhial: lava?

RIP: Queue the music

The original post was sacrificed to protect the innocent.

Since I'm too tied up thinking up creative ways of processing chicken and pawning up it off as a vegetarian dish for vegetarian friends, I slack out this time and refer you to an update of a previous post involving pimping up otherwise boring shots of skies.

---

Something Random:
US Group Wants Canada Blacklisted over Piracy slashdot

renegadesx: John Howard (prime minister of Austrialia) is so far up Bush's ass he wont be able to taste anything but shit till his 80'th birthday
Robber Baron: Actually no, it should be "he's so far up Bush's ass he can see Tony Blair's feet".

Cleansing & Baggage

Next year, same time, things will probably be somewhat different from where I am now. These are the attempts to write an entertaining collection of meaningless contemplations and tales leading up to the coming changes...

One of the tasks preparing for the move is getting rid of stuff you weren't using anyway.

Some of it is quite uninteresting and requires simply going through the tedious process of choosing what is relevant and what isn't. This includes mind blowing items such as my incredible collection of age old sport socks. I'm sure you don't want to know I had names for each and every one of them. As such you may find the empathetic resources to understand I had a really hard time parting with them. Thank god for digital photography: bye guys, I will never forget you!

Screaming for their miserable little lives ...

Other items included my huge stack of papers. Such as receipts from four years back, of which the return date had expired four years minus one week. Or public health insurance forms from before the law changed and changed and changed. And small gems such as my grades from university or my drivers license applications ... all four of them. More on those in a later attempt to be interesting or entertaining (aka blog).

More confronting are items which represent a certain vain hope, a lost dream of the innocence of one's youth: B M 2 (*), my base amp. It's simply big and unused and it's in the way (my significant others way that is)... Thus ends the era of my musical aspirations. It concludes the idea that one day I'll have hordes of screaming groupies, bling bling beyond use and world wide recognition of my fingerfast prowess.

This bass powered monster was purchased because I was fed up with borrowing other people's equipment whenever we had a gig... it was a good investment for all the two incredible breathtaking performances we had ever since. That comes down to an investment of roughly $500 per gig... how's that for demonstrating musical aspirations and commitment ?

this one goes to eleven

For what it's worth, I'll leave you with an impression of what you have missed all those years. These are our recordings. There are many like it, but these are ours... enjoy ! ( enjoying it actually requires some work though. I'm too cheap to get a paid domain so I'm using a free host. You're required to type in some confirmation code and watch some ads for 30 secs... No pain, no greatest music in the world)

• President (musings about the job of the president of the usa)

• Hormones (an analytical view on love)
  
  
• Train of Reason (some lyrics and guitars over a bass riff)
  
  
• Synaptic Juices (tv is not good for us)
  
  
• Hungry Eyes (more love and joy)

(*) Ampeg B2 350W. B2 may refer to the speaker / amp combo I have really no idea

Collective memory ?

Next year, same time, things will probably be somewhat different from where I am now. These are the attempts to write an entertaining collection of meaningless contemplations and tales leading up to the coming changes...

As said in an earlier blog, I'm working on my pile of books while I have some time before shipping off to Canada. One of them is the Swarm or rather: was the Swarm.

Books like “the Swarm” are an addiction to me. I blazed through the book in a mere three days. If any of you intend to read the book, then you might want to skip this paragraph since it contains some spoilers. The book revolves around a marine single celled super creature that has been around longer than humanity. The creature has decided man had its time destroying the earth with his pollution and it's time to stop it, humanity that is. It's up to a band of heroic scientist to stop this creature. Not the greatest literature ever written but it's a gripping light weight doomsday scenario. Good entertainment.

Now the book states somewhere that humanity is inferior in the eyes of the creature for many reasons. One of them is the fact that humans are individuals and have a hard time thinking about anything but themselves, an other one is the fact that humans don't have a collective long lasting memory (*).

That's odd.

If anything, humanity has a very extensive age old collective memory in many forms. Our languages contain many metaphors and expressions which are the result of years of cumulative knowledge and wisdom. We have the useful tales which reflect on being a cautious human aware of the world around us. Sure some of them are slightly unbelievable, but any sane person can see through the obvious reasons behind those attempts. Moreover we can draw upon a huge and interesting library of written history, outlining the events and results of those actions, so we may learn from the past and never repeat our mistakes again. Not only can we look backwards, we have a amazing system of highly respected journalists which are keeping us aware of what is happening at the moment. And then there is the web, surely that must be the pinnacle of human communication and our collective memory.

But that's not the point the book is trying to make. The book is merely trying to state the obvious that we're individuals and can't, or won't learn from other people's experiences.

Anyway, while I agree with the book that the outlook is certainly very bleak , there may be a few bright spots at the end of the tunnel which might convince the Yrr that it may be worthwhile to see what we make of it anyway.

Inspirational credits for go to “you-d!3-now”, which is quite amuzing in its own right and does a much better job in that respect...

(*) Don't quote me on this, the book might add some variation on that theme.

Skies over Holland

Next year, same time, things will probably be somewhat different from where I am now. These are the attempts to write an entertaining collection of meaningless contemplations and tales leading up to the coming changes...

One of the major advantages of living on the 20th floor is that nature provides you with some breathtaking skies (*). Today's entry is not as much about anything, I'll just let these pictures speak for themselves.

Three wheather shots

Three shots and some applied photoshop filters

Wheather changes quite fast as these three combined shots show

(*) keep in mind that the breathtaking part is subject to my somewhat limited photoskills.

My Obese Pile of Literature goes on a Diet

Next year, same time, things will probably be somewhat different from where I am now. These are the attempts to write an entertaining collection of meaningless contemplations and tales leading up to the coming changes...

While waiting for the day I abandon Holland, I'm blessed with some employer sponsored free time. I'm going to need this time for many reasons. There is the long list of contracts and memberships which need to be terminated, there's friends to see and say goodbye to and there is time to do those things on the-list-of-things-I-need-to-do-someday (not to be confused with other important lists such as list-of-things-I-need-to-do-before-I-die or list-of-things-I-need-to-see-before-I-can't-walk-anymore)

One of those things-I-need-to-do-someday is working through the growing pile of literature which I am supposed to read. Every now and then my girlfriend or any other type of friend will mention a book which either I “must” read, or might be interesting. Since I take these advices quicker than I'm capable of or willing to actually reading them, this list resulted in a pile of books which is getting slightly obese. Now that I got some free time, I put my list of a healthy exercise of morning reading, afternoon reading and evening reading. Hopefully it will be slimmed down to an acceptable size by the time I get to Canada.

For those interested, or for those who's own list is getting too slim, here are some suggestions:

Freakonomics (Levitt & Dubner): What happens if you take statistics, correlation and causation, take them out of context, shake and stir, and finally serve them with some written humor? Probably something like this book. It's a collection of unrelated relatively simple questions and their unexpected (unwanted) answers. Why do drugs dealers live with their mothers? How does abortion relate to a drop in crime? What do Sumo wrestlers and real estate agents have in common ? A lightweight fun read for those with in interest in human psyche, correlation or game theory. (http://www.freakonomics.com/blog/)

The End of Poverty (Jeffrey D. Sachs): I must admit, I haven't finished this one yet and there's a fair chance I won't. It's an interesting analysis of what's wrong with the world today and especially with the position of third world countries. Mr Sachs has been involved in the economics or analyzing some interesting cases, such as Bolivia, Poland or China. It's a good solid book, but there's a bit too much emphasis on the achievements of mister Sachs himself. The book explains events in at a peaceful, take-your-time pace... which makes it easy to get distracted by oh look-something-shiny.

That “something shiny” in this case is “the Swarm” (Frank Schätzing). I just started on this book, but being somewhat of a sucker for science fiction (if it can be classified that way), it has already grabbed me and won't let go of me until I finished it. Human kind is happily on its way of screwing up its own and only place to live. What if the other residents of this earth decided it might be a good idea to do something about it, since the only thing those pink / yellow / brown / black bipeds are doing is write reports on this debatable situation. The cover promises a nice blend of science and free format philosophizing: count me in !