Canadian Infiltration

Milestone

2009-08-29T11:58:00.000-07:00

Uncovering urban lifestyle, contemporary trends and other (Canadian) peculiarities from a totally biased and nonobjective European perspective. Infiltration, intrigues, wonder and more ...

And then she turned two…

… Already. And while she barely grasps the significance of the second milestone, it left us, her parents in a state of worn out wonder: “Has it been two years already ? Time certainly moves like a stealthy submarine under the arctic ice, when you’re on subtropical island looking the other way…”

"not here..."

Much has happened in her development. She grew, learned to eat solid food, learned that some solids are better than others (chocolate and ice cream being an important parameter in that decision making process), stood up and walked, ran, jumped, bounced, rolled and confuses dancing with randomly wiggling her hips. She developed a vocabulary that consisted of Bangla, English, Dutch and something that is uniquely her own. She learned what a playground is, that it is often preceded by a bicycle ride and the transitive property of whining for a bicycle ride leading to the eventual playground. She figured out the subtleties of stalling going to bed by asking for milk, a big hug, making sure her teeth are brushed (up to three times), another big hug, going through her entire repertoire of songs and reading that book she wasn’t interested in two minutes before her parents decided it was “sleepy time”. She mastered a boatload of skills that we jaded, semi-matured people take for granted.

Raising this wacky little person over the last two years has been an intensive but incredibly rewarding experience.

As for relevance to this blog: her becoming two has no bearing on Vancouver. As any self proclaimed world class city, it cares as much about a single individual as the sea does about the droplets in its waters. However the connection between her becoming two this week and Vancouver is not random.

As we were driving back from work to pick up our genetic production from her daycare, we got stuck in an unusual downtown traffic jam. It turned out that the Vancouver police had blocked off a road or two in the heart of the city center. This required traffic to flow around and through the much less efficient back roads at a pace of roughly three cars per traffic light cycle. Needless to say, the road-rage enabled persona that takes over the body of my beloved SO from time to time, was having a field day.

Vancouver is a popular destination for film crews to hang out and occasionally shoot a movie or a series. While sitting in the car we theorized (*) that our predicament was the result of a movie being shot against the shapely form(s) of the BC Dome.

bc dome is enjoying a sunset

When we came back home, we found out that reasons for our delay were a lot more sobering: for some of us, the two year mark is not the next step in a promising life but the grim and undeserved end point. When something like that happens on the crosswalk you use every other week, a stone throw away from where you live, in the same week your own daughter turns two, it hits a nerve.

While at the time of writing there’s no clarity on what exactly happened, traffic and its patrons aren’t one of Vancouver’s prettier sides. A blog worthy topic for another day… for now I’ll set aside some extra chocolate and ice creamfor our Nearly-One-Meter-Julie-Andrews-Wanna-Be who is as per now on an expedited traffic training course.

(*) This would be a theory involving colorful characters like morons, fucktards, idiots and the cluebat deprived.

Som3Th1ng Rnd

Beaches

Clip Art & Tricks Intermezzo

2008-01-28T14:11:00.000-08:00

Uncovering urban lifestyle, contemporary trends and other (Canadian) peculiarities from a totally biased and nonobjective European perspective. Infiltration, intrigues, wonder and more ...

Little things can trigger larger outcomes. Here's what happens when a complaint ("You never made me one") becomes a weekend of enjoyable chores ...

From left to right (or top to bottom). My parents & Shiva, Phear Teh Binja and the SO + the smaller SO

Som3Th1ng Rnd

Every now and then you come across work of co-workers which is wacky and slightly out of the ordinary... you'll find plenty of those here

http://www.ianchristy.com/

The joy of random encounters

2008-01-19T15:04:00.000-08:00

Uncovering urban lifestyle, contemporary trends and other (Canadian) peculiarities from a totally biased and nonobjective European perspective. Infiltration, intrigues, wonder and more ...

"The date this email was *sent* is considered the date of notification."
- automated email message from the VPL

The road from home to work and work to home tends to be an enjoyable event. I have the choice to complete my journey by several means and vehicles. There's the undersized bus (C21 / C23 shuttle), the skytrain (*), my trusty bike and the two bipedal devices stuck to my body.

it´s a sign, but not as we know it

But there's a problem with each of these options; the bus sign tends to whine that it's "full" on any random rainy day, since the driver is only allowed to take as many people as there are seats plus one or two unseated, unlucky and ultimately bruised passengers. The skytrain gets me to work so fast I have no time to take out my daily dose of semi-literature and enjoy a satisfactory reading experience. The bicycle is actually more a hypothetical option than something I would really consider given Vancouver's hilly profile and my wimpy condition. I actually walked back once, and by walking I mean the kind of walk that follows from drinking those one or two beers after you already have three or seven too many. Somehow, I feel it's an approach that wouldn't be met with highly appreciative comments of my employer.

it´s beer, just as we know it

Yet, all these are just minor issues. The greatest form of excitement is the chance to drive into the person in front of you while rubbernecking the accident in the opposing lane. At best, one gets to show off one's mighty middle finger at people who should have peacefully passed away several years ago (**). What I miss are the completely random events that cross your path every now and then.

For example:

At a red pedestrian light at a random T junction somewhere in Vancouver, I patiently await approval of the opposing traffic light to cross the street. From the right, an average sized pickup truck stops in front of the red traffic light. The driver's door opens in a determined fashion and an oriental middle aged man hops out. Leaving his door open, he makes a dash for the passenger light at which he fanatically starts pressing the button of the passenger light in an attempt to make his own red light turn green slightly quicker. I wonder if I should share my opinion that the buttons of pedestrian lights only serve to give the pedestrians the illusion that they actually have some control over the situation. The window of opportunity to start an in depth discussion on this fascinating topic is smashed shut in my face as the man legs it back into his car. Convinced of his powers and believing in a positive outcome, he slowly pulls his car up slightly over the line. I must admit that his conviction certainly made a difference as the traffic light promptly switches to green (****). As I pass in front of his average sized pickup truck, I give him an approving nod. Nice trick; next lesson is figuring out which button is related to what light and thanks for the effort.

said intersection

Not as good as coffee in the morning but it beats spraining the muscles around your central proximal phalanges after another enjoyable car ride in another enjoyable traffic jam any day.

(*) where "sky" can also mean subterranean as far as Canadians are concerned, and "train" is urban for le metro.

(**) debatable if they actually did die in some severe cases. Added bonus– you still get to rubberneck at accidents or middle finger that idiot that doesn't respect your pedestrian / bicycle rights.

(****) White actually, as pedestrian lights in Vancouver feature red and white lights.

Som3Th1ng Rnd

The continuing evolving gene pool

... Then three months later

2007-11-04T22:13:00.000-08:00

Uncovering urban lifestyle, contemporary trends and other (Canadian) peculiarities from a totally biased and nonobjective European perspective. Infiltration, intrigues, wonder and more ...

The Stanley Park is still a little piece of land just outside downtown Vancouver. It's quite pretty and filled with trees, shrubs and small wildlife. It thanks its notable presence in the heart of Vancouver to the fact that at one point in history, the Canadians expected the Americans to invade their territory. In their military genius, they deemed Stanley park a vital strategic asset and decreed that no civilian structure was allowed to spoil this formidable green fortress. After someone informed the Canadian high command about the validity of the claims made in South Park - the Movie, it was too late: Stanley had already been designated as a national historic site.

scaring away the yanks with totems

It not only goes to show how influential South Park is in the circles of the military, but also that the Canadians have a well cultivated distrust versus their Imperical Southern Neighbours... as the SO would soon find out first hand.

On the 26th of October, the SO and our offspring entered Canadia with intent of settling here for a while. Her plane was a good 15 minutes early. Packed with her suitcases and one discontent baby, she entered immigration. A good three hours and one very uber discontent baby later, she was allowed to enter Canadian territory, AFTER she had sufficiently made clear that she wasn´t part of an invasion force, had ties (read: a crying disgruntled baby) with a resident (me) and had no intention of killing, mutilating or kidnapping Terrance or Phillip (she was free to do whatever she wanted to Celine Dion).

And thus the infiltration mission grew with two members: the SO and a little female mini us...

Happy family reunion

It has been a thrilling three month period ever since. A period filled with random events, eventual adventures and adventurous travels. Our belongings came in from Holland, turning our small hideout into an even more infinitesimal space with half of the apartment filled with boxes and the other half filled with chairs. Soon after our boxes arrived, Sinterklaas dropped by (he's allowed to enter Canadia after the draw in the fireworks contest with Santa earlier this year). We celebrated American Thanksgiving (no moose either) . Project "D0T" saw first daylight. Finally, we concluded the year making oliebollen in Laurel, Maryland - US (home of the famous and distinguished Delta Bingo Establishment).

... And all of these miraculous proceedings remained unbloggified. As the saying goes, "time flies when you have to take care of a baby" ( or more accurately, "when you're around a baby" - a lot of credit goes out to the SO for doing the majority of all the hard work (daddy gets to play)). To appease the ravenous hordes of fanatical "Infiltration" readers (*), here's some expectation management for you... priorities have shifted a bit, but the blog will return in 2008 at random times.

Best belated wishes to all of you - M, M & S

(*) Can one person make a "ravenous horde of readers" ?

Foooooooooottie !

2007-10-29T21:27:00.000-07:00

Uncovering urban lifestyle, contemporary trends and other (Canadian) peculiarities from a totally biased and nonobjective European perspective. Infiltration, intrigues, wonder and more ...

"I work at Starbucks: ask me ur questions!"
"Which finger do you use to push the butten that makes the coffee?"
- [Welcome to Vancouver]

One unmovable and slightly admirable quality of the Canadians is their urge to copy everything almost but not quite like its original and then add "Canadian" as a pre or suffix. Take for example Canadian Football (suffix example would the "Football Canadian" (Canadian Football as it´s called in the French speaking part of Canadia, in case you were wondering).

You may ask if I jest - I´m not; Canadian Football is as real as the proverbial train at the end of the tunnel pretending to be light and salvation. It´s not only a lame proverbial paraphrasing but also as close as Canadian Football comes to any form of speed... more on that later.

Canadian football is basically American football with a few minor adjustments. There´s still a bunch of guys dressed up in excessive padding who run into one another to stop the other from going somewhere. There´s a grass field with a goal on each end to make the grass look pretty. Teams score by running into the "end zone" of the opposing team, whilst carrying a ball... yes, football has hardly anything to do with feet in Canada as well. There are differences compared to the American version, but they are subtle and hard to spot (aka irrelevant) to the untrained eye. But a difference is a difference, and therefore it´s not American football, so the Canadian is a happy moose again.

Mentioning Canadian Football in Vancouver,points to the home of the B.C. Lions. At about twice the size of its smaller, but more popular brother the Canucks Ice Rink, the B.C. Lions Arena dominates the southwest landscape of downtown Vancouver. Needless to say, but good to mention for the slower amongst us, it was ripe and waiting for an another insidious infiltration mission.

infiltrate the concrete composition; bonus points for finding funny looking people

Aided by the usual suspects, we arrive at the ticket booth, where we´re met with the blank stare of a teenager who hasn´t managed to escape puberty quite yet...
"Sold out" the spotty shrimp behind the counter offers.
"And what about the silver ring seats?"
Uninterested. "Sorry, we only have bronze..."
"Is that any good ?"
The shrimp looks confused and tries to make a statement. Thinking the better of it, he lamely shrugs his shoulders. First class salesman.
"I guess ... We´ll take bronze then ?"
"Whatever..." he mumbles from behind the glass wall that keeps the world outside.

Happy with our tickets, the prospect of beer, hotdogs, and a free cavity search at the entrance, we set onwards ... into an empty stadium. We look around, to see rows of empty seats, followed by more rows of empty seats. We blink and the stadium blinks back.

good times

As the cheerleaders take the field and we try to enjoy the sight of their supposedly luscious curves from our sky high bronze seats, another supporter shuffles into the stadium, followed by another one. Things really get busy as two more enter the arena on the other side. By the time the opposing team is greeted by the friendly tunes of the "imperial march", the stadium is at least at five percent of its capacity. The entrance of the Lions themselves pushes the mark to seven percent... somehow there´s a lot lost in translation of the concept of "sold out".

The intro of GnRs´ "Welcome to the Jungle" announces the kickoff, and under loud cheering of the twelve people making up the "crowd", the teams clash into another. This apparently takes so much effort that the entire team on both sides gets replaced within minutes. One minute later the game continues for a whole four seconds, after which the teams take another minute to restart the game. Here´s an impression on how exciting this is:

The team takes one minute to get into their positions, the ball is played, a player is tackled and another minute is spend walking back into positions. The team takes one minute to get into their positions, the ball is played, a player is tackled and another minute is spend walking back into positions.The team takes one minute to get into their positions, the ball is played, a player is tackled and another minute is spend walking back into positions.The team takes one minute to get into their positions, the ball is played, a player is tackled and another minute is spend walking back into positions.The team takes one minute to get into their positions, the ball is played, a player is tackled and another minute is spend walking back into positions.The team takes one minute to get into their positions, the ball is played, a player is tackled and another minute is spend walking back into positions. The team takes one minute to get into their positions, the ball is played, a player is tackled and another minute is spend walking back into positions.

Pause, thirty minutes to rest from all this excitement.

The team takes one minute to get into their positions, the ball is played, a player is tackled and another minute is spend walking back into positions. The team takes one minute to get into their positions, the ball is played, a player is tackled and another minute is spend walking back into positions. The team takes one minute to get into their positions, the ball is played, a player is tackled and another minute is spend walking back into positions. The team takes one minute to get into their positions, the ball is played, a player is tackled and another minute is spend walking back into positions. The team takes one minute to get into their positions, the ball is played, a player is tackled and another minute is spend walking back into positions. The team takes one minute to get into their positions, the ball is played, a player is tackled and another minute is spend walking back into positions. The team takes one minute to get into their positions, the ball is played, a player is tackled and another minute is spend walking back into positions. The team takes one minute to get into their positions, the ball is played, a player is tackled and another minute is spend walking back into positions. The team takes one minute to get into their positions, the ball is played, a player is tackled and another minute is spend walking back into positions. The team takes one minute to get into their positions, the ball is played, a player is tackled and another minute is spend walking back into positions. The team takes one minute to get into their positions, the ball is played, a player is tackled and another minute is spend walking back into positions. The team takes one minute to get into their positions, the ball is played, a player is tackled and another minute is spend walking back into positions.

...

In other words: If I would get paid per word, I´d go into football reporting - millionaire in two articles. In more other words, despite the victory of the BC Lions that night, the most exciting thing that happened after our hot dogs was passing through the revolving high speed doors on our way out. I´ll stick with cheering for the Canucks for a while ...

Coupland wrote the book I wanted to write and Yathzee is giving the reviews I wanted to give; good stuff if you don´t mind a million British words per minute...

Why there was no moose for Thanksgiving

2007-10-14T14:54:00.001-07:00

Uncovering urban lifestyle, contemporary trends and other (Canadian) peculiarities from a totally biased and nonobjective European perspective. Infiltration, intrigues, wonder and more ...

"Well, like a lot of other dictators, there is one man's opinion I value above all others. Mine. And folks, I have a lot of opinions... In fact, I have so many opinions, I have overwhelmed my ability to document myself". [Stephen Colbert, I am America (and so can you!)]

Another week, another quote from the latest literary acquisition. More comedy books, as I find myself in need for a lot of additional humor lately. Since looking into the mirror doesn't quite cut it anymore after 31 years, I buy comedy books... No worries, this ain't another bluesy emo blog.

What is this man doing ? (<- Click the link) If you're answer was: "whipping cream" you lack imagination, I recommend going out more doing things you shouldn't do. If your answer was "whipping cream prior to desert on a Thanksgiving party", you probably were at the same place I was last week.

beer time ?

"Thanksgiving, or Thanksgiving Day, is a traditional North American holiday to give thanks at the conclusion of the harvest season. Canada celebrates Thanksgiving on the second Monday in October, and the United States celebrates the holiday on the fourth Thursday of November." [Wiki]

Luckily with the friends I have over here, I found myself invited to a thanksgiving party. My first Canadian Thanksgiving. Ironically, my first Canadian Thanksgiving was amongst a group of people who consisted mostly of Brits, complemented with a Japanese woman and one token Canadian. (If you feel like it, try to spot the Canadian amongst the people in these pictures. Hint: it's not this guy, nor is it her, she is the Japanese woman (1))

The Canadians celebrate thanksgiving differently from their southern neighbors. Besides celebrating it on different days, singing different songs, feeling guilty about different victims of racial genocide, the Canadians don't serve the traditional Butterballs, but meese (2).

thanksgiving requires an excessive amount of thinking

If you look close enough at the pictures provided, you will notice a shocking lack of moose meat, despite the genuine efforts of the host and hostess of the party ...

In a course of bad luck for tradition, meese hunting was outlawed in Canadia. Interesting enough, there are ways around that law. If you - by accident - run into a moose and kill it in the process, you're still free to take it home and eat it (3). After all, a dead moose is just roadkill and nothing prohibits you from eating roadkill. The downside of this loophole in legislation is that around this time it's not quite safe to cross the streets anymore with all the Canucks driving like maniacs hoping to hit a moose (or create some random roadkill; no one will note the difference, unless you hit a skunk).

Being good sports, the British organizers didn't want to miss out on this typical Canadian meese hunting tradition. They rented a cheap car that looked like it could kill a moose and set out.

The entire world outside the former empire knows the British are "different" when it comes to driving (4), most notoriously is their driving-on-the-left-side-of-the-road-habit. It's a habit that's hard to kill as the driver of a Pizza delivery car found out. Just after his life flashed by and before passing out, he saw two Brits hopping out of the vehicle that was stuck in the place occupied by his engine just five minutes ago. Later in the hospital, he told investigators about the sensation of being prodded and someone saying something along the lines of "Blimey, I thought Meese looked tastier, this one isn't even dead. I say, what do we do now dear ... am I smelling pizzas ?"

And thus it came to pass that my first Canadian Thanksgiving was mooseless. Nevertheless, the lack of meese meat and the substitute pizzas didn't do anything to dampen the spirits at the party. After all there was good food, friends, songs and we had no bad conscience to deal with...

(1) Looks can be deceiving.

(2) The English language is horribly inconsistent. Why would the plural of a word change when you change the G into a M ? It makes no sense. It has to stop... and don't get me started on the subject of pronunciation.

(3) Your car will be wrecked as well; it's considered compensation on the moose's behalf.

(4) Different as in politically correct for "obviously retarded".

Who needs to see Maple leaves ?

2007-10-08T14:39:00.001-07:00

Uncovering urban lifestyle, contemporary trends and other (Canadian) peculiarities from a totally biased and nonobjective European perspective. Infiltration, intrigues, wonder and more ...

“Cyril peered myopically at the \”Cock-A-Doodle-Doo\” in a heavy Gothic script. Somewhere in his tiny mad chicken mind a very distinct and chilly understanding formed that he'd better learn to read very, very quickly.” [1]

Pratchett's books in combination with Denny's food are somehow a great counter for hangovers. Hangovers come easily these days, all it takes is a couple of beers and my head feels like a wooden board with a serious case of woodworm. Denny's therefore has become one of those places which has a high probability of seeing me as a customer on Sunday mornings.

The Denny's at Davie is a very ordinary foodboer (*), filled with ordinary, mostly Caucasian people, eating very ordinary greasy dishes, served by Asian waiters and girls who didn't quite make it into the Cactus club (**). The interior is done by a designer inspired by the gray and brown 50s / 60s style that reigned supreme in American restaurants around that time.

gray and brown r0x0rz

“I'm like so full”, the chubby girl in the booth next to me whines to her friend. Nevertheless, in the same breath, she manages to stuff another greasy sausage and a big chunk of French bread with butter in her face. A slightly out-of-place Axl Rose comments over the speakers with a fitting “Welcome to the jungle baby”. The girl fails to notice this offhand irony and continues to ramble on how she's been playing hockey most of her life, but "omg" now she considers "like" quitting. Given the amount of food she continues to shove into her mouth, despite her being full, makes me wonder if that will do her already round figure much good... But as Axl states “You're a very sexy girl, that's very hard to please”.

An extremely refined and well kept lady enters Denny's. Followed by an incredible dorky looking, unkempt male. They take the booth across me. From what I can make out, the geekenstein proves to be her husband or lover, or very special friend who she likes to hold hands with in the Denny's. Whatever the case, it makes one wonder how some of these fine specimens of women end up with the most improbable doofballs ... Although some cases may be attributed to money, this one clearly doesn't. I should ask the SO sometimes, she'll probably can explain it from first hand experience.

on the lookout

“Are you done ?” the waitress with the eccentric hairdo demands to know.

“Done with everything except the coffee” I declare.

She nods and picks up my mug, plate, formerly filled with eggs, bacon and some French toast and sets off. After approximately one meter she halts and turns around.

“Sorry, what did you say ?” she likes to know.

Being well aware of my sometimes faster-than-light-mumbling-fashion of speech, I try in a clearer, slower way: “Yes I'm done, except for the coffee”.

She still looks puzzled.

“Me ... Done ... want coffee” I try.

“Oh okay, yes, I'm sorry, I'm French speaking”.

“No worries, no one is perfect” I offer with a smile “I'm Dutch”.

She seems to consider this for a moment, after which her memory prompts her to ask if I'd like more coffee. I tell her no thanks, I have enough material for my blog... more puzzled looks.

Content with a belly full of greasy substances, I set off to take a walk along the sea wall towards Stanley Park, hopefully burning some of that fat and making some pictures of the beautiful Vancouver Autumn scenery. A scenery which was originally the topic of this week's blog... But who needs pretty pictures of trees burning red when you have Denny's and Pratchet?

not the topic of this blog

(*) "Boer" literally means farmer in Dutch. Adding "boer" to a word usually indicates an establishment providing very common, unsophisticated goods or services, e.g. furnitureboer (IKEA) or consultancyboer (IBM).

(**) The Cactus club is a Yaletown Burgerboer that's known for its incredibly hot staff in short skirts. The male variant is rumored to make distinguished (female) lawyers wink involuntarily.

[1]Terry Pratchet, Reaper Man

book unrecommendation:

"How Ann Coulter is cute in the same way D.Duck is cute when he's angry and upset."

Giving it a away for free.

For War ! For Terror !

2007-09-19T21:39:00.000-07:00

While the aura of cute and cuddly Baby continues to turn grown up me n, consultants and rock stars - to - be into mush left and right, the world outside this soft pink and diaper filled universe continues to rotate around its Sun in an everyday way.

The Final Canadian Move is still in progress, world-renowned politicians over-estimate their might, nature retaliates against the onslaughts of men and George W happily continues his War of Terror aka the Pursuit of Oil and Happiness.

Being wary of the motives of the warmongering American Tsar, many of us, citizens of the world, oppose the Bush Initiative in the Middle East. As a firm believer of the "make-warcraft, not war" principle, I too hope for a swift termination of both the misguided war and Bush's career alike.

Despite this political stance, I find myself guilty of providing a significant contribution to his cause by providing him with a huge addition to the American Empire as Shiva received her American Citizenship this week.

This act of treason, occurred at the American consulate in Amsterdam. The consulate is a heavily fortified building near the Museumplein. Surrounded by a big sturdy fence and a silly security protocol, this establishment offers people the opportunity to deal with the USSA's administration. In the Anton Pieck like bowels of this outpost, we swore our daughter to partake in the glorious expansion of the most democratic nation of the world...

swearing allegiance for the baby

One week later, the American Empire grew with one citizen. And with another soul enlisted in service of the Army of the Willing, the American population gained the upper hand in our small condo. Outnumbered 2 Americans to 1 European, I had no choice but to welcome the new American overlords.

My last hope is to turn this situation into a draw, but my hope lies with the decisiveness of the Dutch civil servant establishment. So far this entity has done nothing but to whine about proportions, light, colour and other trivialities of the passport photo thus denying liberation of the American oppression ...

George W. on the other hand is delighted about his latest conquest. Last thing I heard, he's redirected one of his carriers to the duckpond in front of our building... his Republican party could use another "victory speech" prior to the upcoming elections.

A3aan noted the following

Tools of the Trade

2007-09-07T13:57:00.000-07:00

Babies are cute and cuddly, and as a parent you tend to reward those qualities with a silly built-in response to spoil the baby. Enter the flashy baby buggies, a shiny and comfy crib, the mountain of stuffed toys, and various tools to keep your baby clean, dry, asleep and warm, shiny, oily or less whiny.

A huge pile of stuffed toys watches over the sleeping baby

Being urban parents, we also desire to have the best our money can buy. However, as parents in the current state of an intercontinental move, we´re also trying to be practical and keep the fluff to a minimum until the family reunites. In the meantime, the SO has acquired quite an amount of baby related devices over the past months. We have a multipurpose buggy, which can be extended with a baby seat or a crib (awesome Transformerlike toy for teh daddy). In the center of our apartment is the baby altar; here the munchkin gets her fresh new baby perfumed diapers. This altar is stacked with so many baby power ups, and resembles a mini chemistry science lab. We acquired a little crib from FreeCycle, which the proud grandparents upgraded to a commercial grade sleeping implementation. And somewhere on the premises is a baby bath tub with the mandatory armada of ducklets.

As grand as all these baby applications are, eventually the whole lot has to move to Canadia. So besides getting used to my new role as a full time father, this infiltration intermission also carries the theme of moving.

In between these activities, the metaphorical lightbulb appeared over my head (and where the SO thinks things went horribly wrong)...

All this baby crap is fine and dandy, but it's so goddamn bloated and redundant. Take that fancy bed grandma and grandpa built and painted... does the baby really care or know how great that bed is ? My hypothesis is, no she doesn't. To test that theory, I decorated a prime quality cardboard box with two run-of-the-mill IKEA pillows and applied the sleeping baby to it. You can see for yourselves that there is no notable difference between the baby happily sleeping in the big comfy bed or a baby sleeping in the box.

It occurred to me that this box thing has an untapped potential.

After spending some time in the design lab, I came up with the following baby utilities. While brilliant concepts, they still need a good amount of marketing for the audience to fully appreciate them... Here's a glimpse of what I have so far:

The Baby Box (tm)

The Bed Box: Build once, sleep everywhere (tm) (*). Now you can put your baby to sleep everywhere without bringing the crib, buggy or other needless and expensive material. Thanks to advanced baby technology this solution is safe (**), easy to setup, comfortable and 100 % bio degradable (***). Order your baby box now !

baby box in action

The Box Tub: Clean babies everywhere (tm). Bring the baby spa right into your living room. Unfold your box, add water and the baby, it can't be simpler than that ! (**) Watch your little clone splash, puddle and get clean in the process (***). The Box Tub is the device no proud parent can go without, order now !

Box Tub

The Buggy Box: Got wheels ? We got a buggy ! Make your neighbours jealous (***) of your baby mobile ! What more do you need to know, order now !

Ready to Roll

But that's not all: Order the baby box now and we include the free universal baby travel device extension ! And there is more ! If you order any of these products, we add a free upgrade from any of these products to any other baby box compatible item.

The Baby Box: the item no parent can go without.

---

(*) Pillows sold separately
(**) Don't try this at home
(***) Actual performance depends on your preference of box material.

I cannot see how this box concept can go wrong... If anyone feels like angel investing in this promising start up let me know.

Age: One week and a day or two

2007-09-02T09:48:00.001-07:00

Dear Reader,

Seat yourself in your favorite chair, preferably one of the rocking kind under the reading light in your library. Spoil yourself, break open that fine bottle of red wine you kept for special occasions and pull out your secret stash of Cuban cigars. Take a deep breath as you look out of your mansion over the meadows into the setting sun. Muster all the intelligence your brain harbours, because you're going to need it as this entry peaks into the realm of diapers, burps, farts, poo and cheesy happiness. ZOMG it's baby time.

Entering fatherhood is a unique experience, which given my limited vocabulary, I can only describe as "intense". It's a touching kind of beauty to hold your offspring in your arms for the first time after the battle that is delivery - even if you play the humble role of support trooper. When your SO holds the kid and winks away a tear, it's little less than heartbreaking - in a good way. You have no choice, but that little package of flesh and bones immediately becomes the single most most precious thing in the world. Everything she does is the most endearing event ever.

baby - spa in Voorburg takes care of every aspect of your toddler

Personally I never had a thing with those screaming crying little gnomes who's obvious pink butt-ugliness was visible to everybody, but their parents. The fact that what I wrote in the previous section and mean every word of it, took me completely by surprise... I was totally unprepared for it in every way possible.

Not everything is bliss however. It's by no means a flawless and painless pink cloud one ends up in, those who claim otherwise should be "kicked in the face" to paraphrase the SO.

First victim of your beloved squirmy former parasite is your night's rest. The critter is on a three hour cycle of feeding, sleeping, waking, crying, pooping and peeing and nothing is going to stop it... So say hello to night and very early morning shifts. Also welcome sleep deprivation, sluggishness, irritability and absentmindednesses... Effectively, luckily nothing changed for me there.

What you thought you knew is worth squat now. You're a target driven, highly motivated team player, who excels in communication and professionalism and what not ? Congratulations - you're dealing with a new "team" member who couldn't care less. What it does care about are your diaper skillz, pacifying 133theid and feeding pro-ness ( also it doesn't mind body heat - any body heat)

a cute baby == a sleeping baby

Diapers , to start with, look deceptively easy right, put the baby in them and close it up ? Maybe you - dearest reader - are a natural and you missed your calling, diapering babies with your eyes closed. But most likely you'll go through one or more wet and stinky jeans before you get the hang of attaching them to a squirmy, screaming creature at 3:00 AM. As an added bonus I hope you won't object against removing juicy feces just after you worked on a quick snack...

Furthermore, what's the difference between a screaming baby, a crying baby and a howling baby ? Initially it will all be the same to you. The kid may operate in binary communication mode, to cry or not to cry, but there subtle signals which may help you understand if it needs food, release some gaseous bottom air, a clean diaper or merely doesn't want to be alone yet. Interpret incorrectly and you'll end up with more frustrating and unstoppable howling. Equip yourself with endless patience and alertness and life will become better quite fast. I understand from objective and knowing sources some good night rest can help ... night rest ... oh ... right.

Feeding is actually quite easy. If you're the male. Or use some baby milk formula. Since there are apparently great benefits to be gained from pure natural mother milk, the SO decided to go the way of the booby food. She got herself a nice book on the topic, explaining how much fun breastfeeding is and how to do it. The books comes with a fitting glossy 80s looking soft pr0n cover.

feeding the easy way

After a week of this endless bliss and fun, the SO is currently trying to figure where the author lives and put some jumper cables on her nipples to see if said author is capable of feeling anything at all. If so the same author may receive "a kick in the face", to quote the SO. Apparently breastfeeding can be quite "uncomfortable". I wouldn't know, as my boobs are of no interest to our offspring, but the SO's faces of agony give me a hint whenever our precious little darling latches on.

But dear reader, at the end of the day every problem or inconvenience you will encounter will turn out to be completely meaningless and worthwhile ... when you end up with shots like these.

Baby surrenders

- Happy Dad Out.

There's a new chick in town

2007-08-26T13:20:00.000-07:00

Shiva Antare Sur Lassche

24th of August, 2007

Born at 14:10 in the Bronovo Hospital in The Hague

3.12 Kgs and 51 cm long

Mom & Daughter are doing fine

(teh Daddy too)

and a little movie....

Tough Questions

2007-08-12T15:18:00.000-07:00

Uncovering urban lifestyle, contemporary trends and other (Canadian) peculiarities from a totally biased and nonobjective European perspective. Infiltration, intrigues, wonder and more ...

Next week I’m to report back to “de Dutch”, as it affectionately has become known here in Canadia. Not only will I get my evaluation on the infiltration process, but also we (the SO & me) are welcoming a new life to this cozily overcrowded planetoid. Therefore, things may get a little quiet on this end of the blogosphere for a while… or even worse: it may end up filled with baby shots.

unrelated random picture: it's my huge vacuum, the laundry sneaked in on this picture as well

In the meantime, this upcoming event offers yet another appropriate opportunity for some reflection.

One day, sooner or later our offspring is going to wonder what ‘we’ did for him / her. And by ‘we’ I mean us; I mean you, me, them. What are the defining moments of our generation and how do we evaluate these against previous generations?

To put that in perspective, our parental genetic pool achieved some remarkable things in ‘their’ time. ‘They’ put men on the moon. Feminists liberated the women (and enslaved and sissified man). Reason ended the oppression (segregation) of religion (in the Netherlands). Conspiracy killed JFK.

Europe was lifted onto its feet through the Marshall plan and begat prosperity in the West. Prosperity meant a car for everyone, mass-media TV and planes. However, Prosperity brought its long time lover, Exploitation. The two happily polluted and drained our blue little globe.
Europe saw the birth of the European Union, effectively ending the good old tradition of waging war on ones neighbours. War, deprived of any meaningful job in Europe, found a new occupation somewhat more to the east of Europe, where Israel's birth (and continuing existence) was far from painful.

Hippies and sexual revolution. The Beatles, the Stones, Elvis, Jimmy Hendrix.

This picture makes an awesome but totally unrelated wallpaper for your desktop.

So, let’s make up the balance for our generation, starting off with the not-so-pretty list... you know the things we should find a way to blame the previous generation for:

Paris Hilton, Britney Spears. However, we pass the blame to their parents.
George W. Bush’s War of Terror. 9/11. Iraq. We could also blame his parents.
Global warming. Sure, our parents gave us the bad example. Sure, we were warned. Somehow that didn’t stop us from driving those cars and dumping inconvenient stinky stuff all over the place.
The incident on that square in China. Not so nice.
The beauty obsession, and ironically, the growing number of obese people.
Excessive commercial greed. Patent frenzy, the breakdown of public commodities.
The demise of proper language and the rise of 1337-speak. (QFT, me <- ROFLed @ this !1!11!1!one!11!)
When is AIDs going to be a “just a minor inconvenience”?
Reality TV shows.
The Yugoslavian war, Rwandan murders, Ethiopian famines and whatever else was not 'commercially' viable but morally unacceptable.
lolcats

The things we can happily and most proudly claim:

We ended the Cold War. Less chance of an all out nuclear war is generally considered a good state of being
The digital revolution, including the Internet, email, mobile communications, mass storage dvds / cds, wiki, and of course, mlassche.blogspot.com
Genetic engineering cloned a sheep and probably a whole new generation of North Korean rulers.
Despite what those Brits think, England is no longer an island, as ‘we’ connected it to France.
Iran and Iraq are no longer in open war… though it’s debatable if their current status is much better.
The introduction of the Euro took away a lot of headaches while traveling through Euroland.
Apartheid ended. Mandela was released.
Some utterly creative brilliance: Transformers, the Simpsons, Star wars, LoTR movies, Aliens, South Park, Beavis and Butthead.
We ended the horrids of the 80s music and found the simple beauty of grunge.
Smoking is finally and recognized as something universally bad for the general health. Although some countries still are taking time to recognize this within their borders.
Expansion of the Global Market and cultural intermixing. Although it remains to be seen if the rise of China and India will eventually be a good thing for our planet – the West made (and is still making) a mess out of things… why will they be different?
Angelina Jolie, Jenifer Anniston, Pointy Ears.

It's most likely an incomplete and subjective list, possibly even wrong and not so impressive at all. So when questioned by my offspring, I guess I will resort to the tricks of our ancestors and selectively chose which item of what list goes to what generation. Yeah, that will work... or as our future genetic copies will say: Generation X FTW LOL !1!!1!eleven!1!

Are you ready for teh War ? George is.

The Epic Battle

2007-08-08T18:16:00.000-07:00

Uncovering urban lifestyle, contemporary trends and other (Canadian) peculiarities from a totally biased and nonobjective European perspective. Infiltration, intrigues, wonder and more ...

Being in the infiltration business gives one some unique opportunities and insights. This week, I managed to uncover that age old mystery: What does Sinterklaas / Santa Claus do when it's Summer ?

Around the fifth of December, Caucasian Holland slips into a frenzy. Parents rush to the stores to collect as many presents as they can for their offspring. None of their efforts and spending will be rewarded or recognized, as their spoiled brats think these gifts come from a bearded old dude called Sinterklaas (Sint Nicolas). Ironically, it's the parents who keep up the lie to their little clones and tell them that these gifts were brought from Spain to Holland by this Sint entity.

There's no loss though. In the end everyone wins: the kids have fancy new toys, the parents get a highly effective tool to manipulate their kids for two months in a year and the stores collect huge piles of Dutch Euros. Finally, the real Sinterklaas thinks it's all fine and dandy. He is the kids' favorite and doesn't have to leave Spain to that cold forsaken country to ride that shitty old stubborn mare. In fact, since everybody thinks he doesn't really exists, he enjoys some fantastic tax benefits.

Naturally, this commercial endeavor inspired the far West to come up with something similar. However, the idea that some old Spanish geezer invades Canadia on an old barge to drop off some presents, is a hard sell to the more critical Canadian youngsters. To give the story some more credit, the Northern Americans decided that instead, he comes from around the corner, the North Pole. Because the seas freeze up during the winter months, the boat would have gotten nowhere, so this Sint flies. On a sled. Pulled by deer. Of which one has a blinky red light on his nose. Much more believable. Yes, Santa Claus it's you !

Apparently, the real Sint got a bit pissed off by this whole affair. Not only was his job taken and his identity stolen and warped into this -in his words- "Santa Clown", but they also implied his boat couldn't pull it off. To show who they're dealing with, the Sint left his cozy coastal beach house and set off a course towards ... Vancouver. As soon as the Santa Claus found out about the Sint´s plans, he demanded his gay cronies (*) to fix him a boat as well...

Thus Sint and Santa meet every year in the English bay of Vancouver to duke it out. To preserve their identities, they enter this fierce competition under the flags of Canadia and Spain. There's also a Chinese delegation. Evidently, the Chinese have some sort of Sinterklaas / Santa Claus as well (ChinKlaas?), who also feels mortally offended by the fact that there are people claiming that they are him..

In good tradition of these Saints, there's no real loss, it's the public who wins. The kids get to see some spectacular fireworks, the parents get to manipulate their offspring into some decent behaviour for a while and the stores actually get some visitors during the nightly hours...

Too bad for Sinterklaas the tax collectors got a trace on him now...

(*) Sinterklaas has helpers called "Pieten", which in good old European racist fashion are black people. Because this would be politically incorrect, the Americanos set up Santa Claus with a bunch of elves, which we all know are very happy people... In the end, you can only have so much political correctheid.

conspiracy ... conspiracy ... conspiracy

Blue Screen Blues

2007-07-31T00:01:00.000-07:00

Uncovering urban lifestyle, contemporary trends and other (Canadian) peculiarities from a totally biased and nonobjective European perspective. Infiltration, intrigues, wonder and more ...

My apologies, my fictional and imaginary audience.

No uncovering of anything this week, as my computer is having some serious issues. Random crashes and massive hard disk slowdowns seem to be an indicator that my laptop is about to die... If I'm lucky I'm getting about 15-30 minutes of computer in between crashes which I'm primarily using to get as much valuable or semi-valuable materials from my laptop to my iPod.

Curse you Dell for building such inferior hardware...

Ever wanted to be a panda ?

Magic Viral Flytrap

2007-07-20T22:39:00.000-07:00

Uncovering urban lifestyle, contemporary trends and other (Canadian) peculiarities from a totally biased and nonobjective European perspective. Infiltration, intrigues, wonder and more ...

Magic Inviolence

After all the hype in the Canadian bookstores for the last few months announcing the coming of the seventh Potter, I was looking forward to the moment that the final installment would go on sale. In my minds eye, I could envision the upcoming war zone. With a few remaining copies left in any store, parents would frantically fulfill their offspring's desire. They would curse while tugging and tearing their copy, fists would go flying, guns being drawn and a whole new generation of orphans would be spawned over the arrival of the fictional British boy wonder.

celebrating the arrival of teh Potter

How disappointing the actual events were.

I went inside, inspected the huge table filled with Potter books, lifted one up, turned it around, went to the cashier and flashed my credit card. Three minutes later, I was one more Potter episode richer. No fight, no blood, no massacre. Frustrated with the lack of violence, I bumped into a kid on my way out... her mom apologized for putting her in the way. What happened to this once so uncivilized world ?

During my absence

While in Holland, the SO had the brilliant idea of a fly trap. The trap consisted of some wine, bread and raw meats roasted over charcoal, until they were burned and charcoaly. The flies consisted of the majority of friends who admitted they liked the blog a lot, but they never actually read it (therefore I feel perfectly safe making this remark. Any friends who somehow feel addressed, please leave a note at the bottom so I will exclude you in future insults).

how many people ...

The rationale behind this trap was that my stay in Holland was short and filled with thrilling events revolving around not getting anywhere with the autistic entity called Dutch Bureaucracy (and its equally incompetent servants). Instead of visiting my friends one by one for the brief duration of my stay in Holland, the SO organized the said trap in the woods of Amsterdam. The prospect of raw slabs of meat being roasted over burning charcoal was enough to attract the significant amount of friends, on time or otherwise.

In short the trap was a big success, thanks to everybody who showed up for making time and the SO for organizing the entire event.

Currently in a theater near you, you may find this showing called “Transformers”. Definitely worth while your time, especially if you spent many hours in your childhood changing a robot in a car / plane / tyrannosaurus. What's more interesting however, is a trailer shown prior to this movie.

The trailer shows a party being thrown for this Rob dude. Rob is about to leave for Japan and using an ultra urban and hip shaky cam shoots the last few moments of the party. After a couple of interviews with friends, the events are rudely interrupted by a angry roar of some extremely unhappy creature. Well see for yourself.

It's a brilliant piece of viral marketing: the clip shows everything you need to know, but gives nothing away except for that little date at the end. The internets are buzzing with the latest rumors and speculations on this movie. Let's hope the movie will live up to its hype.

The embarrassment that is homeland security

2007-07-12T06:39:00.000-07:00

Uncovering urban lifestyle, contemporary trends and other (Canadian) peculiarities from a totally biased and nonobjective European perspective. Infiltration, intrigues, wonder and more ...

The borders of the USSA are guarded by the brave men and women of the Department of Heimat Sicherheit, more commonly known as Homeland Security. These men and women are the first frontier between the citizens of the shining light of democracy and the evil insidious Forces of Terror ™. Vigilant and alert, they make sure no harm will be done by the said Forces of Terror ™… And whenever you travel through or to the USSA, there’s no way you’re going to miss them.

Homeland Security deploys its employees along the border to question travelers about their intentions and possible affiliations with the Forces of Terror ™. This interrogation process is handled as part of the administration known as the Transportation Security Administration (TSA for its friends). To ensure a “certain” level of quality in the interrogation process, the TSA has stated a number of pledges to travelers unlucky enough to have dealt with its cronies.

TSA PLEDGE TO TRAVELERS

1. We pledge to do everything we can to ensure that your flight is secure.

2. We pledge to treat you with courtesy, dignity, and respect during the

screening process.

3. We pledge that if additional screening is required, we will communicate and

explain each step of the additional screening process.

4. We pledge to honor your request for a private screening at any time during

the screening process.

5. We pledge that if additional screening of your person is required, it will be

provided by a screener of the same gender.

6. We pledge to accept all feedback and to consider your input as a vital part of

our effort to continually enhance the screening experience.

7. We pledge to respond to your comments in a timely manner.

While reasonable on paper, The Pledge seems to depends on whoever is in charge of execution. As such, this list of good intentions runs headfirst into that immovable wall erected by human frustration and general incompetence.

Imagine an absolute nobody (no, not me this time). Blessed with a low to mediocre intelligence, this supposedly sentient being somehow understands – probably on a subconscious level – that his life is basically going nowhere. In his middle age, this individual finds himself stuck in a tiny booth verifying crusty documents and random items of traveling people.

Now somehow, somewhere, someone made the mistake to give this person the illusion that he deserves to wield a certain amount of power. Conjuring this illusion is not a hard thing to do; give someone a uniform to identify him as part of group, endow him with some limited decision making while placing his accountability within the very group he’s part of … and away you go.

The direct result is that said individual will experience a conflict between “wielding power” and “stamping things”: a sure recipe for endless, yet subtle frustration. As a final touch, mix in some slightly worrisome personality traits smelling of bullishness, conformism and some random compensation-issues-ism.

The end result is not pretty… a pot-bellied, balding man pushing – or hanging on to his forties. Dressed up in tasteless gold necklaces and suspenders to hold up his sagging pants, he grows the mandatory moustache to express his misplaced desire to identify himself as someone in command (or with his secret manlover in the next booth). To maximize this effect, he will do whatever the rules allow him to manipulate his environment in whatever way he sees fit… and yes, my dearest fellow traveler: that includes us.

In effect, you’ll find those fancy pledges pretty much reversed. For clarity reasons, here’s what it amounts to:

We pledge to briefly look into important issues but pay huge attention to irrelevant trivialities that will result in maximal discomfort. We’ll take so much time you won’t be boarding your flight in time. We consider this “one-passenger-less-is-one-threat-less-based-security".

You will treat us respectfully. We will huff and puff, you will respect our hand gestures as if you were our female dawg. Failure to comply will give us further reason to “secure” your flight.

We will not explain any of our steps, pro-actively or in a reactive fashion. Try asking us a question, go ahead, make our day.

You may request a private screening. Did you notice you need to request a private screening ? That requires you asking something… make our day, no really…

If you make it to this step, you must be guilty of something, we’ll see to securing your flight.

Our trash bin will more gratefully receive your feedback. If we don’t like your tone, we’ll feed you to our lawyer. Be assured that your next flight will be very safe and secure.

Unless we didn’t receive your feedback in the first place, we’ll respond in a timely matter.

You will encounter the pledge poster prior to entering customs, but after it’s too late to turn back. The poster is accompanied by a pretty face of a stern and proud female in front of the American flag declaring “we are the face of America”… I’m pretty sure this slogan started out as a joke that somehow made it into the real world, after all “farce” can easily be mistaken for “face”.

yeah, yeah, yeah...

The Mountaineers

2007-06-24T11:33:00.000-07:00

Uncovering urban lifestyle, contemporary trends and other (Canadian) peculiarities from a totally biased and nonobjective European perspective. Infiltration, intrigues, wonder and more ...

They set out in good spirits. Their bags were packed with nourishment and sustenance for the hard journey ahead. The weather forecast implied a chance of rain and sunshine, which usually is as good as it gets in Vancouver. Moreover, given the 50/50 nature of this prediction, there was no way it could be wrong...

This would truly be an excellent day to conquer the heights of Bowen Island's fearsome peak that rose 2480 feet above sea level: Mount Gardner.

The journey to base camp was said to be rough and perilous. It would require the group to acquire a ship willing to take them over the rough seas to the dark and sinister hamlet of 'Snug Cove'. Despite being warned of the quality of the vessels available in Horseshoe Bay, the group decided to take its chances and nevertheless, embarked on the trip.

Brooding weather ahead

Snug Cove was as grim as its name implies. Upon arrival, the group was met with the smell of undefined meat being roasted on barbecues and warning signs indicating the wicked nature of the Cove. As quickly as possible, the hardy group left the hamlet... Sadly, the evil coming from “Snug” was spread out everywhere: The countryside around Snug was littered with the most gruesome poaching devices , defiled with free “doggy bags” dispensers and spoiled with picknic tables.

As they left the Snug area behind, the group of mountaineers thought they found some reprieve at the tranquil shores of Killarney Lake. However, their peace was short lived as they encountered the ferocity of the local wildlife, the Killarney duck. Bowen Island is host to many of Canadia's most dangerous beasts. The Killarney duck is one of more dangerous ones, only outdone in human casualties by the Bowen Slimy Slug, the Red Furry Woodpecker and the Imaginary Black Bowen Cave Bear.

Killarney Lake, with the ferocious duck hiding behind the tree

Barely making it through the duck encounter without severe casualties, the mountaineers set onwards.

The road upward was steep and filled with brutal challenges. The mountaineers had to conquer gaping chasms over a dangerous stream, bypass deceptive swamps, evade deep pits and climb until their limbs were sore and tired... then climb some more until their energy was completely spent... then climb even further until their legs could no longer support their weight. It was vile slaughter.

Despite the hardships nature threw at them, they remained resilient. Whenever their spirits seemed to fail, they told themselves they would find the peak of the mountain around the next corner, just behind the next patch of trees or beyond that vertical ridge. One more step, one more climb ...

Whether they made it to the top or not is unknown. But that's not the point; it is not the destination that matters, it's the road to that destination. It's about overcoming the challenging hardships on that road. It's about going beyond the limitations of one's own fragile human corpus and achieving things one could have never imagined. It's about knowing that despite the worst that could and will happen, there will always, inevitably, be an end to that the road where a snug pub is waiting to sell you overpriced but cool beer and cheesy nachos (or even a burger).

the south-side outlook

Somewhat in the appropriate spirit of subtext feelings... Despair.com

Book update: Bourne Ultimatum, Children of Hurin and JPod

2007-06-17T18:05:00.000-07:00

Some reclusion this time, movies and books, the written and filmed entertainment, the illusive formats of storytelling. Downtown Vancouver is host to plenty of bookstores and movie theaters and either form of entertainment is within hand's reach. Literally around the corner there's both a cinema and a bookstore. A little bit further away are bigger three-floor-versions of the said establishments, featuring more choices and variations. This week it's book time.

J.R.R. Tolkien: Children of Hurin

Tolkien's son brings us a collection the notes and unfinished work of his father turned into “the Children of Hurin”.

The Children of Hurin is not a happy book. The book takes place long before the Lord of the Rings. Lord Hurin finds himself amongst the losing party of the ongoing war on Evil (tm). The book sees an alliance of Elves, Men and Dwarfs get their collective assess royally whooped by Morgoth (big boss of all evil – including Sauron).

To remind Hurin how much Morgoth has PWNed his royal rear-end, he curses him and his family. Hurin is chained to an uncomfortable stone chair and is forced to watch his son, Turin, grow up.

The curse turns Turin in quite a screw up, making one mistake after the other. Turin finds a home amongst the Elves, but he ends up killing one of them and is forced to flee. Turin becomes leader of a band of outlaws. Being quite a pesky lot, Morgoth decides to capture Turin. Given the vast forces at Morgoth's disposal, capturing a bunch of outlaws isn't that big of a deal. Naturally Turin gets rescued by his best Elven friend and thanks him in kind: he accidentally kills him.

After a couple of more tragedies, Turin ends falling in love and shagging his sister. Both of them decide to kill themselves for different reasons. Happy with the outcome of these events, Morgoth finally releases Hurin from his prison.

The overall story is gripping and definitely leaves an impression but the pace and style are sometimes painfully weak. The tale is stuttering along, alternating between dragging the reader through irrelevant details and then breezing through major developments. The style often struck me as either immature or vastly outdated. The characters, with the exception of Hurin himself, seem overly simplistic and underdeveloped.

After reading more and more Tolkien, I'm slowly starting to wonder if the Lord of the Rings (LotR) was a mere lucky strike. The book offers an interesting dark contrast to the lighthearted Hobbit, but like The Silmarillion, it is dreadfully slow and often simply uninteresting. Although the Children of Hurin is less pretentious and a little bit more accessible than The Silmarillion, I fear this for Tolkien fans only.

Ludlum; "The Bourne Ultimatum"

Everyone probably knows the Bourne movies. Probably everyone but me knew that there's an entire series of books devoted to this Bourne character. The 'Bourne: Ultimatum' starts off with a retired Bourne. Now known as David Webb, professor in things Asian, Bourne has found relative peace in his life.

Too bad for him but happy things don't make interesting stories. It doesn't take long before Bourne / Webb finds himself on the hit-list of an evil super assassin, called Carlos “the Jackal”. The Jackal has some compensation issues going on, and feels he can only prove himself by killing the greatest assassin on the world: Jason Bourne. Bourne decides that the only way to keep his family save, is to draw the Jackal out and take him down himself. The story goes through a one on one, one on many, many on many battle that spans the globe.

I'm not a big spy fan, but this was an entertaining read. It features an interesting setup, where small schemes lead to issues that explode beyond the capabilities of the main character. Bourne also remains fallible throughout the book, making mistakes and misguided decisions. Both the limited capabilities and the imperfection of Bourne, help keeping a balance between the inspiring super hero aura of Bond or Bauer (is it a coincidence, their names all start with a 'B') and the believability of a mere human being. It's a tense balance, and the character development is rather sloppy here and there. The main characters sometimes seem to be conveniently subject to whatever the story needs, rather than the driven by a consistent set of beliefs / desires / intentions. This left me with a feeling that events are sometimes a bit random and contrived.

The third installment of the movie comes out somewhere this summer. The funny thing is that storyline of the movie, does not have that much to do with the book . Sure: there's the spy genre, a super assassin who forgot who he was, as well as some overlordish organization that is acting according to a not so humane and philanthropical agenda... but the book takes place in the late cold-war era and focusses on lethal rivalry between an aging Bourne and a lethal “Jackal” as well as the family life complications spies endure. The novel is good, let's see if the movie delivers as well.

Coming up: JPod

The Sandy Coasts of Van

2007-06-10T18:37:00.000-07:00

Uncovering of the urban lifestyle, contemporary trends and other (Canadian) peculiarities from a totally biased and nonobjective European perspective. Infiltration, intrigues, wonder and more ...

The weather out here in West North America is defined as that state of the world between the periods of rain. It's a pleasant surprise when the Sun decides to peek her head out from behind the everlasting gray skies and blesses Canadia with some of her most divine beams (please take some time to recite that last line a couple of times, until you got the intonation right; meaning flowery and baroque (*)). But when it does, it causes a massive displacement of large segments of the local population... to the Vancouver Beaches.

Vancouver as seen from Jerico Beach

There's nothing typical Canadian about a beach trip though, the Canadian Beach Experience is pretty much the same as in the rest of the Western world. Elderly people hang out in full attire, hat, jacket and whatever else may guard you from the possible ravages of the elemental conditions. Parents drag their kids to the shorelines to make those amazing shapeless architectures (and each of those creations is without any question high grade photographable material). And any other age category strips down to the bare minimum, to show off his or her curves to gain the attention of the other sex.

The safety of the people who feel like swimming, is guarded by experienced life guards in the well known red outfit. In case one would decide to drown, these people will wheel up their classical live saving devices off the beach, and row towards the rescue in a speedy fashion. Given the antiquity of both device and operator, my guess is that this measure serves other purposes than the good old fashioned rescue. The mission statement of this life saving operation will probably linger somewhere between “good intentions” and making sure “the bodies don't clutter up the boat-routes further out”.

David Hasselhoff's dad and his faithfull boat look after the swimmers

Vancouver has an abundance of sandy coast lines, and many of them are named and identified as a “beach”. A quick look at any Vancouver map provides us with a host of colourfull names like Locarno Beach, Jerico Beach, Kitsalano Beach, Sunset Beach, Iona Beach to name a few. The Sunset Beach in particular offers a breathtaking sunset on a regular basis (I leave it to Captain Obvious to draw any conclusions with regards to the name).

One particular interesting part on Sunset Beach is the Inukshuk on the west point. It's a stone landmark used as a milestone or directional marker by the Inuit of the Canadian Arctic and means "something which acts for or performs the function of a person.". [Wikipedia] You'll probably going to see it somewhat more around 2010, as it's the official logo of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.

the Inukshuk

Another interesting sight is the abundance of palm trees along the boulevard of Sunset beach. Given the right time of the day and light, one can easily forget this is Canada and not some subtropical destination. In case one does get slightly misplaced ideas, just wait a day ... Soon enough the skies will cloud up again, to bring another one of those refreshing rainy episodes. Thus putting both of ones feet firmly on the puddled Canadian ground. As the Candians say: one hairy dry moose doesn't mean the summer is here yet, eh ?

(*) No I have no idea what I'm saying there either

Why it's better here than there

Battlestar Canadia

2007-06-02T19:01:00.000-07:00

The weekly uncovering of the urban lifestyle, contemporary trends and other (Canadian) peculiarities from a totally biased and nonobjective European perspective. Infiltration, intrigues, wonder and more ...

very now and then life grants little breaks which add some colour and flavour to the ongoing daily grind. Like that huge pile of steaming dog shit, left behind on the sidewalk you just missed stepping in. The sweaty coworker who finally discovered the meaning and use of deodorant. A recipe that goes horribly wrong but turns out to be better than the original. Last week granted me with one of those...

The email from a friendly and informed coworker read (paraphrased): “FYI tomorrow the television series Battlestar Galactica (BSG) will be recording an episode two blocks away from Radical. The episode will feature a war zone and they will apply the necessary amount of explosions and other pyrotechnics. The good people of the Vancouver fire department and police will see to it nothing bad happens.”

The Cylons have a plan...

Television doesn't hold much appeal to me. Not entirely because I don't even own one (in Canada) but BSG is amongst the few precious series I follow with a passion. As such, the said email gave me that same feeling many of us used to get the night before your birthday... I didn't get much sleep due to all the anticipation and excitement.

In my head, I was already walking on the set amongst all those interesting characters the show features: Starbuck, Boomer, Six. Naturally they would be impressed by my elusive charisma and stunning appearance. It wouldn't be long before they would convince the director to take me on the show to act out the more intimate scenes.

Chantalle, however, didn't quite cooperate.

Chantalle is the producer assistant and soon-to-be-famous screenplay writer who, for the time being, guards the entrance to the set of BSG. She struck me as a genuinely interesting person. Prior to BSG, she has “done” a number of movies and series of which I only recall the Fantastic Four. And that was thanks to her somewhat funny anecdote regarding the director´s obsession to keep the appearance of a pivotal character in that movie a secret.

Chantalle, guarding and blocking the way between me and my destiny.

Despite my best attempt of sucking up to her, she wouldn't let us anywhere near the actual set. The best she could do was to show us the schedule for the day which I suspect, she is allowed to do to give the “fans” at the gates the impression they actually seen something relevant. To me, it was a piece of paper with a font so small, I could only barely make out the word “pilot”.

Kept outside in the blazing sun... No Starbuck, no Boomer, no Six. One disillusion richer.

Regardless of the shattered dream, there was no reason for disappointment. It was easy enough to take some shots of the outside of the set, which featured a crafty hole in wall and a huge yellow crane with some cameras. Also, I got some close-up shots of the stars' trucks and trailers, which are impressively white and endlessly fascinating. It turned out to be a fruitful lunch break that yielded plenty of blog material and as far as the broken dream; it's nothing Photoshop can't fix.

Dream retained; in the background the actual set.

For those boring hours, when you should be working.

Pulling a Ginger Ale Vagina

2007-05-28T20:38:00.000-07:00

sk someone to tell you a joke or a funny anecdote and you will be able to determine a good portion of his or her psyche. It will tell you if a person has (your kind of) humor, (your kind of) taste, is able to appeal to his or her listener in an entertaining way. At the least, you will find out if the induhvidual involved is capable of remembering three or more lines of text.

Ask that same person to tell another anecdote or joke the next month and you will learn even more for the same price. Still no joke or funny tale : no social life. Does he / she tell the same lame joke as last time : doesn't give a rat's ass to what you're actual talking about. Comes up with a new joke but screws up the punchline again : limited brain capacity. New joke but you're not quite sure, how or what was funny about it : socially challenged. Great joke, good laugh : must have been practicing all month, the loser. Personally I'll classify for all of the aforementioned: I've been using the same joke for the last five years, which I still manage to screw up, but persist in telling it till the end to reap that painful silence and blank stare.

Whatever the case : Humor comes in all kinds of colours and flavours. And as research has shown, people who laugh a lot, live on average a lot longer than people who get into fatal car accidents... which only goes to show the easy going nature of humor : it can readily be stolen (*).

As for the typical local humor, it's ... interesting. Canadian humor features beer jokes, authentic accents and the irreplaceable “eh” as the star attractions. One could say the local humor is a bit of an acquired taste, a delight for a selected few, a niche within the spectrum of specialized specialties... but despite being part of the former British colonies, their former ruler's sarcasm hasn't rubbed off. Canadian humor is quite harmless.

Christopher B. insisted on having his foot in this photo

Nevertheless the mission demanded further information on this topic and I set out to see a performance at Yuk Yuk's.

Yuk Yuk is a chain of stand up comedy clubs with establishments throughout Canada. It's a prototypical one too. If you have ever seen the introduction of Seinfeld, you know what it looks like: dark bar, small stage with a microphone prominently in the middle and obligatory wooden bar chair with a single spotlight and a curtain to hide whatever is going behind the stage that the audience is not allowed to see. For the Seinfeld unaware reader, see below.

The arena of comedy

The fun starts at the entrance where it quickly becomes obvious the professional humor industry prefers to select appearance over brains. Swiping the my credit card proves to be a big challenge for the financial operator and she requires the help of her manager, twice ...

"so I swipe it like this... no ? How about this no ? And ... oh"

Inside the night is warmed up by the MC, a Jamaican girl who likes big male genitals, is happy to be in Vancouver and has a cousin in Miami, she also reminds us of the parental values of having a kid who believes in the boogie man. The first act is chubby fellow from somewhere in the north of Canada, deals with relationship issues, life in Vancouver and his handicap: a (s)lisp. Finally the main act appears, a semi famous guy from that show that appears to plagues the world around: “Idol(s)”.His act consists of random jokes and he has brought his guitar. He threatens to play it a couple of times, but he will only play it on the premise that no one laughs and takes the song seriously. That turns out to be quite hard with a song titled “Ginger Ale Vagina”. At the end he's just about to play it but alas “his time is up”.

Good fun.

The careful reader will immediately raise the question: so tell us, oh writer, what does this tell us about the psyches of these stand up comedians ? Or better still, being the professionals that they are, they cater to their audience : what does it tell you about them ? In fact, you seem to remember certain bits more clearly than others – what do we learn about you ?

Interesting questions which I would gladly answer, but yeah ... there's a reason for the title of this blog.

(*) Taken from one of the sketches at Yuk Yuk

Something random this week: Ginger Ale Something Random

2007-05-20T17:56:00.000-07:00

ast week covered the urban phenomena riding the curve of trendiness. The urban topic will be left to what it was. However there was still some vital visual evidence missing in that file, proving the extend of the urban infestation. This week's update makes up for that. Enjoy the splendor of these urban shots.

As we speak, proverbially so, the blog count has reached 25. Meanwhile more than 250 people have taken notice of all this randomness. Therefore it's time to reflect on the achievements of this little place in the vastness of the blogosphere. So buy yourself some expensive Champagne, pretend I paid for it and raise your glass to whatever you feel is appropriate.

While I have the attention, I would like to point out one or two little things.

On the right hand side, you will find links to other blogs. Several of these are random, I happen to stumble onto them every now and then. Others are from people to which I'm related in some fashion or another. By all means check them out every now and then.

Below the blog links you will find the Infiltration progression map. As it's one of Google's many nifty little geeky toys, I felt the beta tag was obligatory. The infiltration progression map will show you an overview of Vancouver and many of the (re)markable spots in and around it. Some of these are related to blog entries, others are not (or not yet).

Eventually I intend to start a franchise based on this infiltration map. It will feature undiscovered points of interest that get bring people around the world in touch with the local civilization. Or in lack thereof, just the locals. The franchise will be named “Alone on a Planetoid” and will feature a cheap black and white print made at my office. Maybe it's not one of the most solid business plans around, but I guess it beats waiting for the google adsense to make me a millionaire.

Since we're on the topic of good intentions and future certainties. I will be doing a tour around Europe early July, featuring some lectures and signing sessions... Dates and other arrangements will follow, please contact my agent (SO) for more details.

Normally I'm not too big of a fan of this kind of "humour", but the "do you think that ..." line is just brilliance. I just can't withheld this little gem from all you people with a taste far better than mine.

In Fashion For Free

2007-05-13T20:35:00.000-07:00

Next year, same time, things will probably be somewhat different from where I am now. These are the classified reports keeping the home front informed about what's really going on in Canadia.

There's an interesting phenomena going on. It started long ago in primary school going under the names of “awesome” and “cool”. During high school it had evolved and recieved a name on its own, in our little social circle it went around as “alternative”. University would bring its own ring to it, depending on the state of the referrer, from “novel” to a more retrograde “awesome” during less clear episodes. Post university would add some glamour to it: “bourgeois” or “contemporary”. Now here in the northern parts a new version rears its ugly head.

urban native art

The topic here is of course: trends or “the curve”. A collection of ideas, expressions and other phenomena that determine how something at a certain time is intended to look, sound, feel or taste. Coincidentally it also offers a certain type of people to distinguish themselves and mock their not so “cool”, “novel”, or “contemporary” fellow human beings. To each his own.

Last week Vancouver was host to the yearly “Interior Design Expo”, one of the many ways the curve manifests itself. As part of the continuing infiltration program, the SO and I decided to check it out. Moreover one of my contacts in Vancouver is an accomplished furniture artist and was displaying his creations.

The show was filled with all kinds of furniture, ranging from just-above-Ikea level to genuine interesting creations. However no matter how much the furniture distinguished itself, nothing could escape the need for being “curve compliant”. And curve compliancy required that everything was “Urban” and I doubt it had something to do with hip-hop.

the urban entry to the expo

Urban toilets. Urban beds. Urban chains. Urban lamps. Urban kitchens. Urban paintings. Urban television sets and apparently even the stray BMWs on the show are now called “Urban Cars”.

Once the aware of the urban concept, one can see of the workings of the curve and the Urban concept is riding the curve wave all the way. Urbanity has escaped or outgrown it's natural confinements (style, fashion, interior design) and went mainstream. A short stroll around the streets of Vancouver will yield a variation of curve aware establishments: “Urban Sun Tanning”, “Urban Shoes”, “Urban Pets”, “Urban Food” and so on and so on.

Being one of those individuals who's-not-so-fashionably behind this proverbial curve has always giving me an excellent perspective on what is “happening”, when it's just slightly out of date. Sometimes I'm aware enough to see what is currently “in fashion” and on a rare occasion I accidentally find myself before the curve. These incidents are usually short lived though.

urban wall decoration

The fact that I am aware of the Urban concept means that it probably won't take too long before Urban has become “so-early-2K”. The first signs were already visible on the furniture expo where the new “uber urban” style is beginning to reveal itself: “Urban European”. As an European living in an urban area, I must say I'm quite content with that development. For once I won't have to do anything to be “in fashion”... at least for a little while.

Something to avoid spending money on this summer: the dancing, emo-spidey ... totally not urban

Kick Them when they're Down (3d period)

2007-05-05T01:25:00.000-07:00

Next year, same time, things will probably be somewhat different from where I am now. These are the classified reports keeping the home front informed about what's really going on in Canadia.

After these commercially inspired intermissions, we continue with more hockey (*).

Ice hockey, “the game Canadia put on the map”, starts off with singing the national anthem. A necessity because the NHL features both Canadian teams and teams from their anthem loving southern neighbours. The average American activity nowadays appears to demand a gung ho style kick-off, including a song identifying the individual on one or more national or institutional level(s). Because the Canadians cannot let the Americans get ahead in the game, they too started singing their national pride. Ultimately, this results in a pre-game cold war, where the other team is subtly dissed by the singer or the singer suddenly “forgets” the words altogether... oh well, shit happens and their anthem is crap anyway: have a good game chaps !

After the musical or slightly musical start, the hockey activities start.

To the untrained eye, it may seem like ice hockey is actually the activity in between a series of breaks. A hockey game consists of three periods of twenty minutes each. After twenty minutes, the teams get a full 15 minute break. Every period is broken in several sessions that are marked by the beginning and end of commercial intermissions. Furthermore, each session is halted by a face-off as soon as a team commits a serious or less serious foul, the goalie somehow traps the puck (grabbing it, falling on it or any other method also counts), or if a goal is made. Occasionally, two (or more) players may opt for a break by taking off the gloves, helmet and dropping the ice hockey rules all together in favour of boxing regulations.

Going for the flawless victory [cats-mania]

If all these breaks still leave a player without breath, he may decide to substitute himself for a fellow team mate. The latter results in entire teams getting substituted every thirty seconds or so. Apparently, this has nothing to do with a baseball like constitution of the players, but more with the fact that dragging around several kilograms of equipment manages to wear out the highest of the high-end athletes pretty quickly. Suggestions to wear less and play longer seem to conflict with other properties of the game, such as the temperatures required to maintain the ice, the obsession with skating into each other, and the puck which has a nasty tendency to leave bruises when caught with an unprotected body part. If implemented, it would probably result in a pussied-down version of ice hockey, much to the dismay of real men (tm).

The game, or rather the interbreak activities that pass off as ice hockey, are fast paced and highly enjoyable to anyone who loves a good team game. It didn't take much before I too found myself cheering for the Vancouver Canucks and yelling “Go Canucks Go” along with the mob. To 'R's and my delight, the Canucks defeated the LA Kings with a score of three to two. This victory brought Vancouver the third place in their division. The end result is important because a good ranking offers certain perks in the post-season playoffs.

[www.piperreport.com]

The NHL playoffs are better known as the Stanley Cup, an over-the-top multi-layered silver icecream-cup. After the regular season, the best 8 teams of the west coast decide who faces the best of the east coast. These teams play each other in a series of the best of seven, to decide which team is the best ice hockey team of the northern Americas. Sadly, the Canucks won't win the Stanley Cup this year. After a tight 4-3 victory in the first round, Vancouver was over classed by the team with possibly the cutest name in the NHL... the Anaheim Ducks.

Showing its usual editorial brilliance, my favorite free “news”paper, the Metro, came up with the killer headline... “No, Canucks, No”. Nothing better than a bad punchline when they're down...

(*) After various complaints from the SO and Mr Jones, I promise this will be the last hockey episode. For a while at least

A flag for freedom, liberating "The number" [http://www.badmouth.net]

Customer Service - Ikea style

2007-04-29T22:35:00.000-07:00

Next year, same time, things will probably be somewhat different from where I am now. These are the classified reports keeping the home front informed about what's really going on in Canadia.

Continuing last week's story.

The normal checkout procedure in the Ikea follows the same formula all over the world. After the customer thinks he / she is satisfied with his or her intended purchases, Ikea requires the client to go down into its storage facilities and collect the packages him or herself. Once down, the customer is supposed to find the required items through a numbered shelf system. The only thing the customer has to remember is what item is in on what shelf.

Ikea understands putting the average customer in charge of keeping track of what item was where, may not result in the most optimal sales figures as there are a lot of numbers to remember (sometimes as much as three (!) per item). So they provide customers with a little notebook and half a pencil (a full pencil is a waste of precious potential furniture material). This reduces the challenge for the customer to the capability of reading his / her own handwriting (usually only a problem to those who hardly use the pen anymore, i.e. me).

Once the shelf and item is located, the customer can claim the item. Depending on the size of the soon to be interior improvements, the customer drags the cardboard wrapped bundle out of the shelves, optionally dropping it on his or her foot, and engages in an awkward dance to get the item correctly positioned on the cart. Usually the cart doesn't quite cooperate and starts to roll slightly out of range of the customer and his or her cardboard-packed prize. If the customer is accompanied by a significant other customer, the significant other is entitled to make useful remarks about how clever the taken approach was. The latter will result in a very entertaining ride home (*).

Packed with a cart full of items, the customer then heads towards the checkout. The checkout is invariably manned by a collection of bored students provided by the local university. Purely for variation, Ikea will put a very very very slow and not so clever 'checkout specialist' in place that always seems to make a ton of pricing errors regardless of the number of items. The idea is to make the customers understand, there are worse things than bored students handling your money.

As soon as the customer has paid, he or she may have the 'option' to have their stylish Swedish furniture delivered to them, instead of dragging it to their homes themselves. Sometimes this is even mandatory, as some items need to be ordered. Regardless of what the customer paid at the checkout, the Swedish Furniture Empire appears to feel that the customer should be happy that they will 'only' charge a modest delivery fee somewhere between a 'mere' $49.50 to as much as $227.50 (**).

Having paid already, Ikea apparently feels comfortable enough to dictate all the other terms of delivery as they see fit. The Blue Yellow Team requires the customer to provide them with a four hour window at any designated day. Sure, the customer may get upset, but what is he /she going to do ? Return the items after committing all that effort in retrieving the packages from their shelf system ? Loudly discuss the rather imbalanced distribution of interests with a student who couldn't care less ?

For hypothetical purposes let's something happens: say a flaky landlady who doesn't provide a key to an apartment where the delivery has to take place. This very hypothetical situation puts the customer in a very 'interesting' situation as the customer now has to coordinate the delivery through a group of people called the Ikea Customer Service group. These handpicked cream of the crop human beings, excel at being capable of less than nothing, with the possible exception of being in an eternal state of PMS – even the guys. It is an established fact that these people:

Do not know the terms of delivery and will make up the terms as they go, claiming that whatever they say is in the contract the customer signed.
Cannot move the delivery, cancel the delivery or change the delivery location at any time prior to the delivery.

Despite living in 2007 where every 12 year old owns a mobile telephone to stay in touch with his homies, the Customer Service people have absolutely no way of getting in contact with the truck.

Are incapable of solving anything and will pass the buck to departments which are in an ever lasting state of maintenance ('I cannot reach the Delivery Solutions right now, they're in maintenance').

Will offer a 'thank you and have a great day' despite the fact you made it abundantly clear you're day is anything but good.

The fact that any furniture does end up anywhere is only, and exclusively thanks to:

Understanding truck people, who are equipped with mobile phones and do understand how to drive around two blocks.

Very friendly neighbours who own big pick-up trucks.

(*) Note that as far as I know, this never happened to the SO and me. It is inspired by a similar scene of a man and woman buying a door at the Gamma (a Dutch tool shop).

(**) I base this last number on what I seem to remember, but since their price table page is down at the moment I feel I can make up whatever number I feel is appropriate.

By popular demand: a shot of a not so sober night in one of the Vancouver pubs. Two random coworkers show their best side (happy now Lux ?)

Blue / Yellow Intermission

2007-04-22T22:02:00.000-07:00

Next year, same time, things will probably be somewhat different from where I am now. These are the classified reports keeping the home front informed about what's really going on in Canadia.

The hockey games are frequently interrupted by commercials. Nowadays these commercial messages are not necessarily restricted to the television. When attending a game, one will see the players stop the game every so many minutes. Most likely giving the chaps at the tv station the much needed opportunity to leech as much monetary gain out of our attention as they can. So to stay in style, let's switch to the commercials.

This blog is brought to you by the Swedish Yellow Blues of: Ikea.

“Do you need your new house decorated with affordable furniture ? Do you wish to stay in style with the latest in home decoration ? Here at the Ikea we offer you exactly what you need. You too can dress up your home exactly like your friends / co-workers or other relatives ! Come and visit one of our many stores”

I have no special feelings for the Ikea. Their products are generally pretty mediocre in terms of durability and style. Moreover, for some reason I always end up with the products which have the holes for the screws just a few millimeters off from wherever they were supposed to be. This meant that at the best the screw would put up a big fight and eventually gets stuck halfway at an odd angle, or at the worst I'd give up after some prodding and poking. Don't be surprised if you find some “leftover material” in my old apartment, on top or near a certain Ikea item. Some day I intend to use them, unless the SO decided otherwise and toss them away, knowing that my idea of “some day” can be pretty close to “whenever”, the relative of “never”.

Despite these gripes, my place back in the old world is – naturally - filled with a lot of Ikea products. From the good old “bookaåse”, the resilient “bedmessö” to the britle “klöruhkahstingge”.

As it turns out, the highly successful Swedish furniture manufacturer, has invaded Canadia as well. Being in need of some affordable and mediocre items to sit, lie and put stuff on, I turned to my fellow Yellow / Blue European friends...

The Vancouver area is blessed with at least three Ikeas and adventurous as I tend to be, I ended up going to the most the remote one, in the far end of the plains of Coquitlam.

Braid, Ikea station

If any one has the somewhat odd, if not downright ridiculous desire to come all the way from where ever they live, to visit a Canadian Ikea, I can save you the trip and tell you a little secret: the Ikea dogma dictates that every Ikea must be 100% the same, everywhere. Walking into the Ikea in outer Coquitlam, is exactly like walking into the same inspirationless store in Delft (Holland). Two floors, the upper one dedicated to mock up living rooms / bathrooms / bedrooms and kitchens and the lower floor to the actual goods / lightning / decorative stuff and pots and pans. You will also find exactly the same crowd as in any other place: students looking for a cheap couch, first-house-owners and me.

After an hour of looking around, trying out couches, testing tables and convincing a Canadian kid all Ikea furniture come with a real, very scary and very lethal authentic Swedish troll, I went for two lamps, a coffee table and a sofa bed (*).

scary swedish trolls included with Ikea furniture

Thinking back, maybe I shouldn't have done that troll story as it seriously screwed up my karma for that day and things would get... “interesting”.

Next week: Customer Service, Ikea Style

(*) Anyone with the intentions of visiting and staying over at my place: you will get the pleasure of sleeping on this baby.

more boobies

Go Canucks Go ! (2nd Period)

2007-04-09T20:43:00.000-07:00

Next year, same time, things will probably be somewhat different from where I am now. These are the classified reports keeping the home front informed about what's really going on in Canadia.

Continuing last week's story

We were waiting in a dimly lit hallway for our transport to come, "I've got our high speed priority transportation covered", 'R' said ... He didn't lie

Being in the infiltration business for one month and some days now, I expected something more undercover or limousiny at the worst, instead a big red and very obvious bus appeared... 'R' seem unconcerned and hissed: "Run, we can still make it !". After a highly intensive three meter dash, we hopped onto the hooligan filled vehicle.

Accustomed to the European soccer fans, this prospect didn't seem too promising. Any time now, I expected the Orca wearing crowd to sing the Canadian variant of "hee buschauffeur, we gaan je busje slopuh", after which the riot police would surely appear and we all would get arrested. Bye bye infiltration mission...

... Luckily thanks to our commanding presence and the imposing looks, the hooligans remained calm. No harm was done, no busdriver was beaten up, the innocents remained innocent and the bus even arrived on time.

the canucks bus, bringing the hooligans to the arena

After disembarking we had to go through the usual "security", meaning our credentials were checked and my bag was searched. The latter consisted solely of an uninterested quick glance. The contents of my bag could be used to influence the game in any way a proud hooligan would have wanted. It contained a throwable umbrella, a tossable book and a hurlable notebook. Should things really get dire for the Canucks, the entire bag could and probably would, be thrown onto the ice, distracting the game for at least a minute and maybe tripping one of the opposing team. Two on a good day.

'R' and I made our way through the crowd, eagerly awaiting the glorious performance their gladiators would bring to light. In anticipation of this event, the vicious pack feasted on the local delicacies : fat hawt dogs, cubic meter popcorn boxes generously covered in liquid butter, nachos dripping in molten cheese (with some pickles) (*) and eight dollar beers (**) .

the crowd wants jumbo dogs and molten butter

Despite the efforts of the security and the tasteful distractions we finally made it: The arena of ice, the cold theater where thousands upon thousands of raving fans were kept in check by four silly stewards, the ring where fate was decided by effort, wooden sticks and real men on real steel blades ... The Vancouver Canucks Ice Hockey Pitch.

Coming soon: Go Canucks Go ! the 3d period.

(*) After seeing this, I expect no further condensending comments from a certain American regarding our "frikandellen", "kroketten" or "sausijzenbroodjes".

(**) Horeca of Amsterdam, take notice: you can get away with this.

boobies

Go Canucks Go ! (1st Period)

2007-04-07T23:41:00.000-07:00

Next year, same time, things will probably be somewhat different from where I am now. These are the classified reports keeping the home front informed about what's really going on in Canadia.

North Americans in general don't get sport really well. They missed the intention of rugby and called it football. Football became 'soccer'. Americans seem to consider soccer as not that interesting, since there's not a goal every ten seconds or so.

An american soccer cheerleader

So the they took the ball from the ground, shortened the pitch, raised the goal, fired the keeper (why would you keep anybody from scoring anyway?) and called it basketball. Basketball is so much about scoring, that it eliminated the significance of scoring in a totally different way (*).

Then there is baseball, a game with a design which focuses on making as many people do as little as possible. Baseball is the only 'active' game, next to sumo, which features fat players.

Luckily the North Americans have one saving grace: ice hockey.

Ice hockey seems to be a good mix of the better elements of other sports. There's usually a couple of goals, there's active and often strategic team play and plenty of room for the brilliant individual action. Even if that's not enough, players can also decide to participate in a build-in mini game. To unlock that mini game all a player has to do is skate up to the nearest opponent and suggest he had intimate contact with the opponent's mom, wife or sister. Et voila: the boxing / wrestling minigame ensues.

so... regarding my sister (***)

Since the Canadians are so big in ice hockey, I had no choice to start an in-depth investigation into this matter and setup an infiltration attempt to estimate the potential of this activity. Last Tuesday, one of my local contacts, which I will refer to as 'R', managed to secure entrance to one of the ice hockey gatherings: The Vancouver Canucks vs the Los Angeles Kings.

To make sure I cheered for the right team, I delved into the origins and background of the Canucks.

One of the first things I did was to look into the meaning of the name Canuck. My first guess was that someone got creative with the words Canada and Duck. I immediately dismissed that idea as downright silly; given the impressive titles of the other teams (eg the Atlanta Thrashers, the Buffalo Sabre, the Carolina Hurricans) who in his right mind would think of a timid animal like the duck, as their team's symbol ?

Silly maybe, but not as uninformed as the very strong opinion of some bar lady. This induhvidual insisted Canuck means 'Orca' (/killer whale) in the language of a local native tribe. The latter was creative though: the Ice hockey team has an Orca on their shirt and there are native tribes around. But when you make claims in an attempt to demonstrate your extensive knowledge, make sure you are aware of the fact the Canucks are owned by the Orca Bay Sports and Entertainment company and no tribe uses the word 'canuck' to indicate a killer whale (**).

In fact, as it turns out, the origins are not 100 % known and most likely is slang for 'a citizen of Canada'... Anyway I digress.

Packed with some basic intel on the team's colours, whereabouts and ice hockey rules, I set off to meet my contact, 'R', in the Yale Town Brewery. 'R' was to provide me with the right credentials and instruct me on the upcoming infiltration. Instead we ended up eating pizza, meatloaf and drinking beers.

My contact 'R', photographed with my hidden camera, instructs me on hockey

While all this informal chattery was nice, but I was getting slightly nervous about making the targets. 'R' reassured me we had plenty of time. "I've got our high speed priority transportation covered", he said ...

Next week: Go Canucks Go, 2nd period.

(*) Despite all this condescending talk about basketball, I actually kind of like watching (parts of) it (every now and then)

(**) I'm pretty sure there is no tribe out there, because my extensive research showed no correlation between orca, canuck and native tribe (on the first results page).

(***) While being not too well versed in the entire hockey thing, I do believe neither of these players play for - or wear the shirt of the Canucks.

The art work may not be much, but the gameplay is so much better...

The worst Videogame Box Covers

Housing

2007-04-01T14:18:00.000-07:00

Next year, same time, things will probably be somewhat different from where I am now. These are the classified reports keeping the home front informed about what's really going on in Canadia.

Vancouver as seen from the south (near McDonald and 32 West)

The current roof over my head is paid for by my generous employer. While this gesture is quite nice, they will only be paying for the time span of two months. After those two months I either have the choice to stay where I am now and pay a substantial amount of my net income to the real estate agency, find a suitable alternative, or join the hordes of homeless that roam the streets.

Although I like the idea of absolute liberty and freedom, the latter isn't really a long lasting option. With the upcoming Olympics, rumor has it the local government has decided it will “take care” of the homeless as many other governments have done before. Because these actions may be seen as not so very humane, the government installed a countdown clock. This clock precisely informs the local unhoused how much time they have before the yet undisclosed “operation clean Vancouver before the Olympics start” begins.

The first option, paying the rent of my overpriced temporary housing, doesn't work either. Since I need the money to explore all the interesting sides and sites of Vancouver, paying large sums of money for suboptimal living quarters seems a bit of a waste.

In conclusion I'm on a quest to find a place to stay for a longer period.

Effective Advertising, no seriously it works

Sadly that isn't as easy as it sounds as the Vancouver housing market is (still) in overdrive. The average income on this side of Canada is about $44k (which is roughly equivalent to 4somethingK euros, at the best). Common sense dictates that housing prices should be about five times as much (220K), however the actual average price is more than double that amount. So the local population keeps buying, selling and renting places out at speculative level far above the reasonable.

Naturally I find this tendency objectionable because I'm on the wrong side of this phenomena. This being on the wrong side of things, requires me to make trips to faraway and remote places in North Van, Burnaby and Northern Richmond as downtown is simply too expensive in general. In these outer areas one can admire the desolate suburban landscapes, dire homes without any trace of character and the chill of ending up on a socially deserted island...

Burnaby Suburbia

Common sense also suggests that the housing market will somehow, someday will suffer a “correction” which won't be totally unlike to the anticipated Cascadia Subduction Zone “correction” ... while I'm all in favor for corrections in my benefit, let's just hope these two will not be correlated in any way.

Looking for a fight eh ?

2007-03-25T20:36:00.000-07:00

Next year, same time, things will probably be somewhat different from where I am now. These are the classified reports keeping the home front informed about what's really going on in Canadia.

A recent survey showed that Canadia is considered a “universal popular country” by the rest of the world. Canadia cheered and did a little victory dance singing “we are the champions”, but most certainly also “those are the losers” whilst excessively pointing at their southern neighbours. The cheerfulness lasted a while but eventually the Canadians scratched themselves on their head and wondered “but why, eh?”.

As it turned out, no one had a clue what Canadia is all aboot. Since they kinda look American, talk like an American, but unlike America they don't invade countries when the politicians feel like it, the rest of the world probably thought “meh, then they must be a'right”.

The Canadians must have felt like it was time they ended that “friendly quiet” image and show the world what Canadia stands for. It was time the world acknowledged Canadian Power, time to show the world Canadia has teeth and isn't afraid to use it... and last Saturday was that day.

My Saturday began around 11:00 AM in a pub. A pub filled with English football fans trying to yell their country to a victory over the Israelites ... and three Scots cheering whenever the Israelites did something that looked like it could mean trouble for the English. The match was so good, large amounts of beer were necessary to keep the spirits of the fans up. Not entirely against expectations, it ended in a solid 0 – 0 draw, enough reason for more beer.

Maybe we should have joined the ritual of celebrating a lousy game. Instead, on the way back, my English companion and myself ended up in the Demonstration of Canadian Power.

It was slaughter, it was violent, it showed exactly what Canadia at its worst is capable of... and I didn't bring any recording device to share what it witnessed there. Luckily we're living in the Web 2.0 world and sure enough not long after I found a accurate report on YouTube.

Before you hit 'play', I do wish to point out that I take no responsibility for the contents shown.

Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm. (Winston Churchill)

Oneliners and other things that may make you smile

On the void that binds us

2007-03-17T21:28:00.000-07:00

Next year, same time, things will probably be somewhat different from where I am now. These are the classified reports keeping the home front informed about what's really going on in Canadia.

This blog could discuss my ski – trip up Grouse Mountain, just 37.43 minutes outside Vancouver

advertised view from Grouse Mountain

It could, I mean it was a great trip. We were skiing like true pros, or so our instructor told us, and naturally we believed him. Going up and down the slopes of the mountain like skiing was all we ever did. Sadly, unlike the aforementioned promotional picture from the top of the mountain, our view was more like this:

representative shot from the lifts of Grouse Mountain

Besides the dense fog, we had to deal with other funky weather issues. The weather report, as ever, managed to live up to its worldwide reputation: they expected less rain... and sure enough, it ended up raining nonstop.

To my occasional Dutch reader: And you think the Dutch rain is wet ?!? The Canardian Rain is Wetter. The wetness goes straight through your front “waterproof”(!= wetproof) clothing, your body, and exits through the back of your “waterproof” clothing. Hence our activities consisted of an innovative mashup of scuba diving and sliding down the hill.

Because of the lack of accurate or interesting photo material, I will postpone the skiing reports until a later date... Say when I am capable to actually ski down the hill with a camera and not break my neck. Suffice to say we had lots of fun and we're considering moving out of the game development and into professional skiing.

But, as said, my ski trip is not what this blog is about.

This blog could also discuss the new words I learned this week. I mean it just could, given the weight of these words. One of these words comes from the same person who accompanied me on (and arranged) the ski trip: co-worker and full time Brit in Canada, Steve. One of these words is “Merkin”. I invite you to click on the link, read it and wonder how we came to discuss this word. All I can say, because I don't clearly remember how, is that it involves a couple of guys and beer(s). The other word of great weight was "Gunt". I'll leave that as an exercise to the reader.As you can I see, I'm getting educated in the more refined aspects of the Anglo Saxon derived culture.

Since I expect the reader of this blog to be a slightly above this level of male beer talk, this Blog won't be about newly learned words either.

In fact my original idea for this week was a common ground, a shared Dutch Canardian value, a shared source of information, quality news, the Metro.

The concept was to collect an entire week's worth of Metros (*) to give you people an accurate impression of what's playing in the Vancouverian scene. I guess one could say "i tried"... alas, the result is far from impressive. Here's the meager reapings of what I managed to extract:

The upcoming (2010) Winter Olympics are coming to Vancouver. This happening has locals running wild and about in the spirit of pre-fun all over: if the Olympics are having a bad day, it makes news, if the Olympics sneeze, it's a breakthrough, if the Olympics fart, it's cause for a news flash update. You get the picture. Tuesday's front page news featured an anti Olympic demonstration. In unrelated news: Britney Spears got a couple of lines of paper space as well.
On Wednesday the Metro congratulated itself, on the front page, with it's second anniversary. The age fits the maturity of the content. No gossip on Britney today.
After leaving the Olympics alone for a day, Thursday brought the Olympics back to the front space, personified by Paralympian (physically challenged Olympic Athlete) Jeff Adams. Jeff rebuked Monday's demonstration, by stating the Olympics also bring good things (such as an overheated housing market). Britney found love in the rehab ?
Friday's episode is called the Weekend episode. That's a bit of a stretch as one only needs five minutes or less to go through all the “news”. “Premier meets Governator” is the most important news fact according to the Metro Editors. It's not that much, but luckily there's some news on Britney Spears being very demanding and obnoxious in rehab.

Concluding: the Metro is a waste of good trees. If it wasn't for the latest news on Britney's latest burp, there would absolutely be no reason to go through the effort of obtain a Metro from a metro dispenser and wasting five minutes (or less) of your life on it.

one of the many metro dispensers improving Vancouvers Scenery

So there it is, the topic of this week's blog. Not the ski trip, not the bar adventures in downtown Vancouver but an information void. Given my obvious talent in that area, I expect some offers from the said newspaper for the role of senior editor soon...

"After every attempt at being sarcastic ask questions, ‘Was that sarcastic?', ‘Did you think that my comment was clever?'. Learn from your mistakes, and do not be afraid to ask for help to further develop the comments that you find are not sarcastic."

Sarcasm: A Beginners guide
http://www.sarcasmsociety.com/howtobesarcastic/

(*) People who actually are not too lazy to count, will notice only four metros here. People who know a (work) week contains more than four days will realize one is missing. The missing one is the result of the complexity of the metro dispensers. On Monday I was figuring out how to get a metro from one of the dispensers as my bus arrived. I had to abandon that task. The next day however, I was more lucky as I was able to spot a native performing the trick.

Vancouver, T +1

2007-03-10T17:29:00.000-08:00

Next year, same time, things will probably be somewhat different from where I am now. These are the classified reports keeping the home front informed about what's really going on in Canadia.

Time goes by quickly, one week you're saying goodbye to everyone, next week you're the proud owner of a shiny new koe - mok... oh yeah and one year older.

cheers V&V !

This week was one of new experiences, introductions, challenges, wonders, highs and a few lows. Each of these resulted in new insights lessons and raving results. Overall Vancouver proves to be a great town... As for the infiltration mission, I'd like to report the following:

Vancouver is a city of food. There's plenty of it. However, due to the variety of ethnic origins, it's sometime hard to judge whether something is a tasty experience or should be sent to the garbage bin without further delay.

Luckily the Canadians are a friendly bunch, so they colourcode their food. Thus far, I managed to decipher one colour: brown. Brown implies shite in terms of looks, smell, taste, texture and the almost immediate result after being stupid enough to eat it anyway. Avoid brown food at all cost.

yuck and yuck
Canadian is an interesting little language. Their written expressions hang on to their British heritage (behaviour, harbour, colour) while at the same time they flirt with the cooler southern neighbours (initialize, verbalize, mooseize). To make sure everybody knows what they're talking about, they subtitle their language in Frog.

Questions should always end in "eh ?".

Everything and everybody is equal, in the end we all get wet by the same rain. This provides ample opportunity of all views, sides and kinds and results in a competitive yet friendly atmosphere. That no one, and I mean, no one is exempt from this philosophy is proven by finding this super being HQ (i.e. church) in the middle of the metropolis...

... right next to the HQ of an apparently somewhat more successful other super being

... and meanwhile the world wonders: 'teh 5uv0 pwnz', eh ?

Welcome to Vancoover

2007-03-04T17:50:00.000-08:00

Next year, same time, things will probably be somewhat different from where I am now. These are the classified reports keeping the home front informed about what's really going on in Canadia.

The first weekend in Vancoover is aboot to take its place in history. While waiting for inspiration to write a real blog, I'll take you on a short toor along some of the sights witnessed this first weekend.

Robson street as seen from my hotel, the Empire Landmark Hotel. There was nothing remarkable aboot this slightly aged hotel, except it had "Mark" in its name which warrants a visit. Robson street is (probably) the central (shopping) street of Vancoover.

A testimony to the old age of the hotel. It still used pigeons to send messages, in this case my wake up call. Nevermind that this is (1) not a pigeon, (2) I was already awake four hours thanks to the jet lag, (3) the stupid bird forgot its lines, but instead was still expecting a cookie.

I fear no fire as this cutesy firestation is located in my street, slightly across my building. Pay special attention to the tower overlooking Vancoover, checking for any sign of smoke or fire. Did I mention my tower and four other towers roughly ten times the size of that tower surroond the fire station. Oh well it's the thought that coonts I guess...

Vancoover is a Gay / Lesbian - friendly city, across town you'll find plenty of pubs, hotels and clubs waving the rainbow coloored flag. Vancooverian architects try to advertise this by using pink material in their buildings. I suspect no self - respecting gay individual with any sense of taste woold like to live there, but oh well... And no, I'm not going to rotate this picture, I respect its non-straightness.

A ten minute walk from my apartment brings you into Vancoover harboor which offers some amazing views on the surroonding moontain ridges. Those trees in the front of the moontains belong to Stanley park. I was told, this park was once the home to an impressive fortess intended to keep oot those nasty Americans in case they decided to Blame Canadia.

While enjoying a latte special on the rocks and a browny (they were out of blueberry muffins) at one of the many Starbucks, a certain pantsuited individual came sitting across me. I thooght this spectacular display of an extremely well developed case of uber anal compulsiveness deserved a picture. Please take a moment to appreciate the pecfect angels and order in which the owner marked his newfoond territory. What's missing here is his surprisingly tiny cup of expresso. I expected something huge to compensate for something small.

Stanley park is situated in the north of downtown Vancoover. This picture is taken from Burrard Bridge in the sooth of Vancoover. There are plenty of gorgeoos sites indeed in this fine city. Notice that white thingy at the bottom left of the photo. That is worlds most insignificant ferry. It cannot take more than two modestly sized passengers. Moreover it cannot hold more fuel enough to travel say for 30 metres, which is exactly the distance from one shore to the other.

In Holland one tries to make the lifes of car thieves not too easy by locking the car. In Canadia one takes his/her shovel and well...

Stay tuned for more pictures disclosed at an unspecified time.

Rethink music(s): http://www.matthewflorianz.com/

It's Emo Time

2007-02-28T06:54:00.000-08:00

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

2007-02-27T04:27:00.000-08:00

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:

Figure out the transportation system in Vancouver, from a distance, over the Internets.
(Find out how much my own moose would cost me.)
Determine what to bring from civilization.
(and what you can get there for glass beads and shells.)
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)
Call (that last) friend I haven't spoken to yet.
(hope he remembers who I am).
Pay one more visit to the dentist,
(I heard lumberjacks have their own way of getting rid of bad teeth)
Book flight back.
(you know just in case)
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.)
Pack stuff. Pending 2.
(note to self 2: bring toilet paper)
Arrange an apartment in Canadia.
(Found a nice log cabin for a reasonable amount of beads and a camel, don't ask)
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...
Get a bear proof suitcase.
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
Get gifts for the locals who helped me. I heard the savages can be appeased with sweet stuff.
(Hope I have enough)
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)
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)
Arrange for a bank in Canadia.
(Figure out what the conversion euro to bead is)
Get Canadian currency
(Go to the beach to collect some currency (shells) and pillage SO's jewelery for beads.)
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)
Go over tax effects when leaving Holland with tax adviser.
(Make the Dutch govt go for the old “hey look at that”-trick)
Cancel blood signed contracts which cannot be canceled, ANWB (roadside assistance), insurances, webservers, retirement plan, Donald Duck comic book subscription. Cash in Hoogvlietspaarzegels.
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

2007-02-24T03:31:00.000-08:00

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

2007-02-21T15:31:00.000-08:00

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)

2007-02-20T03:34:00.000-08:00

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)

2007-02-18T13:26:00.000-08:00

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

2007-02-16T03:24:00.000-08:00

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

2007-02-14T01:13:00.000-08:00

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)

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

Collective memory ?

2007-02-11T12:10:00.001-08:00

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

2007-02-06T06:12:00.000-08:00

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

2007-02-04T13:51:00.000-08:00

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 !

the Supermarket Slaughterhouse Anthem

2007-01-26T09:13:00.000-08:00

This event, being my first extrahollandial move, requires a lot of ties to cut loose. Ties include the emotional ones, such as letting go of the local elevator surfing elderlies and my much beloved local Hoogvliet-supermarket. No in fact... scrap that. I will definitely not miss the Hoogvliet with it's uberannoying puppet theaters.

For those unfamiliar with the Hoogvliet puppet phenomenon (and hopefully that's most of you), one can find a bunch of puppets who sing to kids (I presume) about all the fantastic products the Hoogvliet has to offer.

The irony of it all is that these puppets are singing in a eerie kind of self referential way; pink fluffy pigs sing about the great pork chops available, and cows praise the slabs of beef below their hoofs. It's almost too much like walking into the restaurant at the end of the galaxy.

The latest development is that these puppets apparently have developed a sense of intelligence and loyalty to their own kind. If I recall correctly, the pigs are praising the beef instead of the pork chops these days... I'm not sure if the cows caught on this new sense of animal equality, since they sheepishly started singing about attractiveness of the (unrepresented) chicken department.

I can only imagine the intentions of the marketing guru who came up with this mind blowing idea, that it might be nice to have animals advertise their own bloody limbs. I suspect he / she must have had a dubious career in solving potential traffic jams, since the only confirmed effect of this entertainment is that whenever these puppets start chanting their slaughterhouse anthem, people scramble to get out of that place as fast as possible.

Hopefully the Canadian supermarkets have not discovered this untapped PR potential yet, as I'm really looking forward to be able to shop without a fluffy Moose yelping aboot the benefits of eating its own rear end.

porkers promoting the goods

Looking ahead

2007-01-24T03:38:00.000-08:00

Next year, same time, things will probably be somewhat different from where I am now. Provided that bad luck stays happily in its miserable corner and everything lives up to what I expect it to be, I'll be in a different country, different city and a different job. Moreover my social standing will be upgraded from “random white male” to “random white male + offspring v1.0” . It's a lot to look out for, it's a lot to live up to but also there will be a lot left behind.

It's been an exciting last half year that has lead to my current situation, which required a lot of non trivial decision making. The result of this all is that I'm leaving my family and friends behind, as well as my much appreciated, highly valued, significant other (for a while at least). In order to keep them updated of all the trivial events and without doubt, marvelous adventures, I've decided to start this little blog. The likelihood of this blog yielding an accurate (or interesting) day to day diary will be slim, but every now and then I'll post a short update of what's going on.

Considering that not everyone of my intended readers is endowed with the same astonishing understanding of the English language, I'll add a short Dutch version for those interested. My ultimate intentions in this respect are of course to make sure I bore both of you Dutch-only s and English – only s to the same degree.

Happy reading