An interesting piece in one of the four free daily fishwraps we have in this country. Up until a few years ago, and this used to affect the income of at least three people I know, when you were disabled and couldn't work, the authorities simply said, hey, but you can still fold eggrolls. If the victims didn't apply for that job they would lose substantial parts of their benefits.
The fact of the matter was, however, that in this country, only a handful of people were actually needed for the job, and on top of that, it was a job that required tremendous skill. You would not only have to be able to neatly fold eggrolls, but you'd have to be able to kep an eye on 21 pans that were cooking at the same time. If a disabled person actually were to apply for the job, they wouldn't stand a chance.
Fortunately all this is over now. The biggest producer of eggrolls in this country, Beckers, have fully automated the job, and all the living souls it takes now is a maintenance crew. With the machines they produce 700,000 eggrolls a day.
The eggrolls I am talking about, are slightly different from the ones I have eaten in the States. Those ones (that I ate in the US) are referred to as "Vietnamese eggrolls" over here, and are cyilindrically shaped. The most popular eggrolls over here -we do love both kinds- are rectangular, and I believe them to be of Chinese or Indonesian origin.
Yes, we have it too, in the Netherlands: a smoking ban in bars, restaurants, and clubs. The ban commenced yesterday. It's nothing new of course. Many other countries have such bans in place. Still, knowing the country I live in, the coming months could be interesting. Will the ban be upheld at all? I mean, we don't fight the use of certain drugs, slavery in the world of prostitution goes largely unnoticed, if you report the theft of items like laptops and bicycle the police laugh at you instead of taking you seriously... Why would they go from bar to bar to uphold a smoking ban? If the restaurant, bar, or club owner allows it, what can the police do?
On the other hand, there is such a thing as the militant non-smoker, who will try and stop anyone from even trying to light a cigarette. If enough of those call the police, they will have to show up at that particular venue to stop the smoker. I wonder who will win out, eventually.
Of course, small businesses are already busy taking legal steps, because this smoking ban will kill them. The slightly bigger establishments, however, expect to thrive under the new law. Their income is usually hampered by people who occupy tables all night drinking only one beer. The ones who smoke will lose the table as soon they go out for a fag, hopefully to customers who drink more than one beer. Anyways, those are the cliche expectations that were seen the world over, wherever the ban popped up.
As for me, I don't smoke, and I never did, but I'm not at all hostile to smokers. I don't mind if people want to smoke around me. I used to feel slightly different about smiking when I was younger, but then I saw a woman asking a militant non-smoker for a light, and he gave her a lecture that made my head spin. I felt my sympathy towards smokers grow right away.
Mass hysteria. It's always an interesting phenomenon. Especially when it's crushed. This country has been in such a state for the past two weeks, and yesterday it was all over. Streets, stores, people's outfits... The color orange reigned supreme for two weeks, and some streets are still orange, but only because the garbage truck hasn't been yet.
The hysteria was caused by the successful start of the Dutch team in the European soccer championships. People called what they saw magic, and on Saturday the magic was all gone, and the team crashed out against a far, far superior Russian team. True, it's sad that we're not winning the tournament, but the joy I get from seeing the sheer disillusion far outweighs it.
Take the so-called "welpies" for instance. Those are small toy lions in the colors orange, red, white, and blue, that were given away by a supermarket (the same one that had the wuppies two years ago). They were very popular among Dutch soccer fans, and only last Friday the stores ran out of all 24 million welpies that were made. Saturday morning two women at their store in my town lost it completely when the store manager had to disappoint them. Right now you only have to go looking on the sidewalks in certain streets and you can find all the welpies you want.
I won't easily forget the kid next door either. After he came back from the pub with some of his mates he stood swearing outside the front door for almost half an hour. His parents probably didn't let him in until he changed his tune.
The best laugh I get however, is from the 100,000 Dutch people who all traveled down to Switzerland in support of the team. Only 20,000 of them got into the stadium, with the rest of them pressed together on town squares to watch the game on large screens, in temperatures well over 80 degrees, few public toilets, no hotel or campground accomodation afterwards, and a very poor performance by the team they sought to inspire.
The Dutch fans were unrivaled in their mass hysteria, mostly because other countries simply don't sell the hide before shooting the bear. They got what they deserved.
As most of you know, I'm not doing my blogging from home, and as usual, here I am at the Enkhuizen library, which is a fifteen minute walk from my home. Normally, at this hour, 10 AM, on a Saturday morning there's already a lot of traffic from people who are getting their weekend groceries done, tourists, etc., etc. This morning, on my way over here, I saw two cats, maybe, and a handful of grocery shoppers. I don't think I've ever seen a Saturday morning this calm.
During the wee hours of the morning however, that was quite a different story. Drunks shouting, and singing, claxons, people pounding on whatever their delirium would have them believe to be musical instruments... The reason? We beat France 4-1 at soccer! What a game. Just a week ago, before the start of Euro 2008 polls showed that upto 78% of the Dutch fans didn't believe the Netherlands would make an impact at all, especially since we had been drawn into the so-called 'Group of Death'. This afternoon however, people will wake up more confident than ever, realizing that we have first beaten world champions Italy resoundingly, 3-0, and last night we beat the runners up at the last world cup. I say beat, I mean thrashed.
Now, the team are in the luxury position that they can now decide the fate of both teams in one more group of death game on Tuesday. Should the team intentionally lose to Romania, both France and Italy are out. I just read a German fan forum, and those German fans are begging for us to do exactly that, so that if the Germans reach the title game, they won't have to face either. Still, when it comes to soccer, who the hell listens to Germans?
Now for something important: herring. The new herring has arrived to the Netherlands just over a week ago. The herring is a fish, y'all know that right? This is an event of national importance in my country. The first barrels are auctioned off at Scheveningen, with the very first barrel fetching a five figure sum. I believe a hotel school won out this year. The first reports on the new herring suggested that this is the best herring in years. They weren't lying. I don't think I ever had herring that good. I've eaten four so far, and I'm planning on eating many, many more.
The day of first herring even has a name, Vlaggetjesdag, or Little Flags Day. There's more to it than herring, as you can read in an entry on another blog, that I sometimes read, Laane on the World. The link opens in a new window.
Normally I'm not a fan of all these people filing lawsuits over stupid things they did, that warning labels didn't warn them about. As a manufacturer you can't think of everything, nor should you be forced to. Here's one however who asks for it.
On the late night talkshow Friday Night with Jonathan Ross (BBC), a device for tired drivers was demonstrated. It's an earpiece, that will emit a high-pitched sound when you lower your head, so that if you're dozing off you immediately wake up again. Now, there's a danger to that too, you could be startled by the sound and make a sudden sharp turn or something to that effect, but that's not what inspired this entry.
Apparently it says on the label that it's suitable for drunk driving. I would love to see the first inebriated driver causing an accident with this device on his or her ear, who tries to sue the manufacturer. I do not condone drunk driving, but I'd love to know how the judge would rule. I doubt that they dare putting this claim on the label in America, but I would especially love to see an American court rule on it.
From something about my country that sucks, to something I'm truly ashamed of. We have a pedophile party in this country. They tried to get into Parliament at the last general elections, and fortunately failed to raise the 570 signatures required to get on the ballot. You would think they would have learned their lesson, but they haven't. This week they presented their program for the next election, hoping this will get them on the ballot.
With the new program the Party of Neighborly Love (that's what they call themselves), they are trying to get rid of the pedophile label. Last time around, their program revolved around legalizing consentual sex between adults and minors as young as twelve, this time around their program is based on all sorts of items popular with many different groups. They want our country out of NATO, and the EU, porn shows on daytime TV, stricter rules for testing on animals, a ban on certain weapons, but also the legalization of holocaust denial. Make no mistake though, they still want the consentual sex thing, and they want to legalize the private ownership of images showing the abuse of children.
Anyways, their entire program is unimportant. They exist and that's enough. Still, they're an outcropping of the freedom of speech obsession that started with the murders of Pim Fortuyn in 2002 and of Theo van Gogh in 2004. It'll be hard to get em banned.
I've devoted a few entries to a Dutch TV show called De Gouden Kooi, a reality show about ten people living together in an expensive house, being smothered in wealth, with the person staying the longest winning the house. The show was intended to go on forever, but due to poor viewer ratings (they actually were pretty good, so I guess any excuse would have done to cancel the show) it ended last week, with a winner chosen by the public winning well over a million euros. The guy who won, Jaap, a big man nicknamed "Terror" for all the stunts he pulled, first promised to the viewers that he would donate half of his winnings to charity. After he won, he kept all of it, saying that he wasn't born yesterday. Not someone worth remembering. I'll have to put up with his guest appearances on various shows for a few more weeks, and then it's all over. For Jaap, for the show, for the people who always talked about it within earshot. I never watched the show, but it does feel like relief.
I live in a country that is terrified of spiders. Along with Belgium we are the most afraid of those eight-legged creatures in the whole of Europe. The reason for that can't be the spiders that we have. We do have black widows and Australian redbacks, but those still exist in such low numbers that you won't encounter them. According to the research the reason for it is the fact that the Belgians and us are completely estranged from nature. Everything that is nature really freaks us out, if it sneaks up on us during our daily lives. I'm sure that those who go to places in nature are mentally prepared to encounter nature, but in our day to day existences nature scares us.
I too have a phobia, although it's not spiders that scare me. A few in my bedroom keeps me from waking up all itchy, so they really are convenient. The critters that scare me are ticks. Although I can't say I've knowingly physically encountered more than two in my entire life, they just freak me out. In both events I found them on my shoulder still looking for a spot to dig in, so they didn't even bite me. One good example of how they scare me, was when I was about eight years old. My grandad said he had just removed two ticks from his dog, and flushed them thru the toilet. For three years I had to use the toilet in very awkward position because I couldn't bring myself to touch the toilet bowl. Even now I'm no different about ticks, believe me.
People just aren't social enough, are they? Whether you walk thru a crowd on the street, walk past someone in the frozen dinners aisle, or sit next to a stranger on the plane... It's hard for these strangers to even utter a 'good morning', or a 'hello'. A Dutch poll showed that 63 percent of our population feel that random strangers they meet have to greet them.
A Belgian organization, Boodschap Zonder Naam (message without a name) think they have the solution. This week from Monday thru Friday, their 'agents' will be randomly walking around, and anyone who says 'good afternoon' to them will receive 25 euros. In fact, there are two 25,000 euro grand prizes for the persons who say it in the most polite way: one winner in Dutch-speaking Flanders, and one winner in French-speaking Wallonia.
I don't see the point. If I had to greet everyone I passed on the street it would take me at least fifteen minutes longer to get to each place I go to every day. Also, I can't walk into a grocery store without being greeted by the manager. Sometimes in the public transport system people take liberties that just drive me mad. I think people are social enough as it is.
They couldn't stop talking about this on the radio, last Saturday. An Amsterdam newspaper, Het Parool, discovered that exactly 200 years ago yesterday, the French appointed Amsterdam the capital of the Netherlands. The newspaper called the Amsterdam city governments about the festivities that were planned, but there weren't any. They had simply forgotten about it. The centenary, in 1908 obviously, was celebrated in grand fashion. They're now looking for a new date in the very near future, to make up. Still, it's a good thing there were no festivities planned. The national soccer league came to an end yesterday, and two teams were still in the running for the championship, PSV from Eindhoven, and Ajax from Amsterdam. PSV won. If you know anything about the riots that surround European soccer you understand why it's better this way.
In other funny news that I learned about this weekend, an English woman applied for a license to demolish the home of the man who wants her house demolished because he wants to build a mall on the site. It would be funny if the license was granted.
A small item in one of the papers I read every day: the TV show Holland's Got Talent doesn't get the high number of viewers they sort of expect. Why? Because of its name, and strangely not because of the poor quality of the show. I would suspect the latter to be the case, but the paper insisted it is the name.
What's wrong with it? Well... Internationally Holland is a name for my country recognized probably far more widely than the official name, the Netherlands. The reason for that is that we have had a long and successful maritime history in this country, and those ships sailed from Holland. Holland is just a part of this country, and it consists of just two of the twelve provinces. Even though most of them will state, when asked in English, that they are indeed "from Holland", a lot of people from outside these two provinces (North and South Holland) feel offended when a TV show is called Holland's Got Talent, and so they boycott it.
I myself was born and raised in North Holland, but I usually choose to say I'm from the Netherlands. I don't have a problem with the word Holland per se, but I do have a problem with one of the main uses of the word in my own language. When you go to a record store -sadly there aren't a great many around anymore- and you're looking for Dutch music, do try and avoid any section with the header 'Hollands'. Good music in my language can only be found under the header 'Nederpop'.
What's wrong with music that's billed 'Hollands'? Why, everything! It's one of the most popular genres in my country, but you must have an IQ lower than 65 to appreciate it. The lyrics are too simple, often of a poor grammatical standard, the singers can't sing, the music sounds cheap, ... Still, it doesn't require too much of a brain to understand it, so it appeals to people.
It isn't just music. Every form of low culture in my country is billed as 'Hollands', and people are proud of it too. If ever I was wondering why this country produces such idiots as Geert Wilders with their unprovoked crusades against anything alien, now I know.
The Holland v Netherlands discussion is also a topical issue where my language itself is concerned. I have made the point before that the Dutch language is an artificial language. It was constructed from dialects spoken in the Holland and Brabant regions. Professors introduced all sorts of difficult grammar rules to make it even more difficult and to create a distance between the new language and the dialects it evolved from.
Dialects spoken in other parts of the Netherlands were neglected in the creation of the Dutch language, and so with the exception of the provinces of Flevoland and Utrecht, in each of the neglected parts there are movements to get the regional dialects recognized as official languages. Frisian, spoken in the North, is such a world away from Dutch, that it already has that status. Several dialects spoken throughout the east also have the status of language, under the unified banner of Lower Saxon. In the southeast the province of Limburg are bitterly struggling to get their dialects recognized as one single language, and in the southwest there's the province of Zealand that would like their dialect to become an official language.
Still, the whole Holland v Netherlands thing can be fun. I once convinced an American that Holland and the Netherlands are actually two completely different countries, that are at war with one another. The word Holland also comes in handy when traveling in America. In all the hotels I stayed in, many Americans asked me where I was from, and when I said I was from Holland their faces invariably lit up, only to look disappointed three seconds later, when I added: Michigan. I have such a convincing American accent, that it was sometimes hard for me to convince people I really was from that European country, and not from the town in Michigan, but it usually led to fun conversations.
Anyways, any excuse to get the show canceled will do it for me.
April Fools Day again, tomorrow. Which means there will be another couple of attempts at fooling the general public. Our local TV station, RTV Enkhuizen, are in on it this year. It's not much of a TV station, by the way. Just written news, and photos, but it's an indispensable source of local information, and their photos are great.
Their April Fools Day joke? Well, they aired it yesterday. They said that a bunch of very rare dolphins have been spotted in the IJsselmeer Lake, which can be accessed directly from the sea. Because they endanger other fish, a decision has been made to kill them. The TV station appealed to anybody who does not agree with this animal cruelty to come to the ferry to Stavoren at 8 AM tomorrow morning. The ferry, which won't fulfil its normal schedule that day, will take the protesters to where the dolphins are driven to for the slaughter.
It's not unfunny, but if there really were rare dolphins in the lake, they would be protected by law from being massacred, and besides, it would have been all over the news. Probably even in Germany, France, and Belgium. It hasn't been. I do feel tempted to walk over to the marina tomorrow morning to watch whether anyone shows up, but I might have better things to do at eight in the morning.
The Wilders movie is finally there... Rumors had it that the movie didn't even exist, but yesterday at 7PM Dutch time, Geert Wilders posted it online at Live Leak. During the evening it became impossible to watch it at full speed because there were millions of hits. Large clips were shown on TV news shows, however. The government were quick to condemn the movie, saying that there could have been no other reason for the thing to exist than to cause offense.
I don't know if that is what did the trick, but so far there have been no reports of serious violence from the Middle East, and certainly not from our own streets. Only the governments of Iran and Indonesia have expressed their outrage, although I'm sure a few more will follow.
The biggest controversies surrounding the film have little to do with Geert Wilders' condemnation of the Qur'an. To me, it seems like a half-hearted attempt at getting the message across with images the world has already seen. There really is no surprise. Geert Wilders just forgot to ask permission to use the Danish Muhammad cartoons, and he used a photo of an innocent rapper instead of that of a terrorist. As a result he already faces two lawsuits that have nothing to do with his message.
One Muslim organization have filed a suit against him as well, however, and the government have ordered an investigation into possible law infringements. Even if the movie doesn't cause the expected violence, it will be a costly affair for Mr. Wilders. Even without the lawsuits, he has already posted a message on the site of his political movement, begging for donations.
'Fitna', by the way, is pretty innocent, compared to what seems to be coming on Hitler's birthday, in a few weeks. Another Dutch politician has created an anti-Islam movie. Ehsan Jami came with a sneak preview, that showed the prophet Muhammad with his nine-year-old wife, walking to a Mosque. He has an erection, and plans to have sex in the Mosque. There's a swastika on one of the minarets. If 'Fitna' doesn't piss off the Middle East, surely Ehsan Jami's (apparently animated) film will.
The pedophile argument brought on by Jami doesn't really hold water, though. It was an age of pedophiles. Kings, Noblemen, and ordinary citizens all over the Middle East AND Europe had their wives at very young ages. I mentioned this before on another site, and got an angry email over it, saying that you have to hold a prophet to higher standards than that, but then, why shouldn't we hold Kings and Noblemen to those standards? They equally claimed they were appointed by God. You can't judge Medieval times by comparing it with ours. Besides, lots of people living today worship Elvis...
Every small town, even mine, has its local Einsteins. Ours gave another example of his wisdom just a few days ago. There was a charity march around town, involving children of a local elementary school. They were raising funds for an organization that tries to bring clean drinking water to remote villages in Africa, a noble cause I fully support. Each child was fitted with a backpack containing six quarts of bottled water, to give children a feel for the road many African women must walk to bring some water home. So far so good, but at the end of the march, the children simply poured out their bottles and that was the end of it. Great way of raising awareness for the importance of drinking water, isn't it? Also, with people always crying out, that our children are out of control, and that we must set good examples, what better example than this, ahem? Don't blame the charity organization, Simavi. Those organizations don't dictate the way funds must be raised. Local people come up with initiatives. It was some local Einstein, who thought the best way to end a march for clean drinking water, was to simply waste it.
The topical issue this week: what a comedian can and cannot say. On Tuesday, audience members walked out of a show by Dutch comedian Micha Wertheim, after he purportedly offended a handicapped man and reduced him to tears. The owner of the theater where all this unfolded reacted furiously and banned Micha Wertheim from performing there indefinitely. This in turn angered a good portion of this country's most popular comedians, who say they have taken the theater of their list indefinitely.
Regardless of what Micha Wertheim might have said, I think the theater owner over-reacted. The jokes couldn't have been much worse that those of Archie Bunker, and nobody ever protested the reruns of that show. Besides, there has been some evidence that this lady doesn't even know what has been said.
From what I have heard, the following happened. Micha Wertheim was performing to a darkened room. He saw a light that resembled a cell phone display, and that upset him, the way any performer has a right to be upset at someone disrupting the show by calling on the cell phone or even using it to film. He was decent enough to ask what it was all about, and it turned out to be the display of the wheelchair which the man needed to communicate with the person who escorted him.
Later on in the show, Micha Wertheim had a section of jokes about the handicapped, and apparently the man in the wheelchair couldn't take it any longer, started to cry, and left the room. This angered the crowd, and a good portion of them booed and left as well.
Now, this was Micha Wertheim's second show, and the first one has been on TV a whopping three times. Anybody who had bothered to watch that would have known that his jokes can be really crude when taken for what they are, but when you see the context of the entire show, they are just really brilliant gems of irony and satire. That's one of the problems with Dutch comedy these days. It's really hyped up, and people will jump at every opportunity to see a show, without looking into who it is they are going to see. The man in the wheelchair could have known what he was in for.
Plus, the fact that Mr. Wertheim saw the display light to me renders all other arguments invalid. If you're going to a show you have no business fumbling with cellphones etc. It's just annoying to your fellow spectators.
Still, I don't think it should be forbidden. Any comedian who is any good, just should be allowed to deal with it in an appopriate way, the same way I think heckling should not be forbidden. Apparently in America it is, and American comedians have become too sensitive about THAT. In fact they seem to have forgotten about how to deal with hecklers. I've heard this story from England, and they've assured me it's true. An American comedian was doing his routine, and someone started heckling him. So, the comedian said something to this effect, "I warn you, don't heckle me. The last time someone heckled me was September 10, 2001, and they both died in the World Trade Center". The heckler simply countered him, saying, "I'll take my chances."
This country is sinking ever lower. Apparently it has become perfectly decent behavior to just call the authorities on people you think do something wrong. Of course, if you know someone is a lowlife pedophile who preys on children, your own children might depend on your going to the cops, but the people most affected by the tale telling I am talking about here are pensioners. We too have old age benefits, and here too it's not quite enough. If you live alone you receive more money, than if you live together with a partner, and some people simply don't tell anyone when they do move in together. Sure, it's against the law but calling the authorities behind someone's back over this... If the authorities don't know about this with all the surveillance measures at their disposal, they don't deserve to know.
It doesn't stop there though. We have snitch hotlines for lots of things, and people are actually using them. Of course there are a few that really do matter, like the ones for reporting animal abuse, child abuse (lives depend on those), but most of these are for things that really don't need any kind of anonimity.
Why, if you suspect someone of illegally copying software, shouldn't you just go to the police, and have them file your name when you report the offense? If you call the hotline you simply name the company and tell what they're doing, and they'll have the copyright gestapo on their backs. Of course copyrights should be protected, but any organization who jump with such force at anonymous tips can only be likened to the Gestapo.
Anonimity also offers the opportunity to file false reports, which are then investigated. That costs time which could have been used to investigate real crimes, while innocent people do get in trouble. Take divorced parents for instance who can easily have the cops sent to each other. Kids are taken away during the investigation. Neighbors see this and start to talk, etc... I could name other examples.
We do have a horrible precedent in this country. In World War II the country that relatively gave away most Jewish people to the Germans was mine.
With your brand new Kia, I mean? A handful of wayward boys were arrested last week for vandalism. Apparently, they vandalized dozens of cars by kicking them from behind. The common denominator you ask? Well, they weren't in fact Kias, but they were Ford Kas. Apparently they decided that Ka must have been the abbreviation of "Kick Ass", and so that's what they did. We do have, however, a bad case of a thing I call the copycat syndrome in this country, so I wouldn't be surprised if new juvies stood up, and took over from where the others were arrested. And those geniuses might just decide that Kia means "Kick Its Ass". If I can come up with that...
It could have been part of some weird dream I might have had this morning, but I'm pretty sure I was awake. I won't double check the story, because if it turned out it was a dream, there's no entry for me to post. If my memory serves me right, as soon as I felt I was awake I switched on my radio. The first thing I heard was a story from the city of Tilburg, which I think is one of the ten biggest in this country.
We all know how dogshit annoys people, and how some cities require you to clean up after your dog. Some people throw common decency out the window as soon as it becomes a government order. The Socialist Party have come up with an idea to put a stop to these enemies of the state: they want to store DNA records of all dogs into one big database, and when someone stumbles upon, or rather steps into, canine droppings, they are to alert the authorities. Inspectors will step in, run DNA tests, and then fine the owners.
Now, this is the Socialist Party, and we all know how socialist regimes were known for their oppression. It is just a local chapter, but the party are the third biggest in our national parliament, and even at local level they're not known for doing anything without the approval from the national leadership. Also, within the lifespan of our present government -the SP aren't in it, but they're the largest opposition party- I expect to hear the government discussing oppressive measures, such as a fingerprint database for all Dutch residents, freely accessible to the authorities (they're really big on that), and 'electronic child dossiers' which include every little piece of available information on every child, from performances in school, medical records, social situations, etc., for the sole purpose of evaluating each child's risk of becoming a criminal.
Still, let them go thru with it if they feel they must, at least on a Tilburg level. The normal fine for this offense would be about $60, and if it's more than I expect, it certainly won't be more than $100. If they have to run DNA tests to track dog owners, I expect that that would cost a bit more than that. I don't think any court will uphold it, if they decide to include the extra costs within the fine. They'll just as soon be run out of the city for wasting the city's money.
Sunday night's the night. Christian groups are still trying to stop it from happening with prayer marathons, but they don't stand a chance. Deep Throat, the popular porn flick from the 1970's will be aired on Dutch television. On public television. That we all pay a fee for to support. On the whole, if they feel they MUST air porn, and they do so in the middle of the night, I will just ignore it, but not in this case. I feel I must speak out against it. From what I've seen and read from the 'star' of the movie, nom-de-plume Linda Lovelace, she was forced to play in the movie, and therefore it constitutes rape. I wonder how many people are going to watch, but I won't.
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