I like to consider myself a relic from the 1990s. I still listen to CDs, even audio tapes, I only carry a cellphone, when I'm expecting important calls, etc, etc. This past week I've dropped back another few decades, if not more. First of all I finally bought a turntable, so I can listen to my collection of vinyl records again. Something which I hadn't been able to do for nine long years. Also, I've taken on the challenge of translating old German hand-writing. Someone reading this will know the details. It's proving quite the challenge. The writings date back to 1932, and are likely to be from someone who learned to write in the late 1900s. I can make out a few words here and there, but mostly it's a hand-writing the likes of which I have never seen before. Just take a look at http://www.suetterlinschrift.de, and you'll know what I mean. I have decided that the only way for me to get the job done, is trying to master this antique style of writing. Earlier this year I already took it upon me to learn how to write with my left hand, which is still quite challenging. I have got my work cut out for me.
Another week without any new entries, so here's another weekend update. There isn't much to talk about, but I do have a desire to produce at least one entry a week. The only thing of any importance to me is the olive tree in my backyard. After seven years it is bearing fruit for the first time. The olives are already as big as the pickled ones they sell at the store down my street.
When the tree was first bought the salesman told us not to count on any olives to grow from it ever, but this winter I heard something on the BBC about the olive production of Great Britain, which has been really good for the past four years -thanks to global warming- so I had high hopes. And olives we have. I think I'll try a few this weekend. If anyone with tips on making olive oil without the necessary equipment reads this, a comment would be more than welcome.
In other news, Euro 2008 kicks off tonight. That's the European nations soccer championships for the Americans who read this. I predicted the 2006 world champions Italy correctly, and wasn't far off with predicting success for Sri Lanka at the cricket, so here are my tips for those who want to bet on the Euro: semifinals Germany v Poland and France v Italy, and in the final Germany will beat France. Should you win anything, I shall be happy with a five percent share.
I picked up on an old hobby of mine, this past month. About eleven years ago, at a time when I foolishly believed I could handle having over fifty penpals at a time, I had received so many postcards, that I started collecting them. After the year 2002 however, I started neglecting my collection. Then, about a month ago, I somehow ended up on a blog by a Macedonian girl who showcases her collection online. I offered to send her one, but left the choice whether she would send me one in return up to her. She told me she would, and that somehow woke up the collector in me. I started visiting two Yahoo! postcard groups, and the yield so far is a card from Hong Kong, one from Macedonia, and a multitude from Texas, with several more on their way. To think, that last year I considered auctioning off my entire collection of over 5,000 on Marktplaats (a Dutch member of the eBay family)...
It might just be the sunny weather, and I might just be paranoid, but I seem to have found a local audience for my blog. I at least suspect four people living in this town to have read my entry on those Belgians who paid people for greeting. I know none of these people, but if you look at the graph I have in my sidebar, with the cat, next to the long haired guy with the beard, which is a very good representation of what I look like, they might have recognized me. Anyways, there are these four aforementioned townspeople I don't know, but who keep saying hi to me on the street. One even waved in my direction from her car, with me being the only person there.
Oh well, I'm not about to acknowledge them. They could make themselves known to me, if that's what they're hoping to achieve. I won't tell them to get lost, without giving them a chance, obviously. If they're reading this too, they now know what to do.
A peeve of mine. It's something to do with the radio. Last night I was trying to listen to one of my favorite radio shows. Sadly, it was a clear night on a summery day, so several radio stations from Germany (NDR 1,2 and 4, WDR 4) repeatedly came thru to block out the radio station I tried to listen to for 15 minutes at a time. They do disappear for upto 15 minutes as well, but it became very annoying. I stuck with trying to listen to what I wanted to hear, because of those intervals when the Germans weren't there, but even then the reception is marred by their static. This happens on any clear night following a hot day, and it starts at 9 PM, and doesn't stop till 7 AM.
You know, if it had been a good radio station, I probably wouldn't have complained about it now, and I might in fact have listened, but NDR 1 which blocked out the radio show I was trying to listen to, is plain rubbish. They only pollute the airwaves with what are called schlagers, which is a genre that is rightfully ignored by any Dutch radio station you can receive outside a 10-mile radius.
If you want to have an idea of what I'm talking about, think the music of the song Jambalaya by the Carpenters, and imagine four word lyrics about love in strange places such as Tampica, Tahiti, sung by people who are wearing those creepy permanent broadly smiling faces. They could be anybody from teenage girls to Austrian body builders you would just as soon expect participating in some timbersports event.
To illustrate the intellectual capacities of the people producing this music, I say... music, here's something I saw on a German show which one fateful day preceded a movie I intended to watch. They interviewed this singer who had written and performed a song about the Californian town of Mendocino. He had never been there, just found the name of the town somewhere. The song was something of a hit in Germany at the time. 25 years later the singer went on a vacation to Mendocino, and at several bars he asked everybody who would listen to his first three words, if they knew there was a song about Mendocino in Germany. Whenever somebody had listened long enough to give the obvious answer, "no", he boasted that he had written it, performed it, and that it was a hit, 25 years earlier. And at no point during the interview he thought he was saying anything silly.
The creepy permanent smile I mentioned earlier isn't even typical only for this music. Germany have produced great movies about WWII, and they have pretty decent crime shows, but anything you see on TV besides these movies and shows, is marred by this to the point where nausea forces you to run to the bathroom.
Oh well, come fall the radio will be back to normal.
Blogwise it's been a slow week, so it's about time I came up with a new entry. Nothing new in my country that's worth mentioning. In my private life there were no more exploding lights, nor anything else worth mentioning. Oh yeah, I left MySpace... Well, technically I'm still a member, my profile still sort of exists, but I got rid of my dodgy layout, and posted a message saying that I left, and on the blog there, I invited people to report anything they could find, so I might get suspended.
What's wrong with MySpace...? Aside from the dodgy layouts? Well, how about getting the very same friend request over and over again, to be taken to the same profile over and over again, which links to a site for nude models, just with a new name every time?
I've taken all my social networking activities to Facebook. I have been a member there for months, and apart from a friend request from someone from Mexico I had never heard of, but who -judging by her profile- seemed sincere enough, I never received a single message that can be interpreted as spam. I will maintain a certain level of semi-activity on hyves.nl as well, because that's a Dutch site, and if someone from my country is looking for me, that would be the place.
I think it's easy enough to put a finger on the root of it all. Sites like MySpace, and MindViz -where I got suspended earlier- were originally designed for upcoming bands and musicians to find an audience, but before long of course, everyone who felt like it signed up, looking for an audience even if they had no skill whatsoever: the so-called MySpace-whores, who live there in great abundance.
Facebook, meanwhile, but also Hyves, were originally designed exactly for the purpose they serve now: social networking. People become members to keep their existing social networks in order, and they're not likely to be looking for new friends thru the site.
In other news, I discovered that a small part of the IP range that has been annoying me is actually related to the Snap.com plugin I have on my site. It's just their crawler making screenshots. The main reason why they produce so many hits is that they make screenshots for every moused over link on every page that has the plugin, but after awhile these screenshots are lost and need to be renewed. This doesn't account for more than 50% of the activity that has been going on, however, so my paranoia isn't entirely gone.
A (vague) acquaintance of mine has been divorced for a couple of years now, and still, every year on their wedding anniversary, she sends her ex-husband an email. She looks online for pictures of gravestones, and she puts fifteen of those together in a four-by-four grid and leaves one space open. In the open space she writes: "Want to advertise here? Check our cheap rates."
Thursday evening I watched Pulp Fiction on TV, and suddenly... BANG... My light bulb exploded just a foot and a half away from my head in the eight o'clock position. Don't worry, it was a clean explosion: the glass was neatly separated from the plastic base with the wires and one of those green plates dangling out of it. The glass didn't even break. Neither did the power fail. Still for a moment or so, I just didn't know where I was, or what I was doing.
After the initial shock I flicked the switch to turn off the light, and replaced the bulb, which incidentally doesn't take any lawyers, or blondes. When I had the light back up I inspected the exploded bulb, and it said made in China. I don't know if it's bad karma, but just yesterday afternoon I talked to my mom about Chinese stuff, and let's just say I expressed a certain disregard for it. That's a very, very mild way of putting it.
Anyway, the light bulb I substituted is made in the Netherlands, so I'm counting on it to be safe. If it wasn't the light bulb, but a problem with the power, I'll know soon enough.
Dreaming of a white Christmas in the Netherlands? Not a chance. These days, in December the summer is still winding down. Now that spring has officially begun however, winter is stretching itself for a final roar. Since Saturday we're finally seeing some snow. It's not as if the snow is here to stay, however. The snow that falls in daytime melts as soon as it hits something solid, and the snow that falls during the night is mostly gone by 11 AM. Still, traffic's pure chaos. At one time this morning we had 555 miles of stationary traffic. That's the second biggest traffic jam in Dutch history. The record, over 700 miles, was equally caused by snow.
Like I said, the snow is mostly gone by the end of the morning, but as fortune would have it, I woke up really early yesterday morning, because my cat wanted to get in. I saw that everything was covered in an inch of snow, and as soon as daylight broke, I went on a stroll through the town and shot about 15 photos. Sadly, I still work with old-fashioned film, so I won't be able to post them within the next two weeks. When I do post them, I'll post a link to my Flickr album. And I will post an entry to draw some attention to it.
Here's one for FF. Another guy living a few doors down the street from me who does silly stuff. He likes to park his car on a meaningless patch of grass, just around the corner. People walk their dogs there, and as the town has no rules on cleaning up after dogs, you can always count on a few turds. So, what did this guy do about his discomfort? He had little signs made that tell people not to walk their dog there. I saw him place the signs, so they're really his, and not the town government's. These signs look like they've been designed by a professional too.
Still, he's probably not even allowed to park there, but as with everything else, if you park someplace where you're not supposed to for years, without ever getting a ticket, it becomes a right. I'm sure the park maintenance people will remove the signs real soon, though, so there will be some financial unease after all.
A not to be named relative (who just wishes to remain anonymous that's all) of mine, engaged me in a discussion about nightmares yesterday. My input was of no significance, as I rarely remember what I dream about. Well, usually I do remember until five minutes after I wake up, but I rarely write anything down.
Anyway, she described her worst nightmare ever: she was at the most expensive pastry shop in Amsterdam and bought a big box of really tasty cakes. She brought them home and put them in the refrigerator. That's it. The entire nightmare. It was vivid enough, though, that the next day, when she felt like a sweet cake, she searched the entire house for them. Not much of a bad dream I think, but at least I got a good laugh out of it.
Wow. I finally got suspended from something: Mindviz. That's like a simplified version of MySpace. I didn't really use it, other than to copy selected entries from my blog there, but I must have broken some rule. I'm not aware that I posted copyrighted materials there, and none of the stuff I put on my profile went against their terms. Oh well, it's their loss. Think of all those brilliant blog entries they're missing out on... Plus, I have another place that I copy entries to, and the day that I really become social on any social networking site will be the day I walk on the moon. Can't blame 'em, though. Suspensions are normally only carried out after some **** reports something.
I must have suffered from a delusion this morning. I was awake just after 4 AM, which I know because I looked at my alarm clock. You know, one of those digital things with red numbers on the display... Just... They were bright green instead of red. I closed my eyes, opened them, and they were back to red. I know the mind can play wonderful tricks, but I've never experienced anything like this before. I felt like it lasted for over a minute, although it could just as easily have been as little as 20 seconds. I mean, when I look at my wristwatch (I currently don't have one, as I always seem to be surrounded by clocks anyway) I also sometimes have a feeling one second actually lasts for five. Still, it was strangely amusing. Any of you ever seen anything like it?
I've never been big on New Year's resolutions. I mean, it IS winter over the New Year, and it's not my favorite time of year to start anything new. Wait until spring being the motto here. This year I do have a small one, and I've officially started today. I am going to learn to write, and to learn to use the mouse with my left hand. Something that's always lurked in the back of my mind. It took me awhile to understand, that I now have to left-click with a middle finger instead of an index finger, but there's still way too much thought behind all that. I wonder how long it takes before I can do it instinctively.
As for the writing, after a few years of exclusively emailing, I've picked up my old hobby of writing letters, so I'm bound to get a few good practise hours in. Still, for the time being, the final drafts of each letter that I will send out to places like Australia, Brazil, Belgium, are going to be written with my right hand. I have discovered that the look of my left-handed handwriting does lean strongly toward my right-handed handwriting. Never thought of it that way. Anyways, wish me luck.
Here's a guilty pleasure of mine. In my country it is a well accepted passion, but internationally it's still a small 'sport': darts. Even though I don't play the game myself, I would have to say I'm as much into darts as into soccer. The reason I bring it up is the fact that right now the World Championships are on. If I were ever to bring it up, it might as well be now. The same way another member knows her jousting, I know the players, the rules, the tournaments, etc., of the game of darts. Everything that's important.
This is no longer special in my country, where it has become a very popular game since 1995. That year a Dutchman by the name of Raymond van Barneveld emerged onto the world scene by becoming the runner up at the Worlds. His definitive breakthru occurred in 1998 when he won the title. He won the title four times in one federation, and last year he won a fifth world title on his debut in the other.
I've been watching the game a little longer than that. My dad took up darts in 1990, so it was only natural that he should start watching the world championships on TV. The first game I saw was the 1991 final in which Dennis "the Menace" Priestley famously blanked Eric Bristow six sets to none.
The schism is a huge problem for the game in its quest to become a televised sport all over the world. The original darts federation goes by the name of World Darts Federation/British Darts Organization, and in 1994 a bunch of greedy players decided to create their own federation where they could distribute the prize money to their advantage. The name of their federation is Professional Darts Corporation.
Even though the PDC now has most of the world's top players, I still prefer the WDF/BDO. The reigning BDO world champion, Martin Adams from England put it like this: "The PDC is entertainment, the BDO is sport." Darts is as much a sport as is contract bridge, but this sums it up for me too. Well, the worst thing about the PDC is that they pause matches for commercials, which the WDF/BDO doesn't. Still when I look at the world rankings for both federations, the PDC have about 20 players who could win either tournament, while the WDF have no more than eight who I think capable of winning either world championship.
The rules of the game at the professional level are quite simple. The board is divided into 20 slices, worth 1 thru 20 points. The bull's eye is worth 50 points, and the ring around the bull's eye is worth 25 points. There's an outer ring that doubles the points for all the slices, and a ring midway thru the slices that triples the points. Players start each leg (a mini game) at 501 points, and must finish on exactly 0 points. Their finishing dart must be a double, which is the outer ring or the bull's eye. On each 'visit' to the 'oche' (the line from which they throw their darts), players throw three darts. The highest score isn't as some may think three darts in the bull's eye. That's just 150 points. For the maximum score of 180 a player has to throw three darts into the treble 20. The main significance of the bull's eye, is that it's the highest double on the board, which means it's very useful if you have to checkout a high score. The maximum checkout being 170.
The most difficult feat on a dartboard would be to finish a leg in nine darts. At some tournaments more money can be won achieving that than by winning the tournament, while at other tournaments a car can be won that way. It's like the hole in one in golf. It happened an awful lot last year, though. I saw it happen twice on live TV. In order to achieve that it would be imperative to start with two maximum scores. It isn't entirely necessary, but that's usually the way. For the remaining 141 you must also hit two trebles and a double. It can't be done without hitting eight trebles and a double, unless you're really good at hitting the bull's eye. That's why it's so difficult.
The PDC had their world championships in December with the final on January 1.Their world champion is John Part from Canada. It's his third world title, and his second in the PDC. The final of the BDO world championship is next Sunday. No Dutch players are left in the tournament, but if there's one sport I have no sense of nationalism about it's darts.
To me the main attraction of the game is that just about everybody who is willing to go for it could make it to the top. There's no athleticism involved whatsoever. Men in their fifties perform at the World Championships against teenagers. The youngest world champ was 21 and the eldest in his fifties. If you think you might have to be able to calculate really well, not so. Most players know what they need to hit from years and years of practise. Also it's always interesting to see what happens to people who completely out of the blue gain a certain wealth and fame, even in their forties and fifties.
Of all the holidays we celebrate during the course of a year, my favorite has always been New Year's Eve. The staying up late, which I've always thoroughly enjoyed as a kid. The complete disregard for my health when it comes to the fat foods. The fun movies and TV shows. The fireworks. This year was different. Nothing on TV, except between 10PM and midnight, when we watched the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, and the festive shows on the BBC leading up to, and following the British New Year, which takes place when it's 1 AM in my country. Still, that I can live with.
What really ticked me off is that somehow not everybody seemed to understand that this was a festive evening. Who am I talking about? Well, my brother. That's who. He's the Muslim convert in my family, which in itself isn't really a problem, but as usual with converts he's very gung ho about it, and while my mom and I where desperately trying to cling on to our high spirits, he was going on and on about how sinners go to hell, and what happens if you don't pray five times a day, and which of this years celebrity dead have gone to hell and why, and how America is an evil country, and why Ajax Amsterdam is an evil soccer club, and how in 2008 the State of Israel is going to be wiped off the face of this earth. There was no point in asking him to stop, because when he talks he just won't listen.
Fortunately by 12.30 he decided to go to sleep, so I could try to salvage my festive mood, which lay in tatters at that point. I ended up downing about a bottle and a half of champaign, and three beers. I hate beer, and I've always hated it. Adding to the misery, my cat had gone out at 7 PM, and it didn't return until 3.30 AM, completely nerve-wrecked thanks to the fireworks outside.
Initially my brother had said he would visit on January 1st, so we hadn't even expected his visit on New Year's Eve. I was going to cook clean Islamic foods yesterday, and we had eaten too many unhealthy snacks already to go cooking up anything on New Year's Eve. Just when I was about to get to cooking yesterday afternoon he choose to leave and go home, but not without leaving behind two copies of the Noble Qur'an, and three books about the Prophet Muhammad, counting on me to read it until his next visit.
Next year I think I'm actually going to my sister's for New Year's.
As some of you know, I have become somewhat of a Yahoo! Answers addict. When I first visited the site, I was stunned by the stupid questions and stupid answers, but after awhile I gave it a chance, started answering questions, and noticed that if you bother to write a good answer, your answer is likely to be chosen as best answer. That boosts my ego, and so here I am, a Y!A addict. Does that mean however, that the curse of the idiots there is any less than what I thought it to be before? Heck no!
I recently answered a question about what people think of Sudokus. Honest as I am, I answered along the lines, that at first I thought they were challenging, but now that every bleeding piece of written media has a sudoku in it, I'd like to abort the inventor. This was like two weeks ago, but little did I know, some Major League Idiot has sent me a personal message about it. I deleted it as soon as I got it, last Wednesday just before I signed off, but I really should have kept it to post it here. I don't recall the exact words, but trust me, there is such a thing as an Uberfan of Sudoku.
Now, when I recently got a PM when I said U2 is one of two most overrated bands in the world, I thought, OK, I might take this guy up on what he said. U2 is a band best appreciated live. I vaguely know someone who can guarantee me a ticket to their next Dutch concert, so I might just check it out, and now... I'm probably a fool for doing this, but I'm giving the sudoku nut more credit than he deserves, I'm posting a sudoku. If it's so great that every media has one, why not me.
My rules are simple: as soon as I get fifty correct solutions (only one possible) from fifty different people, there is going to be a grand prize draw. There will be three prizes, and nationals of all countries are eligible. One added difficulty. You're going to have to figure out my home address. In all my childishness I'm only sinking to that guy's level. This sudoku merely serves to demonstrate exactly how deep one has to sink to achieve that.
In an attempt to write more personal entries, here's on that's entitled 'Weekend'. Because, let's face it, that's what it is. It'll be quite an irregular Saturday for me. Normally I'd be online from 1 AM thru 4 AM Pacific, but now I'll be signing off no later than 1.50. There's a baseball game on that I don't want to miss: USA v Netherlands in the final four of the World Cup in Taiwan. Two years ago we finished in fourth place, no let's hope we win the semi-final and then have a go at Cuba for the title. You may not think Dutch baseball is all that strong, but who were the first nation ever to beat Cuba in both the Olympics (2000) and the World Cup group stage (this year)? Yep, the Netherlands. Also, there are two important international soccer games, Italy v Scotland and Netherlands v Luxembourg. I best go jogging tomorrow to make up for sitting on my bum all day.
They mentioned two more sites, Expert Sex Change, and Power Genitalia (Experts Exchange, and Powergen Italia), but these sites are not available at this point. Probably a wise decision.
I once posted an entry about how lame Yahoo! Answers is. It isn't even that long ago. Right now seldom a day passes when I don't spend at least two hours there. I must be crazy, but I seem to have grown addicted to it. It isn't even as if I know that much stuff, but it's probably a good way to give meaning to all that game show trivia I do know, without having to go on TV. It even feels nice to have my answers chosen as 'Best Answer'. I initially felt I was above all that, but it's nice to get patted on the back. I like to think I'm not too social, but I'm even connecting to fellow members. You might call it a guilty pleasure, but it's already way beyond that. Weird.
Right now I'm in the process of changing my template. I'm going for an all black background this time. It's best for the environment, or so they say. One other change is that now most links on the side open in a new window. Also, as you can see I've added a site logo, from http://cooltext.com/Logos. They won't host it for you, so you have to download it, and save it in your JH photo album or the image host of your choice.
Welcome to Web 3.0. Everything you need, all within one domain. Web 3.0 has been completely stripped of all the non-essential rubbish, by someone who really shouldn't have been entrusted to do the job.
Currently reading: Go Tell It to the Mountain - James Baldwin Currently watching on TV: Tour de France
Free advertising for similar webshops available for any serious JH member. I will be the judge of who is serious.
EntreCard members who sell homemade stuff on their blog may also advertise for free. Just send me a message within EC, providing a link to a 70x70 (or at least a square) image I can link to your blog.
The translation this generates is poor, but intelligible
