Quite a stir at the library this week. A book entitled Godverdomse dagen op een godverdomse bol (translation: goddamned days on a goddamned sphere) won one of the top literary awards in the Dutch language, the Libris Literatuurprijs. We have a small contingent of Christian fundamentalists in this town, and they all seem to be members of the library. the librarians are fearing the worst.
I buy a lot of written off books from this library. Mostly non-fiction though. Sadly, the reason for most fiction to be written off is this band of fundies. They go thru all the books with a black marker and censor every swearword, every reference to the devil (and they have a broad view of what the devil is), and all blasphemy. Some books are reduced to mere barcodes. Now that this book has won the award, there are fears that all copies will be attacked very soon.
There is one positive. This is just one title, so it can be tracked quite easily. Every time it is returned, they can just check for black stripes, and catch the last person who borrowed it.
I haven't read the book myself yet, but I've been led to believe that it's about the entire history of mankind, described from the viewpoint that life on earth is nothing more than a happy accident. The Flemish author is Dimitri Verhulst.
Last week I posted an entry about a suspected terrorist attack against our royal family. Right now, I must say I don't believe the Queen was a target at all. It was just someone who lost his job and his house, and felt the need to take a few people with him while committing suicide.
This has led to vivid discussions at home. My mom does believe it was a plot against the Queen, and thoroughly agrees with the man that he had a right to kill someone who lives in total comfort while he lost everything. What's more she completely agrees that if you don't feel like living anymore that you kill your partner and your kids before committing suicide, because if you don't see a future for yourself, what future does your family have?
I couldn't disagree more. I'm not against suicide. If you think you're no good to this world, then chances are that with that attitude you are doing the world no good, but do it alone and in your own time, will ya? To me these people are the worst terrorists around. Al Qaeda, no matter how depraved, think they are doing the world some good, while people like Karst Tates kill because they feel a need to drag others along on their path to self destruction.
As with people who slay their families, I am always reminded of that hideous Magda Goebbels, who thought that with the fall of Nazism the world would end. Lots of kids are raised by one parent or other relatives and turn out alright. It's a way of playing God that just disgusts me.
I'm baaack! Been busy doing other things online, but today I thought I might post a new blog entry. It's Queen's Day in my country. Normally the Queen then visits two towns to indulge herself in folkloristic games, that are shown live on national television. This year she didn't quite make it. Oh, don't worry, she's alright, but it was a close shave. A black Suzuki ploughed its way thru the crowd and crashed into a monumental sculpture only a few dozen yards before a coach carrying her majesty and several other royals would pass the site. Two confirmed dead, and 23 injured.
I'm spending the day in a town called Driebergen (my sister lives here), where I visited one of the many flea markets that are held today throughout the country. The flea market was also swarmed by a good number of men in black suits with orange ties, who are members of the local Orange Society (an organization for royalist nutters). One of them was close to tears when the news emerged that the Royal Family had narrowly escaped a 'terrorist plot', saying that he could not believe such a thing could have happened on "F*ing Queen's Day", saying any other day would have been OK, but not "f*ing Queen's Day!"
A lot of festivities have either been canceled or severely reduced, so I fear I'm going to have a hell of a problem a bit later on, trying to make my way home by way of both Utrecht, and Amsterdam. two major cities in the Netherlands. Wish me luck!
There they were again, on Friday, back in the spotlight, the Tokkie family. Complaining on a news show that should be above this, that their name is being slandered. It wasn't even their victim namesakes who complained, it was the guilty Tokkies themselves.
What happened is that Rotterdam has decided that some residential areas need to be protected, and that people who have terrorized other neighborhoods in the past should not be allowed. It's the first city in the country that has started doing background checks. Some newspapers remembered the Tokkies from a few years ago, and dubbed these background checks, the "Tokkie test".
Who are these Tokkies? Well, these particular elements in the Tokkie family, were the neighbors from hell a couple of years ago, but they felt they were being victimized themselves. The media gratefully jumped in to tell their story, which included a reality TV show about their lives, a public search for a new home, after they had their old house burnt down. After a long time, maybe over six months, the attention for them finally died down, and they started enjoying the money the TV show had generated.
Until... Suddenly... Two newspapers had the audacity to create the worth Tokkie test. Which led them to try to very publicly demand that they be left alone, and their name not be used in puns.
Now, if an innocent Tokkie reads this, feels offended, and wants to sue, I mean I know how people can be when they find out your name, of course you can try suing me, but why not sue the ones ultimately responsible for your ordeal. It was them who put you in this situation, not me.
Three years ago Enkhuizen celebrated its 650th anniversary as a city. This was quite an arbitrary celebration, as the Netherlands officially has no cities, but its the only thing that can be celebrated, because nobody really knows how old the town really is. And it could be pretty old. Only last week there was big news from the town I live in, which made the nationwide news. At the site of a projected residencial area in the north of Enkhuizen, archeologists have found houses, stables, wells, and even a church with a sign in runes saying Saint Mary's by the Lake, that date back to approximately 1300 BC, when the Bronze Age was still raging in Europe.
I should have know this, of course. Enkhuizen is only THE antithesis to evolution. If you take the top twenty most common family names in town, they all fit the description of neanderthals. I even spotted a few cro magnons. You could swear that the creationists are right.
Oh um... the church, Saint Mary's by the Lake, is of course a joke. It's April Fools Day tomorrow. I can't help it. It wasn't a lake back in those days, but more of a sound or inlet. The sign really said Saint Mary's by the Sound. Just kidding.
I wrote an entry about Friday the 13th before, in which I listed all the Dutch superstitions I knew about. There weren't a whole lot of them, if you remember. Far less than one would expect, knowing it all goes back to Jesus on the cross. Jesus on the cross!?!?!?! Indeed, that has nothing to do with it, or at least, it doesn't go back that far. A Dutch student has investigated it, and she found out that the earliest mention in the Netherlands that has anything to do with Friday the 13 superstition dates back to 1896, and in English no earlier reference was found than 1869. In fact, in the Anglo-Saxon world it wasn't popularized until a 1907 novel, while in the Netherlands we needed the movie Friday the 13th to get us all worked up about it.
Nobody can deny the advantage of having such superstitions, however. In the Netherlands the average number of damage reports in traffic on Friday the 13th is slightly lower than on average Fridays, which could very well mean, that some drivers are driving more carefully.
I learned a disturbing fact this week. I'm not sure about the American term for it, but in the UK the money I pay, so I can watch TV, is called a 'license fee'. This week I learned that a good portion actually goes to paying to be allowed to see advertising. Commercial logos, and indeed commercials themselves are, of course, copyrighted, but since they are intended to brainwash the public into buying stuff we don't really need, I assumed that we were getting them for free. No such luck. I wonder what portion of local taxes goes into supporting my local billboards. I'd be happy to learn about the situation in other countries, so if you know...
I never thought it would come this far, but here's an entry about the Fritzl case. The trial starts next week, and these past few days, I have been unpleasantly surprised by three TV programs about the case, in full detail, and in the coming days and weeks even more of these shows are to be expected. Now, I am someone who immediately changes channels in such cases, and I did so on these three occasions, but I was left thinking about the very nature of these shows.
Isn't it weird that if anything this bad happens, that the public gets to know all those details? It isn't necessary for the success of the trial, and nobody can really imagine what it was like for the victims anyway. The only real use I can think of for people even wanting to know all that stuff, is that they want to use it as a story to use in playing with themselves.
The only important information that the public needs to learn about, is that a woman has been held by her own father for 24 years, and that it could happen in Western Europe, which we Europeans do consider the most civilised part of the world. This should be enough to get people to think about how we can prevent this happening in the future. Everything else, even the fact that she had three children living with her in the cellar is of no consequence to our lives, and we don't need to know. Does anyone agree, that the authorities should withold such information in the future?
I posted an entry before about the Westboro Baptist Church, and their hate sites directed at different countries, that they feel enable homosexuality. At that point I felt offended that there was no "God Hates the Netherlands" site. There is now. Still, their evidence is a bit dodgy. They made a huge point out of that Turkish Airlines crash near Amsterdam Airport, a few weeks ago. You can't say THAT really hurt the Netherlands, though. There were nine fatalities, five Turkish, and four American. Also the plane crashed in a field, that didn't look like it was used for anything useful. Still, there is that one survivor whose condition is still critical. Wow, it really feels like the wrath of the LORD has come over me. Anyways, if you wish to read the Phelpses' newest filth, you can find it here: http://www.godhatestheworld.com/netherlands/filthymanneroflife.html.
It's official, God has a cellphone. It has a Dutch number, 0644244901. If you wish to call from North America, and most Caribbean islands, you dial 01131644244901, from European countries, that would be 0031644244901. If you call Him, you will get a taped message in the Dutch language, with an unpleasant regional accent, saying "I am not around at the moment", and asking you to leave a prayer, and maybe He might grant your wish.
Apparently it's an art project, but to me it sounds more like an atheist's sense of christian humor. The whole idea is flawed. God is omnipresent, so just a prayer should be enough to reach Him, and His absence defeats the entire purpose of cellphones. Also, one of the things about christians (excluding some of those rockstar evangelicals who want to sell books, so they can buy a Hummer) I sort of appreciate is that they offer you their version of the truth for free (which can't be said for some of my fellow atheists), and saying prayers has always been free as well, but if you call this number, you will be charged money.
If you do it right a prayer can be very much like meditation, which is a very pleasant activity, believe you me, and leaving your prayer on a cellphone very much diminishes that particular quality.
I wonder if the guy who created God's cellphone is a christian himself. That's something I haven't been able to find out. Oh well, first and foremost I just hope it's not another escalation of the Darwin Year shouting contest.
Whether or not he's a fraud, we'll never know. But... what a whiner. At present I'm a follower of the second season of a show called 'The Next Uri Geller'. It's a rather enjoyable show, and you're constantly tossed around between asking yourself, is this just illusionism, or could it be real? There is one disturbing factor however, no two, but let's not get into the Patty Brard factor. There are no words in the English language to describe her. The disturbing factor I wish to talk about is His Imperial Bendyspoonness himself.
First of all, it is a show about mentalism, right? And to demonstrate the power of the mind, you sometimes want to show something dangerous, or else nobody watches. Yet, everytime someone does something where someone could get an earlobe pierced, Mr. Geller keeps shouting, yes, SHOUTING, that it was dangerous, and this is a family show, and there are kids watching... Yet at the beginning of each show, and at the end of each commercial break, the viewing public is properly warned that there are dangerous acts going on, which, incidentally, are never to be tried at home. Do it at someone else's place. If people don't want their kids to see anything dangerous, they don't have to let their kids watch, do they?
Then there is this one contestant, a Belgian guy by the name of Vincent. He wants to prove thru his performances, that vampires are real. His acts are gross, and he works with blood and leeches, but there is a clear mentalist aspect to his shows. That is more than can be said for certain others, whose tricks, minus the swords and chainsaws, do appear in magic books written for ten year old novices to the art of illusionism. Uri Geller has repeatedly walked off when Vincent was doing his thing, and has attempted to tell him off, although he completely lacks the linguistic capacities to impress Vincent even mildly. His latest attempt to get thru to Vincent came in the form of a large bundle of garlic...
Another example comes from last Friday's show. There is a masked contestant whose identity is being kept a mystery (are you watching Geert Wilders... someone is trying to hide his identity). On Friday, a few people wearing masks and robes of their own ran onto the stage to reveal the Mask's identity. The way Uri Geller reacted, I have a distinct feeling that this was all prearranged. He reacted just a little bit too well.
The worst thing about it all are Uri Geller's own demonstrations. They clearly do all come from the Fool's Guide to Boring Parlor Tricks. Let's see if this works, for instance. In my mind I am picturing a photograph of a building in a European capital. Anyone who reads this, post a comment, and name the city, and the building. It doesn't matter if you (are made by me, to) think of the same city and building as anyone who has posted a comment before you. At least 75% should get it right. Even if no one posts a comment, I will tell you the correct answer in a comment of my own on Tuesday.
Even here on JournalHome I have received several compliments about my usually half decent English. I've learned it mainly thru years of writing letters to people in faraway places. My sister however hardly made an effort, but she is getting a lot of compliments about her English as well, and, like me, she even gets the American accent right. How she does it? Well, she quotes Elvis lyrics. Apparently Elvis' songs are universal enough that she manages to impress the Americans who are living in her town. That town, by the way, is home to the Benelux HQ of an international Christian organization. That explains the presence of these Americans. Of course, with Elvis quotes you can go wrong, but she has the presence of mind to leave out 'Blue Suede', when someone steps on her toes. Also, even though she is in a happy relationship, when asked about that, she simply goes, "Well, since my baby left me..." and then shrugs, so people don't ask any further. All the Americans are falling for it. Weird stuff. Her inspiration, by the way, was the movie Godzilla, when Jean Reno says, "Thank you very much", with the Elvis accent.
As some of my readers know, one of my email accounts was invaded last month, or maybe in November. I discovered someone generating spam messages even as I was online, and sending them to people on my contact list. I now know what exactly was going on. I used that email address to sign up for a site, and used the same password I use to sign in to the email account. Someone working for the site has been using this information. I immediately changed my passwords and deactivated the inbox. The cops have this bastard now, and I have reactivated the account, so people can email me there again. I'm glad it wasn't some kind of virus or spyware. The only lesson I had to draw from this is to further diversify my passwords.
Coldcoldcoldcoldcold. Well, not where I live, but the rest of Europe seems to be freezing to shreds. That goes for most of my country as well, but a vast portion of the north, including the place I live in, is escaping the worst of it. We haven't had it much colder than the mid-twenties, while parts of the southern Netherlands have had subzero temperatures. I have experienced such temperatures before, but these past few years, we really haven't had winters, so it's something which I need to get used to again. The coldest winter I remember was the 1996-'97 edition.
It's good fun, though. For the first time in years the ice is thick enough to skate on, and everybody is doing it. This did cause chaos in the train system yesterday, as people shamelessly ran over the tracks with their skates on (we call that 'klunen'), to get from one body of water to another one. There were no injuries despite the thick layer of fog that did cover most of the country. On the upside we had the first national ice skating championships on natural ice in twelve winters, and a guy who lives three miles away from here won the men's race. Tomorrow and Sunday will even see the first ice sailing championships in years.
People are also carefully speculating about the possibility of an 'Elfstedentocht', which is a historic 130 mile race in the northern province of Friesland. The race is 100 years old, and so far there have been 15 installments, the most recent one dating back to early January 1997. It is the number one indication of a memorable winter in this country. No Elfstedentocht, no reason to remember a winter. It's not too likely we'll have one this year. It takes ten days and nights of temperatures way below thirty degrees, and so far in that part of the country, the daytime temperatures have spoilt the fun. For those who are wondering how many days it takes for the top skaters to skate the race in its entirety, the last winner, Henk Angenent, did it in approximately six and a half hours.
On the other hand, I highly doubt people from the Southern province of Limburg will forget this winter soon. The plumming froze to bits earlier this week, and it took the water company a long time to fix it.
Another year over, another entry to thank everybody who has helped keeping my blog going these past 366 days. Comments were posted by: Ana, Bobby Revell, Dawnie, Fightingfemale, JournalHome, Laane, Origena, Sherryever, SilverWind, Spanish, Steve Knight, WindMill, and um... my sister (I'll have hell to pay if I don't mention her). Comments are the main reason I keep on going, so thank you very much.
I recorded visits from the following countries: Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Barbados, Belgium, Brazil, Brunei, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cote d'Ivoire, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Iran, Ireland (Republic), Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Kenya, Kuwait, Latvia, Lebanon, Libya, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, Netherlands Antilles, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Philippines, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Singapore, Slovakia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Venezuela, and Vietnam.
Again a better score than last year, although the page that drew the most visits was a graph I posted for Saint Patrick's Day. That page gets daily visits.
2008... What is it worth remembering for...? I think I should ask myself that in a year's time, although one thing I'm sure to remember did happen just this month: apparently mice have declared war on cats, AND they made the first move. Apparently, mice in Oshawa, Ontario, are responsible for the untimely passing of over a hundred cats in an animal shelter. They gnawed through the electrical wiring and set the place ablaze. My cat is already plotting revenge.
Well, have a safe passage, and I hope you will all get through the credit crunch victoriously. I know I will. Happy New Year!
Switching on my Xmas playlist (which is now turned off) has led to four offers from people who want to help me improve my site. They actually referred to the playlist, so at least one of them must have actually visited. Sorry, folks... First of all, I did it to annoy. I get like that toward the end of the year. I gave my fellow JH members a proper warning that this was happening, so none of them visited. Secondly, I have NO COMMERCIAL PURPOSES WHATEVER, so why should I have a good site?, and third of all I simply don't trust such offers. I say if someone want his or her site improved, they will SEEK assistance; they don't need any emailed offers. To me these emails qualify as spam.
*TO THOSE WHO ENTER THRU THE JH FRONT PAGE: MY XMAS PLAYLIST WILL START AUTOMATICALLY* A word of the year has been chosen in the Netherlands. The winner is "swaffelen". I really don't know if this word has its origins in another language, or if it's a fantasy word to which a meaning has been found, but the word won the popular vote. The meaning of the word, which is a verb, is to slap things or people with the penis. I don't know how or why the word won, but hey, you can draw your own conclusions about the sanity of the Dutch people. All I know is that the word apparently became popular when a Dutch tourist posted a clip on YouTube in which he 'swaffeled' the Taj Mahal, to the absolute outrage of the authorities in India, and that there were massive appeals on the internet to vote for the word. Still, a dictionary for the Dutch language to rival the OED is being prepared (publication date 2019), and that is just about the one word that is not getting into it. Besides, who is going to remember the word by then?
The year is winding down again, and so we are gearing up for another night of fireworks. As always, there is an advertising campaign going on, to warn people to be careful. This year they have gone too far, although it is pretty funny. Just check this site: http://www.flaaf.be. The story behind the site is the fact that in Belgium heavier fireworks are legal than in the Netherlands, and so this site warns us of a terrorist attack to be perpetrated with Belgian fireworks.
Another brilliant idea from Belgium. From the city of Sint-Truiden (or Saint-Trond, if the English language prefers the French name), to be precise. Just like everywhere else, shoplifting and burglary annoys them a great deal, so they came up with a solution: mannequin dolls dressed up as cops. The Mayor is confident that this will scare off evildoers. Now, since I'm spending quite a bit of time in the library, I read stuff, and I've had a phase in my life when I watched a lot of crime shows, and I have a feeling, that instead of preventing crime, it may provide the thieves with an unresistable challenge. Lots of thieves take great pride in stealing things that have to do with law inforcement, and I would be very surprised if a lot of those dolls didn't get stolen during after hours shopping sprees.
I'm beginning to regret writing that entry on those Belgians who would pay people for greeting them. Just a few minutes ago, I was standing outside, minding my own business, when an elderly lady commented on the fact that I was wearing a Canadian hockey jersey, saying that she had lived in Canada for thirty years, etc. It wasn't even a conversation that I wanted out of. Then, however, she told me she had read that particular entry on my blog, and lectured me on how greeting one another would make this world a better place, and told me that if we don't greet each other we will all end up bitter and lonely. I'm sure it worked for her.
No, I haven't returned to MySpace. This acquaintance goes back eleven years.
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Currently reading: Joseph Heller - Catch-22 Currently watching on TV: In Europa, QI, Graham Norton, Jonathan Ross (only when it's on, of course)
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The translation this generates is poor, but intelligible
My top 3 of favorite search terms that have directed visitors to my blog
1 How to tell North American venimous snakes from n0n-venimous snakes
2 Counter bad luck from shoes on table
3 Vietnamese eggroll machine
4 Alarm clock smurf song
5 Pets for sale Sandusky Ohio
Needless to say you're not going to find anything useful on my blog, using these terms.
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Blogthings
You are Sandusky, OH
Loser! You are boring, have no sense of adventure, no sense of humor, you have no friends, in fact you're no good to this world. You are definitely Sandusky, OH!
Famous Sandusky, Ohio, residents: probably a few hockey players, but no one worth a second glance
* Soraya
