We ...

... went into town today and came away with a whole load of clothing and I got two new CDs from my girlfriend. The new Linkin Park and the new Dimmu Borgir. Friendly Nu-Metal (though it's a 'soft' album, I think ... but so far I sort of like it ...) and something which can only be described as nifty Black Metal, because those Dimmu people really know how to seriously put on the hurt.

Buying CDs is always an interesting process. How one chooses his music is interesting enough. Aside from the obvious CDs by bands that you buy blindly there are CDs by bands 'you heard of', so you test 'em in the store ... and then there's this weird category of CDs that you just know you'll buy without knowing anything of what's on the disk. You have no clue, you just buy it ... for whatever reason. Exactly what lies beneath that is difficult to guess. There must be an image created by the cover art that manages to convey with an uncanny certainty what the music will be like. And this must be instantly recognisable to the buyer. But it is also very hardly explicable. How can a picture show you what music is like? Apparantly esthetics manages to translate across art forms ... somehow ...

And even then, once you have the CD you have to find a way in. Which is sometimes made very hard by the artists. If you have an idea what a band is about then things get easier. Usually a new CD continues in the same vein as previous efforts but is just different enough to make sure an artist does not repeat itself. Repetition is bad. Unless you're the Rolling Stones, of course. However a CD mustn't be so different all of a sudden that it's hard to connect with the music.

You have to find a way into a new CD, to be able to come to grips with new tunes and ideas and the more removed new material is from old the harder that is. A way in can be anything, a tune, a few bars you can hum, a bit of lyric you know after the first listen and like ... and then you can slowly learn to appreciate the whole album. If that does not happen you might end up with an album that is not going to be played at all or only later when it resurfaces and the time for it has come ...

In short: buying and listening to music can be tricky business.

Now, some people like to listen to snippets of songs on the internet first before buying things (if they buy them, of course). I find that I don't do that much. I guess I enjoy my process a whole lot better. Going to a shop and just picking something up and deciding on the fly. It helps. You get surprised sometimes, which is always a good thing. Cast the nets wide and who knows what one finds ...

Anyway.

Both CDs I mentioned previously are worth a listen. Both for different reasons obviously ... oh, and the Linkin Park CD booklet is full of 'we were trying to find our limits in creativity'-stuff. Call me a bit old-fashioned but I think that it's a bit early for these gentlemen to be so ... pretentious. Come on ... their oeuvre consists of three albums, one collaboration with Jay-Z, one album of remixes and two DVDs ... get a couple more albums under your belts first chaps before starting to talk such old talk ... it is a nice album, though.

Just a bit hard to get in ...

Okay ...

... we've got a busy day ahead of us ... and it includes a dentist.

Now, my teeth are not my best feature. So, I need a lot of work done. I have myself to blame for this, I'm a lousy brusher, and, I guess I have been genetically burdened as well so I have to accept that there will be a lot of visits to the dentist's office in my future.

Still ... no fun.

Anyway.

Yesterday I got a cigar from my girl for surviving in Andijk for another week. LeSigh. Thank god I got a jobinterview next monday.

In Amsterdam. In the former Diamond exchange.

It's a gorgeous building. I hope I get the job so that I can tell everyone that I get to work there ... I'd love that. Oh ... joy ...

To ...

... add to the family album. This, again, is my girlfriend. My girlfriend just said, or rather, sighed, that she'd love to watch a Miss Marple DVD from the bathtub and that she was sad that she couldn't.

I then proceeded to redo the bathroom and look here ... she's really enjoying it!

I ...

... just realised that that I have a picture of my lady with a captain's hat on, to complete the picture.

:)

Cute, huh?

Hey ...

...wanna see my girlfriend being cute?

I picked up one pirateship for a nephew, I suspect, but I never had confirmation of that ... the other one is mine, from when I was a tiny BeoPuppy. That seems redundant, somehow. Anyway. We got one today and decided to see whether they actually float.

They do.

And the guns work too.

My girlfriend shot the evil towel bear straight in the foot. And everything has been put right in the world.

I ...

... have a question. This is because I have unreasonable amounts of time at work to do nothing in but think and play DF, but my frustrations at 'work' are of a different nature ... okay. Question.

Would a really, really, really good christian, like, a world athlete christian, one that could pray for Scotland, should he/she not want that God did not exist?

Think about it: if God is real, the bible is true from cover to cover, and heaven and hell exist that means that an awesome number of people, myself included, are totally doomed. But, according to the bible, there is such a thing as Loving Thy Neighbour As Thyself, so a really good christian would love us, the damned, too. So, he/she would feel very bad about us going to hell, somuch so even, that he/she would like our fate not to happen. Or, so much so, that he/she would feel really bad for us for eternity in heaven.

Now, a bad christian would gloat over the fact that he/she got into heaven and we can't, so, that being a sign of pride he/she would get kicked out immediately thus defeating his/her own smugness.

Gosh, it's all so very complicated ...

Guess ...

... what? I painted today!

Admittedly ... only the house of my mum-law but still ... paint was applied to, well, wood. In a stunning ... uniform ... colour. Oh, bollocks it was hard work high up in the air, standing on a metal contraption and I'm never doing it again.

We did hang some paintings yesterday, so all is not lost. But I have the sense I'm losing momentum ... so, I'm going to finish some of this stuff tomorrow. Maybe buy a new canvas. I hope to give a friend a gift ...

Don't you all want me as your friend now?

Here ...

... is one I was discussing with Suusje today: who came up with the brilliant idea that nature is quiet? Peaceful? Seriously, if there is one place where there is continuous murdering, shouting, pimping, primping, eating, fucking, shitting, pissing going on it's ... OUT THERE. It's never ever quiet amongst the green, green grasses of home.

Even now, as we ... well ... type our birds are singing to tell eachother that 'sommer is ycommen' and that they're open for business ... the chickens are squacking occassionally, and only our bunnies are silent, mostly because they're grumpy. Which is almost palpable in the air but that's a whole other story. (I knew I shouldn't have told them they are going to go to the vet next saturday).

So ... who is the idiot who made up the lie about the peace and harmony in nature? Some radical anti-city fucker? One who did not see the consequences of his utterings? For years now, people have trekked into the wild to seek out peace and enlightenment and the only thing to confront them was the eternal noise of busy flora and fauna, forcing these people to retreat to a nice, quiet, white room with rubber wallpaper.

The suffering you can unleash upon the world by a misguided ad-campaign. It's unbelievable ...

Yippie ...

... Dark-Future is up again. And, you know what, someone actually went ahead and made the whole thing colourful! Unexpected, I have to say. Strange a bit. I hope that some of the new features will make the whole thing fun again for the whole family and I hope that I get to live for a bit longer than last version.

And I hope that I get to spent some time away from DF and do some honest to goodness painting tomorrow ... get something colourful to put on the OTHER site. Pictures are NICE!

Painting is NICE!

Drop in, once in a while. Linky at the bottom.

HoHum ...

... Eurovision.

A softy ballad won, none of the actually good songs got anywhere and scary mediocre people were high in charts.

We had crisps. We were rude. My girlfriend fell asleep.

Fun was had ...

By the way did you guys see the opening? Now that was some evil piece of film. I mean, like, wow. And, you know ... that interval act.

Finland is so the heaviest country on earth.

Not a big surprise if you consider the fact that it's always cold, a huge chunk of the country spends quite a long time each year in the dark, alcoholism runs rampant and, oh yeah ... the economy literally survives on Nokia (annoying people).

Apocalyptica was harsh.

Yes!

There's no Dr.Who!

There's the Eurovision song contest! A bigger party of evil, back-stabbing, politically charged crap songs is unimaginable. Nothing is to be taken seriously in this competition, least of all the acts and the voting of a huge amount of the countries. A huge amount of stuff is already set in stones: all the baltic states and former russian enclaves will vote for each other. There will be lame dancing. There will be a huge amount of 'lalalala' and 'yeah!'. There loads of easy popsongs performed by third rate artists. And England's entry will suck, while the dutch entry will not even reach the main event.

All this leads to only one conclusion: it's perfect for eating popcorn and crisps with and you can oh so delightfully bitch at everyone. Add semi-sarcastic commentary from the TV people and you have a near perfect evening.

I hope my girlfriend is here on time.

Hey ...

... there's a new picture up on the other site. And I buggered up and posted it here. Messy, huh.

Must be the scotch.

Oh, well ... It's a really good one! Really, it's beyond awesome! Trust me. Go look! I'll be here!

*whistles*

Still here ...

*whistles more*

Yup ... still here.

Did you like it?

Lemme know, okay?

Well ...

... jumpstyle.

Yes.

http://www.jumpisthestyle.com/

Have a look at their 'filmpjes'. You'll get the idea. It's a new crazy way of proppeling one's body to music. And it immediately sparked a comparison with:

http://videos.dancilla.com/m/v/int/dg/ad/001/Clip923.wmv

and:

http://www.lordofthedance.com/

I discussed this with my girlfriend and we could only come to one conclusion. In some bizarre Jungian 'collective unconsciousness' way the Jumpstyle people have tapped into the root of all dances, stumbling unto something as ancient as time that pops up every now and then. It's what makes us human, our collective history and stories and dances.

In other words: they managed to de-evolve, forsaking progress for jumps that fat guys at a country fair in Germany can do better.

But, hey, whatever floats your boat, man.

Hey!

... have you ever noticed that butlers always have the best jokes?

And: have you noticed that martial artists when they reach a certain level all shave their heads or at least hack back their headgrowth until mere millimeters remain?

Weird, huh?

Bugger ...

... http://www.google.nl/search?q=beopuppy&hl=nl&filter=0

Google yourself! It's fun.

Dae, from FiveAndDae, linky a the bottom, googled her online nick and came up with some disturbing profiles. As do I. One guy went under my name and expressed his happiness at the death of the previous pope. Jippie.

I want my name back from that asshole.

(Not that I'm a big fan of catholicism, trust me, but for all intents and purposes the man was a living being, you know).

Anyway. Aside from the drivel there were also a lot of ME out there. But not enough.

So, if you read this and love me ... spread the word. After all ... I have to beat the imposters. And I have to chuck that pope-death-happy-guy of the front pages.

Fucker.

Oh ...

... man, was it ever a weekend.

Weekends are usually quite intense anyway, because we train a lot and stuff so we get tired a lot too. However I don't see how non-sporty people live. So, lekker puh. I'm happy. I do wish to invite anyone who wishes it to come along, though. Get your ass kicked and have fun.

We also had two birthdays this weekend, one of our most excellent friend Kamiel, whom we love loads. He's special. Loads special. So, happy birthday to him!

The second one was today. My brother-in-law turned forty and we had to congratulate him, of course.

We had fun. And chocolate cake was eaten. And that was excellent.

It's so weird, I type this and think: well ... that's not much special to tell anyone. It consumed a load of time. But it's not particularly funny.

I need to carry something to write on with me so I can write down my brilliance ....

Rant!

David Hasselhoff has been taped by his 16 year old daughter whilst he was completely drunk and whilst he was eating hamburgers. She was pleading with him to stop drinking.

A couple of things:

a. you apparently can't sink into a drunken stupor without first hiding your A/V equipment
b. his daughter is a geek
c. trust is long gone in the family
d. ... americans. LeSigh.

The things that I hate about this are these: we now know this. It's out there. It's supposed to be a private matter, a man having issues with liquor and his daughter is trying to persuade him to stop. Instead, because it's Hasselhoff it's news. And it will get transmitted to the nation. In fact it was announced just now on the TV. With a whole lot of exclamation marks. And the exclamation marks make it very clear that we have not evolved much beyond the mental capacity of our roman bretheren 2000 years ago, watching christians get killed by agnostic lions. We want to see suffering, humiliation and if possible tears and recriminations and pain.

Maybe these urges are something to think about and something to be aware of.

In other news: today we will remember those that died in the second world war.

I hate may.

So ...

... we went to the DolHuis today.

It's wonderfully situated, old. It's obviously outside of the cityborders as they were centuries ago and that is an immediate pointer as to what the use was of the building in former times. Because people there were, you know, nuts. Or ill. Or both.

Either way ... it was unpleasant.

The show provides an insight into the history of 'dealing with the nuts'. From constraining to endless talking and medicine. And this they do colourful, and neat and creatively. So, all in all, I think it's rather a good thing to go there, for everyone.

Now, for some strange reason this http://www.knikkerbaan.nl/ has found a home there. In the light of the surroundings the only thing we could think of was that this huge, huge, huge marble rollercoaster could only have been build by someone with a nice case of autism and a lovely OCD to boot ... or possibly it's all a big metaphor for people losing and finding their marbles.

Possibly that last bit!

So ... go there if you want to see more loons than there are in a bag of mixed nuts.

Hey ...

... read what my clever girlfriend just said to me, in the shower:

"You're much taller when you are ... shorter."

There was a context there but I will leave you honeys to figure it out for yourself. Or, you know, have disturbing thoughts about what she could possibly have meant.

What, ho!

Tomorrow I will go nuts.

Or, more precisely, go to the nuts. There's this nice museum about the history of psychiatry out there somewhere and we's gonna sturm it!

My girlfriend's pupils thought it was a good thing to see and, well, since we're all a little nuts anyway ... might as well go and check it out! Should be blood-curdling fun ... we were already imagening what the lunch menu in the restaurant would look like. Theer should be sandwiches prozac there at the very least. Or a slice of psychosis. Will tell all later.