I ...

... am wearing my new shirt. It's been brought from overseas by my doting parents. It's a Metallica shirt. It's got the word Metallica on, not a big surprise there, but it's in hebrew. And it makes me giggle for some reason. They managed to shape the hebrew letters accordingly, so there are sharp edges on it like the 'a' and 'm' in the original. It's funny.

Also, a skull. One must have a skull. It's not a good metal shirt without disturbing imagery.

I like metal shirts. It's fun to support your favourite bands, it shows something about you and it's colourful. Casual. Playful, even. Not boring, at least. I think that the t-shirt as a means of expression manages to help people recognise likeminded people. One might consider it uniform or infantile but to me it's an amusing way of seeing something of people. I also think there are subtle clues to someone's social standing in the shirt people wear, aside from the obvious conclusions one can draw about a person's hang-outs or hang-ups. Ancienty is expressed through the shirts age, obscurity and other content. How this exactly works, I do not know. But it's fun.

Also: I wrote this accompanied by katie Melua and Heather Nova, so shirts can be majorleague misleading too. Which is actually part of the appeal.

Yesterday ...

... I received the last gift for my birthday! We got to ... play with them big birds!

We set out somewhere around 11.30 for Berkel/Roderijs, or something. Immediately we got terribly stuck in traffic so that turned out to be rather tense but everything cleared up quite styllishly and we could get on our way! Yay! We arrived, got herded into a barn and a lovely lady started to give a short talk about the history of playing with birds and she showed us a couple of cute owls and a falcon (whom we all believed to be stuffed ... until it moved) ... then we got shown all the birds they have there . And they have loads. Owls, hawks, eagles, kukaboora, pelicans, vultures, storks ... loads. Loads and loads and loads. Afterwards we were shown how to play with a falcon and how to make a falconer's knot ...

And then we got to meet and greet the main stars of the show. Each one of the group (about 34 people) got the chance to have several birds delicately placed on his or her arm so you could have a chat and get to see them up close and personal and stuff. What it amounts to is that you get to appreciate the magnificence of a wonderful, powerful bird and it gets to pointedly ignore as hard as it can. Which is sort of funny. Grumpy owls that won't look at you and stuff like that. Highly amusing. We only got to seriously touch one bird (whose make and model we seem to have forgotten but which went by the ill-gotten name of Pino ...) because the otherwise we'd ruin the feathers of the birds. They wouldn't be water-tight otherwise. And that was hard, at times, because they look very sweet and soft and very nice to touch. Especially the barn owl (my favourite) which just looks like a tiny puff of cotton.

After we appreciated how very heavy these birds actually are we then got to see them in action ping-ponging them between two groups of people. We got to see them fly. They got bits of chicken. Seemed like a fair trade. After a while, though, the birds got a bit stuffed and were really unwilling to fly anymore. Which was funny in and of itself. You got almost see the birds calculating the benefits of another flight. And nearly decide to give it all up to go inside and get a cuppa.

To end the day the lady played with het falcon for a bit and with a vulture (who are really mean and vicious and we love them).

We ate at a Van Der Valk's. (That's only funny to dutch people). Next to the Avifauna.

So all in all ... we were happy!

Still am, actually ...

There's ...

... this evening with loads of music documentaries on tonight. About everything. It's fun. And amazing. It, however, leaves me with serious issues vis-a-vis certain genres.

Really, what was punk good for?

It inspired some people, sure, some great artists even, but, in and of itself, really ... it just brought forth one good song, right? Seriously, there isn't really a film reel somewhere with The 50 Greatest Moments From Punk?

And what is it with R&B and Urban and Dance? Can there be a more vapid genre ever? It's saying nothing, has no meaning and sells millions. Music for the "Idols" generation ...

Oh dear ... what a load of bollocks is out there. Thank god for a cute documentary about metal. Although I seriously question how they focused on one thing and completely ignored other things. They showed some Black Sabbath, some Maiden, some Priest, some Motley Crue and they ended with Metallica.

Metallica is a BEGINNING! After that there is ... so much more. Heavier, harder, faster ... slower. More evil. Don't just suddenly stop. Continue.

Anyway.

I challenge anyone to come up with a moment that really spiritually MOVES them in dance music. Seriously.

Ohhhh ....

One of those programmes, I have to tell you this, had a lady, lovely lady, name's Caitlin Moran, real smart and fun and pretty, and, anyway, she killed Curt Kobain.

She was 18 and wrote for Melody Maker, which was something that Kobain read in rehab. In it was an interview Moran had held with Courtney Love and in it Love stated that Billy Corgan from the Smashing Pumpkins (shit band) was great in bed. Apparently Kobain took that as a sign that Love would leave him for Corgan and this made him walk out of rehab. And then he shot himself.

So, Moran can be stated to have helped kill a spokesperson for a generation.

Good story but not one she ought to tell often in Seattle I feel.

So ...

... grabbing some down time.

It's fairly lively working here, now, and this is good. One musn't be too bored. Especially since it seems I shall be participating in training my replacement somewhere next month.

Oh joy.

I had hoped to skip that. Unfortunately there seems to be no skipping it. When will people realize that if I wanted to teach people stuff I would have become a teacher. Seriously. It's in the name, even: teach ... teacher. Teach ... er. Me ... NOT teach ... er.

How hard can it be, I wonder.

Last friday I had the ... pleasure ... to be crunched up once again by a chiropractor. Interesting experience, as always, because there's a strange man manipulating your body in ways I do not even expect from my girlfriend, you know, when we're 'intimate' (=fucking like rabbits). Squeemishness on that subject aside, it seems that I have been using my feet not so much as was intended by evolution but rather as flippers. In other words, I should walk and sit with my feet more forward. And I should stand more 'dynamically'. that was a bit of a puzzle to be honest: stand ... dynamically. I'm still not completely sure what that entails but I'm ensured that it's all for the good of Gavinkind and as such I'll happily sail along on the waves of undulating limbs, that is my body, in the hands of a very tall, very thin chiropractor.

All this, by the way, in order for me to have more relaxed muscles. Apparently mine are a bit too tense. Not exactly news, because I have been hearing that for ... I don't know, 15 years or something. But now we're doing something about it.

In short: I need to chill.

I can do that. I'm so cool, you can keep a side of beef fresh in me for 15 days. I think at least that that was the quote.

Yesterday was fun too, with a minor migraine, most likely due to the fact that my limbs had been ransacked by the aforementioned chirocracker. ANyway. Spent a good deal of the time drugged and weird. Unfortunately i was sort of unable to help my girlfriend adequately with her issues at work. I did come up with one solution: name her Queen Of School. That way she can make a decision and yell 'of with thier heads' if people misbehave. Sort of the job of her boss, but since he's not doing it, or rather: doing it stupidly, I really see no other way than to name Suus Queen Of Hearts And School. Enemies Of The Suus Beware: The Secret Chamber Has Been Opened. Be nice or be attacked by angry golden retriever pups.

Or something.

We could transform her school into Hogwarts and let a few people disappear during Quidditch!

I also got my girl to take mugshots of the bastards in her class. Just to make my life easier: if now she talks about someone I can see precisely which little brat she's referencing. It will help com-mu-ni-ca-tion between us, since i suck at remembering names and really rarely forget a face. Plus, when they've all growed up and are, like, 18 or so we can look back on these pictures and be nostalgic about them. We can say stuff like: 'remember when Zeeger didn't know the meaning of the word 'sex'?'

Looking forward to those days.

Yesterday ...

... I trained. In and of itself that is not such a rare occurance. My girl thinks I train a bit too much. To which my standard reply is always: 'shut up woman, you're breaking my concentration! I'm doing push-ups!'

Well, not really. But, you know, like ...

Anyway.

yesterday. Mark joined me in some training. He attempted to a while ago but had to quit training for a few months due to an as yet unexplained shoulder injury. He is one eager puppy, of equal 'rank' as myself, so it was sort of anticipated to be fun.

Boy, was he eager. Sitting still obviously is not good for his energy levels. Or: very good, depends on how you look at it. We had a spirited training much heftier than my usual wednesday fare. I'm a bit bruised now. But it was fun. Fun to finally learn new stuff, fun to have semi-intelligent conversations about techniques and fun to beat eachother rather senseless and stuff. I'll go on record and state that he's a tat better than me, also a load different from me in style and ideas ...

In short: fun was had, hope to repeat it soonish.

I ...

... have this thing for shoes.

One type of shoe, actually.

Ever since I got my first pair of Nomads when I was 15 in Namen, (Belgium)(pretty landscape, bitch to get there)(bitch to get there by boat, that is), I have been in love with strong hiking boots. Really big ones. You see, there's categories, and they have letters

A is the average walking shoe. B is the walking shoe for slightly hillier circumstances. C is an actual climbing shoe. D is for Everest. they are cool and totally impractical. Metal plate in the sole, that sort of thing.

My favourites are hybrid B/C shoes. Heavy shoes that will be able to negotiate any terrain and can often, if so desired, be outfitted with climbing irons.

Not that I actually need these shoes, though. I never venture into the mountains and all the walking I do is in the city. But I just love the feel of a heavy shoe on my legs. When they're new you're in absolute pain because they don't bend and you figure you made a mistake and that you'll never break them in but slowly you get used to them and they get used to you and before you know it you're three years on and they're totally fit for you to live in and you just love them.

But, as with all things this relationship too comes to an end. The sole will be worn down until it's flat. The edges start to crack. The inside begins to tear at the heal. The inlay begins to tear.

It's always a painful process to seperate from your shoes ... and I'm still debating whether I should step out of my current pair. I'm not sure yet. I'm totally comfortable with my shoes and right now ... I just don't know yet. To add to this, my left shoe has a piece of christmas decoration from three years ago, from when I surprised my girlfriend by changing the apartment into a christmas-y affair whilst she was at school, including 5 christmas trees and gifts. I decorated everything. As well as my shoes.

I love my shoes.

At ...

... work!

Sort of.

Anyway. I just got funnily threatened by a 50 something colleague of mine, in Amsterdam-speak. It was ... weird.

I wanted to make mention of the fact that I think that music today is so safe and harmless. But then I posted it on FiveAndDae and I can't be arsed right now to re-type the thing besides the obvious statement: where has the riot gone? It's all so ... flat these days. And nice. And safe. In ancient times (yes, before the invention of the CD!) there at least were things that caused a stirr. And today popular music is a lot like the dutch landscape: incredibly flat. With the occassional windmill. And some cows.

Thank god for metal. At least that manages to kick some ass. Even if no one gets excited about it anymore and starts calling it the devil's music. Which always makes me laugh, a little.

Tipper Gore, by the way, is a BITCH.

I ...

... just received an e-mail. In and of itself, not such a special occurance. However, this was directed at the whole department where I work. It laid out some nice ideas to help us reduce the amount of greenhouse gasses we produce.

In this message, in all seriousness, was this:

Eat meat replacements in stead of meat.
Drink soy milk in stead of cow milk.
Stop eating beans.

Apparently I'm not allowed to fart because of the environment. Now, I like the environment. But I do not like to be told what to eat. And soy milk is just the other side of totally undrinkable anyway. Besides ... what havoc would all of us actually doing what he suggests cause?

As Dae pointed out, my wishlist for this year was sunk rather rappidly. I saw 'em all, even some I had forgotten about. Also, my girlfriend took a fiendish delight in showing me all their ruddy faces on day 1 of the new year so that tanked.

AND there's a new show in which they're going to search for a replacement uri Gellar. As if the first one was used up, already.

Geez'.

Fuckers.

From ...

... all of us here at BeoPuppy inc. a happy new year to you and yours ...

And now, without much ado, a list of people who I do not wish to see ever again in 2008.

The Hilton sisters. Youthful delinquents who should be in jail because of their arrogance.
Spears, b. I want her to drop out and get her life together. Afterwards, if she can be a nice girl, we'll see whether she can play again.
Carlo&Irene. Crimes against humanity.
Gordon. Only person on the planet who thinks it cool to tell a young hopeful Idol's contestant that it should be shot.
Idol's contestants. Tempting to type: 'because they need to be shot' but, you know .... mainly because I'm bored with mainstream no risk evil music. Cobain died for your sins.
Wendy van Dijk. Enough with the angelical thing already.
Oprah. Unless she suddenly and inexplicably starts creating quality TV.
Dr.Phil. You cannot solve things with integrity AND be on TV. As soon as you are on TV you're dealing with ratings and numbers. So, the issues aren't the only issues. Bad shrink, bad shrink!
Xander ... almost forgot about him. He's ... a ... well there really isn't a word for what he is. Loathsome seems to cover it. Partly.
K3. The audacity of three 40-something women to pretend that they're 16 and dump garbage on unsuspecting kids ....
Kabouter Plop. Beyond explanation ...

.... if I'll think up more I'll add them.

There are a few programmes I want sunk as well but those are easily understood to be shows of the kind were people are endlessly being followed by a TV crew because their life is so interesting and shows were famous people try to sing or dance or skate and Idols-like shows were reams of children get, well ... reamed, I suspect. And then crowned. And then forgotten. There's an excellent spoof out there and I cannot wait to see how it develops. For clarity I'd advise to start at the beginning of the strip but here's where the stroy-arc starts ...

http://www.inhislikeness.com/2007/12/07/409/

I like InHisLikeness.

Unless any of those shows are made by the BBC, of course.