bicyclemark

Sunrise, Sunset

Well it just keeps getting better ’round here on the blog. Observe, as you read on, that there are now comment boxes for each post – thanks haloscan.com! Please post comments, don’t be shy, yell at me or just share any thoughts!

I’m parking my bike out front today, and one of these old men who has been milling around the boats parked along side the canal looks my way. Now for the past two weeks a bunch of men in big black boots and mucky-mucked uniforms have been pulling sunken row boats out of the water. It’s as if they let them sink awhile back, and now that they’ve got some spare time, they’ve decided to go back to titanic. So the guy walks over to me mumbling in Dutch, says something like “yup, we finally got it out.” And I, being the Gordon’s fisherman himself, look over in awe… in my best dutch I tell him “Yes, you guys have been very busy. Beautiful boat.” I was especially happy when we didn’t flinch at my pronounciation or grammar… I mean.. he’s not an understanding university student.. he’s an old guy.. I expected him to understand nothing of my accented gibberish. But we were like two old sea captains out there… except I have little to do with captainism or sea things. Good conversation all the same, and hey.. perhaps a new friend to take me on a boat ride!

I wanted to get into the issue of gay marriage. Alot of this comes after listening to Off the Wall on WUSB, Stonybrook, NY. It is disturbing to find all the attention and anger put into this issue, only now. With folks like GW Bush saying he wants a constitutional ammendment against gay marriage… as if this is so necessary? Were gay couples and their marriages really affecting his life so much? Was he in any way even in contact with married gay couples? NO. It’s so strange to see people getting outraged at gay marriage as if their own lives are being destroyed. Talk about all-out hatred and fascism, out to put a stop to people who have never influenced your life in anyway. Insanity… mostly for political gain. As if the nation was in any real danger because of gay marriages. Once again, Bush’s priorities are those of an imbicil.

Obviously round here in NL things are a bit different in that department, which I wouldn’t even regard as progressive… just humane. World needs a bit more of that.. humanity. Marry, don’t marry… who cares? Just don’t expect a huge wedding gift cause I got no steady income these days!

Today’s Music: Bright Eyes – Fevers & Mirrors

Nelly is my queen

I think I’m averaging 8 hits per day! 8 hits per day! You corporate web types might think “oooh small potatoes,” but we unemployed academic types think “hey 8 people pay attention to me daily!” So yeah… this week.. under the travel section.. I promise new stuff… actually old stuff… but new old stuff.

So there’s this neighborhoody feeling startin to develope at my “temporary” new place.. ever since the neighbors party for people in my building, there’s a whole lot of “hallo!” and “Hoi!” or “Hoe is het?” [hows it going] And this makes me quite happy… Im even going to get brave and start doing the “pop-in” at the top floor where the ladies have invited me to pop-in around dinnertime anytime! Im a gentleman, I will have to oblige.

As nice of a guy as I am, I’m superhappy to see that Joe Lieberman is out of the primaries, that hatemonger, I hope he goes off and joins the far right where he would feel more comfortable. Free to hate rap music and rated R films all he wants. And before I get off the election topic, I must express my approval of Teresa Heinz Kerry … I like her more than her husband.. she should run for pres! She’s active within the UN system, she runs a charitable foundation, she speaks multiple languages, she was schooled in Switzerland, raised in Mozambique.. and hey… it doesn’t hurt that she’s of a Portuguese family!

So I’m worried about my teeth. I don’t have a dentist over here.. and I feel its time to get my dogs checked. I heard through the U of Amsterdam grapevine (yes there’s a vine.. I think I run it) that I can go to THE DENTISTS school. YES — They have their own school! Don’t get me wrong, Im not an anti-dentite! No sir. So I can go to this school and apparently something like 2 or 3 students will check my teeth under the supervision of a teacher. Low BUDGET! But hey… theyre gonna be dentists right.. so.. that’s good enough right? I’ll be sure and ask for the A students.

Today was the 1 year anniversary of the London Traffic Congestion Toll… basically you gotta pay to take your car into the center of the city. Based on the numbers, it’s a huge success.. traffic is down, city is cleaner, more people are taking public trans. I’m a huge fan… not only of the intiative but of mayor “Red” Ken Livingstone.. I wish he would run for PM and bitchslap that oligarch Blair. Happy anniversary congestion toll!

Today’s Music: Nelly Furtado – Folklore

Share the Code

While riding the Brussels metro today, en route to the train back to Amsterdam, a very interesting yet simple thing happenned. I recognized it both because I was smack in the middle of it, and because it was the type of occurance that would never be allowed in the United States. A group of around 20 children, scouts, inavaded the subway car with their with their 20 something year old male group leaders. They only stayed on for one stop, but during that brief ride I observed the usual kid antics… singing, joking, taunting.. and a whole lot of handholding. So my point: Could this happen in the US… in any city with a subway? Probably not. Thanks to lawsuits and general paranoia, parents or schools would never allow a group trip to hop on the subway – EVER. Furthermore they wouldn’t allow a group of young males to chapperone a field trip. So, overall, I think its a dam shame, and I was glad to see that at least in Belgium, you can still see these things.

Speaking of seeing things, someone leaked parts of windows code onto the internet.. hahahaha

I say everyone go forth and use it, share it, imitate it. Computers are much too important for our societal needs for one company to control them the way microsoft does. We need to start dismantling the empire and finding a more egalitarian method of software developement. Oh wait.. that already exists.. its called lynux!

During my journey back to Amsterdam, I swear I also heard two people whistling.. once on the train and then again parking their bike in front of my place. They were both whistling the Rasmus! (In the Shadows) When I heard the second girl, I just couldn’t stay quiet about it, I yelled to her “Hey.. Rasmus right? – in the shadows? ” And she gave me a blank stare response. I got annoyed… both feeling like an ass and for not being validated for what Im convinced was a correct answer. BUT THEN – two minutes later, that same girl sees me through my groundfloor window and knocks, she yells… “Hey you’re right… I didnt realize… it is Rasmus!”

I win girl…. knock on my window anytime.

Today’s Music: Azure Ray – November EP

Train in Vain

Im super thankful to all those who have checked in and read the blog, even more thankful to those who come back periodically. I promise to blog every other day and hopefully keep it interesting or just random. A reliable source in Baltimore pointed out some design flaws.. I fixed ‘ em… the design flaws I mean… so thanks to him. I put up those US photos and I intend to put up the rest of my travel photo archive on my site… this week.. in case anyones interested.

Tonight, Im coming to you live from Brussels… Stokkel to be precise.. and may I say… c’est bien d’etre a Bruxelles.. avec mes cousins. Because it is… R & R for the mind and the stomach… considering all the good food. Interesting this… here in Brussels MSNBC is part of the cable package… so yeah… Ive been watching.. despite the obvious reservations about that station. One thing is clear.. the US media… even the poorest quality such as television.. have started to wake up to their role and the realities of the Bush admin… they’re seriously digging into this Bush AWOL discussions.. and hey.. they even talk about the fake weapons claims. This after years of not saying dam thing and worshipping him like a god. It’s about time.

I was on the train over here.. seated next to some sort of amateur British business type sweating like a pig trying to impress a French girl in the seat next to him. Man, did he role out every joke he could.. it made me sick eventually.. I was ready to stand up and say ” LISTEN.. DONT GO OUT LIKE THIS MAN.. IF YOU FEEL SOMETHING.. JUST SAY IT.. SAVE US THE PAIN OF HAVING TO LISTEN TO YOU.” Alas, I never quite said that. My only comfort, besides watching the Dutch/Belgian scenery, was an Angolan family that were riding a few seats down. I love Angolan Portuguese.. and found myself smiling profusely at them and laughing along to their jokes. Im lucky they didnt call the cops on the insane train passenger laughing to Portuguese-Angolan jokes. Even cooler was to hear them switch from Portuguese to French… apparently theyve lived in Belgium for a long time.

Hey the Koreans cloned a human . Well, you know.. the egg/embryo or something to that effect. I say right on, Im glad its the Koreans, and that they don’t allow some flat-earth religious laws keep them from exploring the questions of the universe and life. Clone away! Just… maybe not me….. yet.

Today’s Music: Jet’s to Bazil – Perfecting Lonliness

Hard Rocks… Geology Anyone?

I’m slowly sprucing up the photos section of my site. Trying to simplify it, yet keep it fairly interesting. Seems to be working cause the amount of visitors to my site has skyrocketed.. averaging around 6 people per day. Wanna see?

Yesterday the “water taxi” came humming down my canal… I thought to myself “here’s a good way to move furniture.” I mean, I used to live on a different canal, I want to transport furniture, I want to avoid traffic and the busy center of the city… so WATER TAXI. (need the number? 535-6363. At least I hope that’s how it works, othewise perhaps that was just a guy who bought the water taxi and rides around with the old paintjob and phonenumber on his boat.

In the last 24 hours in Iraq, 102 people have been killed. Soldiers that have died are now more than 500. Iraqi’s who have died… that number is above 1,000.. I haven’t checked Back to Iraq lately, great blog from an excellent journalist in Iraq. I don’t know how much more death people need to see before they realize this mission is bullshit and it is anything but a success. Speaking of which, I was reading Salam Pax’s Blog (Iraqi in Baghdad) and I rather enjoyed this quote “I do think Iraqis should worry about the presidential elections in the USA, it is scary how much influence someone sitting so far away has over the destiny of a nation.” So strange to live in Iraq these days, I imagine. I highly recommend him, by the way, Salam Pax.. he’s an excellent writer and you learn amazing things about the reality on the ground there.

I started doing conversational meetings with someone from Paris. We meet and switch back and forth… she speaking English and me speaking French. It’s really great cause I haven’t had intense, long conversations in French in a long time. Actually I should get involved in a larger project of conversation exchange, that would be awesome… someone in French, English, Spanish and dare to dream-Arabic. I can see it now…..

Today’s Music: Roots – Phrenology

Opium and Soup

So hey, I think the new site is really taking off! It should be lookin good, cause I haven’t done much else these days… it’s a shame. Slowly more travel photos will be added, Im especially lookin forward to the flashback to OCG days that Im throwin in. Speaking of flashbacks,

it appears that Afghanistan’s opium production is nine times higher than it was under the Taliban.. which once again illustrates how Afghanistan is a disaster and far from stable. NO, Im not saying the Taliban were better, I’m saying that they went from one type of bad to a different type of bad.. it’s still a bad situation, yet politicians act like it was a huge success and everything is great there now.

I’m sitting at Soep enzo today, as I do so often.. cause hey.. where else, besides my house, will I eat such thick and hearty soup! I even splurged today and went for the Fish Soup with Shrimp. (veggie yes… cept I do eat seafood) Anyway best part are the lovely ladies eating soup and reading the newspaper. I love them.. probably because they’re that perfect blend of quiet, mysterious, current-events conscious, soup eating… yeah.. all the things I want in a woman.

They seem like the type of women that would no doubt share my horror at reading that Blair and Bush were nominated for Noble Peace prizes in 2002. Bush and Blair!! Peace prizes?? That’s insane. Martin Luther King… Mother Teresa… Xanana Gusmao.. these are pious and kindhearted figures who get nominated. Bush and Blair… please. Do the math.. how many people died both home and abroad, on their watch? pfffff… noble prize… please.

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