April 2004 Archives

Continuing this year's trend of 'going to see bands I don't know', last night we travelled to The Hague to see The Gathering play a singer/songwriter festival on 'Queen's Day Eve'. It is the night before Dutch national holiday 'Queen's Day', not dissimilar in atmosphere to Ireland's St Patrick's Day. They dress in green, the Dutch wear orange. Both nations fancy their beer.

Not the most ideal night to be walking The Hague streets. Long before midnight the punters were drunk, the atmosphere inflammable. Loud music burst from overflowing pubs, young men pissing on every corner and in between.

We skipped the other bands for an extended visit to local Chinese restaurant Kee Lun Palace (of the 'mostly chinese people eat here' variety, thus excellent) and arrived at the venue at the end of Bettie Serveert's set. Bettie Serveert were and still are a highly derivative band, with a mediocre vocalist and boring tunes.

Just the opposite then, from headliners The Gathering whose set started at 12.30 am. Originally a 'death metal' band, they refuse to be pigeonholed and continue to progress. I have largely ignored them in the past, but their current line up and vibe is appealing: gothic, ethereal rock with pleasing, dramatic melodies, clever arrangements and excellent singing. Their musicianship stands out. Chart topping copycats Evanescence simply do not measure up to the standard The Gathering set.

The short festival set focused on their newer, 'lighter' material which held my attention for a long time. I did appreciate the later venture into their more metal influenced songs. Anneke van Giersbergen is an accomplished singer, but I'm not completely convinced by her as a performer. There's an element of plastic about her work - the gestures, facial expressions seem a little forced. Still, impressive warbling. She could mix it up a little more -- her one 'spoken' vocal stood out in a good way.

Too bad the Italian fan couldn't keep from singing along loudly to the most fragile song. Lady, you've a pretty voice, but really - keep it in the shower.

22 pictures, mostly of vocalist Anneke van Giersbergen. All taken with the Ixus 400.

Moments before The Gathering take to the stage. The Hague, April 30, 2004.

We hurtle down the M2 to Whitstable on the North Kent coast. Two women falling asleep in the sun, Mr Hg behind the wheel. Will we make it in time for the table at noon?

17 degrees according to the sign on the rent-a-boat building, but it feels warmer. Upstairs in the restaurant's a cinema -- but the seats are stacked with boxes and the first floor is under construction. More seats for hungry customers.

A waiter cleans lobster at the bar. Outside on the beach kids play with the waves while daddies strap their bellies in a wet suit. Their grown up toys are catamarans, jet skis and motorboats. The need for speed. Where are their wives?

Steaming mussels, baked cod, Sancerre. Mr Hg laughs when I take a first bite of my pudding and light up like a four-year-old.

We buy sweets and books.

Some photos of Whitstable

Dear Messrs Canon & Co,

this weekend I had the opportunity to try your EOS 300 D camera.

I have only one question for you: Can you make one that fits my - not freakishly - small hands? I am afraid this model it's too big for me to take pictures with comfortably.

Sincerely,

St P.

I have tasted Heaven and it's called 'Roast pineapple with coconut icecream', served at the Whitstable Oyster Fishery Co in Whitstable on the coast in Kent.

According to the waitress, the pineapple is sprinkled with lime and orange juice before it's roasted. My favourite part of a meal is usually the starter (Moules Meuniere), sometimes the main course (Baked cod), but this time the pudding won.

Dungeness is the destination of our day trip today. I've been wanting to go there ever since I went to a Derek Jarman exhibition (in the Barbican centre. Some of his work just floored me.) many years ago. Not sure if we'll actually get to see Jarman's Prospect Cottage (MrHg, who has been there before, is still asleep, my brain still on CET time.) - but beach + nuclear power station... an irresistable combination, n'est-ce pas?

Dammit, why didn't I bring that zoom lens?

Had I mentioned the London trip? Originally booked to see the man do Nino Rota at the Barbican, unfortunately he's had to pull out due to those partners in crime: 'circumstances' & 'beyond our control'. As it's the first time ever he's pulled out of a gig, I am accepting and forgiving as well as a little sad, but...

... it all works out nicely as I now find myself looking at a trip without chores.

And maybe when I get back someone will have answered what the typeface used in the header of this page is called. (See also the related post at Hydragenic.com)

Heh. Heh. Heh.

Time to violate that TOS. No worries, I *will* be deleting one of 'em once the beta finishes. But as I was unhappy with the username I chose, this is just the perfect birthday gift from Blogger.

From Wonderfalls 'Lying Pig' script (unaired, pdf):

{ click to enlarge }

Taken around ten or more years ago in Brittany in France, with an Olympus OM10. Probably the first time I ever tried to use stops. Found it today while looking for another shot, taken 30+ years ago. Didn't find that one, of course.

I reported a GUI related issue to the Gmail team and I was wondering if anyone else who is testing Gmail has the same 'problem':

I keep clicking my right hand mouse button when I'm hovering over the e-mail subject lines in the inbox, and I expect there to be a menu with Gmail specific options. But there isn't. You just get the standard Windows right hand mouse button menu. But something about the GUI is triggering this response in me.

Anyone?

Messenger convo:
Caroline says: they're into swinging
Caroline says: or something similarly creepy
The Long-Distance Punner says: yeah
Caroline says: was it popbitch...
The Long-Distance Punner says: so terribly suburban
Caroline says: heh
The Long-Distance Punner says: i think i preferred them when they were tantric

Who were we talking about...

I don't look a day over 41.

Commenting at TwoEyes.org is broken, so I am answering here.

I'm not sure when TwoEyes got online, but when I first did, a decade ago, the quote and reply style of answering e-mail was the norm. If you didn't do it you were kindly told you were breaking netiquette. Or you were ridiculed for being a newbie.

It has taken me a while to accept that this practice is no longer the norm.

In trendy 'urban' shop two Surinamese men in conversation:

Veteran journalist of reputable radio show talking to newbie recruit:

Only for Whedongeeks:

My latest domain acquisition is www.worldwithshrimp.com. Got it late last night so it's not working yet. (Lovely, fast, domain registration & DNS propagation... ) It points towards whedonesque.com.

Mmmmshrimp...

From MTV review of first (messy) Pixies concert in twelve years:

Einstuerzende Neubauten are doing the same thing on their current tour. This is the new standard. Are you listening, U2?

My uncle Herman's new book, 'Het Groot Gebarenboek der Lage Landen' is out. Here's the cover and details of this illustrated encyclopedia of gestures. Illustrations by Pat Andrea, texts by H.P. de Boer.
In Dutch only, I'm afraid.

My uncle is always looking for new gestures. I 'did' one for him the last time I saw him at my dad's birthday and he took a picture of this 'gesture of disgust'. I haven't seen it yet, but Pat Andrea drew the image from the photograph and apparently it is featured in the book.

Matt likes Bluetooth a lot: "Hey everyone! I've got the internet in my pants!"

I've used Bluetooth to get online (Mobile + PDA) and while, like Matt, I've enjoyed the connectivity freedom, the first time I used it Bluetooth crashed both my Nokia and my PDA. The PDA crash resulted in complete data loss.

Since my PDA has since crashed in that way without outside help I tend to blame it on the Dell Axim 3i (you get what you pay for, darlings), but it's still put the fear of Bluetooth in me.

Trying to sync my mobile with my PC is also a daunting task, it can take a while before the Bluetooth connection sticks.

Always nice to read succes stories, though.

500.000 pictures taken between 1880 and 1990 are searchable in the Dutch National Archive Image Bank.

A simple search on 'Sinatra' retrieves this fabulous lot, while men over 40 might appreciate the Audrey Hepburn collection.

Finally, one for the ladies.

(via posterestante.org)

Ah, the good old days. Wired talks about Gopher -- apparently still alive and kicking. There was another thing at the time, used to find software. I think it had a similar cute name, which I used quite a bit. I can't think of the name. Help?

... oh there it is, it just popped into my head: Archie. A quick search gives me this "archie servers do not exist any more." Aw.

Remember I tried to register a .nl domain? That was on March 23. Twenty days later the domain's finally up, but the host's control panels still don't work. In the meantime, the idea I had has lost momentum and I've lost all or most of my interest. With thanks to the hosting company and Dutch domain registry.

'Caroline' was already taken (grrr aarrgh), but I've gots myself a gmail account to play with. So um, send me stuff - if you can make out the address in the screenshot.

Tru Calling, the Fox series that lured Eliza Dushku away from a projected Buffy spin off, was so bad (badly written, badly acted) I, and a lot of other people who came in on this show from watching BtVS, stopped watching after a handful of episodes. Nobody understands why Fox kept it on air, when they seem so eager to pull other, better, shows like Firefly and Wonderfalls, but apparently Tru Calling did better than expected in a certain demographic (average 4.5 million viewers).

They've added Jason Priestley to the cast and while he looks washed out and acts like a dish rag, his character - though predictable - is shaking things up a bit. A story arc of some sort is developing and they seem to be keeping Tru's creepy looking sister off camera. Eliza -- girl needs acting classes, if she isn't already taking them -- still isn't leading lady material, but you can see the beginnings of an 'ensemble' happening, with David, Harrison, Tru and - insert ominous music - Jack.

Maybe the folks at TWOP can be persuaded to start recapping the show again.

All the cool kids have Gmail.

Some cool kids rip it to shreds.

Others like it lots, but they worked on it.

R.O.W. waits patiently till they can ditch their Hotmail account.

Gawker gasps when confronted with a story on Sofia Coppola's Allowance.

From my 12th to my 18th or so, I was given pocket money by my parents. Fifty guilders for clothing, fifty guilders for other stuff, per month. I thought it was very little then -- mostly because from 0 - 12 I was spoilt rotten. Looking back on it through my adult eyes... I still think it was a little on the mean side. One pair of jeans cost about 75 guilders at the time.

Tell me about your pocket money.

{ couple in crowd, Paradiso, Amsterdam, April 3, 2004. Ixus 400. }

Question thingy, found on Blogged.co.uk. With apologies.

1: Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 18, find line 4.
Write down what it says:

'Outside The Villandry, a sumptuously upmarket Italian deli in London's West End, a large silver Mercedes idles at the kerb.'

(I've no book here at work, this is from Word Magazine)

{ Mediapark, Hilversum, Nokia 3650 }

Playing around with Kinja last night, I realised I could set up more than one digest. I set up one for myself and then started setting up one that I thought other people might want to read (as yet unfinished).

Tom translates this practice into a redefining of the killer app-ness of Kinja.

( Tag Heuer advertisement from the Financial Times )

My scan doesn't do the real thing justice, but Tiger's make up artist should be flogged. Drag queens don't wear Nike.

Anyone who wants in on Breedster drop me a line. I'm too embarrassed sending out these e-mail invites to friends and hesitant to subject them to involuntary mating on a regular basis.

I've been considering deleting my profile because the whole birth/breed thing is putting me off. Never was keen on role-playing. I don't do online what I wouldn't do in person. Happy to be dull, dear readers.

Anyway, I have at least three eggs to share. Lemme know.

Sorry, STD.

Event: Tombola 3 + 4, Paradiso Amsterdam
Label: Konkurrent
Line up: The Shins, 90 Day Men, The Broken Family Band, Woodstar, British Sea Power
Date: April 3, 2004
Seen: 90 day men, The Broken Family Band, British Sea Power, The Shins.

More later.

From 'Citizen Kubrick', The Guardian:

So many new web apps, so little time.

Kinja is a new weblog syndication web app weblog portal thought up by Meg Hourihan (Megnut, of Blogger fame) and Nick Denton (Gawker, Gizmodo, Moreover). Apparently Meg's leaving the company at the end of this month, but her site's down at the moment.

It was a bit creepy to find someone had already made icons for Whedonesque and prolific.org. Who are you? Where are you? Why are you reading me through a portal? Eeep. But anyway...

Kinja's lovely interface gets all confused by people's different rss feeds. Sometimes the title becomes the header, sometimes it's the date. (click image to enlarge)

And it does absolutely crazy stuff with my own feed, because it picked both the quicklink feed and the main blog. (See Kinja in action live, scroll down to prolific.org posts)

Update: Matt at Kinja tells me Kinja looks at HTML first. If the HTML parse fails, it falls back on the rss feeds. There's a little bug in the post title parsing, but a fix is in the works.

• NickDenton.org: Kinja is Live. Does a good job explaining what it is and who it's for: "Kinja is an RSS reader for people who don't know what RSS is, who don't know what a reader is, for that matter, or don't care. "

Breedster. Game cum (ahem) Social Network-blah blah thingy cakes. Interesting: since game involves fornication, users are almost forced to meet strangers, instead of cliqueing about in their 'friends' environment. You can't invite friends UNTIL you breed with a stranger. Clevah! (Sort of like GNE)