May 2005 Archives
Medy van der Laan, Harm Bruins Slot, et al
Found myself in the company of at least three of my (ex-)bosses today, from '95 till now (AVRO, RNW, VARA, Publieke Omroep). Lots of other familiar faces from the early days of public broadcasting online were there as well. Highlight of the afternoon was supposed to be the presentation of a book on 10 years of Omroep.nl to State Secretary (for Education, Culture and Science) Medy van der Laan, but I preferred the showing of 'Kwik' (Dutch for Huey, as in Huey, Dewey and Louis). Kwik was the very first server our domain, Omroep.nl, ran on. A flat, blue Silicon Graphics machine that cost about 20,000 Euro. Aw, bless.
Took loads of pictures, only a few of which are presentable.
Apparently Python's out of fash', Mr Hg informs me. No longer part of every day conversation and considered passed on, no more, ceased to be, expired and gone to meet its maker in its country of origin. Fortunately we've been spared John Cleese's corporate training videos and the larger part of Palin's awful travel shows in my country so they haven't had a chance to tarnish the memory. Unlike Polly, Python's quite alive to me and a day after I had my Python talk with Mr Hg, a Python quote ('... and now for something completely different.') did pop up in conversation at work. Proof it's still part of our Dutch collective concience.
Elvis Presley was a fan, apparently, and would quote the 'Knights that say NI' scene from The Holy Grail. My own Python-years came twice. Once during their first run on Dutch television. (Early Seventies?) The second time was when I went to college and a lot of the series were repeated on the BBC. I bought the transcript books then, which I've since sold since you can find everything online anyway.
These last two weeks I've been enjoying this their back catalogue whot I acquired both legally and illegally. Their DVD's are filled to the brim with extra-funny, extra-unseen footage. The sketches still make me laugh and I've become quite fond of Gilliam's animation. I didn't like them much as a child. Too creepy, I think. Back then, 'The Ministry of Silly walks' and Cleese were my favourites, now I am quite keen on Terry Jones's female impersonations (and his marvelously toff self) and Chapman's mad genius.
If I could, I'd buy the 14 disc 'The Complete Monty Python's Flying Circus Megaset', but that's a USA release only and I reckon Dutch customs would make me pay through the neck, so I made do with sharply priced (57 euro) The Best of Monty Python's Flying Circus Volumes 1-3 which features all the 'best' sketches.
Quotes I still use or hear used:
'She's a witch, she's made of wood!'
'... and now for something completely different.'
'NI!'
'I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition!'
'I've had a terrible feeling fo déjà vu!'
'SPAM, SPAM, SPAM'
'Mind if I call you Bruce?'
Some of my favourite sketches are: 'The Bishop', 'Crunchy Frog', 'Dead Indian', 'The Masons', 'Northern Playwright' and 'Spanish Inquisition'. How about yours? (Look 'em up.)
Last year my uncle featured in a TV show about 'miracles'. He told the story of how he found a photograph of himself in a book he picked up from an antique shop, while on holiday in England. It's a true story. This month the show is letting viewers decide which stories should be repeated in a clip show to introduce the new series.
Do me and my kin a favour and vote for 'De foto' on the 'Wonderen bestaan' website. You'll find the poll on the right hand side and 'De foto' is the last option in the poll (which doesn't give it much of a chance of winning!).
It's a great story and my uncle, who is an author and lyricist, does a great job of telling it (well, duh, he does readings and theater shows for a living). In short: About 20 years ago he was on holiday with his girlfriend L. and another couple. It was a miserable day and he hadn't even wanted to go to England anyway. When they stopped for lunch, they came across an antique shop.
My uncle had a thing about 'a book without a title'. He had been talking about this obsession during the trip, of wanting to find this 'book without a title'. His friends had said books without titles didn't exist.
Looking through the books on the shelves in the antique shop, he didn't find anything he wanted. But there was one more book, sitting on a table. Picking it up he saw the book's cover didn't have any marking or lettering. It was a book without a title! And when he opened it, he found a picture of himself taken when he was a young man.
Cue theme of the Twilight Zone. Vote now. Vote often.
Selfish cunt that I am, I think Dutch GP's should be SEVERELY PUNISHED (an old fashioned flogging springs to mind) for going on strike this week when I'm supposed to hear what I should be doing about my bloody diet, medication and what not.
I'm not sure what exactly they're going on strike for, but I'll wager it's mostly about money. Apparently they only make TWICE AS MUCH as their Belgian colleagues and it isn't enough.
Damnit, if I made 97.000 EURO A YEAR, I wouldn't have time to lay down work. I'd be too busy SPENDING IT on good (artery clogging) food and an endless array of sexy gadgets.
They must go back to work RIGHT NOW, because I seem to be suffering from a bad case of Dooce-itus.
The He Hua temple on Zeedijk in Amsterdam celebrated Buddha's birthday, or 'bathing day' on Nieuwmarkt today. I went specifically to take photographs, but came back a little embarrassed. My fellow photographers (those carrying serious glass) didn't seem to care this was a religious celebration. They were crawling all over the event, with little regard for altars and worshippers. But perhaps the worst of all was the guy with the tiny digital camera who first told other people to GET OUT OF HIS LINE OF VIEW and then walked right up to the main altar near the end of proceedings, NEVER TAKING THE HUGE CIGAR OUT OF HIS MOUTH. This is the rudest country in the world.
I came away with some good shots, wishing I'd got a few more of the green dragon on sticks.
No, I haven't left the house to go see it in the cinema, I watched the leaked Star Wars work print after coming home from work today.
I agree with what most people have been saying: best of the three.
The rollercoaster start was exciting and funny in places too. Too bad Hayden Christensen has no comic timing at all. Those Jedi powers are godlike, how else could Yoda sense 'much fear' in this lad? Never mind the bad acting, it's the lack of joy and the glaring absence of passion in his performance. He's good at the athletic stuff -- great with the lightsabre. Those are the sequences I like best anyway -- I didn't grow up on Errol Flynn for nothing.
Leave the acting to R2D2. I'm serious, that bit at the start where he has to stop and start the elevators -- that little droid had a lot more character than, um, let's say Natalie Portman. Yawn. Seemed such a strong lady in Part I. Now she's got her man she's dependent and weak and bloody annoying.
McGregor's believable as always. I do believe he tries to emulate or hint at what Alec Guinness did with the character, especially at the start of the film, in the accent, even. And he kept his troosers on, thank god.
I'm never keen on the politics of things, so the middle of the film with the meetings and war kind of sagged for me. I was watching it on TV and you could have predicted the moment I got up to make tea: the Anakin / Padmé scenes. Then came the high drama part, the turning to the daaaaark side and it all got a bit campy, especially the fight between Palapatine and Windu. Seriously, what *was* that? At other times I felt as if I'd walked into a showing of Return of the King. Dragons? Oozing lava? Then there was what seemed to be a rather heavy handed anti-current-administration vibe. Not sure what to think of it, it felt clumsy, though I appreciate the leaning.
Anyway, a good swashbuckling 'finale' to the franchise. Might even go see it on the big screen.
If you'd like to know why I keep jetting off at the drop off a hat to see a relatively unknown artist perform in all corners of the world, check out the video stream (smil, Real Video) of the gig I went to see in Dingle late last year, which has now been put online by the lovely people at RTE Ireland. The full stream is 35 minutes, but for the best impression scroll to the 20 minute mark and start from there ('Caruso' and 'Rags to Riches'). This is the first video footage of some substance since 1989, and the director and his team did a great job.
Dammit, with tvtorrents.tv and btefnet.net (even #bt on IRC is invite only at the moment) offline, where's a leech to go for a dedicated TV torrent source other than Usenet?
Three months ago I had a blood test done and then I 'forgot' all about it. You're supposed to ring your doctor for the results, because they can't be bothered informing you. (What if it's really serious? Do they let it go? If you ring back a year later and say 'Doctor, I'm dying' do they say 'Duh?')
Since I don't like using the phone, it can take a while for me to get things done. When I ran out of a prescription I had to ring and finally found out my test results.
Diagnosis: diabetes and a thyroid problem.
When that sank in, I suddenly felt better than I have in months and a surge of energy saw me take care of various things on my 'to do' list. Funny how the mind works.
Of course now I'm looking at more tests, a dietitian and I will really have to start forking out for a fitness club membership, but at least I know what I'm up against.
Update: I feel all I have to do right now to warrant a move to LiveJournal, is start talking about my periods and my troublesome teenage offspring. Apologies to my readers - the few I have left! - for turning into generic middle-aged woman. {{{{{Hugs}}}}}
From this week's Popbitch:
"The Fall are on Jools Holland's show next week. Mark E Smith is the only artist in the history of the show to have a clause in his contract inserted to state that Jools will not play boogie-woogie piano over any of his songs."
I miss MT.
Please don't hurt me.
If I ever get put on trial for abusing publishing tools, I will claim temporary insanity: "Your honour, I am not myself today."
We moved office space today. When I arrived, 9am, the office was still completely empty. A couple of hours later, we were tapping away at the keyboards. But everything is different. I share an 'island' with different people, there's a lot more light (making me squint all day), the air is different. All in all it's a better office, but change of any kind is hard on worker bees.
Things have been a little strange lately: someone left, someone died, someone was born and we're hiring. Hopefully we'll find calmer waters soon.
She's switched again, it's like musical tables!
Not much of a change design-wise, but this place now runs on Pivot, which as I mentioned before, has its own quirks:
* Entry pages live in /archive/ even if you don't want them to
* There's no 'backdoor', no blogger API - so I can't do the 'daily del.icio.us' posts
* You can't make 'static pages' within a weblog)
* The editor loses focus sometimes (cursor goes missing, can't select/delete text), in Firefox at least.
Let me know if anything doesn't work as it should.
Last day at work before a five-day-break (an Ascension Day / Liberation day double) and I have to say thank fuck. This is my first time off since Christmas and it's unfortunately ruined by the fact that I do have to take care of the weekend shift (from home) . The U2 tour has had me plan all my time off late June and July and I sort of forgot about some kind of Spring break and I've been feeling the strain these past couple of weeks. We are moving buildings on the 10th, about 200 meters up the road from where we are now, so today we'll have to prepare content for our sites to cover those five days and then pack our stuff for moving as well. Fun, fun, fun.Here's hoping for sunshine and a quiet weekend shift and the return of my sanity.PS. Cookies saved my soul.
Dear diary, Tried to set up router. Failed. Like all the other times I've tried to set it up in the distant past. Why in the name of jaysus don't these yokes just work?