| A new record! I actually travelled longer today than I worked. Although, this is not true, I think I did that recently on a normal day too, but anyhow, I spent a whopping total of 8 hours travelling versus 5,5 hours of work. Why?
SNOW
We have lots of it. To Dutch standards. Swedes and Canadians would laugh at us. At the fact that public transport completely breaks down when more then 5 cm of snow falls. It's simple economics. Self-maintaining (thus: not hand-greased) railroad switches that are not resistant to snow and the fact the Dutch railway services do not have snow ploughs cause you know, on average we'd need them like ... 1 day a year? That's not economically feasible. So today the train services did local, piont-to-point services only, stopping at every stop. And recommending everyone stayed the fuck home and not use the train. Guess who did anyway?
ME
I go up at 6, as did ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) dualistic and left for the station at 7, walking. Cause you know, no trams or other public transport OBV. Dubbed at the station if we could or would go at all, called the office and got the directive: "if you CAN go to work, GO." So we went. D to Amsterdam, me to Apeldoorn. Took a train to Gouda. Then a train to Utrecht. Then a train to Amersfoort. Then a train to Apeldoorn. Then luckily a bus to where I needed to be. Four and a half hours for what otherwise would be two hours. Go me!
Worked some and then at 17:15 returned home roughly the same way. I eventually met up with D back at Rotterdam Central at 20:15 who had also just returned from work. Luckily she had been the clever one and bought food before the shops had closed. So we had dinner at 20:30 or so.
Tomorrow, I get to attempt to go to the South of The Hague, which will absolutely require some buses to be running. Wish me luck. Oh and did I mention I'm going back to Apeldoorn on Thursday, you know Christmas Eve? Yeah. Go me.
FFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU | comments: 7 comments or Leave a comment   |
| Back in 2002, when wink_martindale and I were celebrating our first year in London, I spent most of my weekends indoors and online because we hardly knew anyone in the city. Wink worked for a comic bookshop and had to cover either Saturday or Sunday shifts; those were the days when I sat in our kitchen listening to 80s music on the radio while scrolling through Livejournal on a dial up until he returned home.
One day, a song came on XFM that caught my attention: Attack of the Ghost Riders. It had the word "ghost" in it - an immediate seller for me - but also a poppy rockabilly tune that I liked. It was the first single from a Danish band called The Raveonettes. A few days later, I serendipitously saw their "Whit It On" EP on sale at HMV for £5.99. I brought it home and thus was born our love for the band.
With the years, we've seen them branch out of their rockabilly obsession into explorations of America's motown and country past, cut the 3-minute pop song like masters of the form. We were there at the Astoria some years ago when Sharin had to sing by herself the whole set because Sune had lost his voice - and how they turned it into a memorable evening rather than a disaster. So it was only natural that we would buy tickets for their gig last night at the Islington Academy, where they'd be promoting their new, and very good, album "In and Out of Control".
Another serendipity (or is it synchronicity?): we found out about a month ago that a good friend of ours, desayuno_ingles's boyfriend Senor El Guapo, had signed up to be their European tour roadie... culminating at the Islington Academy.
Wink spent his spare time during our early years in London writing and illustrating a book called The Fur Trap, which came inside a 7-inch single sleeve. He played The Raveonettes all the time as his background music/inspiration so he thought it might be a nice gesture to print them a copy and deliver it to the hands of Senor El Guapo to then pass it on to the band.
We met Senor El Guapo at the bar and handed him the book as well as a Xmas card and gift. He was suffering from food poisoning and looked about ready to pass out. We silently prayed he'd be alright through the gig and wouldn't have to deal with any disasters/split strings. He flipped through The Fur Trap and said they'd love the book and could read it while they waited backstage for the support act to finish.
Wink and I then stood there drinking our Carlsbergs and marvelling at how life takes these unexpected turns sometimes and brings you close to the things you love the most.
| | comments: 10 comments or Leave a comment |
| A week ago, a strange spiralling blue light appeared over Norway's northern skies. The event was seen by thousands of people as well as filmed and photographed (this video in particular makes the event look like something straight out of a movie.) The media bandied about a theory that Russians were testing missiles in the area and the light was the result of one of them exploding, which the Russians denied. Story here.
Tonight, following a rabbit hole on the internet, I ended up finding a documentary about UFO lights in Norway and of how they have been widely documented for the past three decades. It's actually a pretty decent and fair look at the phenomena (if you disregard the creepy soundtrack) but what caught my attention was the description of blue spiralling lights being one of the observed UFOs:
So what's going on? Is Russia testing all sorts of missiles over Norway? Or is something else going on - i.e. Russia's claims that they are not testing any missiles being the actual truth? It reminded me of a post recently by sublimevisions (I think) on crop circles. He was asking what could possibly create so many intricate designs, sometimes in such hard to reach places over night. Some crop circles in the past have been proven to be the work of humans (for stunts and so forth) but there's still a load of them which are completely unexplained. Sublimevisions proposed that they were probably made by laser beams, perhaps from satellites. Perhaps our own governments testing their top secret weapons from the skies, perhaps something else. The blue light above Norway last week looks like a laser show to me. And that gaping black hole at the end looks like a portal. | | comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment |
| Друзья, приглашаю вас, 19-го декабря (сбб.) на презентацию книги "Карманные вещи" в кафе «Антресоль» по адресу: г. Киев, бульвар Т.Шевченко, 2, начало в 15:00.
Там можно будет увидеть и приобрести иллюстрации в виде больших принтов,
а одна из работ будет разыграна между гостями.
Детей ждет подарок ко дню Святого Николая – мастер-класс по оригами.
Приходите,
приглашайте друзей и родных!
Жду. | | comments: 100 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Tags: | blogs, gigs, hold on to your friends, interesting drug, museums, november spawned a monster, psycho killer que'st que c'est, reader meet author, still ill, strangeways here we come, to me you are a work of art | | Current Location: | Hackney, London | | Subject: | Jason Voorhees Lives | | Time: | 10:35 am | | Current Mood: | ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/charitycam/flowers/okay.gif) okay |
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| My novel for this year's National Novel Writing Month is called Jason Voorhees Is Dead. I wrote just under 20.000 words before I had to give up due to repetitive strain injury (an ongoing problem since then.) However, Jason is not dead. I plan on taking up with him again sometime in the holidays, when my fingers are relax'a'licking good.
By the way, next time you slag off Jason because he's ugly or he killed scores of horny youngsters, just remember that he was a victim first of all. Of bullying, of his wacky mom. Have some compassion.
Some weekends ago, at Warp Records 20th Anniversary, I was sitting in The Coronet's bleachers resting my feet when my friend Natallica asked if I had a mild form of OCD. Yes, I replied. I think I do. Because when iTunes' Genius and Amazon's Recommendations tell me to listen to something, I make a Spotify playlist out of it. Because what's random to others is synchronicity to me. Because, like I said, I haven't given up on Jason yet and will make those 50.000 words squeal by the finishing line.
A mild, mild form of OCD.
I've been posting my NaNoWriMo ramblings over at Succès de scandale because Wordpress has this neat system that tells you what people type in Google to find you. From those searches I create new posts - a type of spiral that feeds back into Google and pulls closer ever more people interested in those topics.
I also have Google Alerts for anything to do with succès de scandale. Over a week ago, a story came up about the American artist Ed Kienholz and how an exhibition of his in the 60s was particularly scandalous. I was suffering from insomnia that night so I took the opportunity to write a short piece about it. As I was finishing, my brasilian friend B woke up and found me in the living room. The piece wasn't discussed between us.
Later in the day, when I got back from work, I found B sitting in our living room checking his e-mail. He was coming down from a LSD trip. He told me he'd been downtown and visited the National Gallery, but an art piece by Ed Kienholz freaked him out so much that he had to find refuge with Van Gogh's Sunflowers. Do you see the beauty in this synchronicity? Now, I have to of course visit the National Gallery and see this piece before it leaves. I'm hoping that new doors will open from the visit.
| | comments: 13 comments or Leave a comment |
| "Чтобы оставаться на месте, надо бежать.
А чтобы куда-то попасть, надо бежать в два раза быстрее"(c)
У вас бывают сны, когда нужно от кого-то убежать, а на ногах как-будто гири?
Пытаешься сражаться, а руки ватные и не поднимаются?
Когда кричишь изо всех сил, а громкость голоса будто "выкрутили" до нуля.
Просыпаешься и радуешься, что это сон.
А когда такое наяву?
Если бы это творческий кризис, тогда понятное дело, темная полоса или еще что...
А когда рисуешь целыми днями, а часто и до 4х утра? И когда "полоса", вроде, светлая.
Ничего не хочется показывать.
Ничто не кажется настолько важным, чтоб об этом сказать.
____________________________________
Последнее время много такого, что пытается меня "подкосить".
Как говорил Абрам в небезызвестном анекдоте: "НЕ ДОЖДЕТЕСЬ!" | | comments: 45 comments or Leave a comment |
| I could have kept this entry private. Or limit it to friends-only. Cause you know, someone I don't know might read how I think about privacy. And this might lead him or her to suspect me to be a terrorist, a pirate, a criminal or worse. Because I had something to hide. My opinion in this case.
A few days back, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said something very worrying about privacy, especially for someone who is the boss of the biggest information-harvesting machine in the world. You probably heard about it. Many a weblog I know devoted some serious comments about it. Even Asa Dotzler, director of community development at Mozilla, has stated maybe people should start using Microsoft's Bing instead of Google.
The best comment however is served up by Bruce Schneier:
Too many wrongly characterize the debate as "security versus privacy." The real choice is liberty versus control. Tyranny, whether it arises under threat of foreign physical attack or under constant domestic authoritative scrutiny, is still tyranny. Liberty requires security without intrusion, security plus privacy. Widespread police surveillance is the very definition of a police state. And that's why we should champion privacy even when we have nothing to hide.
(read the rest of the post)
I hope Google rethinks its policy. | | comments: 3 comments or Leave a comment |
| I could post a long boring post about how I travelled all over the country today (don't worry Americans, the Netherlands is not that big) or I could point out the fact that Donja wrote and recorded a song in her spare time (and not in some fancy studio or anything):
Ragedaisy - Auspex
It's free. It's home-recorded. Download it and tell her if you love it in the comments of her LJ.
I'm probably gonna work with/for her to improve it a bit more as far as adding instruments are concerned. Or ruin it. Depends on your point of view. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| I recorded a song about a fancharacter of mine. He's not a nice individual (read: murderous bastard), but he was interesting to write/ sing about.
to download the song, click here
(vocals are mine, and my vocal coach is playing piano in this)
(And yes I'm aware he has the same name as someone else's fancharacter. These things happen. ) | | comments: 7 comments or Leave a comment |
| Do any of you know where I can find out which singles are being released this year during Christmas weekend? I want to confirm whether Rage Against the Machine is the only act, apart from the X Factor, that will make Simon Cowell some money (he owns shares in their record label, apparently).
I already did some searches on Google but had no luck. | | comments: 13 comments or Leave a comment |
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![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/acedia/littlegent/working.gif){kind=small}
accomplished![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/opiummmm/foxies/determined.gif){kind=small}
determined![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/charitycam/flowers/happy.gif){kind=small}
slightly deaf
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slightly freaked out![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/acedia/littlegent/busy.gif){kind=small}
busy
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ecstatic![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/acedia/littlegent/blah.gif){kind=small}
awake![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/acedia/littlegent/worried.gif){kind=small}
worried![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/charitycam/flowers/confused.gif){kind=small}
curious