rant

December 27, 2001. I haven't seen the news or read a recent paper, so today it's more of a journal than a rant. Back at work briefly. What a Christmas! I got a Playstation 2, and even though I'm still in shock I'm having ace fun picking games to get. Can you get Carmageddon on PS2? It's ace that it includes a DVD player, even if it did mean that Fraser subjected our Christmas guests to two viewings of the Willem and Maxima dvd. I'm not sure what region the dvd is set up for, or I'd be ordering everything I can get my hands on.

Went skating in Den Haag on Christmas Eve. Had an ace Christmas Day, though it flew by. Great weather, dry and not too cold. Saw Lord of the Rings on Christmas night. It snowed the next day, which counts as a white Christmas because it was officially the second Christmas Day here in the Netherlands.

Bush fires in Australia, and Nigel Hawthorne died. Bad news for Fraser, Steps split. Tragedy!

ask jeeves is getting more and more dodgy.

December 19, 2001. I can't believe those little cup-style jellies you can get in Asian groceries have been banned in Australia: 'Killer' jelly off the shelves. Those things are yummy! Don't sell them to kids if you have to, but don't ban them.

Goodbye AdCritic.com.

Reading: "A supposedly fun thing I'll never do again", David Foster Wallace. Watching: Proof, Memento.

imdb.com is great. Who knew that Russell was in Neighbours in 1987, or appeared as 'Shirty, the Slightly Aggressive Bear' in one episode of the Late Show?

I'm attempting to prove that Bruce Spence has been evil in some movies. I also found the name of that guy who was in Bloodlust and a hoon in Proof: Robert James O'Neill. I mention this just because I like the idea that if he ever googles himself, he'll come across this and wonder why. Speaking of Bloodlust, how did someone in Versailles, France, come to see it?

December 19, 2001. I thought of a joke: if Michael Flatley was part of the winning men's gymnastics team, what would he be called? Give up?

Lord of the Rings!

she was the princess of diana.

December 18, 2001. Classic Onion quote: "Last week, Hamas suicide bombers killed 25 in Jerusalem and Haifa, and Israel retaliated with air strikes. What do you think about the latest wave of Mideast bloodshed?"

"If only the parents of those Hamas militants had spotted the suicide-bombing warning signs in time."
Mel Moreno, File Clerk

December 17, 2001. Are Yahoo! for real? Their terms of service state that:

You agree to not use the Service to:
upload, post, email or otherwise transmit any Content that is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, t ortious, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, libellous, invasive of another's privacy, hateful, or racially, ethnically or oth erwise objectionable;

Sure, most of that is fine, but 'vulgar'? Do they mean 'vulgar' in the sense of 'Crudely indecent', 'Deficient in taste, delicacy, or refinement', 'Marked by a lack of good breeding; boorish', 'Offensively excessive in self-display or expenditure; ostentatious', or 'Spoken by or expressed in language spoken by the common people; vernacular'?

I'm going to write to them and find out.

I think 'hateful' might be a bit ambiguous too. If I write to my partner and tell them they're dumped, and that that outfit *did* make their arse look big, does that count? If it's a private argument, could anything people say be considered hateful? Hateful in the context of their relationship, or hateful outside of it?

And the next time you use your yahoo account to ask a friend what their mobile number is, you might be breaking condition m: [you agree not to] collect or store personal data about other users..

December 17, 2001. Bill Clinton rocked the BBC's annual Dimbleby Lecture. I can't imagine George Bush or John Howard taking the time to research and present this once they could stop pretending to care.

Lekker eten at a Peruvian restaurant on Saturday night. El Tumi is opposite Westerkerk, and it wasn't nearly as busy as it should be. I had 'Papa a la Huancaina', and 'Picante de choclo', and 'Chicha morada', a drink made from corn that tasted a bit like flat Chinotto but was really tasty. I also had a bit of Fraser's 'Tallar’n a la Huancaina', which was also incredibly yummy.

The literal translation for someone who is 'a suck' in Dutch - slijmjurk - is 'slimy dress'.

December 14, 2001. What a fine mullet Peter O'Brien used to sport. No wonder Vince in 'Queer as Folk' took a while to warm to him (QaF was on Belgian television last night, which is why it's fresh in my memory).

December 13, 2001. I've degenerated to conversations about the weather, but that's only because I'm still stunned. This is the current Amsterdam weather report: Wed Low: -3ĄC/26.6F High: 6ĄC/42.8F, Rainy. Thu Low: -2ĄC/28.4F High: 4ĄC/39.2F, Rainy. Fri Low: -6ĄC/21.2F High: 0ĄC/32F, Sunny and clear. Sat Low: -2ĄC/28.4F High: 6ĄC/42.8F, Rainy.

So the one day it's sunny, it's also 0.

With a name like Marcy Zitz, and a photo like that, I assume this about.com bio is a joke. Lucky Marcy's been surfing "the Internet since 1990", the rest of us had to wait a few more years.

I find it hard to believe but if you search lycos for 'good clean fun' you get this siteon the same page as "Christian beach sandals - Shoes of The Fisherman - Thong beach sandals that leave the Christian message Jesus Loves You wherever you walk.".

Two nice geek news sites I came across on a mailing list: http://www.techdirt.org/ and http://www.wonko.com/

From the department of I'm-a-horrible-person-who's-going-to-rot-in-hell, it appears that sending soppy copied poems and unfunny forwards is a good thing.

December 12, 2001. I just noticed that Google have got the full usenet archives up. I looked myself up, of course. It's really weird seeing old .sigs. One of them featured the phrase 'heat-seeking love missiles of death' from a post about "clam diggers" in alt.current-events-epidemics.

Oddly enough, there's quite a bit on the web about this, 'a venereal disease that is so new, and so strange, that it doesn't even have an accepted name yet in the medical literature'.

In blog mode, Wow. I bet this reference will really stuff me up in web searches.

December 11, 2001. Trying out new css layout, it might be really stuffed up.

December 10, 2001. Eric 'Poida' ('Banal') Bana has second billing for the Hollywood military revision "Black Hawk Down". Truly, the endtimes are coming. Oh, wait, that was two years ago.

It's really getting cold, -2C/28F overnight, and even now it's just 1C/34F. Went for a walk yesterday, had a beer in Chaos, a bar near Marnixstraat where the floor is crunchy with peanut shells and the walls are covered with old advertising posters and scary old cherubs. It's perfect retro-ironic-kitsch, but it's actually the real thing.

"[Australian] scientists have discovered that lint mostly moves up from the underwear rather than down from the upper body and believe that a pierced navel will not collect fluff." Fraser Wilson, this is your chance to make medical history.

Pissweak Australian terrorists, maaate. "She said that when the pilot course became harder, he would stay in bed until she dragged him out."

I started reading Harry Mulisch's "The Assault" ("De Aanslag") last night and finished it this morning. It's the first time I've read anything about the Occupation and WWII since coming here. It gives a whole different perspective.

December 7, 2001. New! Meet my new site assistant, Sisa. I got chatting with her over at http://www.my-siemens.com/, and decided that I liked her so much, I'd take her with me.

The 'my siemens' site is so twee. It has a random 'be inspired' suggestion, things like 'choose an office song', 'do a congo line around the office', and most strange, 'kiss your boss'. If you did, and were sued for sexual harassment, could you counter-sue Siemens? It also offers 'Enact your favourite office fantasy', which is surely just gagging for trouble.

It also suggests 'phon[ing] your Mother-In-Law'. And then what? Tell her a mobile phone website said to call her?

I've been trying to work out when the shortest day of the year will be. I always thought it was December 21, but according to timeanddate.com, the earliest sunsets will be at 4:27pm from December 10 to 16, and the latest sunrises will be at 8:51am from Dec 28 to Jan 01.

December 6, 2001. We got our eurokit vouchers in the mail last night. We count! And we get free money!

The Hunger Site is back, and you can have daily email reminders sent to you.

Proof that not all Australian leaders are racist fuckheads: [Victorian State Premier] Bracks appeals for more immigrants

December 5, 2001. Apparently I just can't stop crapping on today. It must be the 'work avoidance' mode I'm in. And I've got a Dutch test tonight I'm trying to avoid thinking about.

I read the first Harry Potter in two hours last night. I can see the attraction, but I could also see the wires.

Anyway, do the Art Test. Apparently, "If I were a work of art, I would be Edvard Münch's The Scream. I express the subconscious troubles and anxieties of the world. I hold my head and let loose the primal terror of my innermost fears, surrounded by a lurid landscape which reflects my feeble grasp on reality." Fair enough.

But if I switch from 'realist' to 'off in my own fantasy world' without changing any of the other answers, I'm "Piet Mondrian's Composition A. You are rigidly organised and regimented, although your cold and unapproachable exterior hides a clever way of thinking and a rebellious and innovative nature. A lot of people don't understand you, but you can still affect them on an emotional level."

(I suspect I'm someone off in my own fantasy world who thinks they're a realist, which is pretty scary.) Am I boring you yet?

December 5, 2001. It looks like it's going to be a cold, cold winter here in the Netherlands. Otoh, it means the 11 Cities Skate might go ahead (when all the rivers/canals freeze and you can skate from one end of the country to the other).

It's Sinta Klaas' verjaardag (Santa Claus' birthday) so it looks like I get to stuff my face at work today.

December 5, 2001. Just for a change, links that don't require you to critique the media and/or politics:
About 2 minutes' worth of squelching noises could be heard before Mr.Binatang emerged again vs Al let his hands move, cradled Joe's face for a moment before stroking down over his side, slipping a few fingers into the waistband of his khakis.

December 4, 2001. The power of the whinge: "Train ticket inspectors have been told to stop booking all commuters without valid tickets".

"Cruise drops gay-sex lawsuit". And we all know why, don't we?

Well, der: "Young people attracted to the same sex are using chatrooms and pornography sites for information, a university study shows." And it's not just the young, queer chat rooms are full of people in their 40s and older. Good to see a sensitive headline for the story, too: "Porn sites help sort sex roles".

Some role models: "CHEATING MPs who plagiarise material from books and the Internet for parliamentary reports will not get away with it in future."
"Liberal MP Andrew Brideson had copied slabs from the Internet to justify a $23,000 Commonwealth Parliamentary Association study tour of Britain, the Isle of Man, Singapore, Frankfurt, Vienna and Zurich.
Mr Brideson admitted there was an element of plagiarism in his report but said he was not fussed about it."

For some reason, one of the Dutch newspapers picked up a story about a housing development in Melbourne that doesn't allow children: Australische trend: kinderloze huizen. It's in Dutch, but you can have a go at translating it with an online translator.

The content isn't as interesting as the fact that the story was felt to be interesting enough to Dutch readers.

December 3, 2001. I'm finding it hard to hit the right style for the updated 'supermarket tabloid' section. While you can buy all kinds of 'real' magazines in English, the cheap trashy ones don't make it to the Netherlands. I'm getting out of touch with Australian culture and I'm not yet able to get in touch with Dutch culture. I feel culturally marooned.

December 3, 2001. Earwigs have a spare penis as apparently the first one is 'often snapped off during sex'.

Nice set of Dutch (and English) blog links.

I'm reading lots of 'women's magazines' as research for the redesign of the front 'tabloid' style page. This one is a Christian mag disguised as a 'normal' mag. I guess they won't have '103 best sex positions' in the next issue unless 'asking Christ to accept His place in the throne of [your] life' counts.

New hate mail! They really gave me a 'peace' of their mind.