Weblog | April 2005

It's Queensday today. The queen is even more present this year since it's the 25th year of her reign. I made the mistake of going into town earlier, to browse the recordstore and return a book to the library. Which was ofcourse closed. And I was then stuck in a sea of people. Anyhow, for some nostalgia, browse this photo special of the past 25 years.

Utrecht was great. Bought more than I planned, but found an unusual number of items worth buying. I even managed to find a pair of shoes that complied with my specs, which is difficult after comfortably wearing army boots for more than 10 years. Not that that will change, but now I have something for the warmer days, besides flipflops. I also bought tickets for the concert Billy Corgan is to give in Amsterdam in June. Looking forward to that.

It's one of those days today, where everything seems to annoy me. Like people chatting in the middle of a very busy, very narrow Mandemakerssteeg. Or people in the store who decide to discuss prices with the cashier at the busiest time of night, just as I'm next in line. Or other people who participate in traffic, but seem to think the rules somehow magically don't apply to them. Or how about unusable full-Flash sites? So little time, so many irritations. Sigh.
There is light at the end of this tnunnel though, cause I'm home now. I can play some nice soothing music and calm down. Plus I've got tomorrow off and am going to do some shopping in Utrecht.

Though this site has been in existence in one form or another since 1996, today marks the fourth anniversary of my first blogpost.
Onwards with year five.

Looks like I'll be attending Fields of Rock this year. Really looking forward to that, because I enjoy the summerfestivals. Shame I haven't been able to attend one the past two years.
There's quite a lot on offer this year with Wâldrock and Dynamo Open Air. And if crossing a border doesn't scare you, Graspop and Rock Werchter in Belgium, or even Wacken Open Air in Germany.
But it'll be Fields of Rock, because I prefer one-day festivals, and this line-up impressed me most. Love to see Audioslave and Helmet, both of which I haven't seen live before. I'm curious to see how Rammstein will perform in open air after their great performance in Ahoy last November. And the classics ofcourse, Slayer, Black Sabbath and Motörhead. Now I only need to find some time (preferably this week) to get to the postoffice before closingtime to get some tickets.

Just finished reading reading the story of Dutch explorer Willem Barentsz. He -together with his crew- spend the winter of 1596 on the island of Nova Zembla, where they were stranded trying to find the Northeast Passage to Asia. The book is based on the journal of one of his crewmen, Gerrit de Veer. Recommended.

Introducting Pope Benedict XVI. Another N years of conservative catholic doctrine. Great. Anyhow, I went to see the new show by Eric van Sauers yesterday evening. He was performing in Schiedam. Though I preferred his previous show, it was still a good night. Well, I'd better find something to eat, as I have to leave in 13 minutes.

A lost hour turned into a bit of retro fun this evening. Having read my zines and waiting for the washing machine to finish, I searched my drive for some mild entertainment. I ended up playing episode 4 of Commander Keen. Looking for a cheat (I'm quite clearly not a good as I once was - or like to think I was) I found the wikipedia entry (is there anything not mentioned in the Wikipedia?) and came across a link to another favourite of long ago, Jill of the Jungle. It's downloading as we speak. Can't believe this is making me nostalgic.

I usually don't care much for music videos. Too much bling and not enough guitars. Occasionally however I come across one that manages to catch my interest. Like Remind Me by Röyksopp, which I caught in part a while ago. I stumbled across to a streaming version just now and it still fascinates me. Take a look for yourself.

Not much going on at the moment. Typical friday afternoon. Not even any news on the pope. You might want to visit VotePope.nl, where you too can help deceide who becomes the next pope. Today is also the day of the funeral of Rainier III, Prince of Monaco. And then there's news of Bush's iPod, the so-called 'iPod One'. Apparently it's loaded with country and popular rock tunes. Some of which are quite possibly not even legal!

We had a power failure earlier today, here at work. Not much fun twiddling my thumbs for a little over an hour. It did however give me a chance to clean my keyboard, which is a Good Thing, since nasty things can grow in there.

Found a bunch of new wallpapers at Pixelgirl Presents. The one on the right (called 'Brunell Walkway') is currently on my desktop. I also added a few (that is, as many untill I reached my bandwith limit) to my flickr.com account.

Shame it's been raining most of the afternoon (atleast so far), because I was planning on going to the store to get a dock for my iPod. Did catch a glimpse of the Charles and Camilla wedding. Can't believe people are so against the whole thing. They look like a much better match than his previous attempt.
The rain also gave me a chance to tweak the appearance of this site. I still have plans to better integrate my del.icio.us items into the site, but for now they're on display when viewing a particular date, like today for example.

I just got tickets to go see the Sisters of Mercy in August. They're playing at 013 in Tilburg. Shame the info on the website is so outdated, but I'm really looking forward to the show.
I also checked out the offerings at my favourite recordstore and treated myself to the first A Perfect Circle album (Mer de noms) and a few Placebo ones (Placebo, Without You I'm Nothing, Black Market Music and Sleeping With Ghosts to be exact). They were on sale you see, and though I already owned a not so legal version of the above, for a reason I can't explain, I still prefer owning the originals.
Oh, and, quite a personal highlight for me, I placed new laces in my shoes.

There's an interesting article on SimpleBits, entitled The Cheapening of Music. I agree completely. Before this whole download thing, I went to the recordstore on a regular basis, comparing prices and sales to see how to get the most music for money. Now I tend to buy only the releases by only my very favourite bands and get a whole lot of others through, well, alternative channels. Most end up on a shelf, getting less airplay then the albums I bought after the careful process mentioned above.

As an atheist the Pope and his recent passing are of no great relevance to me. The thing I find fascinating though, is the Swiss Guard. The outfits always make me think they serve merely a ceremonial purpose, but on Wikipedia I read the following

After the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II, a much stronger emphasis has been made of the Swiss Guards' functional, non-ceremonial roles. This has included extended training in unarmed combat and with issue SIG pistols and Heckler und Koch submachine-guns.

Apparently they also played a part in the French Revolution, in defending the Tuileries palace in Paris. Some 500 men of the regiment were massacred by the invading mob. So a bit more than just ceremonial then.

Oh, and ofcourse today is alo April Fools.

Icon-magazine has a list of the top 21 things and people shaping design today (via Signal vs. Noise). On #1 is Ikea. Which reminds me that this is my very destination for tomorrow. I'm on the lookout for a new kitchen, and wanted to see one in Real Life after seeing it in the catalogue. Unfornatley it wasn't on display in Ikea Haarlem, so we're going to Ikea Amsterdam. Exotic, don't you think? Once I've made up my mind, I can finally start planning in more detail. I may even download the IKEA KitchenPlanner