The further I travel into the Discworld—that disc-shaped world atop four ginormous elephants standing on the back of the Great A'Tuin, the World Turtle, who swims through the immeasurable vastness of space—the more I want to know what else is going on there.
In Mort Mort turns out to be as fit for the family farming business as a dead starfish. When Death takes him on as apprentice, he manages to alter Reality, which isn't that big a deal, as on the Discworld, it is going to have its predetermined way—one way or another. Reality just doesn't care if Death's stand-in falls in love with a princess whose soul he had to collect, it'll just make sure that in the end everything turns out the way it's supposed to. Which should give Mort just enough time to find a way to prevent reality from happening.
- Terry Pratchett — Mort (A Discworld Novel)
- This is the bright candlelit room where the lifetimers are stored — shelf upon shelf of them, squat hourglasses, one for every living person, pouring their fine sand from the future into the past.
For thousands of years all kinds of people have been crossing the Atlantic Ocean from the old countries to the new world. And more often than not, they took their gods with them. And as it turns out, America is not a good place for gods. The old people don't need their old gods anymore, and they start worshiping those new, American gods of progress. As the old gods start to loose their powers, a storm is building. Surely this all can't end well for both the old and the new gods. Neil Gaiman's American Gods is the story of how Shadow got in the middle of this conflict, and what he did once he got there.
- Neil Gaiman — American Gods
- Shadow had done three years in prison.
Waar moet het heen met dit land? Na een weekje achterkamertjes overleg gaan VVD en CDA onderhandelen over een minderheidskabinet. De PVV doet niet mee, maar geeft gedoogsteun, omdat, en ik citeer:
De drie partijen VVD, PVV en CDA verschillen van mening over aard en karakter van de islam. De scheidslijn zit hem in het karakteriseren van de islam als óf religie óf (politieke) ideologie.
Partijen accepteren elkaars verschil van inzicht hierover en zullen hier ook op grond van hun eigen opvattingen naar handelen.
Het moet toch godverkutjes niet veel gekker worden.
Dat het CDA zich vanuit hun christelijke perspectief niet kan vinden in een flink aantal standpunten van de PVV die in strijd zijn met de vrijheid van godsdienst en onderwijs zal niemand verbazen. Maar dan lijkt het mij logisch dat zij (als grootste verliezer bij de verkiezingen) niet de aangewezen kandidaat voor een minderheidskabinet zijn.
De grootste winnaar van de verkiezingen, de partij waar niemand meer omheen kon, is dat wel. Dat de PVV ervoor kiest om gedoogsteun aan een VVD/CDA-minderheidskabinet te verlenen, en dat de hopman van die club daar 'ontzettend blij' mee is, dat vind ik minimaal een aanfluiting, belachelijk, laf, flauw en een typisch Haags staaltje volksverlakkerij.
Because some people got the crazy idea that I'm some kind of computer whizkid, people sometimes ask me if I can do something for them. Truth be told, as long as those damn things just work I can usually persuade them to do my bidding, but when they don't, well, damn them straight to damnation. A couple of months ago someone asked me if I could make a copy a bootleg from cassette to CD. Since I got the right equipment and toying with audio is something I quite enjoy, that was no problem whatsoever.
Back in the late 1980s, before his glorious 1993 comeback, Meat Loaf was touring all kinds of small clubs and venues all over the world. Like De Bonte Wever in Slagharen, a village in the east of The Netherlands. On May 13, 1989 he played a typical set for that era, which you can download below.
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(For the nerdy people who want to know more about this new, fancy download-button thingy I cooked up—that is supposed to force downloads and enforce an expiry date, which happens to be August 1st in this particular case—I'll give you the details in a later post.)
