Did I Say That?

random thoughts and other junk

Wednesday, June 29, 2005

A POST in which I quote Stephen King and reach a conclusion that undoubtedly will cause some people to raise eyebrows in disbelief

Before Jake Chambers fell into the abyss, he set Roland Deschain, the last gunslinger of Gilead, on with these words:

Go then. There are other worlds then these. Stephen King, The Gunslinger

Without a doubt, this is my favorite line in the entire Dark Tower saga. And the more I think about it, the more I have come to realise that I should heed these words. It seems to me that, indeed, I should go. There are other worlds than these.

Since I am not satisfied with the status quo, I should get my act together and do something about it.

To be continued…

Comments

  1. hear hear, keep me up to date of what you are pondering about. Maybe it is something that I should do as well but never think about.

Tuesday, June 28, 2005

A POST in which I announce another one

Watch this page. Or watch the feed. Or both. Neither is fine with me too. Tonight I have been working on a post. And I am still not quite satisfied with it, so I will continue tinkering with it tomorrow. Just so you know.

Friday, June 24, 2005

A RANT, in which I get to say, and pardon the French if yer a religious man, “that is a load of fuckin' donkey shit”

Just a few minutes ago, I heard two people utter and defend (something like) the following statement:

As humans we are all different, so we are all the same.

Well, pardon the French if you're a religious man, that is a load of fuckin' donkey shit. Whichever way you turn it, it doesn't make sense. Yes, all humans are different. And, yes, as humans we all share the fact that we are different. But that does not make us the same.

That is like saying that all houses are different, so all houses are the same. Yes, all houses are houses, but that does not make every house the same. My house (well, room) is not the same as, say, the White House. Well, except for the fact that they're nothing alike, that is.
Every human is human (speaking biologically of course), (almost) every human walks on two feet, every human uses his brain in some way or another and, ultimately, every human dies, but that does not mean that every human is the same as every other human. Humans may share a fair amount of attributes, but no two humans are identical.

Spin it whatever freakin' way you like, not every human is the same as every other human. And if you think they are, you're wrong. Period.

Comments

  1. Sweet Sweet willie, Dit ga ik overgens gewoon in het fou t nedeland doen heb geen zin om me engels te bekeren. Het is altijd weer erg leuk om je log te lezen en soms zeg je ook diepe zinvolle, begripvolle dingen. Maar dit verhaal daar kan ik geen vinger op leggen. wat ging er in je hoofd om toen je dit schreef? dat je stiekem toch een mensje bent :P
  2. Ja, kijk, dat probleem had ik dus ook... Wat de fuck moet ik met een uitspraak als "alle mensen zijn anders, dus zijn ze allemaal hetzelfde". Dat slaat nergens op. Nee, dat zoontje van je houdt er rare ideeën op na...

Tuesday, June 21, 2005

A POST in which I complain about the weather, and make a quick note about being bored, which prevents me from expanding this post any further

As the title of this post points out, I am going to complain. About the weather. Amongst other things.

So, this weather. A couple of days ago, the summer finally hit. It has been quite hot, 25 ˜ 30° C., but I am not complaining about that. You see, last year I was in Barcelona for a couple of days, and during that time, the temperature was quite similar. But there it was very manageable. So I guess it has something to do with the humidity. No, the real problem I have with this weather is that it makes me very listless, tired (sleeping in this weather is a bitch) and, well, blerged out. For the life of me, I cannot be arsed to do much, let alone care about that.

And on top of that, I am bored.

Sunday, June 19, 2005

Paranoid & Sunburnt

For the second saturday in a row, I was standing in a field watching bands play. Last week was my festival debut, and yesterday, Fields Of Rock became my second.
Like last week, I didn't see a lot of bands, but walked around a bit, stood here for a couple of songs, then I went over there for another few, and so on. I didn't really have to see any band in particular, so I'm quite satisfied with the whole day. Highlights? Nothing really special, but Sabbath playing "Paranoid" falls in the same category as Survivor playing "Eye Of The Tiger": totally r0x0rz!eleven!!
And unlike last week, the sun shone, it was hot, and ergo, I am sunburnt.

Tuesday, June 14, 2005

Hey ma, hey ma, look it's me!

Bløf's got a new DVD out, called Tussen Schemer En Avond. It's a registration of their concert with the Metropole Orkest in the Heineken Music Hall in Amsterdam on October 29th, 2004. Can everybody who's in every shot from the back of the hall raise their hands?

Comments

  1. Keep on posing for the camera huh?
  2. Well, lookin' pretty is a dirty job, but somebody's gotta do it
  3. who? ;-)
  4. you?

Sunday, June 12, 2005

The Good, The Bad, The Edited

This friday, I left for the Achterhoek, to visit the Arrow Rock Festival on saturday. There were three things I wanted to see, and those were Survivor playing Eye Of The Tiger, Meat Loaf (and repeat after me: "D'uh!"), and Dream Theater. Let's see how that went, shall we?

We arrived about twelve-ish at the site, hung around a bit, met some people, got some drinks, watched the Little River Band perform in the distance. Some more walking, hiding from the rain, more drinks, some food, the works.
Then, Survivor was on. Although my assumption that I could just wait for the last song, I went and saw their whole set. Which was quite okay. Baring in mind that I only know one of their songs, it wasn't bad at all, 'though in the end it kinda dragged and started to sound the same. Then it was time for the last song, "Eye Of The Tiger". It rocked. Reportedly, that was the only time that the audience was moving. You may consider the song cheesy as hell (it is), but it roxord.
After Survivor was finished in the tent, Kansas took on the mainstay. Once again, I am not familiar with their work. But from what I heard, that is something I might need to change. Didn't sound bad at all. Of course they played "Dust In The Wind", and finished of with "Carry On Wayward Son". Decent show, and the food wasn't half bad either.
Out of pure fear for the possibility that Lou Gramm ("the voice of Foreigner") would play "I Want To Know What Love Is" I stayed on the field, did some more hanging around, food and beer, and made it through the first two songs of Crosby, Stills and Nash. After which I went to the tent to secure a decent spot for Dream Theater.
Halfway down the tent, to the left (just for Arie), a little behind the soundboard is quite a decent position in my book. It seems like more people have read that chapter. By the time they were supposed to start it was quite crowded there. Add someone very close smoking a joint and the fact that I hadn't eaten all too well to the equation, and you can see where that was heading. And indeed, the whole tent started to spin before my eyes, and if not for the people in front of me, I would have nicely fallen to the floor. So about three seconds before Dream Theater came on, I rushed to the exit, to fresh air. From just outside the tent I saw them kick of with "About To Crash" (oh, thou sweet irony), to plunge straight into "Learning To Live". They announced that they'd be back in the fall (and indeed, 10 october and 11 october in the HMH in Amsterdam), and started with "Never Enough". Halfway through the song I came to the conclusion that I wasn't into it. At all. And with the fact in mind that they'd be back, I left. O, bite me.
So I went back to the mainstage, and found a spot in front of the mixing desk, along with some of the people I was there with. Five minutes early, without any advance warning, Randy Flowers came on and started playing "Whore". The rest of the band followed. Kicking your set off with a cover is weird, and it's even weirder when you might expect that virtually no-one in your audience will know the song. But after that, it was familiar terrain with "Life Is A Lemon". Followed by another cover ("Black Betty"), "Dead Ringer", "Took The Words", "Out Of The Frying Pan", the new song for Bat III "(It Hurts) Only When I Feel", "All Revved Up", "Paradise", "Anything For Love" and "Bat Out Of Hell". Then back for one encore: "Mercury Blues". And that was that.

Before I continue with some more on mr. Loaf's performance, I just want to state for the record that I had a great time. Friday's pre-party was great (although a bit on the chilly side), saturday was a blast (although I didn't see a lot of Dream Theater. Here's to hoping a bootleg turns up!), and this morning wasn't bad either. The journey home was smooth. All trains connected flawlessly.

So, now for the Loaf's performance. One word: wow. The band was tight, his voice was really great, and the sound was crystal clear. "(It Hurts) Only When I Feel" has all the potential to rock my socks when it's properly recorded (or just release this live version, sans me screaming along with the "If It Ain't Broke (Break It)" part of course). And how's that for quite a weird situation: screaming along with an "unreleased" track. Jay for Jimmy's recycling :). And jay for the work they seem to have done on the song in the few days they had between the concert in Bonn, and yesterday. And now comes the shocker: "Paradise By The Dashboard Light" was done in less then 10 minutes. Whoo-friggin-hoo!
Which brings us to some minor points I cannot omit. First: two covers (well, three counting "Mercury", which I don't since he recorded it) is too much when you have such a shit-load of your own material. The second one goes out to C.C.: If you can't play the guitar — fake it! If you can't fake it — well, don't bother. Third and last: This could've been the best show of Meat Loaf I ever saw. But it wasn't. The sound was great, the band was on fire, Meat's voice was perfect—but... but the show lacked something. It was so polished, so autopilot, so... so routine. There was barely time to applaud between the songs. Not a word was said to the public that wasn't planned. No "Hi, great to be back", no "it's always great to be in The Netherlands", no "Sorry that I didn't show up in december 2003", no "this song is called", no nothing. As the headliner he had 1 hour and 45 minutes, and after the only encore, he still had about twenty minutes.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: if not for the ridiculously low entertainment factor, this show would have been the best I've seen. Damn shame.

Edited because of some appalingly sloppy writing.

Tuesday, June 07, 2005

The Book Title

Dan Brown's The DaVinci Code and Het Bernini Mysterie (the Dutch title for Angels & Demons) started a hype (in The Netherlands at least). Right now, you can't enter a bookstore without being assaulted with books whose titles are (very imaginatively) translated to something like The Michelangelo Mystery (Michelangelo's Notebook), Raphael's Silence (Waking Raphael) and A Ventian Secret (The Rule Of Four).
Basically, you take the name of some artist, and add a noun.

So to make it easy for all those aspiring writers who can't think of an original name for their book, I present The Book Title generator.

Have fun.

Comments

  1. :-) very nice!
  2. I actually wrote Michelangelo's Notebook--known to its editor as Mike's Palm Pilot. I LOVE your title generator...

Thursday, June 02, 2005

From the "Mental Note to Self" archive

  • If all six Star Wars movies could be summed up like Return Of The Jedi and The Empire Strikes Back, I might give a damn about them.
  • Some things can't be properly described as dancing.
  • Apparently, We The Dutch don't want an European Constitution, but we do want 700 sheets of double-sided toiletpaper. (Now playing: Europe - 1982-1992)
  • Can I borrow a quarter? I need to call my mother and tell her I've found the girl I'm going to annoy for the next 5-10 minutes. (link), Hey. What's Up? It's London (link) and loads more where that came from.
  • PARENTAL ARGUMENT
    (1) My mommy and daddy told me that God exists.
    (2) Therefore, God exists.

    And about 350 other ways to prove God's existence.
  • Which brings back fond memories of entertaining discussions I've had on the subject. Sometimes you encounter certain bits of information too late.
  • This post helped me clear my "Mental Note To Self" section of my inbox.
  • Which will undoubtedly lead to some new episode somewhere down the line.