Home sweet home on the Daily Show!

Home sweet home....

I'm not a great blogger - while some are out there digitally clicking fotos, uploading them immediately with their webphones to their blogs within moments because we live in superfast ADHD-times, here I am uploading some pix I took 3 months ago but couldn't be bothered downloading from my camera until now. I am really beginning to feel the generation gap close in - I don't care that a faster laptop has been released - I don't care that my mobile phone has internet capability (in fact, after 8 months, I only used it once) - I guess I'm truly on my way to becoming a grumpy old man :-) Anyhow, here are some pix of my old hometown.

Ah, the good ole days of the ratrace downtown. Actually, it's changed quite a bit - barely saw any homeless people - it's not that there are less - they just seem to have found a way to sweep them away somewhere else I guess




A view of San Francisco from Emeryville, which used to be a shithole, but now has turned into a bit of a yuppietown



Sutro Baths by the Cliff House, a favourite restaurant with a view of the Pacific Ocean. To think, I used to live right near here - you never appreciate what you have until its gone...


The Cliff House restaurant - best view from a restaurant in San Francisco! Very expensive but luckily the dollar is very weak at the moment so we went there twice ;-)




I think this place may have been shut down which isn't surprising given its name...


Obligatory tourist cable car photo


The Video Cafe on the corner of my old apartment - we very undiplomatically used to call it "We Hate Roundeye Video" because they were always incredibly rude to us, but it didn't matter because they were a 24-hour Food/Video Rental place 1 block from home! Ah, those 3am milkshakes!!


We decided to have lunch at a place called Moe's in North Beach, but never in my wildest dreams would I imagine the name was inspired by The Three Stooges!! Great burgers and Stooges memorabilia on the walls- the only bummer was no Stooges on the TV - I considered asking, but thought the guys watching "the game" would probably beat me to a pulp

Fascinating information no one cares about...

Barely a day goes by in the Netherlands where you will not come across an article publishing the findings of some ludicrous survey or opinion poll which informs us of some mundane crap that no one in their right mind could be interested in. A few weeks ago, I read the fascinating fact that the Dutch buy more fake-laminate flooring than other people in Europe! WOW!!!!!!! I'm so glad the precious little space in the newspaper devoted an ENTIRE COLUMN to mentioning this- just that morning, I had been wondering what country used the most laminate flooring and....well, luckily I didn't have to ponder it that long. Apparently, a reason so much of these nauseatingly banal facts are thrust upon us is that there are loads of braindead "researchers" living on subsidies who, in order to maintain their subsidies, must compile and release "research" like this, supposedly as some sort of sociological experiment?? The Dutch seem obsessed with statistics - they're everywhere! And of course we all know statistics are useless and can be manipulated by the phrasing of the questions, so what is the point???

What started me on this rant? A piece from today's "news" that the Dutch prefer bread and cheese for breakfast and continues to inform us what percentages buys their bread and where, and how many make their own sandwiches for lunch!!???! Well, anyone who's lived here for more than 2 weeks could tell this - this is generally what they eat for breakfast and lunch. In fact, in several situations I've encountered, the Dutch actually use the word "bread" for lunch, as in "Shall we go get some bread???" Now this is completely weird to most of us foreigners, but it's business as usual here. The thought of a rich, filling American breakfast or a greasy English fry-up is completely frightening to them (and sure, that's probably why they're much skinnier than us!). Anyhow, in case you are interested, the article is below.

AMSTERDAM – Despite the culinary variety in the Netherlands (WTF???-This is culinary variety???-dman) , a brown bread roll with cheese remains the most popular breakfast. Bread is essential to the Dutch diet, as evidenced by a survey of 500 people.

The survey was held in anticipation of the bakery trade fair to be held at the Amsterdam RAI from 2 to 4 March.

Healthy products are popular at the baker's as well: customers say their favourite breads are those with a healthy image, like multigrain, wholegrain and brown breads.

The survey also indicated that one in three Dutch prefer meat fillings for their sandwiches. Favourites were roast beef, ham and "worst" (a type of sliced sausage coldcut). Just one in ten prefers sweet fillings like chocolate sprinkles or jam.

"Almost four in ten Dutch usually buy bread at the baker's and six in ten usually at the supermarket. The Dutch are generally of the opinion that the bread from the baker's is tastier than supermarket bread. But those who buy it at the supermarket do so out of convenience. Men are of this opinion more often than women. Women are more likely to cite price as a reason to not buy at the baker's," the researchers concluded.

Four in ten Dutch take sandwiches from home to work each day. Most workers prepare these themselves, though one in five men does admit that his partner or mother prepares the sandwiches.

One in five workers visits the company canteen and 25% go home to eat at lunchtime.

Hillary & Mrs Miller...

Found this via Doktor Frank's blog (must give credit where it's due!) =



The similarities to Mrs Miller are amazing, so I can't help but wonder if it's intentional parody, or just another case of a piece of amateur-creativity inspired by world events. After 9/11, there were loads of atrocious 9/11 Tribute Songs on mp3.com that, while pure in intention, were worse torture than waterboarding to listen to..... strangely enough, many of the comments on the youtube page are enthusiastic! Are those responses real or satirical??? I used to think satire was dead, as everything media-related had become so ludicrous that it was impossible to satirize any more.....however, I may have to think twice about that....the best satire was always that which you weren't quite sure was real or satire ;-)

Disgusting!!!

Wow, I thought there was some scary packaged food in the US, but in Germany, this takes the cake=
Cheeseburger In A Can!

Gee, that almost makes
Jimmy Dean's Chocolate Chip Pancakes and Sausage On A Stick
look like gourmet food!

Joran van der Sloot

One disappointing aspect of learning Dutch is that it doesn't open up many doors in terms of new books or films that can be enjoyed, unlike French, German or Spanish. But I finally got a chance to experience something "worldly" with my adopted language when there was an exclusive 2-hour special on Dutch TV last night, where a hidden camera caught Joran van der Sloot, the suspect in the Natalee Holloway disappearance, openly admitting what he had done and generally showing the world what a complete cockroach of a human being he is. Whether he's guilty or not, he is truly such a miserable c*** that he deserves any and all misery that will follow. I won't go into what he said as that's to be read everywhere, especially after the US version of the show airs tonight (I wonder if they will subtitle or dub Joran?) - this must be the first time the Dutch language will be so prominent on American TV - Americans may think he's not confessing, but clearing his throat and spitting a lot (for those who never heard it, it's quite a gruff language!). Let's just say he passes every point of the Sociopathic Checklist with flying colours!

Anyway, I think Peter R DeVries, the Dutch criminologist who is a bit of a media whore but generally gets results, overstepped his bounds when he says he "solved the case". Yes, he rigged a car with hidden cameras and got an undercover guy to lure Joran into telling him what "really happened" that night (which of course Joran claims was a lie to just tell the guy what he wanted to hear). But he hasn't made any Sherlock Holmesian discoveries. He has obtained a confession that may not even be legally binding, especially considering Joran was stoned most, if not all, the time. Plus, it was obvious Joran looked up to this guy was trying to impress him, so maybe he was making the whole thing up - he is just a 20-year old narcissistic, habitual-lying punk after all. At first, I thought just that. But as he continued to rant about what happened that night, he really went into detail and looked like he really was letting something out that he had never admitted before. Of course, part of being a sociopath is being a very believable liar, so it COULD be a big lie as well. But what wasn't a lie was the disgusting manner in which he spoke of the police, of Natalee, the Aruban brothers, and almost everyone around him. Maybe it's not fair, but I don't even care now whether he really did or not - I hope he gets punished or becomes the victim of some American Southern lynchmob-type justice. The sad thing is that the Dutch legal system is so tame, that even murderers get just 10 years in jail. The guy who killed Pim Fortuyn got a small sentence, will probably get out earlier, has a nice private cell with cable TV and because he's a vegan, his own chef!!! I don't think they can ever prove Joran as a murderer, so he will most likely get 6 months for disposing of the body at worst.

For a small country, Holland is making big news lately. Soon we'll also have Geert Wilders anti-Muslim film released. The government is freaking out that there will be riots and problems after it is screened. There probably will.

Death and dogs...

We have, or rather had, a strange neighbour. She was very small, almost a midget, about 4'2" or so. I saw her now and then walking her dog while I'm out walking Missy. There was a strange air about her- she looked quite lonely and unhappy, and probably had a tough life. At 5'10", even I am a midget in the Netherlands, where the average height is 6'2", so I imagine being that small wasn't easy. Her relatives also (I am told) were not very nice. I learned she died today. A few days ago, she fell down the narrow, spiraly stairs while walking her dog and wound up breaking her ankle and leg. She was taken to hospital but I was surprised to hear she would be there 6-8 weeks - I can barely get a Dutch doctor to write me a prescription or acknowledge I am sick, so I wonder how a broken ankle gets you 6 weeks in a hospital. There must be more to the story.

Anyhow, the doctors told her she needed some kind of surgery to insert a splint into her leg and she refused! Despite the possible risk of infection, she just didn't want to do it (and this isn't Sick-O land - it wouldn't cost her a penny, so it wasn't out financial worry). While this was going on, some of us dog-loving neighbours were discussing if one of us could take care of her poor dog while she was recovering, because it was home alone, and howling at night. I was about to take him in, but now the woman died and her dogwalker found a new permanent home for him. In a way, it's good I didn't take him in, as I learned he likes to eat money (and there must be a thousand euros worth of 5 or 10-cent coins strewn about the house on the floor, under the couch, etc.) He also likes to eat....well anything= mobile phones, ipods, cameras - what a materialistic appetite he must have. It seems very odd to me that this woman died from falling, but one of the neighbours thinks that she just gave up on life and let herself die. It all seemed to happen after she discovered that her dog was in good hands and would be cared for.

I wonder if we can just give up the will to live and die like that. Maybe the fall did some deeper damage that was undiscovered. It's all kind of creepy. Luckily some more Three Stooges DVDs arrived today, so I'll stick those on to alleviate the dark thoughts....