The final post, many thank yous and way to many bloody farewells,

A big shout out. 
The crew at STAMP media (past and present)
Today is my last day at STAMP Media. After being here for 6 months, saying goodbye is pretty tough. Spending so much time with the same group of people means you get close. Which definately makes this harder. So thanks a lot you dicks :p Really not looking forward to the end of the day. Tears will be spilt. Certainly a few of mine. And if the others don't get all teary.. well I have ways of making people cry... so let that be a warning to all you wannabe tough guys here. Its difficult to get across how grateful I am for everything you guys have done for me so all I can really say here is, thanks for making this experience a pretty damn awesome one.


Dirk and Terry
Also want to say a very big thank you to you guys for making this experience really great, I feel very lucky to have gotten you guys as host parents and also a big thanks for having me live in your house for 6 months - I know its never easy having someone come in and disrupt the daily rythm of life but thanks for doing it anyway :)


I've said this before and I'll say it again, but I really think its the people, not the place that makes an experience like this so incredible and I've been incredibly lucky with that so again, thanks everyone so much.

Anti-emotion
Right. Not tearing up. Manly thoughts.. Lions and fast cars and violent films. Growling. Beating my chest and howling out to the great beyond. Eating bloody steak. Killing a bear with my hands. Punching a shark in the face. Ok I'm done.

Winding down
This is not only my last day at STAMP Media but also my last full day in Belgium. I leave tomorrow at 17.30 (thats 3.30am NZ time on sunday morning). My flying time adds up to about 24 hours but with transit times included it adds up to a 30 hour bloody process. Bring on the pain.

I'm afraid there's not much else to say at this point in time - gotta embrace the final day right.

Final Belgium Post
Regardless this will be my final post from Belgium. I hope to continue my little blogging affair in a bit - not sure if it'll be on this blog, but I'll change the name to something more appropriate after my hiatus.

Cheers guys, thanks for reading, wouldn't have kept on going if you didn't :) (if only you'd known that stopping reading would stop me right?!)

P.S. Gonna be kinda strange not doing this every few days or so.. kinda become a big part of my life.. Hopefully I'll be back soon though,
cheers again,
This is the Belgiumcorrespondent signing out.

Hair, dying chickens, women and home sweet home

3 August 2010
Headless chickens
So its getting pretty close to leaving time now and things are fairly hectic. There's so much last minute stuff to do (as predicted) so its gonna be alittle frantic. Lots of goodbyes and rushing off to see people as much as possible and prowling the souvenir shops looking for anything that weighs under 5 bloody kilograms. Oh and packing. Well actually washing cause as I'm sure one can imagine (for anyone that knows me) I don't exactly get on top of my ever-increasing pile of dirty clothes. Nor do I wash them very often. Its funny cause I have a washing basket but a lot of my clothes get put in strategic positions around my room, just in case i get really desperate for a shirt or something - that way it isn't bogged down with the musk of other clothing in the washing basket. Just its own musk. Which I then proceed to bath in deodourant.

Why I am divulging these intimate secrets you may ask? No reason really. I'm just funny like that. Apparently.

Women
What is it with women and buying shoes that are uncomfortable? I mean honestly, buy some comfortable shoes - why buy the crappy ones if you can't walk in them to begin with? And if you really feel its worth the sacrifice to wear them despite the apparently agonising pain your going through every bleeding second, then don't go on about it all the time.  I mean, don't put me through that pain just because you desired shoes which one might think has barbed wire in them.

A note on hypocrisy
I would like to note that I realise I'm hypocritcal in many, many ways so don't expect me to use the same logic when it comes to myself, on some, non-shoe related matter. 

Hair
So Bert just cut my hair again. its considerably shorter but pretty good I reckon. The only problem with having a shorter cut for me is that I've put on a fair amount of weight here in Belgium, so I kinda look like a hampster. That said, its a hampster with damn nice feathered hair. The texture is amazing. And thats sober. Nevertheless I am somewhat streamlined. I'm sure there's a blonde joke in there somewhere - something about a blonde getting a hair cut so its more aerodynamic thus the plane flies her home faster. Or something. Adjustments definately required before I release that joke into the wild. Maybe I'll try get a sense of humour first.


HOME
If you've read this far (or luckily scrolled down to this point, skipping all my hard work), then you get to find out when I get home. I leave Belgium at about 17.00 on sat, and arrive in Auckland airport at about 11.00 Monday morning. Quite a bloody process isn't it? I'm guessing most of you back home will be working or at university at that moment so I'll have family time until later that day. Well. that night probably. Visitation rights start the next day I think. You can fight my mom on that if you want but my money's on her to be honest. Yes even Craig.

Man i just fully tripped out on Craigs name. It was like I was seeing it in a completely new way. You all know what I'm talking about right? right????

Will try for one last entry before I return to Middle Earth, so until then,

farewell my colourful infants
XOXOXOXO

Update on Return to NZ PART 2

Fair people, I have a little announcement to make....

The decision has been made...

On the 7th of August I shall be catching a plane which will be loosely directed towards New Zealand :)
Not exactly sure when I get there at the moment- due to time differences and crossing time zones etc, but I though I'd just let you know all know that imma coming home.

That means a few things... apart from being able to see all of you charming people again, (whether you like it or not, and whether you know about it or not...) I will be able to come to your first gig Andrew :D which I am so keen for.

Jess F, I'm truly sorry I may tear my sister away from you briefly - but when is the actual party, cause I may not be there until afterwards...

Michael and Matt, sorry to disappoint you guys, but it seems I'll be around a little sooner than you'd like :p

To the rest of you family and friends, can't wait to see you all soon :D

Just though I'd let you know,

Cheers for now

Update on Return to NZ

28 July 2010

This is kinda an in between post so I aplogise in advance

Update on the return to New Zealand
This is an update mainly for people back home in NZ who may or may not be wondering when I'm returning to tend to my sheep. (I mean that in a "I'm going back to NZ" kinda way not in a "I'm Jesus" kinda way, just in case you mistake that for sheer arrogance...). The short story is that it comes down to visas. If I get my British visa within the next week or so then I'll be gone for a further 3 months and come back near the end of October. However, if I don't get my visa very soon I will be on a flight to NZ on the 7th of Aug. Which is obviously pretty soon. Bit strange I know - 2 weeks or 3 months 'til I get back, but that's the current situation. Will keep you all up-to-date on that situation. I really wish I knew which it's going to be either way, cause its really frustrating.


Emotional crap
Regardless of where I end up in the imminent future, I am coming to the end of my stay here in Belgium. This of course comes with its own mix of emotions. Sad that I'm leaving, happy that I'll be seeing family again (in Eng or NZ), happy cause I might be seeing NZ friends pretty soon, sad cause I'm leaving all my Belgian friends and Dirk and Terry... So its difficult to know what to think a lot of the time. I try to negate this by not thinking much. I know a lot of you would have some smart comments to make there so go for it :p


Thanks
Thanks for actually reading the last two posts by the way, I know they were complete bull, but I was bored. Thats more or less my only excuse. That and perhaps being a little strange but I think its fair to say I can blame/thank my family for that.


Future and stuff...
So after all of this I'm still keen to go into journalism - not sure exactly in what capacity, but I would definately like to do something writing related. So thanks to all the Stamp Media crew, it wouldn't have been the same without you guys - and I mean that in a good way :)


Back to the usual complaints
Tired.....
Public transport...........
.........people in general.
(in that order)

On the bright side... LUNCH! :D


This particular post is pretty disjointed and not very exciting - I consider it to be fairly representative of my mental state right now so deal with it.. Until the next post anyway.

Growing up with love

An ode to Karen
Karen is in love with me.

How do I know this you might ask? How can I possibly have the arrogance to assume such a thing? Well she just threatened to invade some fairly intimate parts of me with a pen for starters. Parts I would rather leave unblemished from what she assures me would be a highly traumatic invasion.  This metaphor in mind I'm now determined to coin the term "I'm gonna go Napoleon on your ass".

Not exactly what I would call a silver lining, but I digress.

Ultimately, judging by her passive aggression (directed strongly in my direction) I can only conclude that she's completely, irrevocably in the deepest kind of love with me: Hate-love.  You know the kind. Its the kinda thing everyone gets when they're in primary school and have no real idea how to interact in a nice way. I've never really understood fully how this works, but their next option seems to be making their chosen love-victim's life a world of pain. I mean where is the logic!?

Banality
Thankfully as we grow older the options seem to open up a bit. A great highway AKA 'the middle road' evolves. It is at this point in our lives that we begin to have long mundane conversations with the opposite sex purely because by this stage we've realised that physically assaulting them gets you sent to the naughty corner. Make no mistake, I don't mean a good kind of naughty corner. (The kind of naughty corner which is accompanied by a wink everytime you say it. The kind of naughty corner every guy with a hot teacher has fantasised about. Sadly its also the kind of naughty corner which very rarely exists in any place outside of those fantasies... My schooling career aside...  Ahem...) In any case, we graduate to this awkward stage of conversation while our social skills are given time to slowly march on in what is hopefully the right general direction.


This stage is probably the most boring time of our lives as far as relationships are concerned. I mean, at least the physical assault and name calling gave some kinda an adrenalin rush right? (Although interestingly enough many in long term relationships get right back into that stuff... talk about full circle eh)

Mixing it up.... and ending up right back where we started
For a lucky few, there is the third stage, the stage where you can combine being boring, exciting and throw in just a bit of friendly violence just to keep the passions high. I mean friendly violence is healthy right? Right??

Jasmin is cool. Cause she keeps hitting me as well. In fact during this entire blog I've been violated by her bottle. In the face. Use your imagination. Something to consider...

The lol philosophy of life

It has become apparent in recent years that people really do enjoy a good lol. We use it when smsing, emailing and chatting. Some even use it in real life (RL). For most people lol stands for 'laugh out loud' or something to that effect.

The fallacy

Uninterestingly enough, when most people use lol they do not, in fact, laugh out loud as one might be led to believe. This renders the users utter liars, a trait which according to the Oxford Scaffolding Society (OXSS) is becoming more common by the day due to a combination of sex, drugs and arousingly cute baby fish.

Despite this, the word lol has been given a heavenly power, the power to completely change how something is perceived. Observe:

“I hate you” => “I hate you lol”

Quite different aren't they? The first text depicts a seemingly hostile response which comes off as rather offensive. The second text shows a light-hearted bit of backslapping comaraderie between two old friends.

And behold!

I think this is a wonderful example of how lol gives you the power to not lose friends. What I mean is, if you genuinely want to insult a friend without serious repercussions, as long as you follow it with a good solid lol, you will probably be able to maintain the friendship that much longer.

The rookie mistake

Please note this should not be taken to extremes, and is especially to be used with caution amongst the inexperienced lolers of the world.

Once again, observe:

Little Betty: “ I just ran over my cat :(”

You: “You idiot lol”

Invariably this doesn't go down well. Unless maybe Little Betty ran over the cat in a REALLY funny way...

The power of lol

So you see, 'lol' has the ability to give and to take. It is often likened to the handy plug adapter for this reason. Use correctly and your life will be that much easier, use incorrectly and the ramifications could be electrifying.

It has great power, and with great power comes the ability to screw up in fairly banal ways. But when used properly it's a godsend, ready to lighten up your day and make the world a better place :D

                                      ---------------------Don't be safe, be lolsafe---------------------

Review of Rock Werchter and a guide to public transport strategy

9 July 2010

The long anticipated Rock Werchter
Rock Werchter was pretty mind blowing. That is, for 4 days I left my mind flapping noisily in the wind while I directed my energies towards other things. Such as survival. More specifically surviving 4 days in 34° degree heat at a festival where you kinda can't sit around in the shade all day if you actually wanna see anything. Somehow I pulled it off. Although my mental faculties are only really starting to return now. They're crawling slowly in my direction with a smarmy look in their slimy eyes.

As I'm sure you can imagine, they weren't the 4 most hygienic days of my life. I mean when we (me and Monica) weren't at concerts we were at the camping ground in a well boiled tent. Sleeping in that bugger is pretty disgusting in that heat. I mean, it really is gross. And that wasnt even using my sleeping bag.

Oh and much thanks to Monica for keeping my wallet and stuff in her handbag for most of the festival :)

Ok so this is what I saw, the performances which were good (regardless of whether I'm a fan of their music or not) are marked with a smiley face and the bad ones are marked with my face of eternal mourning   D:
In no particular order....

• Muse :)
• Greenday D:
• Them Crooked Vultures :)
• Vampire Weekend :)
• Arcade Fire :)
• Pearl Jam :)
• Rise Against :) 
• 30 Seconds to Mars D:
• Jack Johnson :)
• Balthazar :)  (Belgian band, never heard them before but pretty good, more on them later)
• Pink :)
• Paramore, surprisingly :)
• Stereophonics :)

Those are the ones I remember anyway. saw some other stuff but they obviously didn't make too much of an impression on me.


Impromptu reviews

Muse, Pearl Jam and Vampire Weekend
I don't want to go on too much about how great the big bands were, because I'm pretty sure its all been said before. All I'm going to say is that Muse and Pearl Jam both lived up to the hype. Vampire Weekend was great - they seem to carry a kind of innocence in their performance which I guess may come from them being relatively new to the scene.


Greenday
Probably the biggest let down of the festival. The only performance I genuinely wanted to end about halfway through. And my god, they played for like 2 and a half hours. A band with a lot of good music could pull that off (Pearl Jam, Muse) but they simply don't have the volume to work with. So they end up wasting all this time stopping and talking to the crowd during the song - completely stoppping the song for a solid 5 minutes. That happened on average 2 or 3 times a song. The first time it happens it's kinda ok but eentually you just want it to be over. By the time the song comes back on you've completely lost interest. Especially if it was one of their crappier songs to begin with.

The thing that really turned me off the whole thing though, apart from all I've already mentioned, is that they seem like complete pricks. I mean that probably seems like stating the obvious for some, but they really acted like douchebags. That drummer, my god, he thinks he's so damn funny. i think he has it in his head to try and be 'the crazy wacky one' but all he ends up doing is looking like an overweight older man trying to fit into a strange assortment of school clothes, wearing make-up and running like a retarded chicken. And not in a good way. The lead singer just makes up for that in general dickheadedness. The bassist managed to remain relatively inoffensive so I won't give him a hard time.

Arcade Fire
Many of you may know Arcade Fire, but I must admit, while I'd heard of them, I'd never actually heard one of their songs before going to Werchter. They had one of the best performances in my opinion. The energy on stage was incredible. They were crazy, but they pulled it off really well. Would be interested to listen to their music and see if its still good without the performance to back it up.

Balthazar
Right, so this is the Belgian band I mentioned earlier. Never heard of them prior to Werchter, but was pretty impressed. Its mostly pretty simple music from what I've heard but I like it. If you want to have a listen to a song to see what I'm talking about check it out at Balthazar's Myspace. You can listen to a few of their singles there. All good if I recall but like 'Hunger at the door' in particular as well as 'The boatman'... I think... Let me know what you think of the music in the comments...You know... if you want...

The rest I can't really be bothered talking about, not that they weren't good, I just don't feel like talking about them so much...

... There is one thing I should probably mention.. You know how at concerts they usually throw picks/drumsticks into the crowd? Well I was almost right at the front for Pearl Jam, and I managed to score myself a genuine PEARL JAM PICK! Which I feel is pretty damn awesome.

----------------------END OF REVIEWS---------------------------

This week was mostly back to normal. Last night I went to what can only be desrcibed as a youth booth festival. Which was pretty good. Before that we'd been playing lots of pool which was good cause I haven't done that properly in a while...

Public Transport
What is it with people when you're trying to get off the train/tram and they try get in before you can get out??? I mean, its bloody full. It doesn't take much brainpower to work out that if something is full, you have to empty it a bit before anything else can be put in it. But nooooo... these dicks are ambitiously trying to defy the laws of physics. And provoke my ire. Lets not forget the ire. I mean, I could glare at them or something. Actually I usually do, but they're too busy to notice.

I have discovered a fairly handy trick to use on trains though. The seats are usually arranged in groups of four - 2 seats alongside oneanother facing another 2. Now if no one is sitting opposite you, you can stretch your legs out and relax a little more without awkwardly rubbing the leg of the big hairy man opposite you. The problem is that thetrain tends to get so ful that its inevitable that someone will come sit in your little foursome of chairs.

I try to disourage this.

So when they are walking along the coach trying to find the least occuppied stall to sit in, I just stare at them. Right in the eyes. Its simple, but it seems to work, because they usually feel so uncomfortable with my eerie stare, that they'll go sit with 3 other random people rather than sit next to, or around me :D Quite an accomplishment I feel.  Its really satisying when you see them coming towards you, you bring out the icy eyes, they look up and meet them momentarily, then, visibly shaken, they scurry off to any stall not in view of yours. I probably get more joy out of that then I should. I like to think of it as my only Jedi Mindtrick (so far)... Thats pretty much my morning socialising for you.

'Til next time accolytes

END

Short hiatus due to Rock Werchter

30 June 2010

Hello everyone.

This is just a quick update, letting you know that I won't be doing a full length blog this week. This is because tomorrow Rock Werchter starts and I only get back to work on Tuesday. Yes yes, you're all off the hook for reading this week, but when you've all stopped breathing sighs of relief, take a moment to consider I will probably have a lot to talk about next week after the festival. So you can have that to look forward to or dread. If you're dreading it then I at least admire your committment to reading all this. But it does kill me inside just a little bit. And when I die inside so do cute bunnies. But thats on your conscience not mine =D

I'll leave you with this quote from a much wiser man than me.

"Most of the time it was probably real bad being stuck down in a dungeon. But some days, when there was a bad storm outside, you'd look out your little window and think, "boy, I'm glad I'm not out in that."

This site has plenty more intellectual but amusing quotes, so for your entertainment, here's my newly discovered bevy of quotes.  Make sure you're in the right mood to read them though because I'm really tired and I'm thinking they were a lot funnier yesterday when I discovered them. Have a look either way.

Farewell for now minions

In Bruges (again), the Soccer World Cup and Rock Werchter! Also Wikileaks on the side.

24 June 2010


Rock Werchter
Wow, the time has finally come. It's a week until Rock Werchter, the best festival in the world. (Thats not just me talking, it has actually been voted the best festival in the world... don't ask me how they work it out or decides though). Either way, I'm starting to get pretty excited. Wolfmother was meant to be there, which would have been awesome, but apparently the lead singer had a severe case of screwjamesoverlitus, so they can't make it anymore. Nevertheless, with a line-up like this one, its still gonna be incredible. Here's a taste of what I'll be pushing and shoving my way through the hordes to see (I say to see them cause I have a feeling the hearing will go pretty quickly): (These are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head, don't like all of them, but all are undeniably pretty big names)

• Pearl Jam
• Muse
• Vampire Weekend
• Them crooked vultures
• Jack Johnson
• Rise Against
• Greenday
• Rammstein
• Pink
• Corene Bailey Rae
• Arcade Fire
• The Black Box Revelation
• The Black Keys
• 30 Seconds to Mars
• Alice in Chains
• Paramore

Now you may not like all the bands there, but you have to agree, thats one awesome line-up!
Seriously. Well it all starts next Thurs and goes until the Sun, so its going to be four hardcore days of music, bad smells and possibly a few broken ribs. Hopefully it doesnt rain... Cause that'll suck big time.

World Cup Soccer
New Zealand are playing Paraguay today. Tense times. I'm hoping for a miracle. Italy are playing Slovakia as well and we kinda need Slovakia to do well... So maybe 2 miracles then.. Don't want to say anything more lest I jinx everything... Either way, good luck to the All Whites, they've done much better than everyone expected regardless of what happens now, so we'll at least have that I guess.

A shout out to all my peeps in South Korea and Uruguay, well done for making it through to the second round, you know I've got your back(s)   ;)

In Bruges (Again)
In other news, I'm going back to Bruges tomorrow - staying for the weekend. Bert is coming with. We both love the movie and he hasn't been to Bruges, which I think is blasphemy, especially considering the fact that he is indeed Belgian. Going to try and get to some of the places they filmed, recreate some scenes etc. Think I've mentioned that already in a previous post, hell I don't care, I'm gonna do it and everyone should know. So yeah, pretty psyched about the whole thing really. Will be good to see the city at night as well. You know, different atmosphere and everything. Maybe I'll see a midget or two. Fingers crossed eh.

Hmmm wonder who I offended with that last line... If I keep it up I might find myself running short of viewers.. Hahaha, get it get it get it???? Its funny cause midgets are short. And South African New Zealanders are mildly offensive...

Homework
I've been going extra crazy on listening to Pearl Jam lately - got 349 songs by them on my i-pod. Live albums and all. Also been brushing up on Muse.

Wikileaks
I'm not going to go on about this but if you haven't heard of Wikileaks, check it out here. Its revolutionary. A guy by the name of Julian Assange founded it - Aussie guy. At the moment he's kinda my idol. Regardless of what you think of him or the site, it is very interesting and I really recommend checking it out. Look up some stuff about Julian as well. He's like a modern day hero. For now anyway. He's what every government conspiracy theorist wishes they could be. Fair enough too. If you google either wikileaks or Julian Assange you'll find plenty of info so go wild.  For me its one of the biggest world-wide news worthy stories in a long time... ok Enough of that. Just have a look okay? Consider it your daily duty to humanity or something, you know, whatever chokes your puppy.


Conc.
To all those who have commented on my posts, (you know who you are) thanks a lot, really appreciate them, keep them coming. To those who haven't commented, feel free to do so, its great to hear what you have to say about all of this (whether I know you or not). Looking forward to hearing from you all.

Over and out.

STAMP media, the vengeful ancients and the Soccer World Cup

17 June 2010

Old people
Call this the soft sentimental centre of James talking here, but I love seeing really old couples ambling jerkily down the street holding hands. It's strangely cute. Nice to see that some people can keep it going all those years (although in todays society one can never be sure that they hadn't just hooked up at a 30second dating event for 90+ ancients the night before). Of course I'm going to ignore the fact that there's a fairly good chance that they're only holding hands to prevent themselves from collapsing to the ground. Maybe its a "If I'm going down, you're going down with me" kinda attitude. I mean, 'til death do us part right? Hmmm.. not as cute anymore.. Or maybe it is.. But more in a slightly more sadistic kinda way. Those oldies. They sure know how to play dirty. (not sexual not sexual not sexual not sexual)

On an unrelated note, it occurs to me that when you get to that age, a one night stand can take on a very different meaning when it comes to overzealous Viagra users. 
Ponder that for a second or two while I try and resurrect my mental firewall. I suggest you do the same.

The purge of the interns.
The interns have officially left. But lets just say we purged them, sounds more dramatric... So the intern crew which have been with me for the majority of my stay here (Fleur, Jasmin,Thomas, Elise and Karen) are now all gone. Which leaves my main office area with myself, Bert and the new guy, Bart. Sounds like the beginning of a bad sitcom doesn't it? 'Bert, Bart and that New Zealand dude.' Hmm.. I don't think there's much potential for television glory there eh...

The office is definately a lot cleaner without Elise. She really did put her stuff everywhere...mainly my desk. It's interesting, the crafty bugger cleaned her table before she left, but failed to clean all her coffee marks off of mine, so now it looks like I'm the bad guy. I don't even drink coffee at work! That devil.


STAMP Media

On Monday and Tuesday I stayed home sick - Terry was sick too so we just chilled out and watched the Soccer World Cup (which I'll get to) at home.

Yesterday I came back to work and went with Bart to a press conference at the town hall, literally across the square from us. I took some pictures and he did the pen and parper thing. I find it mildly amusing to see that the mayor looked fairly bored throughout the talks. Got a few pictures of him looking like he's trying to sleep. I know I've mentioned before that the best thing about press conferences are the food, but I'm sticking with it. This time it was even better than usual because it was the mayor of Antwerps crib (during the day anyway), so it really was top notch stuff. Then it was back to the office to try and edit away my photographic mistakes.

Last night me and Karen went to Bert's parents house in Deurne (spelling??) cause they were out for the night. We watched movies and had pillow fights in our underwear while jumping on the bed for no apparent reason. You know, just your regular slumber party.

Today has actually been fairly similar so far except they didn't give us food at todays press conference (despite the fact that it was at the same place), which I found to be somewhat of a disappointment. Although I ws really looking forward to Subway anyway so they can keep their sophisticated surprise-thats-actually-shrimp-you're-eating-in-those-sandwiches from the day before. The latter did come as somewhat of a shock to me. Shrimp... Argh...

Tomorrow On Saturday night I'm going out to Brussels to see my long lost neighbours from South Africa - they left the country for Belgium when I was 9ish... I think... That should be really cool. It's going to be weird to see how they've changed, although I guess facebook has a way of minimising the shock these days.

World Cup Soccer
Firstly, I'm not a big football fan, but come world cup time, I'm in. Mostly. The teams I support are first and foremost South Africa and New Zealand.  Considering this I decided I might need some more teams to support if I'm going to maintain my interest in anything past the first round. (I'm being a bit harsh on SA here actually, they really surprised me with the opeing game against Mexico, hopefully they keep up the good work - they play Uruguay tonight so I'll be shouting for Bafana Bafana all the way). I believe the New Zealand media described the All Whites (their national team) as gutsy... I think that sums it up actually. I mean don't get me wrong, my support for them is infalliable. It's the faith part that's the problem.


As I was trying to say, I thought it probably wise to support some other teams as well.
So apart from those already mentioned I'll be giving my highly sought after support to:

• South Korea
• Urugauy (sorry Ana)
• Ivory Coast

Of course whenever they come up against my main two teams, I will temporarily call off my support. As  fascinating as that is.... I'm going to go do something else now.

Ah yes, just one more thing, I've installed a Snake game in my sidebar. You know the kind you got on old mobile phones? Well its there. It's not an ad and its not going to whisk you away to some dark place in the cesspool that is the internet. So play at your leisure. Just use the arrow keys on your keyboard.

Sweet? Damn right it is. Pointless too.

Signing out... So to speak. XOXOXOXOXOXO

Leaving interns, Brussels and Villa Vanthilt

8 June 2010

Peculiar aren't you?
Hello curious people. It's been awhile since my last entry and to those who would complain of such things I say thank you, because at least it means you don't entirely hate reading this. Or so I tell myself anyway.

The end of an era
So last week was sad and this week is going to be as well, because all the interns who've been here during most of my stay are leaving. 3 left last week and  another 2 by the end of this week.

mubmubmubmub

Naturally, since we were seeing some people off on Friday, we had to make a night out of it. I mean, we're not animals right. Well... I guess we kinda are but you know what I'm getting at. First stop was the river, which was great cause the it was so hot. I mean ridiculously hot. I'm actually getting a slight tan. In Belgium. Who would've thought eh? In any case we were there til 10ish then moved on to the Irish Times to see some live music. There were just four of us left at that stage  and after a while it dropped down to 3; Myself, Bert and Fleur. Long story short it was a great night. The live music was really good as well.


Brussels
On Saturday myself, Bert and Elise joined Karen in Brussels for a night out. Karen cooked us a great chicken noodle thing. She kept telling us how it really wasn't up to standard but I think I had like four helpings so I think that kinda speaks for itself.

Karen took  us to this Celtic bar, which was really good.  You could get a pint of beer there for  €2 (thats $4NZ for those back home), which I think most people will agree is pretty good. Met quite a few other exchange students there as well which was great. Met a couple of Aussie girls which was awesome. I mean as much as I love to hate the Aussies, they're much closer to home than anyone one else right now, so it was really cool.

We then missioned it over to an absinth bar. I mean, I'm in Europe, its pretty much sacrilege if I don't visit at least one. When the sun came up we thought it was probably time to call it quits for the night/morning and went back to Karens place to crash for a few hours. Woke up looking like I'd been hit by a car.. Kinda. The best part was that later that day I had to be on national tv...


My television debut
There's this talk show here called Villa Vanthilt which was doing a promo on the socer world cup. So they needed a person from very nationality involved in the world cup this year. So I was the NZer. We had to do this soccer related game which I was predictably average at. The prize for the winner was pretty awesome though- a flat screen tv with a massive sound system. The italian guy who won really pissed me off though - when they presented him with the prize they asked if he had one already to which he replied, "Yes, I have 2". I mean, come on. It should have been some kinda prerequisite that you don't already have one.  Ah well.  Despite my dismal failure, many people failed in a much more obvious way than me, so in some perverse way I felt pretty happy with that.

My actual appearance on the show was fairly minimal. It mainly comprised of me being behind a bunch of people and trying not to do anything too humilating whenever I was surprised by a camera. Those camera men are crafty buggers. I swear they hide in bushes and wait until you're doing something mildly silly and then jump out with a giant self satisfied grin on their faces silently cackling with the intense joy of humilating someone. God, clown camermen would be petrifying. Imagine everything I just said but with a clown cameraman. Could make a movie about that. Not a very good one. I mean it'd have its moments but the novelty would probably wear off halfway through. Like digging  large hole when you were a kid.

It was very interesting to see how these shows are organised behind the scenes though. It was very open so there was a relatively large audience outside willing us to do something stupid. I feel I mostly won that battle though.

Info dump sign off
So that was a bit of an info dump. I would ramble for a bit about some arbitrary experience ith no particular reference to anything, maybe shoot in a couple of metaphors for the hell of it, alas, work is over now, so I bid you all fare well, will be back soon, and I hope you will be too. If not, then, well, I'm probably not going to know its you so don't lose too much sleep over it eh. Or maybe do. Yeah... DoOoOoOooooooo..... (like a ghost saying do).

POLYGOMY!!!!

Night of the Irish barmen

WoOoOAh.....


Ok here I am.

Random rambling intro
I am currently wearing a fairly large pair of metrosexual sunglasses. The ones which all the girls love to wear but which also happen to have the side-effect of making their faces look like some mutant beetle (I'm not talking about a genetically modified John Lennon here). You all know what I'm talking about. Lets get this right out of the way. I'm well aware that you've all probably been aching to know if they're my glasses or not. But wonder no longer my good people. I have aquired these glasses through great treachery and deceit. (Ok so I took them when Karen left them in the office during her smoking break but thats not nearly as exciting). One must commend Karen on her magnificent taste in sunglasses.  Perhaps they'll protect my eyes from the powerful glare of the computer screen. Or maybe they'll just give me a headache after a while. Only time will tell.......



Night of the Bartenders
Here begins an epic journey. On wednesday night me and Bert were going to see the movie Kick Ass. You know, a real man-date. We probably would have ended up drinking beer and beating our chests, shouting out manly things just to vent our great overflowing masculinity. That is, we would have, if we had ever gotten that far...  We had some time before the movie started so guess where we ended up. THE PUB! (one has to say that with widened eyes and far too much intensity for a sane being).
Long story short, we missed the movie.

As I've mentioned before, we tend to frequent one pub in particular - The Irish Times, so we're relatively familiar with most of the barmen there. In fact last week he walked up to us and told us what our order was. Kudos to him, it was right. Although it definately made us think a little... I mean half the mind says "god we come here too much" while the other half says "awesome, they know us well, next step = drinks on the house." Without coming to any particular conclusion about that I'm going to resume my story.

One of the guys who usually serves us was in plain clothes having a drink with some friends (some more Irish louts presumably). Anyway, we got talking to him and eventually we ended up joining them. My presumption was spot on, they were a bunch of Irish louts. But great louts. The kinda louts I could hang out with and do lout-like things with (Manly things of course, wrestling bears and whatnot). Anyway, we were having a great time, they'd already had a few drinks so were very entertaining, as only Irishmen can be. As such, they were pretty generous with the drinks. Which was great. Obviously. Seriously though, completely made my night. I mean, the bartender were drunk and buying us drinks. Thats pretty cool right? I mean its definately a step up on the great Chain of being... A.K.A  the Great Pub Hierarchy.

Apart from everything mentioned above, my main conclusion about the night is that I still need to go see Kick Ass...

Women (the creatures, not the song)
Something bizarre that I've noticed here in this giant pub of a country, is how much people use their bicycles. I mean, to get everywhere. Everyone does it too, rich, poor, whatever. So you get people in suits riding bikes down the street. My favourite though, is seeing business women, (could easily be a highly acclaimed lawyer judging by the clothing). I don't mean 'business' women, I mean wealthy professionals. Firstly; it is a little strange to see a very well dressed women cycling down the road in a tight black formal skirt. Strange, but I can get over it. What I can't get over entirely, what baffles my poor ignorant mind, is seeing them cycle in these massive high heeled shoes. I mean really. Apart from looking ridiculous, it must present some kinda safety hazard. What if the heel gets caught in the pedal and said women ends up breaking her face. I mean her expensive make-up would be ruined for starters. The facial lacerations wouldn't be that great either.


More on my captivating thoughts later... In a few days... lovelovelovelovelove

Amsterdam: sex, drugs and the Hard Rock Cafe

Wow. What a weekend. (Four days since it was a long weekend). The trip to Amsterdam was a big success I think. Firstly, the city is completely bizarre. It's the strangest mix of sex, drugs and culture. I'll try tackle each of the above individually.

First off, the drugs (marijuana). God its seriously everywhere. Coffeshops can be found usually just by glancing vaguely at your surroundings. It gets smoked a bit in the street as well so I'm pretty sick of the smell by now. The streets are so dirty. Maybe I've just been spoiled by the relatively clean Belgian and New Zealand streets, but Amsterdams streets were shocking. Have to see it to believe it. I concluded that the reason for this can be attributed to just about the whole city getting high, getting the munchies and heading off to the closest fast food joint (joint, haha get it get it get it???). Once the trash cans are filled the gutter is apparently the next best thing. So much weed merchandise in the tourist shops as well. Think of any touristy gimmick that you can buy. They probably have the same thing, except the weed version. Like actually.

The sex. Well, I can now say, I went to Amsterdam, and I went to the redlight district. Found it pretty strange. The prostitutes are all standing on display in windows down the street. Talk about window shopping eh.  They have loads of 'live pornos' in between all the prostitutes as well. A slightly odd feeling to walk down a street knowing that there are people all around you having sex - and some are being watched! Oh, I went to the sex museum. One of the funniest things I've seen in a long time. Glorified porn from way back. People keep telling me how much more conservative things were back in the 50's... I think not. Those horny oldies.

Elise is a bitch.  a lovely person.


The culture. I know what you're thinking, you're thinking, "Thank god, finally, the exciting stuff!" Boy do I have a treat for you guys... Well... I'm afraid its going to be a bit of an anti-climax, because the museums I saw were amazing, but not exactly the kind of stuff that translates well into blogging. So I'll just say that I went to the Rijksmuseum, the Van Gogh museum and the Anne Frank museum (the house where they hid). Without going on about it too much, (you can relax, I really am not going to ramble about it) the Rijksmuseum was by far the best - the history had me sold pretty much. They had old weapons on the display. God. The things I would have done to own them. Terrible things. Disgusting things. But it would be worth it.. Probably.

While I was there we went to the Hard Rock Cafe. It was really good - always get such good service there. I mean, you actually get the impression that the waitresses like you. Maybe they were just smiling because they spat in my food or something.Still, you come out of that place feeling like you've had a good time you know. Plus the food is good, and the prices weren't too bad by European standards. The music is always pretty decent as well - although at one point they had the Ting Tings on, which really lost them some credibility. They still came out pretty well though.  - Got some merchandise as well. I got a shirt which apprently confirms for all observers that I have, indeed, been to the Hard Rock Cafe in Amsterdam .Despite the cynical tone of that last sentence I actually think its really cool- I mean if you're going to get a Hard Rock shirt, where better to get it from right? (Its a rhetorical question but if you genuinely have a better place then let me know, I'll make it my life ambition to but a shirt there.. I'll think about it anyway..)

Ah yes, the John Malkovich play. Firstly, I have to correct myself, its called the Infernal Comedy, not the Divine Comedy as i previously stated. Back to impromptu and highly acclaimed reviewing. Generally pretty interesting.  The play essentially could be divided into two sections - the bits with John doing his thing (it was essentially a one man show so only he spoke), and these two chicks who sung opera when thy felt the burning desire. My problem was that they felt the burning desire way too bloody much. I like to consider myself as vaguely cultured (don't laugh ok), but 10 - 15 mins of unintelligible opera is simply too much when nothing else is happening. The John Malkovich part was great. He acted incredibly well - I actually found it  little unsettling as I struggled to tell where John Malkovich ended and his murderer character began.

That's all for my update, wishing you all well. I feel lik I should be singing out with some profound statement or amusingly altered quote but my mind is empty at present so you're being spared... for now...

So long fair people

Return to Paris and other curious ailments

12 may 2010

I've had a busy last few days. Where to begin.. Ah yes, return to Paris. It was a really cool trip, some things I'd already seen, some things I hadn't, so all in all it was pretty good. Hectic scheduale though. We really didn't stop all saturday. The Sunday was the best I think. We did the cycling tour, which surpised me by being the highlight of the trip. Had a really good tour guide who took us to a lot of really cool old places in the city centre. Most importantly, I didn't kill anyone with my bike (mostly). By the end of it I was still breathing as well so I can't complain there. The people were pretty cool as well. Didn't know a soul before the trip but got passed that fairly quickly.

On Sunday evening I got back to Turnhout around 9.30ish and started watching a tv series called Carnivale (I think thats what its called anyway). So far I really like it, its really dark and strange, which is awesome. Keen to see more.

On Monday night I stayed in Antwerp with Bert to see a few people for a few drinks etc. Now bear with me, this is very exciting news.  The Irish Times (our regular bar) sells polo shirts with Irish Stout and beer logos on it, as well as the Irish Times logo. Naturally we'd being eyeing those shirts up for quite some time... I thought to myself, tonight is the night. So we finished off our pints and went and sheepishly asked the bartender if we could buy the shirts.. I'm pretty sure we were the only people to ever buy them because he looked a tad confused. The kinda look which, with a few subtle facial expressions, calmly inquires as to how much we've had to drink. Well, I am proud to say that this magnificent purchase was the result of a great deal of sober thought and consideration. Anyway, so now I have this shirt, which looks awesome by the way. Although it does look like we're staff from the bar. I'm sure I can find a way to make that work to my advantage. Some mildly entertaining but completely impractical plan which I will never carry out in reality.  Sounds good.

Tomorrow I'm off to Amsterdam until Sunday. Going to try see the Anne Frank museum plus some flowers at my mothers behest (God, I was 100% sure that was a word until I started rereading it). 

Tonight I'm going to see John Malkovich in a play called "The Divine Comedy" (thats probably the name...). I'm not entirely sure what its about but hell, its got John Malkovich in it so I'm keen to see what its like.

Also for anyone who hasn't noticed, at the bottom of my blog I'm now posting random explosm comics which I change every so often, so if you feel the need, then have a look. Laugh muchly. Appreciate me more. Send me flowers (nothing overly scented please), or otherwise find ways of making me feel slightly more meaningful. Yeah.....

So Elise wants me to massage her shoulders. That crazy woman. Her and her demands.

Ok so I just massaged her shoulders.. oh I'm a sucker for trying to get people to stop whining at me.

All for now, peace people

Links, updates and some smelly person

5 may 2010

With an efficiency I think surprised us all, I've managed to add some extra features to the blog. Nothing too fancy or anything, but you may have noticed there is now a Facebook button, a Digg button and a Stumbleupon button. If you feel the need to use these, well, awesome. If you don't then I'll have to seriously re-evaluate my life. (Please use them, I've come to realise that life re-evaluation is a drawn out and painful process much likened to sawing off a limb with a spoon and I really don't want to go through that again, no matter how well polished the silverware may be).

So, back to blogging. Had to stay a little later in Antwerp last night to wait (with Bert) for Fleur to get back from her filming. Think she was filming youthful women frolicking around or something (I'm not actually joking). In any case when she did get back we decided to go for dinner at this really good place just around the corner from work, at Berts recommendation.
A few beautiful words for you: "all you can eat ribs." They were actually really good as well. Juicy, meaty, saucy and just generally magnificent. (ignore possible sexual references in that last sentence, for a change it really wasn't intentional)  I did however, make sweet, sweet love to those ribs... Emotionally speaking.

I'm pretty excited about going back to Paris this weekend. It's going to be with the exchange students who are on the school based program here. I've never met any of them before so it should be interesting, especially considering that none of the volunteers are going at all. Considering they're all on the school-based program, their Dutch is probably reasonable by now so I have a feeling I'm going to look a little stupid (more than usual). I'm sure it'll be cool though. Busy to the max.

Anyway, here's a stupid game for you play if you wish. Its about a troublesome cat who encounters some problems in its life. And you have to create the problems. Sounds like fun right? Well its actually a pretty mediocre time waster. But play it anyway.

Okay, this game is hilariously disgusting/weird. It's a sex ed game from England. Check it out, it'll make you cringe/chuckle. You don't have to finish the game, just play it for a bit to get the general idea. Make sure you get some questions wrong as well as right, both produce interesting effects.  God, the things people do to educate others about sex. What...um.. heroes?

I would be having my Dutch lesson today, but they finished last week. I'm actually kinda sad about this because it means I won't get to see the other volunteers nearly as much. Which really sucks. It was a nice break in the week as well. I guess I'll have to occupy my mind with other things. Work, complicating my life in frustrating ways, working on the blog etc etc.

Oh yes, yesterday someone smelled quite bad on the train. I was somewhat uncomfortable.
That is all

Update

4 may 2010

This is more of an update blog than my usual rambling blog due to a healthy mix of laziness and lack of time. 

The train was 30mins late this morning. God knows why. Or maybe he doesn't. Not sure if they let him/her know about that kinda thing.

Karen says I should acknowledge that I'm her bitch. She wants me to go buy her a diet coke. If she asked for a normal coke I would probably consider it. I just don't see the point in drinking diet coke. I mean if you're going to drink something bad, at least do it in the tastiest way possible right?

I've been trying to change some things on my blog homepage - add some extra stuff, without much success. Its using the html so its not as simple as the other stuff. Not for my technologically challenged mind anyway. I'll see if I can get it right at some point soon.

I add new links fairly often (somewhere on the right hand side of this page) so if you don't already know them then check them out, most are pretty cool.

So I'm generally thinking of doing something new with the blog - layout and otherwise. Make it a bit more dynamic. This all largely depends on my technical abilities however and so may never come to pass. But time will tell.


Thats all for today, blog you later homies

And darkness falls.......

I'm in a dark mood today. The weather reflects this, so maybe I have more influence on this Earth than previously thought. This, however, seems unlikely. I'm trying to find something new to write about at work but I'm drawing a blank which is fairly frustrating. The internet isn't being particularly obliging  either. Which I guess is why I'm here writing dark things in my dark mood.

Over the last few days they started putting up loads of international flags in the Grote Markt. No one seems to know why though. Perhaps there's some internationally focussed conference happening soon. Or something. Maybe they just enjoy the idea of me being confused. Its the kind of thing I would do.

I really want to see this new movie called Kick Ass. It looks like good combination of cool and funny. No doubt I'll give it some sort of unnecessary review on the blog if I ever get around to seeing it. I'll probably use excessive amounts of adjectives. Then I'll feel vaguely smug about the fact that I managed to fit so many flowery, superfluous words into one sentence.

I've been listening to a lot of Pearl Jam recently (Thank you Fergus) in an effort to educate myself for Rock Werchter. Been really enjoying it. I think I've got just about all their albums on my i-pod with the exception of their latest. Which is a bit of a bummer but oh well. I should look on the bright side. I mean I could be dying at a faster rate than I am now. Which would suck.

Between this paragraph and the last I had lunch. Which was good. Most of the places seem to be closed today so we had to walk ages away to find an open grocery. Although ultimately it was worth it because that grocery store did us the courtesy of not making their sandwiches crap. (crap being an adjective in this case, not a verb, if they could actually make their sandwiches crap I think I'd be very impressed, if somewhat put off my appetite) Our usual grocery recently decided that their sandwiches were being enjoyed far too much and so they now produce the equivalent of 2 bits of bun with a moderate amount of moisture between them. In 3 varieties.

Actually, if anyone has any ideas about what I could write about, please comment about them in my blog. I would be eternally grateful. Especially if its actually good :)  Comic relief subjects are also approved of. By me anyway.  

Right, I'm going to be in a dark mood somewhere else now.

Protest in Antwerp

27 april 2010

Lots of excitement last night. After work we went for a couple of drinks to celebrate Fluers birthday but she had to go pretty early to catch her train. As we were walking out of the bar into the grote markt police cars rushed past us to join the 10 others already parked in the square. At this point it was just Bert, Vincent, Elise and myself there. Turns out there was a protest going on - people were upset that they had sound level restrictions placed on them which limited their... er... partying capacity. In any case, we rushed up to the office to get a video camera and microphone, then rushed straight back down to the scene of the action. The police had formed a line and everything, a few people got arrested, presumably for being drunk enough to actually attack the police. Oh yes, lets not forget the alcohol; I've never seen the streets so full of bottles. To the city's credit, the clean up began as soon as the protest ended. Which I can only guess is about the time when most of the protesters could no longer resist the tempting prospect of anything nice and greasy to eat frrom the conveniently placed local frituur (french fry place) or kebab outlet. It was really exciting - because the others had 'press cards', it meant we could get right up to the police without being ushered away all the time (although they didn't let anyone through the police line.) It was a really cool experience. Part of what made it so great was the fact that for us it was very spontaneous.

After the protest cleared we went back up to the office to begin editing and writing an article - they wanted to get it publicised as quickly as possible. As I couldn't really help too much with either of those things I appointed myself the food runner and went to grab food plus cigarettes etc. We were at the office until about 12 doing all that until Vincent, Bert and I made out way to Berts place.
And for your viewing pleasure, (for those of you who don't know Dutch, just look at the pretty video and listen to the music), this is what happened last night. Check it out, its pretty cool.

So that was my monday. Lets be honest, they don't usually come much better than that. The weekend consisted essentially of me being at the AFS mid-stay camp. Which was actually pretty good. Was nice to hang out with the other volunteers and get to know them better. Plus it gave us a good opportunity to plan some stuff for the next few weeks. We relived our youthful days of staying up late, wondering around in the dark, sacrificing demonspawn, that kinda thing. Speaking of demon spawn, at the place we were staying at (which had massive grounds), there was also a theatre group. Late at night as a dramatic exercise/just for fun, a few of them dressed up like cult members with dark capes and white masks and went around scaring the hell out of the rest of their group - which were wondering around in small groups in the dark. When we were wamling around we stumbled across three of these would-be-killers dancing around three lit candles on the ground. Now that was creepy. Anyway we survived.
During the day we played some stupid but fun games in between doing workshops on our community service projects and our host families etc. Which pretty much sums up my weekend.

Don't have time to write anything too crazy today as I only started this 25 mins before work finishes... Which was 10 mins ago. 

Planning on going to Maastricht (think thats how you spell it) with Monica, Julie and Lisa this weekend - probably just for the sunday though. Which meansme and Monica will have to travel to Julie's hometown on saturday night so we can all leave early in the morning.

Ok, well thats it for now people, I shall return... Probably.

Cheers

2 Months!

20 april 2010

As the title may suggest, as of yesterday I've been here 2 months.  Still mostly alive (I checked some of my vitals but got bored and concluded that if I was still chugging away on the great train of life in a few hours I'd check the others then). Anyway, its been good so far.

Plans for the week.. hmm.. Well, tomorrow is Berts birthday, so doutbless a few people will be doing something for that, which should be good. Sadly tomorrow is indeed a Wednesday, which means I have Dutch in the afernoon - the issue not being that I have Dutch as such, it just means I have to come back to Antwerp from Brussels to meet Bert and his...crew.

In my excitement from Paris, I completely forgot to write about a fairly important part of my stay here. That is, I went to Bruges with Dirk and Terry. It kind of rocked my world. Not sure if I've mentioned it before, but I really love the movie 'In Bruges'. Like a lot. Unlike many movies these days, it is actually all filmed in the suggested place. Thus creating a splendid opportunity for me to sate my desire. For Bruges. Now if Bruges was a woman... Wow... although  lot of tourists pass through there so maybe I'd stay away. But I would at least hang around and check her out for a while.  In any case, for those who know the movie, I'll give you a quick rundown of where I went (fear not, there will be no spoilers, I love it too luch to destroy it like that). First off, we went to the clock tower. Which was really cool - sadly there was some construction going on so when we got to the top we had a fairly narrow view. Hoping to go back there later in the year when the construction is done. Hopefully stay the night and drift off into my own little fantasy world as I walk the streets. You know, its kinda like a fairytale village. I mean thats just my opinion here. Didn't get it off anyone else or anything like that. We then did the river trip, although it was a substancially more crowded boat than the one Colin and Brendon were on (damn right we're on first name terms). As we stepped onto the boat I looked across the river and low and behold, I saw the hotel they stayed at in the movie. Which we went past a few times, both on foot and by boat (in the throes of passion I took lots of pictures of the same thing with completly indistinguishable changes of angle). We also perused a few certain streets which were seen towards the end of the movie (don't want to give anything away here), which was cool. We found the park with the alcoves which made me warm inside. Again with the photos. To top it off we had truly great weather, so everything kinda fell into place.

Enough on Bruges.

HA! As if there is such a thing as enough of Bruges!

Okay but seriously I've got nothing else to say about it right now.

This weekend the other volunteers from AFS and myself have a 'mid-stay' camp. Think I mentioned that before actually. If I didn't, or you can't remember cause you weren't really reading then its a camp at which I'm fairly sure we'll have to talk about our experiences, host families, cultural differences and whatnot.


The day is ending, so I shall bid thee well. Goodnight and goodluck.

Return of the Screaming Banshee (is there any other kind?)

16 april 2010

Hey hey hey,

The reason for my lack of blogging this past week, is because I have been in Paris. Which I think sounds a bit understated actually.

I WAS IN PARIS!

Much better. It was a really awesome trip. I went with 2 of my work people, Vincent and Laura. I won't go on too much about the trip but lets just say it was great, with lots of sightseeing. (Of course I can't resist rambling about something so fear not, you'll hear a little about Paris) The nightlife there is very different to the nightlife in Belgium. The bars close at 2am and there are no night shops that stay open past about 11. At least none that we found anyway. Admittedly we were there during the week, so I'm sure it must be at least slightly different on the weekends. Nevertheless, in Belgium the night shops are pretty much open all night, everynight, and the bars seem to have a nap between 6am and midday. So there's always something going on in Belgium. Or at least there is the potential for something to always be happening.

Surprise surprise, I'm very tired this morning. So if this doesn't make too much sense, I plead for your forgiveness. Maybe not plead. Ask in a semi-polite way. Without really listening to hear the response.

Oh, one other thing that was pretty cool. You know the movie Amelie? If you don't, then go watch it, its awesome. In a quirky French way. Well, we kinda semi-accidentally found some of the places where it was filmed. Will try put the pics up on facebook. `
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/profile.php?ref=profile&id=717053065
Thats my profile if you want to check out the pics, but bare in mind that if you are reading this within the first few days after me writing it, the chances of me having uploaded them are fairly slim. So maybe check again in a few days or something.

I feel I should ramble about something then make an obscure link and start rambling about something else. However, I'm struggling to make the right connections in my brain right now. Sometimes I find this is an advantage with rambling as it means everything you think is at least a little messed up. The problem at this moment is that the connections have kinda stopped altogether. Which is interesting. In a sense.

Ok I'm pretty boring today so I'm going to cut my losses and shut up.

Cheers

A note on average ornamentation and general ranting

8 march 2010

The weather today, is kind of like, if Mother Natures uncle died. Not a particularly close uncle but he's family either way so she's pretty much obliged to mourn a little. I'm hoping she gets over it quickly though cause I want the good weather back. Preferably before another member of her family dies. Me and Mother Nature have a fairly tumultuous relationship. One might even say we're fair weather friends. *canned laughter with a hint of genuine amusement* I mean one minute she's giving a great day of butterflies, pixies and unicorns, then the next she's raining down proverbial brimstone on our releationship. But then I guess that's just women. Not that men don't do their fair share of brimstone raining. You just tend to see it coming when they do. You know, menacing dark clouds hovering around for a while before eventually breaking open. With women its more Noah's arc style. No rain at all, then one day and the whole bloody world gets flooded. Maybe that means that God is a woman. It sure would explain a lot. Like the unfortunately vulnerable placement of the scrotum for example. I mean its a pretty fundamental weakness. The kind that has the tendency of rendering one completely helpless after the execution of a well aimed kick. I mean, in a sense, the male achilles heel, is really in the scrotum. Try not to think of that to anatomically. And definately don't try and put your achilles heel in your scrotum. IT HURTS.

Well now that I'm done with the weather and vulgar stuff, I can move on to more intellectual topics. Such as sugar collection. For all of you in NZ, you will probably remember that at some point or another in a restaurant, I've consumed a sachet of sugar straight from the bag. Now its not exactly the most normal thing in the weird, but nor is it the weirdest. Nevertheless, I found myself collecting these things whenever I go for coffee now. This was highly fueled by the fact that this one place gives sugar cubes with their coffee, and everyone knows sugar tastes even better in sugar cubes. Maybe the idea of consuming a regular shape just appeals to me more than I thought. The great thing is, Bert has started collecting for me as well. So if he goes for coffee somewhere, the next day he brings me some new additions to my stash. I've got a few different brands going and everything.

Mmm.. I'm hungry again... One might even say I've got the rumblies... That only hands can satisfy... If you have no idea what I'm talking about then watch this. Hell, if you know what I'm talking about watch it anyway. I would also like to point out that I just made a link in a word. I mean, I'm feeling pretty professional right now. I'd like to say that I used some fancy way of making that happen. Alas I just used a shortcut. Cool though right? Regardless, stop reading for a bit and watch what's on the other side of that link ok. Here it is again just for fun. I could definately get used to this button. If only I knew how to do it on Facebook...

My eyes are going...wonky. When I look at the computer screen my eyes just want to close. In fact, come to think of it, when I look at most things my eyes want to close... Maybe I'm allergic to everything. I'm sure there must be some logical explanation to this... Maybe I should sleep on it.

Before I left for Dutch yesterday I lent Karen my earphones, but forgot to get them back before leaving. Which meant I had a strange void this morning. A void where all the music used to be. You know, the day the music died(was temporarily lost) and all that. It made me realise how much I've come to rely on music waking me up in the morning since I've been here. Cause I was shattered when I got to work. I mean more than usual. Its ok though, I'm confusing my brain with sugar so it can't fall asleep just yet.

I feel like I'm progressively becoming more and more like a walking billboard for STAMP Media. Which is actually pretty cool I think - the merchandise that we can wear actually looks pretty good. I now have a STAMP Media shirt, badge and wrist band. Usually don't wear them together though. Just got the wrist band today, but its been put on in a fairly permanent way - I can't take it off without breaking it so looks like its here to sty for quite some time. Might be a bitch for metal detectors though - the metal is keeping it on. Should be alright... I hope.

I could really do with a shoulder massage right now. Its sore from the heavy emotional burden of... life... or something. You can all try curb your enthusiasm now. Not too much though. I mean I know too many cooks spoil the broth (Obviously why we never go to your house for broth Tracey) but at the same time it would be nice to have at least some cooks for my back. Metaphorically speaking of course. I don't want any amount of people cooking my back, young, lovely and tender as it may be.

I just organised my sugar collection into brands and types (cubes or sachets). Thought you ought to know. Where's that last line from again? I think Keira Knightley said it. Or it was at least in one of her movies. So I'm guessing Pirates of the Carribean or Atonement. But can't set the scene just yet. More on that if I remember. Wait. Someone said it as they were dying I think.. So probably wasn't her... grrr.

Ah. Got it. (Admittedly after a bit of frustrated googling). The reason I couldn't remember it is because its from harry potter and the sorcerers stone. By professor Quirril.

The fact that it was from harry potter is rather unsatisfying I think. I mean the movies... bit of a let down, even with my low expectations. I mean I try hard to like it, I really do, but they're destroyed by all these cringe moments where the script writer obviously felt he needed to embarrass one of the actors. I think Rupert Grint in particular must have pissed them off because he gets these awful lines. I mean how anyone pull off "who are you and what have you done with Hermione?" with any kind of dignity??????? The worst thing is that I know he can actually act, but these lines are designed to seriously undermine that. Daniel Radcliffe is okish I think but he also gets the really bad lines - loads of rubbish about how friendship rules and defeats all evil and rainbows blossom every time you smile and some such. I mean, how do you not die a little inside when saying those lines, knowing full well that its supposed to be taken seriously. When watching those scenes being shot, with all the camera men, director, producers, various relatives milling about, surely someone would have had the balls to say "hey guys, don't you think that line is... well... just a little bit crap?" They could kind of get away with it for the first 3 films - they were more child orientated and so cheesiness with bad lines are sort of a given. What they failed to realise was that the rest are more serious and dark, for slightly older readers than the series initial fanbase. Thus they didn't adapt the movies accordingly. AND they violated a pretty big rule about making movies of books: DON'T MAKE THE MOVIES UNTIL ALL THE BOOKS ARE FINISHED BECAUSE OTHERWISE YOU COULD MISS THINGS THAT ARE IMPORTANT LATER WITHOUT REALISING IT!

Okay I did some breathing exercises and I'm mostly calm now. My spontaneous rant is done for now. I even went for a walk to make sure it was out of my system.

Thats me signing off for today.

Birthday weekend, Ghent, Tuesday and the monster that never was.

7 april 2010


The rest of the day/night on fri was awesome. Lots of cool people, live band at the pub, elaborate air drum solos from me (drinking may have been involved) and just generally an awesome night. Had to get to Ghent later on though so I left Berts couch relatively early, all things considered, and made my way home to make preparations. Arrived in Ghent early evening and met Monica, Valerie and Aayran there. That night we stayed at Aayran's counselors house which was cool. He took us to this Latina dancing place. Which to be fair had a good atmostphere etc, and I really enjoyed it. Needless to say, my hips didn't feel like partially dislocating themselves every two seconds so I refrained from dancing. (Yeah thats the reason, I was worried about the health of my body...). I mean, my normal dancing is bad enough without bringing actual dance moves into the equation. But I did take lots of pictures of creepy old guys dancing with the girls... hehe.

Later on that night me and Monica went to forage for food. Which proved to be very fruitful. It was a little Kebab place near the dance place. The fact that I used a capitol k for the Kebab should tell you a lot about my feelings for it. It was love at first site. For the first and second Kebab. And the chips. *gazes off into the distance in a reminiscing kind of way* Seriously it was awesome. If you're ever in Ghent centre, find a place called "Thats Kebab" and eat there. Admittedly, it was also the most expensive Kebab I've come across here - €5 for a normal Kebab. Still. Totally worth it. The remainder of the night mostly pales in comparison to the Kebab, although there was an interesting incident of Aaryan jumping inside some guys egg suite that he had made for Easter. While the guy was still in it. Crazy woman. But then hey, is there any other kind????? I can feel the look you females are giving me right now. Its the kind of fear that goes along with knowing that no matter how hard you try, you'll never quite be able to effectively return that look (or even have a manly equivalent other than laughing mischieveously/nervously)

The next day we all had Turkish pizzas. Wow. Very impressed. Unfortunately I can't remember the name of the place we got them from so as much as I would like to there'll be no free advertising (to my pulsing hordes of readers) for them. Just go to Ghent and try a bunch of Turkish places and if you like it then you just give me the credit. If you don't like it... then you've obviously just gone to the wrong place and it's entirely your fault.

And then there were three....
That is, Monica, Valerie and myself. The others went off to give the fairies a good talking to. We went and checked into out hotel, which was pretty cool. The usual knobs and goblins etc. We went out and searched for food, possibly traversing every side road in all of bloody Ghent. However, we did eventually find a really nice place that wasn't too pricey. The name of the place, wait for it.... was... Twilight. But to the credit of the staff they didn't try and drink my blood, they were actually good, and most importantly they didn't act like a bunch of stupid hysterical school girls with the intellectual capacity of a limp banana. Which I felt was nice. I had an awesome 300g steak. Easily the best meal I've had at a restaurant here. Nice and bloody...hmmm... (insert twilight reference here). Pancakes for dessert. Need I say more? Probably not. Will that stop me? Unlikely. They gave us these bowls of different sugars to distribute as we saw fit, which is nice because so often people skimp on the sugar and don't give you any extra to lather your pancake in. And boy do I like a good lathering.

The next day we did some touristy meandering (Easter Monday). Things were open; which was good. We went to a castle near the centre. It was like a dream come true. They had a room full of really old weaponary with descriptions of their origins, how they were used etc. Plus suits of armour. I want that stuff so badly. Honestly, if I suddenly had massive amounts of money that armoury would be one of the first things on my agenda. They had some of the old torture devices in another room. It made me strangely happy. They had the thumbscrews and all that kind of stuff (read, James can't remember the names).

Eventually we went home.

Yesterday it was back to work. The day was fairly uneventful - there's a media camp here at the moment so me and most of the interns had to shift over to Stefans room to escape the masses. After work we grabbed some drinks and went down to the river Schelde. Was a really good day - clear skies and 17 degrees C. I was in my T- shirt most of the time. Crazy stuff eh. Anyway so, Stefan invited a few of us to stay the night at his so the night could continue. Which it duly did. We all went and got dinner - also a Turkish place, really good. Most of us made our way to the couch when we got to his place and we watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Liked it even more the second time as I vaguely knew what was happening this time. Most people went to bed or fell asleep on the couch. Gladiator was eventually put on, and it was hard to sleep when a pat of me wanted to rewatch it so much. Made it fairly far into the movie though.

This morning we all staggered into work. The camp is still on today and tomorrow so we are still displaced. So tired. I mean there's a good reason I shower in the mornings. That waking up thing people keep talking about. Even with a shower I'm not sure I ever really accomplish being entirely wakeful. But feeeling particularly dead now. Don't know how I'm going to make it through the 3 hours of Dutch today. Have to leave in 20 mins actually.

No random wonderings today, for better or for worse. My brain simply cannot function well enough. Off to Dutch. See you

19 years ago, on a dark and stormy day, a screaming ape was born...

2 april 2010

Hello there.

So my dads birthday is on April Fools Day. Mine, is on world autism day. Not really sure what to make of that. Got to speak to the family this morning which was really good. Would've been good to talk longer though. And maybe in a warm home instead of an alleyway. I mean after the initial excitement, frostbite gets a little (c)old. See what I did there? Very witty indeed... In any case, I'm going out tonight which should be good, looking forward to that. Just got to make it through the day now...

I swear sleeping more doesn't make me less tired. The last 2 nights I've gotten like 2 hours extra per night than I usually do and I'm feeling completely dead. Like in a bad way.


I'm really keen for an early lunch. So about now would be good. So hungry. But then whats new right? I mean I'm hungry and tired, so basically I've just said the same things I've mentioned in almost every post. My god. Shut up about it already. I'm driving myself crazy here. I mean man-up already.

Ok good, glad I got that out. I feel somewhat refreshed. Its one of the feelings I don't usually openly despise - unless it's found in abundance inside others very early in the morning.

In any case I'm off, if thanks for all the birthday wishes everyone, was really good to log-in to my hotmail and have pages of facebook notifications. Cheers people, enjoy the rest of your day, and have a drink (or two) for me ;)

The tale of a vengeful fly

o1 april 2010

Ok, here I am.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!

Last night when I got home after Dutch and some drinks, I decided to have a (relatively) early night and in the same breathe decided to tell my mom that I got a tattoo - nz is 12 hours ahead so it was April Fools day there already. I sent her this txt pleading with her not to freak out about the small dragon tattoo I got on my shoulder... hehe. Apparently it worked. Her reply was "What? Are you serious?" The best part was that she didn't reply until I fell asleep so she had all day to consider my antics. I'm told she fell for it pretty badly (talked to the family this morning, all too briefly). Which lightened my day. God, me getting a tattoo. Such a bad idea. I would just look like some pasty white boy trying to look hardcore and failing miserably. Might be funny for the 5 mins before I realise that its not going to come off in the shower, even after considerable scrubbing.

So its my birthday tomorrow, and my plans as of now involve going out for some drinks with Bert and anyone else who wants to come. Which should take me well into the night/morning. Then it gets a bit tricky. I'm supposed to be meeting some of the other volunteers in Ghent at about middayish, but getting back from Antwerpen takes about an hour, then I've got to wash up etc, then take an hour trip back before setting off for Ghent. So when you consider that I don't really want to get up at the crack of dawn, it could be a tad tight. We shall see. At worst I'll just end up meeting them a little later than anticipated I guess.

I need to try get another book today. Finished the first trilogy by David Eddings so now I'll just move onto his next trilogy. Will try make it last longer this time.

Actually, I do have some fairly exciting news. Vincent invited me to go along with him and Laura to Paris for a few days if I got the leave from work. During that week there's a STAMP Media camp going on in our office so Stefan basically said I should just go to Paris. Which is awesome. Got the leave approved by AFS as well, and in fact our hostel is now booked, which is cool. So I'm pretty excited about that. I think I leave here on the 11th of April so really not long to go.

I need to go eat soon.

*time passes*

I have now eaten.

Most of the people at work smoke so I've decided I need an addiction as well. So during their smoking breaks I'm going to do my best to get addicted to Tic Tacs. In fact I just went for a Tic Tac break. A mouth of minty freshness at affordable prices. If I start selling off my Lord of the Rings model to pay for my Tic Tac habit then I know its time to stop.


This computers slowness is eating my inner soul at an excruciatingly slow pace. My outer soul is a little cold right now. Cold but beautiful...

I've been wondering about something lately. (Just the one thing) I've been wondering how many random photo's I've been in. I mean, not taken by people I know, photo's taken by people with me randomly walking in the background looking staunch and manly. That kind of thing. It saddens me greatly that I will never know the answer to this pertinent question. For once, there's a useless statistic which I wouldn't mind knowing, and there's almost no way to get it. Unless maybe everyone who's ever taken a photo during my lifetime puts them all up on the internet and some super computer can cross reference them all to find the answer to my question. Yeah, thats me, asking all the hardhitting stuff.

This is James Anderson, specialist reporter of...miscellaneous stuff.

Elise is sitting on my desk popping bubble wrap. This amuses me. That dirty woman and her antics.

She just deleted that last line but I had save. Thank god for auto save eh. Alright I'm off. bye

A Quick Hello

Hey,

I've been pretty slack with the blog lately I know. But hey, I'm a rash, unpredictable, unreliable teenager, what did you expect? Anyway, nothing major to report, no significant calamities, impending doom or otherwise forlorn occurences. That I know of. Don't want to speak too soon I guess. Anything could happen... Anything.

Okay I left the blog way too late to finish today and I have to leave work now, so will have to make up for it another time. byebyebye

The mostly random thoughts of the day

24 march 2010

I've been listening to Muse's new album so I can enjoy Werchter as much as possible. I think I've mentioned before that they kinda changed their style a lot in their latest album. I admit I was initially a little apprehensive, but its really growing on me. Maybe my subconscious is making me like it more because I want to like it more. I mean it's always a possibility. For whatever reason, I now think its a great album - when most bands change a bit they usually do it so they can appeal more to the masses etc, but this feels more like just a different perspective on art. Now I sound like a pretencious idiot who tries to over-intellectualise everything. But hey, there are worse things. I mean there are serial killers out there people. Lets remember that whenever you think I'm saying something particularly snobbish.

My big conundrum for today is whether I should go to Dutch today. The reason I'm contemplating not going is because my throat is pretty sore, as I may have mentioned yesterday, and I'm coughing a fair amount. The main issue being that speaking is a rather large part of the lessons and I don't really fancy saying the guttural words with my throat the way it is. However that also means I wouldn't get to see the other volunteers. So a conundrum indeed. We shall see. I will probably end up making my decision on the spur of the moment as I'm about to get on the train.

New Zealand, get a new flag. I mean I used to think that people who were behind the idea of a new flag were being a bit silly. I mean, there are more important issues right? Where I work, there's a big Australian flag on a mast on the building across from us. Now, they look almost the same. Thats not new. We bitch and moan about being called Australians by half the world, but can't be bothered getting a flag which looks vaguely different. Plus, whenever the flag issue comes up, the government always deflects the issue by saying it costs too much, plus more important things to attend to. But its getting to the point where the time government is wasting on trying to push the issue away is getting so large that they may as well just change the flag and shut people up, so they can finally put it to rest (until we find something else to complain about of course, likely the colour of the flag) and get on with all the 'important issues' of ruling the government. Like objecting to bills for no good reason other than the fact that you're part of the opposition. Politics. Gotta love it. In all its pompous glory (there's some debate about that last word I used there but try think of it more as gloriously pompous).

AHhhhHHhhhHHHHhHHHHHH I scream at life.

Not sure why I'm screaming but it seemed like a good idea at the time. Its a good, shrill, womanly shriek as well. None of that manly stuff that's so fashionable these days. Man I'm really in the mood for making peculiar noises. But I'm trying to restrain myself because making the sound of a cat caught in a chainsaw crossed with a burning bird would probably not go unnoticed in the quiet office I'm in right now. I'd be lucky to get out of the office without a straitjacket. Although it would make a very good story for my family and friends back home. Although if I went through with it I'd probably be seeing the people in NZ a bit sooner than anticipated.

I'm really tired today, can barely keep my eyes open. Which is strange cause I had a reasonable amount of sleep - I even had breakfast this morning. Crazy eh. I mean no one knows what I'm going to do next... I'll be robbing banks next. Then I can buy loads of breakfast. I probably won't though. Will be far too busy doing other important things. Like running from the police etc. That would inconvenience me a lot really. I mean I'd probably have to dye my hair, ridiculously blonde doesn't exactly blend in, and I really don't want to dye my hair. Thus the banks are safe for now. Probably.

GOODBYE

Spontaneous epic weekend

23 march 2010

Hey,

Everyone had work off yesterday, cause basically no one with a key was coming in. So the long weekend was good. Had a pretty insane weekend actually, which involved lots of partying and very little sleep. Remember how I was planning on just having a drink on fri night then going home? Not so. Cutting a long story short, me and Vincent (from work) went for a quick drink before I was meeting Monica at the train station. When we had to meet her, it turned out that Vincent would have to wait 30 mins for his train. So he joined us for another drink and eventually we decided we should all do something instead of just going home. Vincent said a bunch of people were going out in his home town, Sint Niklaas (hope I spelt that right), and he said we could stay at his place after. So we went and it was awesome. We ended up getting to bed at about 7.30 in the morning, something I have not done in a very long time. We then proceeded to get up at 12 and go back to Antwerp. Meant to see a movie but the trains made us late.

Monica then went home and me and Vincent met up with Bert to watch the Ireland/Scotland rugby game. (along with a few other people) I intended to go home after the game but ended up staying and hanging out with people until 1ish that night. Caught the last bus home at 1.45 but only ended up getting to bed closer to 4 (its a long ride and I was hungry when I got back).

The cultural dinner turned out to be more like cultural afternoon tea. But it was pretty good - most of the group made it and its always good to hang out with them. Went to bed at 8 that night. Which was awesome. Slept in a bit then went Antwerp later that afternoon too finally see Alice in Wonderland with Monica. The movie was pretty good overall but what Tim Burton was thinking when he made Alice do that weird dance at the end I'll never know. Obviously he felt people hadn't cringed enough during the movie. Or some such.

So today I'm feeling a little sick (again!!!). This time its just a sore throat though. So I guess it could be worse. Hopefully it clears up by the wekend as the group is planning on spending the night in Brussels. Which should be good. Provided that I'm feeling healthy etc.

I'm not really in the mood for writing today, so I shall bid you fare well for now.
cheers

Random Friday

19 march 2010

So its officially been 1 month since I arrived in Belgium. Doesn't feel very long but then I guess it isn't really when you put it in perspective. I've actually eaten breakfast today for a change, so I'll keep you updated on just how spritely that makes me. Excited? Me neither.

Man I slept well last night. Wish I was still in bed, but then, don't we all? It feels like my brain is being sucked out the back of my head. Not in a painful way. I'd say more uncomfortable then anything else. After work yesterday I went and brought the last 2 David Eddings books from the Elenian trilogy. The problem with long train rides, is that just on the way home I killed nearly 60 pages. Plus when I got home I had some spare time alone before the guys arrived. By the end of the night I had clocked about 120 pages. Which is an issue really because these books aren't all that long and I don't really want to have a library by the time I go home. As it is I think I'm going to have to give some books away when I go. But plenty of time to ponder upon that I supppose.

Today is Onur's birthday, so the same four from last fri are going to see if he wants to go out tonight. I'm actually really keen to chill out at a bar for a bit, grab a meal and call it a night, but I suspect I'm the only one. I will probably call on the services of Red Bull yet again. And like the phoenix I shall rise from the ashes... metaphorically speaking of course. Physically speaking I'll probably experience a mild placebo effect and feel marginally more awake. But such is life eh.

In fact I think that probably sums up quite a lot of todays commercial products, anti-aging creams and that type of stuff. PLACEBO. We all so desperately want these various products to work so in our quest for more energy, eternal youth and the chamber of secrets that our brains have a certain tendancy to... well... lie. They can be very convincing as well. Still, its a little twisted don't you think? Having said that, many people who know the above, including myself, continue to but these products. I guess sometimes a placebo effect is better than no effect at all.

Was just reading this article on Nkosi Johnson (for those of you who don't know who he is, check it out here http://www.myhero.com/go/hero.asp?hero=nkosi it should give a fairly good idea). I remember him being on the news a lot when I was still in South Africa. I knew what he was all about but I guess the gravity of it doesn't always sink in that much until later on.

Work is nearly over now (I also do other things - I just come back to the blog in between stuff)
The computer is dying right now so I'm going to sign off before it drives me crazy.

Cheers

St Patricks Day: the morning after

18 march 2010

So about that gutter I mentioned yesterday....

So yesterday I went off to Dutch, which was fairly run of the mill. Although I've noticed our class members are steadily decreasing. I think there's some morbidly obese chick who eats the occasional one when they're too slow to evade her grasping sausage fingers. We went for the traditional post-pain drinks at Delirium. I don't think a place could be more magical short of prancing pixies, frolicking fairies and possibly Gandalf himself. That old tease. I had decided to go see the STAMP media crew for drinks in Antwerp afterwards so once chilling with the AFS/EVS volunteers was done I made my grand return to the great and glorious city of Antwerp.

There's an Irish pub within 30 sec walking distance from work so that was the chosen hang out. Now remember, it was St Patricks Day, so it was packed. The pub did a lot of business last night. The staff there were actually pretty incredible- they would carry stacks of used glasses which started at their waist and ending midway up their heads (hope that kind of makes sense).This was pretty intense because they would just hold the stack with the one hand, then navigate a jostling crowd, and without dropping or breaking anything. It was an acrobatic feat. I mean for most of us it was all we could do to avoid spilling our drinks (and we mostly failed at that as well). They had some dude dressed up as a Leprechaun playing live music. Have to give him credit, he started off pretty well, but as Leprechauns are notorious drinkers (I mean duh, they're Irish)... well let's just say his music steadily went downhill. By that point not many people cared though. He seemed to know a lot of songs, unfortunately he didn't always know the entire song too well, resulting in a fairly bastardised hotel california amongst other things. It was entertaining nevertheless.

Later on, Bert, some of the other guys and myself took a walk to a cafe to play some pool. I can't remember what it was called, but something to do with broomsticks or witches or some such. Which makes sense when you go inside - every spot of wall or ceiling was covered in witches flying on broomsticks, giant hairy spiders and some other mildy spooky stuff. Oh yes, cobwebs, let's not forget the cobwebs. Me and Bert went back to his after and watched some Green Wing... random bloody show. Then I crashed on the couch for a solid few hours sleep before heading back to work.

So here I am, probably looking slightly worse for the wear. Not too bad though - me being sick the last few days stopped me from drinking much at all, which I guess I'm a little thankful for this morning. Certainly made getting up easier. I suspect I don't smell that great right now but I can live with that for now. The question is whether the others can live with it... Only time will tell. One of the co-workers is still missing in action after last night so I'm guessing she's got some stories to tell. We eagerly wait her arrival. She has to turn up at some point - all of her stuff is here at work, including cell phone, bag, and laptop. Not exactly the kind of things one can shrug off losing.

Oh yes, one more thing... I GOT A TICKET TO WERCHTER!!!

Man I'm excited. So many cool bands are gonna be there; Pearl Jam, Muse, Wolfmother, Rise Against, Jack Johnson, Greenday, Rammstein and Them Crooked Vultures. Loads of other big names which aren't my usual listening taste but it's impressive they're going anyway e.g. Pink, Corinne Bailey Rae, Arcade Fire (I know of them but never heard their music so really can't comment on whether they're my taste or not), Alice in Chains, 30 Seconds to Mars and Paramore. AND there are still 20 more names to be announced. Its basically one massive musical orgy. And I'm going to be there to enjoy every juicy second. Am I going to be near dead by the end of the four days? Hell yeah! But I have a feeling its going to be more than worth it. Now all I need to do is manage not to be sick or motally wounded just prior to the event. If that happens afterwards thats fine, but I need to be in my prime when I go to Werchter. You know, my hair's got to be perfect etc. Cause thats what happens at four day rock festivals. Pretty much a fashion event these days...

Ahem.

Took a little break from blogging and now its 15:49 and our missing in action chick still hasn't made an appearance so I'm thinking she's going to try hold out until tomorrow to get her stuff back.


My brain is MElTing. Seriously.

I'm gonna focus on staying awake now,
bye for now...