About Me

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Antwerpen, Belgium
I'm a New Zealander living in Belgium for 6 months

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

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!!!!

14 comments:

  1. Ok first of all i'd like to say that i'm not a fan of your website here man, i posted a comment earlier that i was pretty happy with, lenghty, funny all round good yea and its just not on the site at all. i realise that i may not have clicked the button properly and just navigated away from the page but i prefer to take my anger out on the website rather than myself you know.

    so just for you i will try to replicate it as best as i can recall.

    ok first of all the thing with the hole made me laugh so hard so big props for that man. and yea clowns with anything is pretty much creepy. always.

    lol i like how the kiwi-est person they could find was a very blond south african ;p but on the bright side you were on tv man and that pretty much rocks. lol i never would've geussed that your tv debut would be for some soccer program though, would've gone with something like "blond man goes on rampage, found covered with bloody foam raving about how the women were sucking his soul dry"

    lol on a technical note, you explained the ghostly dooooo but uh what was the mubmubmub??? if i were to geuss id say it was crying but shouldn't that be like blub blub blub or something? ah i don't know just in a critical frame of mind, i kinda have to be for my argument reconstruction and commentary on this guy's idea for changing the tax law on healthy food which is just about as fun as it sounds. gotta love boring asignments due during study for exams, freaken sweet.

    lol on a more positive note i have something to add to our list of things to do once you get back (hypthetical list...i didn't actually make one...) lol im fully up to date on bleach and i own it all, the final ichigo vs ulquiorra fight will blow your mind so uh don't go watching it till you get back yea. also im discovering so much cool stuff on my second run through jordan and ive got it all saved in my handy ebook, so tons there for us to discuss and disect at obscence hours of the morning ;p

    lol so there's my info dump...for the second time. check back again soon man

    your friend,
    Matrim Cauthon

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  2. on my re-read of that i would like to apologize to all the users of the english language for my ridiculous repetition of the word lol.....

    your apologetic friend,
    Matrim Cauthon

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  3. haha, yeah.. navigating away from the page... yeah thats one of my favourites as well. -Guess you were using your laptop? they're so much easier to do that on as well.. serisou system fault there methinks.

    lol mubmubmub is bumbumbum backwards. which was really the only motivating factor there tbh.

    list of things to do eh? sounds like a slumber party to me.. we stay up late, overintellectualise robert jordan and roast marshmellows... in the oven.. or something.

    yeah women sucking my soul dry.. that made me laugh...lol yet another 'its funny cause its true moment'

    keen for bleach as well actually. probably shouldnt admit that too publicly but stuff it eh.

    god its hard not to use 'lol' when blogging. so sad that its gotten to this point lol...

    your tired Jamesy

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  4. I don't think Fleur got the credit she should have gotten. but then again... mayby for the best...

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  5. oh you have no idea the level of ocerintectuallising of robert jordan ive already got set up, the hints the allusions and the new ideas that i've come up with already and the best part is i've only just started the third book, there's so much more to come. oh and if you havn't checked go to the wheel of time wikia coz it has the pre-release blurb for towers of midnight which is the 13th book if you're really out of the loop.

    untill next time,
    Matrim Cauthon

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  6. Onto book 3...just thought I'd add in my two cents :)

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  7. aw come on you started way before me.WEAK! WEAK! lol jokes it probably took me longer than you to get that far my first time through. but the real question is are you gunna finish before james gets back???

    my fourth comment,
    Matrim Cauthon

    Dovie'andi se tovya sagain

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  8. hahah, matt, yeah, dont worry i've been watching that site like a hawk, monitoring release dates and everything. my only frustration is you'll be able to read it way before me.

    Matt, and this is important now, you've gotta stop using "jokes!!!" because you sound like an E block girl lol...

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  9. btw, keep up the commenting on the blog guys, makes it much more interesting for me lol.. not that im desperate or anything...

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  10. wow....i uh...have no come back for being called an e-block girl....

    wait when are you back again? i though you got back just before it was released. i mean its not due till end of october and here in little ol' NZ we probs won't get it till a bit after that.

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  11. argh i know this should probably be saved but i can't help myself. you know how we heard that theory that olver and it made so much sense? well apparently robert jordan says that he's not who we thought but olver does have a purpose other than being a red herring. im being mildly criptic in case i somehow ruin something for maxine.

    rather annoyed at the complexities of jordan,
    Matrim Cauthon

    oh and that was me above aswell in case you hadn't figured that out

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  12. i know eh!!i bloody checked that as well. god we are sad lol. yeah, like you said, dont wanna mess it up for my sister so lets just leave it at that.. oh, i thought that was world wide release... hmm ok then i might have chance. when we're reading it i dont think we should talk to eachother about it at all until we've finished it eh. casue it'll be too hard not to give stuff away when working out where the other is up to.. either way, robert jordan thought about stuff way too bloody much eh. i should be back end of oct all things going according to plan eh

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  13. First things first.

    I'VE BEEN HERE SO MUCH LONGER AND I'VE ONLY GOTTEN ONE COMMENT! This is so sad, like epically so *Sobs* You don't love me, is it? I knew it... I'm telling your Mum. Who, by the way, is seriously scaring me in that she knew what day I had exams. The Boozer's Book Club know way too much about our lives, actually. Way too much.

    You know what's shocking me the most? The grammar. It's like it has gone downhill. I mean, acronyms now? Can't we just not use internet jargon, please?

    Matt, you did sound like an E-Block girl, by the way. Not a good look for you, especially since you don't fake tan. You could try it, though. You never know, might work out for you.

    Aussie chicks, eh? The good or bad kind? I must make sure that my race is being properly portrayed in other countries. Oh, yeah... as for the beer, I can get it for $4 in the MuBar (Student Bar on campus) and $2 on Thursdays. Which makes no sense. We still have lectures on Fridays, so why promote going out on Thursdays. It is fun making loud noises on Friday mornings, though!

    You can play footballs? I be amazed! Must get you to play a game of Ultimate Hackie now! You've told us you have the skills required! Oh, and I'd totally not watch that creepy clown-camera-person movie. I hate clowns. Clowns are creepy. Like that one that climbs under the toilet door in ZombieLand. Creeeeeepy.

    So, I'm going to go get a little bit tipsy on Saturday night with a couple of girls from the next hall over, so maybe I'll have some town stories to tell you next time. But, until then, I leave you with one comic: http://xkcd.com/140/ and my traditional signing off!

    Your Favourite Aussie

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  14. http://www.theoryland.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=372 enjoy my friend, this beats the heck out of the wot wikia.

    oh also i don't know if you've heard about this but theres this thing knocking around the net that brandon sanderson has said. theres a small thing that first gets mentioned somewhere in books 4-6 that is going to have huge consequences in towers of midnight but no one has been discussing it on the net. brandon was really stoked about this as normally people pick up on everything even if they don't get it right, so he wasn't going to say anymore on it other than books 4-6. he thinks its more important than who killed you know who.

    so yea im currently in book 3 and when i get to book for im gunna do my best to figure it out. but you see i was thinking about this and i realised that with the prior knowledge i have about the series its gunna be kinda hard to distingiush what's "new" coz i'll already know it you know? so i was kinda hoping for a little help from your sister if its not too much trouble? coz once she hits book 4 if she could just write down every new thing that appears (characters, objects, uses of the power, places, races anything that hasn't appeared before) as she reads along, then you and i could review that list and maybe figure it out. so yea that'd be really cool but im gunna give it my best shot anyway. the same with who killed you know who coz in all the Jordan interviews that it gets mentioned he says that anyone with a reasonable level of intelligence should be able to figure it out by the end of fires of heaven and he's put in clues in later books to "help the slower people".

    yea so if you couldn't tell im fully back into my wheel of time at the moment, it makes it kinda hard to study for exams.

    oh and welcome back aussie, you get props for being the one the longest here, so its good to have you back man.

    your friend,
    Matrim Cauthon

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