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