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

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