Editorial - 31 October 2005

I'm going to shut this thing down for a while as I have nothing good to say - unless pretty depressive stuff - and I need some time off from update-schedules, random pleasantness and myself. If I could shut my brain down, I would. No hesitation. One click and total blackness. When I'm up to it, I'll write something, just don't expect it to be online a few minutes later. I might collect some stuff from a few days and post 'em all after a week. Or keep this thing down for a month. I don't know and I really don't care.

Editorial - 27 October 2005

Today's the day of my first post on the drieduizend leuven photoblog project. My submission of a red poppy in a green field of wheatplants was selected and that makes me feel happy, humbled and honoured at the same time. I'm just a beginner and some of the guys posting there are much better than me. Just look around and you'll see what I mean. So yeah, it's pretty cool that I have a picture there.

Editorial - 24 October 2005

The 3000 Leuven blogmeeting last friday was quite enjoyable. Unbelievably I was the first to arrive. Guess I was hungry ? Only 5 minutes later Stoffel/Cartel82 and I-Manuel arrived as well. Shortly followed by Pietel, Perre, Paddil, Nijn/ Kleintje, Carolien, Statik and a few others. After dinner we went to Het Stuk café for a lot of showing off with various cameras and beer-consumption. Flickr already has a plethora of shots, but here's a good groupshot of the by then remaining people. Song of the week : ----- Oldie of the week : ----- Last seen movie : Too busy watching old television shows to watch movies. I have recently seen the last parts of "Battlestar Galactica" (childhood memories) and the complete first series of the new updated version of this show (very epic and psychological). Right now I'm watching "Galactica 1980" (doable) inbetween episodes of "Millennium" (tense and chilling), "Seinfeld" (hilarious) and whatever's on television : "Cold Case" (not bad, passes the time), "Lost" (very exhilerating), "24 (season 4)" (nerve-wrecking), "The Agency" (doable), "CSI" (interesting), "CSI Miami" (doable follow up), "Enterprise" (picked up pace in season 2) and "Gilmore Girls" (best woman-oriented show that can be enjoyed by men because it's extremely funny and bittersweet). Doing this week : I don't want to think about it.

Editorial - 21 October 2005

Great, my stomach's upset. Must be the spicy food from yesterday. The past two years I've been having this problem now and then - always ignoring it the next time because I really love spicy food, the hotter the better ! It's so great when you eat it, makes you feel all warm and vibrant with action. You feel all pores opening up and ooze heat. And it just tastes good. But I guess I'll have to stop eating it, or cut down the portions. Man, life's really taking away everything I like.

Editorial - 20 October 2005

Sorry, a bit late this week with the usual weekly update. Had a lot on my plate and the insomnia is starting to take it's toll. Not all the time, but bit by bit from time to time. Don't want to bore you with the details and I don't want to write 'em down either, so sod off, putting it nicely. Sorry about that, but it's very late at night and I'm feeling tired, but not yet sleepy and even though I just had a nice unforeseen dinner with some friends and overall I had the idea today was a good day, that feeling is gone. Must be the wee small hours of the night. And the darkness, the cold and ever more present autumn which always gets me down. Song of the week : "Locked Up" Fence Oldie of the week : "Stop" Fence Last seen movie : "The Interpreter" : comments will be written once I have time and ideas. Doing this week : Friday-evening there's a bloggers-diner planned for people writing about their hometown Leuven. Some of them are setting up a wiki-blog and a photoblog dedicated to our city and one of them thought it was time we all met face to face. Some already have, some haven't. I'll update with names and links after the meeting.

Editorial - 14 October 2005

Got a link from Franky from Vendetta yesterday (yes, he is a big fan of the man in the video) and it was so frigging hilarious I had to post it. This is what dutch people do when they have too much time on their hands : they dub and recut a video of an old (shortenend) Knight Rider episode and call it Nicht Rijder. It's 13 Mb if you want to download it, it lasts for over 5 minutes and it is dutch spoken. If you don't know that language, it won't be funny.

Editorial - 11 October 2005

Cleared only half of the overstock of old computermagazines, but I've got a good excuse. I have been cleaning the apartment all day on sunday. Picture this : first I dusted and cleared all clutter on the cabinets and tables. Then I moved furniture from one side to the other and started sweeping the floor. Plastic floors are dustmagnets and a carpet doesn't help either. After that some help from the vacuumcleaner and some handy swiffer-broom-sweeps. By then I was thinking to go all the way and get out the floormop, some hot water and a nicely smelling marseille-soap. And while one side was drying, I started the same process in the bedroom, hallway, kitchen ... To cut a long story short, after about 7 hours practically straight on cleaning I could place all moved furniture back, meanwhile dropping some excess paperwork left on tables, move some boxes and generally try to create a bit more space. Some people will say I failed, some will say I didn't clean good enough, some will say I should've done it quicker. My answer : at least I did it. Song of the week : ----- Oldie of the week : "Wollt Ihr Das Bett In Flammen Sehen ?" Rammstein Last seen movie : "The Hot Chick" : Yet another dumb, but somehow funny movie with Rob Schneider. I have no idea why I keep watching his movies as I tend to forget them as fast as I have seen 'em, but I never feel like I've really wasted my time. There's nothing great about it, but it's an hour and a half of smiles and entertainment. And you can always try to spot the Adam Sandler cameo (an easy one in this movie) which appears in every one of them. Anyway, this time Rob's a low life criminal who swaps bodies with a "hot chick". The girl now has Rob's body and must try to convince her friends it's still her and find a way to reverse the spell. Yup, nothing grand about this one. As usual : good for a late night viewing or a rainy afternoon. Doing this week : Think I'll sit back and relax a bit after completely cleaning the apartment last sunday. I'm not saying I did a great job, but I tried to do my best and it took me the whole day. The effort alone should grant me some r&r, no ?

Editorial - 7 October 2005

Yesterday I went to see some sort of performance called "Box With Holes" by a Norwegian dancer Heine Røsdal Avdal. While studying at other P.A.R.T.S. (Brussels), he choreographed solos and duos that have been presented at Scenehuset (Oslo), P.A.R.T.S. studios, and Dixon Place (New York). After joining Meg Stuart/Damaged Goods, where he was an essential part of both the creation process and performances of Splayed Mind Out, Appetite and Highway 101, he joined forces with videoartists to create a shortfilm. That's just some random info to show you this is no standard guy, but someone who knows what he's doing and wants to explore the borders of what's possible. And so he does in this performance which can only be "watched" by one spectator at a time. That's right : one. When you arrive at the reserved hour, you're standing in front of a door with a red light. When it turns green you can walk into a dark hallway made of thick curtains. There's only one way to go : straight ahead towards a light coming from a projector. You walk up to a box with two big holes. Above it, the projector showing its image on top of the box. You look at it, start to wonder what is happening and then you hear a voice telling you to stick your hands into the holes. When you do that you see your hands projected on top, but mirrored. When you move your left hand, the right hand in the image moves. Obviously you can start counting your fingers, make shadow-images or just go for an extreme close-up. I hear you thinking : "Okay great, but what about the dancer ? Where does he fit into this ?" Kinda the same what I was thinking by then. I could hear him walking behind the curtains, but that was it. Was this the performance where the spectator had to work with the dancer by means of modern technology ? Experiencing a form of human contact without seeing ? Well yeah, it was because as soon as you start playing with your hands there's a second pair that joins in. You can see them below yours, but you can't feel them. Are they in the same box or not ? Maybe they're just a projection ? A notion quickly shattered when you feel a brush against one of your fingers. Is he touching my hand ? Without really thinking about it, you engage in some sort of choreography between hands. You can't see eachother, you have no idea what you have to do and don't know how long it will take. Now for me that was the interesting part about it. There I was, playing with some man's hands. A Norwegian guy I never met. Was this modern dance ? A performance ? Thinking "inside the box" about the impact of new technologies on our relations with people we know and don't know ? I guess it was. Making shadowimages together, do some boxing and have the strength of my fingers examined as if in a doctorsoffice ... in hindsight it sounds pretty weird, but I have no ill feeling about it. Pretty good.

Editorial - 4 October 2005

Today's the international day for the animals. Hug your dog, scratch your cat behind the ears and smile at your canary.

Editorial - 3 October 2005

Some of you may remember I used to play guitar a lot. In between 17 and 27 I played in a few bands. Some with friends, some with unknowns who asked me to join them. Most fun part was the two years with XP. A band of four close friends, three guys and a girl, playing a mix between grungy punkrock and alternative noise with a dash of blues. I know, way too ecclectical musical taste. After a dozen gigs and the videotaping of our last concert, things unravelled and one of the members quit. The remaining threesome tried to go on, but it wasn't the same anymore. After that I only joined another band because they asked me and it sounded like fun. But again, internal differences split us up, so I decided to call it quits and hang my guitarstrap on the willows. But lately I've been diving into chords and lyrics again, looking for songs I heard the past couple of years and wanted to play. Not yet ready to start writing stuff myself again, I'll stick to that for now. And it got easier than before. Usually you had to have the song, play it and listen for the chords and notes. Now, you just download everything from the net. No need to have the song on tape anymore. I do notice I tend a little more to the bluesy side these days. I guess that's one of the things growning older does to you. Just ask Eric Clapton. Not that he's the greatest bluesmusician ever, but for whiteys like me, he's a rolemodel. Come to think of it, just like Gary Moore. I remember a piece of text in one of his songs, that sums up "the blues" very nicely :     Everybody knows what the blues is all about.     It's a pain you can't live with.     It's a woman you can't live without. You have to agree that this is the one thing that anyone alive will understand. The one thing that explains what the blue feeling in your gut is. The feeling that makes guitars cry, weep and howl. Song of the week : "Forever Lost" The Magic Numbers Oldie of the week : "Take Me With You" The Jayhawks Last seen movie : "Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory" : The original movie from 1972 with a slightly different title than the book (Charlie changes into Willy Wonka to illustrate where the main focus lies). After seeing it as a child I always kept fond memories about this movie : on the couch on a sunday afternoon at my grandparents' house, with some cookies nearby. My sister and my nephew were sitting elsewhere in the same couch and we all enjoyed it. Since then I've seen it a few times and after seeing the new version a few months ago, itw as time to revisit my childhood with this one. Would it still be good ? In all honesty yes and no. Yes because it's still funny, colourful, vibrant and quickly paced. I think young children will enjoy this version even a bit more than the new one. But it's also becoming dated with too many references to late sixties, early seventies styling, songs and scenery. Some may find it less amusing because of it. I don't, but you never know who does. Doing this week : Can I get back to you on that one ?

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