just a few things in the ever so popular form of a list:

recently i was listening to the soundtrack of christiane f. wir kinder vom bahnhof zoo by david bowie, when saskia asked if i ever saw that movie. i said i did, but that i wasn't exactly sure when. yesterday when we were talking about some german stuff, this film again came up in conversation and i decided to check my old diaries (on paper) if i had written anything about it. i already figured that i couldn't have seen the film when it had just come out, because i was only six years old in 1981. i eventually found an entry from july 1989 which mentions that i saw christiane f. with a friend from school. apparently we were deeply impressed by it. the journal doesn't say where we saw the film, but i'm fairly sure that this was at the rather small but pretty cool movie theatre we went to quite a lot in those days..

i'm going to watch the film again tomorrow, at home this time. saskia wants to see it too, she has never seen it and i've made her curious. you really need to pick a good time for this film. i think you shouldn't watch it in a row with lots of other things.

anyway..
have a good weekend, my friends..

we can be heroes..
helden

but things haven't been going so great lately. mentally. emotionally, if you will. i've been a little better this past week or so, but just about the whole month of september wasn't much fun. i don't really want to talk about it in my journal right now, perhaps another time. anyway, thanks you guys for the nudges & emails though..

i've had a brief talk on the phone with my therapist. i already had an appointment planned for friday this week and she didn't think that there was an immediate need to reschedule it sooner.

i got this CD single from my friend henk. i might not even have accepted it from anyone else right now, but i know that (among other things) he really gets me.

southport, august 1956 is what is written on the back of this photograph. it's from my father's collection and one of a few that fascinated me the most when i was a kid.

in an email that was (almost) totally about something else, there was the question if i was being serious here. well.. yes and no. mostly no though. the idea of being in a band is pretty cool of course. unfortunately there's not an instrument i play well enough to be of much use. anyway, i believe the reason for that post was that i've had been listening to some early king crimson.

i don't really think in genres all that much (though i imagine they can be useful for people working in a record shop). i'm not sure what kind of music i'd make if i were in a band. musical influences aside, i guess you not only play the instrument you're good at; after a while you'd probably stick to the type of music you play best as well. or something. right? :)

okay so i'm a little bit behind on lots of stuff. like.. this should have been posted last sunday:

i was asked how i watch(ed) the tour de france. well, on days that i worked at the office i hardly saw anything, except maybe some highlights later in the evening. on days when i was working from home the tv was on in the background and i'd notice if something exciting appeared to be happening. and when i wasn't working i'd usually watch the tour at my parents' house. my dad knows a lot more about the tour's history than i do, but i seem to be learning. we may even have some silly discussions, like which is the toughest mountain to climb, the tourmalet or the mont ventoux..

lots of riders are on twitter, though i'm only following a couple. lance armstrong (of course) and team astana, team manager johan bruyneel, laurens ten dam, robbie mcewen, and mark renshaw.

they are just like people; sometimes they even reply when you ask them something.. :)
saskia and i wanted to know what music laurens ten dam listens to, and here's what he said:

yes i am still among the living, don't you worry. i haven't been on holiday, not having a long vacation, not going to either. i just treasure the couple of days off here and there, especially when we're both free at the same time.

i did a bit of sightseeing with my mum, saw interesting architecture and we ate pancakes in some kind of barn. last week saskia and i rented a boat and went sailing for a day and a half. while saskia has more experience and is a better sailor than i am, i'm not completely useless; i can actually manage quite well. for those of you who know about boats: we were on a polyvalk. i'm not sure how to translate that; i suggest you google for some images if you want to know what it looks like. it was awesome! we should do that more often, preferably when the waters are a little less crowded, though i doubt if they rent out boats off-season.

oh & i've been watching the tour de france every day. but more about that later..

what i didn't do is go see the new harry potter film. i'm confident i'll see it soon, i'm just not in that much of a hurry. i have also been on a sort of (mini) support-break, but very few of you may have noticed that.. :)

i haven't seen much tennis the first week of wimbledon, but i have been able to catch a few matches the past couple of days. earlier today we saw federer win in three sets against karlovic. right now we're watching hewitt v roddick. oh and we're having strawberries & cream. but we're not following wimbledon's other tradition of champagne or pimm's. i believe i've had pimm's once, a long long time ago. i don't actually remember if i liked it very much.

a support update
since friday last i have I1 in the web-UI category.
note to self:
compile some sort of Support timeline. it doesn't need to be public, or even online (but why not). in your own time..

( here's some music.. )

( xxl )

i was lucky enough to get this one shot. i couldn't get closer & the bird took off right after i had taken this photo. had to look up how he or she is called in the english speaking world: a heron, apparently.

yesterday someone asked how it was going with my plan to watch the first ten star trek movies. well, i haven't even started yet. pretty hectic times at the office this week. i'll make some time for it soon. it's not like i need to watch them all on one day.

a guide to recognizing your saints is programmed tonight. i like downey in most things i've seen him in, which doesn't include this one yet.

have a good weekend, y'all..

today is the last day of the three-day visit of the dalai lama to this country. while criticized for this decision by the dutch parliament, our prime minister jan peter balkenende has declined to meet the religious leader to avoid harming dutch-chinese relations. of course, money makes the world go round, but that doesn't make balkenende's bowing to chinese pressure any less predictable. it all depends on how far you are willing to go if you don't want to jeopardise your country's economic interests..
it mostly sounds rather childish to me, and even back in elementary school i never believed in the 'if you want to be friends with me, you can't be friends with her'..


i watched the new star trek movie last week with a bunch of people.
(if you haven't seen it yet, you should probably read no further..)
i think it was really good. we do have to get used to the fact that most star trek stuff that we've previously seen, belongs to a different reality. this may have been just what star trek needed. you can't let guys like shatner or even nimoy come back forever, and i think this is quite a believable way to introduce new actors playing the roles of old characters. and additionally, this alternate reality thing opens up all sorts of possibilities for new story lines..

the big, clearly noticeable lettering on the phone thingy in the car that kirk as a kid is driving, tells us it's a nokia. i guess this is what one would call product placement? oh and uhura ordering three budweiser classics.. haha what was that all about?

tomorrow i'm finally going to see star trek. it took this long because there's going to be five of us, so some planning was needed. this is going to be the first star trek movie that i'll see in a theatre. i've only watched three on tv/dvd: the search for spock, the voyage home & nemesis.

i do like the idea of watching the preceding ten star trek movies. someone on my friends list did this last week (i can't tell you who, because the entries were friends only). i know a number of these movies are rated poorly, but i just want to do this. i have decent copies of most of them. i even have 'the director's edition' of the first one. i'm not sure what the difference with the regular edition is, but the quality is excellent, which makes it all the more unfortunate that it's apparently one of the most boring ones. i only need to get 2 & 6 & then the fun can commence..

this week i've been listening a lot to everything that happens will happen today by brian eno & david byrne. the album was released last year, and i have no idea why i only discovered it recently..
if you like to have a listen, you can stream all the tracks here.

the pattern on these little notebooks.. i'm wondering if it actually has a name. does anyone know?


support (since we last spoke)
i earned I1 in the userpics category.
i broke through the 1000 points barrier. yes, it took me long enough. mostly because i went on hiatus a couple of times for various reasons. not that i've ever been one of the most active support volunteers..

the best things in life are free

is that so?
if you agree, name one.
also mention one thing that you wish was free, but isn't..

yes, i know i haven't updated this journal in over a month. however, that's not the only thing that i had to put on the back burner for a while. most of you might know about these disappearing acts of mine by now. believe me, they're not always planned and the length of time never is.. just doing a little bit of this & that now. starting slowly, not rushing things. whatever i can or like to fit in..
let's confine this little list here to LiveJournal stuff:
support
i don't have that many privs left. not that i ever had a lot. of course i want the old ones back, but i would also like to acquire some new ones. i sent in a review request with a bunch of old links and some priv playing stuff a while back. i should get that one back any day now. also, about a week ago i answered my first ever Support request in german, and apparently the only mistake i made was not capitalise one word..
schools
i got kicked off the schools team. it's a requirement to respond regularly to the lj_schools activity posts. i'm back on the team now, but i guess i will always have a bit of a problem with this system..
lj_nederlands
not much at all has been happening here. i cleaned the place up a bit, but there's still room for improvement. and it will always be hard to find new translators..