It's already tomorrow

Courtesy of the tombstone generator

2004-09-11T19:07:58Z

I guess this is what I'll want when I go.

Courtesy of the tombstone generator

Corso, El Torrero and professional dancers

2004-08-15T17:47:29Z

Last Sunday night we stopped over at Corso for a while and had a half liter of Stella Artois for less than 1 euro. The only beer size offered in town is half liter.

Actually the reason I was there was to look a little at their paintings on the walls. Among many differently aged canvases was a small painting of a sunflower with tentacle-like protuberances which appeared to want to strangle the viewer. In undulating letters the title was there, "Sunflower Light". I realized then that the tentacles were supposed to be rays from a sunlike flower which grew like a giant planet over well-painted fields of thousands of identical green bulbs. The whole canvas was no bigger than 12 cm on each side but it was painstakingly painted and looked almost like a stamp in preciseness. We walked around the corner and the Stil disco (Philly Classics) was deserted. I don't know how they keep that one alive if it's only open twice a week and deserted on any given night.

Making our way to Lemon 2, where Serbian Night was supposed to rock the spot, the only rocking was from hiphop youths with chains and cool caps, swaying to the sounds of some R&B female singer. We left in a hurry and stepped right into El Torrero, the latino disco which right away promised to be the spot for the night. In a brick arcaded cave, the bar was busily pumping out the taps and the shots, while the crowd was largely composed of very nubile females gyrating to what sounded like a mixture of gypsy, brazilian and techno themes. I cannot describe the movements of the dancers because if you've ever watched dance contests you know what they can do. Anyway we acted like the naive tourists and did our bland shake and bake under many inquisitive looks. That's one thing that stands out here, while I attract some attention with my non-conventional looks, no one is pretending to ignore me and people are generally not defensive about my equally obvious curiosity towards them. We drank and smoked and danced and laughed at the amazing dancers with their funky skirts and thongs and long hair. It's mandatory here for young women to have long hair, young men to have short spiky hair and everyone to have pointy shoes that are a few cm longer than any reasonable length might do.

I thought I was going to see mostly goth-like figures among the trendy. The effects of 50 years of communism certainly must have imprinted a dark outlook on the promises of yet another new era. But effectively the popular crowd is well-behaved, rocks out in unison, laughs a lot and doesn't avert their look when caught by surprise. Overall a high score for appearances, but they may be studied. Inside I suspect a common desire for easy entertainment, no responsibilities and means of transportation as close as possible to ferraris and american limousines.

At two in the morning we had pizza on a pleasant restaurant terrace in one of the many non-stop allnight locales, while in their basement a sweaty team of women from the province rolled dough and spread tomato sauce for their measly daily earnings.

flower gardens and rusty playgrounds

2004-08-09T01:55:13Z

Last Sunday afternoon we went to the Botanic garden, also only less than two blocks away.

Since my mother's apartment is in the historic center, there are no less than 6 parks within walking distance. Earlier in the day we were at the old pioneers' park.

This is one of the biggest parks in the city, in the communist lingo pioneers were the elite of the children, the new generation able to lead the ignorant masses into the utopia of brotherly love and slave work for the sake of the political class.

The pioneers' park only has non-powered swings and surreal rides, such as a lead zeppelin in which the outer shell of the ellipsoid is made out of thin string wire.

The whole thing looks like a relic from bad sci-fi, which of course make it immediately endearing. In an analogy with the movie AI, this would be the place where the dead mechas go when resurrected. From a rusty zeppelin hangs a swinging cabin, moving quite freely on its oiled hinges. In fact all the geometrically bizarre shapes were fully functional, oiled and painted with assidous zeal.

Other unusual toys were pseudo-skate slopes, where ball-bearing'd cylinders provided a fast surface on which to slide about 10 meters down. Fortunately the side rails were again well painted, or else rusty pieces of metal would have ensured a quick trip to the hospital for anyone who slid their hands against them. Several slides had no sideguards and a surprisingly smooth and flat surface from which a careless child could easily fly over, but then that's half the fun. A larger slide presided separately, about three times as wide and guaranteed to fling its rider into the deep puddle waiting at the bottom.

The powered rides were another story altogether. Not only decrepit but outright dangerous, they are now left to rust in worries. Occasionally children climb in them and can even manage to spin the merry-go-rounds by pushing them. A few days ago a child broke a leg playing on them and the park was closed, in lack of a better solution. The lack of funds and private investment in infrastructure make it a tough prospect to have anything but some very large and pleasant garden parks with no playgrounds. The best solution would be for the city to purchase some playground equipment safe for small children but I suppose even that is a kind of a budget stretch. It seems that only commercial investments are made on any consistent basis.

Baroque music and reforms in the new ancient city

2004-08-04T20:01:38Z

The weekend was rather busy as we've tried to keep our days interesting for the kids as well as going out every night to one of the many clubs and bars in the historic center of the city.

Saturday it rained and we noticed a drip in the entrance hallway in my mother's apartment. Aside from this little defect, my mother has managed to create a stunning living space in a very central location, fully rennovated (including her own gas mains). The apartment building dates from about 150 years ago, possibly more.

The whole area it's in contains buildings and churches dating back as much as 500 years. There are also a grandiose Jewish synagogue and a two-towered Serbian church less than a block away. Makes for an interesting walk around the block, at the feet of these stone building erected once as symbols of the ruling classes of the city. Down the street there's an internet cafe where youths play video games and curse loudly and the select Corso bar, which outside has yellow-green latin-style walls, and inside has a cigar bar with some very fine international selections. When I walked in on Friday afternoon, in one of the velvet chairs was sitting a young woman holding a lovely kitty and chatting with a friend over drinks. In typical fashion, the bartender looks and smiles, neither asking for an order nor allowing you to slip back out without one.

That night Lina and I hanged out at Baroque, a dark red-velvet cafe in one of the corners of the grand union square. This square is the heart of the city, it is a widely open plazza at least 200 meters on each side.

From its spider-like position, dozens of little streets spread out in a medieval maze.

At Baroque we were drawn in by the brick arcades and heavy curtains, interspersed with some surreal velvety paintings of horned sofas, angels, disembodied labia and pensive sheep. We sat in a corner and soaked in a jazzy mix of balkanic and spanish trance, while the barman alternately pressed juice, served me a belgian beer at 1/5th the price I am used to, smoked a few cigarettes and stopped over at a few tables to chat with the customers. We walked the two blocks home a short while after midnight.

Flashback to 22 years ago. The dark ages of communism were drawing a tighter noose around the neck of civil society. Not only was there no sign of prosperity to be found anywhere, but any future prospect was to be firmly repressed for the sake of the political hegemony.

It promptly fell over only 7 years after our departure. The initial reform years were a haze of repercussions and regressive movements which cast serious doubts about a true reform and a democratic society. Even today, the majority of people believe that things are worse in many respects and that it is impossible to claim that overall its better.

For some it is better, for many it is much worse. I cannot contradict them, because I am one of few whose family has property, income, friends and we don't even live here. So while it may appear like absolute improvement to me, I am not facing their reality and their difficulties. So what are the true feelings and hopes of those who are directly concerned?

Will this be a capitalist jungle where multinationals grab the best assets and then monetize them while expanding their customer base in new markets? Or will it be a socialistic democracy where the true potential of the country is slowly reached by hard work and communal efforts?

Or will there be confusion and see-saw political scandals such as the ones in the last 15 years of freedom, while a few smart entrepreneurs take advantage of the rising tide of wants and needs?

First Posting from Timisoara, Romania

2004-08-01T19:01:28Z

Friday I arrived in Timisoara with my wife and two kids. Haven't been in my hometown for 8 years and my, how it's changed.

Funny thing happenned on the way. In the Vienna airport stopover, we met some Romanian friends who live in Amsterdam also and were also going to Timisoara (the only Romanians I know in Amsterdam :)

After arriving in Timisoara within the first hour in the crowded center we coincidentally met a friend of hours who is a sculptor and who last saw us the year we got hitched. Of course everything is like it hapenned yesterday! A week later I saw his ex and their daughter and some of his older works.

Now the city itself has gone through major upheavals since 1989, now just from an expat perspective living in Netherlands I am barraged here with familiar references. ABN Amro, ING Baring and one of the main squares in the city is sponsored by... UPC. LOL

I can't wait to re-visit all the places I used to wander as a kid and as a teen, before moving to the US in 1982... enough said for now, followups and pictures will come later too. Here's a shot of my old school.

CNN: Bigger breasts offered as perk to soldiers

2004-07-23T10:55:26Z

In a last ditch effort to reverse the quickly-dropping US Army enlist rates, creative minds have decided that some plastic intervention may help. The problem though is that if silicone implants burst unexpectedly, the potential injuries may not be justified by patriotism.

Music scene in Amsterdam

2004-07-03T15:47:14Z

Just in case you've been wondering what live shows have I been seeing lately... here is the scoop. I'm only mentioning these bands because they are amazing, local, and mostly unknown in the world at large (with some notable exceptions). Also, it should help to mention that when there's any singing it's all in English so don't be afraid to check them out :-)

Postmen - Rotterdam hip-hop band... first heard them on some pirated shit, was impressed, went to see them live at the Melkweg with a friend who drove up from Antwerp at my suggestion. We were blown away. Not only do they rap skilfully over well-played electric funk music, but the stage dynamics and auditory dexterity is beyond any "rap acts" I'm familiar with.

Bettie Serveert - alternative pop fused with Velvet Underground references and a killer front lady/singer/songwriter (together with the guitarist). Have heard them since at least 10 years ago... first experience live was in Boston! Subsequently I've seen them half a dozen times and met them backstage. One of the best places to see them is the free annual Uitmarkt.

Ghorar Deem Express - world jazz nonet, including two people from Boston, met them first in Amsterdam and have seen them quite a few times as well as running their web site. Quirky and sometimes virtuosic punk world jazz, they are unlike any other band I ever met.

Bernie's Lounge - Amsterdam funk/latin/ska/jazz, I first saw them live last night and was blown away. Their jam swings harder than any other jam, I don't care what anyone might say. They are already famous in Italy and Brazil and are going to play here opening for Buena Vista. They're way better than Buena Vista ;-)

I'd really like to start a music site with photos of local acts, that I've been taking at smaller shows. All of their own sites have downloadable tracks, but a public blog that would allow fan photo posting would be fun to run. There's so much eclectic music here locally that I feel I shouldn't even see big acts until I see all the local names at least once.

Spamassassin, sweet spamassassin

2004-04-12T16:33:13Z

Over the last few days I've set up SpamAssassin on my hosting servers and so far I am thrilled with the results. Not only can I delete spam automatically, reject and block spam senders, but I can also report spammers to central servers that keep track of spammer activities.

Additionally, and this is much more satisfying than just sending spam to a separate folder for deletion, spam gets tagged and quarantined on the server. There is the pleasure of revenge, seeing each piece of spam carefully rated using hundreds of different algorithms of spam-detection, new headers get injected with the summary information, and I also have the option of auto-replying the spammer (and possibly the ISP) with a snide: "Your spam has been intercepted, quarantined and your email address blacklisted. The following content rules showed evidence of spam, etc." Definitely more satisfying than just clicking delete through dozens of messages daily.

In the first 24 hours, I've quarantined over 100 messages server-wide and blocked or auto-deleted many more (according to their spam rating). Scanning over the Subject headers in the quarantined messages, not one of them is a false positive. They are all low-grade, despicable spam content which has been efficiently processed!

Updates for my friends

2003-12-29T10:02:32Z

I'm going to try to post a little more often in my LJ even if it's just for the sake of keeping it somewhat current.

Last week and this week this country is on holidays. Most of these two weeks every store (including supermarkets) is closed and generally the city is fairly quiet. Well, in the center when I went out once last week, there seemed to be a lot of people around. In my hood it's eerily quiet. Plus it's raining most of the time. Two weeks of doing nothing but staying mostly home with the family. The kids are too small for us to go anywhere but the local museums, and even that becomes difficult if it's raining, as we have to take public transport. That's holidays...

In international news, I see the serbians are voting the radical nationalists back in. It seems the more difficulties a country has, the more people act like thinking herds. Time to re-read Elias Canetti's "Crowds and Power".

New Year's is coming up. My resolution will be to learn Dutch, get out more and participate in music-related activities. Also, to develop my consulting business, seek new clients and settle my residence status. I want to start paying taxes again! :-)

Which historical lunatic are you?

2003-12-10T09:58:13Z

Which Historical Lunatic Are You?
From the fecund loins of Rum and Monkey.

My new Wiki is live

2003-11-16T13:44:03Z

You can now visit my guestbook and play with my new Wiki. You can create your own pages or just experiment with Wiki in general.

How compatible are you with your net friends? (stats)

2003-11-14T16:22:06Z

SimilarMinds Compatibility Results

leeneh	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	69%	\|\|\|\|\|\|\|\|	76%
perspectivism	\|\|\|\|\|	55%	\|\|\|\|\|	50%
gustavolacerda	\|\|\|\|\|	46%	\|\|\|\|	39%

similarity

complementarity

How compatible are you and your friends?

My spanking new guestbook

2003-11-03T14:08:00Z

I got my guestbook online now, so come by and add your entry. If you don't, you may just end up on the lost friends page!

peamasii @ 2003-11-03T01:36:00

2003-11-03T00:36:59Z

Creative use of taxpayer money

2003-10-10T11:31:18Z

How about advertising the new cash designs?

"This time around, the Bureau has a $53 million budget over five years to smooth the way for new $20s, $50s and $100s -- money that will be spent on advertising, press relations and training materials for businesses that handle cash. The advertising budget for the new $20 note, she says, amounts to $16.8 million. "

Armani Jeans ads

2003-10-06T09:41:46Z

In my 'hood I've been seeing a lot of Armani Jeans billboards lately. As far as advertising goes, the ads are about everything but jeans.

Whether showing a half-naked young man, a curled up young girl, or other posing subjects, the focus is on attitude, style and message. These ads are not about clothes, they are fashion brand statements. The jeans are out of focus and in most ads only the belt buckle is visible, and not even in focus. The black and white pics direct the attention to the bare chest of the young man or to the cool cap and stare of the young girl.

The ads are a way of asking the onlooker, are you cool enough and street enough for these jeans? We're not even concerned about what the jeans are really like, or how much are they going to cost. If you have to ask that, then they're probably not for you anyway. The jeans are part of a trend, a statement, an attitude. The red print on a black and white photo offers the address of the website.

On the website the materials used are described as high tech and eco-safe. The style descriptions are like 'no rules', 'black metal', 'hemp and copper', 'cool comfort' and so forth. I am in awe at the marketing cloud and textual mystery surrounding this line of products.

Bettie Serveert pics

2003-09-01T09:56:41Z

These pics of Bettie Serveert were taken yesterday at the Uitmarkt festival. I caught the last half of their set since my bike broke down on the way and I had to walk for about half an hour. Well that's what I get for buying a used Peugeot racing bike, a flat tire in two weeks!

Anyway Bettie were great, I'm planning to see them again this month at P60. They drew a very big crowd and people really grooved with them.

choose to lose

2003-08-29T11:55:08Z

...Zizek has also noted that the "close door" button in an elevator does nothing to hasten the door closing but merely gives the presser a false sense of effective activity

...Zizek makes the comparison of the beguiled button-presser to the hapless citizen of a Western liberal democracy who thinks he's participating in the political process by voting but, because of the consensus on fundamental issues shared by both major parties, has actually been offered no choice at all

The Marx Brother philosopher Slavoj Zizek

Which pimp are you?

2003-08-26T16:50:01Z

This page should be made into a pop quiz by someone with more free time than I have right now.

What threat to the Bush administration are you?

2003-07-26T17:59:00Z

Well, this Bush administration practically made me immigrate away from the US, which only happened once before in my life (when I got married). So I took the quiz to find out more about why I antagonize so much with the current US admin, and found out it's only because I'm an atheist!

Threat rating: extremely low. You may think you can
subvert the government, but if you should try
you will be smited mightily because God likes
us best.

What threat to the Bush administration are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Move schedule update

2003-05-01T14:47:42Z

We're one step closer to the move. Here is the latest, for the sake of the two or three people who read my almost-abandoned journal ;-)

Amsterdam trip (just me) May 7th - May 17th
Last day at work May 20th
Container shipped May 25th (as of this date we are officially "homeless")
Trip to Lisbon (whole family) June 2nd - June 15th
Move to Amsterdam June 15th

Now all I have to do is sell the car, give away the cat and pack about half a ton of crap that we can't seem to be able to live without.

Selling my car

2003-04-22T01:13:28Z

Car for sale

Very clean green 1998 Saturn station wagon, 5 door, 45k miles, 4-cyl 1.5 l engine, manual transmission, very well maintained with all paperwork. $4500 or best offer.

Over the weekend

2003-03-31T16:02:36Z

Had a great time this weekend at the Bettie Serveert show at TT's in Cambridge. Went there with </a></b></a>,</a></b></a>lilbabylea, </a></b></a>gonzolawyer, </a></b></a>waitingforoct, and much fun was had by all. I was happy to see Bettie has a new album and touring to play it. They have a new drummer and even though Carol has also been active in a side project, the Chitlin' Fooks, she sounds better than ever.

I'm planning now to see them again in May in the Netherlands (probably at the Paradiso), as I should be there around that time to look for a rental place.

Food eating battle monkey

2003-03-28T13:40:38Z

War filled weekend

2003-03-23T15:45:54Z

I'm spending the weekend mostly with the State-approved war images which are rather pale in comparison with the stuff on http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/thisiswar/.

"Fight, rape, war, pillage, burn. Filmic images of death and carnage are pornography for the military man.''

Jarhead: A Marine's Chronicle of the Gulf War and Other Battles by former sniper Anthony Swofford (Scribner, 2003).

I'm not sure what I hate more, the images of war or the actual events happening in this war. No silver lining yet.