The One with the Thoughts of Frans

I know that Taco Bell’s lack of presence in Europe is simply a business decision, and that Taco Bell is actually expanding into Europe. Nevertheless, while I was thinking about the EU and Taco Bell simultaneously, I figured a “Taco Bell forbidden” rule, demonstrated by signs at customs, was as good an explanation as any. Besides, it ought to look funny, right? So I grabbed the EU flag, the Taco Bell logo and a random forbidden sign from Wikipedia, and I combined them. By the way, Wikipedia is a fantastic repository for SVG images of road signs, flags and the like.

Yesterday I’ve been drawing some stuff to get my hand-eye coordination between the tablet and my screen better, so I thought I’d post this one exercise.

It’s a drawing of a female face with a brush which was too fat and such, but I am still kind of interested in what I could do with it without actually redrawing it.

I haven’t posted to my weblog for quite a while now, so I’ll give you two vector images I made today in about 30 minutes using Inkscape. Note that I never really used any vector creation program before, so I’m quite pleased with the result so far.

stoned_smilie.svg

angry_smilie.svg

I really like how my most important work for today turned out.

Remember the fish I drew which I wrote about earlier today? Well, when Joey saw it he created a nice image blend based on it.

Not much later, when I linked someone else who had seen both of those images to a painting by Rembrandt van Rijn of Europa, she said she was looking for my fishy in it. So I decided to take the initiative and I made a quick manipulation of the picture.

Then I suddenly realised it could work quite well as a meme. In case you’re interested, I saved what I used in the painting as a transparent PNG. So if you’re interested in making my fishy into a meme, I doubt it could get any easier.

While browsing through my father’s book collection, I found a fairly awesome picture book entitled Observe the years 1900-1950: a book full of pictures illustrating and describing events of the then past 50 years, published in late 1949.

I scanned some of the images I liked best.

1. “In foreign countries, traditions completely unknown in The Netherlands persisted. In France there was a duel between two members of the chamber in 1902, while in German fraternities ‘Mensur’ still existed, where the goal was to hurt each other so he’d bleed, preferably in the face.”
2. “The airforce was a new weapon, which enabled previously unthought of possibilities for bombing of important targets.”
3. “Science continued, despite the international uproar. In 1915 Shackleton researched the South-pole area, while his ship, the ‘endurance’ was cracked by ice. The discovery of the grave of Tut-ankh-amon in 1926 was remarkable.”
4. “On the side of the government [of Spain] women actively participated in battle, while numerous volunteers joined forces both for and against the republican government.”
5. “Of the heart of the prosperous harbor-city of Rotterdam, only wasteland remains.”
6. “Like master… like servant. In Europe the Führer makes himself popular, so the Leider [Dutch for leader, German pawn government] faithfully follows his example.”
7. “Death by famine and exhaustion is the fate of many. But the worst will only appear later…“
8. “The price of freedom. The American war-churchyard Margraten in Limburg.”
9. “The creation of the state of Israel on 15 May 1948 brought happiness to the Jewish people who finally found a mother country after all those centuries of wandering. On the first meeting of the world council of chuches, 4 September 1948 in Amsterdam, it was created as permanent contact-point for all Christians. The Catholic Church and the Orthodox Russian church were not present.”
10. “Because of the advancing communist troops in China, the waterways in Shanghai had to harbour uncountable amounts of sampans. In The Netherlands all attention was concentrated on the developments in Indonesia, which led to the round-table conference.”
11. “At the beginning of the century Europe dominated the world. Now the power swifted to the hands of the United States of America and the Soviet Union. Will their decisions decide the future of our continent?”

Today I noticed Muse’s new album is available in “the cirquit”. I do think that whoever misuses trust by leaking stuff like this should be shot, but anyway, on to the album.

The first track, Take a Bow, starts of as a classic Muse song, but then somewhere along the way the electronics kick in. While it starts promising, there is never a sort of climax and the song doesn’t stick to my head like with Apocalypse Please on Absolution.

The second track, Starlight, sounds a bit on the poppy side. The vocals never get truly interesting. Overall an enjoyable song, but no feeling of euphoria just yet.

The third track is Supermassive Black Hole, the first single. You might have heard it already. While I do like it, I noticed that it works far better as background music (to put up loud while doing the last Grand Prix in Burnout 2) than as actual listening to music, if you get what I mean. However I did notice that I put this track up more often.

The fourth track, Map of the Problematique, is different. It does sound a bit poppy, but contrary to the former tracks it doesn’t feel forced on Muse’s generic style. Perhaps I just got more used to it by now? Regardless of that however, it’s possibly the best track on the album. Later on in the track they go even more all out with the electronics and that’s good.

The fifth track, A Soldier’s Poem, is just some kind of intermezzo in a more classic style.

The sixth track, Invincible, doesn’t sound very good at all in my opinion. I suppose it sounds a bit like Absolution, but then… well, less interesting and on top of that not very new of course.

The seventh track, Assassin, was pretty good. It was almost metal-like at times, but the vocals were generic.

The eight track, Exo Politics I liked a lot on first listen. A catchy guitar riff to start off with, getting better and better towards the end. After listening it a few more times my opinion stands, however I now think it starts off fairly boring and repetitive.

The ninth track, City of Delusion, I really like.,It’s something really different and possibly therefore cool, but it just sounds good on all fronts.

The tenth track, Hoodoo, sort of continues the previous track (in feeling only) and therefore even the quite measly 3:42 seem too long for it.

The eleventh and last track of the album, Knights of Cydonia, is very nice and bombastic. The vocals sound Yes-like here, which is definitely not a negative thing.

In conclusion, I think that overall I’m slightly disappointed. But you should realise that when your expectations are high, it’s easy to be disappointed. I certainly welcome the change in style. Perhaps it is a forebode that if Muse decides to go further down this route, they will produce an absolute masterpiece in the future?

Today I will introduce you to possibly one of the coolest toys ever. Melantrys took it with her from this mythical place where she lives. She passed it on to me before we went to Brussels.

If you ask why she lives in a mythical place, I just ask you, can a place which is abbreviated to the sound a barking dog makes be real?

But enough of the chit-chat. On to the toy itself. It is blue. It is flexible. In a strange way it feels alive.

If you hold it in your hand you can caress it. Or you can throw it around like a ball. Do whatever you like.

You can squeeze it and then it will emit different psychedelic colours of light.

In short, it rocks. Thanks babe!

Last Thursday, I set off on a trip which would eventually take me to Brussels. I spotted a rare fish in the sea.

1. 
   
   I had never seen a submarine in the wild before. Only in harbors.

Much later, in a bus, only a few away minutes from my place, I got a phonecall. Instead of the expected four people joining dinner, I would have to cook for eight. My phone was scared to death after hearing that, but luckily giving it an electricity boost when I arrived made its heart beat again.

Our olive oil was all gone, so I did what I’d always do: use butter. However, my dear visitor happened to be a vegan. Mel only managed to stop me from throwing the rest of the vegan stuff in butter just in time, and the neighbors gently lent us some olive oil. Loes (my housemate) just told me that she discovered we also had some vegetable cooking butter. That night we watched Artificial Intelligence, which is not a movie I can recommend. Especially the ending was bad.

1. 
   
   The next day we had to leave early. Too early. Three and a half hours later, when we arrived at Julien’s place (our host for the night), someone didn’t react very friendly to me taking a picture as you can see.
2. 
   
   An interesting table-decoration at Julien’s place was this evil moon thing.
3. 
   
   We arrived at the venue a little while later. The Claws were just arriving around the same time. In the garden of the Botanique there were these guys preparing some kind of tent, probably for an event the next day or week. I found them amusing for some reason.
4. 
   
   This cigarette represents one of my main impressions of Brussels. A damn lot of smokers.
5. 
   
   When we were walking back from the park we ran across a few weird guys looking for Manneken Pis. We didn’t actually encounter the little guy, but we did manage to take a few pictures of the weird guys checking out interesting accessoires.
6. 
   
   A front view should make clear that the weird guys were part of this band which goes by the name of Clawfinger. One minute later I made a movie of him saying tandenborstel, Dutch for toothbrush. Later on he also got us on the guestlist. Thumbs up.
   
7. 
   
   Later that night, after the first band finished playing (featuring the man where we’d spend the night), I decided to take a picture of this sign. It’s funny because it says there’s some kind of non-smoking law since ‘91, but like 90% of the people were smoking inside (remember my earlier impression).
8. 
   
   I also took this picture to prove that I had “BASE” as a mobile phone provider in Belgium, which I thought sounded much more awesome than the Proteus (or something like that)Proximus which Mel had.
9. 
   
   And then some sound reached our ears.
10. 
    
    Check the crazy guy in the background of the picture.
11. 
    
    My camera kicks the ass of yours mate.
12. 
    
    André doing his thing.
13. 
    
    “I’ve got a personal trainer” (from Nothing Going On). Mel made a video of this, although it’s actually of the event right before it, Bård doing the duck walk.
    
14. 
    
    And some more guitar action.
15. 
    
    I thought I’d take a shot of the guys in the background, but the ones I made of Henka managed to fail.
16. Now just for some pictures.
17. 
18. 
19. 

And that’s it for today.

Go to the music player of your choice and put it on shuffle. Say the following questions aloud and press play. Use the song titles as your answers. Don’t cheat.

1 – How does the world see me?
Song: David Bowie – (Segue) “Ramona A. Stone / I am with Name
Comment: I am with Name? Too bad I don’t know whom I’m with then.

2 – Will I have a happy life?
Song: Korn – Here to Stay
Comments: I’m here to stay? That’s nice to know, but it seems to answer the question “will I have a long life?”

3 – What do my friends really think of me?
Song: Eminem – R.A.K.I.M – Rakim
Comments: They think I’m some ancient rapper? Hmm… interesting, I thought they saw me more as a somewhat metallish person.

4 – Do people secretly lust after me?
Song: The Dandy Warhols – The Coffee And Ten Wrecks
Comments: I guess not then.

5 – How can I make myself happy?
Song: Korn – Justin
Comments: I guess this means I’ll have to take off in space as the lyrics suggest.

6 – What should I do with my life?
Song: No Doubt – End it on this
Comments: That doesn’t sound too good.

7 – Why should life be full of so much pain?
Song: Radiohead – Creep
Comments: I’m a creep. Oh crap. Ah well, too bad. *headbangs on heavy guitar part*

8 – How can I maximize my pleasure during sex?
Song: Tenacious D – Friendship Test
Comments: Do a friendship test during sex? Hmm… kinky… NOT.

9 – Will I ever have children?
Song: Rage Against the Machine – Freedom
Comments: I will have freedom. So I might just leave my kids behind and be an asshole or choose not to have them at all. That sucks in a way.

10 – Will I die happy?
Song: Dr. Dre – Nuthin’ but a “G” thang
Comments: Doesn’t sound like it.

11 – What is some good advice for me?
Song: Samael – Telepathic
Comments: Yeah, reading other people’s thoughts would always be a good idea I guess.

12 – What is happiness?
Song: Anouk – Who Cares
Comment: Indeed, who cares what happiness is?

13 – What is my favorite fetish?
Song: Robbie Williams – Tripping
Comments: Oh yeah baby… tripping is shaggadelic!

14 – How will I be remembered?
Song: Die Fantatischen Vier – Bring it Back
Comment: Hell yeah, they’ll want me back.

Well, that was that… sadly the answers weren’t very funny for the most of it.