Toko

In Delft there is a nice shop called Xotus. It is a big garden center with lots of exotic plants and flowers and also a big Asian supermarket. Here I like to buy boxes of Bapao’s in the flavor chicken or beef. I avoid the pig flavors because a pig is an impure animal.

In addition to Bapao’s I like to try new things, so usually I also buy some weird unknown product. Sometimes I make bad choices because the packaging normally does not contain any information in Dutch or English about the contents. I once bought a big carton with little river lobsters, just to find out that they are probably not meant for eating because they contain very little meat. Probably they were just for decoration. Once I got hold of a big bag of frozen duck tongues but luckily I realized it was something weird right there in the shop and could return the bad to its original place.

But usually the food I try is pretty good… pieces of crab leg that need to be fried, scrimp, strange egg-roles… they all contribute to the risk distribution I try to accomplice with the food I consume.

My last purchase was a bag of deep frozen product. The bag had Chinese text on it, so I just had the image to go on. The image contained a nice plate full of rice and vegetables. I thought it would be a bag of ready made rice, so I bought it. But no… the image on the package was again some optical illusion and it contained only frozen vegetables. The rice and the meat I had to arrange myself resulting in having to clean three pans instead of just one. Even worst, I need to return to the shop because I’m almost out of sate!

D. Trance 27

D-Trance 27!It was 1996.

There were just two sentences in English. Spoken with a very strong German accent. “Metamorphose is a physical and mental process able to genetically disfigure the starting structure. So as to tune your body into musical energy… this is metamorphose.”

The text did not make a lot of sense, but the strong German accent compensated for my lack of understanding. This was a song from my first (and Gary D.’s fourth) D.Trance CD.

Now, 8 years have past and the 27th D.Trance CD is being released. I’m happy because I can spend some happy times in my car driving and listening to the new beats.

Lucid Dreams scent inhaler

Lucid Dreams!In the US I had bought a scent inhaler in a bar where I spend 15 minutes sniffing up oxygen. I thought it would be a nice thing because I’m interested in dreams, but normally I don’t dream or I don’t remind what I have dreamed. Before I bought the inhaler I already enjoyed two strange dreams while I was traveling across America, so I figured that was something I would like to improve on.

Ever since I have the inhaler I sometimes sniff it before going to sleep, but until now the effect is absent. There is a different strange effect happening and that is that now sometimes I have some kind of smell flashback. It is just like I smell the inhaler even though if has a very strange smell that you normally don’t encounter.

Spanish tenant

Yesterday evening I met the Spanish girl that rented my apartment for a month. All I can say is that I was impressed.. impressed my the cleanness of my home when I arrived; impressed by the bottle of whiskey and the crate of beers that was left for me. And now I’m even more impressed because I was just offered some dried Mexican mushrooms. Nice for a tasty soup.

Koyaanisqatsi

In the US I bought a DVD by Francis Ford Coppola… Koyaanisqatsi – Life Out Of Balance. The music on the DVD is by Philip Glass, and this music is quite depressing but watching the movie at the same time quickly takes you to a special emotional state. All this because some ex colleague once told me about Philip Glass.

It is almost unimaginable that a movie that only contains images and music, without any spoken text, can point out so clearly that we are working hard to destroy our planet. It is probably better to focus on the description of the DVD cover. “Koyaanisqatsi contrasts the tranquil beauty of nature with the frenzied hum of contemporary urban society.”

Oh well, I’ll just go and sit in the sun for a while. :-p

Annarella

Lasciami qui
Lasciami stare
Lasciami così
Non dire una parola che
Non sia d’amore
Per me
Per la mia vita che
E’ tutto quello che ho
E’ tutto quello che io ho e non è ancora
Finita
Finita…

Slowmotion 4 Me

In America on the side of New York there was one song being played on the radio every day, and sometimes even more then once.. Juvenile. But the bad thing was it was a special edited version with a lot of ‘holes’ in the lyrics. I was curious about these holes so I searched for the song on KaZaA and this resulted in a surprise. The holes in the edited version were not so bad at all.

Other nice songs I remember from America:
Gap Band – Ride the White Pony
B52’s – Love Shack
Goo Goo Dolls – Iris

Mosquitoes

Mug!Those damn mosquitoes!!! This morning I woke up with mosquito bites all over my neck, my arms and on the backside of my knees.. and those bites itch a lot! But what can I do. Killing a mosquito is only possible if you are clear and focused, and this is not my usual state.

I used to have a mosquito net covering my bed, but I threw it out because it made sleeping an uncomfortable thing. I have seen special smell and sound gimmicks that you plug in the wall socket, but because of my paranoia I refuse to buy these because I think they must have some bad effect on humans as well.

But there is always hope. I heard there are certain plants that the mosquitoes don’t like. This afternoon I’ll try and find such a plant.

Leiden bicycle city

Bicycle!Today I went into the city and I made some pictures of the typical spots in Leiden. I thought this would be nice to send to some of the people I met in America. Funny thing is that it was impossible to make a picture that did not have a bike standing in it somewhere.

I made photos of the market with huge amounts of bicycles, photos of bars and terraces with lots of bikes, photos of canals with bikes, windmills with bikes, lots of bikes everywhere. As soon as I manage to get some of the pictures on my PC I will post them on this blog.

Chilling

Home again, and I plan to take it easy for some time. The first few days at home I seemed to notice the jet-lag, but in a good way. It felt like my blood was pumping with endorfines, adrenaline and other -ines (like caffeine and vitamin). It must be because I’m feeling at home again because I feel seriously happy.