that got her feet leave the hustle and bustle between the dhows and dunes of Dubai and Abu Dhabi, to make fresh imprints in the sands of Cebu and Camotes Islands again.
Today’s the day that Columbus got his commission of exploration by Spain, the year 1492. It’s also the day, in the year 1006, that the brightest supernova ever in history got recorded. Let’s keep both feet on the ground for now and enjoy the more mundane but nice unplugged ‘Dust in the Wind’.
To explore and to exploit is one of the typical characteristics of human beings that is embedded in the genes forever. It must have been present in the cosmic dust of the Big Bang. And it’s not just the ever expanding universe that gives these opportunities. It’s also the cradle of all human life; the womb, according what I read on hcgdiet.net and at some other places on the internet. To cross unknown bounderies always comes with a price. And presumptions, no matter how clever, and claims, no matter how plausible, can be proven wrong. It’s a universal wise thing to be cautious, let things take their course, and keep an eye open.
Some impressions of light and dark with birthday boy Duke Ellington’s ‘Reflections in D’ in the background. The 111 years ago that he saw the light of his days make me reflect upon how time flies, like the speed of light.
Strange eyes compel, they say. But can strange eyes detect the details that make the difference? Very likely they do, but not always. At least mine were blinded by the endless rows of lighting that I found lately. Quoizel lighting labeled their line of lights with various names that should had been distinctive and helpful to me, but I couldn’t tell the difference between americana, european, global and contemporary lighting. All I was looking for was the one that stands out. But fortunately, rounding the last corner, they got the arts and crafts section. That gave some new light to the matter.
It’s World Graphics Day today. It’s to celebrate the profession of graphic and communication design. The designers hope that an international network can contribute to a greater understanding between people. That’s a Tale I like to believe in.
Gnomes and fairies don’t exist, except a few die hards and a bunch of kids, we all know that. That doesn’t mean we don’t want to believe that they’re there, and that this wanting itself is illegal. It’s the same thing with swallowing the next generation of diet pills that work. At least, that’s the usual Land of Cockaigne Promise: just wash the pill and sail away in your junior high jeans to the sunset. But like in fairy tales, they don’t finger point the baddies that are lurking around. The truth is even more strange than fiction alone, it’s also more deadly. You’re better be your own narrator, and not listen to the Sirens, to tell your own tale and live your life happily and thereafter.
For the ones among us with a large swimming pool, a bicycle and a sense of balance, this might be your next favorit float, if you take the punch but not the puncture.
Where’s water, there’s life. Any wildlife documentary shows it. So does a visit to your local public bath, river, lake or zoo. Even after having quenched the modane thirst, animals and humans alike prefer to remain in the vicinity of water. And where water is reluctant to serve humans, the latter dig holes and keep water in them. It’s also in the nature of human kind not to be satisfied for long with that water just being in those holes. And they start to learn how to swim. They get tired and have to drag themselves out of that luring coolness. And that’s the moment that the idea of pool floats come to the surface for the first time. Since then Homo Ludens has developed the idea from a plain plank to a semi submarine seat. But in the wake of these floating inflatables Men’s Best Friend and also Men’s Apple of the Eye have been spotted to have claimed the waters. A bit of Parental Piracy could be necessary. A battery powered mutiny however could arise from the next wave. Every mammal that has to shave: get yourself a brittle free grip.
Six minutes of animated obsession. Of not knowing what you’re doing, where it goes to, why you ever started and how to stop. Untill you’ve pushed yourself too far, and the weight pulls you over the cliff. What then...?
It makes your pants drop, but not because you’ve lost a few pounds in weight, but in money. That’s perhaps one of the most common side effects of diet pills. If that dropping of the pants might cause an infection of the bladder, that’s still child’s play compared with the real dangers. Because these pills contain different ingredients, with different areas of the body to work with, like the intestines or the nervous system, their side effects will vary the same way. To get the insight not to get involved with them in the first place, is without a doubt, a very welcome, healthy, cheap and long lived side effect.
Usually we associate barcode scanners with industrial environments and the moment of Truth and Pay at the local supermarket. Those readers always were a bit sci-fi to me till the day it dawned upon me that it was a mere matter of measuring the differences of black and white. And don’t we all, human beings, do that everyday without blinking the eye? There might be some new light coming though. In a very near future, it seems we gracefully sway our cell phone to catalogue our dvd’s, cd’s, mp3’s, books, shopping lists and other personal things. Not many people will be barred out and it’s only a matter of time and some people will be behind bars, having mixed up the What’s Whom’s. It should had been clear to them though, really black on white.
If that doesn’t shake one’s feet or one’s head in disbelieve: a rather midget-like, lazy-boned but short-fused volcano in some far corner of the planet that makes the entire international transport of goods and people come to a hold. The losses of tens, if not several hundreds of millions of dollars have poured down on all continents as if it were ash clouds. Next to the choking and strangling of intercontinental human endeavour, it’s also revealing to the ones who haven’t been blinded. Already, through the still pouring ashes, people have drummed out into the half darkness that the flight cancellations in Europe alone have resulted in a reduction of CO2. Despite the volcano. Isn’t that a silver lining? Not that this is of much help to all those waiting people – at international airports and horticultural centres – they all have to fall in line, and hope the next shift will reach its destiny.
I got a double, mixed feeling about baby clothes. For starters: don’t all babies look great whatever they’re wearing? Even in Eve’s or Adam’s costume they have this natural appearance of being ‘dressed’ for the occasion. I always wonder if they really like to be dressed up. I’m pretty sure the moms and dads are thrilled to get baby wonder into some new outfit. Not to mention the old folks. Maybe that’s the best part: the grown ups are all smiles and cheerful and look as if it’s always Sunday, and baby looks around in amazement and thinks ‘well, this isn’t such a bad place after all, I’ll stay’.
We all have to dance to the music some times. Swollow. Stretch ourselves. Turn our backs and try again. Borrow a shoulder to cry on, or ask for a bowl of sugar, like Nina Simone. And smile again.
We all know a few embarrassements in life. Some are shortlived and some are vigorous like weeds and sheer indestructible. I won’t tackle the first group, because we’re all able to solve them, all in our own fashion. It might be interesting though, to hear suggestions about how to fight the second group. I admit; it’s such a various group that it’s unlikely to get two embarrassements of the same kind with similar solutions. Think of problems like noisy neighbors, or ‘closer to home’; a partner who snores, or as closest to your own skin as possible: the ordeal to find the right back acne treatment for yourself while living on your own. Because, take the latter: what if you think you have found the solution but your arms won’t be long and flexible enough to apply the just discovered means to fight that menace? My unconventional solution might be to pay a visit to that noisy neighbor; asking him or her could mean to kill two birds with one stone, and if you strike gold: three is a possibility. Borrowing a bowl of sugar is the classic way, but not that original. Your remark that there might be a spin-off off the just explained back program, is, with no doubt.
Two Leonardo’s today to focus on; it’s Leonardo da Vinci’s birthday, the year 1452. Among his genious ideas there were airplanes, ships and submarines. And it’s also the day that the Titanic sank, in the year 1912. A main character in the film was played by Leonardo DiCaprio. The story goes that he was named Leonardo because his pregnant mother was looking at a Leonardo da Vinci painting in an Italian museum when DiCaprio first kicked. Oh, I also hope you have made the deadline today for filing your tax returns! That it won’t be a sinking ship, but a nice kick-off.
If there’s something typical that defines kids, it’s their ability to make something out of nothing. Collected and assembled from the wastes of war, or made of other throw-aways of our time, toys emerge which enable them to entertain themselves. Times that are hard don’t necessarily have to be bad for the development and entertainment of children. Too much choice can be destructive for creativity. However, a good choice of all the available today’s toys for a particular child, proper for its particular age, is an asset to all parents and custodians, and to the benefit of the child.
Something we still have an occasional struggle with these days, is intellectual property. Think of the downloading of films and music. This concern has been of all ages. Today, exactly 300 years ago, in 1710, the British Copyright Act, the Statue of Anne came in force to grant publishers legal protection, for the ‘encouragement of learning’. The statute was concerned with the reading public, the continued production of ‘useful’ literature, and the advancement of education. It ended the old system whereby only literature that met the censorship standards by the booksellers could appear in print, and therefore created a public domain and opened up literature for much more people. With the blogging on the internet and e-books we’re close to such an end of an old era again. The old struggle will remain, I think.
Like the word says, industrial handles are to be found mainly in environments far removed from the domestic and familiar. Their appearance in those very same homely surroundings isn’t a very obvious one. And yet, just because of their qualities such as strength, and versatility in material, shape and use, some of them can become a surprising and original element in many homes. From brand new to car boot hand downs, for whom got an eye for an outstanding detail, treasures are for the grabbing.
If it’s true that the latest Japanese generation of babies is getting born with this gadget, then the parental problem which of the baby announcements to choose is out of this world very soon.
There aren’t that many baby announcements as there are babies. No one will argue about that. But a birth is one of those occasions in life that many want to celebrate and have fond memories of. And to give fitting shape to that one-of-a-kind happening, the most original card will be the one that the parents cough up themselves. If creativity, guts or both of them, don’t run in the family, the online opportunities will give birth to a whole range of pretty prints that will make the parents get puffed up with pride.
If an Englishman in New York was good enough for a film and a song, a Dutchman in a scooter will surely be the centre of attention for a car insurance commercial. Here you go... get yourself a grip!
About three months ago it was supposed to be the time to have waved goodbye to a friend’s car. The car got shipped, but it happens to get stuck half way its journey. By accident, on the very same island I’m living. With the result it’s with me again. But also the responsibility. Before I’ll start that engine after all that time, I better find an auto insurance quote that will cover the maximum of bumps for the minimum of bucks. I wonder if there’s such a thing as a joint insurance? To split the costs would be a less headache and a greater joy.
One who still has a good shape, and doesn’t need exercise, just the annual scrub, once adorned with jewellery and positioned in a gymnasium niche, is the Venus de Milo, today, in the year 1820 discovered and brought to the Louvre Museum in Paris.
With the slogan ‘it can’t harm one trying one’ and an invitation for a one hour free visit to a local gym in the bag, I got myself prepared for a sweat session the other day. Although they have been around for some time now, my attention was drawn to the elliptical trainers. The fact to have one’s feet in touch with those pedals all the time, at any desired rate, instead of the merciless knee impact of a treadmill, it was clear to me this was the machine made for me. Being told that I even would be able to vary the stride length and exercise that lazy belly and weak back of mine got me smiling. Although that smile got replaced by a grin: it’s still hard work to get oneself at the peak again and it’s not some peach of a time. Then again: I feel pretty good since that day.
Once upon a time, in the dark days, the ones that mastered to make or preserve fire, were in power. And in the possession of a more refined cuisine: eating raw meat was getting out of fashion in these days. The ‘Light Bringing Slave’, or ‘Fire Inch Stick’ shone its first light in eighth century China. These small sticks of pinewood impregnated with sulfur, predecessor of the match, found its way to Europe in the sixteenth century. Then it takes some considerable time of monkeying about, till 1805 when the first self-igniting match was invented. But it was considered very dangerous and expensive. Therefore not on the kitchen table of that time. The first friction match, got invented today, the year 1826. But the unsteady flame and its explosive potential as a match but also in the manufacture of them, were still a risky business. The obnoxious sulfur smell got removed in 1830, but the contents of one single pack of matches could still kill. It all got in a more safe haven in 1844 with the invention of the safety match as we still know today. Two more candles; one for a noiseless match invention in 1836 (I still can’t imagine how that must have sounded) and the second for the 1899 ‘strike anywhere’ match, the one I can imagine, from old movies where actors enlight their cigarettes on any rough surface they can find.
Elaborating on an already existing ‘plastic’ called collodion, till then, among others, used as a wound dressing, a wart remover and the basic ingredient for the first photographs, and trying to find a way to manufacture a substitute for the very expensive ivory billiard balls, tinkling with cloth, ivory dust and shellac, New Yorker John Wesley Hyatt patented this horn-like material today in the year 1869. However, the first celluloid got patented by the Englishman Alexander Parkes in 1855 as a clothing waterproof for woven fabrics. The emulsion of these two brought billions of people a new world full of emotion, entertainment and jobs. Very soon Celluloid Heroes were born.
If certain smells, sounds or faces can bring you back the days that have been gone and long forgotten, certain words can bring back those smells, sounds and faces. Out of nothing, such a word can emerge and gets fixed on the retina. Such a word was Anilox to me. Unknown to me till the day I got myself an apprenticeship at a printshop, in another life, so it seems now. It brought me back to the people who worked with those giant and impressive machines. It brought me back the smell of the abrasive solvents in the nose. The hard work. The dirt. It also brought me back the terrible noise, that finally made me go away. But what’s still hanging around is the appreciation for fine printwork.
When legends, myths, ancient and contemporary history, traditions, trades, arts and medicine come together in one and the same concoction, you might find yourself in good health drinking a cup of green tea. That was my impression, after having read even some more about acne treatments than I already had done. Even if it was a tale, that drinking tea started with the accidental fall of some tea blossom into a cup of hot water of some Chinese emperor, the qualities of that same tea aren’t a fabrication. Even the western scientific world has to acknowledge the beneficial properties of tea. Now, I wonder, what’s more beneficial to the health: having to swallow some very expensive treatment or another affordable and tasty tea?
One of the things I get up with, recently and regularly, is the feeling my knees are locked. A sudden and swift jump out of bed is no longer possible. After washing and preparing breakfast the annoying pain vanishes. For a while I blamed the relentless rains, but with these current high temperatures we’re having now it has to be something else. To give myself a better idea of what could be the matter, I visited sites like www.glucosaminecream.org and hoped they might give me some clues. As far as I know now, it’s the usual story of getting older. Parts of the joints change and nothing much is there to do about it. How to soothe them, and my mind, I have to sleep on another night.
How to make fun of the false promises of disappearing small, or not that small, nuisances that are lurking around to get you trapped, and the fact that today is the International Children’s Book Day? Watch this one.
All new possibilities are welcomed by me, but with reserve. And because I have my reservations about practically everything that’s online these days, I don’t feel any different when a questionnaire downthere has to be filled in to obtain, so it’s claimed, a personal skin id. Like any list, there are too many open ends that make me feel it might go any direction. A very average question won’t result in a very specific answer. So, a number of them won’t either. All together it doesn’t bring me much closer to a better skin condition. And to be frank: to find some kind of ready made formula just waiting to get picked would have been the biggest surprise of the day to me. Specks on skins require real and direct in-touch-fieldwork.
Some twists and twirls that would become handy if something’s happening behind your back. On second thoughts: you might better not try this at home, unless you like to end up in some kind of Gordian Knot. ‘Nut’.. get it?
The pestilence that’s called acne seems to have an addition that I wasn’t aware of, and even has a name: bacne. My next presumption that it was one of the same kind, wasn’t covering the whole story as well. Technically, it is the same nuisance. But two differences were making sense to me: the skin of our backs isn’t the same, it seems to be much thicker and therefore could be of influence. Secondly: where our face is ‘right under our nose’ and available at any time, the back is hard, if not impossible, to get at. So, the moment we like to follow one of the body acne treatments we think is most suitable, we better have a spare parts of helping hands, unlike you’re a member of the Chinese Circus and have some sort of acrobatic act.
In my search for a fitting follow up of the previous post, I stumbled upon this clip. Many have done the Beatles’ The Fool On The Hill’, but one of the most remarkable and original ones I saw was this ukelele playing guy. At first one might think he’s nuts, then a doubt starts to grow: is he really?
This is Fool’s Day afterall, so let me tell you a short but rather stiff story, perhaps hard to believe. Between Once Upon A Time and Space Oddity 2010, two groups of males, both obsessed with figures and other small details, seemed to have gatherings where exchanges are made of a doubtful reputation. The doubtful part is not the hard cash that one group has, next to being soft headed. It’s the second group to worry about, in the possession of a herbal supplement called enzyte, with nothing else than plain over-the-counter-ingredients. Needless to say, the price for this bottled nothingness, the heart of this contemporary but foolish worship of the willy, is far higher. There’s a saying: when men’s wisdom comes out of a bottle... Anyway, being found guilty of many more counts than there were ingredients, among them money laundering and bank fraud, the wizzards of this wank got sentenced. But be aware, the hoax continues, under a new name. Don’t get fooled and frapped.
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