Mosquitoes Starwars

Because Northern Scandinavia is Mosquito heaven at the time of the year when we are traveling over there - I am looking for some protection. Next to the usual DEET solution I came across this nifty product from Intellectual Ventures: A laser gun for Mosquitoes: No kidding - it really exists! It can recognize mosquitoes and then takes them out in a range of 100 meters...

Prone Cobra Stretch



Because my right hand is still in a cast - my gym routine is quit different: I do more core exercises like the Cobra and Superman movements. You really have to get used to this - but is very rewarding and great for your lower back and abs...

Sundays' Best: Top Ten audiobooks

With my iPhone always on hand, audiobooks are getting more and more fun. Audiobookbuilder
is a great program to stitch all the CDs or MP3s together in a bookmarkable format. These are my current favorites:
  1. The Fellowship Of The Ring, J. R. R. Tolkien, read by Full Cast (BBC 1981)
  2. Running with Scissors, Augusten Burroughs, read by Augusten Burroughs
  3. Dreams of my Father - Barack Obama, Read by Barack Obama
  4. Me Talk Pretty One Day, David Sedaris, read by David Sedaris
  5. Dear fatty - Dawn French, read by Liza Tarbuck
  6. Babycakes, Armistead Maupin, read by Armistead Maupin
  7. The No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, Alexander Mccall Smith, read by Adjoa Andoh
  8. Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull, Thomas Mann, read by Boris Aljinovic
  9. Sense And Sensibility, Jane Austen, Read By Juliet Stevenson
  10. Economist weekly audio edition, read by various

And I am back - beta

From last week's New Yorker

Last post on Vox - I moved back to marque.blogspot.com

With Google integrating more and more stuff and vox standing still in its development, I decided to move back to blogger and my original blog which you can find at: marque.blogspot.com.
Thanks for visiting this blog here at Vox - please continue reading...

Mr. President we have such high hopes...

Just a couple of weeks after I visited Buchenwald, Obama did and Elie Wiesel made a very moving speech.

Employee of the month


Barack Hussein Obama is GOD!

The expectations were almost impossible  to achieve but he did it again: a water shedding speech by Barack in Cairo about the Muslim world. I feel this is truly the start of a new beginning! Of course he is omitting the inconvenient truths that women are generally subjugated in those cultures, gays are ostracized or killed outright, but hey: we have to start somewhere...

Don't forget to vote tomorrow!

Boris van der Ham of the liberal party (D'66) about europe

Gay pinguins save the world

After earlier experiments in separating the homosexual penguin couple in Bremen revealed great difficulties, the zoo decided to let them adopt a pinguin egg - and... it worked! Dad & dad hatched the egg and now are proud parents of a healthy chicken pinguin of the rare Humbold race :-)

Sid the Sloth

While waiting for Ice Age: The dawn of the Dinosaurs - I have been watching Ice Age I & II in blueray. Sid is still the man! (uh... I mean Sloth!). Johnny Legiuzamo as his voice is great too ;-)

Sundays' best: top ten Obama art

I don't think that a living president inspired so many people to produce art. But Obama isn't just a president :-)
Here are my favorite one's:
1)








2)







What is a hero? THIS is a hero!

He is the first guy to receive the highest military honor of the Netherlands - The William Knighthood Cross - in 55 years. Marco Kroon truly is a hero - saving soldiers in Afghanistan. This was really a big thing here: live tv coverage, Queen, cabinet, prime minister the lot - and that is how it should be: someone who defends our freedom, sacrifice himself and who is outmost couragous deserves our utmost respect.

Meanwhile in a lake nearby


Google Wave is stunning!

I am very impressed with Google Wave. It really will change radically the way we communicate. It's difficult to oversee all the new possiblities right now - but I my mind is already full of new ideas and concepts. So this the day that email, word, chat etc. died and Wave was born... If you see one video this week - make sure it is this one!

Ruben without his head :-§

As much as I like Ruben, it seems that I really liked his Ducati 748 more... ;-)

what is it with guys hugging?

It seems like a new craze: hugging. People are hugging all the time. Some sociologists pointed out that African-American boys and men have been hugging as part of their greeting for decades, using the word “dap” to describe a ritual involving handshakes, slaps on the shoulders and, more recently, a hug, also sometimes called the gangsta hug. It could have some sexual menaing but pro-hugging students say it is not a romantic or sexual gesture, simply the new “hello”. The high-five is, like, boring. So "Hugg" ! :-)

Finger painting with your iPhone

This weeks cover of the New Yorker is painted with an iPhone app (brushes) by Jorge Colombo. Maybe I will give it a try too...

New Enduro Motor suit

To ease the "pain" from my unfortunate motor accident I gave myself a treat in buying a Rev'it enduro suit. It is great with three layers so it is always right for what ever climate and has plenty of handy pockets.

Summer in Amsterdam...


Woningnet supervisory board

Today I was elected member of the board of supervisors of WoningNet, an IT and marketing data company for housing societies.  I hope I can contribute to make this great company even better. :-)

Sunday's best: Top ten Detective TV shows

What is it with Detectives that they are almost always single elderly men? Most of them have problems with their (ex) wives. Hardly any of them have children. And most of the times the seem very unhappy in their private lives. Maybe that is necessary to fully concentrate on the job (or it makes a better story ;-) ). While watching the Dalziel & Pascoe series, I was wondering what the best Detective TV shows were:  

  1. Foyle's War - because of the stories and settings.
  2. Dalziel & Pascoe - This is one show where it is difficult to guess who done it right from the start (it takes me about 10 minutes :-)) )
  3. Wallander - because it is swedish...
  4. Morse - Because of John Thaw, and his car of course
  5. Columbo - Nice stories
  6. McCloud - Who doesn't want to be Sam McCloud?
  7. Frost - Nice social settings
  8. Midsommer Murders - Because of its English county sides and festivals
  9. Tatort - still going strong after almost 40 years. I like especially Hansjörg Felmy as
    Kommissar Haferkamp
  10. Poirot - Little outdated, but nice Art Deco settings

A computer for $49?

Marvell introduces the SheevaPlug, a
development kit that is basically a Linux-based plug computer. The
SheevaPlug is powered by Kirkwood Series SoC with a Marvell Sheeva
1.2GHz procesor, 512MB RAM adn 512MB flash memory. It has gigabit
Ethernet and USB 2.o ports.

The SheevaPlug supports many standard Linux 2.6 kernel
distributions. It is priced at $99, and the company expectes a price
drop to $49.

Nightmare at the Museum II

The first NatM was sometimes amusing. Unfortunately the makers made an exact copy full with clichés. The film is boring, not funny and way to long...

Hmmm...


Finally: Crystal Quest on my iPhone

On of my favorite games on my Apple MacIntosh II was Crystal Quest. It started very simple, but Oh boy: it really was tough a couple of waves later. The sound FX were great too. And now it is on my iPhone :-)

New Gare du Nord - Love for Lunch sucks...

What's wrong with the Gare du Nord guys? I really liked their previous 4 albums, but their new release "Love for Lunch" sucks. It is a collection of tracks that all sounds familiair, but in the wrong sense of the word. It is a dull, bland album...:-(


Why they are FAT!

The website "This is why you're fat" shows what ordinary americans are eating. You cannot call this food anymore.. It is disgusting, sickening, nausea causing FAT rubbish. Don't watch this if you don't have a strong stomach...

Sundays' best: top ten Dutch Euro Vision Song Festival


Now that The Netherlands lost again - you wonder whether it makes sense to compete at the EuroVison Song festival
at all. The televote system doesn't seem to help our candidates. I myself haven't watched the show for 10 years or so, so I can only remember the good old days... These are my favorite entries:

  1. Teddy Scholten - Een Beetje
  2. Ruth Jacott – Vrede
  3. Edsilia Rombly - Hemel en
    aarde
  4. Maggie MacNeal - Amsterdam
  5. Marcha - Rechtop in de wind
  6. Teach In - Ding-a-Dong
  7. Greetje Kauffeld - Wat
    een dag
  8. Lenny Kuhr - De
    troubadour
  9. Therese Steinmetz -
    Ring Dinge
  10. Ronnie Tober - Morgen

Nice photograph

At the Villa Grisebach auction this June.

A gay collection

A funny report in Volkskrant Magazine about the collection of Frank Schallmaier of similar profile pictures on gay social websites. It seems that everybody thinks the same.

Meanwhile at the Zomoto HQ...


Warp 10! The new Star Trek

It's funny, high paced, has a great story and likeable characters: Star Trek, the movie. The actors remind you of the original cast, but then again have a magic of their on. The story about Spock is probably the best of all the Star Trek movies. I really hope that this is a fresh start of the franchise. FOr me this is one of the best movies ever...

An update from wounded knee

I have been in & out The Andreas Hospital these days. The really super friendly and helpfull staff there are taking my injury very serious indeed. I have now a plastic surgeon to look after my middle finger and the speed with which things are improving is great. It will take about 6 weeks before I can start the rehabilitation process with my already assigned nurse. In the mean time everybdoy is very suporting and helping me out. thanks! :-))

Panorama

I made this 360 pano on a mountain at Rudolf, near Weimar, Germany. I shot it just by hand (about 18 pix) and then stitched it with PS CS4.

The day I crashed with my motorbike and ended in hospital

I went to my mumm this afternoon for mothersday and on the way back thought that I could get through a traffic light. Eddie who was driving in front of my thought otherwise and stopped just in time. I tried to make an emergency stop, but blocked my front wheel and slighed with my bike a couple of meters over the (hard) asphalt.  My left leg is wounded and right hand a little bit broken. the ambulance came quickly and I was repaired in no time. Luckily I was wearing my full faced helmet and a motor jacket with protection - stupidly I was only wearing (white) jeans in stead of my special motor trousers. Bike was scratched - but was OK! It will take a week or 4 to recover...

Sundays' best: top ten paradise stories

Touring through Germany and seeing the landscape and space I wonder how it would be when we moved to this place and lived here. It reminds me of the stories I read of people who moved to their paradise, just to find that it doesn't exists... :-)Here are my favorites
1) A year in Provence
2) Under the Tuscan Sun
3) Shirley Valentine
4) The matchmaker of Perigord
5) My house in Umbria
6) A good Year
7) In Maremma
8) Tea with Mussolini
9) Bienvenue chez les Ch’tis
10) Mr. Blandings builds his dream House

I am a Liberal Democrat

With EU profiler I tried to figure out which party to vote for at the European Elections June 4. Nationally I keep my Democrat / Liberal preference with D66, but the party which most resembles my views is the Liberal Democrats of the UK.