Amat victoria curam!

David Leavitt was in town invited by the John Adams Institute. His talk was funny and interesting, talking about his writing process, his life and his latest novel (which is published in Dutch this week) The Indian Clerk. I read this novel immediately when it came out in the states back in 2007: its a great story about an Indian Clerk - Srinivasa Ramanujan - who comes to Cambridge in the mid 1910's to solve one of the most important mathematical problems of all time. (And falls in love with a handsome soldier). Based on a true story - and beautifully told.

Eros Rammazotti's new album Ali e Radici is very dissapointing. It's boring, without interesting lyrics: Eros we heard this all before - by the way: this guy really got old looking ;-)

Georges Bizet's Carmen can be a little bit of a drag - it's a sort of classical top 40. Come in Yonghoon Lee - a tenor from South Korea: he blew the audience away with his beautiful powerful voice at tonight's premiere at the DNO.

With my Norddkap trip just days away it is time to decide with books to load on my iliad. Of the 50 books I will take with me (I expect long days because of the midsummer nights...) I am looking forward the most to these titels:

At Least in the City Someone Would Hear Me Scream: Misadventures in Search of the Simple Life - Wade Rouse
No Second Chance - Harlan Coben
44 Scotland Street - Alexander McCall Smith
The memoirs of a beautiful boy - Robert Leleux
Just too good to be true - E. Lynn Harris
Exiles in America - Christopher Bram
The Book of Useless Information - Noel Botham
Het Diner - Herman Koch
The Works (60 novels) - Charles Dickens
NRC Handelsblad

We had dinner at No & Go to try their brand new teppanyaki grill plate. As dessert No baked one of her famous apple pies... :-)

Cute poster for sale at the kunst actionen Dusseldorf.

A recent reading in Manhattan at the Strand bookstore by David Sedaris, whose most recent book is “When You Are Engulfed in Flames,” may have offered a glimpse of the future. A man named Marty who had waited in the book-signing line presented his Kindle, on the back of which Mr. Sedaris, in mock horror, wrote, “This bespells doom.”

Jarko Witte van Leeuwen was featured on national television with his family as an example of gays adopting children from the USA. There was some (minor) discussion in parlement whether that is desirable - IT IS! ;-)

Anthony Woods (gay, black Iraq vet with a Harvard degree, 28 years old) is running in a crowded Democratic field in California's 10th District, which includes parts of Sacramento and San Francisco's East Bay area. After he came out he was discharged (honorable). He is a guy will a great story and did all the right things to get (inter)national attention so far - let's wait a little bit a hear if he has to say something meaningfull as well... Go Anthony!

Or your back, chest, armpits or head

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...

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...

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:

The Fellowship Of The Ring, J. R. R. Tolkien, read by Full Cast (BBC 1981)
Running with Scissors, Augusten Burroughs, read by Augusten Burroughs
Dreams of my Father - Barack Obama, Read by Barack Obama
Me Talk Pretty One Day, David Sedaris, read by David Sedaris
Dear fatty - Dawn French, read by Liza Tarbuck
Babycakes, Armistead Maupin, read by Armistead Maupin
The No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, Alexander Mccall Smith, read by Adjoa Andoh
Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull, Thomas Mann, read by Boris Aljinovic
Sense And Sensibility, Jane Austen, Read By Juliet Stevenson
Economist weekly audio edition, read by various

From last week's New Yorker

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...

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

Employee-of-the-month!

He conquered Cairo

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...

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

Dad & dad

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

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 ;-)

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)

10)

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.

What r u looking at?

Google Wave snapshot inbox

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!

Sorry Ruben...

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

Hug

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" ! :-)

Cover newyorker

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...

off road jacket

Dakar pants

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.

Rain

WoningNet

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. :-)

Foyle's War

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:

Foyle's War - because of the stories and settings.
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 :-)) )
Wallander - because it is swedish...
Morse - Because of John Thaw, and his car of course
Columbo - Nice stories
McCloud - Who doesn't want to be Sam McCloud?
Frost - Nice social settings
Midsommer Murders - Because of its English county sides and festivals
Tatort - still going strong after almost 40 years. I like especially Hansjörg Felmy as
Kommissar Haferkamp
Poirot - Little outdated, but nice Art Deco settings

Marvell sheevaplug plug-computer

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.

Not funny...

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...

Abs

Crystal Quest

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 :-)

Taste like American fast food: bland

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...:-(

Teesside Meat Feast Parmo

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...

Teddy won!

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:

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