My iPhone4 sucks - or is it my VAPOR case?

It looks awesome and feels even better: my VAPOR iphone4 case.  But since I attached it it is almost impossible to make/receive calls with my iPhone4. The calls keep on dropping and my voicemail comes in days after people leave a message. After some googling I read that more people have this problem.
Some even say that this case reduces antenna effectiveness by 99%... 
So with pain in my heart I had no choice but to remove my case and to try my phone "case- less" :-(

Katie Melua - the end?

While flying back to Amsterdam (in a record time of a little over 5 hours) I tried to listen to Katie's latest album: The House.  If I weren't sleepy already I sure fell into a coma listening to these tracks. It's perfect for people with insomnia... I think she is a nice girl with a pretty voice but why a whole album with this boring stuff?

An Old Friend at the AMNH

I tried the new AMNH iphone app - but could get it working properly. A shame because it looked very promising - maybe it's because my iphone4 is screwed up badly... I ran into an old friend though - whom I know way back from Easter Island.

Malcom Gladwell

While i New York I met Malcom Gladwellwriter of classics as blink, tipping point, outliers and many excellent pieces in the New Yorker. He told shared with me an interesting thought that entrepreneurs never really like taking risks as such - they try to avoid that. But that where they differentiate that they are willing to take social risk. Working of concepts and ideas that few people in their own circle believe in. That's why most innovation comes from out of existing closed markets and that's why we need immigrants in a society to have a more entrepreneurial culture (They have little to lose so far as social standing concerns) Also read his latest New Yorker article on why the revolution will not be tweeted...

Mary Meeker: The future is Mobile

Mary Meeker is convinced that mobile will be the future. That is to say: smartphone AND tablets. I agree: in some markets you already see a leap jump from nothing to smartphones surpassing the PC completely. What this means for Microsoft, websites in general and Google is to be seen. Maybe the latter has some advantage with its android OS.

A sunny day in the big Apple

central parc

an other Trumph Tower

a view from a room

central park

Columbus circle

Blister Gunner - 1944

In 1944, Allied forces executed an aerial bombardment of the heavily fortified Japanese Island of New Britain in the South Pacific. Many planes were shot down. Waiting for messages that a pilot had ditched his aircraft, amphibious PBY planes were ready to skim over the water, locate the pilot, land on the surface, and send out a rubber raft to bring the pilot back to safety. On one such occasion, a blister gunner on one of the PBY planes spotted a severely burned pilot, hanging onto life only by a tattered life preserver. The gunner, knowing that there was not enough time to send out the rubber raft, stripped off his clothing and dove into the water to rescue the pilot himself. After he had returned to the PBY plane with no time to dress, he immediately returned to his post. Horace  Bristol considered this man's actions among the bravest deeds that he witnessed during the war.

Photo by Horace Bristol (American, 1909-1997)
Sold for $17,500 at Sothebys New York

I would be down too if I had these tats I think...

This is all I want for xmas

Panasonic's new hair-washing robot scans each human head three-dimensionally to apply just the right amount of pressure during the shampoo, massage, and rinse phases...
Maybe it can shave me as well! :-)

Say hello to Tory

Fred Karger: the only republican I may like...

Watch Fred's first bid for the presidential race in 2012 in New Hampshire.

A (museum) day in sunny London

The first gas turbine Rover: the JET1 in Science Museum

Millions of bottles with stuff in the Natural History Museum

The Cocoon

Escaped from Jurassic Park!

The (terrific) Ashburn Hotel
We were staying at the Ashburn hotel because of the raving TripAdvisor reviews and were not disappointed :-) The location is perfect in the heart of Kensington and so near all the nice museums (V&A, science and Natural History) which we visited all. They have brand new exhibitions, like the future wing in Science, the dinosaur hall in NH and the amazing new Cocoon building in which they collect the seeds (and many insects) from all over the world for the future generations.  Also Harrods and Harvey Nichols are around the corner which is always great for some shopping. Just watching people passing by is fun too in this (very) expensive neighborhood. The sun was shining and we had a awesome day in London.

Stephen Fry: live in the Royal Albert Hall

We flew to London this afternoon to be at the live performance of Stephen Fry this evening. It was really funny full with witty remarks, funny stories and interesting memories. It reminded me of the late Peter Ustinov in his shows. Awesome was also that Stephen used the iPad and his (white!) iphone4 in his show. The house was fully booked.

The longest kiss - ever.

Matty and Bobby will attempt to break the world record for longest recorded "Longest Continuous Kiss". The record currently stands @ 32 hours 7 minutes and 14 seconds...

Hmmm...

Two guys: two secrets


I received two (printed!) new books today from amazon:
1) Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist, and Sexual Renegade.
2) A Great Unrecorded History: A New Life of E. M. Forster
Both biographies about (gay) writers I really like. I am not sure how to read these - being used to ebooks ;-) - but I will give them a try.

Indeed a change that matters... - The Democrats new Civile Rights section.

According to the Democratic Party's new "Civil Rights" section of its website:
Democrats are committed to:
  • Strengthening the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division to better protect voting rights;
  • Enacting the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which includes measures prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity;
  • Ensuring full civil unions and federal rights for LGBT couples;
  • Repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in a sensible way that strengthens our armed forces and our national security;
  • Ending racial, ethnic, and religious profiling; and
  • Building a fair and more equitable criminal justice system that provides non-violent offenders a second chance at a rehabilitated life.
The repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act however, one of Obama's campaign promises, is nowhere to be found.  Of note is the inclusion of "full civil unions" which of course, continues to define gay and lesbian Americans as second-class citizens.

By the way: the new logo looks very Obama...

triple hmmm...

Don Quixote - the ballet

I went to the ballet Don Quichot with Eddie and No and it was very nice. It's of course really old fashioned and yes (as usual) the wedding takes much to much time with all the guest having to perform. Don Quichot was played by Peter de Jong and Sancho Panza by Karel de Rooy who did a great job.

MadMen yourself


Now that all the fashion designers are preparing MadMen autumn and winter collections - it's nice that AMC has a cute app that shows you who you could be in MadMen yourself.

GLEE

I probably should like Kurt Hummel (Chris Colfer) but I must admit that my guy absolutely is Noah Puckerman (Mark Salling)

Believe in Salavation

A nice new ad from Federici Ice cream ("Ice cream is our religion")

A true "Modern Family"

The mockumentary Modern Family follows Mitchell Pritchett (Jesse Tyler Ferguson) and Cameron Tucker (Eric Stonestreet) as they struggle with their adopted daughter Lily. O, yeh and Mitchell's sister and his father family too. The characters are very recognizable - the situations they get into not (fortunately). It's fun :-)

Google scribe

Although the news this week was all about Google Instant. The most fun you can have is with Google Scribe, which predicts what you want to write.
(Like this post e.g.) It really can be helpful with english expressions.
Only when you leave it completely free you can end up with nonsense like:

All our wordpress templates come with their own unique style of musical composition and performance of their duties and responsibilities of their jobs and their proportion against the total number of page views delivered based on the seller and the listing broker as an agent of the present invention is to provide and maintain their own.

chu' [opera] Daq tlhIngan

The first opera in Klingon went in premiere today in The Hague. If the singing and the libretto is as any other opera - the audience will not even notice it is in Klingon... Although the makers invited Klingons to come to the opening by radio waves in space - none of them turned up.

Halv åtta hos mig del 1

Halv åtta hos mig är tillbaka!
Jag väntade hell sommar för min favorit TV program och slutligen kan jag se det igen. 

Säsongsstart börjar i Stockholm, dem bor de fyra första deltagarna som ska turas om att lag mat till varandra. Först ut är Daniel och hans gäster är Lasse, Lillemor och Irina. Daniel bjuder på räkcocktail, kalvfilé med mandelpotatispuré och hemlagad hallonglass. Lycklig lager Svenskar fortfarande samma mat...

The charming quirks of others

A new novel in the Isabel Dalhousie series of Alexander McCall Smith is out now. If I don't take care I would read it from cover to cover in just one evening - so I have rationed myself to max 20 pages a day...

Uncharted II - Among Thieves

I am not sure how many times I let Nathan Drake die - but it must be dozens...  The Uncharted franchise for PS3 is really cool and with Dolby 5.1 you are right in the middle of the adventure. (which takes you from Istanbul, Borneo, Tibet and even Shambhala (Shangri-La). The artwork of UC II is absolutely stunning - especially the vistas of the Himalayas and Shambhala are great.  If only I could kill  the evil Zoran Lazarevic...

Marriage of Ilse & Bart

Ilse & Bart married in Rijswijk yesterday and it was an excellent chance to try the HD video of my new iphone4. The stability feature of iMovie9 helped as well...

Kräftskiva i Amsterdam

Den kräftskiva frÃ¥n Svensk-Nederländska Föreningen är en traditionell svensk fest i samband med kräftfiskesäsongen.  Huvudrätten utgörs av hela kräftor. Vanliga kompletterande matvaror vid kräftskivan är... knäckebröd!, kryddad Svenks ost och räkor, samt traditionella smörgÃ¥sbordsrätter som till exempel västerbottenpaj.  Vanliga drycker är brännvin, öl och (för mig) sockerdricka.




Den Amsterdamse Roeivereniging var trevilgt decorerad med lanternor och lite flaggor. Vi sjunger:

Kräftorna sköna
dillkronor gröna
lysa sÃ¥ grant bland blommor och bla´r.
Nubbarna ila
finna ej vila
förrän i magen störtvågen far.
Gläd dig min mage
håll dig beredd,
Helan vi tage
på längd och på bredd.
Och lilla snapsen
dyker sÃ¥ rapp se´n
ner i sin sköna bädd.

Piranha 3D

Sometimes a movie can be so bad - that it becomes funny. Which is the case with Piranha 3D. While audiences back in the 70's were really scared of the effects in the disaster movies like Jaws and Towering Inferno - these tricks now only makes us laugh. Especially when they are magnified in 3D.

Bye Bye VOX

VOX blogs are closing September 30th - so I moved my previous blog tot typepad and exported it to blogger. So now you can see (almost) my whole bloglife here on blogger.

Was James Dean Gay or what?


The new movie from JOSHUA TREE, 1951: A PORTRAIT OF JAMES DEAN tries to answer that question. (with James Preston of "Gates")

A (office) room with a view

Quincy Jones Headphone line by Harman

A pity that I already have zillions of headphones - otherwise those white ones would do...

The best film: Dinner for schmucks or Le Dîner de cons

I really liked Francis Vebers' Le Dîner de cons when it came out in 1998. So I was a little sceptical whether the remake "dinner for schmucks" could live up to the original. Well: it can't... The French version is much darker and sarcastic. But it schmucks has its fine moments: Steve Carrel timing is great and  I always admire Zach Galifianakis - who should get an oscar nomination for his role of Therman - the mind controller.

Time to murder some people

My game setup was a little bit outdated so I upgraded to a new 250G PS3 system with a Sony Bravia 100Hz 32" LED. Now Assassins Creed is looking great and I cannot wait to play Heavy Rain or the upcoming James Bond "Blood Stone". The only thing left is a nice (wireless?) home cinema sound system for the setup.

The Killing - Forbrydelsen

This week is Killing week - a 20 hour Danish TV series about a cop trying to find the killer of a young girl. It is not to bad. Only thing is that after 15 minutes you know who did it and that Sarah Lund (the Inspector) seems to have only 1 sweater which she is wearing for THREE weeks...

Faster Running

Now that I entered the 8K run in October I must train to up my best time a little bit. The new Heartbeat function on my Nike Plus is working fine and this article in the NYT proves that a good playlist is making you run faster and better. So that's what I am concentrating on right now: to build the perfect 8K playlist (with a BPM of about 120 -130). Because my biggest fault is to start running way to fast, I need to increase the BPM of the playlist gradually I guess.

In the mean time somewhere up north...

Svenska Skällsord

Jag har hittade en kul websida med Svenska skällsord dem du inte sÃ¥ fort hittar i ortboker :-) 
Jag tycker om "Fjolla" t.ex. ...

Jag älskar Sune :-)

I en bokhandel i Malmö jag köpte min första bok om Sune och nu kan jag inte sova utan läser Sune nya äventyrar. Böcker är mycket roligt och skrivit för killar 10 år gammal så jag kan också läsa den... :-)