Amat victoria curam!

Soane's Museum

Olympia Antique Fair

We are staying at the Grand Northern Hotel at St. Pancras - a brilliantly new hotel next to the fully -wonderful- renovated St. Pancras / King Cross station. This must be the place in London with the most connections. Almost all underground, railwaylines (Eurostar!) etc. come together at this place.
But next to that the Camden area is very nice to discover as well. Away from your usual tourists places we find all kind of interesting stuff. The actual reason for visiting London, The Olympia Antiques fair, is a big disappointment. Sure you can buy some nice decorative stuff, but there are no real gems to be found. Luckily at the same venue there was the the London International Antiquarian Book Fair - which was great!

This is one of the best libraries of the world - you can wonder over The Magna Carta, Shakespeare, Leonardo Da Vinci, countless medieval miniatures and even Beatles memorabilia. Funny fact is that the actual building is like a Iceberg: the larger part of is is under ground.

I switched back to iOS from WP8 today to experience the new iOS7 - and I am not so impressed. I definitely do not like the new design. It is really a bit of a mess, feels old fashioned and sometimes child-like. All that thin-lined icon + transparency stuff won't hold up in the sunlight (no problem in Amsterdam right now...) And especially the iOS 7 home screen icons look ugly, poorly balanced, and of an unattractive color palate.
Not a step forward. But there are some improvements (which Apple got from Android, HTC, Windows and others). The new control center is great. Airdrop, "your day notification", Safari, automatic app updates(!) etc. are all nice. But the overall feeling is disappointing. Back to WP8 and let's wait for the next release of MicroSoft.

Since 2006 I am working with my Mac Pro and I loved it throughout. Upgradeable, expandable, silent, robust: what more do you want? Well... The NEW Mac Pro!
WOW this is really something else. This cylindrical designed Death Star will definitely get a place ON TOP of my desk and not under neath it. Great specs as well. Not sure yet if I can connect all my current stuff to it though - and a little bit afraid it will be very, very expense...

Well this is probably the Game of 2013: The Last of Us (by Naughty Dog). It looks and feels greats ,o I almost cannot wait till Thursday when it will be released... A whopping 10 out of 10 on IGN.

Well who would have guessed? Kahn is back and after the original Star Trek II ("The Wraith of Kahn") 30 years later he still haunts us (and the USS Enterprise crew). This new episode of ST is really awesome. I like the acting, story art direction and direction. What else do you need?!
Well maybe an exclusive Star Trek outfit which you can buy on Ebay... :-)

While I am still making the switch to Barefoot style running, a new finding at annual meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine in Indianapolis concluded that it probably doesn't make that much difference if whether you land on your heel or forefoot... Dr Gruber presented a research that she did which showed that heel-striking was the more physiologically economical running form, by a considerable margin. Heel strikers used less oxygen to run at the same pace as forefoot strikers, and many of the forefoot strikers used less oxygen — meaning they were more economical — when they switched form to land first with their heels.... SO WTF?!
Do I have to return to "classic running"?
Dr. Gruber recommends that runners run the way that is most natural and comfortable for them. So I will stick to that for now...

My first Ibiza track (work in progress...)

Underwater Queen Esther Williams died today at a very respectable 91 years old - probably swimming is healthy for you. Her (sometimes outrageous) aqua musicals were a whole new phenomenon back in the 1940's and no wonder she became a huge star. My favorite Esther Williams movie is "Million Dollar Mermaid" directed by Mervyn LeRoy, 1952. In this movie everything comes together and is over the top. Luckily in our video library we have dozens of Esther Williams Titles and I will watch some of those the coming days. Her autobiography (The million dollar mermaid) is worthwhile to read as well. It recalls her extra ordinary live and why she should be an inspiration for all of us.

Now that the summer finally arrived in Amsterdam I am feeling in the mood for some summer music, Ibiza style. So I can listen to my Ibiza playlist on Spotify or... I can make some tracks myself. So that's what I will do!

Because of Eddie's birthday we had dinner at Le Restaurant, the fabulous place of Jan and Kostya (with help from Graham). At least 20 different dishes made an extravaganza of food - which were all superb! Just as the rest of our evening...

I am still a bit of recovering of last Saturdays Stock Aiken Waterman party. It was back in time with all the hits they produced. And there are many. Think of Rick Astley, Mel&Kim, Steps, Bananarama, Dead or Alive, Divine(!), Princess (my favorite), Kylie Minogue, Donna Summer and many more. In the late 80's it seemed that every track they produced scored gold.. (which it did) Here are some on Spotify .

Today was an other edition of the Rock and Run competition. It seems that every years people get more crazy while running this event through the very heart of Amsterdam. The track is nice: running over the channels - but also challenging because you actually can hardly run because of the amount of runners participating. But it was fun anyway :-)

An other Saturday an other track, I was in the mood for making some (old fashion) Deep House - hope you like it too ;-)

The Ghostbuster's Ecto-1, the Dukes of Hazzard's General Lee, the A-Team's GMC Vandura, and Knight Rider's KITT. I really would like to build/have them.

Way back in 2007 Eddie and I went on a trip to al your usual tourist highlights in China. I did some filming, with on of the first solid memory JVC cams, but never got to edit some material of it. So now I finally did. Hmmm... The video quality has improved a lot the last years - even my Nokia Lumia 920 can take better video now a days. But as a memory it is a nice document.

With an all star cast (Matt Damon, Michael Douglas, (spooky!) Rob Lowe, Dan Aykroyd and (an unrecognizable) Debbie Reynolds) and directed by Steven Soderbergh you would expect the Liberace biopic "Behind the Candelabra" an instant winner. But it is not. Based on the autobiographical novel of real-life lover Scott Thorson this is supposed to be a love story between Lee and Scott. But all we see is two guys fighting and having occasional sex. Where is the love?
It seems that even nowadays Hollywood is afraid to show that two guys can actually love each other. Don't get me wrong: Michael Douglas is awesome, the whole set up is that of a campy Hallmark biopic and the art direction (customs!) is terrific. If only...

Maybe better next time to know up front what the tattoo artist will write on your side?

We were at the live recording of Diskotabel (a great radio program about new released classical CDs) presented by Hans Haffmans. It was nice to see the operation is action after having listened for more then 20 years to it. I wonder though how long this can go on...CDs?! Maybe they have to pivot and have a program about (classical) Spotify playlists..

The new Fast 6 movie is everything you want / need from a Fast movie: funny, fast cars, ridiculous plot and... Vin Diesel. I admit: I am a huge fan :-). But wait! The credits roll…and then they stop rolling. You see a Mercedes driving through the streets of Tokyo with Jason Statham behind the wheel and killing Han. Shocking. This is a preview of Fast 7. So does this mean that there is going to be a scene where Statham and Diesel have a shirtless shaved-head oiled-up duel? Let's hope so.

He certainly looked great - probably even better with his 1970 Ford GT40 in Gulf Oil racing colors.

When does this summer of 2013 actually starts? In a little while we just might have skipped it and moved from spring straight to autumn...

New track on soundcloud: check it out!

I am a bit sorry for Adam Johnson but his novel "The Orphan Master's Son" has to wait a little bit longer on my To Read List. Today the new Khaled Hosseini "And the Mountains Echoed" was released and frankly I cannot wait to start reading that one first. Luckily I just finished Dan Browns' Inferno.

Never knew that The Game of Thrones was so popular in The Netherlands, today thousands of people were waiting hours in line in the pouring rain to get a glimpse of the special Exhibition which is around the corner at the Posthoorn Church.

No idea when this picture was taken, but clearly the girl behind the wheel couldn't drive otherwise how can you get an accident with no other traffic. Nice picture though...

While we already had the Finnish Lesbian Kiss in the performance of their song "Marry Me" which upset the Turkish, Russian and Georgian countries - during the counting of the votes intermezzo Sweden added its own gay kiss with these two guys. So actually the only kisses on stage were gay...

Robert Langdon is back - in Florence this time. Trying to save the world from a mad man (who is strangely enough dead already on page 1 of the book) who thinks that we have to get rid of 3 billion people in order to survive as a species on earth... The setting is typical Brown as are the cliff hangers at the end of each chapter.

Still one of the greatest attacks ever: The attack on 3 German dams carried out on 16–17 May 1943, today exactly 70 years ago, by Royal Air Force No. 617 Squadron, subsequently known as the "Dambusters", using a specially developed "bouncing bomb" invented and developed by Barnes Wallis.

Because of the launch of huurwoningnet.nl by Minister Blok I was at Madurodam, mini Holland, were I never had been before. So I took the chance to visit my Alma Mater, Castle Nyenrode - which is actually a pretty good model (and in a far better state then the original)

After the disappointing "Olympus has fallen" movie comes an other one with EXACTLY the same storyline: a group of terrorists taking over (read: destroying) The White House and a single guys saves the president (and the world) in a DIE HARD way. This new version is simple called "White House Down" - which is arguably a better title. With Roland Emmerich direction and Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx staring the line-up sounds better as well... We have to wait untille the end of June to declare the winner.

Well this years edition of the EuroVision Song Contest isn't the best ever if you listen to the entered songs. Maybe it will be a great show - but in musical terms a bit disappointing. Starting with the shameless copy of Loreens' Euphoria by Cascade (Germany) there are a lot of familiar kind of tunes.
But I managed to make my top 5:

Only Teardrops - Emmelie de Forest (Denmark) | Catchy tune, great performance
You - Robin (Sweden) | Solid track, perfectly executed
Only Loves Survives - Ryan Dolan (Ireland) | Great singer, maybe to general song
An Me Thimáse - Despina Olympiou (Cyprus) | The best voice
Straight into Love - Hannah (Slovenia) | Special mention for best video (hope that the guys will on stage as well...) ;-)

Oh: And a very special mention for Cezar from Romania with his song "It's my life" for the highest notes (by a guy) ever sung at a Euro Song contest....

Marijn and I were in a new photoshoot for our Boralis website at the "magere brug" in Amsterdam by Reinier Gerritsen. Cannot wait to see the end result.

Dumbbell Push-up Rows 3 sets, 12 reps, 4 kilo's - and this is just a warm-up exercise...

Last Friday I told the participants at Rockstart about my early steps as entrepreneur - I was finished in a couple of minutes ;-) The guys don't look very interested on this picture do they? Well I don't blame them.

Now that I am (after three months of waiting...) with Vodafone I can make use of their Signal Plus device. I will let you know what the difference in speed and connectivity actually is later on.

Today I saw Kevin Hassing and Michiel Bakker in Bent, the impressive play about the persecution of homosexuals during the Holocaust of Martin Sherman (written in 1979)in direction of Gerardjan Rijnders. A very oppressive atmosphere, lots of frighting silent moments and very, very moving. Excellent performance so make sure you see it if you have the chance.

My latest book to read is "The Orphan Master's Son" by Adam Johnson, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2013 earlier this year. The story is about a young man in North Korea who rises to become a threat to the dictator Kim Jong-il, and then tries to get his wife and step children out of the country. Sounds very intriguing. But first I have to finish my last Viveca Sten mystery set on the opposite of North Korea: Sandhamn, Sweden.

Maggie Smith, Billy Connolly, Pauline Collins, direction by Dustin Hoffman: What can go wrong? I cannot wait to see this movie. The trailer looks promising. Is it Marigold hotel goes classic (and Britain)?

And time flies when you're having fun - we returned to Amsterdam. (How do you like my new Alpine Durban outfit by the way?)

Off Road riding

Fallen tree blocks the road - we went around it...

Dillenburg - the birthplace of Willem Nassau (of Orange)

We had a great tour in Siegerland - the sun did not show, but the temperature was fine and we had no rain. The area is full of history and some nice landscapes. I liked Sauerland better tough - little less industry and traffic, so maybe next year back a little bit up north?

We are on our way to Schmallenberg and hotel Schutte (where we stayed last year) to go on a tour in Siegenland and to flee from the chaos which will happen in Amsterdam during the crowning of Willem Alexander tomorrow.

I have been a big fan of Reason right from the start. The propellerhead guys started it all with Rebirth, which was cool but rather limited - but with Reason things got serious and now with version 7, Reason is actually professional stuff. When I think of all the hours I played with this wonderful toy and the joy it gives me, I must admit there is probably no better (indoor) toy then this. (Outdoor is a Z1000 of course)

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