Cogs can think.

Cheesy, but I could not resist.

Petrol to reach Noorder Arcade shopping centre: 2E.
Ink cartridges: 50E
New headphone: 25E
Finding out the ticket machines of the parking garage run Windows XP: priceless.

Seriously. That really made my day.

The train home entered Zaandam station, and a stream of people left the train, while another stream was bording. Among, one girl caught my eye. She wore a beatiful red coat, chique gloves, and classy boots. Her hair was dark blonde, long, but not too long. She had a round face.

And in that face, to the right of her nose, was a Gorbatsjov-like ‘port wine’ stain.

She had a very attractive and classy appearance, so this stain jumped out and caught attention. Ashamed, I have to admit that my first thought was, they (as in medical people) can probably remove it with today’s advanced laser surgery. And this thought made me ask myself a hypothetical question.

If this girl did not have this vascular malformation, would I have remembered her? I would have noticed her for sure - she’s pretty - but would I have actually remembered her? Would I have blogged about her?

I guess sometimes it takes an imperfection to notice perfection. Which, somehow, I find a very comforting thought.

How can the rest of America sleep when they know this is here?

Jeremy Clarkson while driving through New Orleans, 12 months after Katrina.

After Ireen earlier today, the 20 year old did what everyone expected him to do: he won the World Championship Allround mens’ speedskating in Thialf, Heerenveen, The Netherlands. He did in a way that no one would’ve ever imagined.

He brought the world record for the 10km back to where it belongs: Thialf. 12:49.88. The first speedskater ever to breach the 12:50.

Sven Kramer and Ireen Wust are only 20, and yet already the best ice skaters in the world. A honorable mention goes to Erben Wennemars, a sprinter, who pursued his goal of participating in the allround championships, something fairly unheard of for true sprinters. He completely killed himself on the 10km, but in the end he ended up 5th on the overall rankings. Astonoshing.

Some things are just too cool.

Annanicolsmith died. You know. The United States is in an utter state of panic, and some people compare this Annanicolsmith woman to Marilyn Monroe.

Please, do not do that. If you do, you deserve to be shot. No questions asked.

This Annanicolsmith woman has had no, I repeat no resemblance, not in any possible way, to the magnificent beauty that is was Marylin Monroe. The latter has had class and inate beauty, the former has had fake tits and a completely vulgair appearance.

Seriously. Don’t do this.

Seriously. Apple’s marketing departement could learn a thing or two from the current Vista campaign Microsoft has launched. The guy says (in Dutch):

How many times do you experience something where only one word fits?

Discover Windows Vista.

It’s brilliant because it’s so simple and to the point. It appeals to a basic emotion, and instantly makes clear why you should try Vista: it will ‘wow’ you.

Compare this simple and direct ad to the somewhat arrogant and childish ‘Get a Mac‘ campaign from Apple. They were fun at first, but now they just make me cringe. Apple has such a good operating system, but instead of capitalising on that, they just ridicule their potential buyers. I have never seen an Apple ad which tries to sell OS X or the Mac on its own merits. Which is kind of sad.

Come to think of it, I have never seen an Apple ad, period. There has never been an Apple ad on Dutch television. Not even for the iPod.

I want a Ford Cougar.

I’ll be buying myself a new car when I’m done at university (2.5 years from now). I was in doubt between the Peugeot 406 Coupe and the Ford Cougar, but the fact that the Cougar is built upon the base of the Ford Mondeo kind of gives it a head start; the Mondeo is a highly regarded car, with excellent drivability. Also, the 406 Coupe is French. Which kind of gives it a handicap.

The Cougar came in two basic models, the 2.0l straight four and the 2.5l V6. The latter is a bit over the top for me (and too expensive), but the former is just perfect. The 2.0 has 130bhp which makes it do 10.3s to reach 100kph, with a maximum speed of 209kph. Decent enough.

Other than that, the Cougar is fcuking beautiful. Seriously.

Right now, the Cougar 2.0 goes for roughly 7500-9000 Eur (the new price was 28000 Eur), which is doable for a car like this.

Darn. I can’t wait.

DCA is an odourless, colourless, inexpensive, relatively non-toxic, small molecule. And researchers at the University of Alberta believe it may soon be used as an effective treatment for many forms of cancer.

One molecule that restores the body’s own cell self-destruct mechanism, a mechanism which is normally disabled in cancer cells. The molecule has already destroyed human cancer cells in lines grown in laboratory cultures, and even in human tumors grown in rats.

If this harmless molecule proves to be The One Cure against cancer (and right now, it looks like it, as even brain cancer is hypothesised to be affected by it), this will be one of the biggest medical discoveries in human history.

One problem though:

However, as DCA is not patented, Michelakis is concerned that it may be difficult to find funding from private investors to test DCA in clinical trials. He is grateful for the support he has already received from publicly funded agencies, such as the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR), and he is hopeful such support will continue and allow him to conduct clinical trials of DCA on cancer patients.

Seriously. I’ll do anything to keep funding for this going.

Sometimes, Americans can just piss me off without actively and knowingly doing something wrong.

I was just listening to this song by Eminen and… Akon is his name (thanks Wikipedia), “Smack That”. In this ’song’, Akon, in the chorus, sings about his Lamborghini Gallardo. So what, you say, every rapper sings about his cars.

Yes, but Akon is rapping about a car that does not exist. At least not in the way he pronounces ‘Gallardo’. Akon pronounces it with what in phonology is called a clear ‘L’ (i.e. ‘leap’), while in fact you pronounce it with a ‘j’ consonant (’yes’).

This just pisses me off for some reason.