Cogs can think.

My new kitchen is currently being installed!

End 17-year old crappy kitchen, start brand new one!

Update: You want picture? You get picture!

Keuken

So, Americans, how many more innocent people have to die before you morons finally figure out that you need to restrict civilian access to guns?

There are two major problems in the United States, and these two problems combined are the cause of the many, many school shootings in the United States.

1. Schools in the US are too large and too anonymous. Also, the pressure on students to conform to the cheerleader & high school footballer image is high. Way too high. The US claims to be a country which values individual freedom, but at the same time, the schooling system only rewards mediocrity; students are pressured to conform to the utopian image of the cheerleader and the football player. People who stray from this norm, people who are truly trying to be different, are not rewarded. In fact, they are bullied and excommunicated.
2. The second problem, of course, is the easy access untrained civilians have to guns. If you are one of the people who is straying from the norm described above, and you become frustrated as some teens are susceptible to, the threshold to actually get a gun and start shooting is way lower than in countries with more civilised gun laws, such as The Netherlands. If a Dutch teen becomes frustrated– he will have to try very hard to get a gun, simply because there barely are any.

The shooters, and the shooters alone, are to blame for the killings. No doubt about that. If one of them is caught alive, he should receive the harshest punishment he can get. But, the responsibility for the shootings lies not with the shooters alone; it lies in American society and its participants, for allowing untrained civilians to have access to firearms. Apart from that, the US schooling system is failing and inhumane.

The US are a democracy (sort of), meaning you as a civilian have the power to stop these shootings from happening. Your failure to do so means you are partly responsible for the lives lost. That is democracy.

Those guys in Lost are a bunch of wussy pussies compared to what I did today.

The Netherlands is experiencing another record these days: the earliest ever day with what the KNMI calls a “summer day” (25+ degrees centigrade). We are roughly 12-15 degrees above average at the moment. Global warming? No, of course not. All these records are coincidences. you know, Ockham’s Razor, that sort of stuff.

Anyway, since my country is still retarded, with in general everything being closed on Sundays, I needed to drive to Schoorl, a tourist-y place where the supermarket is opened on Sundays (sanity! Sanity!) to get some confiture and butter (yes, I needed that). Since the weather was ok, I had my car’s windows and roof open. It was delicious to drive through this weather.

When I got to the for-pay parking lot (I actually have moral problems with pay-for-parking in the open air, but this time I had no choice), I realised I had no change. I figured I could use the little electronic wallet on my bank card, but obviously, that technology has not yet reached the area of East Bumblefcuk I live in. Fait left me with no choice.

I was forced to break the law and not pay for parking.

I went to the supermarket, got back 10 minutes later, without seeing the well-known and infamous yellow note underneath my windscreen wipers. I had consciously broken the law; I was a die-hard, a bad-ass, a Saywer, a rebel, a James Dean.

Didn’t I tell you those Lost guys were pussies?

Did you ever wonder what the (in)famous reality distortion field looks like?

Watch this thread, boys and girls. This is food for psychologists.

A new princess has been born. She doesn’t have a name yet, but she’s fourth in line for the Throne (after Prince-Heir Willem-Alexander and his two other daughters Princess Catharina-Amalia Beatrix Carmen Victoria, and Princess Alexia Juliana Marcela Laurentien).

My best wishes to Princess Maxima and Prince Willem-Alexander!

And so I’ve been watching the first season of Lost. I’m in the middle of it right about now. Eugenia keeps asking me what I think about it.

There’s a problem with me and TV shows. That problem is not that I do not like TV - in fact, I actually really like TV. No, the problem is something else. That problem is called Dead Like Me.

You see, I have seen all 29 episodes of Dead Like Me inside-out. And this poses a problem for every TV show that came before it, as well as after it. They will all be compared to DLM; it’s the yardstick. And since Dead Like Me is Perfection, everything else simply sucks. You see, DLM was not ‘just’ a TV show; it’s much more than that. It’s actually - dare I say it - a form of art. Everything that happened in DLM made sense, every drop that fell out of the sky had its purpose, every car that seemingly random drove by contributed to the storyline, the feel, and the atmosphere. However, and this is really important: not one event in DLM was put in to singlehandedly push forward the storyline.

This is completely different in Lost. You see, why on earth do these people keep running and screaming through the jungle like it’s the goddamn countryside? I mean, I can understand the idea of a few going out to hunt and gather, but what the hell is everybody else doing in there? Why does everyone in Lost put their lives, and those of their fellow men, at stake by running and screaming through the jungle which they know is not safe?

Why, because if they don’t, the storyline is dead.

And that’s the big problem with shows like Lost. Trust me, I like Lost, I m really eager to learn more about what’s going on and all that. It’s well crafted, it’s exciting; if it were a book, it’d be a page turner for sure. But, not one single moment, not even one second, do I forget the fact that I am actually watching a bunch of actors in Hawaii. And that’s where Lost can never be as good as DLM.

DLM’s premise is about 387594 times more idiotic and ridiculous than Lost’s, but yet, I believe it when I’m watching it. I believe the nonsensical stuff about how people die, I believe in reapers, I believe in the gravelings. So much that even in real life, I now have things which I’ve dubbed ‘Dead Like Me moments’. And I’m not alone. My fellow DLM fanatic Levi has the same feelings when he’s in a Dead Like Me period. It’s a scary realisation. That you can be so engulfed by something so ridiculous.

Lost simply doesn’t give me that, and it never will. Nor will any other show. Dead Like Me was a one-off, and sadly, the plug was pulled way to early by MGM.

I’d say I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not. I excel at not giving a shit. Experience has taught me that interest begets expectation, and expectation beget disappointment, so the key to avoiding disappointment is to avoid interest. A equals B equals C Equals A, or whatever. I also don’t have a lot of interest in being a good person or a bad person. From what I can tell, either way, you’re screwed. Bad people are punished by society’s laws, and good people are punished by Murphy’s Law. So you see my dilemma.

What a night. Seriously.

It had it all. Love. Broken hearts. Lost bets. Anger. Sadness. Joy. Money. Polish pubic hair chicks. A bicycle.

Ambivalent feelings. I was only involved in the lost bet part.

I went to the AutoRAI yesterday with Feliesje. We had a great time, and I took about 90 pictures. As always, unedited, straight from the camera. They are only resized for Picasaweb. If you want an original of one or more of the pictures, just contact me.