Cogs can think.

Only in this house is it possible to seamlessly switch from Marilyn Manson’s “Antichrist Superstar” to The Dixie Chicks’ “Taking The Long Way”.

Sometimes I do feel like I need to get my ears checked.

Or better yet, my brain.

Beatrix Wilhelmina Armgard of Oranje-Nassau, Princess of Oranje-Nassau, Princess of Lippe-Biesterfeld, Queen of The Kingdom of The Netherlands, just turned the respected age of 70, 5 minutes ago, as of writing.

I would like to extend my heartfelt congratulations to Her Majesty the Queen, and wish her a long, happy, and prosperous future, and that she may continue to perform her duty as the head of state with as much diligence, commitment, professionalism, and love, as she has done for the past 28 years. She is a good, and well-respected queen, very intelligent, and this country does not even realise for 50% how lucky we are with her as our Queen.

Long live the Queen!

Two big announcements on OSNews during the night. We rolled out OSNews v4.1, a completely new look built upon the already well-tested and stable v4.0. It looks awesome, I just want to hug it, and call it pet names. The work was done by mystery designer Brittney, and of course our own Adam. I’m really happy with it - it looks professional, 2008, and consistent, without being overly annoying or a visual overload.

The other thing is that we also officially launched the OSNews comic, Focus Shift. Adam integrated it into OSNews seamlessly, and again, it looks awesome. The comics will come out tri-weekly, doodled by me, and you can treat them as normal stories; comments, recommendations, moderation, everything.

I’m proud of everyone who helped v4.1 come to realisation - which basically comes down to Adam and the mystery designer. Good job, guys!

The elections in the US penetrate the Dutch media quite deeply and firmly. We are being bombarded with news reports, and quite honestly, I really like that. American ‘politics’ are fun; highly stylised nonsense, character assassinations, completely void of actual content.

Brilliant. Utterly brilliant.

It’s a relief to be able to judge politicians based on nothing but emptiness; seeing I’m on the sideline, and the results are a lot less far-fetching for me than they are for people actually living within the US, I don’t need to know the ins and outs of every issue before judging them. I want Hillary to win - with one of the prime reasons being Bill. I mean, what sort of completely ridiculous premise is that?

Anyway, I did a political test today, a Dutch one from one of our major news programs. John Edwards came in first, closely followed by Hillary. Obama was third. Like I said, John sells vacuum cleaners, and I don’t know about Obama.

Hillary ftw!

The Dutch branch of Comedy Central is making a huge mistake. A mistake that kind of pisses me off, as it ruins my evening.

One of my favourite TV shows is That ’70s Show. Apparently, I’m not the only one, as it is by far the best viewed program on Comedy Central, scoring around 120 000 to 150 000 viewers per episode - for both the 20:00 showing, as well as the 22:50 rerun later that day of the same episode. This makes it the program with the best ratings on Comedy Central, which scores about 50 000 to 100 000 viewers per program. It even beats big shots like South Park.

They are stopping the 22:50 rerun, which almost always scores even better ratings than the original 20:00 run - probably due to the fact that The Netherlands’ favourite soap (1.2m viewers on average) as well as news report (1.7m viewers on average) are broadcast in the same time slot. Of course, the 22:50 run also happens to be my preferred time slot. I’ve already taken my sleep medication, I’m sipping a cup of herbal relaxation tea (please, don’t ask), and somehow, that’s the best time for me to watch the That ’70s Show. In addition, I work Wednesday and Friday evenings, so I won’t make it home in time for the 20:00 run.

Sadly, I don’t have any means of recording the episode, as I don’t have a DVD recorder like my parents, nor do I have a video recorder (I’m not actually in the ’70s you know).

This sucks. Now I have to either buy a DVD recorder, or reprogram my late night TV habits. God fcuking damnit.

Georgio Armani is a hypocrite. December 2006 he said:

No one thinks that for a girl to be fashionable she needs to be anorexic, that she must not eat. I will only take on healthy girls.

Then, mr Armani, can you please dare to explain this? That’s your new collection, clearly presented by unhealthily thin, probably anorexic women. Way to keep your word!

It’s time the government steps in and starts regulating the dangerous and unhealthy fashion world. We force construction workers to wear helmets and goggles for safety, but at the same time, nobody seems to give two shits about these women. If the fashion world cannot regulate itself (as has been clearly shown), I expect my government, or the EU, to step up, and regulate them. Enforce healthy working conditions, and any fashion house, venue, show, or designer violating these government/EU rules ought to be fined heavily, or shut down, with their clothing taken off the shelves and banned from sales.

This just makes me sick.

There are a few films I’m really waiting for this year.

The Dead Like Me film, of course. I’m anticipating this thing so very, very, very much it almost keeps me awake at night. Trailer (which I haven’t already seen five million times) is already on YouTube.

Alice. You want to see this.

Sweeney Todd. Burton. Depp. Bonham-Carter. Need I say more? Seventh of February in our cinemas, going to see it with Renate.

Cloverfield. Coming Monday my friends and I are going.

The Netherlands has survived an attempt to turn this beautiful country into an apartheid state: the banishment of the burka will not go through. I blogged about it before (here, here, and here), and as you may know, I was deeply against this. A prohibition like this goes against everything I as a true Dutchman stand for.

If you support such an apartheid-promoting, unconstitutional proposal, then you need to have your blood checked.

Since it probably isn’t orange.

Somehow, it seems as if he’s on fire.

Anyway, this really seems like his ‘on guard’ spot, since he never sleeps here - he just overseas his territory. As soon as he hears even the faintest of noises, he gets up, and sprints to wherever it came from.

Comical to watch.

And the hangover is finally sliding away. It still feels as if someone stabbed me with a speedskate - right in my heart. That’s how it feels when you’re jumping up and down in front of your TV, cheering the lungs out of your chest, and you see the world’s most beautiful speed skater topple over while doing 60kph on the 500m, ending his dreams of becoming the world champion sprint on the long track in Thialf.

I cursed my way out heaven right there.

Jan Bos, technically probably the best and most gifted speedskater of the world, got caught in a ridge on the ice - at least, that’s what the experts say. Jan himself doesn’t care - “everybody skated across that ridge all weekend.” And didn’t trip, you hear him thinking. His dreams shattered, the crowd in a sudden delusional state, some even crying, right there, grown men and women.

Because of his fall, he slid away into the nether regions of the weekend’s rankings, which meant he had to skate the following 1000m in the 2nd race, while he usually starts in one of the final races of a run. Being the apple of the crowd’s eyes, the crowd went mental before the start, standing up, clapping, cheering, visibly giving Jan a lump in his throat - his lesser adversary hadn’t a clue what was happening. The referee had to ask for silence, but after the gunshot, the crowd went wild again, and it elevated Jan to a higher level, pushing him to skate one of his best 1000m ever - and the realisation it would’ve surely resulted in the title of World Champion Sprint 2008, exactly ten years after winning his first, and only, world championship sprint.

The tears came, the crowd cheered.

But that’s speedskating for you. You go fast, and you don’t fall. Fail either of those, and you lose.