Listitis

Work was alright today, followed by a less than excellent Chinese class. I know I've been up to it as well, but today, literally everybody was chatting away about no matter what, regardless of the good intentions of Wan Lao Shi and the difficulty level of the class. I've always had problems listening through noise (as a man, I'm supposed to have a one track mind, but on the subject of hearing, that track is often mist-clad), this was not fun. If it continues this way, I think I'm going to speak up next lesson or so. Maybe I'll prepare a speech in Chinese. I wonder if I would be able to have enough humor in Chinese to get my message through without sounding like a man with a 500€ bill stuck between the buttocks.

Ah well: fortunately Han Se and I had a nice little chat about AS400s and other machinery - seems he's quite into this stuff, so besides being a very funny man that I would always enjoy having over, he's now also a source of knowledge.
In fact: I had nice chats with some more of my colleagues (during the xiu xi -that means break- of course), and I even met some new people (having their second lesson in Russian!!!) that I managed to already forget the names of =)

But enough of that: I decided that my blog is missing some lists, so I'll add some this time around:

Favorite Songs (no way that I rate these)

• Lilac Wine - Jeff Buckley (Grace is everything)
  
• Go - Pearl Jam (Just passing it on: suppose I abused you? Flippen)
  
• No Shuffle - Front 242 (Emptiness endlessness senselessness)
  
• I'm Deranged - David Bowie (Lost Highway-ender with the best tansition ever)
  
• Schism - Tool (If Stephen Hawkings were to write a love song)
  
• Fake Plastic Trees - Radiohead (The spine, everytime)
  
• Small Change - Tom Waits (Well-Spoken Word)
  
• Piano Concerto in A Minor - Grieg (The most poppy classic composer around)
  
• Orly - Jacques Brel (La tristesse de l'aéroport)
  
• Goin' Home - Dinosaur Jr. (That little riff brings me home)
  

Favorite Albums (not counting best offs)

• Grace - Jeff Buckley
  
• Kid A - Radiohead (well, any album ,really)
  
• Whatever and Ever, Amen - Ben Folds Five
  
• The Juliet Letters - Elvis Costello & Brodsky Quartet
  
• Ten - Pearl Jam
  
• Here, There and Everywhere - Göran Sölscher
  
• La Double Vie de Véronique - ???
  
• Blood Sugar Sex Magic - RHCP
  
• Blue Lines - Massive Attack
  
• Small Change - Tom Waits
  

Favorite Books

• Koning van Katoren - Jan Terlouw
  
• Foucault's Pendulum - Umberto Eco
  
• The Satanic Verses - Salman Rushdie
  
• Carter Beats the Devil - Glen David Gold
  
• The Saga of Pliocene Exile - Julian May
  
• The Galactic Milieu Series - Julian May
  
• De 13 1/2 Levens van Kap'tein Blauwbeer - Walter Moers
  
• Steppenwolf - Hermann Hesse
  
• Imprimatur/Secretum/... - Monaldi & Sorti
  
• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
  

Favorite Movies

• The Game
  
• Crash
  
• Lost Highway
  
• Batman Begins
  
• Star Wars (original trilogy)
  
• l' Histoire d'O
  
• La Double Vie de Véronique
  
• Se7en
  
• Memento
  
• Dead Poets' Society
  
• Fight Club
  

Is this making any sense? I tried to be as honest as I could on short notice. Maybe next time I'll take the time to evaluate my choices. Maybe I'll correct them as well. to my surprise, I find it much harder to name favorite songs and albums than movies ! Guess I'm more harsh on musicians?

Balki

I must be getting old: today I got another round of same shit different day by Microsoft. Once again they claim to have bypassed the universal law of constant misery (for the Dutch Speaking Community: De Wet van Behoud van Miserie). This is just a scientists' way of saying: no pain no gain, or better and logically equivalent: gain implies pain. Past a certain critical point, when you find a 'better' solution for a problem, this only means you've failed to notice the downsides of your new plan. Now this may sound pessimistic, but it really is not: to paraphrase Morrissey, some burdens are bigger than others! If you have a very broad solution for a wide set of problems, you may be able to please some burden-bearers by focussing temporarily on their subdomain, and if you time your focus right, this may give you commercial momentum at the least.
However, undoubtedly, focussing on, say, half your 'customers' will without a single doubt just cause negative effects on the rest. Damned: I believe I am in the wrong half of MS' customers right now =)

But let's look on the bright side: the drive to and from Brussels enabled to enjoy both Arctic Monkeys (you know the bloke on the CD-booklet? Well, he's not in the band at all - haha) and (I'm in a Nina Simone-reincarnation-period) of course, Jeff Buckley. My voice was even good enough to leave the impression on me that I wasn't far off on most of it, though trying to sing along with Him makes only your awe bigger - as does trying to play his guitar parts.

Then shortly after getting home I got in to a 'funny little fight' with my wife: I had no idea that a slight misunderstanding regarding potatoes (there was also some spinach involved) could cause so many waves. But we got hold of it before we started throwing plates (ridden of potatoes), because I managed to see how silly al of it was. Medal of honor for me, then eh?

What else happened? I was a bit worried to hear that Anne has some problems with 'the love of her life' (bear with me): of course he's just a boy who wants to play with the boys, and as she is VERY persistant (pigheaded like both her parents is more the term), she ends up getting hit in the head. Sigh. Disturbing to hear how complicated life already is at nearly 4. Well at least they haven't got any kids yet...

Then I got to clean up the house, but afterwards I got rewarded with episode 2 of season 2 of Lost (I got the DVD from my mother in law for helping them out with some wallpaper. These people are starkraving mad: if I'd given them a DVD for every time they'd helped us, I'd be giving them Rambo III now out of lack of inspiration). I'm starting to fear that my prediction will be all too true: everything is going the Twin Peaks direction. Weirdness is great, but it would be nice if they found a way to explain some things instead of just adding surrealism. Still entertaining though.

And now my evening can end in beauty: sipping some Sangria (leftover from the recent barbecue), I got some comments on my blog. Somebody has nicked my trick of complimenting freely. For a cynic like me, it's quite unbelievable what an intense power-up something like that can give you. I feel somewhat like Super Mario after he has eaten a mushroom (though I will have to keep my head clear from brick walls above it). Thanks to my favorite Christian Democratic Spy, I'm now in the top 10 of my own favorite people.

At least 1 man will know that I'm not very original when I wish the whole world a bluebear-hug with all my heart.

Cousin Larry, let's do the dance of joy!!!

Grace

Last evening, I had a bit of a rough time. My well-hidden fear of people reared its ugly head again. I realise more and more that I avoid talking to people, I don't have the guts to ask anyone to go out with me, and even those that I do ask, I cannot trust anough. When it comes to people liking me, I'm an olympic paranoiac.

Of course, this does not stop me from being jealous at my other half for being brilliantly sociable =)

Fortunately, she is also so much of a miracle that she responded immediately to my fatalistic SMS ('are you ever coming home?') by simply coming home, and not being mad at me for my stupidity. When the dust of the new schoolyear settles, and we get a little bit of insight on how busy our evenings are organised, I plan on looking for help on this - I manage alright, but I fear I may end up very lonely at 50 or so.

Well, then I managed to pick up my good mood again (the intense stress of a handle-5-servicerequests-at-a-time-day didn't even kill that), which is victory: normally, when I get down, there is only a way down, but this time I grabbed the rope and climbed out. Thank you Thom Yorke.

Or maybe: thank you Jeff Buckley. I put on 'Grace' and once again I got moved nearly to tears. The voice, the chords, the intensity, the warmth, the emotion. I think the only thing that is more beautiful than this music must be my family. Am I a freak now? If so, I shall yell at you: Grace is Everything! And you'll hear the capitals.

Sculpt

When you start the day with a bit of jolly waste of time, you get a busy day! Nevertheless: once more, the only cats that crossed my path were bright orange, and not the misfortune-appealing breed.
Waiting beyond my patience before Access would finally show me the report I requested, provoked me to rewrite a lot of the logic involved. It was harder than it should have been, and a typo got me running in circles at the end, but the satisfaction is great when you can reduce 'forever' to 'less than a minute'. The guy who wrote all these cancerous deformations should be shot at sight. Oh well, the pharmacy industry is now enriched with a blazingly fast report! Even a failing VPN-connection didn't spoil my mood.

At lunch time, two business-intelligents spewed some interesting opinions on the market for software for SMB's. I enjoyed their views (easy when you get presented with a physics comparison), and managed to not shoot my foot off when I opened my mouth. Hey, I enjoy being appreciated as much as the next guy.

Anne and Ruben were once again in a good mood: it's nice when they have something to say about what they did all day. And that, of course, is also a specialty of Ilse, my treasure. I am deeply impressed with the way she handles being a math teacher. I would probably be able to explain things in just as understandable terms, but I could never ever control the classroom as good as she does. It's easy for me to say that she simply has to demand respect, and always react harshly on lack thereof, but 'Mrs Lanszweert' brings this to practice! Respect, woman!

And then the day was finished in beauty: my fitness center has a tremendous group course called 'body sculpt', which basically says it all: every bloody muscle in my body got a good whipping, and slowly but surely, this has positive effects on regions that used to be skin and bones. I seem to have been in great shape today, because I nearly never had to interrupt an exercise for lack of stamina. Only the ones on the belly muscles got to me, but Sofie (the teacher) is a real bully on those. I'm proud to have hung in there.

To paraphrase the Eels: 'Life is great, and so am I'.
God damn' right it was a beautiful day.

Quickie

Just before I start working, I want to send me and the rest of the globe some positive vibes. Yesterday was nice. I played knight with my kids, and it was so much fun that I almost burnt the spaghetti sauce. I got some time to read in 'The Wolves of Calla' by Stephen King. We counted the people who will be at our birthday-barbeque next saturday, and it seems we have more friends than we have chairs and tables - Fortunately, there's always the inlaws to provide us with... well, anything.

I'm madly in love with my beautiful wife, and I am currently enjoying my job (although I am in search of some extra challenge; suggestions for a second job may be welcome).

I also sent a long email to Mike, who seems to be just a tad lonely in Prague. I would be if I wouldn't have a phone or an internet connection in my appartment a long long way from home (and lover). I tried to cheer him up a little, but I know he will be alright, because he is one of the strongest personalities I ever met.

There you go - wham bam, thank you ma'am!

Cooler

Whilst rummaging through the net, looking for the truth about Thom's girlfriend, I learned that I was way off on my vision of the man.

In fact, I found a quote of Mr Yorke that may well be busy saving my life. I know, I know, getting your life saved by second-hand phrase is a bit pathetic, but in earnest: I don't mind about that. The quote?

It's easy being depressed. It's much harder to be happy - and cooler!

I don't know, but this really gets to me! Maybe it only works somewhere in the middle of a hundred other one-liners (I have actually been LOL quite a few times), but in any case it hit the spot for me. So here I go again with a fresh view on life and Thom Yorke in particular: the man was not happy. Oh, he probably was not the most miserable person in the world, but he was perfectly capable of feeling that anyway, and then hating himself for it (though this last one is just a projection, I guess). And then he somehow managed to turn the tables: he found a way of surpassing the void of self-complaint: good old-fashioned hard labour on self-containment, thriving on the idea that the other way is just not getting you anywhere, and, when you look at it: being happy may not be very hip (there is a not remotely fine line between having a good time and being happy), but in truth we all admire those that find the inner rest to just... accept the good life.

Today, I smiled more than the day before. Who knows, maybe next week I won't hide from people I know in the supermarket to avoid talking to them.
I saw my son climbing to the top of the pyramid on the playground. Anne sang the song about the fingers for me. And my baby washed my hair although she was tired.
Life is nice, whether I like it or not.