Games that really don’t go well together (but I’m going to play anyway)

Since I’m taking advantage of the fact that I’m currently unemployed, I have been finding ways to spend my time. Now of course, shopping is always nice, but not such a bright idea if you have no income.

Long story short: I’ve returned to an old love of mine. Games, that is. Meaning I started using the boyfriend’s X-Box. I started with Carcasonne, which I actually really like as a board game, too.

The heavier stuff came when he bought a copy of Devil May Cry 4.

I decided to give it a go. Now keep in mind, the last time I played with a games console things were still in 2D. Yes, that long ago. I did have some 3D stuff on the Game Boy, but that’s hardly the same. The 3D thing does take a while to get used to, but to my great surprise I didn’t get absolutely slaughtered. I played the game in human mode, which is supposed to be for beginners. There is actually a rather great run through the controls in-game.

I’m still getting used to the game. I’m unsure if it will be in my favourites eventually, but I’m loving the graphics. Besides anatomically bouncy babes, Nero and Dante are actually rather nice as far as male eye-candy goes, so that keeps me happy. Eye-candy aside, the setting is beautiful and the swords are just übercool. The game itself is sometimes a bit of a weird combo between killing things and puzzle-ish things, which imho kind of disturbs the pace of the whole thing. But we’ll see. It looks like I’ve reached addiction level anyway.

Another thing I’ve been playing is a Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Red Rescue Team game for the Game Boy. Yes, I know the target group are kiddies. But I always liked the Pokémon games – it appeals to the collector in me. This on is slightly different, because you play as a Pokémon (I’m Torchic). It is a bit more childish than the other versions I played and there is slightly too much talk in it too my liking. Yet I find it strangely charming in some way. So I’ll be playing that, too. And now the door is open for a whole range of new addictions!

Dead Rat Bulging

My ex sent me some interesting pictures recently. Don’t get me wrong, this is not some sort of nasty break-up retaliation. We’re actually chatting on pretty much a friendly basis. He just let me know about the carnage that went on in his house.

Recently he had been terrorized by rats. He actually tried to build a non-lethal trap, but the things didn’t want to be caught in it and ate through the linoleum. Now, I like rats a lot. I actually had one as a pet. But when they start eating your house, action needs to be taken. So he did. Slaughter ensued.

Now the thing that struck me – you know how sometimes in comic books corpses have bulging eyes? – well, this is a dead rat with bulging eyes! Go figure! It’s actually based on fact. Well, I’ll keep this entry short. Enjoy the corpses!

Tata,

K.

PS: If you really haven't had enough dead rat, here's its dead mommy

The Science of Vomit

The boyfriend and I went to an Iraqi restaurant in Ghent on Wednesday night. We went, of course, not to bomb the poor people but to broaden our culinary experience. The buffet we had there was indeed an interesting feast for the taste buds. There were some very extraordinary combinations of meat stuffed with what I believe were raisins, pasta and chicken that somehow had an olive taste, and even some foods that I actually had eaten before, like the börek. It was not the greatest meal on earth, but by far one of the most surprising I've had lately. The people serving us were also rather nice, and I suspect the establishment might have been new.

Anyway, the morning after, the boyfriend wakes up from having to vomit. To this day I don't actually know if it was related to the food, or if he just fell ill coincidentally. I was fine in any case, and I ate pretty much all the same things that he did.
Being the strange people that we are, we actually started talking about vomit later that day. In fact, we even took to googling it. And yes, good old Wikipedia actually supplied us with an article all about vomit.

I learned things about the human body that I never really wanted to know. Like the fact that there is such a thing as fecal vomiting. Yes darlings, that would be rather shitty.

But, more interestingly than puking poo, is that there is actually such a thing as the science of vomit. It's called emetology.

Allwords.com descibes it as :The study of the causes of emesis, i.e., vomiting, usually sub-specialities of gastroenterology or neurology.

The fact that it's a sub-speciality is kind of disappointing. I was already imagining the kid that would go up to his or her parents and say: "Mom, dad, I want to study vomit when I grow up. 'Cause frankly, puke makes my heart beat faster."
Now off course there's plenty of jobs that don't really count as things that people want to do passionately. But most of those jobs don't require you going to med school first.
Then again, you could be a highly educated emetophile. I suppose there really is a fetish for everything.

Ah, people - you got to love them. Just sometimes it's safer to love them from a safe distance. Like out of vomiting range.

In vino Veritas

(scroll down for the English thingy)

Een paar dagen geleden wandelde ik over de Vrijdagmarkt in Gent, toen de bovenstaande affiche me in het oog sprong. Ik dacht, wat krijgen we nu? Is dit een affiche van de Vereniging voor Liefhebbers van Pseudo-Hentai met Lesbische Ondertonen? Maar nee, het is de nieuwe reclamecampagne “Hello New Me” van de goede ouwe Veritas. Juist ja, dezelfde Veritas waar onze bomma’s knopen kopen en onze moeders terecht kunnen voor al hun kousebroekwensen. Blijkbaar willen ze zichzelf een nieuw imago aanmeten. Ik hoop voor hun dat hun nieuwe doelgroep nu geile puberjongens zijn. Tienerjongens die van knopen houden.
Ik vind het amusant, maar vermoed dat de mensen van de reclame misschien net iets teveel wijn hebben geconsumeerd...

English version

A few days ago I was walking around on the Vrijdagmarkt in Ghent when the above poster caught my eye. I though, what’s up now? Is this a poster from the Association for the Lovers of Pseudo-Hentai with Lesbian Undertones? No, it’s the new advertising campaign "Hello New Me" from good old Veritas. Yes, that would be the Veritas where our grannies go to buy buttons and our mothers go to have all theirs dreams about tights fulfilled. Apparently they’re going for a new image. I rather hope their new target group are horny teenage boys. Teenage boys who like buttons.
I remain amused, but I suspect that the advertising people might have consumed slightly too much wine…

Wijvenweek (Nederlands/English)

(scroll down for the English text)

Wijvenweek

Blijkbaar is het wijvenweek deze week. Het grappige is dat ik er niets van zou hebben afgeweten als mijn vriendje er niets over had gezegd. Ach, het is weer een vrouweninitiatief. Leuk, dus ik ga op hun site kijken. En dan ben ik meteen weer teleurgesteld, vooral als ik de thema’s lees.

Maandag 24 maart: mijn wijflijf
Dinsdag 25 maart: shoppen
Woensdag 26 maart: mannen
Donderdag 27 maart: mijn huishouden
Vrijdag 28 maart: kinderen
Zaterdag 29 maart: wat mannen niet begrijpen
Zondag 30 maart: vrij bloggen/inhaaldag

Excuse me? Can you be more f***ing cliché? Is dit nu écht het enige waar vrouwen over kunnen schrijven: winkelen, venten, huishouden en koters? Waarom gaat het niet eens over ambities, avonturen in andere landen, vreemde hobby’s (ik ken een dame die last, bijvoorbeeld) etc. En dit moet dus empowering zijn?

*kots*

Maar soit, it zal mijn mond, oftewel mijn pen, oftewel mijn keyboard eens opentrekken. Ik heb een paar dagen overgeslagen, so let’s get right to the point: mijn huishouden.

Ik heb geen huishouden. Ik woon bij mijn ouders. Als de kelder leefbaar was, zou ik er clichématig intrekken, maar voorlopig leef ik in de living. Mijn kamer is onbewoonbaar en dient als opslagruimte. Er leeft vast iets – iets niet menselijk – ik gok op muizen. Ik kan niet koken – als mijn leven er vanaf zou hangen zou dit echt een probleem zijn. Ik ben door de jaren heen gevoederd geweest door mijn oma, mijn ma, mijn ex-lief en een plethora van restaurantjes die dat wel willen doen mits betaling. Het is mijn droom later in mijn eigen huis/appartement/caravan te eten van papieren borden met plastieken bestek dat meteen daarna in de vuilbak verdwijnt. Milieuvriendelijk – not. Maar gemak heeft zijn prijs.

Een paar dagen geleden hielp mijn huidige vriend me mijn – nogal uitgebreide – CD-collectie op te ruimen. En lag zoveel stof op dat ik er braakneigingen van kreeg. Maar soit, na 4 uur zag het er beter uit. Nu nog de rest van mijn spullen (yeah, right). Gelukkig ben ik dus omringd door mensen die wel iets van huishouden afweten. Anders was ik hopeloos verloren.



English version

Apparently it’s “wijvenweek” this week. A week in which women bloggers are encouraged to write about female issues. The funny thing is I wouldn’t have known about it if my boyfriend hadn’t told me. Oh well, looks like a another women’s initiative. Sounds fun, so I had a look at their site – and was instantly disappointed, especially when I read about the themes.


Monday March 24th : my body
Tuesday March 25th: shopping
Wednesday March 26th : men
Thursday March 27th: my household
Friday March 28th: kids
Saturday March 29th: what men don’t understand
Sunday March 30th: free blogging

Excuse me? Can you be more f***ing cliché? Are these really the only things women can write about : shopping, guys, housekeeping and rugrats? Why isn’t it about ambition, adventures in other countries, strange hobbies (I know a lady who does welding, for instance).
And this is supposed to be empowering?

*vomit*

But oh well, I guess I’ll open my mouth, or my pen, or rather my keyboard. I missed a few days, so let’s skip right to the point: my household.

I have no household. I live with my parents. If the basement was habitable, I’d move in, but so far I reside in the living room. My room in not habitable either and serves as storage space. Something probably lives there – something not human – I’m guessing mice.
I can’t cook – if my life would depend on it, that would actually be a problem. Through the years I’ve been fed by my grandmother, mother, ex-boyfriend and a plethora of restaurants that were happy to oblige in exchange for a small fee.
It’s my dream to have paper plates, plastic cups and plastic cutlery in my future
house/apartment/trailer. It just disappears in the trash after your meal. Environmentally friendly it’s not. But comfort has its price.

A few days ago my current boyfriend helped me sort out my – rather large – CD-collection. There was so much dust on it that I wanted to throw up. But oh well, after 4 hours it looked better. Now for the rest of my stuff…(yeah, right!)
So fortunately I’m surrounded by people who do know about housekeeping. Otherwise I’d be hopelessly lost.

I’m Dreaming of a White Easter

Ah…Easter. The time of colourful eggs, bunnies, family foodfests, religious rituals you don’t really know the meaning of …and snow.

Yes, snow! We had a White Easter this year. Television tells me that it has been 57 years since this happened last in these parts. (These parts being Flanders, Belgium.)

Well, we might have to give op on white Christmases, but hey, climate change has given us a new alternative. Going skiing for our Easter holiday, for example.
Since Easter came early this year, our unexpected snowfall also coincided with the beginning of spring.

So perhaps next year, we can just switch seasons. Spring will become winter, summer will become spring, autumn will become summer, and winter autumn. This might get it right for the next few years, until climate switches again and we’ll have new seasons all over again. It keeps things fresh and exciting!

Climate madness aside, I was rather happy to see snow. It’s a pretty sight, despite the timing. I recalled the tale of a Cypriot tour guide, from when a visited a couple of years back. Apparently snow was so rare there, that when it actually snowed, parents would let their kids skip school and take them high op into the hills in the early morning, just so the kids could get a glimpse of what snow actually looked like.

So no, I don’t mind the snow. Nor do I mind the random heat waves. It’s delightfully crazy.

Climate change? Bring it on, baby!

RIP Hugo Claus

Belgium, or rather Flanders, mourned the loss of the writer Hugo Claus yesterday. The television station Canvas even changed their programming for something one might call a "Hugo Claus Special". I saw part of it, but wasn't really inclined to sit through all of it - though there are worse things to sit through, like sports programs, Flemish soaps, or those ever popular shows where they give a makeover to your house, yourself, your boyfriend, oh hell I'm sure there's some where they restyle your pooch's fur. But I digress.

I'm feeling rather ambiguous about his death, and the media frenzy around it. On one hand, I'd like to say he was overrated, he's being portrayed as the man without whom Flemish literature wouldn't have existed.
I must admit I'm hardly in a position to say so,though. I cunningly made it through high school without having to read any of his books and I was only marginally exposed to some of his poetry. Consider me not a fan.
On the other hand, I'm struck, as a human being, by the man himself. He's always looked somewhat arrogant and artistically interesting on camera - which quite amused me. But mostly, I consider the plight of a writer with Alzheimer's disease. It's somewhat like a pianist losing his hands, or an athlete losing his legs - there's inherently a twistedly ironic human tragedy in it. A writer who has lost his tool for creativity - the ability to form pleasing sentences - suffers a sad fate indeed.
So our acclaimed writer, Hugo Claus, decided to end his own life. He requested euthanasia yesterday, and received it. I had a sort of sad smile on my face when I read he died in the same hospital where I was born. Circle of life and all that.
I have great respect for the man, frankly. He chose how to go and when to go, before his mind was completely gone. Chapeau, as they say here.

So, instead of commenting on all the books that I didn't read, let's stick to something that I can actually say without making up a lot of nonsense: the world is lacking another interesting person as of yesterday.