Monster Ru

Queen's Day Vondelpark

isn't this just so cute?

posted by 儒 @ 17:27 0 comments

CC's Shrek song

(and they should have won! - see fucking Oscars)

even when its supposed to be a happy song, AFD has managed to put a twist in it:

"we were once upon a time in love"
- "Accidentally in Love"

surely this sad bit is not in the movie? maybe someone can enlighten me?

anyway i'm just damn happy that i've seen the one with the bunny, and the one that was in the DVD. (thanks to NAB who bought me it as a pressie!!! and yes, i've watched the MTV numerous times, but not watched the movie!)

when i listen to this song, i get reminded of the time when i saw someone who was listening to the song for the 1st time - all smiles at "well baby i surrender to the strawberry ice-cream, never ever ending of this love..."

its nice to see people appreciating CC.

posted by 儒 @ 01:21 0 comments

Philip Larkin's "The Trees"

was reading some of PL's poems & then came across this. it was once my favourite poem when i was in JC. :-p

The Trees

The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.

Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too,
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.

Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

posted by 儒 @ 00:58 0 comments

land of the free breeding of bad behaviour

"it's a museum, not a fucking rock concert! the paintings will still be here!"

i don't understand why people feel the need to push in front of others in museums. or why they have to stand so damn bloody close to you. (yes, there was body contact!) and then after pushing to the "front" where they were basically stretching the line that's supposed to indicate the closest you should be to the painting, they start kissing? HELLO?! we are here to look at paintings, not your show of affection?! i mean WTF?!

i feel so scandalized.

posted by 儒 @ 17:04 0 comments

Raining in Baltimore

well, i thought that since i've posted so much of the lyrics from this song anyway, why not just put all of it here? and just so i don't have to post again (like for Mrs P's L), if you've bothered to read all the lyrics, please go listen to the song (Counting Crows - August and Everything After). i'll play it for you if i get some bloody keyboards!

Raining in Baltimore

This circus is falling down on its knees
The big top is crumbling down
It's raining in Baltimore fifty miles east
Where you should be, no one's around
I need a phone call
I need a raincoat
I need a big love
I need a phone call
These train conversations are passing me by
And I don't have nothing to say
You get what you pay for
But I just had no intention of living this way
I need a phone call
I need a plane ride
I need a sunburn
I need a raincoat
And I get no answers
And I don't get no change
It's raining in Baltimore, baby
But everything else is the same
There's things I remember and things I forget
I miss you I guess that I should
Three thousand five hundred miles away
But what would you change if you could?
I need a phone call Maybe I should buy a new car
I can always hear a freight train baby if I listen real hard
And I wish it was a small world
Because I'm lonely for the big towns
I'd like to hear a little guitar
I guess it's time to put the top down
I need a phone call
I need a raincoat

posted by 儒 @ 13:10 0 comments

this is what's on one of the walls of the apartment

posted by 儒 @ 12:24 0 comments

one of Finn

since i've already posted a pic of Belle, i thought it would only be fair to put one of Finn here. you can't see him very well in this photo, but i guess most of you already know what a sweetie he is, even if he looks a bit manic here

i do miss the dogs.

posted by 儒 @ 16:27 0 comments

"the moon is a satellite..." #2

posted by 儒 @ 14:55 0 comments

"the moon is a satellite..."

posted by 儒 @ 07:30 0 comments

frozen bread

the problem with eating frozen bread is that it bloody cuts the inside of your cheeks!!!!!

posted by 儒 @ 08:11 0 comments

this is for W

i just had to play "closing time" on my new guitar! :-)

posted by 儒 @ 19:28 3 comments

a new Washburn

so i went out today, with the single aim of buying a steel string guitar. walked into the shop just round the Rijksmuseum, and voila! within 10mins of talking to the guy (and a rather nice looking one for that matter) i said - yes, i'll take that. so here i am, with my newly purchased Washburn. the whole time i was reminded of the time we spent in Montreal and Quebec City - when W and i were walking around and he bought a guitar as well. its exactly the same feeling, the same desperation of not having touched a guitar for a while. except that now we don't have that poor French guy lamenting the loss of his girlfriend who rejected him, even though he had sold most of his stuff and moved to Quebec City just to be with her. gosh - nostalgia.

posted by 儒 @ 18:52 2 comments

Wildlife Photographer of the Year

Spent the last 4 days in London, and went to several exhibitions. really glad i went to this one, the Wildlife Photographer of the Year at the National History Museum. i actually went to the British Tate, wanting to see the Turner Whistler Monet exhibition, but i didn't have the £10 to get in and i couldn't find a bloody ATM anywhere from the tube station to the museum. and i really didn't want to charge £10 to my credit card. it seemed silly.

i desperately wanted to get away from the crowd in the museum and the lure of having a cigarette in the light rain outside made me give up the exhibition. (yes, i do enjoy being out in the rain!) i guess i was really lucky - it all worked out as i would not have gone to the NHM to see the "Wildlife" exhibition if not for all these factors! i guess i can live without seeing 19C art, even if i really quite like Turner's paintings.

this shot of the swans is my favourite one. i'm not terribly fond of swans - blame that on the ill-behaved ones we have at the Botanic Gardens! but this shot really moved me. i guess it doesn't take much to remind us how insignificant we are in the grand scale of things, and just how vast the natural world is. this shot brought to mind many things, including what happened on 26 Dec '04.

anyway, i'm really glad the photographer (Ilkka Niskanen, Finland) took such a wonderful shot. kind of reminds me of the film Hero too.










this one made me laugh my head off!
also went to the Lee Miller exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, and the whole time, i was obsessing about the blackness of black.

posted by 儒 @ 04:47 0 comments

the hand of miles davis

this is one of Irving Penn's photos of Miles Davis' hand. it is an absolutely amazing shot. (i first saw this in a book "A Notebook at Random" whilst i was at the American Book Center day before.)

it's true - there is something about black. forget the whiteness of the whale, crazy Ahab chasing Moby Dick. white is scary. white is the colour of fear, of torture, of insanity. but black - its special. its luring, its captivating, charming, even. its so bold it screams defiance. i don't know why i have never paid much attention to the blackness in b/w photographs before. i'm glad someone pointed me to it. thank you.

at the end of the day, i guess its all about the light.

(note - the only exception to white, which must be said, is the ipod.)

posted by 儒 @ 09:48 0 comments

nothing very exciting except that when i went into my "local" pub here the other day, i got grabbed by a yucky looking old git who proceeded to give me a very Dutch greeting. and today, when i sat out in the sun having a nice glass of Jameson, some guy at another table kept smiling at me and then offered to buy me a drink. well, at least there is no more "its cold?" haha.

posted by 儒 @ 21:19 0 comments

the hair

after much deliberation, i have put a photo of me (taken by NAB) with the green hair (wet as well!) on my flickr site. this can be viewed only by friends who are curious about the over-priced hairdo.

posted by 儒 @ 18:55 3 comments

voodoodolls

whilst walking around in town looking for guitar shops just now, we saw this in a shop window. really scary if you ask me. (sorry about low resolution photo - thought i might post more photos over the next month so i didn't want to upload a large file, but you get the *picture*.) i think it might have been one of those shops you can find in "Buffy".

otherwise, the sun came out, (after a whole weekend of incessant rain...well, since i've arrived anyway) and it was really nice as people started sitting outside cafes, etc. it almost felt like summer, if not for the still rather chilly weather. it was also unreal to see sunlight streaming into the apartment.

was told that the swimming pools here are only 25m and not 50m ones. oh well, better than no pools. looking forward to doing some swimming already.

posted by 儒 @ 17:45 0 comments

in A'dam

i have arrived in Amsterdam, and boy, the weather is cold. its about 7 degrees Celsius today, and tomorrow it will be 3. its nice though to see some colour as opposed to the grey that i remember from the last trip here.

my stomach sounds like an airplane taking off. probably need some real food.

more later.

posted by 儒 @ 04:03 4 comments

4 hours later at the hairdresser's, i found myself $525 poorer. no joke.

but still, i've got some green on my fringe now, and i should say, it looks pretty damn cool.

posted by 儒 @ 15:20 6 comments

attacked!

got attacked by this crazy drunk woman on friday night. it was not pleasant. the worse thing is that she would probably not remember how she went mental on me and started attacking me for no reason at all. in any case, i will put it down to this - its the year of the cock, and as my father's godmother had warned me, it is not a good year for rabbits.

posted by 儒 @ 17:46 1 comments