All B's, all Me! (Happy B-Day JDC!)

Slide-show for The G that visited B!

A Slide Through 2008: Most Interesting

My Most Interesting Pics
Set automatically created by dopiaza's set generator on 31st December 2008 at 4:39am GMT

A Slide Through 2008: Turnhout

Coronis

In 1991 I worked (for a very brief period) as a switch-board operator for George Livanos on his private island, Coronis. Just getting there was already quite an experience! I have no pictures of it, I believe it was - like so many things there- forbidden, so I looked it up today in Google Maps. Ironically, I find that the shape of this island actually resembles much that of a whale .

Humo: Freedom of speech!

Still looking for the picture? Click Here !

Freedom of speech is a big thing to me and therefor this post. This has nothing to do with Obama, but hereby I do congratulate personally my fellow-flickr! :-)

Yesterday the Court in Belgium ordered to take out all copies from the market of HUMO, a highly acclaimed magazine with a big satirical background. Now, bad taste or not, this is again a "flagrant infringement on press freedom and freedom of expression, and also to the right of humor and satire." To get the "joke" you really have to be in Belgian Politics, but let's just say in a nutshell this is a reaction on "How good-looking girls got high post "jobs".

Here's the full original text, translated with Google Translate that Humo placed on their website:

"On the orders of the Court, we must all take measures to ensure that Humo of November 4, 2008 is of the market, in all outlets, and this on pain of a penalty payment of 250 euros per copy offered for sale yet. The court held that a photomontage in 'The Hole in the World, "a clearly demarcated satirical column Humo, wrote about the presentation. However, the attentive reader inevitably find that it is an installation in a satirical context is. The proceeding unilaterally petition let us not able to speak at a progressively debate. We have the decision of the court of first instance even through the press should know. Meanwhile, the ruling means and we are obliged Humo at least provisionally to retrieve from the shelves. We consider the third opposition to appeal against the decision. We believe that the ruling and the procedure followed in total mismatch with the intended outcome and the damage Humo and Sanoma Magazines Belgium this encounter. Moreover, we consider this state of affairs as a flagrant infringement on press freedom and freedom of expression, and also to the right of humor and satire.
Nevertheless, we are now calling for the press sellers to immediately Humo all copies of this edition from the shelves to retrieve and no longer to sell."

And just when you thought Belgium was such an example of an "enlightened" state. Personally I wander how HUMO is going to react since it seemed to be a very interesting copy, this week.

Barack for President!

I admit it...I'm biased because he's a buddy! of mine on Flickr ;). But anything instead of a horrible repetition of a stage play we've seen before. Remember how Nixon came to power ? Just listen to that woman's voice! You feel the same anger, paranoia, pettiness as Dick had in his days. On top of this she has the intelligence of Reagan at his worst and that same stubbornness we all had to suffer from W!
Now look at this resemblance: already better no? Although Barack resembles more Bill Clinton astrologically (both are Leo) with Lyndon (Virgo) he shares an open inviting look with sharp traits, investigating eyes and a strong yet friendly chin.


I personally believe that Lyndon tried to be good president, but was really "rushed into it" and had to deal with issues he simply had to proceed. I hope that Barack will learn from this.
Hell, I just tell him myself!
(2B continued)

Greek Lover Invitation Code...a few more clicks...

Click here and select all (Ctrl A or 2/3 short clicks) then copy & paste it into the comment box of the picture(s) you want to join the pool.
Sorry about the fuzz but Flickr does not not seem to except all html.
In the mean time, thanks for visiting...

Bibi, Gigi & Yoko...

Three friends I 'lost' in Greece...Yoko wandered off to the park one night and never returned...Bibi went to help a blind man somewhere in the outskirts of Athens and the last thing I heard from GG that she was hanging out in the Pelion...But who is Yoko, Bibi or GG here...???

How to make a Pizza with Mushrooms, when...

You love'm but your table-partner simply hates them ???
For this recipe you need:
Pizza Dough: Make it yourself (lots of recipes on the net) here is an example. If you don't like the mess there are in the supermarket prepared ones refrigerated. Olive oil to spread around a baking form lightly, only if you want your pizza to stay somewhat soft. Extra tip: Spread also some sea salt at the bottom of that form.
Pizza Topping:
* Tomato sauce lightly seasoned with fried shallot, cardamom and cumin for a distinctive taste.
* Fresh Emmenthal cheese, shredded.
* Mushrooms, sliced, baked in olive oil, with some shallot, lots of garlic, black pepper and oregano. Season to your liking.
* Fresh basil leaves, artichoke hearts, good quality sliced ham & anchovies, fresh or canned.
* Black olives (try the best quality you can get, un-pit them if you must)

Let's start to work, the pictures should be self-explanatory...

Notice here that I use two basil leaves to mark the middle of the Pizza (that's it actually! ;)

Add the artichoke hearts and the olives, keeping the "markers" in mind.

Add the baked mushrooms ONLY at the bottom part of the pizza and "sprinkle" the sliced ham and anchovies as you wish.

And top it all generously with the cheese, notice that the two basil leaves still stick out.

Cook for 15-20 minutes (depending your oven) and on your dinner table simply slice it in the middle between your "hidden" little green markers. Your partner will not find one mushroom
while can crunch away the whole lot!
One last note: better put some garlic as well is the tomato sauce too so your partner wont notice your sharp garlic smell afterwards ! ;)

Great photo from Mr......Aster-oid!

From left to right: Indifference, Concentration & Professionalism, Envy, Admiration. I fell for the last one, althought I spotted also a lot of hesitation there. Couldn't help myself to add one more:
Anticipation (for the little chair in front) reminding the many accidents models have lately...and because little chairs just might have feelings too...

Hommage...by Cl☼s ... des dunes !

Hommage .....
Originally uploaded by Cl☼s ... des dunes !

à l'oeuvre de Soeur Emmanuelle ...

This picture and comment was posted by Cl☼s ... des dunes ! on Flickr and being Belgian I was at first* a bit ashamed I never heard of her...She died October 20, 2008 at the age of 99. I never understood what really drives these people so I here's a closer look...

Sœur Emmanuelle (November 16, 1908 – October 20, 2008), born Madeleine Cinquin, was a Belgian nun living in France. She was born in Brussels, Belgium, the daughter of a family of lingerie manufacturers. At the age of six she saw her father drown. She was educated at the Sorbonne, earning a degree in philosophy. In 1929, she took her religious vows and became a nun. She worked in Notre-Dame de Sion high school in Istanbul in the 1930s.In 1971, she witnessed the impoverished conditions of the trash collectors in Cairo, Egypt, and decided to live among them. She remained there until 1993, when she returned to France. It was upon her return that she gained the status of a media sensation in France, as she was well received by audiences and talk-show hosts. In addition to her charity work, she is known for her unorthodox religious views, including approval of the use of contraception and favouring the idea of allowing priests to marry. She was voted one of the most popular people in France, and has been compared to Mother Teresa. (She regarded the comparisons with Mother Theresa as "ridiculous"). In 2003, French television broadcast Soeur Emmanuelle: An exceptional woman. In 2005 she ended on the 5th place in the Walloon version of Le plus grand Belge (The Greatest Belgian). She died on October 20, 2008 in Callian, aged 99, in her sleep from natural causes.^[2] Les Amis de Soeur Emmanuelle (The Friends of Sister Emmanuelle) is a charitable organization based in Brussels.

*Correction: I did know her and even saw this on the news, I guess working on the computer and watching TV simultaneously does weird things with your memory...

Sources: Cl☼s ... des dunes ! & Wiki of course...

Links:

official site (she really deserves a better one, bad links and stuff)

youtube (her last interview, and other video's: Yalla! pas de stop!)

de morgen (newspaper in Dutch, about the funeral, good picture)

the guardian (review on her memoirs)

la provence (reportage on her funeral, in French)

Courageous, righteous woman, the kind the Church really needs I guess, and It should permit them to marry because : "L'Union fait la Force"! Also, now that I see again that drive it's truly amazing that these kind of persons also always tend to live this long (and in good shape!)

The Power of Belief is a strong medicine...

My Blueberry Moon

Seeing Wong-Kar-Wai's excellent My Blueberry Nights the other day there was a song in it I hadn't heard in a long time. Like all the other songs it suited the mood of the movie extremely well, but this one was really outstanding. Here's Cassandra Wilsons version in the film:

Looking up the original from good old Neil on YouTube I've found some surprises: Here's how it should be played (not easy!)

And here how it shouldn't:

Lot's of others (Good One's!) to check out:
Cassandra Wilsons live version

and
How to Play 13 Neil Young Songs (in 6 minutes)

Flickr an everchanging community....

When Flickr makes changes it's so subtle it takes time before you notice them. Take for instance their homepage and see here what they made of it. In fact, everything you need, now it's all there. But also they've changed the "recent activity tabs" and "comments you've made" into one large tab and there you really have to take a closer look. A complete guide can be found here. Interesting is the function, or the snooze as they call it: "If there is a beautiful capture you commented on a while ago but don't want to see updates on anymore, you can now mute it from Recent Activity. Just mouse over it and click . (you can do this on anything in recent activity) To un-mute something, open your Activity Settings and 'Show previously muted items.' You will then be able to see the item and un-mute ." Excellent for pictures that have an endless list of comments you are tired of but still don't want to loose them. And it works too! Subtle, there's no other word for it, and still free! Also a nice add-on I'll d like to mention here is flickriver, a personal project of Alex Sirota (aka iosart) Check out his badges and tools, they're cool!

A political social voting experiment...

Vista's Sniping Tool

Finally I found out that Vista has an easy-to-use Screen shot tool, that is situated under Accessories and with the very promising name Sniping Tool. And it's a snitch, the only thing you have to do is of course to make sure that the screen you want to shoot is already open BEFORE you activate this little program. Much is said about Vista, and yes it is slower than XP but it's these features and the look (not the feel) that makes Vista kinda nice to work with.
(to be continued...Time, Time, Time...)

Forum on new programs built into Vista for instance click here

After the hype...The Power of Google

Have to admit it. Chrome hasn't taken over my Firefox, and just keeps waiting in the quick start tray. And after seeing this one could get quite paranoiac about Google...Well-done movie *****


Makes you wander 'bout your G-mail account huh? Funny things happen there. A few days ago I send an e-mail with ONE word in Greek in it. When I checked my Send Box later, I saw 5 Sidebar adds for Greece next to it !

Just when you thought you knew how dogs drink....

This video will show you exactly the reverse...

found this on the excellent:
Zapdog, "If dogs could surf the net."
(actually some of us can....me for instance)

Fast in all ways !

She's fast and easy. Much has been sacrificed to the avid IE user as far as looks are concerned and I do not see immediately any skins to personalise, nor other add-ons that I like so much in Firefox. For instance the on-the-fly easy spelling option switch. But I've opened several 'difficult' pages in a wink and that is what a browser is supposed to do, right? No hassle with plug-ins needed, just open that baby. Let's hope soon some kind of add-ons will appear, because while surfing has improved a lot, some of the interaction has diminished. Untill then my Firefox will stay open, but I'm pretty sure that most ordinary Web 1.0 IE users will find the transition easy and go for Google's Chrome. Another blow for MS ?

some notes:

-Downloading however seems to be slow and a bit complicated again for safety reasons ?

-Perhaps not a good idea to keep Firefox open next to Chrome ?

-Some functions in Blogger do not work (i.e. resizing images,  spelling...)

-Amazing however how smooth synchronising with Firefox went. (even the bookmark bar)

-Did not use the Porn-button yet but then again my conscience is clear (I use IE for it!)

-Needles to say that integration with other Google apps works great. (Gmail, Gmaps)

Google Chrome, Yes! but....

How will it look and feel ?



source: http://blogoscoped.com/

Much has been said on how it should work and even in relatively simple terms like on Google's own comic-book styled blog but we will have to wait until tomorrow (?) for the look and feel. I just hope they haven't overlooked all the great features of Opera, Safari & Firefox, since these browsers have never been better. Great timing that's for sure...after the launch of IE8, -so far not impressed there-, and Google has actually never disappointed so I think this will be a hit, again...

Pollock without the Fuzz!

Create your own work of art inspired by the great master, Jackson Pollock. Drag your cursor across the screen to create a masterpiece! Clicking your mouse button changes colors and pressing space erases your drawing. Just drag away...

If you get bored, check out this.

Moon Phases

Looking for a nice, clear and easy Lunar Widget for your Vista Sidebar?
So far, this one I have found the best: The Moon Phase II
This gadget displays a realistic representation of the Moon and its phase. There are lots of options to control the gadgets size, orientation, opacity etc. Data about the Moon is displayed in a flyout panel, basic data can be displayed on mouse-over. The data can be for a geocentric or topocentric location. It also gives the dates/times of the next new and full Moons, Moon and Sun rise and set times.

Thinking of Athens

Thinking of Athens
Originally uploaded by turn-out pete

The balcony of my apt in A (got "homesick" after seeing some Athenian Flickr friends pictures) Stood up and photographed this picture that was on the wall. More to follow since I have found the internet an excellent place to sock your memories. Anyways it's a way to survive these dreadfull "summer days".

Feeling Blue?

download here

My Music Pal

Always wanted this gadget: more than 10.000 radio stations in one handsome black box:
The Freecom Musicpal.
Since the weather is horrible here nowadays and I wasn't ready to take a trip somewhere (yet), I can now go and listen to sunny places like Greece (of course), Costa Rica (great jazz there), The Bahamas, Ghana, speed up my Chinese in Shangai, or just lie on a beach in Japan. If (can you?) ever get bored stream up your music with one touch from your computer to this little wonder. With this you don't want another radio anymore. It's a your longlife Pal. I was very worried when it took a heavy fall when I tripped over it's only power cable, but my pal stayed intact. Set up is remarkably easy and while you are listening you get the RSS you want hovering over the classy display.
Highly Recommended *****

Back! (and in love....)

Zelden nog zo ontroerd geweest tijdens de herhalingen van het journaal, toen Rachel Agnew (zus van) de publieksprijs ontving van de Canvas-collectie. Hoe kan zo'n schuchter, verlegen en nederig meisje zo'n "hoogdravend", "self-mythologized" werk maken ? Hoewel ik het gevoel heb dit al eens gezien te hebben (Liliane Vertesssen comes to mind here) blijft haar frèle vertoning mij door het hoofd spoken. It felt like love....(2B continued)


De Standaard
Rachel Agnew blog
Rachel Agnew website

XO (move over MacBook Air!)

With the cheapest new Macbook Air priced at a rediculous 1699 € (same as in dollars!) why not buy this fast-browsing, almost indestructible, innovative and funny lap for a lousy 100 € and make another kid on the other side of the continent happy!
One Laptop Per Child project's XO laptop. This baby packs a lot of punch for a $140 laptop. It's got 433Mhz processor, WiFI, a 1200 x 900px 7.5" display, touchpad, 3 USB ports a neat VGA camera, among other things. It runs a customized version of Linux named Sugar. (Thanks Nilton!)

More real life pictures here!

View niltonb's map

Taken in (See more photos hOne Laptop Per Child project's XO laptop. This baby packs a lot of punch for a $140 laptop. It's got 433Mhz processor, WiFI, a 1200 x 900px 7.5" display, touchpad, 3 USB ports a neat VGA camera, among other things. It runs a customized version of Linux named Sugar. (Thanks Nilton!)

Ann Eindelijk!

Large views on my Flickr site!

Sapphic Trees

left: picture taken by almostcin on Jan, 20th 2008, burned tree on Imittou Mt, Athens, Greece.
right: Sappho, study drawing for sculpture, made by me around 1986, Ghent, Belgium.

It's a long story envolving Greece, dreams, "voices" and such, but seeing this (sad but expressive) picture again has evoked a desperate wish to finish that statue....

Keynote in 60 seconds....

Always fascinating but way too long: Steve Jobs Keynote.
So here it is....in 60 seconds. How clever again how Apple
always manages to find solutions for specific target groups.


Want to see the full version ? Click Here.
Source: Techcrunch.

Out here...

Ill tell you this...
No eternal reward will forgive us now
For wasting the dawn.

Back in those days everything was simpler and more confused
One summer night, going to the pier
I ran into two young girls
The blonde one was called freedom
The dark one, enterprise
We talked and they told me this story
Now listen to this...
Ill tell you about texas radio and the big beat
Soft driven, slow and mad
Like some new language
Reaching your head with the cold, sudden fury of a divine messenger
Let me tell you about heartache and the loss of god
Wandering, wandering in hopeless night
Out here in the perimeter there are no stars

Out here we is stoned
Immaculate.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=heeoqMrGjF8

Plaatje nodig voor je sociaal netwerk en geen inspiratie ?Dit aardig programmaatje snelt je tot hulp en verandert jouw foto in een handomdraai naar een perfecte profielfoto voor Blogger, Flickr, YouTube, MySpace, Friendster, dig deviantART... ....

found in bright.nl

A Slide Through 2007