Monday 21 February 2011

Creativity

They say creative people have a distinguishing ability to think up more than ten uses for any given object. Trying to myself I am quite as creative as I think I am, I decided to come up with some creative uses for a hanger:
1.    Hang clothes on, obviously.
2.    Hang other things on: bags, curtains, necklaces, stockings, lashes, you get the idea.
3.    I once tried to use a hanger to open my front door from outside. It didn’t work, but it could have.
4.    Use in a suit while wearing it to make your shoulders appear broader and stronger.
5.    Give to a child as a toy.
6.    Wrap in fancy paper and give as a present to someone and then enjoy watching the confusion on their face.
7.    Hang on a tree pretending as a Christmas decoration.
8.    Wear on your neck instead of a necklace.
9.    Utilise wire hangers to construct a kite.
10.    Make a lamp (like the one here).
11.    Use instead of a ruler to draw straight lines.
12.    Build a fence.
13.    Apply in the garden if you lack proper garden equipment.
14.    Whip up eggs and cream (needs some training).
15.    Let your cat jump through a hanger instead of hula-hoop – much more impressive!
16.    Burn wooden hangers in the fireplace.
17.    Hit someone.
18.    Torture living creatures.
19.    Employ for kinky sex games (use your imagination).
20.    Use as murder weapon.

So far for my creativity. Got any of your own? Name more uses for a hanger in comments. I will reward the most original. The winner will receive... Exactly!

Saturday 19 February 2011

The Watchtower

 I leave my Skype conversation to answer the door. There are two men - one has dark curly hair, the other one is fat - with friendly smiles ready on their faces. Curly Hair holds a thin booklet in his hands. In a split second I recognise The Watchtower (they certainly need a new lay-out designer).


“Hello!” – I put the most friendly smile on my face.
“Hello. Do you by any chance speak Russian?” – Curly Hair starts.
“Yes, by chance, I do. But I don’t want to speak to you.” – I keep the friendly smile. The men look a bit puzzled.
“Ok... May I ask why?” – Curly Hair persists.
“Because I see that magazine in your hands. And also because I’m in the middle of a phone conversation.” – I answer with the smile still on my face.
“Ok, thank you. Bye.” – the men march out of my front yard.
“Have a nice day!” – I say still smiling.

I think I have set a personal record today - this was by far the shortest conversation with Jehovah's Witnesses I’ve ever had. There’s just one thing that bothers me: how did they know I spoke Russian?!

Antony and the Johnsons – Cripple and the Starfish

Thursday 17 February 2011

Electricity

The man on the other side of the line sounds friendly, happy and a little concerned:
“I wanted to tell you that we are planning to visit you at home.”
I am thrilled!: “Why?”
“There are some bills you haven’t paid.”
“I can’t recall any unpaid bills or reminders. Besides, I’m not at home.“
“Well, you haven’t paid your electricity bills for four months. You’ll probably be shocked, but I have to tell you that we are considering to pass your case to a collection agency.”
“I’m rather shocked that you haven’t sent me any reminders.”
“We did. One. And then the second one. So now you have to pay €600 plus €25 reminder costs. Would you like to contact the debt relief authority?”
“Why? Do they need financial help?” I was amused and annoyed at the same time. Very strange mix of feelings. “Ok, I’ll check my account tonight and pay if I haven’t done so.”
“That would be very nice!” The man sounded relieved.

Back home I transferred €625 (just to make sure I don’t get visits from the collectors because that’s really annoying) and checked my administration. Guess what? The electricity company didn’t send me any bills for the past four months! No wonder I didn’t pay a cent.

Now really annoyed I called the customer service. I told them they had the first letter of my name wrong in their records. I told them they’ve forgotten to send me the bills. I told them they haven’t sent any reminders. I told them I am going to switch to another electricity company. I told them I have no trust in their service. I kept them busy for 17 minutes. The result? I got my €25 back. And if I don’t receive the bill for March I will switch back to my old electricity company.

Now I feel a little bit like a winner!

Time for some music: Kettel - Toen

Monday 14 February 2011

Pinacoteca di Brera

Gerolamo Induno
The Girl With an iPhone

I was also particularly impressed by the Cristo morto by Andrea Mantegna and Il bacio by Francesco Hayez.

The combination museum+apero is highly recommended!

Sunday 13 February 2011

Explanation

Up until now I have repeatedly failed to write a novel or a story that is longer than a blog post and would require a plot. I admire people who are able to do that. Often, after reading a good story or watching a film with a good story line I ask myself in amazement how the author came up with the idea.

I am usually even more amazed by the plots served by life itself. One of them is in my last Friday’s post. I didn’t make up that story and it didn’t happen to me either. I didn’t run away from an amazing boyfriend two years ago, I don’t like kci & jojo and my birthday is in August. But I loved the story someone has shared on Instagram some days ago. So I basically copied it (with some basic editing).

I wish I could create stories like that…

I took this picture today during a walk in the fields.

Friday 11 February 2011

Happy end

A couple of years ago I had an amazing boyfriend and things were great… Until I realised I wasn’t yet ready to settle down. And I ran. I didn’t even have the guts to explain myself. I just ran away. We stopped speaking and I changed my number.

But I’ve missed him dearly these past two years. And throughout these years I’ve been texting him. Not conversational texts, but names of songs. He had no idea it was me all along. A couple of days ago, on the night of my birthday I texted him: “love and theft – runaway”. I fell asleep to wake up in the morning of my birthday to his text: “kci & jojo – crazy”. I love that song! And we went back and forth exchanging songs and… we somehow ended up talking about baby names, believe it or not. When he asked me how I would name my daughter I replied with ‘kiara’. That´s when he mentioned that his ex-girlfriend had coincidentally picked out the same name… And that´s when I finally said “today so happens to be your ex-girlfriend’s birthday…”

I can’t help but realise how stupid I was. I should’ve never ran. I should’ve stayed. We went on a date yesterday, dinner and a movie. Just like before…

Tuesday 8 February 2011

Bad conscience

Last night I was driving around in search of a free legitimate parking space. After several minutes I suddenly saw one. Parking space is scarce and one has to be quick, otherwise someone else will take it up. I just started manoeuvring my way into the space when another car came from the other side and stopped. Either the guy thought I was going away or hoped I’d give up the space, whatever the reason – he stopped and waited.

No way! I am not giving up my space. It was a little narrow and difficult to get in, but I kept on shifting the car trying to fit in. At the same time I was watching the waiting guy closely. You never know what to expect from people like this. I was moving backwards after yet another unsuccessful attempt to fit in when I realised my left mirror was scratching the neighbouring car. A little shocked I moved away and after two more moves finally made it to the space between the two cars. The other car went away.

All this shuffling, watching, gathering my things and locking the car made me forget to check the scratch I most probably caused. It wasn’t until this morning that I got this bad feeling about it. I personally don’t care so much, but most cars are newer than mine and most car owners are not fond of scratches. I left home hoping the car was still there so I could leave my phone number and at the same time hoping it was gone, so I didn’t have to worry anymore.

The car was still there. Already from the corner of the street I could see it was densely covered with bird droppings indicating it stood on the same spot for quite some time. A parking fine ticket from several days ago made it clear the owner did not live anywhere near. By the time I reached my car, my bad conscience somehow evaporated completely. I glanced at the place where the scratch should have been. It was there. Clearly visible. I stepped in my car and drove away.

It will take some time before I can do this:

Masculine

Ok, maybe it’s time to reveal the results of the gender experiment that I did in the previous two posts. Apparently, men use different words than women when they write. I used the Gender Genie list of words for this experiment.

The idea was to write a blog post and then convert it into two pieces by using more masculine or more feminine keywords. I wrote a blog post about mass protests assuming that it would be rather feminine, just like all my other posts (even though I could easily turn them into masculine just by changing two or three keywords). I was planning to make the text even more feminine and then convert the same text into a masculine version by eliminating feminine keywords and adding masculine.

To my surprise, the original text appeared to be convincingly masculine! There was no need for adjustments. So, those of you that guessed ‘male’ were absolutely correct! The ‘female’ guessers either didn’t read the text at all or... well, guessed wrong.  ;)

Changing a masculine text into feminine was much more difficult than I’d anticipated.  I simply could not make my point using feminine keywords. I managed to get the text feminine, but not very convincing. I think it has to do with the fact that I’m not a native English speaker. Both Russian and Dutch are much more direct and when I use the same approach in English it translates into texts more masculine than intended. I wish there was a gender guessing application in Dutch. That’d be fun too.

See for yourself how my texts qualify for one or another gender. Remember to skip the first and the last paragraph when you copy the text for the analysis, though. There’s one more gender guesser here, but it doesn’t reveal the technique behind it.

A creepy find during the walk on the beach:

Sunday 6 February 2011

Gender part 2

I am sorry for letting you wait for the part two of my gender writing experiment. Past few days were too full of films and late meetings. Writing in two different genders appears to be more difficult than I thought. But I am sure I can do it. In my previous post I have asked to leave your guesses in comments. Unfortunately, some stupid racist came along and started leaving obnoxiously rude comments all through the blog. I have disabled anonymous posting because I knew he/she/it wouldn’t dare to reveal its identity. If you tried to leave your guess as anonymous and didn’t succeed – I am sorry. Anonymous comments are enabled now so you are welcome! Here’s the same blog post, but in a different gender. Guess!

So there’s this revolution thing going on in Egypt now. Just before you start throwing stones at me, let me place a disclaimer: I do truly respect the will of the people in Egypt and admire them for taking action. I also believe that we get just enough information from the usual media channels to be aware of things happening around the globe, but not enough to form a strong opinion supported by facts. So, I kind of know what’s going on there, but do not really have an opinion on that particular situation. I simply do not have enough information and I choose not to look for it.

I do have an opinion on protests in general however. A public protest is a powerful tool in democracies for people to influence decisions of the government. Or isn’t it? If it’s about a particular policy question, maybe. But protests against the government in general (call them revolutions if you wish)? I have my doubts.

Just look at them. Most people anywhere are not very much politically involved. They vote (or not),  follow the news (if they do) and mind their own business (which is not politics). There is a smaller group of very politically active people who start a protest. They have a clear idea as to where they want to be in terms of politics and why. But they need support. If they manage to get their word across, they’ll get support.  And then they go out to the main square and protest. They stand there with people who like them and basically don’t care about their ideas. With people who think they understand what the protest is about because they watch TV and listen to what their neighbours say.  With people who like to be where the crowd is. People who are always against and basically attend any protest. People looking for an adventure. Those who think it’s cool to join a protest and those who have nothing better to do. Journalists and amateur photographers.  Curious. Pickpockets.

I remember when Netherlands voted against the new EU ‘constitution’ several years ago. Most people had no slightest idea about the context and the real meaning of the changes. Although they thought they knew. Or they thought it was cool to vote against. I’ve seen the Orange revolution in Ukraine some years ago where people were wearing orange an singing songs on the main square of Kiev. One cannot imagine the amount of disappointment in the years after.

So who is protesting against what and why? When we support a protest, do we really know what it is about? When it comes to mass protests I don’t believe in democracy. Same goes for referendums. I hope it works out for the best in Egypt!

So, is this written by a man or a woman? What do you say?

Thursday 3 February 2011

Gender

Someone on Twitter shared a link to a very interesting application online. You can paste a piece of text and the application can tell you whether the writer is male or female. The application looks at the words that are used in the text. There are male and female keywords. I have run several of my blog posts through this application and appeared to be female, although with just a few points to the other side it would have been male. I am now going to try to write the same blog post with two faces: male and female. Today is part one. Can you guess whether I’m trying to be male or female here?

So there’s this revolution thing going on in Egypt now. Just before you start throwing stones at me, let me place a disclaimer: I do truly respect the will of the people in Egypt and admire them for taking action. I also believe that the usual media channels give just enough information to let you know what’s going on, but not enough to form a strong opinion supported by facts. So, I kind of know what’s going on there, but do not really have an opinion on that particular situation. I simply do not have enough information and I choose not to look for it.

I do have an opinion on protests in general however. A public protest is a powerful tool in democracies for people to influence decisions of the government. Or isn’t it? If it’s about a particular policy question, maybe. But protests against the government in general (call them revolutions if you wish)? I have my doubts.

Just look at them. The majority of the people anywhere is not very much politically involved. They (don’t) vote, (don’t) follow the news and mind their own business (which is not politics). There is a smaller group of very politically active who start a protest. They do have a clear idea as to what they want to achieve and why. But they need support. If they manage to get their word across, they’ll get support.  From people who like them and who basically do not care what they stand for. From people who think they understand what the protest is about because they watch TV and listen to what their neighbours say.  From people who like to be where the crowd is. From people who are always against and basically attend any protest. From people who look for an adventure. People who thinks it’s cool to join a protest. People who have nothing better to do. Journalists. Curious. Amateur photographers. Pickpockets.

I’ve seen Netherlands vote against the new EU ‘constitution’ several years ago. Most people had no slightest idea what the changes were about. They thought they knew. Or they thought it was cool to vote against. I’ve seen the Orange revolution in Ukraine some years ago. People wearing orange an singing songs on the main square of Kiev. It’s difficult to imagine the amount of disappointment in the years after.

So who is protesting against what and why? When it comes to mass protests I don’t believe in democracy. Same goes for referendums. I hope it works out for the best in Egypt!

All right! After reading this, would you say this is written by a man or a woman? Place your bets in the comments!

Tuesday 1 February 2011

Failed

I like confident men. Love men who dance well. I appreciate fluency in more than one language. If a man has a good body I won’t refuse watching him.

So there he was. Dancing with me, moving his body like a god, chatting in Dutch with well shaped English in-between and brief inserts of Papiamento. He was singing along with the song in Spanish. Singing made him even more attractive. You have to know that my singing is very similar to Vogon poetry, so I’m easily impressed. Still, not every man is confident and charming enough to do that. Anyway, he was too difficult to resist, so I played along, chatted and smiled. Weeks went by.

“Move your hips. If I can do that as a man, then you can do it too.”
“You’re a black man and I’m a white woman. Mind the difference.”
“Cut the crap, will you?!”
Nice to know he has trust in me, but there’s no way I can equal him in moving my body. I won’t even try.

“You look good. You’ve lost some weight.” 
“No, I actually gained some.”
“Don’t try to fool me. It’s your ass, not your hair. I notice important things!”
I just took that as a compliment.

“Do you dance to R&B too?”
“Dance to what? I’m white, remember?”
“We should do that some time. I’m sure you’ll like it.” 
 I’m rather afraid me trying to move among all the dark bodies will be rather embarrassing, but maybe it’s worth a try…

“You know, I like everything about you. It’s just one thing that bothers me.”
All of a sudden I felt like I was failing the test to become his wife. I was not aware I applied, though.
“What is it?”
“You seem very spoiled. All you do is shopping.”
LOL, I did spend two Saturdays in a row shopping. Can’t blame him for this conclusion.

“So what makes you talk to me in the first place?”
“You’re a nice guy and it seems you’ve got something to say. That’s a rare feature.”
What was I supposed to say?
“Yeah, I’ve got something to say. The questions is… can you process all I have to say?”
This made my evening!!! I definitely failed the test, though.

 This was a hit on Instagram, so I thought I´d share this with you.

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