little synchronicities

I watched a movie called "Mister Foe" earlier tonight where the lead character had his mom's passport and while he was looking at her picture I had the chance to see its validation and expiration dates: December 22, 1995-December 22, 2000

Perhaps I'm putting to much importance in this but the fact that today is December 22 and thus my birthday makes this coincidence a fine little synchronicity.
As if someone out there is wishing me a happy birthday... :-)

happy 32rd

It's still 5h and 41m to go but hey, who's counting anyway?

I'm going to the river
to see if I can find
someone to protect me from
what I desire

I'm going to the river
to find someone
someone who can tell me where
the love has gone

I'm going to the river
I'm going to the river

I'm going to the river
to find someone
someone to protect me from
what I can't find

I'm going to the river
to find someone
someone that can tell me where
the life has gone

I'm going to the river
I'm going to the river

but I'm going to the river

dreams

Sometimes your mind tunes the ending of your final dream to reality. Like for instance a few days ago I was dreaming that I was in a friendly conversation with someone and all of a sudden the other person gets agitated and screams "aggression and pain!". And as the word "pain" still lingers in my ears I wake up to the sound of Backfire's "Pushing my failures" away.
That just felt remarkable :-)

And this morning I encountered a classmate from elementary school in my final dream before waking up. Haven't seen her in aeons but yet there she was.
No clue what triggered such a distant memory being turned into a dream segment but the mind seems keen on giving me rather interesting dreams as of late.

Winter has settled in steadily. There's some snow and the temperature is around -5 Celsius. Let's see if we get a white Christmas this year.
At least I won't be stuck at home bleeding for the entire Christmas break this year haha!

musical bonanza :-)

Sometimes you get lucky and run into something unexpected yet utterly pleasant.
http://www.myspace.com/T3chnophob1a

I've never heard any band bold enough to combine techno music and metal music with such fervour. And the best part of it is that it actually works extremely well!
Downloaded the album and been playing it almost non-stop. AS such it quickly ascending my top 15 of fave albums released in 2008.
Septic Flesh' "Communion" is currently no 1 but let's see if they're able to keep T3chnophob1a from that spot!

Aight, back to raving like in the good ole days as well as simultaneously eyebrow banging haha!

It's all over!

McCain just officially conceded with a live speech and congratulated Obama with his victory! Good times! :-)
I'll wait for Obama's victory speech in half an hour or so and then go to bed :-)

Election Day

I watched the vice presidential debate and the first two presidential debates just to get a sense of Obama and McCain. Obviously they're both politicians who always turn the conversation to their own strong points.
While I'm not as enchanted by Obama as many Americans he is clearly the better candidate. I don't think any Republican could convince me of their ideas. Add to that the ludicrous choice of Palin as his VP candidate. Still don't know what exactly made him select her. Of course he was hoping for the women who loved Hillary Clinton to switch to Palin but the gap between those two women in terms of ideas and what they stand for is simply way too big.
Obama is a gifted speaker and makes more sense, if you will, but it remains to be seen whether he can live up to all his promises.
The bail out was inevitable and works for the short term but the US needs to start producing their own goods again if they want to be around in the long run. Time will tell if they manage to pull this off.
I'm having doubts whether I want to stay in the US with the current economic malaise going on. In case McCain snatches the election then I will most likely leave the US at the end of my contract at CMU. He's clearly not fit to run this nation, other than driving it even further into the ground. Which is still possible despite Bush' great attempts to do so.

Interestingly voters in the US have to register before they are allowed to vote. From what I remember in the Netherlands everyone of 18 years and older receives a note to go vote. If I remember correctly you can even choose the exact location where to vote from a shortlist of possible locations.
Not so in the US, each registered voter can only go to 1 place to cast their vote.

For me it's just another work day but I'm rooting for Obama to become the first black US president. And if he does then I hope he won't get assassinated. There have been a few arrests in this campaign of folks who were planning to kill Obama one way or another. It's sad but unfortunately a genuine threat i.m.o.
While so many people from all over the world consider the Netherlands to be so liberal and progressive even we haven't had a black prime minister, let alone a woman.

Fingers crossed.

LOL

Just heard THIS!
Very funny, listen to it!

bong

Long empty bong yes. Been rather caught up with work and only since I just forwarded my blog's link to a friend am I inclined to post a small update.

As said, work's very busy, lots of deadlines looming in sight, coming closer at the speed of light. Also started to look and apply for new jobs since I'll be out of a job after summer 2009.

It's getting very (VERY!) cold over here. Just tonight I was shivering at the bus stop and the first bus that passed by my bus stop was so crowded it didn't even bother to stop. Fortunately a next bus finally did stop which also went to the bus stop nearest to my house.
And after seeing the 62F inside my house I finally decided to turn on the furnace and start burning some good gas to heat up my house to a more comfortable temperature. The 2 electric heaters I have are great but only warm up a small area of my house which obviously only takes one so far.

Halloween is coming soon (this Friday!) and I hope to have some time to make some short vids of the decorations some folks have made to their front lawns, porches and houses.

I need to get my car's annual check up done, the current check up is valid until Saturday. Will try to bring in the car tomorrow morning if I don't forget.

Was considering to buy a bike but with the current cold and the recent fatal accident at the intersection close to my house prolly made me rethink this. Not sure if I wanna cash out several hundred $ just to have a bike until the summer.

So yes, lots of stuff happening but nothing of too much importance or excitement. It's hard to follow up a best paper award! haha
I must admit looking forward to a Christmas vacation where I don't have to lie down and bleed for 2 weeks :-D
But let's not get ahead of myself here. November has not even arrived yet. Almost but not yet.

Time to relax!

I just finished watching the "Kingdom/Riget" DVDs I bought a while ago. Hadn't seen this TV series directed by Lars von Trier in years but I still love them as much as when I first saw them.
A shame they'll never make season 3 of this brilliant TV series since both Ernst Hugo Järegård and Kirsten Rolffes have died after the completion of season 2. Both played major characters in the series thus without them it just makes no sense to make season 3.

This particular scene where Ernst Hugo Järegård's character Dr. Helmer shouts "Dansk jävlar!" is a running gag that sometimes occurs multiple times in each episode. If you know anything about the history between Sweden and Denmark you'll giggle like a schoolgirl every time you see this scene haha.

accident news

Here's the latest news concerning the accident from yesterday:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08264/913671-52.stm
The victim had the right of way but the bus driver most likely never even saw her.
It's strange knowing that the victim was European (German even) and probably didn't establish eye contact with the bus driver. Having the right of way and actually getting it are two different things.
I know Europeans are used to getting the right of way by simply crossing and thereby forcing the car driver to stop but American drivers don't have the same awareness of pedestrians and cyclists as Europeans have.
I'm Dutch and I cross in situations where most others would not but whenever there's a school bus nearby I never ever cross.
It's a very sad accident which, as many accidents, could've been avoided easily I think.

accident

When I left my house this morning around 9:20am to walk to my usual bus stop I was stopped by 2 women who told me there had been an accident at the intersection between my street (Monitor Street) and Shady Ave. I could see police cars and had to take a detour since they had secured the area.

Just looked it up in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08263/913447-100.stm
Apparently the bus struck the victim twice. Pretty horrible accident since it was a school bus and other pedestrians were around.

Nasty way to start the day but alas, such is life :-(

random pics

This pic is only funny for Dutchies: "kut" is the Dutch word for cunt. A band which calls themselves Cuntless is a serious candidate for worst bandname ever.















On campus ads to support the Obama campaign.



















There was a pretty serious storm last night which knocked out the electricity in several parts of Pittsburgh as well as ripped off some tree branches. Lucky car!

Warsaw

It's been a while ago by now but still worthy of a blog post methinks.
Went to Warsaw for about 6 weeks starting August 28 and this time I wisely opted to only bring carry on luggage! No more lost baggage for me mofos!!!

The main reason for the visit was Vader's 25th anniversary gig which was a huge blast. My REVIEW and Schorsch's cell phone pics can be found HERE.

Schorsch went back to Munich on Sunday and I stayed until Wednesday.
Here's some vids I made.





More vids, smaller ones can be found HERE.

RECAP: Joost and Iwan's visit

Joost finally posted most of his pics online: click HERE

But here's a bunch of pics with me in it. I still had the beard then so everybody who is massively disappointed in me for shaving it off:

















And the 2 best ones:




I know for a fact that there are also some funny museum pics with me in it but for some reason Joost decided not to put those online. So, to be continued hopefully...

Piano Magic

Here's another brilliant music ensemble which not too many people are familiar with:
Piano Magic-Help me warm this frozen heart

musical heaven deluxe

I went to see Keith Caputo and his Sad Eyed Ladies band (all his band members are Dutch) again last night. The Pittsburgh gig (on August 9) was great but they told me last night that they when playing Pittsburgh they had just arrived at the club and immediately had to run onstage and start playing. A rush job deluxe for them :-)

But they had arrived in Cleveland early on yesterday so when I got to the venue they were chilling out and we could have a decent chat in Dutch and all. Also talked to the Fairmont guys for a bit, cool relaxed dudes.

I'm so glad I went to this gig because god damn, the band was on fire!
I witnessed their pre-show ritual of taking shots and that didn't miss its effect on stage. It's gigs like these that are exemplary of how awesome music can take you to higher, spiritual places in which you soar until you softly land once you get back home and grin from ear to ear.
During the improv jam Keith, Maarten and Chris were crawling over each other, playing each other's instruments, even some dry humping going on haha.
After the jam Maarten apologized for getting carried away! And Keith added that he doesn't have to get laid for a month now haha!

It was pure musical heaven :-)

another cryptic whisper...

After just having watched the mesmerizing "Zhou Yu's Train" featuring the ever enchanting Gong Li I felt compelled to search for the following song by Fates Warning:



Today was the end of a dream
As I watched your shadow disappear
Another moment for the memory
As we lose another year

Thought I heard you call my name
But you only said goodbye

Always somewhere we only say goodbye
Going nowhere
We only say goodbye
There's never time to say
All the things we need to say
When it's too late
We can only say goodbye

Tonight I felt your presence again
As we shared the sorrow we've always known
But I heard the distance in your voice
And I knew I was alone

Tried to tell you my deepest thoughts
But I only said goodbye

Always somewhere we only say goodbye
Going nowhere
We only say goodbye
There's never time to say
All the things we need to say
When it's too late
We can only say goodbye

Across the miles
Both of us reaching we try
But it's so hard to touch
When we only say goodbye

Always somewhere
We only say goodbye
Going nowhere
We only say goodbye
There's never time to say
All the things we need to say
When it's too late
We can only say goodbye

Always somewhere
We only say goodbye
Going nowhere
We only say goodbye
There's never time to say
All the things we need to say...

PS: movie mania

Almost forgot: somewhere in between all the travelling I also ordered the Criterion (they heard my prayers!) DVD edition of "Before the rain".
This movie hasn't lost one bit of its original overwhelming power!
No wonder I put it in my top 10 of all time fave movies :-)

Summer update :-)

Sooo... big gap in updates but I've been travelling a LOT the past 4 weeks.
Shortly after the deception of our Orange mofos being kicked out of the tournament yet again I flew to the Netherlands for the ICLS 2008 conference.
Since I have the worst bad luck concerning my baggage it indeed got lost once again. Eventually I ended up in Utrecht and my baggage in Madrid. Somehow I wished it was the other way around :-)
After arriving in Utrecht and being without my clothes for the 3rd consecutive day I went shopping with some colleagues. Quick yet very pleasant shopping!
The conference itself was okay, nothing too special but I did a fair amount of networking which shouldn't be underestimated.

During this trip I also went to the Graspop festival with Ed and Stephan and in good tradition more bad luck had to overcome before we finally were able to find a company which would rent us a rental car haha.
Yet despite this early setback we had 3 days of great fun, good metal music (Forbidden and At The Gates were awesome!) and a serious lack of sleep! Being the designated driver made things a bit harder for me but I managed just fine.
Besides, since the car rental clerk wrote down the wrong address he joked about any speeding fines not arriving at my place and I certainly lived up to that :-D

The following week was spent chilling out at my parents' place, watching some movies, hooking up with Bas to catch up on his busy life etc.

Then I came back to Pittsburgh to mentor some students at the PSLC summerschool. Fortunately for me they soon found their way and didn't need much mentoring :-)

Half a week later Paul arrived at Pittsburgh airport and was psyched about going to the Central Illinois Metalfest (CIM). We left on July 17 and returned on July 21. Three days of extreme death metal on the Illinois menu and we had some silly fun with my camcorder. Among others, a "Signs" spoof, a parking lot party prank and so on.
What wasn't fun for me was Paul's snoring. I barely slept during the CIM days.

After dropping Paul off at the Pittsburgh airport on July 22 I had to do some work (geezz!) and ended up wasting all my time on small tasks. I didn't have time to start working on the presentation for the CogSci conference yet!
As some of you might know we won the 'Cognition and Student Learning' award at the CogSci 2008 conference so my talk better be damn good!

Regardless of my lack of preparation colleague Bob and I drove to Washington DC on July 23 and I finally managed to get working on my presentation slides that evening.
On Thursday morning the award was handed out which Bob captured on my camcorder:


I hooked up with colleague Vincent to rework the slides and have a practice run through my talk.
Since my lack of sleep had been building up steadily over the last few weeks I slept in on Friday and I headed to the conference hotel around noon. Our session was scheduled at 1:45pm and as usual I was the last speaker. But as often is the case, I seem to perform quite well under pressure and even with the last minute preparations gave pretty good talk (thanks to Bob again!):


So now it's 2 days after the conference ended and I'm slowly starting to fall back in my old rhythm.
Finally.

Weer niet! :-(

We fully deserved to lose against Russia today. We played liked crap and they took the game from the first minute under their control and simply outplayed us.
It's highly disappointing how our national team performs well in the group phase and gets all our hopes up high and then fuck everything up once they reach the knock out phase.

Reality is a bitch.

Dominating Europe

Slowly getting ready for my NL trip to visit ICLS, Graspop and friends/family.
Been watching the NL-France and NL-Romania games @ Pipers Pub again and while the victory over France was brilliant it was nice to be a LOT more relaxed yesterday watching our team beat Romania haha.

Here's to hoping we beat Sweden/Russia on Saturday so I can bring my Orange stuff to the NL and walk around like any crazy Dutch football fan should.

EURO 2008

WE FUCKEN ANNIHILATED ITALY (THE WORLD CHAMPIONS 2006) WITH 3-0!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wohoo!

The game definitely was in our favor all the way through but you gotta earn that luck haha!

Let's hope our players keep their heads cool and keep putting on some great football and keep winning!

PENS!

I must admit I haven't been following the Pittsburgh Penguins at all but this year they obviously made it to the play offs. I caught the final period of the first game in Baltimore and saw how much better Detroit was.
When we went to see the 2nd game in Pittsburgh the overall impression was pretty similar: Detroit trashing the Pens. During the 3rd game I was out having dinner but we could hear 2 very loud cheers from a bar closeby. After dinner we watched the final period and the Pens first win in Alexander's hotel. Game 4 was happening during a BBQ party so I only was updated by txt messages. By the end of the party the overall score in the play off series was Detroit 3, Pens 1.
Not good. Not good at all.

But without a doubt, last night's game (which I could catch on my TV without having cable TV!) was the most intense, bizarre, exhilarating game of ice hockey in this play off series!
I was unfamiliar with the regulations that state the game will go into indefinite sudden death overtime mode until one of the 2 teams scores.
The sheer will, courage and sacrifice showcased last night was amazing. That player Malone was already playing with a broken nose and in this game got the puck blasted into his face yet continued to play! Fucken impressive!
Though I think Detroit overall is a better team the Pens managed to win the game by giving it their 200%. Whether or not it will be enough to turn the play offs around and actually win it remains to be seen.
But game 5 was a brilliant piece of ice hockey which will go into Stanley Cup history for sure.

Let's see what game 6 tomorrow night will bring. It's taking place in Pittsburgh so perhaps the home advantage will give the Pens the much craved for wings...

Dutchism

So Joost and Iwan left Pittsburgh last Wednesday for a 4 day stint in NYC. I'm assuming they made it back home yesterday.
We did the usual things to do on their first day: go downtown, walk around to the stadiums, check out State Point Park.
On Tuesday I had arranged free tickets for the Museum of Natural History since they wanted to check out the dinosaur exhibition. I think they only liked this part and soon after walking through the rest of the museum got bored haha. Afterwards we checked out the Cathedral of Learning and after a stop at Piper's Pub we continued to Mount Washington to see the sunset.
We didn't do much on Wednesday, just went out for a walk in the Southside and had a few drinks in an Irish pub. We chilled out and packed our bags for the MDF trip in the evening.
On Thursday we picked up the rental car and drove up to Baltimore and after checking into the Sheraton hotel walked around in the Inner Harbor which is a rather nice area. The fish restaurant was okay, horrible Russian KGB waitress and acceptable yet expensive food.

While I was taking a nap Joost and Iwan came banging on my door to inform me they had met someone who knew of a MDF pre-party. And so we ended up going to this shabby crustie place called the Nowarehouse where a whole bunch of bands were playing. The sound was way too loud so I spent most of the time sitting outside this joint. Though I did watch a bit of the last two bands.
Once we got back to the hotel Paul we waited up for Paul to arrive and got some visitors (Crissy and her groupies) from Mount Vernon hotel. Shortly after Paul arrived we headed to our rooms and had a little stroopwafel party.
Since MDF Friday didn't start until at 5 or 6 pm we went to see Indy 4 which was a blast. Went for a nutritious meal at Micky D. afterwards and a short refreshment pit stop (read crap stop) at the hotel walked up to the Sonar club. Best band that night were Martyr. Amazing tech death!
Some other personal highlights from the next two days were Monstrosity, Disfear, Coffins and fucken Blood Duster. These Aussies know how to party!

My MDF pics can be found HERE and Paul's MDF pics HERE. He also shot video footage which will surface at some point.

The trip back home on Memorial Monday was 1 hour shorter than the Mapquest estimate haha. I was tired as hell so Iwan and Joost went out for a bite and we would meet up at Silkys where we would catch the 2nd Stanley Cup game. Shame the Pens were so lame in these first 2 games...
On Tuesday I went to work and Joost and Iwan tried to visit the Pittsburgh Zoo. They eventually found it with great effort haha. Once they got back home they were too tired to still go to the Afgrund gig so we just chilled.
On Wednesday morning the NSF site visit started so I had to be present and showed Joost and Iwan where they could catch the Airport Shuttle.

I haven't heard from them but I'm sure they had a good time in NYC. Once Joost is recovered from all this traveling and is back in his hermit mode I'll bug him to upload his pics. He shot a lot of pics of me in all kinds of weird poses haha. The world needs to see these pics!

always look on the bright side of life

So Iwan and Joost called me shortly after 8pm and told me they were at LaGuardia and going to take the 9:15pm to Pittsburgh. ETA is 10:47pm but I'm obviously checking the LaGuardia flight info website to see if this flight actually departs on time.

Hopefully it does and they'll finally arrive here. They didn't sound too exhausted when I talked to them on the phone but I'm sure they'll crash down once they get to my house and sit down.

trouble arrived loud and clear

So it's official now that I called American Airlines, Joost and Iwan were listed as "no show" on their connecting flight from JFK to PIT. So they missed it.
Hoping they will call eventually. Can't do much else besides waiting. Sucks but that's life.

I see a black moon rising, I see trouble's on its way

I've been checking flight info the entire day and things are getting progressively worse.
Though I assume Iwan and Joost were aware of the changed departure times, the change was much higher than I've ever experienced.
Their AMS-JFK flight was originally scheduled at 9:10am but I found out last night that its new departure time was changed to 12:40pm! That's 3.5 hours!!!
They were scheduled to arrive at JFK at 2:55pm. Their JFK-PIT flight's departure time was also changed from 5:10pm to 3:55pm. So that would have left them with just one hour of a lay over.

Would, because I just checked the JFK flight info website which informs me that their new ETA is now 3:41pm.
That would leave them with 14 minutes to get through customs, collect and re-check in their luggage and run to the gate to catch their connecting flight.
Mission im-fucken-possible!!!

I hope they'll have time to give me a call once they finally do land at JFK.
I feel sorry for them already...

Just been doing some house cleaning crap. Always fun and taxing on my back. Let's hope I didn't overdo it.
Still got some arranging to do but I'll manage.

Just sent off some last work which I'll have to follow up early next week but no biggie.
I'm hoping I'll get the CogSci conference fees reimbursement check before we leave for Baltimore. That's another $490 plus both Joost and Paul still owe me money for the hotel.
We changed our reservation to save some money but it required prepayment so I cashed out for that. Iwan already sent me his share through PayPal.

Also curious when I'll receive the Hail Of Bullets package Ed is supposed to send me. If I get it before Thursday I'll prolly take the HOB shirt with me to MDF.

Time for some late breakfast. Groceries at Trader Joe's afterwards.

Three more days before Joost and Iwan arrive and the house is still in disarray. I guess I'll have them clean the place haha.
The painters are a bunch of liars since they told me a week ago that they were finished painting. Possibly it's a different bunch of painters now since the work on the window sills seems done but now they're working on the porch.
That won't dry easily in the current rainy weather.

Can't wait to have 1.5 week off from work, my Christmas break was 'wisely' spent on the deviated septum surgery and its aftermath.
The weather is not as good as it was the last 2 years during May but nothing to do about that. Besides, it's reminiscent of the Netherlands so Joost and Iwan won't get homesick.

Will invade Trader Joe's on Saturday to get some goodies and decent groceries. Should make lecsó and pancakes next week for sure.
We'll what things we'll do, also depends on the weather I suppose.

People are getting excited about MDF too. I paid a decent amount of money get an ad for Vampire Magazine to be shown on a projection screen mixed in with the other ads.
Should give VM some more exposure.
Hoping that Baltimore will be less hot and humid this year. We should definitely check out the inner harbor area this year. Especially since we arrive on Thursday evening we should have time to embark on a little fish and bar crawl.

But first go see Opeth tonight and have 1 more working day before my break begins!

WOW!

Out of the blue I received a letter from the IRS about my economic stimulus payment yesterday. I was unaware that I was qualified to receive the $600 but hey, it's a very nice surprise!
Perhaps my changed tax status from non-resident alien to resident alien was the qualifying criteria.

But as if that wasn't enough, someone must REALLY love since I just received an e-mail from the CogSci 2008 conference informing me that our paper has won the "Cognition and Student Learning Prize" award which comes with $1000 prize money!!!

Just wow man, today fucken rules! haha

During the last Hungarian dinner Vincent's wife Steffi said I looked like Ansel Adams. Since I had no idea who the hell this guy was I checked up on him on Wikipedia.
So according to Steffi I look like THIS.

Not entirely sure that's a compliment; besides, Ansel Adams is dead for 24 years now. I don't think I look like a walking corpse haha.

In exactly 2 weeks from now (May 18) Joost and Iwan will be visiting me. We'll spend a few days in Pittsburgh, drive up to Baltimore on Thursday to attend the Maryland DeathFest (MDF), drive back on Memorial Day and on the following Wednesday I'll drop them off at the airport so that they can run around in NYC until Sunday June 1.
Gonna be great times!

social events

Some pics of the last two Hungarian dinners can be found HERE.

Yesterday we had a Queen's Day party in Pittsburgh, pics HERE.

"Bodies" and Harris Grill

Went to the controversial "Bodies" exhibition with Sarah yesterday.
Controversial since it's not entirely clear whose bodies were actually used by the Chinese folks who prepped the exhibition.
So since it's unclear I shall remain silent about this issue and simply note that the exhibition was very interesting. Besides some full bodies being displayed while exercising some sport (tennis, soccer, volleyball) there were a lot of body parts displayed. From bones, to skin (yes the biggest organ), the other organs, muscles, nerves, brain, miscarriaged fetuses, blood vessel system of several body systems, reproductive systems etc.
I especially liked the blood vessel systems which were so elaborate that it must have been an insane job to extract them.

Since this exhibition is rather successful and it was Saturday, the parking lot of the Carnegie Science Center was ful so we ended up parking on the Steelers parking lot. Apparently some off season Steelers Fan Blitz was happening in the Steelers stadium. Funny to see how crazy Yinzers are about their beloved Aniercan football team throughout the entire year.

After we came out of the exhibition we decided to go for a drink and a bite. Since it was fairly nice being outside we discussed some possibilities and obviously the Harris Grill came up. I remember clearly that a friend of mine (Tomek) told me it caught fire during my time in Europe and had been closed down.
So Sarah and I figured to check out the bar/eatery across the Harris Grill, called the Bites and Brews. But when we got there the Harris Grill was actually opened and their terrace filled with people. Turned out they had just re-opened last week.
We couldn't figure out what had been burnt since the place looked pretty much the same as we remembered it.
Apparently there were some people who pointed out my beard to each other but unfortunately Sarah did not point out those guys to me or I'd have walked up to them to give them my autograph haha.

Soccer in 1,5 hours!

So Hillary indeed won the PA primary but not with a devastatingly big difference.

The longer the Democrats continue their internal struggle the better things will look for the Republicans once November comes knocking.

Well, time for some fun:

Pennsylvania Primary elections 2008

It's interesting how Americans get totally caught up in this. At the bus stop I was harassed by a woman holding a "Vote for Hillary!" sign and who gave me a flyer with info on how awesome Hillary is.
On the bus trip into work I noticed more women up and about holding Hillary signs.
Then, as I got to my office I noticed I had one new message on my voicemail and it was, once again, a woman telling me not to vote for Obama since he had voted against some detailed abortion things.

Well if all this is any indication it looks pretty bad for poor Obama. I like the guy but I'm not allowed to vote.
I was told yesterday that the final decision about the actual Democratic presidency candidate won't be chosen until early summer. Say late June, early July. That's still a rather short time period (in my opinion ) when realizing the actual presidency elections are in early November.
And John McCain definitely has a chance. More than most Europeans think/realize he has.
Fingers crossed.

Identity

Until now I have avoided talking about certain matters on this blog. I guess I’ve been protective of the ones dear to me and honestly, of myself too. Yet I feel the need to vent something which will seem alien to most and perhaps familiar to some.
It is merely my version of the truth as I experience it so if people get offended then no harm meant.

One reason why I decided to make this post is a conversation I recently had with a Czech grad student who spoke openly about the difficulties he was experiencing as a European, or more precisely as a Czech, to feel comfortable living in another country. In this case the country being the United States.
Furthermore, since my current position at CMU will end at the end of August 2009 I have a big decision to make. Will I stay in this foreign country, will I venture to another foreign country, or do I go back to the so-called home country?

It’s been roughly 2 years and 8 months since I packed up everything I thought necessary to start all over in a different country. I arrived with only 3 bags, one of which contained a laptop.
I quickly noticed people (‘Americans’) liked to talk about everything except really personal stuff. In the time I’ve been here I have rarely spoken about my deeply European/Dutch identity. Basically when you move to another country you might get some surface questions about your origins but people expect you to fit in and to be in the here and now.

Obviously when starting all over one is looking for his own place in this new setting and tries to figure out his role. Eventually things will take form but for some that form might not be acceptable. Like for the Czech grad student I mentioned earlier. He is seriously considering quitting his position here and moving back to the Czech Republic and pick up his old job.

When I read Kundera’s “Ignorance” last year a lot of pieces of the puzzle fell into place and I immediately recognized so many details. The book is about two former lovers who leave Czechoslovakia and separately live in different countries for 20 years before returning and actually running into each other by chance.
The way Kundera describes the differences between the Czech who emigrated and the ‘natives’ of the country to which they fled is impeccable. Yes a person can fit in anywhere if he’s flexible enough but somehow the shoe never fits 100%.
The ‘natives’ do not show much affection or understanding for the lead characters' background and experiences. They assign them a role; put them in a category so the world makes sense again. Yet when the lead characters return to their ‘home land’ they feel estranged since their friends expect them to be the exact same person as when they had left. They are expected to perform the very same role they once had 20 years ago and basically leave those 20 years spent elsewhere behind. All the while their friends’ lives have continued the way they had been doing back then. Meaning that the lives of their friends largely remained the same throughout all those years. But the lead characters find it impossible to slip back in their former assigned roles.

Obviously all this is very recognizable for me. I’m not too sure about what role people here in Pittsburgh have assigned me other than being this obnoxious, goofy, blunt, wild Dutch person. That is probably the role I have been assigned to and am expected to behave as accordingly. When I actually act differently for a change, for instance at Matthias’ farewell party where I held a short farewell speech for him, people were surprised. Surprised that I showed a completely different side of myself. They liked the speech I gave but never took this as an opportunity to explore my identity further.
And honestly, why should they? People are mostly caught up in their own lives and reaching out simply IS hard.

I firmly believe that you leave parts of you everywhere you go. On each travel/move you leave something behind which cannot be returned. Your soul is fractioned.
Note that I don’t necessarily mean this in a negative way. Each of those ‘lost’ parts is held dearly to yourself and the experiences you gained whilst losing those parts can be very intense. Additionally, the longer you spent someplace the bigger the fraction of your soul is left behind when you move away from that place.
I sometimes use my CD collection as a metaphor when conversing with myself about this subject. Just like I had to leave most of my CD collection back in the Netherlands, I left a big chunk of what I am behind too.

Thinking back on those first few months here in Pittsburgh it’s not that strange that I was out of my element. I was looking for my place in this new town, this new country, this community, this new work environment.
The thing is that ever since I accepted my current job is that I never knew for how long this was going to be. It could have been just one year as it turned out for former colleague Niels who went back to Germany with his wife. It could have been 2 years had our project extension been rejected.

People like Stefan who was here for a preset time frame last year will experience all these things differently. They know that they’re here for a limited period of time and that they will go back to their ‘old’ life afterwards.
But what is my old life, do I still have any?
I’ve never been one to sulk and have burnt my fair share of bridges while always looking ahead. As such I know that no matter where I end up I will find a place and role which will fit me fairly well. Yet it is never an easy process. This is what I have tried to clarify with this lengthy post.

For whom it matters.

soccer

For those who don't understand all the fuzz about soccer (yes Tom, I mean YOU!):
The Netherlands-Argentina 1998 Worldcup France

In all fairness they should have included the two Argentinian chances which ended up on the crossbar and the post. As far as I remember these occured after Bergkamp scored the fabulous 2-1 goal.
But we definitely deserved to win! GREAT match!

The European Cup will kick off on June 7th this year, not sure if we can take on Italy and France. And we already had difficulty dealing with Romania in the qualifying round so it will be even harder at the actual tournament.
I think I'll be skipping work again for the matches of our national team. Piper's pub will be the place to go!

oops I lied

Apparently I never posted the link to this year's carnaval party on here!
It was another success with a good amount of visitors, of which most hated the genuine carnaval music haha. But I got drunk big time and had a brilliant time. Again no headache or other physical discomforts the next day so I've truly figured out how to get drunk and still have a great time the morning after!
Didn't shoot that many pics since I was too busy getting drunk but click HERE to see them.

rainy spring

Last post for today :-)

Recently started playing soccer again which feels good after gaining some weight during the winter time. Today's weather was perfect for soccer: bit chilly, slight rain and enough guys who showed up.
Btw, one of the Tepper guys shot some cool pics of last week's game. Click HERE for those pics and if you're only interested in seeing sexy me then click HERE.

My legs don't feel too shabby so all good. Just my head feels rather drowsy after playing soccer. No idea why but if you find spelling errors and such in these posts of today then you know what the cause is!

This Friday (April 18) we'll be going to the Hungarian food place again. Third time for me and I love Alexander's food! Genuine Hungarian food rules y'all!

Spring time has arrived, temperatures still jump up and down quite a bit here in Pittsburgh but by now I've gotten used to that. And since my deviated septum surgery I haven't gotten a single cold or flu. Knock on wood!
Speaking of my septum, I had my last appointment with the nose doctor last Friday. He said my nose is healed for 90% and the remaining 10% should be healed in about 2 months from now.
I don't have any real problems, just still some irritation spots in my nose. I'm sure it will take plenty of time to fully heal but no worries.

Soon enough summer will be here and I'll be going to MDF with Joost and Iwan, ICLS conference in Utrecht, Graspop festival in Dessel, CIM festival in Urbana-Champaign and CogSci conference in Washington DC!
Yay for traveling!

more spring time yay!

About 1.5 weeks after I messed up my back I was going to the AERA conference in New York City which was my first time being at the AERA.
The back was fine but the youth hostel I was staying at had put me in a room right next to the shared bathroom haha. So I slept like maybe 1 or 2 hours that first night. Next morning I asked for a single room which was not adjacent to a shared bathroom and fortunately they could accommodate me. Only weird thing in this 2nd room was that the heating was on most of the time and there was no control panel with which I could turn it off. Oh well, just slept with the window open and in my birthday suit :-D

The conference was actually better than I expected so that's always a good thing. Since it's the biggest Educational Research conference in the US there were thousands of participants and they used four big ass hotels in Manhattan to be able to host all the parallel sessions.
I had a presentation on Thursday morning in a session with all professors. It's always fun to be the odd ball out, people take notice and wonder what my position is. Presentation went well and after making a joke about my wicked beard people even dared to ask some questions!

Ran into Sarah again whom I had met at the EARLI conference last year in Budapest. She went into hyper job searching mode on day 2 haha. I'm sure she'll find a good job.
Since I'm officially only allowed to do 2 conferences per year and I'm doing 3 this year (AERA, ICLS, CogSci) I was keeping costs down as much as possible. That explains why I was staying in a youth hostel in the upper West side.
Oh, on Tuesday night I wanted to take the subway back to my hostel but apparently the line I wanted to take had stopped running at 10pm. That's rather early for NYC, no?!?!
Anyway, I walked back to my hostel (about 50 or 60 blocks) in about 40 minutes and my beard protected me from the night vipers to approach me.

The conference ended on Friday and since my flight back to Pittsburgh was scheduled for Sunday I finally had some time to check out the Big Apple. Went to Ground Zero, the Virgin Megastore (hey music addict for life haha!), the Guggenheim museum and walked back to my hostel through Central Park.
On Sunday I was supposed to be picked up by SuperShuttle and they had even confirmed the pick up twice but failed to actually do so. Ended up taking a cab and made the flight easily. SupperShuttle said they'd give me a refund but as it turns out they didn't give me a refund of the cab costs (what was I thinking?) but 'only' of the original SuperShuttle tickets.
Oh well.

Pics of my NYC trip can be found HERE

spring time :-)

Time to resuscitate this blog. So what happened in the meantime??

Early March I messed up my back rather badly and after working at home for a few days I thought I could go into work. BIG mistake.
On the bus my back just fell apart and when I got off I crumbled. Made it to my office and started calling people to see if anyone could take me to a hospital or medical center. Fortunately my colleague Ryan was willing to help me out and drove me to a medical center out in Monroeville.
I first declined the shot but after my back crumbled fruther and I was literally shouting in pain I reconsidered haha. Also got some X rays taken but it was all muscle damage. They sent me home with prescriptions for Vicodin, Lodine and Valium.
Took me about 2 weeks to fully recover from this excruciating back ache. I might have overdone some activities which are taxing on the back and I've always had a weak back according to the doctors. Back when I was a child they told me I should swim a lot haha. Gee thanks doc!

Fortunately the back feels fine again now and I'll be more careful, read lazy, next time around when I'm doing something which is taxing on my back.

food poisoning, movie news, carnaval and more essentials reads

First note to myself: never EVER eat expired food in the US!
Two weekends ago I ate some eggs which were 2 days over their expiration date. Have done that before in the Netherlands and never caused any problems.
Well, I guess I found out the hard way that the expiration date really is the expiration date in the US. Ate the eggs on a Friday evening so soon after I got sick and subsequently I had some serious throwing up and diarrhea to deal with during the entire weekend. Fun times!
It had been almost exactly 4 years since the last time I had to throw up so I guess I'm doing fine with serious short term illnesses :-)

As everyone knows Heath Ledger died last week which for some reason was more shocking than the average celebrity death. I did like his acting, especially in the not so mainstream movie "Monster's ball".
Whatever the cause of death, accidental OD on prescribed drugs seems likely, it is a shame that he had to go at the age of 28.

To end this post on a more positive note: there will be another carnaval party at my place!
It will take place in exactly one week from now so it's going to lots of fun and I will be drunk. Hopefully I'll be able to have such a perfect after drinking experience like the few times I actually drank alcohol last year.
And who knows, maybe drinking booze will finally make the swelling in my left nostril go away? Sure enough the septum is still not healed, much to my (and the doctor's) surprise. But the doc assured there's nothing to worry about since it's still clearly healing. It's just healing rather slowly. Oh well.

Gonna see "Rambo" later on tonight! That's going to be AWESOME as hell!!!

movies that didn't make my top 10 of all time faves

When I was making the top 10 of all time fave movies I didn't spend that much time on finding those 10. It was only after having picked those movies that two other movies quickly came to mind that easily could have ended up in the top 10. If only my memory had brought them back to my working memory faster.

To give these two masterpieces their dues which they more than fully deserve, I decided to make this post.

Breaking the waves

My first acquaintance with Lars von Trier was his amazing TV series "Kingdom/Riget" and I was hooked from the get go. "Breaking the waves" must be his first full length feature that I saw and my amazement only grew exponentially.

I think the term "relentless" describes this gut wrenching movie perfectly. The drama is pure, heartfelt and enthralling. The lengths to which Bess will go to fullfil Jan's wishes is as shocking as it is moving. The short interludes and use of great songs give the viewers some time to catch their breath before the hammer comes crushing down again.

The way in which von Trier shows every self imposed humiliation and determination is breath taking. I honestly can't find any words to describe how much "Breaking the waves" impressed and continues to impress me. The entire cast is superb but Emily Watson takes the deserved first spot with her wonderful performance as Bess.

Interestingly, had this movie ended up in my top 10 it would have been the 3rd movie (in addition to "Naked" and "Before the rain") to feature the amazing Katrin Cartlidge who unfortunately passed away infinitely way ahead of her time.

Bone chilling, goose bump and tears inducing; this movie has it all and then some. Watch it with a box of tissues and let yourself by carried away by this extremely moving movie!

Eternity and a day

This movie was my first acquaintance with the visionary film maker Theo Angelopoulis and my god, what an immensely breathtaking first acquaintance it was!

It was once again the Dutch TV channel who gave me the opportunity to see this film, several times actually. It is one of those movies that every time it was broadcasted (3, maybe even 4 times) I simply had to shut down everything else and watch it in complete silence and darkness.

The pace is slow but hypnotizing, the story is simple but very touching and the way in which Angelopoulis breathes life into his vision is pure poetry.

There are people who say Angelopoulis is pretentious, boring and self indulging. But with all 4 of his movies that I have seen so far I have been truly touched and impressed by this man's vision. As he himself has said numerous times, he does not make movies for the masses. If you don't like "Eternity and a day" then you're simply not a huge art house movie lover. Nothing to be ashamed of really.

Yet a real loss for you I'd say. How can you not love the photography? How can you not be mesmerized by the frequent transitions between past and present filled with a human's innermost memories?

Bruno Ganz' performance as Alexander is spellbinding and I've only become to realize in recent years how good this actor really is. I shall find out more of his movies to watch a true artist show me how well an actor's splendid performance can feed the soul.

I rcently found out that a Greek company called New Star has been releasing Angelopoulis' work on DVD under the supervision of the director himself. As such these DVD versions are of the best quality one will find. Additionally, Angelopoulis prefers his movies to be seen by audiences at the cinema so very few of his movies were available on DVD until now. I bought the Greek import version of "Eternity and a day" for $40 and will most likely buy all the other titles New Star has released and will release.

I can't wait to watch the tram riding scene again, even just thinking about it sends goose bumps all over my body. God, how much I love brilliant movies!

deviated septum aftermath

Here's a few pics from the surgery aftermath. They are bloody so if you can't stomach blood then don't look.


















This one was shot by Silvia just after I got home from the hospital.














This is one of the arm tags. Interestingly they give patients two tags, one for each arms. As if they're afraid they might perform the wrong surgery on you.


















This is about a week after the surgery, nose still swollen and blood crusts all over.


















I shot this pic tonight, 3 weeks and 1 day after the surgery. I still have a big bump on the septum in my left nostril. I do hope that bump will disappear in time. Have my last doctor's appointment tomorrow at 11:30am.