On Saturday I went to Haarlem. This city was
described as this picturesque city in the travel books. Well, it
was a nice city, but looked quite the bit the same as other
cities around here. Walked through an antique market. Didn't see
anything I liked. European garage sales look quite the bit the
same as American ones. I guess junk is junk.
Sunday Morning...Its rainy and miserable. I lay around the house
and turn on BBC, the English TV channel. Since the live sporting
event has decent weather, I know that if I wait a couple of hours
the weather here will improve. So I sit and watch Cricket. This
game is kinda like baseball only with very strange rules and
played in a round stadium. After a couple of hours I figure out
the rules and start to enjoy it. I think Mark McGwire would rule
cricket.
Went to a movie on Sunday after the weather cleared up. How was
it different from the States?
1. I sat in the Balcony. Not many chances for that.
2. There was an intermission.
3. They sold beer in the theatre.
4. The coffee was in a cup and saucer. No plastic cups. Actually
I wouldn't trust coffee in a US movie theatre. I don't think 15
year olds know how to make it. And forget Cappucino.
5. The ticket cost $7.50 (Oh that the same as the US).
I spent the whole week in the office. Lots of bugs and weird
stuff to find. Lots of braincells devoted to programming and
debugging. I've fallen into a rut where after work, I come home,
its overcast and miserable out, so I take a nap or get dinner,
watch TV, and fall asleep. I literally did nothing interesting
for a week. Watched Tennis at Wimbledon.
Well, I did initiate the death of my investment club, one of my
favorite things. We just never had the same level of interest
since a couple of friends moved away. I tried to keep it going
probably longer than anyone else would have. Why wouldn't more
people be interested in an investment where we were making 20%
returns? We had good stocks, good prices, quite a few things
going for it. We'll disburse the money and I'll invest it on my
own. I learned quite a bit from the club, so thats good, just
kinda sad that it had to end.
On Saturday the 26th, I went into Amsterdam with the intention of
going to the newly remodeled Van Gogh museum, but coming out of
the train station I saw at least 15 different Van Gogh bags and
realized that it might just be packed on the first weekend its
open. Then I discovered that Waterstone's, the English book store,
had Thomas Harris's newest novel in. I devoured it over the next
day. Hannibal is the followup to Silence of the Lambs and in many
ways surpasses it. I absolutely loved Silence, I think it was one
of the first videotapes I ever had (Thanks Grandma Dahl!). I
still slip it into the VCR when I want to be frightened badly.
Anyway, the book is truly scary and mesmerizing. I don't think
that they will be able to make it into a movie, probably too
graphic. But I desperately hope that they do, and they must get
Sir Anthony Hopkins back as Lector. He's the best movie villian
in the last decade.
Top 5 Movie Badguys:
1. Anthony Hopkins - Silence of the Lambs (Oscar Winner for Best
Actor)
2. Tommy Lee Jones - Under Siege. And it is very difficult to be
good in a Steven Seagal movie.
3. Jack Nicholson - Batman
4. Alan Rickman - Die Hard
5. Alan Rickman - Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves
Anyone else think that Sean Connery would be an
awesome James Bond Bad Guy? I acknowledge that he sucked as the
bad guy in The Avengers, but in a Bond film......
Sentimental entry- the bad guy from the first Karate Kid. He was
blonde, cool, tough, and I rooted for him to beat the little brat
Karate kid the whole movie. Quite the disappointment. But anyone
knocked down by a crane kick, probably deserves to lose.
Sunday - I took pictures today. The graphics guys at work have a
very cool digital camera, I borrowed it and took a bunch of
pictures around my place. They will go up on the website soon.
Download a .zip file of all the Pictures here . Its about 5.0 megabytes with descriptions.
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