Geek meets world

Last week I when to work by car and being late I ended up fairly high in our parking garage. So when my working day was over I took the elevator to the floor my car was on (taking the stairs whilst you could also take the bicycle to work seems hypocritical).

I noticed the buttons in the lift of the parking garage. In addition to the regular numbers, they had braille numbers. This I find hugely considerate, now even the blind car drivers can use the elevator to get to their car.

Sometimes all you need in life is a warehouse full of zombies and enough ammo to make a difference.

After what seems to be too long I've finally been able to update my toy stash. Although I should be "all grown up", I'm giddy as schoolkid about something as small as a phone with just too much features to maintain a straight face.

Although, from the get-go we have a slight disagreement about the language I'm using.

There's a mystical language written by people who have done more drugs then Keith Richards. This language is called XSLT. It's one of those languages that requires five black candles and a rubber chicken.

As it happens I'm short 2 black candles and the piece of code I'm trying to write fails silently.

At this moment my neighbor is at his 3rd hour grooming his hedge. The hedge in question is not that big. Some people really need a hobby.

I'm certain now ... aliens are real and they use public transportation. One of them, a vulcan who had been in a terrible industrial accident (you cannot be born that way), was staring at me. I think, one of the eyes was anyway.

Jabba the Hut's little sister was there too, her disguise wasn't very good. The costume was missing a nose and she was still using her old cologne. However popular the cologne might be on e.g. Nabu, here on earth, to humans, it smelled like you passed up bathing for about a year.

Next to me sat an Arquillian, the hydraulics of his suite where failing causing the head to slump over and produce weird gurgling noises, like he was choking.

I always thought Hyves is what you get when you go with a girl you met 2 minutes ago and don't use a love glove. Must be growing old.

Amazing how time flies when the backup server goes tits up and refuses to play along...

There is a sense of masochism in eating potato chips with chapped lips.

Like the last few years we ventured to lowlands. This year however there where only five of us.

Due to a sudden allergy towards britpop we where able to scratch a few of the acts leaving us Friday with watching mostly stand-up in the Juliet Tent. First up: Tim Minchin sorta looks like a blond Robert Smith with a minor mental condition. His poem "Angry" is a must see.


Comedy Train was funnyish, although they should have left out the middle guy. He was about as funny as our helpdesk. Not even worth a giggle when really drunk.

Doug Stanhope was about a funny as a social disease. He cleaned the house, literally. No one could stomache his frustrated, dull, rants about transvestite whores and kiddy porn. It was a bit like being flagged down by your boring frustrate crude neighbor who hadn't seen a sober day since childhood.

After doing a fairly thorough check on the various stands. We headed for the six pack we left at the tent.

Saturday we checked "Games in concert", an entire orchestra and a few extras playing well known video game tunes. I thought it was rather silly when people cheered at the Mario bros. video clip being played simultaneously "He got a one-up". There's not a whole lot of sense in there....

Some basking in the sun later "After Forever" made their entrance ... that was fun. She really went all out on this. I really don't need to see them again.

More tanning and we saw "Gabriel Rios" make his appearance. He played a good tune, we did our best to listen... I think. Back to the Juliet tent for more Comedy.

"Jan Jaap van de Wal" a dutch comedian. Sounded a bit like he was testing his new material for the old years conference on us. Keep polishing those lines...

Patrick Wolf made his entrance in the India tent. At least that's what the leaflet said. At first it looked like a confused transvestite was running up the stage. Then can the music. Then the realization that my scrabble words make more sense then his lyrics. Then the call for something to drink.

Sunday rose late, we decided to pack before going to the festival terrain, this way we could avoid some of the rain. Last year a monsoon drenched everything. I might as well have been taking down my tent in my speedo's. Took me a week before the bleeding tent was dry. So since we hadn't had any serious rain we took advantage of the situation and broke camp while it was still dry.

We managed to make it to "Lacuna Coil". I don't mind much for goth but Cristina Scabbia's voice is amazing.

Having had the appetizers it was time for the main course (at least for me and my lady). Nine Inch Nails was performing. (victory dance). No foreplay whatsoever, a wall of sound came at you like a freight train, cleaning out the curious and faint of heart. As songs like "Burn", "Dead souls", "The hand that feeds" came by I found myself screaming the lyrics merrily ruining the experience for the guy in front of me. And then they stopped. Just a soon as it has started it ended. I think he did say "thank you", but it wasn't more then that. Too bad.

We checked "Steward Francis" very funny, but the fact he only works with one-liners gets pretty annoying after a while. He would do great though in a t-shirt shop...


The way back was rather interesting, they let me do the navigating. Big mistake. Really. The road from Biddinghuizen to Eindhoven where we live is pretty straight forward. At least it you read a map. And when reading a map, it helps that it is the correct map to read. Needless to say we saw most of the surroundings even places that didn't feel like putting up direction signs. You sorta know your on the wrong path if all roads tend to lead to one village. In this village all people have the same last name and no one feels like leaving. After a while they let someone else do the navigating, carefully hinting that "John-John" is not related to "Tom-tom".

Well at least I'm home now ....

Short recap:
Time spent: 16-19 August 2007
Visitors: 59703
Best performance: Nine Inch Nails
Worst performance: Dough Stanhope
Amazing discovery: don't use the toilet after a "pretty" girl, they tend to stink
Attribute for next year: Van with central heating and espresso machine