Tuesday 30 December 2008

Feliz Año 2009

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne?

For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll take a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.

Saturday 27 December 2008

Next year: Taipei


RI is back home in Taipei for the holidays and he sent me some pictures of the "white winter party". It is about time I return to Taipei!

Friday 26 December 2008

Cold

Halfway through my shower this morning there was no more warm water. I checked the central heating (which also takes care of the warm water) and I couldn't find the problem. Called the dealer who (surprisingly on Boxing Day which is a public holiday here) came within an hour and concluded the entire installation is broken beyond repair and needs replacement. They can do it on Monday and it will cost €2.5K - yuck...Of course this happens at the beginning of a major cold spell here with temperatures well below zero. Must find a way to keep warm until Monday.
Christmas dinner was nice though stressful. Cooking a 5 course dinner for 9 is quite some work, but all food and drinks were well received and we had a great day.

Tuesday 23 December 2008

What do rainforests and gays have in common?

Speaking on Monday, Roman Catholic Pope Benedict said that saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behaviour was as important as saving the rainforests. Look at the video: the Chief Hypocrite is addressing a group of old men the majority of which have molested young boys. After all, one of the Church's core competencies is sexual abuse of children. Isn't it sickening that once again, the Church is an instrument of hate and rejection? Yuck yuck yuck. In the mean time, I wish you all a very merry mid-winter festival.

Monday 22 December 2008

Pink Xmas

Amsterdam hosted a Christmas celebration for its gay community on Sunday featuring a nativity tableau with a male Mary in drag that church organizations denounced as an affront to traditional values. A male entertainer posed as Mary in a blonde wig and high-heeled black boots while holding a plastic doll. Another man played Joseph in black leather trunks and a silver shawl.
Of course some conservative Christians were displaying their usual hate again and denounced the event. Don't they know that Christmas is just another name for the pagan Mid-Winter festival?

Sunday 21 December 2008

Sick of being sick

I have been sick since Wednesday - just a bad flu with fever, coughing, muscle pains, etc. I must have gotten it when cycling to work earlier in the week - it is so cold, dark, damp and miserable this time of the year that it is easy to catch something. Quite boring to not be able to get out of the house and do things. Reading books, surfing the internet and watching TV can only kill so much time. It doesn't help that today is the shortest day of the year with sunrise only at 8:46am and sunset at 4:31pm. I am feeling a little better today and have decided to go back to work tomorrow: enough is enough.

Tuesday 16 December 2008

"Swaffelen" elected as "new word of the year" 2008

In the annual contest for "new word of the year", the Dutch have elected a verb – swaffelen - as the word of the year. It netted 57 percent of the 16,000 votes on the website hosted by Van Dale Publishers, renowned for its authoritative dictionaries. Swaffelen is something only men can do. I really didn't know, but apparently, it means to swing one's penis, making it bump against something, in order to stimulate either oneself or someone else. I found out that Dutch youths are holding contests to swaffel important buildings. Dutch lexicologist Ton den Boon says that etymologically, swaffelen is thought to be linked to the Dutch equivalents of swing, sway and sweep, and to the German equivalent of tail or penis (schwaf and schweif). There is also a Flemish dialect word known as zwaffelen. The word gained notoriety through a video posted on YouTube, in which a Dutch student got arrested for swaffling against the Taj Mahal in India. As voters did not have to justify their choice of nomination in the event, it remains a mystery why the Dutch chose this word. The numbers two and three Dutch words of the year are wiiën (playing on a Wii game console) and bankendomino (banks falling over like dominoes).

Monday 15 December 2008

A serious conversation


I had a serious conversation on Friday in Soho with YY (not his real name). YY is a fellow-Cancerian and he was complaining about his boyfriend ZZ (not his real name). ZZ is intelligent, funny, good-looking, the life of every party, so you would say what is YY complaining about? Well, apparently ZZ is not "sweet" and doesn't have empathy: "the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner; also: the capacity for this".
YY was explaining that he needs more small things from ZZ, such as when YY is cooking ZZ would open the wine or lay the table. Just these small daily things are lacking in their relationship, and YY is missing them a lot. I could so understand what he was saying - I know guys who are like ZZ and while it is always fun to be with them, I would not be happy in a relationship with them. For me, my man needs to be sweet and indeed have empathy.....
Anyway, I think YY needed a listening ear and I provided one, I was totally sober as I was driving because I promised to pick up OS from the airport in the middle of the night.
On Saturday my brother and his family were visiting and sleeping over. I am always a bit tense when my brother is around because he has very strong opinions and you need to be careful that discussions with him don't get unpleasant. But he behaved well and we had a good time.
Sunday was spent on the Christmas decorations (see pictures) and, finally, beer in Soho. All were there and I had to force myself to go home at midnight as I was having loads of fun.

Thursday 11 December 2008

Cows


I received a joke from RM this morning which I forwarded to my colleagues. I could hear my bosses laugh until suddenly they went silent. I wonder at which point hehe:

Economic Models explained with Cows


SOCIALISM
You have 2 cows
You give 1 to your neighbour

COMMUNISM
You have 2 cows
The State takes both and gives you some milk

FASCISM
You have 2 cows
The State takes both and sells you some milk

NAZISM
You have 2 cows
The State takes both and shoots you

BUREAUCRATISM
You have 2 cows
The State takes both, shoots 1, milks the other and then throws the milk away

TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM
You have 2 cows
You sell 1 and buy a bull
Your herd multiplies and the economy grows
You sell them and retire nicely on the income

AMERICAN SYSTEM
You have 2 cows
You sell 1 and force the other to produce the milk of 4 cows
You then hire a consultant to analyse why the single cow has dropped dead

LEHMAN BROTHERS VENTURE CAPITALISM
You have 2 cows
You sell 3 of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your mother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all 4 cows back, with a tax exemption for 5 cows. The milk rights of the 6 cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island Company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all 7 cows back to your listed company. The annual report says the company owns 8 cows, with an option on one more. You sell 1 cow to buy a new president of the United States , leaving you with 9 cows. The public then buys your bull.

FRENCH SYSTEM
You have 2 cows.
They are the most important cows in the world

JAPANESE SYSTEM
You have 2 cows
You genetically modify them so they are 1/10 the size of an ordinary cow and produce 20 times the milk. You then create a clever cow cartoon image called 'Cowkimon' and market it worldwide

GERMAN SYSTEM
You have 2 cows.
You re-engineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month and milk themselves

ITALIAN SYSTEM
You have 2 cows, but you haven’t a clue where they are?
So you decide to invite all your family memebers over for a very long spaghetti lunch

RUSSIAN SYSTEM
You have 2 cows.
You count them and learn you have 5 cows
You count them again and learn you have 42 cows
You count them again and find it’s actually just 17 cows
You stop counting cows and open your 4th bottle of Vodka this morning

SWISS - SINGAPOREAN SYSTEM
You have 7,500 cows - none of them belong to you
You charge the owners for storing them, and you are very good at laundering the milk

CHINESE SYSTEM
You have 2 cows.
You have 300 people milk them
You claim that you have full employment and high Bovine productivity
You arrest the journalist who reports the real situation!

INDIAN SYSTEM
You have 2 cows... you worship them...

BRITISH SYSTEM
You have 2 cows
Both are mad

NEW ZEALAND SYSTEM
You have 2 cows
The one on the left looks very attractive...

AUSTRALIAN SYSTEM
You have 2 cows...business seems pretty good
You close the office, go off for a few beers with the boyz to celebrate!

DUTCH SYSTEM
You have one cow.
You marry her.

Sunday 7 December 2008

A good night

A couple of weeks ago OS suddenly had the urge to see the pyramids, he booked himself a trip and yesterday I dropped him off at Schiphol for his one-week vacation to the land of the Pharaohs. So I have the house all to myself until next week Saturday.
Friday was a fun-packed day. First I had a few beers and smokes with KE, after which I made my way to meet GZ at Central Station for dinner at New King and drinks at De Engel van Amsterdam, where I had been only once before. It is a small gay bar with a nice crowd and very good 70's and 80's music. We had already had quite some beers when MA texted that he had arrived in Soho, so we made our way over, met up with MA, HE, RO and RM and from there it all went downward. Everybody felt obliged to buy a round of drinks and I was hardly able to keep up with the pace. Just before closing time HI and AL arrived and we all went to Exit. AL asked me to accompany him to the dancefloor. It had been a long time that I was dancing so much and I was enjoying it. Around 4am RO and GZ left (not together but we all know what happened hehe), MA and HI went to the darkroom but MA was not happy when they came back, and finally at 5am AL wanted to come with me to my place. He was making strange noises in the taxi already and I was afraid he was going to puke in the taxi, but fortunately he was able to postpone it until he reached my toilet. I fell into a coma and woke up at 1pm with a huge headache, I had a shower and felt a little bit better but still very tired so I went back to bed and slept. Around 4pm both AL and I woke up and I can now officially testify that WI's description of AL's sexual behaviour (see here) is 100% correct. We got up, had a nice dinner at home, we watched two movies and I was glad when he wanted to go out again so that I can have a peaceful night by myself.

Thursday 4 December 2008

Hit me baby one more time

Cachorro

It is very predictable: it was the first Wednesday of the month and the gang went to the gay movie night. We had dinner first and as I was a bit early I went to Soho for a drink. It was very quiet: I saw sgboy's friend WL who looked like he gained 20 kg since I last saw him, and there were two cute young boys. Britney Spears came on and I think I blurted "hit me baby one more time" a bit too loud, and one of the boys joked that they could take me home and spank me. If only he had been serious...
Anyway, the movie was Cachorro, about a gay guy, Pedro, who agrees to take care of his sister's 9 year old son, Bernardo, for a couple of weeks. Unfortunately the sister gets arrested in India for drugs smuggling, and it looks like Bernardo will stay much longer. Pedro is a cute bear, as are most of his friends, hence the English title of this movie "Bear Cub". The first part of the movie is quite funny as we see that Pedro needs to completely change his lifestyle. Predictably the man and the boy get very close and the movie is somewhat melodramatic towards the end. Still very much worth seeing.
After the movie we moved our asses to Exit Bar where GO and WI joined us. They came home early from their vacation in Portugal because they suddenly could sell their investment property in Amsterdam for a very good price. Crisis, what crisis?

Tuesday 2 December 2008

Too old to be a sugar daddy

I got a "heart" on Fridae today from a guy from China who writes: "looking for an old man (38-48) to fund me". OMG, life is almost over if I am close to being too old to be a sugar daddy.

Monday 1 December 2008

It is a strange world, life continues

We live in a strange world. Terrorists strike Mumbai, the Thais are on the brink of a civil war and are destroying their economy in the process, the Americans are going to subsidize people who live beyond their means, the Dutch are making magic mushrooms illegal, and a major Singaporean bank is donating money to a hard-core Christian hate group.
In the mean time, I had a nice weekend with a visit to MR, RB and their daughter ML in their recently completed house, I helped OS with the Christmas decorations at home, I relaxed with KE and spent 3 nights in the bar. But I was wise and drove 2 of the 3 nights so I couldn't drink alcohol. All very decent. Had a very nice conversation with our local Obama look-alike AL and I think WI is jealous when I talk too much with him, as he mentioned several times that sex with AL is very bad. ("he just lies there as a corpse")
If you read this in Singapore, please do not use your DBS credit card until the bank apologizes for supporting a hate group.