Giant Psycho Turtle

This is some random snippit from the MSW forum, I'm posting it here because it displays what I find funny and most people don't:

- I see your point, but I'll be coming disguised as a giant turtle, until I'm convinced it's safe and there are no psychos or murderers among you.

- a good psycho always waits until everyone feels safe and are drinking in the evening then picks em off one by one as they go to bed / toilet,etc. it makes it far easier and more satisfying the other approach is as we say in the psycho trade..doing a columbine

- Sorry, I'm definitely not coming now. You hear about these things in the news. One minute an innocent surfing trip, the next I'm being gang banged by seventeen fat pagan women with swastika tattoos

Show off stuff

As you all know, whenever there's something like a World Exhibition, a Football World Championship or Olympics, countries try to go the extra mile when it comes to building their prospective cities of the so-called future.

This is the Estaçaõ do Oriente in Lisboa, Portugal. It was built for the 1998 World Exhibition. Even though I'm no fan of contemporary architecture I like this one.

Goin' Kitch in Kiev

Couple of weeks ago in Kiev I was again sorta amazed at the Slavic preferences in terms of colours and the general display of flashyness or impersonated wealth. Personally I think this tendency has its roots in the Eastern Orthodox church, as the churches are the worst of all when it comes to the excessive use of gold, bright colours and decorative thingamajigs.

Kiev is a cool place however with lots to see and a pack of cigarettes costing only 0.60 euros - even cheaper than Georgia. Hotels are very reasonably priced and mostly up to western standards. Transportation is cheap, beer is cheap, woman are cheap. What else could you possibly want.

The Lion's Den

How to escape mass tourism? Easy, look for it in the lion's den: the Canary Islands. There isn't a single European holiday destination that gets more charter flights filled with pale British, Dutch and German tourists. Three weeks later they're flown back as the typical bright-red holiday lobsters you see in the streets of Northern Europe during summer. However, it is actually possible to escape the packed discoteques of the all-inclusive holiday resorts.

Last March I went to Lanzarote, the Sodom & Gomorra of western holiday making, and spent a week in a 300-inhabitant village with no ATM, three buses a day and no hotels.

Lanzarote is the northernmost of the Canary Islands. Politically part of Spain, geologically part of Afrika. The island is basically divided in two parts: the Southern part is urbanised and filled with hotels and tourists (luckily the Russians haven't found this one yet) while the Northern part is a nature reserve. The law states that there aren't any hotels, resorts, urban developments, discos and the like allowed.

The little village of Caleta de Famara has close to nothing, but it does have the Playa the Famara with nice waves and an amazing view. The beach is a bay enclosed by a big rocky mountain on the North side, and open to the Atlantic in a NW direction. Any tourist activity going on completely centers around the playa.

This lead to the development of an illegal-but-tolerated bar, Lenny's, with Amstel on draft the only place to go at night for a beer. When the draft wouldn't pour anymore they switched to Heineken on the bottle. Just as you think you're standing on the edge of the world, you don't have any choice but to drink very ordinary Dutch beer. Damn. I would've settled for that Spanish crap.

A room with a view

If you're ever going to end up in Tbilisi, Georgia - make sure to take the walk up Narikala, a hill overlooking Dzveli Tbilisi (Zveli Tbilisi - Old Tbilisi). On top is an old fortress (or the remnants of it) as it offers a some nice views over the city. On a bright day you can see the peaks of the Greater Caucasus, which are even snow-capped in summer.

Old Tbilisi on the left, the left bank on the right with the Presidential Palace (still) under construction (the Reichstag-like structure with the dome)



The new centre in the background and Old Tbilisi up front.



The TV-tower up on Mtatsminda, through the crenels of Narikala Fortress



Below left some of the little domes of the Sulphur Baths

Banana Republic

About five weeks ago I was in Batumi, Georgia. I hadn't been there for two years, so it was nice to be back.

The semi-Carribean banana republic athmosphere was as always present in the streets of Batumi, complete with palm-trees and other (sub)tropical plants. Bright-coloured colonial houses mixed with run-down, though brightly painted Soviet tenement blocks.


Just replace the second-hand German cars with 1950's oldtimers and you would have Havana on the Black Sea.

LA Marathon

Recently, another edition of the LA Marathon was held, finishing on Flower St. in downtown LA. The winner was, as always, a really skinny African dude. First shot is of the finish line, the second taken from some elevated walkway encircling a building. I like the two shots cause there's a lot to see in both. But also just because it shows a level of urbanization almost unheard of in Europe.

The finish

Free space blankets for every runner

(It Sucks Being a Smoker) in Ireland

It really sucks being a smoker in Ireland. A pack of 20 ..eeh.. 19 is no less than 7,45 European Union Credits. But unlike what, for example, the Dutch government is trying to do, the Irish do allow capitalizing on the effects of the ban. Almost every bar, cafe or restaurant has some sort of semi-enclosed area (complete with heaters) where smoking is allowed, pushing the limit of the definition of "outside" in the law - whatever that may be.

The good part is of course that the ban doesn't really hit you until you get to a small pub. But it also sparks some curious advertising, like this one at the airport:

Kinda peculiar, hey? Especially considering that these ads don't actually encourage you to stop with smoking, ie nicotine addiction... I have tried nicotine gum on long-haul flights, and trust me, it doesn't work. If you just don't smoke you go through craving once and then enter some vegetative state. When using nicotine gum, you experience the nicotine withdrawal over and over again, which doesn't really do you any good, considering you're already crammed up in an aluminium tube at the mercy of the airline, in a center seat, with probably a big and/or fat person having the chair next to you (why does that always happen to me?). So don't do it.

Anyway, it's not all bad in Ireland - Dublin is actually a very nice city (largest population in the world wearing sweatpants and trainers on weekdays) with some stuff to see, and generally nice people (prepare to booze up). It sucks being a smoker there, but otherwise I like the place - hence the brackets.

The picture on the left was something written on a wall on Lower Rathmines Rd. It's probably a reference to a song I don't know.

Cali Tree Beauty: Part II

This is the second tree - this one stands in the Sequoia National Park. The picture was taken close to sunset. This time I will just let the image do the talking...

Cali Tree Beauty: Part I

I didn't want to keep this picture from anyone, as I personally think it's amazing. It is a very lucky shot, as the sea gull is exactly in between the two trees. The picture was taken on November 23rd, 2007 at the Venice Beach Boardwalk in Venice, CA.

The shadows are also pretty cool. On the far right, there's a second sea gull on the ground also making for a nice shadow effect.

I wish to thank the California sea gulls for their cooperation :-)