30 May 2007
You don't have to accept my opinion. I'd prefer to keep it.
There is something fundamentally unsound with people who try to promote their opinions. They thrust themselves upon others, grabbing our attention and stealing our time. I do not want to fall into that trap and therefore only try to promote other people's opinions, never my own.
29 May 2007
The secret guide to the mystic sites of Paris
One of the stranger things in the publishing business is the number of non-fiction books with titles like "the mystery of..." or "secret guide to..." The common factor for those books is that they never contain any mysteries or secrets. Quite often the author does not know much about the subject either. Why else would he call it a mystery? I decided to provide you, avid reader, with the same service for free. From all the cities in the world I know, I choose Paris, which I do not know at all. Here are its secrets uncovered.
Paris is a city with plenty of extraordinary tourist sites. I am not going to give away what they are, keen reader, but I will give some hints.
One mystic spot is one of the biggest conglomerates of office buildings in the world. One of the most distinctive and mysterious buildings there, a huge arch, was built in 1982 by a president who prefers to stay anonymous. Still today, so many years later, very few people have learnt by heart the exact number of votes he was elected by.
Somewhere in the city there is a huge art museum with some of the most enigmatic paintings in the world. If you show yourself worthy by sending me enough money, I will reveal the name of it - but never its location. Against an additional fee, I may also mention the names of some of the paintings to look out for, and perhaps, but then I break a holy promise, which parts of the world they originated in. But do not expect too much. Do not pursue the vain quest to learn the artists' names. I will give no details but that one of them comes from the small village Vinci.
You should definitely try to find the well hidden monument to the unknown soldier (capitaine Jean-Pierre Caunnard). It is surrounded by one of the biggest and most secret traffic roundabouts in the world. When no foreigners are watching, the Parisians go there and sit in traffic jams for hours performing their secret rites of mystical hand gestures towards the less skilled drivers.
But most secretly of them all, well hidden in an obscure part of the city is one of the tallest and most enigmatic buildings of the world. If you were to find it, you would have a splendid view of the city. It was built for the top secret world exposition in Paris 1889. Some people have spent years trying to find it. Admittedly, those people have usually looked in the wrong city, and they were not very bright, and there have not been many of them, but they nevertheless spent a lot of time - at least a few hours or so. And those were very secret hours indeed.
Paris is a city with plenty of extraordinary tourist sites. I am not going to give away what they are, keen reader, but I will give some hints.
One mystic spot is one of the biggest conglomerates of office buildings in the world. One of the most distinctive and mysterious buildings there, a huge arch, was built in 1982 by a president who prefers to stay anonymous. Still today, so many years later, very few people have learnt by heart the exact number of votes he was elected by.
Somewhere in the city there is a huge art museum with some of the most enigmatic paintings in the world. If you show yourself worthy by sending me enough money, I will reveal the name of it - but never its location. Against an additional fee, I may also mention the names of some of the paintings to look out for, and perhaps, but then I break a holy promise, which parts of the world they originated in. But do not expect too much. Do not pursue the vain quest to learn the artists' names. I will give no details but that one of them comes from the small village Vinci.
You should definitely try to find the well hidden monument to the unknown soldier (capitaine Jean-Pierre Caunnard). It is surrounded by one of the biggest and most secret traffic roundabouts in the world. When no foreigners are watching, the Parisians go there and sit in traffic jams for hours performing their secret rites of mystical hand gestures towards the less skilled drivers.
But most secretly of them all, well hidden in an obscure part of the city is one of the tallest and most enigmatic buildings of the world. If you were to find it, you would have a splendid view of the city. It was built for the top secret world exposition in Paris 1889. Some people have spent years trying to find it. Admittedly, those people have usually looked in the wrong city, and they were not very bright, and there have not been many of them, but they nevertheless spent a lot of time - at least a few hours or so. And those were very secret hours indeed.
28 May 2007
Public Transportation Fun
There are two main reasons for taking public transport instead of your own car. The first one is the environment. We have only one planet and we should take care of it.
The second one is that it is fun.
Oh, I remember when the ticket machine at the railway station refused to take the first seven of my bank notes. It calmly and methodically spat them out, one by one, until it finally accepted the last one. By that time the train had already arrived at the platform. As soon as the driver saw me, he closed the doors and sped off, leaving me there with a ticket I could not use, as I now had to take a taxi to catch my plane instead. Oh, I laughed!
Or when the last bus just passed me as I was waving at it at the bus stop. It was just hilarious how I had to walk three kilometres in the rain at one o'clock in the morning.
Today there was a bus driver who closed the door behind me, before I had been able to ask him if I was on the right bus. As I was standing on the lower step, the door crushed my foot. As I gave a jolly scream of somewhat agonizing pain, he kindly opened the doors again, and that jammed one of them against the hand of a gentleman next to me. It was so funny! No, it was not the right bus, but this one went to the hospital, so that was anyhow convenient for us.
The second one is that it is fun.
Oh, I remember when the ticket machine at the railway station refused to take the first seven of my bank notes. It calmly and methodically spat them out, one by one, until it finally accepted the last one. By that time the train had already arrived at the platform. As soon as the driver saw me, he closed the doors and sped off, leaving me there with a ticket I could not use, as I now had to take a taxi to catch my plane instead. Oh, I laughed!
Or when the last bus just passed me as I was waving at it at the bus stop. It was just hilarious how I had to walk three kilometres in the rain at one o'clock in the morning.
Today there was a bus driver who closed the door behind me, before I had been able to ask him if I was on the right bus. As I was standing on the lower step, the door crushed my foot. As I gave a jolly scream of somewhat agonizing pain, he kindly opened the doors again, and that jammed one of them against the hand of a gentleman next to me. It was so funny! No, it was not the right bus, but this one went to the hospital, so that was anyhow convenient for us.
26 May 2007
Speedy wealth
I spent part of the day at the local car competition in a small town. This kind of events create a lot of carbon dioxide, and therefore really threatens our environment. Even in the lunch tent people were smoking like chimneys to do their best to reduce what little oxygen there was. Oh, it smelt good! I cannot stand the smell of oxygen.
The picture below shows one of the more environmentally friendly cars. It is broken, and therefore emits no carbon dioxide at all.
The hill side in the background leads up to the prince's palace. If you were to climb it, you would get exhausted, burn a lot of oxygen and emit a lot of bad carbon dioxide. Stay on the ground for the sake of the environment.
The picture below shows one of the more environmentally friendly cars. It is broken, and therefore emits no carbon dioxide at all.
The hill side in the background leads up to the prince's palace. If you were to climb it, you would get exhausted, burn a lot of oxygen and emit a lot of bad carbon dioxide. Stay on the ground for the sake of the environment.
25 May 2007
Advice from a wise man
Being agnostic does not mean that you cannot listen to advice from others. I find it rewarding to read the educational fables of Jean de La Fontaine, Aesop (Αἴσωπος) and Ivan Krylov (Иван Андреевич Крылов). I think you can learn a lot from classic theatre like Henrik Ibsen's The Wild Duck (Vildanden) or Lorenzo Da Ponte's Così fan tutte.
One of my favourite theatrical characters is Major Dennis Bloodnok. In the many places he appears he has for example the following comments:
On Pleasure
I behaved like an absolute bounder and a cad. It's the only way you can enjoy yourself these days.
On other people
You naughty imbalatoola you!
I'll mugle your crampons with me griff club.
You naughty-nitty-naughty-nit gentlemen you.
Comments regarding Foreign Relations
Knuckle me sombrero and Spanish me knuckles!
Volkeshere berebackter, kabloong un kablootsiempire grung dang!
Achtung, gaflooden gablootz!
Soliloquies
Just like Hamlet, he excels in his sololoquies, when his thoughts are undisturbed by others:
Aeiough! Bleiough! Arangahahhh! Kitna Budgy Ha!! Aeiough! and other naughty noises.
Great galloping crabs!
Crod me klerdler and hit me naughty splow!
Nadger me standing load!
Great boiling buckets of bringe!
Great knobbly plates of toes!
Great naked kippers!
Fling me mottles overboard!
Slud blan dweee!
Lower me gringers!
Grab me scalibers and thud me gringes!
Great steaming heaps of green splat!
Noddle me steaming chuff!
Mashie me mogler with a thin crippler!
Flud me cystern with galloping crabs!
Great steaming lumps of therk!
Shutter me donger and thud me crimik!
Great brown nutted nurglers!
Murgle me rogers!
Graze me grundles!
Thud me gripkins!
Thud me cronker stops and duffel me latches!
Great larruping nurglers!
Thud me marling-spikes!
Great scorched thund bringe!
Flatten me Cronkler with Spinach mallets!
Flatten me krurker and nosh me schlappers!
Thud me cringing nurglers!
Great thundering widgets of Kludge!
Griddle me grodkins!
Strice me dongler and hell me iron thudders!
Great crongolers of steaming thund!
Great dollops of steaming thund!
Seekoo henk!
Oh, me puckes!
Thud me fneficks and fetch my fungs, and other time filling in phrases!
One of my favourite theatrical characters is Major Dennis Bloodnok. In the many places he appears he has for example the following comments:
On Pleasure
I behaved like an absolute bounder and a cad. It's the only way you can enjoy yourself these days.
On other people
You naughty imbalatoola you!
I'll mugle your crampons with me griff club.
You naughty-nitty-naughty-nit gentlemen you.
Comments regarding Foreign Relations
Knuckle me sombrero and Spanish me knuckles!
Volkeshere berebackter, kabloong un kablootsiempire grung dang!
Achtung, gaflooden gablootz!
Soliloquies
Just like Hamlet, he excels in his sololoquies, when his thoughts are undisturbed by others:
Aeiough! Bleiough! Arangahahhh! Kitna Budgy Ha!! Aeiough! and other naughty noises.
Great galloping crabs!
Crod me klerdler and hit me naughty splow!
Nadger me standing load!
Great boiling buckets of bringe!
Great knobbly plates of toes!
Great naked kippers!
Fling me mottles overboard!
Slud blan dweee!
Lower me gringers!
Grab me scalibers and thud me gringes!
Great steaming heaps of green splat!
Noddle me steaming chuff!
Mashie me mogler with a thin crippler!
Flud me cystern with galloping crabs!
Great steaming lumps of therk!
Shutter me donger and thud me crimik!
Great brown nutted nurglers!
Murgle me rogers!
Graze me grundles!
Thud me gripkins!
Thud me cronker stops and duffel me latches!
Great larruping nurglers!
Thud me marling-spikes!
Great scorched thund bringe!
Flatten me Cronkler with Spinach mallets!
Flatten me krurker and nosh me schlappers!
Thud me cringing nurglers!
Great thundering widgets of Kludge!
Griddle me grodkins!
Strice me dongler and hell me iron thudders!
Great crongolers of steaming thund!
Great dollops of steaming thund!
Seekoo henk!
Oh, me puckes!
Thud me fneficks and fetch my fungs, and other time filling in phrases!
23 May 2007
He already tried that
Someone asked why God did not put some more obvious proofs of his existence in the Bible. He could, for example, have given the millionth number of π and asked mankind to check it out, once we had developed computers to calculate it.
Well, he actually did try it. He did write it down. He also explained that the moon was not made of cheese and that the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox did not contradict quantum theory. The problem was that the early editors of the Bible had no idea what he was talking about, so they thought it was a typo and removed those paragraphs.
It is a good point though, and perhaps it is time for a new edition of the Bible with some new information that hitherto has been hidden for man. He could for example explain string theory or write down where I left my car keys this morning.
Well, he actually did try it. He did write it down. He also explained that the moon was not made of cheese and that the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox did not contradict quantum theory. The problem was that the early editors of the Bible had no idea what he was talking about, so they thought it was a typo and removed those paragraphs.
It is a good point though, and perhaps it is time for a new edition of the Bible with some new information that hitherto has been hidden for man. He could for example explain string theory or write down where I left my car keys this morning.
07 May 2007
The battle's lost and lost
The 2nd tour of the French election is over. Luckily for France, the president does not necessarily do very much. He is head of state and has a lot of power on paper, but if he chooses to just relax during his term and leave governing to the government, few people will complain.
The high voter turnout may not be best explained by most people's enthusiasm for their candidates, but perhaps their intense desire that the other guy would not win.
The high voter turnout may not be best explained by most people's enthusiasm for their candidates, but perhaps their intense desire that the other guy would not win.
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