Henk van de Goor's Bloggers@large

Remember Beavis & Butt-head? They were one of the great cultural icons of the 20th century and I think I found their heirs for the new millennium: Fur TV. Back in the early and mid-90's I loved to watch the exploits of Beavis & Butt-head the two cartoon characters, who live in the fictional town of Highland, Texas. They while away their time in sarcastic conversation, fantasizing about sex and masculinity, although they have no real-world experience with either thing.
Now Fast forward to 2008 and meet Fat Ed Tubbs, Lapeño Enriquez and Mervin J Minky. Fat Ed is a foul-mouthed, violent, beer swilling heavy metal obsessive, Lapeño is a Brazilian sex fiend, who has a way with women and has even worked as a pimp, while Mervin is a hapless, mentally retarded, self-abusing fanatic with an addiction to masturbation. Yup guys, it is the new millennium and so we have a bunch of characters fitting for the new millennium.

You can watch all episodes online at the MTV website, or at YouTube. Or you can have a quick preview here so you can see what I am writing about:

MTV Cribs


Fur TV: Rent Boys

Finally, an interesting day at the office :-)

Yup, it's that day of the year again: "Koninginnedag". The biggest "garage sale day" or flea market in the world, when the whole Dutch nation tries to get rid of all their junk from the attic and garage. I think this is the one day tourists should not miss when they visit The Netherlands. It is hilarious to see all people dressed up in orange (the national color) roaming the streets. Typically, many children sell their cast-off toys and clothes while entrepreneurs sell food, beverages and almost anything else imaginable. By the end of the festivities, much of the unsold junk is left on the streets. Unfortunately most cities are increasingly being taken over by commercial traders, pushing the intended car boot sale out towards smaller streets.

Video impression of "Koninginnedag"

Now here is a real funny story: an Italian television presenter pretending to be actor Nicolas Cage fooled the world renowed soccer club Real Madrid into thinking he was the real thing and enjoyed the full red carpet treatment at this week's Champions League match against AS Roma! The lookalike, Paolo Calabresi, watched Wednesday's game from the directors' viewing area at the Bernabeu and was even taken into the team dressing room afterwards. There he was even photographed being presented with a personalised Real shirt by club president Ramon Calderon.

Haha, what a prank! Now check out the photo (just click on it) and tell me which one is the real Nicolas Cage.

Here is a fun trivia question: how many people can you stuff into a Opel Vectra? Four? Six? Maybe eight? Not if you're from Romania, because then you can stuff 14 people in a car. Today the German police stopped this Opel Vectra because it was doing just 40 km/h on the highway (roughly 25mph). Curious to find out if the driver had some mechanic problem, they pulled him over. To their surprise the car was filled up with people: in the two front seats there where the driver and his friend sitting there quite comfortable. In the backseat: their wives, each having two kids on their laps and one kid stuck in between: all on all 9 people. But that was not all: when the police opened the trunk of the car they discovered yet another 5 kids there, totalling the occupants of the car at 14!

I tell you: some people just have a peanut size brain.

Ok, how many chances do I get to write in my blog on February 29th? Right: I would have to wait another 4 years for it! But you know what: 4 years go by just like that! I just remembered that I did write about leap years and days 4 years ago on Sunday Feb. 29: Leap year. This time some fun facts about leapdays. For instance, did you know that:

• your chances of being born on leap day are about 1 in 1500.
• There are about 187,000 people in the US and 4 million people in the world who were born on Leap Day.
• Egyptians were the first people to add a leap day every four years. However, the Romans were the first to choose February 29th as the official date.
• 2008 has five Fridays in February. Between 1904 and 2096, leap years with the same day of the week for each date repeat every 28 years. The last time February had five Fridays was in 1980 and the next time will be in 2036.
• Sweden (and Finland) had a "double" leap year in 1712, because two days were added to February. That year there was a date February 30, 1712. This was done because the leap year in 1700 was dropped, and Sweden's calendar was not synchronized with any other calendar. By adding an extra day in 1712, they were back on the Julian calendar.
• A leap day is more likely to fall on a Monday than on a Sunday. This is because the Gregorian calendar repeats itself every 400 years, which is exactly 20,871 weeks including 97 leap days. Over this period, Feb. 29 falls 13 times on a Sunday, Tuesday or Thursday; 14 times on a Friday or Saturday; and 15 times on a Monday or Wednesday.
• The Gotthard railway tunnel between Switzerland & Italy was completed on Leap Day 1880.
• Dutch scientists produced solid helium on Leap Day 1908
• Leap Year Day Babies born in 1884 had no birthday during their entire teen-age years. Why? Because 1900 was not a Leap Year.