Bloggers@large

Kiss of Death: for real! I guess most of you must have heard of the saying “kiss of death”, meaning that you seal someone’s faith with a kiss. Throughout history a lot of examples are around of people betraying one another with the infamous “kiss of death”. But for a 15-year old teen in Canada the kiss of death became a gruesome reality: she died after kissing her boyfriend. So reports Associated Press: By PHIL COUVRETTE, Associated Press Writer Mon Nov 28,10:31 PM ET MONTREAL – A 15-year-old girl with a peanut allergy died after kissing her boyfriend, who had […]

Murder victim Nienke Kleiss As I reported in this story in September, the Dutch police freed Kees B. who spend 4,5 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. In spite of overwhelming evdidence (DNA, witnesses) that he didn’t do it, the police just ignored all evidence that pointed into the direction of the real killer, Wik H. Yesterday a Dutch judge awarded a 600.835 euro damages pay to Kees B. for that fact. Since I wrote about this case a lot has happened. Kees – finally – did get an excuse from the Rotterdam Court of Justice, […]

Not a game This morning I reported about a crowd in Delaware going crazy over the new Xbox 360, but it even gets worse: WTV.COM reports that a Tallahassee Florida man, after standing in line for several hours and spending nearly $400 on the holiday season’s hottest electronic game, was robbed at gunpoint from his new toy. Ouch! Since I know Tallahassee a bit (I go there at least twice a year) I wonder where exactly this took place; according to some reports it was a Wal-Mart (but which one?). CrashesMeanwhile, reports keep popping up that the brand new Xbox […]

New Xbox 360 Remember that movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger called “Jingle all the way”? He portrays a father that tries to get his hands on the most popular Xmas toy. He gets in several fights to accomplish his mission. Well, in Elkton, Maryland a melee erupted among a crowd of shoppers in the rush for the new Xbox 360 video game console at a local Wal-Mart Supercenter. According to the story at CNN it took 10 policemen to end the brawl. About 300 people waited as much as 12 hours for the game, considered a must-have item this holiday season, […]

XXXmas? First, it seemed to be an American thing: the ever-stronger push toward a neutral “holiday” season so that non-Christians won’t be even the slightest bit offended. It seems that celebrating Christmas in any public way is a violation of church and state separation for US politicians (in fact: that’s where this nonsense started). But now this stupid behaviour is coming to Europe too. The Brittish town Havant, have renamed their local “Christmas Lights Party” into the “Festival of Lights”. What is wrong with people? Did we ever feel offended by Jewish hollidays or other non-western holidays? In Europe we […]

The Internet I would almost have forgotten it, but 2005 marks my 10th anniversary of being “online”. To be more accurate: from approximately 1993 till 1995 I was ‘semi-online’ using a dial-up connection to some Dutch bulletin boards like “Utopia” (later to become the first Dutch Internet provider called XS4ALL). I also had my own BBS (called WindowsBBS) using the Spitfire BBS software version 3.4. Then, in 1995 I started working for an Internet company called “Riverland Networks” and this marked my first steps on, what we now know as the “Internet”. Looking back it is hard to imagine my […]

iPod Photo This monday I wrote about the stupid plan that the NVPI an SENA came up with, to get money from podcasters, in order to compensate the music mafia in Holland. In a suprise move they decided to not do this as yet. For now. Apparantly they didn’t had the time to pass this tax law through the proper channels. This is the same group of people that got filthy rich from pimping artists in Holland and now they decided to get more money from people that just use their freedom of speech to do some podcasting and use […]

Another one bites the dust It could be an episode from the Italian mob series “La Piovra” from the eighties; yet another Dutch mobster got “rubbed out” last night. 44 year old George van Kleef got killed by a few men on a bicycle (probably one of the first “bicycle drive-by murders” ever). Van Kleef is the fourth mobster that got killed in the last 10 days. It first started with the murder of ex-lawyer Evert Hingst (suspected to be more of a consigliere to some Dutch mobsters)on Oct. 31st. Then, just a few days later Cees Houtman (real estate […]

Podcast music illegal? Once again the current music industry in Holland (NVPI, SENA) has proved that they still live in the “stone-age”. Last Friday (the 4th) they announced that they will not condone music being dirstributed/used via/in Podcasts. Instead, podcasters using music in their podcasts, will have to pay rights for each individual song they use. Why not have some general rule? For individuals that have their own Internet radio stations (like myself) they do have a special arrangement. It is unclear why they do not have come to such a solution this time. Off course the use of music […]

A new dawn.. So, today was the first day at my new job. As I wrote in a previous Blog, I got basically fired and hired at the same day in September, but I wound up wit a different company, because I got a last minute offer. And so today I started, after a 1 month(!!) vacation. Of course I would liked to have visited my girlfriend Carrie in the States during that period, but our relationship has changed pretty dramatically since she announced she had feelings for someone else and ended our relationship. But the latest news is that […]