:: HighWay ::
As I drove down today (saturday), I noticed an incredible of cars speeding at more than 140 kms/h. Some tailgated me and tried to push me off the left lane by approaching at mindboggling warpspeed. I resisted the temptation more than once to give 'em the finger since, - surprisingly maybe - , most of these aggressive drivers were woman!
I'm not much of an experienced chauffeur, but I've had my drivers licence for 7 years now - accident free. Usually I drive just a little under the accepted speed limit (120 + 10% = not getting the radar pointed at you) on the highways. In the city, or on secondary roads I get a kick of respecting all the rules: i.e. letting people cross the road, giving way, ... And I try to implement the zipper-rules if there's some major congestion. Also try always to be careful around 18-wheelers - earn their respect and they will treat you honorably.
I believe that there are ethics involved on the road. Be nice to people, drive at the speeds you're confortable with, always buckle up (even backseat passengers should be notified). But then your road warrior code is challenged:: note down the licence number plate and report it to the authorities. Don't act stupid or start to chase them down!.
So what's going on these days? Why are all these ladies speeding towards unknown destinations? Why do they pick on me?
Well - I haven't got a clue. But I'll tell you this:: my respect for them is on an all time low.
Tell me how you drive & I'll tell you who you are...
Tuesday
::letters from AbSurdistan #1 ::
Not everybody knows that Belgium is a weird place to live and work in.
We have Tintin, Jacques Brel, the European Parliament in Brussels.
The mascotte of this capital is a young kid peeing in public under the shadows of a monument to the second industrial revolution:: the atomium.
But then again: the Flemish beat the French in 1302 and big festivities are planned for next summer, all the while dutyfully forgetting that the French came back in 1311 and beat the sh*t out of the Flemish. The francophones haven't left ever since!
We also have Magritte, Breughel and Rubens, and the Venice of the North. We have to port of Antwerp, second to none on this continent (according to the locals). We invented New Beat and are spoiling the airwaves for alien civilizations galaxies away with Eddy Wally.
But we have a true fascination for the absurd. Surrealism "sprouted" here; copyright notices in the 19th century carried the following premonition All rights reserved for the whole world and Belgium.
Our selfdeclared first ennemy of the state managed to escape from the highest security prison because the cops are not allowed to carry loaded firearms. Fortunately he was seized by a clever Forestry official who wasn' carrying any arms at all...
We have the highest number of Ministers/secretaries pro-capita in the world and yet manage to survive on a debt-charge that towers over 140% of our yearly income.
The saxophone was invented in Dinant and the turning point of WW II was fought in the gruesome Ardennes where the Allied forces managed to stall the von Rundstadt - offensive, - they were keeping in mind that the German Blitz took only 18 days to cross the country in its push towards the Atlantic.
Funny how this country - that was created in 1830 as a defensive zone between the great powers of that age - was able to profit of the Industrial revolution long before the French and British came to terms with it. Congo became a crown-colony and concentration camps were invented there to manage the oppression.
So nowadays we live in prosperous country, or city. Our urbanization is completely fucked up, all our roads (not only highways) are alive at night under blazing lights. You can cross from north to south, or from east to west in less in max 2 1/2 hours. We drive like madman because our roads are so choked with cars that only the laws of the jungle prevail.
NeO will publish some funny facts concerning this micro-society, where 10 million locals try very hard to bypass every single regulation there is. Tax evasion is a national sport and if you were to open up a bar/resto the correct legal way, you'd file for bankruptancy within 2 weeks. Everyone is supposedly bilingual french/dutch but most of the time people from Limburg and Kortijk don't understand eachother, speaking the same tongue - that is.
In weekends every single households spends 4 hours rushing to the seaside, covering only approximately 80 kms in 2 hours, only to end up with their own neighbours enjoying the view of a coastal strip filled with 10-storey high buildings.
Funky place to live in
--------------------------------------------------------
Not everybody knows that Belgium is a weird place to live and work in.
We have Tintin, Jacques Brel, the European Parliament in Brussels.
The mascotte of this capital is a young kid peeing in public under the shadows of a monument to the second industrial revolution:: the atomium.
But then again: the Flemish beat the French in 1302 and big festivities are planned for next summer, all the while dutyfully forgetting that the French came back in 1311 and beat the sh*t out of the Flemish. The francophones haven't left ever since!
We also have Magritte, Breughel and Rubens, and the Venice of the North. We have to port of Antwerp, second to none on this continent (according to the locals). We invented New Beat and are spoiling the airwaves for alien civilizations galaxies away with Eddy Wally.
But we have a true fascination for the absurd. Surrealism "sprouted" here; copyright notices in the 19th century carried the following premonition All rights reserved for the whole world and Belgium.
Our selfdeclared first ennemy of the state managed to escape from the highest security prison because the cops are not allowed to carry loaded firearms. Fortunately he was seized by a clever Forestry official who wasn' carrying any arms at all...
We have the highest number of Ministers/secretaries pro-capita in the world and yet manage to survive on a debt-charge that towers over 140% of our yearly income.
The saxophone was invented in Dinant and the turning point of WW II was fought in the gruesome Ardennes where the Allied forces managed to stall the von Rundstadt - offensive, - they were keeping in mind that the German Blitz took only 18 days to cross the country in its push towards the Atlantic.
Funny how this country - that was created in 1830 as a defensive zone between the great powers of that age - was able to profit of the Industrial revolution long before the French and British came to terms with it. Congo became a crown-colony and concentration camps were invented there to manage the oppression.
So nowadays we live in prosperous country, or city. Our urbanization is completely fucked up, all our roads (not only highways) are alive at night under blazing lights. You can cross from north to south, or from east to west in less in max 2 1/2 hours. We drive like madman because our roads are so choked with cars that only the laws of the jungle prevail.
NeO will publish some funny facts concerning this micro-society, where 10 million locals try very hard to bypass every single regulation there is. Tax evasion is a national sport and if you were to open up a bar/resto the correct legal way, you'd file for bankruptancy within 2 weeks. Everyone is supposedly bilingual french/dutch but most of the time people from Limburg and Kortijk don't understand eachother, speaking the same tongue - that is.
In weekends every single households spends 4 hours rushing to the seaside, covering only approximately 80 kms in 2 hours, only to end up with their own neighbours enjoying the view of a coastal strip filled with 10-storey high buildings.
Funky place to live in
--------------------------------------------------------
:: Site up and running ::
Position:: @ Nautilus' Port.
Engines are running warmer.
Cooling system unaffected by high outside temperatures.
Escape pods have been tested. Scientific equipment loaded.
Comm-links working the full 100%. New encryption keys received by overnight mail.
Awaiting instructions & trying to track down crew that went Awol. Not very intensively ;-)
Overall morale of troops: excellent!
Position:: @ Nautilus' Port.
Engines are running warmer.
Cooling system unaffected by high outside temperatures.
Escape pods have been tested. Scientific equipment loaded.
Comm-links working the full 100%. New encryption keys received by overnight mail.
Awaiting instructions & trying to track down crew that went Awol. Not very intensively ;-)
Overall morale of troops: excellent!
::radio free Europe::
Just heard this on the radio.
There's a famous quiz-master who prides himself with the fact that he used to follow people around while he was @t college.
He'd write those people anonymous letters concerning their routines.
Stalking avant la lettre if you wish. But then again it's an interesting way of exercising your covert-approach tactics.
Surveillance is everywhere! Last week the Special European Comittee on Echelon published it's first findings.
Existance of a global eavesdropping network positively affirmed. However they do not see any threat whatsoever for European business! The Usa, UK & partners can home in on any kind of communication we use:: fax, email, GSM, other mobiles, SMS, ...
We'll be reduced to using courier doves like in the old days. But then again, we're at risk all the time, for lack of encryption technologies that the Usa embargoes for export.
They used to say:: the revolution will be televized.
Now it's bloggerized... Not only via Web-Logs, but also by more than innocent subversive acts.
Post a link to the FBI or any other Governement spy-agency and you'll end up on the blacklist. Maybe next time you will not be able to enter the States!!! You will have become an illegal alien, blacklisted for further investigation.
Once in a while: engage your friends to fight out a foedish battle by email, using all the Echelon-terms you can think off. You'll end up in their files... But you'll use up some data processing capabilities.
Speak out now! Voice your opinions before you're reduced to silence. And don't think they will not track you down.
In fact they are already at your door.
In the old days, stalking was fun - at least according to our famous quiz-master. Nowadays it's E A S Y.
Protect yourself & your privacy. Smarten up and instruct yourself. Don't be just a mere Consu-man
[ Nautilus' Port ] - [ mess@ge in a bottle ]
Just heard this on the radio.
There's a famous quiz-master who prides himself with the fact that he used to follow people around while he was @t college.
He'd write those people anonymous letters concerning their routines.
Stalking avant la lettre if you wish. But then again it's an interesting way of exercising your covert-approach tactics.
Surveillance is everywhere! Last week the Special European Comittee on Echelon published it's first findings.
Existance of a global eavesdropping network positively affirmed. However they do not see any threat whatsoever for European business! The Usa, UK & partners can home in on any kind of communication we use:: fax, email, GSM, other mobiles, SMS, ...
We'll be reduced to using courier doves like in the old days. But then again, we're at risk all the time, for lack of encryption technologies that the Usa embargoes for export.
They used to say:: the revolution will be televized.
Now it's bloggerized... Not only via Web-Logs, but also by more than innocent subversive acts.
Post a link to the FBI or any other Governement spy-agency and you'll end up on the blacklist. Maybe next time you will not be able to enter the States!!! You will have become an illegal alien, blacklisted for further investigation.
Once in a while: engage your friends to fight out a foedish battle by email, using all the Echelon-terms you can think off. You'll end up in their files... But you'll use up some data processing capabilities.
Speak out now! Voice your opinions before you're reduced to silence. And don't think they will not track you down.
In fact they are already at your door.
In the old days, stalking was fun - at least according to our famous quiz-master. Nowadays it's E A S Y.
Protect yourself & your privacy. Smarten up and instruct yourself. Don't be just a mere Consu-man
[ Nautilus' Port ] - [ mess@ge in a bottle ]
Monday
::. Art .::
Willem Kloos: "Kunst is de allerindividueelste expressie van de allerindividueelste emotie"
............. "Art = the most individual expression of the most individual emotion"
So the artist is here to express what we all feel in our day-to-day existence? But are unable to do?
We all have read some books where the writer manages to conjure up some feeling that we too would have loved to be able to put down like that.
Writers often also feel the need to guide their readers through their texts, pointing out that every single letter or space is important.
Readers often skim passages that seem at first boring, but forget how much blood, sweat and tears crept over the writer's keyboard in order to produce those lines...
[ Nautilus' Port] [mess@ge in a bottle ]
Willem Kloos: "Kunst is de allerindividueelste expressie van de allerindividueelste emotie"
............. "Art = the most individual expression of the most individual emotion"
So the artist is here to express what we all feel in our day-to-day existence? But are unable to do?
We all have read some books where the writer manages to conjure up some feeling that we too would have loved to be able to put down like that.
Writers often also feel the need to guide their readers through their texts, pointing out that every single letter or space is important.
Readers often skim passages that seem at first boring, but forget how much blood, sweat and tears crept over the writer's keyboard in order to produce those lines...
[ Nautilus' Port] [mess@ge in a bottle ]
:.Lightning might strike.:
Evening Meditation:
Choices are costly. It's Economics 101.
Choose something and you will forever loose the other option.
But then again... What if there were a way to trans-scend above the choices that are presented to us as inevitable?
That the proposed options are false and that the mere act of choosing would be already to accomodate some higher entitiy, that tries to manipulate us?
Have you ever wondered and complained about the fact that we've lost control over our own lives, dreams and ideas?
We're so easily absorbed in some kind of "Corporate" identity; be it on the job, in our family, in our relations and forsake our own purposes.
Mankind has been reduced to the Consu-Man. You identify yourself by the car you drive, the neighbourhood you live and work in, the school you attended or send your kids too. All too often conversations with complete strangers whirl around the following:
- what kind of degree do you have?
- where do you work or study?
- what car do you drive?
- what does your father do for a living?
- do you root for this or that sports-team?
So experiment:
if your father is the Senior VP of a major Bank:: say: "he's an employee of a financial institution."
if you like sports: "I hate sports"
car: "I drive a vintage 1985 Trabant" or some kind of lowprofile Japanese vehicule"
job: unemployed rather than in between jobs...
You can surely think of more.
The point is that by mispresenting" yourself, you make a thoughtfull choice. You refuse to be categorized. And evidently, you'll end up lonely in the corner of the room with no one to talk too.
Answer evasively, or cautiously. Hide your own agenda. Do not let yourself be caught off guard. Keep a clear eye.
Starting a conversation is never easy. But you shouldn't run down the beaten path all the time.
If somebody asks you "how'ya doing?" Answer:: B A D!!! Your inter-acting agent will not know how to respond. Then decide how to continue. If you really want to keep going, give a detailed explanation of how B A D you really feel and see for yourself.
Have fun!!!
note: this idea of not-responding in traditional ways came to me after viewing The Idiots - a dogma 95 film from the school of Lars von Trier:: a bunch of students decide to play physically challenged persons to mesure the effect it has on society. Quite a movie...
NeO out
Evening Meditation:
Choices are costly. It's Economics 101.
Choose something and you will forever loose the other option.
But then again... What if there were a way to trans-scend above the choices that are presented to us as inevitable?
That the proposed options are false and that the mere act of choosing would be already to accomodate some higher entitiy, that tries to manipulate us?
Have you ever wondered and complained about the fact that we've lost control over our own lives, dreams and ideas?
We're so easily absorbed in some kind of "Corporate" identity; be it on the job, in our family, in our relations and forsake our own purposes.
Mankind has been reduced to the Consu-Man. You identify yourself by the car you drive, the neighbourhood you live and work in, the school you attended or send your kids too. All too often conversations with complete strangers whirl around the following:
- what kind of degree do you have?
- where do you work or study?
- what car do you drive?
- what does your father do for a living?
- do you root for this or that sports-team?
So experiment:
if your father is the Senior VP of a major Bank:: say: "he's an employee of a financial institution."
if you like sports: "I hate sports"
car: "I drive a vintage 1985 Trabant" or some kind of lowprofile Japanese vehicule"
job: unemployed rather than in between jobs...
You can surely think of more.
The point is that by mispresenting" yourself, you make a thoughtfull choice. You refuse to be categorized. And evidently, you'll end up lonely in the corner of the room with no one to talk too.
Answer evasively, or cautiously. Hide your own agenda. Do not let yourself be caught off guard. Keep a clear eye.
Starting a conversation is never easy. But you shouldn't run down the beaten path all the time.
If somebody asks you "how'ya doing?" Answer:: B A D!!! Your inter-acting agent will not know how to respond. Then decide how to continue. If you really want to keep going, give a detailed explanation of how B A D you really feel and see for yourself.
Have fun!!!
note: this idea of not-responding in traditional ways came to me after viewing The Idiots - a dogma 95 film from the school of Lars von Trier:: a bunch of students decide to play physically challenged persons to mesure the effect it has on society. Quite a movie...
NeO out
::..quote\unquote..::
"You wanna be making moves on the street:
Have no attachments,
Allow nothing to be in your life
that you cannot walk out on in 30 seconds flat
if you spot the heat around the corner." [from HEAT]
"I know you're out there,
I can feel you
I know that you're afraid
You're afraid of us, you're afraid of change
I don't know the future.
I didn't come here to tell you how this is going to end.
I came here to tell you how this is going to begin.
I'm going to hang up this phone
and then I'm going to show these people what you don't want them to see.
I'm going to show them a world without you.
A world without rules and controls,
without borderes or boundaries.
A world where anything is possible.
Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you" [from The Matrix]
Rien n'est grave puisque tout passe [ Eugène Ionesco ]
[ e-mail ] [ homepage ]
"You wanna be making moves on the street:
Have no attachments,
Allow nothing to be in your life
that you cannot walk out on in 30 seconds flat
if you spot the heat around the corner." [from HEAT]
"I know you're out there,
I can feel you
I know that you're afraid
You're afraid of us, you're afraid of change
I don't know the future.
I didn't come here to tell you how this is going to end.
I came here to tell you how this is going to begin.
I'm going to hang up this phone
and then I'm going to show these people what you don't want them to see.
I'm going to show them a world without you.
A world without rules and controls,
without borderes or boundaries.
A world where anything is possible.
Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you" [from The Matrix]
Rien n'est grave puisque tout passe [ Eugène Ionesco ]
[ e-mail ] [ homepage ]
::... end-troducing...::
What's wrong with walking the high road, the risky one?
Do you care about the preciousness of life?
Do you assume the fullness and fullfilment life can bring you?
Or are you happy with a meager existance of fitting in...
Do you stand up for yourself?
And so you wonder: why do you people respect you?
Because of your capacity to adapt, because of what you stand for?
Nomad, traveller, you hear the call of the road.
- break away from sedentary life. Cast away all those anchors.
- rebuild everything on your own terms.
Everybody has a secret life of his own. Know this; you can only rely on yourself.
I have been the captain of many ships but my own. I always sailed on other people's directions.
Now, it is time for this to change
Nothing is static:: be creAtive or disappear
[e-mail NeO ] [ homepage ]
What's wrong with walking the high road, the risky one?
Do you care about the preciousness of life?
Do you assume the fullness and fullfilment life can bring you?
Or are you happy with a meager existance of fitting in...
Do you stand up for yourself?
And so you wonder: why do you people respect you?
Because of your capacity to adapt, because of what you stand for?
Nomad, traveller, you hear the call of the road.
- break away from sedentary life. Cast away all those anchors.
- rebuild everything on your own terms.
Everybody has a secret life of his own. Know this; you can only rely on yourself.
I have been the captain of many ships but my own. I always sailed on other people's directions.
Now, it is time for this to change
Nothing is static:: be creAtive or disappear
[e-mail NeO ] [ homepage ]
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