It all started yesterday morning when I saw this video, made by Jonah Morwry, on George Takei’s Facebook Page…

Sad, right?  Honestly, I was sobbing my head off watching this video.  I shared it on Facebook and talked about it with my friends.  I couldn’t believe that this adorable boy was being made fun of and felt so terribly about himself.  What kind of world do we live in?!  I watched it about six times after, each time my heart breaking a little more for him.

I went out with friends last night and was telling them about the video and we got to discussing bullying and kids and everything that is going on with them in the world today.  I told them they absolutely had to see this video!  When I came home I found it on my Facebook page and tagged them so that they’d see it right away.  Then I decided to do a Google search and see if there were any updates on Jonah after the video.  That’s when I found this article on Perez Hilton, which mentioned that Jonah had his own YouTube channel.

This is where it all starting going wrong.  Suddenly I knew exactly what kind of world we are living in!

We are living in a world where absolutely anyone can make a tear jerking video and take the world by storm, regardless of what kind of person they are or what they do to other people.  All you need is a cute face, a few crocodile tears and a Twitter account and before long you’ll have every idiot on Facebook (including myself) and celebrity in Hollywood blindly supporting you.

You are probably wondering what changed my feelings so drastically.  Well, it was this…

A video made by Jonah and his friends spoofing a reality show about Obese people trying to lose weight.

What in the fresh hell is this?!

Suddenly I was enraged!  First of all, my ears were begging for mercy because of the nonsense in the beginning of the video, then once I really got to the content I became really angry.  I was angry because I realized that more than once in that day I’d shed tears for someone who makes fun of people like ME!!  HOW IS THIS OK?!

How is it ok for this boy and his friends to target and make fun of an entirely different group of people?  Isn’t this what Jonah was weeping about in his video, that people were making fun of him, making him hate himself and that it made him scared to be around people?  Did he not stop to think that the people he was making fun of in his video may feel the exact same way?

What kinds of comments would a group of teens get if they made a video making fun of gay people?  What would Jonah think of that, I wonder.

Being gay does not give anyone the monopoly on feeling bad about themselves, nor does it give them the right to make fun of others to make themselves feel better.  Bullying and belittling comes in all different shapes and sizes.  Whether you are gay, fat, wear glasses, braces, dress differently, or any other of the endless reasons people decide to make fun of others… it doesn’t hurt any of the rest any less than it hurts gay people when they are made fun of.

I feel scammed.  I feel like when someone gets you to watch a video of a kitten frolicking in a field and then suddenly the face of Freddy Krueger comes jumping out at you.  I fell for his crocodile tears, thought he was one of the good ones.  One of the kids who is bullied, truly knows how damaging it can be and would NEVER do that to someone else.

Jonah Mowry is not that kid.  He’s the kid who makes fun of others, attention whores on the internet and then wonders why people don’t like him.  He’s the kid who, whether the tears are real or not, cleverly puts together a video, sucking the entire world in and making them feel sorry for him, thus spreading his cute little face far and wide on the internet.  We gave him exactly what he was looking for and nobody thought to look and see just what kind of boy he is, they just saw the video and jumped up with their fist in the air ready to fight for his cause.

I’m STILL willing to fight for his cause, or rather, the cause that broke my heart when I saw the video, for all the people out there who are afraid to or are not allowed to openly be with the people they love, NOT for Jonah Mowry.  As far as I’m concerned, he is getting far more attention than he deserves, which is exactly the attention he was looking for.  I admit I’ve been a bit obsessive about this since I saw his videos.  I’ve tried to ‘spread the word’ about his hypocrisy but he must have a team working around the clock. Any comments I made on his videos were removed within seconds, you’d think he was trying to hide something.  Pity his little elves can’t hit their delete button on this post. It’s here to stay.

I’m really curious how some of the celebrities would feel if they saw the other side of Jonah.  Would they overlook the fact that he targets others to make fun of them simply because he’s gay and he cried on YouTube?  Would they glaze over it because it makes a good cause for them to speak out about?  Would Perez Hilton or George Tekai’s opinion change?  Would Rosie O’Donnell, who is gay but also struggles with her weight, still stand behind this kid knowing that he cries for being the same as her in one way but makes fun of people who are like her in another?

I’d really like to know, although I doubt anyone of them would answer ME.  Maybe I should get out the cue cards and make a tearful video of my own and see if that gets their attention.

Wake up people, this kid saw you all coming a mile away and you made him a superstar overnight. Yes, POOR Jonah indeed.

P.S. As a friend pointed out after I posted my outrage on Facebook. Doesn’t Jonah’s video bear a striking resemblance to this video posted by a girl in JANUARY 2011 (long before Jonah’s)?

Ugh… WAKE UP INTERNET!!!

P.S.S. Editing to add this? DOUBLE UGH!!

Really? Is this cocky, gum smacking, fame loving twit really someone you want to endorse???

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Ok, without the window cleaning brush, I mean.  The buildings are quite a lot closer than they look in the first photo, so it’s pretty easy to look into each other’s windows, and that has always bugged me.

It has never bugged me more, however, than it did this morning.  By bugged I mean freaked me the hell out causing me to scream for Xander to come to the living room right away!

I may have over reacted, I don’t know, but here’s what went down.

It was 7am and it was still pitch black outside.  I was sitting on the sofa clipping the cat’s nails, when I had a weird feeling.  I looked out the window to the building across from us, which was mostly dark, with the exception of 2-3 windows that were lit up.   I glanced across the building and then like in a cartoon my view bounced back to one of the windows. There was someone standing there, just a silhouette in the window of a lit room.

Was he… waving?  No, he can’t be, he must be just wiping some condensation from the window or something.

Why does he keep wiping that same spot?

I think he is waving, is he waving to me??  No, it can’t be.

I whisper yelled to Xander in the Lego Lair, like a loud hiss “XANDER I THINK ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE ACROSS FROM US IS WATCHING ME!”

I’m not sure what I was expecting, it was only 7am but I expected something a little more than “That’s nice Honey”.

I continued to go about my business, stopping Spencer from clawing me to shreds while I clipped his nails, all the while rolling my eyes painfully upward to be able to see the dude in the window at the same time.  I was watching him, but I didn’t want him to know that I was watching him watching me!

The pattern continued, waving his hand in front of the window and then… why does he keep putting his hands up to his face like that?  What is he doing? Oh there, he’s waving again, hands back up in front of his face.  Waving.  Hands up to eyes… HANDS UP TO EYES… OMG HANDS UP TO FRIGGIN EYES!!!

“XANDER XANDER OMGGETINHERE THIS DUDE HAS BINOCULARS!!!!!! OMG HE’S WATCHING ME WHAT A FREAK GET IN HERE YOU GOTTA COME QUICK!!!”

***  silence ****

“HELLO?!!!! YOU GOTTA COME NOW RIGHT NOW COME LOOK THERE HE GOES AGAIN OMG HE IS WAVING! HE’S LOOKING THROUGH THE BINOCULARS AGAIN. HE IS WATCHING ME XANDERRRRRRRRRRRRRR!”

Meanwhile, I’d totally lost my cool and forget to pretend I wasn’t watching him watching me. I was full on running back and forth to the window, waving my arms and turning to hissscream to my husband.   Now that I look back on it, the guy was probably so glad that he got his binoculars out on this morning in particular because I was giving him an Emmy winning performance.

I went and turned off the light, HA! I’ll show him!, I thought.  I grabbed my point and shoot camera and tried to zoom in as best I could.  I’m so incredibly clever and sneaky, I’m going to catch him in the act!  As I pressed the shutter halfway down and saw the little red light reflecting on the window, I knew what was coming.  I only knew a split second before it happened, which was the longest split second of my life because I couldn’t stop it.

**************** FLASH ****************  DAMMIT!

I had forgotten to turn the flash off before trying to take the photo.   SHIT SHIT!!  Oh no now he’s really on to me!  Drat!

He was waving, oh god… oh no there he goes with the binoculars again!

I quickly turned off the flash, whipped the P&S up in front of me and hoped for the best.

So creepy, so creeeepy!  After getting this photo I scurried back to my chair (which is out of view from the window) and uploaded the photo and share my story.  SO CREEPY!  Don’t you think that’s creepy?!

I mean yeah we all have moments where we walk by houses and will peep in the window if the curtains are open.  We don’t STOP and cup our hands to the window and watch what’s going on inside.  We don’t bring a lawn chair down the street and sit on the sidewalk with a box of popcorn and watch our neighbours play Scrabble.

Why does this person think it’s ok to look in our windows with binoculars?  Ok, it’s possible that he wasn’t watching me, maybe he was looking somewhere else but I could FEEL it, I know he was!  Nobody in any of the flats around me in the building are ever up at this hour and you can just tell when someone is watching you, ya know?  *Shudder*

I may never open my curtains again.  Ever.

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The gist is, the overweight lady on the bottom of the ad has a website that caters to chubby chasers, people who like big women.  She has photos for sale on her website and Ashley Madison, the company that is being called out in the article, bought the photo and paid a license for it.  Now, this gives them the right to use the photo in whatever way they want… but the model is up in arms about it and is (supposedly) very angry about what it represents.

She’s angry because her photo was used to slam fat people.  She said that by using the photo in that manner, they are ‘body shaming’ women who are overweight, and I have to agree with her.  From what I gather there were multiple ads and the general idea of all of them was that if your wife scares and disgusts you, why not have an affair with someone thin and beautiful.

She also didn’t like the fact that her photo was used in ads that are urging men to have affairs.  She didn’t want her photo on an ad that promoted adultery.  Fair enough.

The representative for Ashley Madison argues that the publicity that came from all of it his is the best thing that could have happened for the overweight model and her website, stating that she is probably not angry at all, but is using this as a ploy to gain more publicity for herself, also possible.

As a married, overweight woman I have mixed feelings about this entire fiasco.

Firstly, this woman is taking seductive photos of herself in very little clothing and putting them online for sale. By selling them and having people pay licensing fees, she is aware of the fact that once the photos are bought and paid for, they are no longer under her control. So in that sense, it’s her own fault and the company can’t be held to blame, it was their legal right to use the photo, regardless of the questionable nature of the ads.

I am not one of those big women who supports the whole ‘big is beautiful’ movement.  I agree that people should try to feel good about themselves regardless of their weight, and that self confidence is important.  I don’t believe that, even though many of us do, overweight people should live a life of shame.  On the other hand, I don’t think that being extremely overweight is anything to celebrate either.  I don’t believe it’s anything to be proud of or promote as a fun or healthy lifestyle.

I think the model put herself out there for that purpose, she had a website that was dedicated to the theme of being obese.  Even if it was meant to be for pleasure, she couldn’t be that naive.  There is no way she couldn’t know that by selling these kinds of photos of herself to the open public, that something like this could happen.  Common sense would tell you that for every one person out there on the internet that loves fatties, there are 4000 who don’t, and who would rather point fingers and ridicule.  So with that in mind, I don’t understand why she didn’t have a website, have members pay to join it and keep all the rights to the photos to herself.  At least then she’d have a legal leg to stand on in this case.  So for that, I have very little pity for her in regards to the use of the photo.

As for the idea that the ad is ‘body shaming’ overweight women, I suppose she’s right.  There are women out there who will look at the ad and wonder if they’ve let themselves go too much.  They will wonder what their spouse will think of these ads if they see them and worry that perhaps they might end up being cheated on.  In the end they will feel worse about themselves and feel more shame about their bodies than they had before they saw it.

Now, maybe I am the naive one now but I am not one of those women.  Yes, I am overweight and that does cause some insecurities within myself and how I view myself sexually, but do I think an ad like this is going to make my husband love me less or more inclined to cheat on me?  God no… then again, I wasn’t a size two when he married me either, so that may make a difference.  Regardless, I don’t think seeing an ad like this would make him suddenly want to cheat, nor would it suddenly make him the type to pay for sex, which is basically what you’d be doing with a company like that.  It’s not going to change who he is. If a man is going to cheat, he’s going to do so for any number of reasons, and it’s in his nature no matter what ads he sees or doesn’t see.  He may cheat with a girl at work, with someone he shares a hobby with or a stranger he meets on a bus.  If he’s the type that wants it the easy way and wants to pay for it, he will FIND a way to do so.  Seeing an ad like this isn’t going to change who a person is or give them an entirely different set of values… if a man sees the ad and calls this company, it was in him long before he saw the ad, they just gave him the outlet.

Does it suck that companies like this exist?  Absolutely, it’s disgusting.  That said, I have to acknowledge that there is a market out there for it and that the people who created the company were very clever to do so.  Even if I disagree with what they are doing on a moral standpoint, I can still see why it exists… because there IS money to be made on it.  Men don’t cheat because this company exists, the entire idea of that is absurd, they are going to do it regardless… only now there are people out there who are willing to make money on their bad decisions.  More power to them, I say.

In the end, I still think the company is horrid (though clever) and I think the model, however understandable her feelings may be in regards to their use, got what she was asking for by selling her photos in the first place.

I also agree that the model clearly had no problem putting herself out there on the internet, and selling the photos without knowing the purpose they were being used for.  So the idea that she is using her ‘outrage’ about these ads as a way to gain more publicity for herself is quite believable.

A lot of people who are overweight will look at his and be furious and quickly jump to the side of the model. I mean the people behind the adultery company don’t have a lot of redeeming qualities to draw you to their side, except maybe their keen business sense… but this is the internet, and things aren’t so black and white here.  I think both are on shaky ground and share the blame equally.  There is no innocent party here, and they are both getting what they paid for, so to speak.

What do you think?

P.S. I didn’t link to the company or the model. I just can’t stomach giving either of them any more publicity than they already have.

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My MIL had been there previously with some friends and really liked it, so we decided to make this our last stop for the day.  I didn’t get as many photos as I would have liked, it was the hottest part of the day and the sun was blazing, but I got the most important bits.

By the time we arrived, we had run out of water and were all totally parched and warm.  The plan was to visit the gardens, have a drink and a bite to eat and then head out.  It didn’t go quite according to plan though.

Before we paid to get in, we double checked that they had a little café where we could get a drink, and were told that they did.  So we paid and headed into the gardens. We decided that before we even bothered walking around that we’d look for the café, but when we got there all the tables had been pushed back with stacks of pizzas on them and some women were there pouring juice. My MIL asked them where we could buy drinks, and the woman pouring the juice acted like we were a total nuisance.  She said that they were busy and the café wasn’t open.

Uhhh… well we were after asking that specifically before we went in, and we were all so thirsty and tired by that point that we had no patience for this at all. My MIL continued trying to talk to the lady, asking if there was any way we could even get a glass of water, and she pretty much told us to piss off.  Nice!   I hadn’t even seen the gardens by this point but I was already set to leave.

Thankfully, my MIL is not the type to just let something like this go. She went outside of the café and found a guy who looked like he was in charge and told him about the response we’d gotten from the lady inside.  He explained to her that they were setting up for a tour group that was there to see a concert (we could see the large group of people on the other side of the gardens) and continued to tell her how it was inconvenient that we were there looking for drinks while they were starting to set up for this party.

Boy did he pick the wrong woman to mess with.  My MIL then proceeded to tear a strip off him and ask how inconvenient can it be to give people who paid to enter the gardens a glass of water in that kind of heat?  I mean, she really gave him a what for.  Then he said if we waited until the group came around we could probably mix into the crowd and get a drink then.  So basically, crash the party.  I could do that!

That’s when we walked around the gardens.  We were all so stunned, pissed off and warm that while we did still see the beauty in the place, a big part of it was spoiled for us.  I took some photos but by the time we got part way around the garden we saw the party gathering to get their food and drinks, so we kind of motored through the rest of the place so we could go get our drinks.

When we went into the café area, they had orange juice that they were filling glasses half way with and then filling the rest with water.  I don’t know if they thought the juice was too expensive or what but at that point we didn’t care, it was wet!  It wasn’t nearly enough though, I put mine back with one gulp and was still dying of thirst but I just did not want to face that heinous bitch again.  She was busy pouring drinks at this little table so my MIL had tried to pour herself a glass of water, and the woman literally wrenched the bottle of water out of her hands.

I wonder, did the people spend so much on this garden that they aren’t getting the return they had hoped to get?  Are they THAT broke that they need to squabble over WATER?!  We had even told them we’d be happy with tap water and were still told to get lost, so I’m not sure what the problem was, to be honest.

I think my MIL was more disappointed than anyone.  She was so excited to show us this place, as she’d really loved it the first time she went and she knew I’d love taking photos there.   We could tell that she was really angry and disappointed with how our visit had gone, but it wasn’t her fault.  I’m sure that if you go on any regular afternoon when there is nothing else going on, it’s great.  You can probably sit and have a drink, then comfortably stroll around the gardens, just like we had intended.

If you go when there is some sort of group there or activity going on you are screwed, because I just don’t think they are set up to handle those kinds of situations.  The words “biting off more than you can chew” come to mind.

In the end, we decided we’d had enough of the place and ended up taking our empty bottles from the car and filling them up in a bathroom outside the gardens.  I think it’s safe to say, I’d never make it in the desert.

All in all, this is a beautiful garden and it’s amazing what they have done with it.  I think it’s worth seeing if you are in the area, but I wouldn’t count on them for anything and if you are there in the dead of summer like we were? –  Don’t trust the people at the entrance, and bring your own drinks!  Also, be sure to check their opening hours as they aren’t your usual 9-5 type of hours, it’s more like a few hours once or twice a week.

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A friend shared this article on Facebook earlier and the list made me laugh a bit because a fair few of them really do apply to me!  Some not, but many… oh hell yes.

I’m sorry, I just had to stop at number 81 and come back up here to say that this is quite possibly the most ridiculous NL list I’ve ever seen, but since I actually GOT to 81 I am too stubborn to stop, and therefore, I insist on still sharing it with the rest of you.  I should have read the entire thing before running to my blog to post it but I didn’t, I read the first few and was all “YAY this is great!”.

Not great, not great at all.

**************************************************************************

1/ You have a bike – I do!! I haven’t been riding it much lately though. :/

2/ You even know how to brake using retropedaling – My bike has brakes on the handlebars. So, no.

3/ Walking from your faculty to the cafeteria has become unimaginable. You take your bike, even if it’s for 50meters – This one would have to be a no too.

4/ Eating 7 slides of bread for lunch doesn’t scare you anymore – Eating even two slices scares me, but that’s my low carb diet.  I can’t deny that the Dutch are a VERY HIGH carb country!  It’s all about the boterham!

5/ By the way, you stopped eating warm lunch. You just eat bread – I do eat warm lunches but it’s not the norm here.

6/ You know what a kroket is, and you learned to avoid the orange ones – Yep, but I avoid them ALL.

7/ It doesn’t surprise you anymore to eat at 18:30 – This one is very true! If we haven’t eaten by 7pm we are starving.

8/ You drink beer – No country will ever make me do that. Yuck.

9/ You got used to trance and electro music – Even though my husband loves it, I still hate it.

10/ You don’t cheat on the train, because controllers are EVERYWHERE – Absolutely, it’s not worth the risk!

11/ When the cafeteria is crowed, you line up neately with the others – It’s just the right thing to do!

12/ You used to use cash all the time, but now you have a pin card – I am always the one at a dinner with friends who smacks my forehead and says “I forgot to get money out, I’ll have to pin!”

13/ You think ducks are cute – I always did.

14/ As soon as the sun pops out, you make a barbecue, even if it’s 10°C outside – If we had a garden, I totally would.

15/ You think 15°C is warm – I’m Canadian, 15 degrees is warm!

16/ You know winter stops in May, and not March as everywhere else – Oh this is rubbish, April is beautiful in the Netherlands!

17/ You don’t remember what a moutain looks like – I remember, I also remember there’s an N in it. MouNtain.

18/ You still don’t know how to speak Dutch. But your English has improved – I speak… Dunglish.

19/ You know what Surinam is. And where it is – Yeah I know where it is, because I just Googled it.

20/ You never go out without your bike lights – I don’t take my bike lights usually, that would require actually taking my bike too!

21/ You think butter in a bottle is normal – Wtf? Are we talking about the same country?

22/ You know that all the guys are in Delft. And the girls, everywhere else, especially Leiden – I’ve been married pretty much since I got here, I dunno where the guys are.

23/ You go to Leiden on Saturday – No, I don’t. Should I? What is in Leiden on a Saturday?  Is there something I should know?

24/ You’ve been to a flower park, and thought it was cool – I admit it, I’ve been to Keukenhof once. Ok twice. FINE THREE TIMES!

25/ You’re ok with having only one flavour of ice cream (the white ones) – I most certainly am not!

26/ You don’t even bother to ask “do you speak English?”, you just speak English right away – Isn’t this something you do more when you first get here, rather than when you’ve been here too long?  This isn’t true…

27/ When you go to the cinema, you are ok with being told where to sit – I kind of prefer it, to be honest.

28/ And you wouldn’t dare sit anywhere else – Not after seeing people being told to move that time, I wouldn’t.

29/ You have finally accepted the fact that Gouda is cheese – I don’t get it… when was it not cheese?

30/ Paying 6€ for a meal in the cafeteria seems normal – I don’t eat in a cafeteria but if I did I don’t think I’d kick up a stink…

31/ You know how to repair a bike – Yes, by saying “Honey, can you fix my bike?!”

32/ You eat potatoes at least once a day – No, but I think a lot of the Dutch do!

33/ You always check the weather before leaving home – Yes, and usually regret it because it’s rarely ever right anyway and changes every five minutes.

34/ You know what it is being late and having to wait for a boat to cross the bridge – I live in Rotterdam Zuid so yeah, had my share of moments waiting for the Erasmusbrug to close!

35/ You can drink milk at any time of the day – Can’t everyone?

36/ Sometimes, you only drink milk as lunch – What weirdo wrote this?  I’ve never seen anyone have only milk as lunch.

37/ You have tried karnemelk at least once – No, I still haven’t. I keep meaning to but never get around to it.

38/ You start liking dropjes – Blech, I tried loads but still am not a fan.

39/ For you something sweet means straubwaffels – I have never tried a straubwaffel but Stroopwafels are great!

40/ Spring means flowers blooming and construction sites opening up all over the place – Yes, and home renovations, so our flat is always noisy.

41/ Being tall gets a new meaning – Yes, it’s called being a giant.

42/ Blonde is back to being a hair-color, not a concept – Yeah, it’s sort of the norm here.

43/ you have 4 seasons in one day – On a GOOD day!

44/ you can start a mail to your teacher who happens to be a doctor by “yo, wassup doc” (exaggeration can get the message through) — Huh? This doesn’t make any sense…

45/ You think that paying to use the toilets is normal. – It is normal here, it also ensures a CLEAN toilet, so I can live with it. I know the fact that I said that proves this one.

46/ You know that kapsalon is not a typical turkish dish, but a hairdresser – Okaaay…

47/ You start to think that the strange position of the hole in the WC is not that disgusting – I’ll never stop being disgusted and annoyed with the shape of the toilet bowls here.  I would always rather that than some of the toilets (ie… holes in the floor) I’ve been forced to use in France though!

48/ You find it easier to find a good joint that a good coffee – I don’t look for joints or coffee.

49/ You have the AH bonus card – Doesn’t everyone?

50/ Your windows have no curtains, and you don’t care – They do, and I do.

51/ If your windows have curtains, you don’t use them, and just don’t care who might be looking at you – I have them and I care.

52/ For you, light rain is not rain – Rain is rain…

53/ Professors write a “well done” comment in your assignment and still grade you with a 6 – This is starting to make more sense to me, I’m starting to think it was written by some college dude. Explains knowing where all the girls are at.

54/ You can drink beer in the cinema (good) – I suppose I could if I wanted to, which I don’t.  Yep, definitely a college dude.

55/ 10°C is warm enough to wear a short or mini skirt – Nobody wants to see me in a mini skirt.

56/ You can ride your bike in the rain, wind and even snow — I don’t ride it in the sun, I’m not riding it in any of that shit.

57/ guys are very cute – A gay college dude?

58/ you can ride your bike wearing skirt (if you’re a girl), a suit or even high heels (if you’re a girl) – Enough with the bikes already!

59/ When you start having strong opinion even if you vaguely know the topic — I suppose so..

60/ When you “wash” the dishes with soap without rincing them – I don’t know how to rince dishes.  I rinse them though… with water.

61/ “alstublieft and dank u wel” are the only dutch words you know – Again, how is this something that says ‘in the country too long”???

62/ You aren’t surprised anymore that the disco closes at 4 (but it still pisses you off) – I WAKE UP at 4…

63/ You learn to bike without using your hands on the handle – Again with the bikes.

64/ You go to the market and you only buy the stuffs that fit in you bike – *sigh*

65/ Riding a bike and driking coffee/smoking/eating lunch at the same time is not a problem any more – We get it, BIKES. If you like bikes, you’ve been here too long BIIIIIIKES.

66/ You reformulate the saying “if you drink, don’t drive” by “if you drink, don’t ride” – I have never said that but I guess I would in the right circumstance.

67/ You’ve been asked where the coffeeshop is – I may have at some point, I don’t remember.

68/ You start wearing orange during soccer events, even when you’re not dutch – Guilty!

69/ You get used not to use napkins when eating. You just eat dirtily. – Is this English? Wtf…

70/ You know what GVD stands for – I do.

71/ You can never predict the weather and can not believe the weather forecast anymore – We already addressed this one didn’t we?  Someone ran out of ideas at 45 I think!

72/ You wait for the light to go green before crossing the street, even if there is no car – It’s the rules!

73/ You sometimes eat only with a spoon – Dutch people are more weird than I thought. I never heard of this.

74/ You tried fried fish from the caravans at least once – No, and I never will.

75/ You clap the lecturer (just because he’s been speaking for 2 hours) – Yes, at photo club meetings. If someone does a presentation isn’t clapping polite?

76/ You run to Albert Heijn at 21.55 to get some beer for the party that night – Oh yes, all the time. *sigh* COLLEGE DUDE. This is a “You know you are 19 in the Netherlands” list, not you know you’ve been here too long list.

77/ Trees planted in straight rows/ aka the forest/ seems normal – Huh?

78/ You think you understand why they don’t serve coffee at coffeeshops (but you’re not sure yet) – Again, a newbie mistake, no? Not that you’ve been here too long.

79/ You steal a bike at the station because the night before someone stole yours – Whaaaaaaa?

80/ You think it is okay to eat multicoloured sprinkels on bread for breakfast – No, I don’t.

81/ You use 9292ov.nl to go to the supermarket – Yes, because that’s something people do when they’ve been here too long?

82/ You know that the wind blows in your face regardless of the direction in which you are biking – No, only when I bike into the wind.

83/ You don’t even try to park in an unauthorised area just to ‘pick something up in 5min’, because you know you will get a ticket in 30secondes – I don’t drive, but this spelling is starting to drive me mental. UNAUTHORIZED!! SECONDS!! Spell check much?!

84/ When you move out of your apartment, you know you might have to take the floors with you – This one still boggles my mind.

85/ Stepping in doggiepoo on the sideawalk becomes almost a daily thing – Don’t even get me started!

86/ You end up eating super greasy food at 5am at FEBO or ALEV (Delft) — No I can’t say I’ve ever done anything at 5am in Delft, I live in Rotterdam.

87/ And after that, you manage to bike home still completely wasted and go to class at 8:45 – Oh FFS did someone get this list from a TU Delft forum or something?

88/ You need an appointement to talk with your friends. Or your mother. – I make appointments (NO E) yes, but I’m starting to like it that way.

89/ You enjoy making tourists jump off the bike path – Umm, no, not usually.

90/ You paid more for the lock of your bike than for the bike itselft – Doesn’t everyone?

91/ Real bread? You’ve made your peace with it. It doesn’t exist – What is the bread we eat made of? Lego?  Clearly this person has never experienced Wonderbread.

92/ You know that the Netherlands doesn’t have a special dish. They just fry everything – Hello, Stamppot??

93/ You know getting a couch will be difficult because it doesn’t fit through the door. Windows maybe? – This happens in every country.

94/ You’re ok spending Queen’s Day in the train because people are walking on the rails – No, I’d never be ok with that.

95/ Yap, Joost and Jeroen are the names of most of the Dutch guys you know – How does this say I’ve been in NL too long?

96/ when the sun pops up all your Dutch friends are wearing beach flip flops – Uh, I guess..

97/ Dutch people ask you why don’t you speak Dutch? – They do that no matter how long you’ve been here.

98/ You still don’t speak Dutch but watch silly Dutch TV shows like Take me out and Single – Yes, I’ve done that from time to time.

99/ You have been in a relationship with at least one Dutch person – I’ve been in a relationship with a Dutch person since the day I got here. Again, nothing to do with how long I’m here.

100/ You are used to people bumping into you abruptly on the street, yet never saying sorry – Nope, still not used to it.

**************************************************************************

What a stupid, STUPID list this is… I almost feel ashamed for even posting it but I am because I spent the time writing those answers.  I’d love to know who wrote this list, I get the feeling it was that drunk college dude from Delft who just biked home at 5am after seeing all those girls in Leiden.

Mother of GOD, I have seen some silly shit in my day but this is bad.  Actually I take it back, this couldn’t be a college guy. There’s no way they’d let the person who wrote this into college… no way.

Related posts:

1. Long Day…
2. Some Serious FOADing!
3. Fishing In The Netherlands

So, you’ve recently noticed changes to your homepage on Facebook and you are freaking out.  Suddenly you see posts between your friends and people you don’t know, the layout is different, you don’t know where to find what… you are LOSING. YOUR. MIND.

First, take a deep breath. It’s not as bad as it seems!  Facebook has changed many times over the years it’s been around and we’ve always managed to adapt.  You’ll adapt to this too, it really isn’t the end of the world.

Second, stop listening to the idiots on your friends list who are acting like Armageddon is upon us.  The new Facebook isn’t making it easier for people to hack you, nobody can see your profile that couldn’t see it before, and nobody is coming to eat your babies.  For pity sake, relax!

Third, and I’m just going to throw this completely unrelated aside in here. Don’t post chain copy and paste status messages.  You may feel like you fit in but everyone on your friends list wants to gouge your eyes out.

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, let me explain how things are actually working with the new Facebook layout. I’m not going to explain everything that is new, just the bits that people seem most concerned about.

Today I did a little research by creating a second account and then testing some of the new features.  I did this mainly because I was wondering what happens if a non-friend subscribes to you.  Here are the results I found…

SUBSCRIBING

While the ability to subscribe to a non-friend does exist, there is no point to it.  My guess is that they just couldn’t be bothered to code anything to tell us that subscribing to a non-friend doesn’t actually do anything in some caess. The only way that you will see anything in your news feed from this person is if they have their privacy settings set to EVERYONE. Unless you have a mutual friend in common, then they will need to have their privacy settings on FRIENDS OF FRIENDS in order to see any of their activity.

So what does this mean for you?  It means that as long as you have your privacy settings set to FRIENDS only, the activity on your profile is safe.  People can subscribe to you all they like, but it’s a pointless exercise.

I tested this by using my fake account to subscribe to my real one.  I subscribed to all, then I went onto my main account and added photos and updated my status. None of this was seen by my fake account because the setting on my main account are strictly FRIENDS ONLY!

I also tested what happens if I have it set to FRIENDS OF FRIENDS by first changing one of the photo albums on my main account to Friends of Friends.  I then sent a friend request with my fake account to one of the friends on my real account (still with me?) and once she accepted my friend request that photo album from my main account suddenly became visible to my fake account.  Since I now had that friend in common, the photo album became visible to my fake account as a friend of a friend.

Ok, have I confused you with the different accounts?  Let me try to sum it up…

YOUR PRIVACY SETTINGS SET TO FRIENDS ONLY = Only friends can see the activity on your profile. Period.

YOUR PRIVACY SETTINGS SET TO FRIENDS OF FRIENDS = Anyone that is friends with someone on your friends list can see and subscribe to the activity on your profile.

YOUR PRIVACY SETTINGS SET TO EVERYONE = Everyone is able to see and subscribe to your profile activity.

As you saw from my experiment with the single photo album, it is possible to change the settings for each individual photo album, status message etc… so what you do with that is up to you.

THE SIDEBAR TICKER (CREEPER)

A lot of people are also concerned with what is going on with the new update ticker on the right hand side of the home page.  If you are like most people on my friends list (and myself, admittedly) one thing that struck you right off the bat was that you were suddenly seeing updates that included people you’ve never heard of.

“Mary Smith commented on Susan Whatsits photo… “

Who the hell is Susan?!  You know Mary, she’s a good friend of yours, but again… who the hell is Susan?!

Why are you seeing anything that has to do with Susan, and more importantly, is Susan seeing things about you????

I have no idea who the hell Susan is, but I can answer the rest of your questions.

During the experiment with my fake account, I tested why I was seeing content from people I didn’t know through the friends we had in common. I watched my main account and when something came up including someone I didn’t know, I investigated.  Here’s how…

I saw a message saying that my friend, we’ll call him Frank Allen, posted on his friend’s photo, we’ll call her Isobel Smith.  Now, I know Frank Allan, but I don’t know Isobel Smith.  So I then did a search for Isobel Smith (on both accounts, real and fake) and low and behold, Isobel Smith had her entire profile open to the world.  Not only was it visible on my main account as a friend of a friend, but even on my fake account which has no connection to her at all, I could see everything.

I continued to do this with other messages I saw, whether it was a friend posting on someone’s status message, commenting on a link, or replying to a status message… if I didn’t know the other person, I looked them up.

EVERY SINGLE instance showed that the person my friend was posting to had their privacy settings at either Friends of Friends (visible only to my main account but not my fake one with no friends) or Everyone (visible to both).

So what is happening is that your settings are not making any difference when it comes to the updater / ticker / creeper (whatever you want to call it) on the side.  It’s the privacy settings that are set by the friends you comment and post to that is the deciding factor in whether it shows up on the rest of your friends home page.

So if you look back to my friends Frank and Isobel, for example… (bear with me, this is just hypothetical)

Imagine Frank has been having some money problems but didn’t like to talk about it too much.  He sees Isobel posting something about having money problems herself and since they don’t really have any friends in common, he decides to comment on her status and tell her he understands, he’s in the same situation and gets it off his chest a bit.

Suddenly Frank’s phone is ringing, it’s his mother wanting to know why he never told her he was having money troubles, why didn’t he come to her, does he not trust her???  Frank is left sitting there wondering “Wtf?!” and asks her how on earth she knew about it in the first place.
”I saw it on Facebook, you were telling some Isobel person. Why could you tell her and not your own mother?!”
See the situation that leaves Frank in?

By leaving her profile open to friends of friends, or to everyone, Isobel has unknowingly shared what Frank said with everyone on his friends list, including his mother.  Granted, it could be said that nobody should EVER say anything on the internet that they don’t want anyone to know, but sometimes we are lulled into a feeling of privacy when it really doesn’t exist at all.

Sure, Isobel has every right to have her Facebook open to the world but with the new changes in Facebook, that means that we have to be mindful of what our friends are leaving up to the public and what they aren’t.

If you want to know and control (as best you can) who is going to see what you put out there on your friends’ profiles, you should become very familiar with these three symbols:

The reason why you’ll want to become familiar with them is because they will tell you when something you are posing is likely to be seen by your entire friends list, or the entire internet if they are interested.

When someone posts something and you see it on your news feed, you always see this little bit beneath it…

If you look at the part I highlighted, you can see that this post in particular is for friends only, which means that if you post a comment, for example, it will only be visible to that person’s friends. The people they trust with their profile. It will not be shown to your friends, unless they are friends in common.

If you see the CUSTOM icon, then chances are they have it set to FRIENDS OF FRIENDS or they have made a custom list that you are a part of.  In any case, you can’t be entirely sure who is seeing it.

If you see the PUBLIC icon, that means that anyone who knows how to type will be able to see it.  No restrictions whatsoever and it will be seen by everyone on your friends list.

IN SUMMARY

Yes, Facebook changes can suck at times but in each and every case we adapt to them, so it’s best to try not to get all up in arms about it.  A month later you’ll forget what it was even like before…

Also, if people are seeing things on their news feeds that you don’t want them to see, don’t hate Facebook, hate your friends for not using their privacy settings more wisely.

In the end, remember that what you put out on the internet is ultimately your decision and even if you do wish your friends’ privacy settings worked better for you, it is not up to them or Facebook to protect your privacy, it’s up to you.  You are responsible for what you put out there and if you really don’t want people to see or hear something, don’t put it on Facebook.

Related posts:

1. WTH Facebook?! W.T.H?!
2. Best Friends Forever
3. Gotta Love Facebook

Last week my friend Penny and I got together for pedicures.  It was my very first pedicure ever, can you believe it?!  It’s something I’ve always wanted to do but either I didn’t want to spend the money on it or I was freaked out about people messing with my feet.

Penny kept pushing me on it, so I finally gave in and decided to give it a go.  Another friend told us about a place in Zuidplein where she goes, so we decided to go there.

First, let me say I was  little wary.  After my experience with getting acrylic nails at an Asian Nail Farm I wasn’t sure I wanted to try one of those places again for my pedicure.  When I got the acrylic nails put on they damaged my nail beds quite badly, I also left with bloody cuticles, which was unpleasant.  I call them Asian Nail Farms because they are usually big places that just push people through like cattle, it’s more about quantity than quality.

But… it’s cheap, and that’s what keeps people going there.  It’s also what brought us there for the pedicures.

Anyhow, I was quite excited about it, in spite of my hesitance about the location.

Well, it was both a good and bad experience… It’s one of those things that at the time is frustrating but later becomes a good story you can laugh about.

We showed up at the shop and were able to just walk in, which was great.  I was so happy to see that they had those big massage chairs that we could sit in, I looooove those chairs!  I used to go to electronics shops and sit in them just for fun.

The excitement started to wane a bit when I sat in the chair they pointed to and the arm fell off.  See the arm of the chair in the photo with the remote on it?  Well, every few minutes it just flopped off to the side.  They are made to open outwards so people can turn sideways and slide off the chair, as it’s a bit awkward with the tub in front.  The swivel was broken on that arm though so instead of just opening outwards, it just fell outwards like it was falling off.  I must have picked that arm back up 100 times…  The girl kept looking at me and telling me not to do that, like I was some how purposely pushing it off.  That was when I started getting irritated.  I eventually managed to get it to sit there, careful not to move my hips at all because the slightest nudge made it fall again.

I messed with the remote for a few minutes getting my massage on, which started to ease my frustration and get me to relax.  The girl put the water in the tub and threw some sort of blue stuff in and I started to soak them and wiggle my toes against the jets.  It felt great and before long I wasn’t thinking about the wonky chair arm at all.

Aaaah, I was relaxed, I was hanging with my BFF, I was about to get my very first pedicure… this was awesome!

That is, until the chair tried to eat me!

No lie, it was like a cartoon or something, it literally felt like the chair was trying to eat me!  Look at the photo again, see that pad that’s between my back and the chair?  Well the way the chair is made, if you pull up that padded flap you see all the mechanical bits inside the chair.  I don’t know what was happening but the rolling thing that went up and down my back kept getting caught in something on the bottom of that pad and it pulled the bottom up.  This caused the pad to scrunch up into a weird mouth like shape that opened and closed against my back, trying to swallow me whole.  Even Penny was looking at me like “What the hell is going on with that chair?!!!”

The girl came over twice to fix it, lifting the flap away from what it was tangled in and flattening it out. Just when I’d start getting comfortable and relaxed, the chair would try to eat me again.

Here’s the funniest part though, when the girl would come, she’d act totally irritated with ME, like somehow it was my fault that their chair was completely buggered.  They should have moved me to a different chair, or I should have asked to be moved, but I didn’t want to move away from Penny because we were there together and trying to chat and stuff.

In the end, the girl basically just turned the thing off and was like “No massage for joo!”, so I spent about 90% of the time there in a chair that does nothing. Unless you count the arm falling off because that continued the entire time.

This was just about the first 10 minutes that I was there, and I was becoming a bit worried about what I was going to experience once they actually touched my feet.  The girl seemed totally irritated with me, because of the chair constantly messing up, was she going to take it out on my feet?!

Well, it’s possible she did, she tried to boil my feet.  True story… I SO wish I’d had my camera handy to take photos of all this, but it was behind me on a shelf and they were already ticked off enough with me.  Plus, I was afraid to move because I didn’t know what else was going to go wrong with that damn chair.  The only reason I had the above photo was because Penny had her phone on her.

Anyway, you’re probably wondering what I meant when I said she tried to boil my feet.  Well, it means just that… she tried to BOIL. MY. FEET!

After all the chair massage drama was over, and I learned to just sit still like a statue, I could actually think of what was going on with my feet.  This is how it went…

Tammy:  Fucking chair…

Penny: Omg I know, what IS it with you?! You have the worst luck ever with this stuff!!

Tammy:  I know, right?!!  I swear, when I write stuff on my blog people must think I make this up, because nobody has this much bad luck.

Penny:  Nobody could make this shit up.

Tammy:  Wow, this is pretty warm, huh?

Penny (Relaxing and sighing) Nice, isn’t it?

Tammy: Yeah..

*Few minutes silence*

Tammy: Wow, this is really warm, is yours really warm?

Penny: Yeah it can get pretty warm.

*Few more minute silence*

Tammy: It’s hot, it’s supposed to be hot right,  not just warm? This is pretty hot….

Penny (Laughing): Yes, it’s supposed to be hot.

*Few more minutes silence… I start wondering what special kind of foot wimp I really am*

Tammy: It’s REALLY hot, is it supposed to be really hot?!!

Penny (Starting to feel like she is out with her three year old, I think): Yes, it’s supposed to be hot.

*Feeling like the queen of foot wimps, dying to take my feet out but choosing to “man up” instead*

*Few more minutes silence*

Tammy: THIS IS REALLY FUCKING HOT!!!!! IS IT SUPPOSED TO BE THIS HOT?! OH SWEET JESUS, PENNY IS IT SUPPOSED TO BE THIS HOT?!!

Penny (Mom voice): Then take your feet out for Pete’s sake!

*Pull my feet out*

Penny (gasping): OMG LOOK AT YOUR FEET!!!

*Looks at feet, feeling both horrified at the color of them, yet strangely satisfied that I’m not a foot wimp after all, that something really was wrong*

Penny: Jesus, I’ve never seen feet that red!! holy shit!

Tammy:  I TOLD YOU, I TOLD YOU IT WAS HOT!!!  That’s not normal right?!!  Mother of god, it hurts!

I think we were creating a bit of a scene because the girl came running back over, people were starting to stare, and my feet felt like they were on fire.  She messed with a dial between my feet and told me it was safe to put my feet back in.  This was after holding her hands on my feet for a bit and telling me how warm they are.

NO SHIT, SHERLOCK!  I can feel it too!

Again, I wish I had been able to get a hold of my camera, but I think if I tried to move, or asked the girl to grab it for me, she was going to stab me.  Penny tried her hardest to capture the redness but her camera phone just couldn’t cut it.  You’ll have to take my word for it.

Let’s just say, I looked like I was wearing red socks, it really was that bad. Not just red, but BURGUNDY.

It was around this time that the other girl came to work on Penny’s feet.  Penny, who all this time had been sitting in her perfectly intact chair, getting massaged and enjoying her front row seat to my horror show.  I was watching the girl clipping, scraping and cutting stuff on Penny’s feet and I won’t lie, I was truly frightened.

If a CHAIR could cause me this much misery, what would a pair of clippers do?  This girl was coming at me wielding something that looked like a cheese grater and she wanted me to let her put it near my feet.  All I could imagine was the trail of blood I was going to leave through the mall on my way home.

Yes, I know that’s a bit dramatic but seriously, I had just experienced Chinese water torture first hand.  I was traumatized!

I considered asking Penny to hold my hand, but I thought that might be the last straw for her.  This was her day OFF as a mom, after all.

In the end the pedicure itself turned out to be the best part!  There was no pain, no blood and she actually did a pretty good job!  She did all her clippy, shavey, scrubby stuff and I left with beautifully painting toenails and a lot less crap on my heels.

So, do I consider my first pedicure experience to be a success?  Oh jeez, yes and no!

No, because I’ll never everrrrr go to this place again.  That demon chair and the way the girl acted towards me because of it made sure I’ll never visit them again. A lot of the experience was uncomfortable, frustrating and even painful.

That said, I still had a great day with Penny, we went to a movie, shopped, went out for dinner and just had a really great full day together. Something we don’t get to do nearly often enough..  Even though it was completely buggered up for me, we SCREAMED with laughter on the way home telling my husband about it.  It sort of sucked a the time but now we have a really funny story to tell… AND the motivation to go do it again and try another place to see if it works out any better.

I’ll definitely go for another pedicure at some point.  I liked the actual pedicure part and I think I’d really enjoy it if I had someone a little less pissy doing it and a better chair.

So, if you want to go for a pedicure, I wouldn’t advise visiting Le’s Nail and Spa in Zuidplein.  That’s just my personal opinion though.  The original friend who recommended it and Penny seemed to have a much better experience than I did!  So, I’ll leave it up to you.

Related posts:

1. 101 List – Submit a POTY Photo
2. 101 List – My First Cheesecake Adventure
3. 101 List – Happy Sushi

It’s about people, and how they suck… and the rules of the road in the Netherlands that I just don’t understand!

Today my husband and I were driving to the supermarket, and he nearly hit a biker with the car.  We both instantly thought that the guy was in the wrong, and apparently he thought the same about us.

Here’s the scene:

We were driving along the street when we came along one of these weird dremples (speed bumps) with the pole next to it.  The reddish lane is a bicycle lane, but this old-ish lady in a schooter was sat in that lane chatting with her two friends (the two on the right in the blue).

The biker WAS in the bicycle lane, but because the woman was blocking the way, he swerved out to go around the pole on the OTHER side, then I don’t know if he realized he knew them or what, but he stopped – DEAD, like, on a dime.

Xander, assuming he was continuing on was driving along like normal behind him and had to slam on the break, just stopping in time before hitting him, and the guy was REALLY angry.  He came to the window giving Xander crap about how he is supposed to stop AT ALL TIMES if someone is at a crosswalk, on and on and on.  The old bitch in the scooter kept giving her two cents as well, the entire time she was yelling and getting in the middle of it all.  The biker was at my window, so I had him and Xander yelling at each other on either side of me, far too fast for me to follow properly or get my own two cents in, so all I could do was yell at her to STFU and let them sort it out.

Here’s the problem.  He was NOT stopping to cross the crosswalk, he was on a bike and the crosswalk leads to the tram on the left.  He stopped dead because he recognized the people and started talking to them… so he wasn’t in the cross walk because he was going to use it, he stopped in a cross walk to talk to the people who were next to it.  He was also still ON his bike, and if I’m not mistaken that’s not supposed to be the case either.  If he is crossing a crosswalk as a pedestrian he should be getting OFF his bike and walking it across.. OR continue on and cross at the intersection.

Everyone around him (ie… his FRIENDS) were telling him oh yes you were right you were right, but I don’t see how this is right at all!

First of all, he should have stayed in the bike lane where he belonged.  By coming out onto where we were he was essentially switching lanes and you don’t switch lanes and then stop DEAD in front of the cars behind you.   This all goes back to the old bitch sitting in the middle of the bicycle path and not moving.  It’s her fault really…

Anyway, he was convinced that it was Xander’s fault basically because “I am on a bike and I am at a crosswalk therefor whatever happens it is your fault!”, surely that can’t be right.  I mean I know the law falls largely on the side of the cyclist but it can’t be that cut and dry, can it!?  Wouldn’t the fact that he not only swerved out in front of traffic, leaving the designated bicycle lane and was ON his bike stopping in a crosswalk he wasn’t even going to USE, rather just to chat to people on the sidewalk matter?!!

UGH sometimes I hate people.  As we drove away I fantasized about all the things I would have loved to do, like pushing him off his bike and then beating mouthy scooter bitch with it, throwing him in front of a tram, you know… the usual in need of anger management type of stuff you feel after those kinds of situations.  I swear, if I had been more confident with the language and a little less shocked about the whole thing, he would have wished Xander just ran him over and killed him to spare him the pain of my wrath.

So, what is your opinion?  Was Xander totally at fault here simply because he was the one in the car, or does the cyclist also have some ownership in the situation?  I’m really curious what would have been decided by the police if Xander actually HAD hit the guy… the fact that Xander could have been found to be completely at fault BAFFLES me. BAFFLES!!

Related posts:

1. Another Day in the Life
2. Some Serious FOADing!
3. Least Favorite Places – Huisartsenpost

There’s one neighbour that I’ve decided I’m going to declare war with.  I’m not quite sure how, but I’ve been trying to hatch a plan over the last two or three years and I’m sure I’ll come up with something good any minute now.

They are evil!

Ok, they may not be evil, I’m not really sure as I’ve never actually met them.  Here is what I know…

1. They have made me really angry.
2. They are Asian.
3. They like the sun.
4. … and cigarettes.
5. They have made me really REALLY angry.
6. They don’t like trees.

You see, I spend a lot of time on my balcony in spring and summer.  I quite like the view from there and have been known to snap a few photos from time to time.  Like this one…

I took this photo in 2005, and this is what I had to say at the time.

Every spring this tree seems to explode overnight, it’s so beautiful! Such a shame it lasts such a short time though

This was always my favorite part of spring.  Looking out behind my house to see this beautiful tree in bloom!  On nights like last night it would even appear to change color, looking more pink or red than usual.

I LOVED THIS TREE.  It made life pretty.

The people who owned that garden had it set up quite beautifully with a lot of plants and a nice seating area etc.  I love looking over their garden while I sat out on my balcony.  They moved though, and then ‘The Asians’ moved in.  I call them that because I don’t know anything else about them.

Except that they hate trees.

… and they love cigarettes.

Well, this is what stands there now…

Yeah, that’s it.  A stump that gets freshly chainsawed every year.  Can you believe it?!

I know it’s their garden and they can do what they want with it, but seriously?   They removed anything even remotely beautiful, filled the entire garden with tiles and put nothing out there.

Wait, that’s a lie… in the summer they put out a lawn chair and a big can to use as an ashtray, because that’s the only time they ever go out there is to smoke.  Oh, and to chainsaw the tree.

These people really give new meaning to PAVED PARADISE AND PUT UP A PARKING LOT.  Fuckers.

So that’s what I see now when I sit on my balcony in the spring… a stump… and for that I hate them and am declaring war on Asia.

Not the real Asia, cuz I’d lose… just the little Asia that lives behind my house.

I’ve considered collecting dog poo and throwing it over the fence, because there’s no lack of it around here, but what if someone saw me?  This place is full of lookie-loos.  I need something more discreet and stealthy. Something that will make them regret the day they ever bought a chainsaw.

I will come up with a brilliant plan one day, then they will feel my wrath, and boy will they be sorry!!

Until then I will continue to give them the stink eye from the balcony.

Related posts:

1. Rotterdam Without War
2. How Friday the 13th Kicked My Ass
3. New Years Eve and Fireworks – A Need For Change in NL?

I’m completely non-religious so the whole homosexuality is a sin argument is lost on me.  Having sex with young boys is also a sin, from what I hear, but that doesn’t stop some of the most religious people on the planet from doing it.

If two men, or two women, or two men and three women or one woman and four men love each other and want to be married, LET THEM.  Who gives a shit?!  Honestly, what does it hurt?  As long as these people are doing what makes them happy and they aren’t hurting anyone, WHY stand in their way?

You know what I don’t get.  All these people are wound up about gay marriage and how it’s a sin, how they shouldn’t be married in a church, and god forbid they ever try to adopt a child… there are heterosexual couples all over the world that are cheating on each other, killing each other, divorcing, molesting and beating their (and other people’s!!) children.

What worse could a gay couple do?!

There is nothing a gay couple could do that millions of heterosexuals haven’t already done.

I just don’t get why this is even still an issue.  Idiots.

Related posts:

1. 30 Days of Truth: Day 16
2. 30 Days of Truth: Day 8
3. 30 Days of Truth: Day 2