A look at Air New Zealand's 747!

Alright, so I'm an airline and aviation geek. But you all knew that already. I haven't talked about that too much here so far, haven't I? The other day I came across a video which I want to share with you. It's an interesting video from a CBS show ("Amazing race") where tv host Phil Keoghan will demonstrate the in's and out's of a Boeing 747-400 of Air New Zealand. It's a very interesting look especially inside the super comfortable business class where he explains how the seats work of the ingenious fishbone design business class (that also e.g. Virgin Atlantic uses). Who wouldn't want to travel like that?



A hug.

Now serving penis on Northwest...

Okay, you might know that I love airlines and aviation but I couldn't believe my ears when I heard this sensational news: I mean I was already "Nuts about Southwest" airlines' slogan... but hey, they now started serving PENIS on Northwest flights! Gonna luv' em for that, don't ya think? But here for yourself and spread the good news...



With this fun news I wish you all a very good weekend :-)

Luv and hugs.

Messy Meat "Carl's Jr." Commercial

Isn't that a one of a kind hamburger commercial...?

Messy Meat Banned This Carl’s Jr. Commercial

Posted using ShareThis

Oh, I forgot to mention that obviously the ordering company did not approve the commercial for release... :-) I still wonder what marketing genius came up with the idea for this one...

Miss Kiss Kiss Bang.

Here is the german entry for Eurovision 2009: Oscar Loya ft Alex C - Miss Kiss Kiss Bang. Unfortunately, so far I could not trace a video so you have to do with this one.
The song is nice, a bit in the same style as two years ago but I doubt this song will take any high rankings. But decide for yourself:


A hug.

Happy Valentine's!

Today, a week ago I had one of the most beautiful moments of my life: I was at the Mamma Mia musical in London, they sang my absolute favorite song of all time "Dancing Queen" and I was there with my Jelle and Dani and Sera and then my beloved lilbro Dani and I started singing out loud this wonderful song together! I was soooo happy and it's a very precious memory now, one I will cherish for all time.



Thank you Dani, Jelle and Sera for making this such a wonderful moment, I owe you my deepest thanks. A million kisses to you.

I love you guys. Happy Valentine's day.

Free speech?

Yesterday, something happened in Europe that really upset me: Geert Wilders, a dutch politician and an elected member of the dutch parliament, has been refused entry into the United Kingdom on grounds of being a thread to public order! 

What upsets me is the fact that a citizen of the EU is not free to go to another EU country and make use of your right of free speech! The UK had informed Wilders a day before via the Embassy that he would be refused entry. He chose to go anyway as he was being invited by members of the British parliament to show the controversial short movie Fitna (link to the english version) he has made. One has to know that Wilders is a right wing anti-islam campaigner who is very controversial in Holland too. I don't share his views at all but I still believe it must be possible in the so called "free" and united Europe to travel to another member state and make use of your right of free speech. If it starts here with such a "simple" refusal, where does it end some day...? Just to assume he might upset some or maybe even all parts of a society cannot be a reason to refuse him his right of free speech and ban him from entering the country! I hope he will appeal the UK's government's decision at court and fight for his right to enter the UK anyway as he was adviced to do by a dutch minister! Once again, I don't sympathize with his radical political views and I don't like his way of making politics in a very tabloid style manner but I believe he should be given the right to enter the UK and discuss his views with british politicians.

Here's an english language article of one of Holland's reputed newspapers, NRC Handelsblad.

Britain's BBC also reported on this.

A hug.

Discipline.

Here's the thing: I need to be more disciplined. I tend to spend way too much time in front of this computer without doing something really useful. Since weeks for example I try to start a photobook project (like blurb) and until now I have not set up a single page... I have a few ideas in my mind but still, I don't start. Another thing is my "Learning Spanish" project, I have spoken about that recently. Though no course or such is on the agenda yet, I am busy with it now trying to consider different options on how to continue with that (but I still feel I could be more disciplined about it). I want to go to the cinema regularly but still have to set up a schedule for myself. I have to be more strict (again, disciplined) to myself with regard to cooking. We tend to be way too lazy and rely a lot on prefab food from Albert Heijn (the dutch supermarket chain). I have started to force myself to cook, even if only for myself ('cause Jelle is once again on a self imposed diet...sigh). I like the cooking, I liked the food I made and it doesn't cost too much time (which I was afraid of). I made a start, but I need to continue more strict with the cooking thing. Another thing: punctuality! I am not punctual at all, since months. I urgently need to change that. And then, there is the most hatred part I have to be more disciplined on: household. That includes anything, from cleaning dishes, doing laundry, dusting, tidying the rooms and keep them tidy. The problem with the last is that this also involves Jelle and since we both are very much alike it's not working very well if I am disciplined and he is not... So for that I still have to find a workable solution. But at least I need to start on myself to be more focused on such things. It's not something I can't do, it's just a question of discipline, I believe. 

Please feel free to share your ideas on these things, I am again thankful for every tip and suggestion.

Very disciplined, a hug.

Unforgettable visit

My very special birthday cake, candles blown out already after I made a wish

So on Friday was my birthday and as I had said before I would go to London to celebrate it!

To summarize it shortly: it was the best birthday I've had. After we all had arrived in London and checked in at our hotel I was in for a big surprise: Dani, Jelle and Sera had organized a birthday cake for me and they entered the room with it, singing "Happy Birthday" to me! Now that I think of it it does bring tears of happiness to my eyes... it was really so beautiful, at that moment I felt the luckiest person in the world! Thinking back of it, I am happy again! I was there, with my hubby and my most beloved friends celebrating my birthday for the first time in many years. Since a long time I did not bother to celebrate this day. I accepted that my parents would congratulate me but I never felt like celebrating it with somebody. But this year was different: some things in my life have changed and therefore I also wanted to celebrate my birthday again. I opted to make it special and asked Dani and Sera if they would come with me to London to see Mamma Mia together! When they said "YES!" that was the biggest and most beautiful gift for my birthday already! I was so happy that I had the chance of celebrating this (non special 42nd) birthday with them and my hubby Jelle.

The same night we had a very nice meal in an asian restaurant (and my chopstick capabilities are terrible... how am I gonna survive a vacation in Japan...?) and after returning to our hotel we took a piece of my birthday cake for dessert ;-)

Jelle, Dani, Sera and me

The next day, Sera's good friend Marisa joined us and we strolled leisurely through London, did some shopping, met my flickr friend Bernie finally for the first time which was really great fun! He is as nice in real life as he is on flickr and I am really happy I have had the chance to finally meet and see him "live". 

Me and Bernie

Later on we also met Dani's friends Leo and Matt. And then, in the evening, we went to see the musical of Mamma Mia! I had seen the dutch version of the musical some years ago and did like that a lot. But I was very eager to see the original language version here in London and I must say it was really great!!! The performance was fantastic, the live orchestra and the cast performed so stunning well, it was pure pleasure to see them play and hear them sing! 

Sera, Marisa, me, Jelle and in the front Dani (photo taken by Leo).

Dani and I were constantly singing along and in the end when they start playing the full song of Dancing Queen for everybody to sing along there was no stopping us anymore. It gave me shivers of joy and excitement to sing out loud and together with my beloved lilbro the song which is one of my all time favorites! That was soooo much fun, I was happy, really really happy!

Jelle, Dani and Marisa

On Sunday we visited Camden Market which I enjoyed a lot. It is so diverse, I saw lots of funny t-shirts (though I didn't buy any) and we had some fabulous food in one of the food stalls there. We then made our way down to the Thames to have a look at the London Eye and that concluded our activities in London for our short but oh so worthwhile visit! We had to go back to the airport where we both caught our planes back to Amsterdam and Madrid, sadly, both were delayed (thanks a lot, Easyjet). 

Once again, this was a memorable, very special incredible weekend for me and I want to thank Jelle, Dani and Sera for making it so wonderful. It was awesome guys, thanks a lot to you. Many kisses to you and lots of hugs. I can't thank you enough for making me so happy and spoiling me so much. From now on, my birthdays will never be the same again... 

Mamma Mia, it's my birthday!

Yay! Today is my birthday and I have a very special weekend ahead: Jelle and I are going to London where we will meet with my beloved lilbro Dani and his hubby Sera to spend a wonderful weekend together. One of the highlights will be our visit to Mamma Mia! We all love ABBA and the musical. I have seen the dutch version of it and of course the fantastic movie but I always wanted to see the english version of the musical as well. This weekend it's going to happen! Yay, I am so happy to be able to spend this weekend together with my dearest friends. It'll be great and I hope to tell you after my return in a short post how it was.
Until then, have a great weekend y'all!

Many kisses and hugs.

Learning spanish?

Okay, so here's the problem: I am lazy. But I want to learn Spanish. I had started to attend a course back in July last year until end of last year. But due to my work I had missed several lessons so I quit and did not continue 'cause I was unable to make up for the missed lessons.
I know that I need to learn, that I need to be less lazy in that. I am willing to. Though at the moment I think it makes no sense for me to attend a school again as I can foresee that I won't be able to regularly attend it due to several holidays I will take. I also work shifts which makes it very difficult to visit a course regularly. But still, I desperately want to learn this beautiful language. I haven't figured out a plan yet how to do it, any suggestions from your side? Self study needs a lot of discipline which I also don't have, so the school thing was a good slight pressure for me... ;-) Luckily I have a few friends with Spanish as their mother tongue and I can pick up the pronunciation from them from time to time. But maybe some of you have had similar experiences in picking up a language and can share their opinion. I know I need guidance in learning due to my lacking self discipline. Maybe I should look into some online communities...

Un abrazo, everybody. ;-)

Shine!

May I introduce to you Holland's Eurovision songfestival entry for this year in Moscow: "Shine" performed by the Toppers! I saw sunday night's finals live on tv and this year the Netherlands opted for a different decision making progress than the previous years. The artists are long known (I think since end of  last year already) and tonight the winning song was chosen which they will perform in Moscow. A jury of 5 professionals gave their votes for six different songs that the toppers presented in a live show on tv and besides the professional jury the audience at home had the possibility to vote too! One third of the votes was given by the professionals, the rest by the audience. For the professionals, the song "Shine" was number 2 while the audience put it on number one so with all votes combined "Shine" became the winning song.

The three men who will perform at Moscow are very popular artists in the Netherlands. The "Toppers" as they call themselves are together since a few years and easily fill the Amsterdam Arena or similar big arenas for several days for extremely popular sing-a-long concerts. Shortly after they had been announced to be the artists for the dutch entry for Eurovision last year, one of their original members (Gerard Joling) decided to quit and for him a new member joined the Toppers (Jeroen van der Boom). Originally consisting of two gay members, now only one is left: Gordon! He is also the one who was very eager to get to the contest for his home country. He and Gerard Joling became immensely popular on tv as two very queer, very gay, very funny singers/entertainers with their own reallife soap, the Toppers concerts and many other tv shows they present with more or less huge success. Rene Froger is the third member, a very popular singer. After Joling left the group they brought in newcomer Jeroen van der Boom.

I like the chosen song, it was Jelle's and mine favorite too. It's a nice, happy, singable song. It's for sure not the winning entry, it's not eastern european enough I think... ;-) But still, I typical, yet nice eurovision song with a twist... though a little something is missing but in general it's a nice and worthy song for the contest. 'Nough talking, now listen to it:



Grand Prix hugs (in Germany the Eurovision Songfestival is known as the "Grand Prix")!