How gay is your car?

I recently bought myself a new car. Nothing worth blogging about, until I started to notice posts referring to the European “gay car of 2008 election”, a somewhat weird yearly event where cars are chosen by a ‘gay’ panel organized by Ledorga, a French based organization of various gay vintage car clubs (I almost fainted when I noticed the words “gay” and “vintage” in one line ) Anyway, their anonymous panel chose the tiny Fiat 500 as the European Gay car of 2008, followed by a long list of expensive convertibles and luxury cars. The results are beyond my comprehension: what on earth is “gay” about this long list of cars? I assume when there is money to be make off the double-income no-kids gay part of the population everything can get a quick ‘gay makeover’. Most of you are straight - is your car listed?

Three Gigabytes of free blogging space and nothing to write about

[Copy-paste from http://wordpress.com/blog/2008/01/21/three-gigabytes/ by Matt Mullenweg]

“Free Space to Three Gigabytes”

“Much of the work we do at Automattic [= the company running wordpress.com] is behind the scenes, infrastructure you’ll (hopefully) never notice or see, but we’re always thinking about how the improvements we make to the foundation of the site will allow us to build more interesting things on top of it.

Today, one of those developments comes to fruition — everyone’s free upload space has been increased 60x from 50mb to 3,000mb. To get the same amount of space at our nearest competitor, Typepad, you’d pay at least $300 a year. Blogger only gives you 1GB. We’re doing the same thing for free.

Our hope is that much in the same way Gmail transformed the way people think about email, we’ll give people the freedom to blog rich media without having to worry about how many kilobytes are left in their upload space.

How are we able to do this? Over the past year we’ve developed our file infrastructure, replication, backup, caching, and S3-backed storage to the point where we don’t feel like we need to artificially limit what you folks are able to upload just to keep up with growth. We’re ready for you.”

Imagine, getting 60 times more blogging space for free, but having nothing substantial to write about today

The deafening sound of silence

Amidst the crashing sound of the US sub-prime mortgage crisis (nicely packaged as financial products sold by European banks), with the dollar at an all time low, huge US consumer debts, rising prices and a western stagnation/inflation that is shaking the understructure of our economic foundations, I can’t help but wonder if the golden years are really over. The dwindling world’s oil and commodity supplies will obviously become a reason why future wars will be waged, but in the mean time, reality is already biting: 1.50 euro for 1L of gas (equivalent to $9 a gallon if our American friends were to pay current European prices), a +3 to 4% inflation rate, crashing economic consumer confidence: we’re not on a fun ride during 2008. While all this doom-and-gloom is affecting almost everyone, my mind is focused on a personal issue, an issue much more invasive than the crashing economy: my new refrigerator.

I know, while wars are fought and children are dying all over the world, I shouldn’t be bothering you with “tales of never ending noise”, but here I am, whining. Just in case this is your first visit, here’s a quick recap: my old fridge died, I bought a new one (obviously, one of those “no frost” miracles of technology) and the damn thing had to be lifted inside with a crane. The moment I switched it on in my open kitchen I knew I had made a choice that would haunt me for many years to come: this all new, singing and dancing ‘cooler’ is making the noise of an entire zoo in heat. I’m trying to type this post while this f*cking machine (as you can notice, I’m beyond “annoyed”) is wailing, sighing, gargling and basically making every sound from the Kamasutra, 7/7, at over 42 dB(A), courtesy of a new EU law banning the use of more regular, much more silent coolants in present day household cooling/freezing appliances.

Apparently, along with the no-frost came the no-silence part. After three visits of several technicians, including one from the manufacturer (”it’s functioning according to its specifications, there’s nothing we can do. But this machine should never have been installed in an open kitchen”), I’m lost: the hourly high-pitched cooling sounds are ruining my quiet living and working environment. What would you do: rent a crane or just push it out of the window yourself? [Note to one self: must tone this post down, I'm sounding way too desperate]

Stop me from buying a new car

When most grown Belgian men are slightly down, frustrated or looking for a way to escape these boring, dark days of winter, they call their buddies for a beer in a local bar. Fortunately, I’m not your average Belgian male. But then again, like 100,000 of my gender, I am one of those men who do envisage buying a new car at the upcoming Brussels motor show. OK, I can hear you yawn across the entire blogosphere (’he has his mind set on buying a car, so what?’) but here’s the catch: I don’t really need (as in “must have”) a new car. Sure, my old Diesel has passed its expiry date, but given the fact that I’ve driven it only once last month, focusing on a major purchase like a new automobile must sound like a capricious idea, a foolish impulse buy, driven by a generalized state of dissatisfaction. Still, here I am, browsing countless glossy car magazines, offering “once in a life time discounts: up to 4,000 EUR ($6,000) on selected models”. Should I fight this whimsical urge, or allow myself to ‘just go with flow’ and indulge in a small, “environmentally friendly” low emission car?

Post New Year’s blues: the meltdown

The meltdown of the Antwerp ice-skating rink tends to induce some post New Year blues over here. In spite of
large numbers of shoppers looking for January sales, this town feels wet and deserted. I hope your world feels better

Terror alert in Belgium: Tales of real Belgian explosions

You may not know this if you’re non-local, but Belgium is still on ‘terror alert’ this week.
May I bore you? After reading some authentic ‘tales of Belgian explosion threats’, let me
show a real one. My hands are currently too cold to type any more long tales, so if you
feel like guessing what happened to this ordinary can of pineapple, don’t hesitate

“A vacation in Guantanamo”

After three days (and counting) without functional heating after “fireworks inside my home”, I’m spending my “holiday” week in places that are “just warm” - like shopping malls. I couldn’t help but overhearing a local travel agent-customer conversation in a downtown Antwerp shopping center today. Really . “No”, the older couple said, “we won’t go through that invasive US security crap, there will always be another year to see the USA. We won’t get fingerprinted and looked upon like potential terrorists during our vacation”.

“But the US Dollar is dead cheap right now”, the salesperson replied, “and besides, you won’t get hassled by immigration as you both look like a respectable couple”. “But have you seen on TV what horrible things they did to that poor innocent man in Guantanamo?” the woman replied, “anyway, I’d feel like visiting a country at war”.

As far as I could hear, they quickly decided to spend their hard EUROs somewhere else, but not in “that country at war”. The US may currently be really cheap as a holiday destination for Europeans, but for many, the US political and social reality on the daily TV newscast no longer makes it feel like a “vacation destination” at all. Sad, very sad.

If you happen to be American (and many of you are), I’m sure you’ve had it with Guantanamo stories. But in general, is it defendable to fly off on a vacation to countries where too many innocent people are suffering at the hand of cynical governments? I once visited Egypt on a diving vacation, ignoring that locals were being tortured for their beliefs. I wouldn’t do it again. Would you?

Power crashing into 2008

Two hours before midnight in 2007 and I’m without diner, heating, power, Internet or TV. While vacuum cleaning my living room early today an AC outlet located in a rain-swept outside wall started making a humming sound, followed by a small flash. I assume somehow water got into the wall. Seconds later, all my fuses blew, along with the AC outlet. I (foolishly) only disconnected some equipment and decided to power-up again. Flicking the switch caused a major domino effect, destroying several of my appliances. My 200 name digital phone directory seems to have died, along with the phones and several other devices. I’ve yet to check the extend of the overall damage. An emergency electrician noted a major issue with the wiring in the wall and claimed he could not assist my any further before Jan 2nd or later. Electricians don’t break into walls on New Year’s day.

I’m typing this on a laptop connected to an AC extension cord generously provided by a neighbor and a friend. While the streets in front of Antwerp City hall are filling up with a crowd of 100,000 heading towards the riverbank fireworks, I’m trying to decide what to do next. Looking at several uncooked “Roti de Biche” and ten bottles of sparkling wine, I called my guests to inform them that my party had been canceled, as 2008 had already started without them, with one loud flashy bang.

Sometimes, life sucks. Anyway, I hope your last hours of 2007 were less traumatic.

[Updated and reposted Jan 1st: I'm still without TV, heating or the use of my kitchen after a sleepless night with the noise of the city celebrating the New Year, with only power in the bedroom. My insurance is refusing assistance, claiming the AC wiring wiring damage and subsequent power flash was 'structural' and not 'accidental'. I'm waiting for a technician, who will hopefully show up tomorrow. As you can see, I did manage to take a couple of shots of the Antwerp fireworks on the riverbanks in front of my door. Friends sent me 'have lots of fun' messages on my cell phone... Anyway, I'm beginning to realize how it feels to suffer major damage to one's home]
[update Jan 2nd: the repair service cannot assist me due to to "work overload after Jan 1st". It's freezing in Antwerp. "We will call you when someone is free this week". I'm off to a warm spot at the downtown shopping center...]

[Update Jan 3rd: my return to the civilized world (heat! power!) was celebrated with popping bottles of Asti!]