All 34 entries tagged De Loze Kreet Empty Outcry

Riddle

1. It is greater than God,
2. It more evil than the Devil,
3. Poor people have it,
4. Rich people desire it,
5. If you eat it, you die.

What is “it”? Check back at this blog tomorrow for the answer!

: 19 May 2008 23:34 |  Tags: 2008 De Loze Kreet Empty Outcry English |  Comments (21) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Argentinean Joke

Laugh out loud if you’re Argentinean or if you know what Argentinians are like. Here it is:

One day, the pope visits the American president in the White House. After some conversation in the Oval Office, he asks the president if he could please make a phone call. “Sure”, the president says, and he points to the desk, where there is a red phone and a white phone. “What are the colours for?” the pope asks. “Well, red is a direct line to the Russian president,” the American president says, “and white connects you directly to God.”

The pope uses the white phone for five minutes and then hangs up. He asks how much the president would like him to pay for the call. The president asks for 5000 dollars.

Days later, the pope sits in the office of the Argentinean president. After some conversation with the country’s leader, he asks if he can make a phone call. The president points at a desk, on which there are two phones, a red one and a white one. “The red one is a hotline to the American president, the white one to call with God”, he explains.

The pope uses the white phone for twenty minutes, after which he asks the president how much the phone call should cost. “5 dollars”, the Argentinean president says. In utter surprise, the pope remarks that a much shorter phone call to God had cost him a thousand times more in the United States. “That is easily explained,” the president says. “See, in Argentina it is a local number.”

: 15 May 2008 22:58 |  Tags: 2008 De Loze Kreet Empty Outcry English |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Today: Dutch National Day

On the photo queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, shaking hands with a primordeal Batavi clansman on an official visit to the town of Makkum.

You might wonder what this caption is all about. Well, today the Netherlands celebrates its national day, Queen’s Day, in which the queen naturally takes a kind of big role. The date, 30 april, was the birthday of an earlier queen, and has since been maintained.

Last weekend on the banks of the River Thames right under the London Eye, in surprise I stumbled across a miniature version of what the Netherlands must now be doing on a mass scale: people dressed in the national colour, orange, a folk band performing on wooden clogs, Heineken beer on the tap, Dutch fries, even a flower stall. And of course, a lot of Dutch people.

It’s really a grand feast that I recommend you go and see for yourself some time. Each year again when the day comes, the Warwickshire that I have around me seems just so colourless. Next year, I’ll make sure to be there too: in the Land of Orange.

: 30 Apr 2008 13:23 |  Tags: 2008 De Loze Kreet Empty Outcry English |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

"If You're Not There Yet, You Soon Will Be

As was written in a page-wide BlackBerry ad.

I was reading a well-known opinion magazine last night. A special report on “Nomadism”: phenomena of the new technologically mobile class that scatters around city parks, cafes, and public libraries. (Yes, among other place also Warwick University’s library, I dare say.) An excerpt about an American college student gives you a flavour.

Permanently connected, she communicates by text, photo, video or voice throughout the day with her friends and family, and does her “work stuff” at the same time.

And then a word came around the corner. BlackBerry. It popped up in various of the reports articles. “[T]he BlackBerry by Research in Motion (RIM), a Canadian firm, has since 1999 made e-mail on the go seem normal.” Sounds like a regular phrase of global technology enthusiasts. And a little bit further, a new business at their first meeting: “The most urgent item, everybody agreed, was to get BlackBerries.” BlackBerry really gets smart people enthusiastic, I thought by myself. And if one read a bit further, it seems to be everywhere, too. “In physical meetings, they are the ones looking at their BlackBerries under the table”.

I was amazed. BlackBerry seemed to be the undercurrent of the entire global trend in wireless communication. I read on, to find that the multifunctional machine also has developed a crowd of addicts, who go by the name of “CrackBerries”. And that businessmen at home secretly sneak to the bathroom to quickly check their e-mail on it. A better way of making this thing appeal could hardly be thought of. “Addictive, ok,” I thought by myself. “That must have a reason. I should have a look how much these thingies cost”.

And then, when I flicked over the page, the ad. Very smart. A little bit too much for my sensible mind. “If You’re Not There Yet, You Soon Will Be”, the white letters on a black background informed me. First all these subtle insinuations in these articles, then this ad. Not so subtle at all, in my opinion.

“If You’re Not There Yet, You Soon Will Be”. Pffaaa. I don’t think so.

: 14 Apr 2008 20:46 |  Tags: 2008 De Loze Kreet Empty Outcry English |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Wees een goede burger, en blijf bang!

Er zijn een hoop hilarische filmpjes rond Wilders’ Fitna op YouTube te vinden. (De film die straks echt onwijs gaat tegenvallen omdat iedereen hem al stukgeanalyseerd heeft.) Hier volgt bijvoorbeeld een boodschap van het Ministerie van Veiligheid:

Link

: 21 Mar 2008 10:19 |  Tags: 2008 De Loze Kreet Empty Outcry Nederlands |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Pencil

In the unfolding course of my dissertation write-up, I have tended to increasingly use pencils, instead of pens. Primary reason is simply that I have more pencils at hand (when all other alternatives lack…), but I was also advices once in a (creative) writing workshop that you should always use a pencil instead of a pen. “Because you can then subsequently make alterations in your text, or simply wipe out a whole block and use the page again!” our resourceful tutor pointed out.

All this reminds me of a Soviet joke I once heard. It goes something like this. In the time when the space competition was at its very height, the Americans pumped several millions of dollars into a new research project. Objective of the project was to develop a pen that could be used in space. Normal ballpoint models would have trouble with floating ink, as this is obviously a liquid substance.

When the Soviets came to hear about this project, they all laughed out loud. They simply used pencils.

: 10 Mar 2008 12:55 |  Tags: 2008 De Loze Kreet Empty Outcry English |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Daffodil Lament

While the University babbles about becoming the best green company of the UK, this blog’s scribbler contemplates the ostentatious nature of going green.

Despite the cold and windy weather, our campus these days is graced by a vast orchestra of trumpetting daffodils. These fragile flowers provide a promise of pending spring. (A that it may come soon!) But all of campus? Or is there a “politics of flower planting”? (Note the postmodernity of my argument.)

If you, like myself, live in Hurst, have a look to the left when you’ve just crossed Gibbet Hill Road towards home. A hill shields this residential part of campus away from the road. And on one of its sides – the road side, obviously – can be seen for one instant a blossoming sea of yellow that makes one’s heart skip. The side that automobilists do, and Hurst residents don’t see. Ostentation? Of course. It made me laugh and shake my head.

: 05 Mar 2008 12:13 |  Tags: 2008 De Loze Kreet Empty Outcry English |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Careful Where You Flyer!

Student promoters go around with bags of flyers and they don’t seem to give a blast where they leave them.

Our Hurst flat is small. Whoever needs to go to the loo, passes by the front door. I find a bunch of pizza flyers half sticking through the letter box. Annoyed I pick them up. When, a half hour later, I open the door for some friends, there’s another pile of wet, sticky flyers. Union events, Battle of the bands, One World Week. All in six-fold of course. They lie on the table for a while until someone throws them away. On the way out to classes the next morning, I also find flyers all over the lawn of Hurst residences.

To me this seems the most wasteful and pointless thing. If the Student’s Union and its Societies were really committed to reducing the paper waste and making sure the campus stays fresh, they would simply leave a flyer – maybe two – in our tiny kitchen, and no worry, all of us will see it all right.

For the moment, I’ll just pick up the leaflets from the grass that a doubly left-handed street team incapable failed to place inside our letter box, unable to believe that those green words are more than mere words.

: 29 Jan 2008 14:38 |  Tags: 2008 De Loze Kreet Empty Outcry English |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

To Warwick Accommodations

I just sent the following out in an email to Warwick Accommodations. As I suspect, more Warwick students face similar problems. Maybe you recognise parts of your complaints in the below. It points at the difficulty of communicating with Warwick Accommodations when no-one takes responsibility for a problem and everyone refuses to act upon it.

Subject: complaints about bathroom fan in Hurst

Dear Madam, Sir,

This weekend I returned to my Hurst residence and found to my surprise that the problem with our bathroom fan has still not been resolved. Its malfunctioning has by now quite a history.

The fan in our Hurst 9 residence stopped working at the end of November after which we immediately notified the appropriate Warwick Accomodations contact point. It was promised that within the month someone would look at it (ie, I thought, fix it), yet this did not happen. In the meanwhile, our already damp and narrow entrance got even worse to the point of drops of moist gathering on walls and ceilings, leaving no dry surfaces.

The ceiling in our bathroom got moldy and was painted over twice. The first time, the mold came back. The second time, paint came dropping down as we tried to have a shower.

Up to this point, I regret to conclude that Warwick Accommodations has provided us with no satisfactory reaction to our complaints, nor has it outlined a correct time schedule by which the problem will be solved.

I am currently at a loss over whom should be responsible for this problem as every person me and my flatmates have spoken to refers to someone else´s responsibility. The residents of Hurst 9 are getting exponentially frustrated and ununderstanding about the continuation of this problem, which to us appears not very difficult to solve. I hope Warwick Accommodations may now begin to meet its Service Agreement by repairing the fan (and from what I hear, those of other Hurst flats) in the fastest and most efficient possible way.

Regards,
Maarten Hillebrandt (Hurst 9c)

: 08 Jan 2008 09:45 |  Tags: 2008 De Loze Kreet Empty Outcry English |  Comments (2) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Vervelend

“Ik wil niet flauw zijn hoor, maareh…”
“Maar je bent het toch?”
“Tsja, nou ja, zo kan het toch niet langer?”
“Dus dan ben je toch maar even flauw.”
“Nou ja, goed het loopt de spuigaten uit vind ik, iemand moet er dan toch iets van zeggen? Of moeten we dan in de pas blijven lopen?”
“Je wilt niet flauw zijn, maar je bent het toch…”
“Zeg, hou nou eens op met die provocaties van je!”
“Tsja, ik wil niet flauw zijn hoor, maareh…”

: 20 Dec 2007 10:40 |  Tags: 2007 De Loze Kreet Empty Outcry Nederlands |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem