ashmoore

Chinese vegetarians

Thu, 04 Mar 2010 16:55:04 GMT

I went down to Rotterdam last week to go to a museum. On the way there, we got hungry and decided to go to one of the Chinese restaurants that we were passing by.

I'm not normally too keen on Chinese food because the vegetarian options are normally pretty limited, even things like Braised Vegetables often have pork in them.

Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised when I picked up the menu and it actually had a whole vegetarian section. Since I wasn't that hungry I just ordered some steamed vegetarian spring rolls.

Five minutes later, the dish came out. It was a roll of steamed rice pastry with nothing inside.
Vegetarian? Technically, yes.

The sweet taste of home

Fri, 15 Jan 2010 09:27:15 GMT

I went to a post-movie drink with some friends last night.
They all (a mixture of French & English folks) wanted to go to the local Australian bar. I resisted. They insisted.

Trying to get into the spirit I ordered a VB.
It cost 5 Euro 50.

Thats $8.50 is the old country.
For a VB.

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 20:09:30 GMT

My laptop sits on an old wooden desk in the kitchen and has a small drawer with a wood and brass handle on the front. The desk was in the apartment when I moved in.
In the far left corner of the desk, against the white stucco wall is a book, lying lengthwise, called 'Onder de Australische zon', a Dutch translation of an Harlequin romance novel, written by an Australian woman named Lindsay Armstrong.
Immediately to the right of the novel is my camera case, empty. Underneath the black and orange camera case is a piece of cardboard, folded once. It contains four dates with the time 12:30 next to them, all of them physiotherapy appointments from the first two months of the year.

On top of these last two items lies my laptop case.

To the left of the case is a black business card with white writing. It is from a casting director who gave it two me after an impro show I did in March. Sitting over the top left corner of the card is an electronic guitar tuner. Next to this is a postcard, featuring a doberman and a chihuahua, addressed to my ex-girlfriend Karen. It has no stamp. Sitting on top of this is my agenda, an empty Specsavers glasses case and a pen with the website address www.dhl.nl printed on it. I have no idea what DHL is.

Behind the laptop is a blue Dutch to English dictionary. Underneath that are two scraps of paper. One contains an old shopping list. Half of the items I never bought. The other piece of paper is a chart listing the bar chords formed by the open A and E finger shapes.
Under that is a A4 printout, which contains a poem written for me by my friend, Quathar, who is half Dutch, half Pakistani, as a Sinterklas present. The poem is in the form of rhyming couplets. The first of which is a fact about me, the second a quote from The Big Lebowski.

Next to this sits a silver Canon camera and the packet for a pack of playing card with photos of Australian animals on the back. This was sent to me from Australia by Katherine, as an inoculation against homesickness.
Next to this is a black iPod, which I have not used for over six months.

In the close right corner of the desk is a two inch thick book from Microsoft press about programming for the .NET 2.0 framework. On top of this is a little pamphet about a play my friend wrote and directed last month. 'Liquid Love' by Teresa Merilainen. For the life of me I can't remember the English word for a little pamphlet that you get when you go to see a play, that describes the play and the cast.

On top of this in a autobiography, 'The elfish gene' by Mark Barrowcliffe. I took it from my old friend Tiest's house in Cambridge when I was there earlier in the year. I've been meaning to mail the book to another old friend, Troy. Inside is stuffed three postcards, which I meant to mail at the same time, but still haven't.

Through the window, the sky is still light blue. It is a quarter past ten at night.

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 18:30:17 GMT

Try to order a dozen eggs in Amsterdam? They wouldn't know what the fuck your talking about. They got the decimal system.

Fri, 06 Feb 2009 14:51:49 GMT

I learnt some new Dutch words that make previously unrelated facts suddenly fit together

aard	earth
vark	pig
spring	jump
bok	goat

I can't imagine how this information will ever be useful. Except, maybe, for providing a topic for a blog I haven't touched in over four months.

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 09:55:58 GMT

I had had a busy weekend, so on Monday I came home after work, flicked on the telly and veged out all night. Little did I know that this act would send me into the world of everyday surrealism.

The first entry came at 6.30pm, when the A-Team screens on Dutch TV. The episode was going along in its normal style when Boy George and the Culture Club appear and sing one of their pop numbers. A little strange, granted, but my mind rationalised it by saying it is just obviously some sort of cross marketing deal between the TV and record companies.

Not content to leave it at that, the camera pans out to reveal that Boy George in all his heavily made-up, cross dressing glory is actually playing to a room full of ten-gallon hat cowboy types who are taping along happily to the tune in a bar that looks more like a smash-a-chair-over-the-head-and-throw-out-the-window establishment, than a British disco pop venue.

If that wasn't enough, after a minute of this, the show decides a bit of extra juxtaposition is needed, so they cut to Mr T in the big black and red stripe A-Team van, driving around firing a machine gun out the window, and then proceed to cut back and forth between the two until Mr T runs out of ammo and Boy George runs out of verses.

Shocked but thinking it was a one off event, I watched rubbish TV for the rest of the night. At midnight on most of the channels, the regular programming finishes and ads for mobile phone sex lines start up. The first one to come on had a typical Dutch looking woman, butt towards the camera, and face bending around seductively, saying something in Dutch which I couldn't understand.

Resting on each buttock, in close-up, was a slice of cake.

It was time to go to bed.

Biology lesson

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 21:19:20 GMT

I learnt tonight that in Portugal only girl babies are delivered via stork. Boy babies grow out of cabbages.

Cassandra was never so funny

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 11:35:05 GMT

Now that it is almost over, it is worth reading this eerily prescient Onion article written in January 2001.
I never believed in psychics until I read it today.

Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over'
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28784

Home sweet home

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 12:45:17 GMT

More drama on the home front.
Last night I was cleaning the house and found an old telescope that didn't work. I'm in a bit of a minimalist phase at the moment so I decided to put the scope in the storage room, which is down the common hall from my apartment.

So, I step out of the apartment with telescope in hand. As I open the storage room door I think to myself 'I didn't bring the key to the apartment with me and the door locks when it closes. No problem I think, the apartment is only six feet away and besides the door is a bit iffy, most of the time I have to slam it just to get it shut...'

Just as I finish the thought I hear a rush of wind and the door slaps shuts with a loud bang.

After five minutes of processing what I should have done and evaluating how much and what sort of idiot I am, I remember that my next door neighbour and I share a balcony. All I have to do is ask him if I can climb over his balcony to mine and walk in through the back door, which I think I left open.

I knock on the door, no one is home. Then I remember, I haven't seen him in a few days, maybe he is on holiday.

Damn.

OK. I'll ring Sabina, my flatmate and get her key. Except, she moved out last week. And gave me the keys back. Which are in the apartment.

OK. As embarrasing as it is, I'll ring the landlord and pray that he has a spare key. Surely he does. Right, where's my phone? In the apartment. No problem, I'll use a public phone booth. Right, where's the number. I wrote in down on a piece of paper, in the apartment.

My landlord is actually a friend of a woman from work. I suppose I could sleep in the hall and get his number when I go to work tomorrow morning. Hmmm, not such a good plan.

Stumped as to what to do, I go for a walk around to the back of the apartment block to look longingly at my balcony, four floors up. Great, the balcony door is open. It is also four floors up.

Then I notice that the balcony below me has its door open.

I run back upstairs and knock on the door. Trying to figure out how to explain my predicament and what proof I could offer that I'm not some sort of burglar. I'm greeted by a middle aged dark haired woman with a mild French accent. I tell her I locked myself out and ask if I could climb from her balcony up to mine. She is totally unsurprised and says that previous tenants of my apartment have also asked the same thing, although they never managed to make it up to the balcony.

No problem I think, I'm a climber. We go outside and I see the balcony is a bit high, but if I stand on a box I can get my fingers on to the ledge. I reached up, get a hold and perform what is caled in climbing lingo a mantle. The next thing I know I'm back in my apartment!

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 09:20:20 GMT

Last Saturday I was riding my bike home in the rain, when I was overtaken by a homeless man. Talking loudly to himself.
On rollerblades.
Listening to an iPod.

D'oh

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 09:10:44 GMT

It was a classic mistake and one that I'd always been careful never to make. Now the hair down my left arm and the left side of my face is all curled up and falling off.

I'd been climbing and had a few beers after work, so when I arrived home around 10.30 I was exhausted. I thought I'd whip up some beans and rice for a late dinner. Looking in the fridge, I noticed half a packet of tortillas, so I turned on the oven to heat them up.

To kill some time while the oven was heating up, I plonked myself in a chair and watched some ridiculous Dutch television.

After a couple of minutes, I went to the oven to throw the tortillas in. Strange, I thought, when I opened the oven and found it was still stone cold. The fire must have gone out, I thought, so I picked up the lighter and reached into the oven.

Dumb. Very dumb.

The next thing I was aware of was a dull roaring sound, like distant thunder moving towards me, followed by a ball of blue flame, roughly oven sized, also moving towards me.

When the Matrix style bullet-time that you always experience when you do something incredibly stupid and dangerous was over, I was left with all the hair on my left (lighter holding) arm, the hair on the left side of my head, and a few grandpa-hairs on my ear, which I never knew I even had, singed to light brown curls.

And of course, that smell.

Oh God

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 08:57:47 GMT

Two short points:
1. The temperature today is 16 frigging degrees colder than this time last week. 16 degrees!
2. I've started blogging about the weather

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 09:38:57 GMT

On the weekend I took the 7 hour hour train ride to Berlin to see my friend, Michelle.

Berlin is not like I had imagined.
The most immediately striking aspect is how beautiful it is. For a capital city, and one of the great cities of the world, it is very green, with wide avenues and remarkably calm and uncrowded streets. Every few blocks there is a park or square either abstract or often in remembrance of the division of Berlin or the holocaust.

The traffic isn't particularly aggressive either. And for a city with such spacious streets, there is a surprising number of bicycles, which adds to the calm atmosphere.

The people themselves couldn't be more different to the stereotype of Germans. Everyone I met was open and friendly. From buying Tshirts in a street market to asking directions from a business man I experienced nothing but relaxed and helpful people.

A living statue or a living living statue

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 09:53:20 GMT

Last week my friend Erin bought a Super 8 camera and decided to make a short film about Living Statues in Dam Square, the square in the centre of Amsterdam.

There were three of us cast as living statues and one tourist.

No sooner had I got into position and pretended to be a living statue than some real tourists waltzed up and tried to give me money. I started talking to them and when they found out I wasn't an actual living statue but instead, an actor playing a living statue they immediately took there money back. I insisted that I was happy to keep the money, but they would have nothing of it.

Standing around in living statue mode, we were all surprised at how much attention we received. Especially since none of us were especially good living statues. I am sure that I was the worse, I didn't even really try to stay still, except for the minute or so the camera was actually rolling, but we managed to get a group of at least twenty people watching us, commenting, getting photos taken, and at one point, poked.

At least I'm not a cockroach

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 09:48:34 GMT

Like some Kafkaesque hero I am finding the only interesting thing I have to talk about is my successes and failures in navigating the water sodden Dutch bureaucracy.

So it is with great pleasure that I announce that last Tuesday I went to town hall and picked up my SOFI number, which is the Dutch tax number. This means that I am working in Amsterdam completely legally and my adventure with Dutch goverment functionaries is over.

For now...

I'm legal!

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 17:56:43 GMT

After 7 months of dicking around with Dutch bureaucracy I finally got my work visa!

It lasts for another 5 months, after which I'll have to re-apply.

Wherefore art thou, Sarcasm?

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 15:16:45 GMT

What an age we live in.
Neuroscientists had detected the region of the brain that scans for and detects sarcasm.
This is what happens when Gen Xers get into positions of power in academia.

The play's the thing

Fri, 02 May 2008 14:00:03 GMT

After three weeks rehearsal, I did my play last Friday and Saturday night.
I've been doing improvised performance for ten years but had never done a scripted play.

I spent the first two weeks just trying to learn the lines, without really doing any acting (much to the frustration of the directors). Then in the last week, I had the lines down and discovered the world of text-interpretation.

The first thing I noticed that there were lines that I hated having to deliver because they seemed stupid. But slowly, as I got a better handle of what was hapening in the play I found was to rationalise the delivery of the lines. By the end there was only two lines that I didn't like and managed to deal with it by thinking 'well obviously the character jut says dumb things sometimes'.

On the night I was scared shitless that I'd forget lines or accidently jump pages ahead in the script (which my scene partner actually did in the run-through, half an hour before the play). But happily, everything went alright on the night.

7 II

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 15:17:43 GMT

On a long enough time line, the probability of any TV show being remade approaches 1.

Blake 7 is being remade.

New bike and eternal recurrance

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 08:59:34 GMT

Ever since I arrived in Amsterdam I've been riding my sister-in-laws old bike. It was a rickety, but functional old thing. The chain guard fell off, the lights didn't work and the chain would pop up every now and then. Also, it was a bit wobbly because the previous rider was hit by a car while riding it, and it had been a bit bent out of shape.

Last week the bearings in the axle gave out so, on Saturday I went down to the Overtoom and bought a new bike.

On Sunday, while happily riding through an intersection a car drove straight into me. My first thought was 'Oh god! Not my new bike!' After a quick check to confirm that the bike had only been slightly stratched I cursed the driver and went on my way.

Scripted play

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 14:14:46 GMT

After months of avoiding it, I recently got involved in the English language impro scene in Amsterdam.
Last week, one of my friens from impro rang me up saying that she was doing a scripted play and the lead male had dropped out, and could I please, please fill in for him.
I was very nervous because, although I've been performing impro on stage for over ten years, I had never done a scripted play before. Not ever. The closest I'd ever gotten was learning a couple of lines, or a song, for an impro show.

Anyway, I thought I'd could do with the experience, and always have diffuculty saying No to a female in trouble. So I went to an audition and got the part.

It's been an experience. The play starts in three weeks so the pressue to learn the lines was the first obvious challenge. I still haven't done that.

But I must say the challenges involved have been rewarding. Seeing the infinite number of ways that lines can be read, and the process of taking lines that at first seem stupid or unrealistic and finding a way to deliver them that makes them sound believable has been educational and expanding as a performer.

It starts in two weeks. Dear lord.

More Dutch TV

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 09:36:36 GMT

While channel surfing through Dutch TV last night I flicked on to The Chaser's War on Everything. Macloed's Daughters, ok. The Shaq, maybe. But the Chaser?!

The Chaser always seemed to be so specifically Australian, both with the obviously Australian internal political humour and its general sensibility, that I was surprised that it would show on free-to-air Dutch television at 8.14pm.

Go figure.

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 12:19:56 GMT

I just can't get enough.

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 11:47:26 GMT

An old joke resurrected thanks to GoogleCharts

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 11:21:53 GMT

So, the previous tenant at my new place was, apparently, a French woman, so what with gender stereotypes and all I kind of assumed it would be fairly clean. I was wrong.

The place looked like it hadn't been dusted in years. There was that sticky black dust that you only get after years in a city. It was on the pipes, the lampshades, even the furniture. The bedroom door had these strange brown streak marks, like some sort of mud monster had been trying to punch its way in and old cobwebs filled all the nooks and crannies.

On the plus side, the fridge had half a bottle of 51 and two bottles of French wine sitting on top of it and the inside was filled with beer and Breezers. So all I have to do is clean the place and it is house-warming ready.

You are all invited.