Our Amsterdam experience wouldn’t have been complete if one of our bikes hadn’t been stolen. Based on the state of the lock, I believe bolt-cutters were used during last night’s liberation. The bike will be missed. The cycle continues.
Enough with the sad news. Yesterday, Shannon and I celebrated the one year anniversary of our marriage. We are soon approaching the one year anniversary of our departure from Canada, which also happens to be my birthday. Good times.
Last Saturday, Andrew and I took our bikes on a ferry across the river Ij. We then began our search of “the island” for the 80 meter long party boat, the Stubnitz.
Machine translated from German:
The motor ships Stubnitz, a non-profit registered association, is operator former cooling cargo boat of the GDR high sea-fishing fleet. Since 1992 became the ship a mobile platform for music, cultural production, documentation and communication transformed. Three former loading spaces are used regularly as meeting areas for live-musik, exhibitions, performances and installations. Artists and coworkers can be accommodated and boarded on board. The drivingready ship is used for projects in European ports, in order to investigate and present innovative culture. The meetings can be documented and archived with own technology systematically. Onboard jobs and studios for audio, video, photo and diagram Design make a preparing possible of the multimedia information and their publication in the Internet.
The inside of the boat had been gutted and converted into a giant club with three bars and three separate dance floors. The party was called Rock Da Boat, and the music ranged from crunchy ska, surf-guitar, and dance hits from the 40s-70s, to hip-hop and techno. Be sure to view the QuickTime VR and Flash presentations found in the info/press section of the Stubnitz page.
After the party we found a bunny living at the end of the pier with her three babies. Using my mad bunny skillz I tamed the mother, and we hung out with the four rabbits. Cute.
Update: I almost forgot, we are going to see Jurassic 5 tonight. Woot.
On the fifth of September we will board a China Air flight to Bangkok. After forty-two days of exploration (Thailand, Vietnam?, Malaysia?) we will begin our journey home:
Bangkok -> Amsterdam -> London -> Montreal -> Winnipeg (Friday 04 November 2005)
***
Three thousand years from now, when keen minds review the past, I believe that our ancient time, here at the cusp of the third millennium, will be seen as another such era. In the years roughly coincidental with the Netscape IPO, humans began animating inert objects with tiny slivers of intelligence, connecting them into a global field, and linking their own minds into a single thing. This will be recognized as the largest, most complex, and most surprising event on the planet. Weaving nerves out of glass and radio waves, our species began wiring up all regions, all processes, all facts and notions into a grand network. From this embryonic neural net was born a collaborative interface for our civilization, a sensing, cognitive device with power that exceeded any previous invention. The Machine provided a new way of thinking (perfect search, total recall) and a new mind for an old species. It was the Beginning.
—Kevin Kelly [quote]
***
Culled from the connections:
All links via zniff.com.
Last weekend, Harold, Tania, and ChefQuix came to Amsterdam by train and ferry from London. Good times!
Although Harold and Tania have now returned to their cozy flat, ChefQuix will be living with us for one month. After his stay, he will be heading to Romania for 6 months, where he will be crafting a novel. As such, I have enrolled him in Wally Glutton’s Quixotic Boot Camp for Writers.
The purpose of this boot camp is to boost creativity while decreasing self-censorship, through constraints on time, word count, vocabulary, and subject matter.
The first warm-up exercise is now complete:
Task: Write the first sentence for 10 novels you would never write.
Constraints: Sentences must be under 25 words.
Response:
The still night broke with a death rattle that wandered through the hallways of the ancient mansion.
Sharlene always knew that she would die a lonely spinster; she just didn’t realize how sharp the emptiness would be.
Although the 42nd President was one of the most hated, he was also one of the most respected for his unwavering vision.
There are millions of births and deaths each day - maybe it’s hundreds - but on any day people are born and people die.
A chill breeze blew across the prairie, the first signs of winter on its gusty breath.
Booboo the bear bought a bunch of balloons for his beautiful wife, Belle.
The road seemed long ahead, but Charles knew he would finish the Tour de France ahead of Neil.
There are things in the night, things out of sight, things that crawl near in the depths of our fear.
Beatrice had never believed in love at first sight until he strolled in on a warm summer’s night.
High noon came and went, but Buckshot Benny was nowhere to be seen.
Gadsby is a wonderful example of constraint in writing —a story of over 50,000 words without using the letter “E”— not to be confused with F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.
The Quixotic Boot Camp webpage was created using PBWiki.
