Today on my weekly afternoon off, I decided that the easiest option to go shopping somewhere was to the Breestraat in Leiden, which you could call Leiden’s “High Street”, where I hadn’t been for almost two years.
Leven zonder socialisten
Dit is pas een leuke verkiezingsstunt: om de kiezers te laten zien (bang te maken? 
) hoe een leven zonder socialisten in de regering eruit zou zien, organiseert de Belgische Steve Stevaert gratis busreizen naar Nederland.
Ze gaan hier dan aan “gewone Nederlanders” vragen hoe duur het leven is geworden sinds er geen socialisten meer in de regering zitten…
Hoezo Belgenmop?
Stargate
Finally managed to exchange the DVD my friend had given me (see 7 Feb.) for another one. Since the Free Record Shop at Leiden Centraal station is not very big, there wasn’t THAT much choice, especially in foreign language movies.
But I managed to find something I liked: a movie that that friend and I had rented 5 years ago, when we were still PhD students, and watched it together on a Friday night: Stargate. Not caring about the bad review it got on IMDB, I know I have good memories of this reasaonable SF movie, which features pyramids, a paleo-linguist and a beautiful princess…
… and back again
Finally an update again, after having had another flu for almost a week (started last Friday). Today I went to work again, but just for half a day. Amazing how loud a lunch discussion can sound when you have a cold… But I’m happy to at least be back again!
Speaking of work and health: below is a picture from one of my colleagues’ room. I *do* feel a lot better than this guy… (can you guess what project they’re working on? )
First Anniversary
Today it has been exactly a year since Charl P. Botha gave me the opportunity to start a weblog on his site, so THANKS for that, Charl!
Some slightly sadder news that happened today is: one of my best friends visited me for the last time (for now), because he is moving to Australia (of all places). As a farewell gift, I gave him a copy of Gerrit Komrij’s new poetry anthology.
In return, he gave me two movies on DVD, Mars Attacks and Fucking Åmål. Unfortunately, I already had the latter, but I should be able to exchange it, because it was sealed.
2 Lords of the Rings
I’ve finally seen 2 Lords of the Rings, i.e. the first two parts of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. And I finally realize I’ve missed a lot; such great movies! Although people tell me, the third movie is even better than the first two.
Anyway, apart from the thrilling story, the breathtaking sceneries, the impressive cinematography, etc. I was also captivated (again) by the languages invented by Tolkien. Obviously I saw them when I read (part of) the books, but they also sound nice, especially Sindarin. As my Sindarin isn’t what it used to be (actually, never was anything), I was happy to find the complete transcripts of the dialogs on the net, FotR and for TTT
A comprehensive guide to Tolkien’s languages can be found at the Ardalambion site, and if you’re curious to know how your name is spelled (or any other text) in the Tengwar alphabet, go here.
Now all I need to do is see the third part…
