ok, if i’ve got the day wrong… blame my birthday calendar.  🙂  i saw it this morning as i was brushing my teeth!

today i rented the party tent and the terrace heater… to be delivered sometime early saturday.

i also bought some alcohol.  🙂  and told the guy at the liquor store that… “i’ll be back…”

we’ve got 4 people crashing over so far (still floor space available, but you may want to bring sleeping bags, we’ll run out of bedding)

the parking pass is claimed, so anyone else driving will need to pay for parking.  i recommend in the little streets nearby; you only have to pay until midnight, so it’s cheaper than in our 24 hour parking lot.

and that’s it for now!

Time: 8pm onwards
Date: Saturday 19 January
Place: Prins Hendrikkade 510 t/o 125, Amsterdam (for more info, please ask)

Things to bring:  
Warm coat for hanging out outside and/or slippers for hanging out inside
Beer or other beverages that you want (We WON’T be providing.)
Perhaps a bottle of something mixable that would be useful in making cocktails (We WILL be providing, but it helps to have more)
A friend (and we’re not opposed to a few friends – just let us know first)

So, what are we up to?
We’re having a party, duh.
We’re renting a tent/ terrace warmer(s) for outside, so that we don’t have to stay cramped in the boat.  But we can be in both places.
We WILL have music outside.  (With any luck, we’ll figure out how to make it good and LOUD – no current tourist boats on pier to worry about!)
We WILL have a fire outside.
Sharon WILL make lots of cocktails (menu as yet to be determined) and get you smashed.  🙂  (No, Karl, i am NOT a cocktail perfectionist; but it will be yummy)
We will make some munchies and cake.  If you like bringing stuff like that, let us know and we can talk about what is handy.

We DO have sleeping space for out-of-towners this time.  First come first serve.  If you have friends you could stay with in Amsterdam, feel free to invite them, too.

Send an email to spidertangle@gmail.com if you need more details.

been at work now 40 minutes and can barely keep my eyes open.  maybe in need to make another coffee.
we went to living in oblivion last night.  i can’t believe i ever DON’T go.  🙂  it was a great time.  met lots of interesting people, and talked more with people i’d already met. 
sadly, although it wasn’t raining today, i can’t get “fietsen in de regen” out of my head (sung to the tune of riders on the storm, and sung for my appreciation by one of the new acquaintances last night).  this is sad because i don’t remember the rest of the words.  i have the same problem with “staan wij in de file” from the koen en sanders show.  then i’m stuck singing the first line then hmmm hmm hmming the rest, until it seems time to sing the first line again.

ugh.
i’m going for more coffee.

later today i’ll try to post something about matt’s birthday party, which will be on saturday 19january.

well, 
i’m not going to bother with a long description of what i’ve done for the past 2 weeks, or on new year’s eve…  if you want to know, you can read matt’s lj for it: thisc0rrosion.  🙂  i’m just too damned lazy. 

but….
SUPER DUPER THANKS TO

kreepygrly

 & troy FOR A FANTASTIC FUN NEW YEAR’S PARTY!  i had a great time and went home all babbly drunk (much as i was for most of the party).  couldn’t shut up on the bus.  couldn’t shut up in maoz falafel when we stopped for the LAST falafel broodjes of the night.  🙂 

you know, i liked the people i met at your party very much!  i will have to pester you for contact info!  i’ll try to remember.

in other news:

not so big thanks to

frumiousb

 for her cold.  😛  i was pretty sick on friday and saturday after karl & erika’s party.  must have gotten it from you.  🙂  but felt better enough by new year’s to drink myself silly.  i think the bubbly pretty much killed the rest of my germs.  and… i need to remember to pester you for info on your party rental supplier.  must plan matt’s bday bash!!!
 
enough for now… back to work!

bedankt, gea, voor de herrinering:

harte gefeliciteerd, witchdoctor!

so, as a sinterklaas cadeau, i got matt (and me, by default) tix to laibach for last night.  since we’ve been booked solid for activities all this week, and much of last, i skipped my french lesson and went home for a nap in between, making me a bit crabby when it came time to go (i hate having to wake up when i’m happily sleeping, even if i’m sleeping with the intention of waking up with more energy).

anyway, the show was great.  the first half was from anthems, reworkings of various national anthems with interesting visuals behind.  it was interesting, if a little lower-energy than i think most of the audience would have preferred.  but this is, after all, laibach, and you can’t expect anything specifically from them, unless it’s to be unexpected. 

then they left the stage, all was quiet and dark for a few minutes, while stupid audience members shouted inane things like, “pizza!” for no apparent reason.

when they came back, it was without the female vocalist from the first half, but with two new female vocalist/percussionists.  and it was much more high-energy/ dancy.  to be specific, it was the stuff from their album “wat“.  visuals again were really cool, and the girls were great. 

i was really annoyed at the audience, though.  there were some really rude (vs. carried-away and just having a great time) behaviors.  including throwing a jacket at milan fras while he was singing.  what the fuck is that?  no one likes things thrown at them while performing.  i’ve seen bands simply stop playing and leave the stage when that kind of shit happens.  milan just looked a bit peeved, but otherwise continued.

still, altogether we had a great time, and even ran into a couple of acquaintances that we don’t know super well, but have chatted with on occasion.

now i’m at work (alone today) and listening to kap10kurt.  heh heh.

in october, my boss suggested to me an upcoming raise.
patience….

well, the numbers have just run through.  i get a 15% raise!  yay!
and she wants me to think about what i’d like for my xmas bonus.  🙂

not too shabby!

Winter Solstice is coming up, the longest night of the year. Simply put, it is an astronomical occurrence.  The Romans  celebrated Saturnalia at this time, which involved parades, masquerades and much drunken revelry.  The Druids
observed the “death of the sun” by casting away symbols of the things that had been holding them back through the year, then lighting a torch to signify the birth of a new sun.  Many other cultures observe or celebrate this time of the year, in various manners.

Instead of a mad party, we’d like a quieter gathering of people interested in staying up all night to observe the return of the sun.  Usually we try to do this just the 2 of us, which ends in us falling asleep long long before we’ve made it through the night.

Date/Time:  Saturday 22 Dec, 16:28pm until Sunday 23 Dec, 08:48am. (yes, it IS the 22nd this year)
Place:  Matt and Sharon’s houseboat.  Email us if you want to come.  🙂
Friends: Bring a friend or two if  this is something they’d enjoy. 
Staying Awake: We think that games and movies will be involved, and coffee and alchohol and good conversation.  We have lots of games and quite a few movies.  If you’d like to bring more of any, please do.  Then we will have more to choose from.
Nota bene:  we’re NOT having a sleepover. Do not expect to sleep! 🙂 Catnappers will be tolerated but humiliated. Drop-outs will be forgiven, but don’t crash here! We’ll be staying awake from dusk until dawn. In the morning, you can go home to your OWN beds to recover.

Drinks: we will have coffee drinks and mulled wine going on all night.  If you like beer or anything else, please bring your own.  We like BYOB parties; they make it easier on everyone.

Food: sunset is at 4:28pm on Saturday afternoon.  That makes dinner an issue.  For this reason, we’d like you to RSVP and also give your vote:  Potluck or Delivery?  For snacking during the night, we’d like everyone to bring something.  You can make it or buy it, but please, let’s avoid a bunch of bags of chips and borrelnootjes.  Thanks.  Also, since sunrise is not until 8:48am on Sunday morning, we will provide a delicious American breakfast, of pancakes, bacon, hashbrowns, etc.

Atmosphere: Feel free to bring your old stumps of candles to help us keep the light alive all night, and maybe some thing or symbol of the old year to cast off into the river Ij.

Since we have shoes-off policy, bring slippers or warm socks. Hope that’s enough info for you!
Matt and Sharon
062-783-6090

p.s. Maastrichtenaars, you can take the train home in the morning!

So, Matt and Dick and Gea and I went to Tivoli de Helling last night to see the Raveonettes.  They had an opening band.  … Kap10Kurt.  Girl drummer, guy keyboardist.  No vocals, unless you count the recorded syllables replayed on old electronics equipment.  Heh heh. 

And they were GREAT!  really fun, really moveable.  it was super funny, because the crowd SO wasn’t into them.  they audience just stood there and stared at them.  wrong crowd for a fun band. 

But what really got me, especially, was how much the guy’s moves reminded me of Napoleon Dynamite, in the way he moved his shoulders up and down.  🙂  it was truly a site to behold.  in his white tshirt with the guitar patterns on it. 

By the way, the keyboard was really an old ?casio?, slung around his shoulders like a guitar.  🙂

The cd was 8eu.  i bought one, and so did gea.  we listened to it in the car when gea drove us all back up to the station.  pretty good!!!

I got a really bad picture:

as for the raveonettes, they were terrible.  boring.  their first 4 songs all sounded exactly the same.  reminiscent of maybe jesus and mary chain, but maybe the carpenters.  or spain.  does anyone remember spain?  boring….

i was really disappointed.  the cds that mel and dwain gave us were much better than that.  by the time they got a bit more lively, we were in the other room, chatting with Kap10Kurt.  🙂  oh well, can’t win them all.  as gea said, it’s nice occasionally to check out another subgenre…

i also bought tix to 2 more upcoming events at tivoli:  j-music-invasion on the 23rd december (japanese goth, i think – 3 bands), and heh heh heh… hans teeuwen on 10 february.  (for you americans out there, hans teeuwen is a well-known dutch cabaret guy – that’s comedian, actually – who lately has been doing these singing performances.  i’m not sure how serious he is, but dick is a big fan of his humor – he’s damn funny – so i bought tickets to hear him sing.)

this afternoon i’m off to the outskirts of paris for the weekend.  let’s hope the car doesn’t get burnt or something.  🙂