Monthly Archive for January, 2005

Vienna Opera Ball auctioning disaster

The annual Vienna Opera Ball, held every year sometime in February (there’s some kind of fixed schedule, something to do with the last Saturday of carneval, or something…or something) at the Vienna Opera House, is auctioning off its director’s box. The director’s box is “located on the First Tier, directly next to the Center Box”, and accomodates eight people, the number of tickets included in the offer. Until now, there’s a rather limited number of interested bidders…how many? NONE! Well, I wonder why. Maybe because those two meters of stuffy air set you back at least 20,000 Euros? Yeah, could be. Or maybe because it’s simply the most unnecessary event ever invented in the whole history of invented events? Hmm, yeah, that too.

Macaronic Poetry

In the course of my research for a paper I am writing, I stumbled upon this great definition of a kind of poetry dating back to the medieval and early modern period of English:

This poetic art is called “macaronic” from macarones, which are certain dough made up of flour, cheese, and butter, thick, coarse, and rustic. Thus, macaronic poems must have nothing but fat, coarseness, and gross words in them.

Now, I have been wondering if there are other kinds of poetry or literature which have names associated with some kind of food. And after about ten seconds of pondering, I came to the conclusion that indeed, there are none I can think of. So, I decided to invent some. Here are my inventions, complete with definitions:

This poetic art is called “hamburgian” from hamburger, which is a certain sandwich, made up of a bun, a paddy, some genetically enhanced salad, and mayonnaise. Thus, hamburgian poetry must have nothing but fluffy sentences, artificial wording and slimy reasoning.

This poetic art is called “ice-creamian” from ice-cream, which is a certain sweet stuff, made up of colourful ingredients, water and loads of sugar. Thus, ice-creamian poetry must have nothing but the fanciest contrivances, no content whatsoever and empty but sweet wording.

This poetic art is called “schnitzelean” from schnitzel, which is a certain kind of meat, made up of a piece of pork, breadcrumbs, flour and egg, baked in a pool of rancid oil. Thus, schnitzelean poetry must be constructed from a perfect thought, but dressed in the most obscure of reasoning, and finally polished off with specks of insulting perversity.

Alright, that’s it. If you’ve got any more ideas (and I’m sure you do), drop them in my comments.
Hell, I’ll never get that paper done.

Why buying a new cell phone was a bad idea

A few days ago, I bought a new mobile (of course in combination with a new contract, binding me to another network provider for another 12 months…so what), and was all happy about it. Well, I’ve realized that I’d be better off with a new pair of shoes. At least I’d use them every day, and I’m pretty sure my shoes would see a lot more traffic than my damn cellphone. Maybe it’s because I tend to have not more than two friends at any given time, and knowing that one of them would rather send me a letter via carrier pigeons than spend a cent or two using his cell-phone, it’s maybe not that much of surprise I don’t get that many calls. Well, who cares really. I’m now going to enjoy two movies and a nice dinner with my girlfriend, the stuff you should do on Saturday nights. Screw mobiles.

Google goes Mini as well

Well, Apple showed the world they can go Mini, so Google does the same. I didn’t even know you could buy a large Google. And I think it’s interesting that they come out with it now…obviously they don’t like the shift of attention.

Jeff Buckley and why he shouldn’t have drowned

Just recently I again listened to my records of Jeff Buckley, and I was once again amazed at how much of a musician and song-writer he was. Alright, so his last album wasn’t the best, but it’s still a million times better than a lot of things that are sold nowadays. And that’s although it wasn’t even finished, because he decided to take a fucking swim and never return.
Take that song called “Lilac Wine” from his “Grace” album. It’s one of the most tender and intimate songs ever written and sung, and I wish there were more people out there who could write songs like it and deliver them the way they’re supposed to be delivered. I think it’s great he isn’t totally forgotten…there’s this show called “The Dead Zone”, modelled after the book by Stephen King (or the movie by Cronenberg), which has his “New Years Prayer” as title score. Which is great, although the show is rather bland and bad. But still…keep Buckley alive, damnit!




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