So what’s new with you ?

Well, Holland was interesting. I learnt a few things :

1) Tulip bulbs look like great big onions.

2) In Amsterdam the term coffee shop means a totally different thing from what I thought it meant. A head-trippy kind of thing in fact.

3) Amsterdam and The Hague seem to have a lot of water-ways criss-crossing the city. It seems a bit stupid now that I’ve actually said it. Must be like someone going to the forest and saying gosh…there sure are a lot of trees here..

The Hague – A random road somewhere.

Amsterdam – Some water way with a lot of shops selling drugs and tulips and another shot of an artificial skating rink smack dab in the middle of Amsterdam city.

4) According to some of my Dutch colleagues, the most popular “Dutch” cuisine is fries with mayonnaise. Seriously. Although I think Stroopwafelen ,a type of soft waffle-like biscuit sandwich with caramel filling, comes a close second.

A notable mention is this chain of eateries “Feebo” I saw in Amsterdam that has a nifty concept. There is nobody to serve you but there are rows of food in little vending windows. Put some coins in and hey presto you get to open the window to get to the food. The staff behind the little vending window then re-loads the food.

5) I may look extremely dopey in a hat but the alternative was having my ears freeze in the cold.


My ugly mug

It was fortunate that I was able to find a little time to go tourist-ing in Amsterdam/Hague. Among my pit stops were

The Escher Museum in The Hague ( Lange Voorhout Palace to be exact ) –

For anyone who doesn’t know yet, M.C Escher was the Dutch artist who was famous for creating all those pictures/paintings that mess around with the viewer’s sense of perception. Difficult to explain here so what I’ll do is lazily link to a page elsewhere showcasing some of his work.

http://www.escherinhetpaleis.nl/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M.C._Escher

If you ever do visit this place , try out the 3-D virtual reality thing at the top floor. This alone is worth the price of the admission itself. You literally get to walk into an Escher painting and look around.

The Sex Museum in Amsterdam (Damrak 18) –

I wanted to include the Rembrandt or Van Gogh Museum in this list but unfortunately they were closed by the time I got there. Not because I was hanging around the Sex Museum for too long I might add to silence the snickers of anyone reading too deeply into this. Surprisingly, for all that I’ve heard of it, it was mild and somewhat cheesy. Disappointing really. Everything about it screams tourist trap. Honestly, if you want a history of wanton debauchery and all things naughty, you’d be better off googling for it.


The Rembrandt Museum ( I think ) ? Anyway it was almost about to close by the time I got there and I wasn’t going to fork out 10 euro to spend only 15 minutes inside.

More recently, I made the mistake of going to this post Valentine’s Day event, Single’s Night Out event at KL Jam Asia. I figured that since the event was touted as a fun way to get to know single people ( And most importantly it was free ! ) and I liked the performances/atmosphere from the last time I was there, I didn’t have much to lose.

I made the fatal mistake of turning up on time. Well not exactly on time, the event was supposed to start at 7.30pm so I figured if I turned up at 8.00pm, in the typical Malaysian fashion, it would be alright.

Wrong! I got there at 8.10pm with not a soul in sight. Not to look too sheepish, I got myself a drink and sat around till 8.30pm where I decided that if anyone was going to turn up it would probably be much later and the likelihood was that only single desperate men like myself would appear anyway. So I left. So much for that.

So been listening to anything new lately ?

Not really. I was given a sampler CD of Filipino music by one of my colleagues from abroad. Not too bad but I haven’t had time to really listen to it yet.

Read anything new lately ?

I just finished “Why Things Fail and How To Avoid It” by Paul Ormerod. Interesting read. It’s basically deals with the parallels in biology and evolutionary science with reference to extinctions and the economic modeling of failure of firms and businesses.

http://www.paulormerod.com/

It’s a reasonably light read as he doesn’t get too involved with the math of the problem but the basic thrust of the book is :

1.) The current economic model subscribed to by most economists is utter bollocks as it produces models that have no similarity to reality.

2.) There is an underlying pattern that links the extinction of species over the evolutionary course of the world’s biological history and the failure and bankruptcy of firms/businesses in human economic history.

3.) If you can ignore the fact that the integrity of the data gathered for both are somewhat questionable (Note: This is only my personal opinion) and the fact that some assumptions and exclusions have to be made to make sense of the analogous behaviors, then there is a shocking revelation: Governments and firms/large organizations seldom know what they are doing. Despite of the fact that they are supposedly act intentionally with meticulously thought out plans, often the results produced are beyond their control and unexpected. Duh.

Seriously though, it is a rather good read.

I also skimmed through “ The Definitive Book Of Body Language” By Barbara and Allan Pease. What seemed at the time, an interesting read when I was stuck at Schipol Airport, quickly became somewhat silly as I got through the rest of the book.

http://www.peaseinternational.com/

The material is necessarily superficial and reminiscent of the type of stuff you’d get from a women’s magazine but I suppose that was the whole point.

Anything else interesting to add ?

Inspired by the works of Escher ( I use the term inspired loosely - In as much a Neanderthal can look at the Last Supper and go away to scrawl a stick figure drawing with dead animal droppings on a cave wall ) , I have decided to put in something my sister and I created.

We haven’t thought of a name yet though. I was thinking maybe “ Attack Of The 10 Foot Disembodied Hand ”.

Cue the cheesy 60-s sci-fi B movies music.

Oh before I forget : Gong Xi Fa Cai !!! to any of you people who actually read this blog. May the year of the pig bring you prosperity and happiness ( And possibly bacon as well )