Mysteries of life / My biggest secret

Mystery:
When it´s rainy, all the cars get stuck in traffic.
When it´s sunny, it´s overly crowded everywhere: bars / cafés, parks, squares, etc. (Don´t all those people have to be at work or in school...?)

Secret:
Have you ever heard of the Indian Rain Dance? It´s a dancing ceremony, performed by Native American Indians, asking their Gods or Spirits to send rain.

I have the power to summon rain as well, just like the Indians. The only difference is:
- it has to be in a rainy period (of course, I can´t summon rain in the middle of a sunny day)
- I only have to show up outside. There´s no dancing involved.

The Rain Man
During a rainy period, when I am going outside, it starts to rain. Whenever I go either inside or when I take my umbrella with me, it stops. As for the umbrellas I take with me, they all work like a magic-stick / rain preventing stick. They can make the rain go away.

It started when I was in High School. It probably had something to do with the fact that my then favorite Basketball player was Shawn Kemp. They call him ´The Reign Man´. I wanted to be just like him. And now I sorta am...because I am ´The Rain Man´.


- An extremely rare view when I´m holding my magic stick (that sounded quite dirty...) on a rainy day -



- Passion Pit - Seaweed Song - Manners -
In The Man Who Knew Too Much style...an exclusive new beautiful song which really suits this post well, by Passion Pit

Oude Hoogstraat, Amsterdam

I was at the opening of a new exposition in an art gallery called W139.
It was on the same day as when I went to Avedon's exposition :), so you can say it was quite an artful-day for me!



I will post some pictures of the art in this gallery, later this week.

But for now, enjoy the bokeh picture I shot when travelling back home...by bike of course.

Mama en kindje

- Mama & little child -

This will be my last post about bikes. I'm sure my dear readers are all fed up with my pictures of bicycles.


- Taken in the always cozy Haarlemmerdijk. -

But I just can't help it. There are way too many bikers in this city!

Stiekem

- sneaky -





Amsterdam, van Woustraat, sunday afternoon.

Ik hou van pakketjes

'I love packages'

Yesterday, I received a package. It was THE package with the new lens. The 'Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II'!


- I just luuuuuuve opening a package. -


- And now, I have two lenses. One of 'm is...f****d up! -


- First picture ever with this new lens. It's a picture of my old 18-55mm lens. Goodbye, you're going back in a box.-

Soon-ish, I will post some more interesting pictures. Please be patient. Thank you!

Lekker dansen tot je erbij neervalt

- dance 'till you drop -

So me and Dennis aka The Man Who Knew Too Much (way, way waaaay too much) went out shooting.
Yes, we went out. Shooting.

So, as you all know (I'm talking to the readers who've already seen and read Dennis' blog about this night) at the beginning of the night, there was a concert by Einstein Barbie. I didn't expect them to be this good. I really, really liked their music. Actually, their live performance was more uplifting and funky than the music you can listen to on their website.

For more pics. Just check out Dennis' blog. Or...you can just stay on my blog and check out the pictures all over and over and over again. :)

Have a nice day!

And remember, no regrets this year, okay? It's only the 5th day of this new year...take risks! My year already started bad. But...when looking at these pics, you can tell I've also already exprienced some very, very good moments.


- Blowing bells. -


- When I was taking this picture, people were shouting and getting crazy about this solo-part of this lil lady. She was amazing. -


- She was cuuute. -


- Rocking boy -


- And all of a sudden...out of nowhere, there were these dancers on stage...dancing like there was no tomorrow. -


- Girl, boy, girl. -


- Martin Duvall aka Martin C. de Waal -


- A boy. Yes...a boy! Getting down on a girl...on stage. How lovely! -


- It looks like three different pictures, photoshopped in one. But that's not the case right here. It's one picture and the colours aren't added in photoshop either (Lights in the club!). Sometimes, blurry pics are niiice! This one is actually one of my personal fave's! It reminds me of a fashion shoot of photographer Steven Meisel's student. I can't remember his name-

Special thanks to The Man Who Knew Too Much for making my day.

Chagrijnig

- being cranky / bad mood -

Oh nooo...2009 already started bad for me. I have received The Blue Envelope from 'De Belastingdienst' (tax company). Which means good or bad news. OF COURSE it was BAD news for me and now I have to pay A LOT of taxes...Bitches! I was gonna save up some money for a new iMac but nooo.
I have to pay almost one third of the price of a new iMac. Boy oh boy. It's hard being Jack Daniel. Always struggling in life.
(I also had a flat tire, so I had to bring my bike all the way to a bike...thingy! Bikestore / Bike-repare-store / Bike-garage.)

Anyways. My sister cheered me up by telling me all these stories of people she knows being in bigger (financial) problems than me and took me to a nice place called Latei. Perhaps my fellow blogger and only regular Dutch visitor of my blog, The Man Who Knew Too Much, knows this cozy place. He probably does...hence his name. He knows a lot...

Check out these pics I made during my crankyness-mood to happiness-mood. Amsterdam is the right city which can make you smile again, even when you're in a very depressing mood and struggling hard to survive.
Thanks Mokum!


- There were these different lamps (for sale!) hanging on the ceiling. -


- Cups, boards, plates. Almost everything you see in this lunch / breakfast place was for sale. -


- Then, after lunch we walked into an unexpected Asian event: I think the Dragons are supposed to move the bad spirits out of the houses. But only the places where they had how do you call this in english? for the Dragons. -


- Hanging up the food which the Dragons had to eat. -


- Cute Dragon. -


- My sister. Scared like a mouse of what's coming up next! -


- Firecrackers! -


- And then we moved along. Walking over the little bridges to cross the canals. -


- Of course, we came across lots and lots of bicycles! -


- Almost near our place. This picture (of Sarphatistreet) was taken when we were walking through Sarphatipark.. -

Nieuwe ronde, Nieuwe kansen

Yeah, 'New round, New chances! It's 2009. Let's do it all over again.

Oh my LORD. What a night. I celebrated New Years Eve with friends starting with a nice dinner and booze. I'm glad we didn't had any fireworks because most of us were quite drunk at twelve. We would've blown our hands off, for sure.


- One of my mates bought some very nice thin cigars...I'm not a smoker. But yesterday, I smoked (a half!!) one. (This is not a 'blunt'!) -


- My friend, Eva, lives on the third floor so we had a good view! Yeah, sorry it's not a sharp picture but I had to be very fast for this one. If you look closely, you can see the trail of fire. :) -


- This was somewhere else. Me and a friend were going to this other party where his girlfriend was. But a lot of people were about to leave to a bar somewhere around the corner. So...they left us with a lot of drinks...hahaha...oh boy. -


- The place had a great view of the 'Maagdenbrug'. -


- My mate's girlfriend...drunk as hell! We didn't expect that, so we stayed there to take care of her. Poor thing. I fell asleep until 9-ish in the morning and around that time, we all decided it was time to go back home. -


- It looks like they had a party on this bridge! I hope no one fell off from this bridge into the water. But later that day, I heard on the news that they found a body of a man in one of the canals... -


- Fireworks... -


- Bikes -

If you reach the year 2010, I hope you're going to look back to 2009 with no regrets. Live your life to the max because it will be all over before you know it.

It's Kwistmus!

explanation of the title of this post: that's what my sister said the whooole time


- What time is it? -


- 'It's Kwistmus time!!' -


- With one Bonbon to share with the whooole family! (Just kiddin'...) -


- And then it was time to go back to Amsterdam -


- Goodby boring Ede. It was okay to see you again. But I love my parents who are still living in this lil-nothing-special-to-do-getting-bored-and-getting-violent-very-easily-town and it was good to see them again. -


- Hello Amsterdam. I love you. -

yyellowbird

-created by Me!-

It's yyellowbird! Check out her work on her Flickr-page. I'm trying to create those bokeh-thingy's like she does. She always has these nice bokeh-lightnings on her pictures. Recently, I did it by accident...!!!

Papa & Mama in Ede-Wageningen

I went to visit my parents today in Ede.


- My dad kind of redecorated the living room -


- Ede-Wageningen. A quite important 'stop' here in The Netherlands -





- Empty platform! I always take the train when going all the way to the middle of The Netherlands, Gelderland. -


- Made by accident! -