February 28, 2009

Crash victim booted from hospital, opts for pot

Filed under: Aviation,Weird by Orangemaster @ 4:07 pm

Crash

Ron Ledford, an American who survived the plane crash this week at Schiphol airport helped crash victims out of the plane and walked to the nearest hospital. As you may have read, it took the emergency services some 40 minutes to get to the crash for whatever reason.

When the emergency services finally arrived, the man decided to walk to the Lucas Andreas hospital to have himself checked out. He was asked to pay 250 euro for the visit, and since he didn’t have it on him, he claims to have gone to a coffeeshop to ‘self-medicate’.

The hospital is looking into this incident and says it will issue a statement. I should bloodly hope so. Amsterdam’s local TV station AT5 met Ron Ledford at a shop downtown where he was being fitted with a free new outfit, thanks to a shop owner who met him and obviously cared about his story (unlike the hospital). He was then brought for more help to the police.

(Link: at5.nl, Photo by flickr.com user Radio Nederland Wereldomroep, some rights reserved.)

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New designs for Amsterdam’s Vondelpark

Filed under: Design,Nature by Orangemaster @ 3:05 pm

vondelpark-furniture-by-anouk-vogel-and-johan-selbing-4jpg

Landscape architect Anouk Vogel and architect Johan Selbing have won a competition to design new lighting and furniture for the Vondelpark in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Their winning entry, called Vondel Verses, includes designs for a kiosk, a park bench and a lamp post. Each design contains a different organic motif such as birds in the frame of the bench. The furniture is made from cast iron and painted black. The concept will be extended to other items, such as drinking fountains, signposts and litter bins, and will gradually replace existing furniture in the park from 2010 onwards.

(Link: dezeen.com)

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February 27, 2009

Online market place refuses Frisian adverts

Filed under: General,Weird by Orangemaster @ 9:50 pm

logo

While skiing in Austria recently, the nice inn owner ask me if the Netherlands had other official languages than Dutch. I said yes, and promptly grabbed a copy of the Leeuwarder Courant that just happened to be lying around, a Dutch and Frisian newspaper from Leeuwarden, the capital city of the province of Friesland.

And then this happens. Online market place site Marktplaats.nl (owned by Ebay, by the way) has told the media today that it refuses to place adverts in Frisian.

Their excuse? According to a spokeswoman, the employees cannot check the adverts because they do not speak the language. Fine, so find someone who can, I would think. Obviously, if a company wants to pay good money in these tough times to advertise in one of the country’s official languages, you could make an effort. Problem is the sites says yes to Dutch — and English adverts. Ouch.

The chairman of the Fryske Beweging (Frisian Movement) Jabik van der Bij called their refusal to run Frisian adverts ‘foolishness’ and are thinking of taking Marktplaats to court.

(Link: leeuwardercourant.nl)

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American diseases descend on Amsterdam plane crash victims

Filed under: Aviation,Religion,Weird by Branko Collin @ 10:34 am

The Westboro Baptist Church, an American sect known for promoting the Christian God’s stance on homosexuality (it would appear he frowns upon it), has announced (PDF) it will picket the funerals of Dutch persons “killed at [the] Amsterdam plane crash.” No divine inspiration there, I am afraid. Yahweh forgot to tell the church there were no Dutch nationals among the dead. But these statements appear par for the course for the devout, as the church has also announced Turks will get the same treatment (PDF).

Meanwhile the radio this morning reported (RTV-NH, no written story available, yet) that at least two so-called American ‘ambulance chasers’, lawyers who try to represent accident victims, have been harassing the victims of the Turkish Airlines plane crash.

There’s a phrase the Dutch use for the extravagances we associate with the USA: ‘Amerikaanse toestanden’ (American situations). And the reason we apply that label is because we want no truck with them. Rare though is the time the Americans actually try and export their ‘situations.’

Photo of a citizen, a comb-over and a card by flickr.com user k763, some rights reserved.

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February 26, 2009

Wii arm on the rise

Filed under: Gadgets,Gaming,General,Sports by Branko Collin @ 2:05 pm

Physiotherapists from the province of Groningen have noticed a rise in Wii related sports injuries, reports Telegraaf (Dutch). Children injure their arms by playing with the Wii game console too much.

Physiotherapist Auke Wagenmakers who reported his findings last Wednesday does not wish to deter people from playing the Wii. He believes that playing the Wii can be beneficial to anyone without the opportunity to exercise much. He also thinks that people should warm up before tackling the game computer, and that you should play the Wii with moderation.

Image: Orangemaster’s Wii avatar.

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February 25, 2009

Pre-dug beach holes in Katwijk

Filed under: Weird by Branko Collin @ 8:51 am

The city of Katwijk is going to pay students to dig holes at the beach which can then be rented out to tourists for an expected 4.50 euro a day, Algemeen Dagblad reports (Dutch). Apart from doing its bit to help fight the economic crisis, the Citymarketing Katwijk foundation also insists these holes fill a real need. This is borne out, the foundation claims, by a poll held among 300 people.

A popular view among the Dutch is that German tourists like to dig holes when ‘occupying’ a Dutch beach, but the foundation says it’s not just our Eastern neighbours who expressed interest in Katwijk’s rent-a-holes.

Katwijk is located at the mouth of the Old Rhine, a river that stopped having major economic import when it silted up around 1,000 A.D.

Photo of the sea at Katwijk by Michael Brys, some rights reserved. Via Z24 (Dutch).

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February 24, 2009

Send back those unsollicited creationism folders

Filed under: Religion,Weird by Orangemaster @ 11:57 am
darwin

The year 2009 is the year of Charles Darwin, the English father of the theory of evolution. Some Christian man with methinks way too much time and money on his hands printed up a big, colourful folder about how God made the Earth in six days and all that jazz. I haven’t seen it yet, true, but I’m looking forward to it. Needless to say, thousands of people are insulted at receiving unsollicited storytelling folders in their mailboxes, especially since they did not order it. A campaign entitled Terug naar je maker (Back to your maker) is encouraging folks to sing a petition and send the storytelling folder back to its maker, the man from Urk, a village known for its religious views and alcoholic youth.

Forget about the holes in Darwin’s theory’s (so I’ve heard), forget trying to follow the Bible, a book almost nobody can read in its original language (angels are male and female, a theologist Ph.D. friend who reads Aramaic used to tell me) and don’t get into this silly debate that just muddles the pain of the financial crisis. Just think that some zealot wasted tens of thousands of euro when he could have helped out in his community and thought it worthy to kill trees to tell us something we can read on our own good time or not in the Bible.

The more you need to convince others, the more you need to convince yourself. You could have opened a school in Africa somewhere with that money. Shame on you.

For the locals among you, print this out (the real stickers are sold out!) and put it on your mailbox:

sticker-300x61

You can also sign the petition here (in Dutch).

(Link: sargasso.nl, Photo: sunstonetours.wordpress.com)

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February 23, 2009

Driver gets money back for not driving over cat

Filed under: Animals,Automobiles by Orangemaster @ 8:58 pm

Little over a year ago, we reported on a driver in Schiedam who was fined EUR 75 for not driving over a cat, or technically, ignoring a green light. The man was trying to avoid running over the cat by waiting until it got out of the way.

The story goes on telly that after going to court over the matter, the driver got his money back, as he was given the benefit of the doubt. The police’s argument is that they did not see a cat crossing the road.

I can’t imagine someone making that up and purposely stopping at a green light. Good news.

(Photo of Cat crossing the street by ll_browneyes_ll, some rights reserved)

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ATM use on Sunday banned

Filed under: Religion,Weird by Orangemaster @ 12:57 pm
Rabobank ATM

The War on fun and practicality strikes again — and punishes old people. In the wee town of Scherpenisse, Zeeland, the ATM shuts down on Saturday night because the owner of the building is a Reformed Protestant. This means that Sunday is the day of the Lord and “taking out money is absurd.” The Rabobank, who operates the ATM, considers its machines open for business seven days a week.

The talk of the town is whether the owner can actually keep shutting the ATM down on Sunday, which makes life harder for old people.

(Link: blikopnieuws.nl, Photo: cwi.nl)

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Original, Dutch-based erotic film premieres in New York

Filed under: Film by Orangemaster @ 9:50 am
Matinee

After a sold out premiere on 17 January in Amsterdam during the Rated X Amsterdam Alternative Erotica Film Festival, American born, Amsterdam-based film director Jennifer Lyon Bell will be presenting her latest short film ‘Matinee’ in New York City on 27 February as part of the Wanton Female Desire screening block at the CineKink NYC Film Festival.

The Amsterdam premiere featured a Q&A session with British lead actress Alicia Whitsover answering questions about her first ever sexually explicit role. Unfortunately, Daniel, played by Steven McAlistair from Scotland, was not able to attend. 24oranges scored a ticket, having read the script of the film some two years ago and finally getting to see the result.

Two stage actors, Mariah and Daniel are getting bad reviews of their matinee performance. Lyon Bell mentioned that she chose a matinee because the performances are usually of lesser quality than the evening ones when they are more people. One afternoon, Daniel warns Mariah that a prominent agent will be in the audience to check him out, which could mean the difference between Mariah and Daniel being out of a job and moving up in the entertainment business. Problem is, Mariah can’t really get into the sex and this situation pushes her to come off more believable in order to make it work for both of them.

(Photo: still of ‘Matinee’ by Jennifer Lyon Bell)

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