Apart from religiously separating the recyclable stuff from my garbage and making a token donation to Greenpeace every year to silence my conscience, I must admit I haven't done too much for the environment. Trust me, I have strong opinons on the subject and have been known on occasion to get extremely preachy and pretentious about it. But deep down I am a doomsday prophet when it concerns our planet. I firmly believe we have set it on an irreversible path of destruction. If I needed a confirmation that the earth was in wrong hands I got it during two separate discourses by Toon, paraphrased here:
(change to dubbed-hong-kong-movie accent for better effect)
"The forests in Asia are full of bugs and snakes la. Here in Europe, they are clean. That makes it easy for people to appreciate la. We should get rid of the bugs and then people will start growing more forests."
"Geneticists should modify trees to take in carbon-monoxide and give out oxygen la. And then we should plant them in the cities la"
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Sunday, May 21, 2006
Deppe Recommends - 2
Last weekend, I painted my masterpiece; Roberto's Kitchen. I'm proud of it, despite having to put up with the embarassment of wearing Roberto's girlfriend's work-clothes because I didn't fit into his. The mass that we attended had given me sufficient inspirations for various biblical stories, that I could almost see come alive on his walls, but Roberto chose to go with plain olive green. The biblical connection continued. My reward was a free ticket to The Da Vinci Code. Which brings me to the recommendation.
Movie of the month
I have no idea why all the reviews are calling it a bad movie because I really enjoyed it. Tom Hanks was a strange choice. I bet Dan Brown, being Dan Brown, would have preferred someone taller, darker and handsomer with a strong chin and high cheekbones and other pulp-fiction-hero stereotypes, but as always hanks doesn't ham. Audrey Tautou is easy on the eyes. So my verdict is that it's worth watching even if you have read the book, because IMO the movie is way better. And if you haven't read the book, then save yourself the trouble.
Book of the month
Have you wondered about small proteinaceous infectious particles that cause spongiform encephalopathies by resisting inactivation by procedures that modify nucleic acids or how mosaicism relates to the relative percentage of 45X cells within the body?If you answered yes, stop reading right now and seek medical help (and allow me to christen you Mendel Manja). The kind of mumbo-jumbo that you see above is exactly what Matt Ridley's 'Genome' is NOT about. It demystifies genetics for the man on the street explaining how genes determined everything about him; like how he ended up being a man and why he came to be on the street. Every chapter in the book picks up one gene on a different pair of chromosome in the human cell, and so the book has 23 chapters. The narrative is so simplified and enthralling that in the end I wished we had a few more pairs. This is definitely one of the best non-fiction works I've ever read.
Song of the month
Clear As The Driven Snow by Doobie Brothers.
Movie of the month
I have no idea why all the reviews are calling it a bad movie because I really enjoyed it. Tom Hanks was a strange choice. I bet Dan Brown, being Dan Brown, would have preferred someone taller, darker and handsomer with a strong chin and high cheekbones and other pulp-fiction-hero stereotypes, but as always hanks doesn't ham. Audrey Tautou is easy on the eyes. So my verdict is that it's worth watching even if you have read the book, because IMO the movie is way better. And if you haven't read the book, then save yourself the trouble.
Book of the month
Have you wondered about small proteinaceous infectious particles that cause spongiform encephalopathies by resisting inactivation by procedures that modify nucleic acids or how mosaicism relates to the relative percentage of 45X cells within the body?If you answered yes, stop reading right now and seek medical help (and allow me to christen you Mendel Manja). The kind of mumbo-jumbo that you see above is exactly what Matt Ridley's 'Genome' is NOT about. It demystifies genetics for the man on the street explaining how genes determined everything about him; like how he ended up being a man and why he came to be on the street. Every chapter in the book picks up one gene on a different pair of chromosome in the human cell, and so the book has 23 chapters. The narrative is so simplified and enthralling that in the end I wished we had a few more pairs. This is definitely one of the best non-fiction works I've ever read.
Song of the month
Clear As The Driven Snow by Doobie Brothers.
Sunday, May 07, 2006
Belgian news you couldn't care less about
Crime
On easter evening, a kid was a killed for an MP3 player. Judging by where the murder took place, everybody assumed it was some north africans who did it. Even the north africans seemed to acknowledge that it was one of them who did it. They went out on peace marches immediately after. Last week the culprits were caught; they turned out to be Poles. The prejudices this episode exposed was as shocking as the fact that someone could be killed for a stupid MP3 player.
Sports
Mol Wezel vs Meerhout wasn't exactly Arsenal vs Barcelona. Firstly they are BELGIAN clubs. If that's not already low enough, they play in the fourth division. I hope you get the insignificance. Those teams are WAY down there. Bhutan has better odds of becoming a world superpower than these teams do of making it to say the Champion's league. Still the fans turned up in the thousands. There were the painted faces, the flags, the clarions, the works. The atmosphere was great.
It's always better fun if you choose a team to root for and I randomly picked Meerhout. By the 80th minute I was so involved that I swore in Kannada when the striker missed the target. That must have sounded weird. I must say I really enjoyed the game. More importantly, and I admit this is a very sexist thing to say, the macho Sunday of Football and beer compensated for the washing and cleaning from the housewifey Saturday.
Fashion
Here's the latest from the fashion scene from around here. Summer is here and things have definitely brightened up. This particular costume spotted at the Royal Greenhouses is worthy of a special mention. The photographer risked a lot to get this snap; he could have so easily had the black footwear thrown at him.
On easter evening, a kid was a killed for an MP3 player. Judging by where the murder took place, everybody assumed it was some north africans who did it. Even the north africans seemed to acknowledge that it was one of them who did it. They went out on peace marches immediately after. Last week the culprits were caught; they turned out to be Poles. The prejudices this episode exposed was as shocking as the fact that someone could be killed for a stupid MP3 player.
Sports
Mol Wezel vs Meerhout wasn't exactly Arsenal vs Barcelona. Firstly they are BELGIAN clubs. If that's not already low enough, they play in the fourth division. I hope you get the insignificance. Those teams are WAY down there. Bhutan has better odds of becoming a world superpower than these teams do of making it to say the Champion's league. Still the fans turned up in the thousands. There were the painted faces, the flags, the clarions, the works. The atmosphere was great.
It's always better fun if you choose a team to root for and I randomly picked Meerhout. By the 80th minute I was so involved that I swore in Kannada when the striker missed the target. That must have sounded weird. I must say I really enjoyed the game. More importantly, and I admit this is a very sexist thing to say, the macho Sunday of Football and beer compensated for the washing and cleaning from the housewifey Saturday.
Fashion
Here's the latest from the fashion scene from around here. Summer is here and things have definitely brightened up. This particular costume spotted at the Royal Greenhouses is worthy of a special mention. The photographer risked a lot to get this snap; he could have so easily had the black footwear thrown at him.
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