My First Interview (Picture)

Not much too add. You can’t listen to the interview, because err… well, it was my first, so it kinda sucked 😉
Here’s the picture anyway, a French b-boy and myself.

To check out my first broadcasted interview and published article, click here.

Nooooooo!

So I think I just auto-emailed my whole Gmail address book, since I’m now getting replies from service desks that they’re handling my question.

Dear Bas,
This is an automated response from the Lunarpages Webhosting Support Team to inform you that your question titled:I’ve added you as a friend on StumbleUpon has been received.

Great. I wonder if they can help me. Sorry everybody, didn’t mean to spam you. I have no idea how it happened since I don’t recall giving my permission to email my whole contact list (and you know how selective Gmail is with adding people to your contact list)… The quality of the computers here might have caused me to miss that though. I guess this pet peeve might one day frustrate people more than people walking REALLY fuckin slow on the pavement. 😉

A Manifesto For A New Environmentalism

By way of the Survival Acres Blog:

“Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, like Silent Spring, was considered powerful because it marshaled the facts into an effective (read: apocalyptic) story. But, ironically, for more than seven years, research that environmentalists have privately conducted on attitudes toward global warming has found the opposite: Cautionary tales and narratives of eco-apocalypse tend to provoke fatalism, conservatism, and survivalism among voters–not the rational embrace of environmental policies. This research is consistent with extensive social-science research that strongly correlates fear, rising insecurity, and pessimism about the future with resistance to change.

In promoting the inconvenient truth that humans must limit their consumption and sacrifice their way of life to prevent the world from ending, environmentalists are not only promoting a solution that won’t work, they’ve discouraged Americans from seeing the big solutions at all. For Americans to be future-oriented, generous, and expansive in their thinking, they must feel secure, wealthy, and strong.”

EvilAngle – NobodyLikesSoftcore

A new mix! Don’t download it unless you like loud electronic music!

Tracklist
The Beatsquad – The Beat Goes On (00:00 – 1:58)
Solid Base – Can’t Stop (1:48 – 3:02)
Cixx – Gimme Da Dope (2:19 – 4:38)
Juggernaut – Ruffneck Rules Da Artcore Scene (4:38 – 6:14)
DJ Isaac – We Like Marihuana (5:53 – 7:19)
Knightvision – Search for Marhiuana (6:57 – 9:55)
3 Steps Ahead – Drop It (9:34 – 11:56)
Dune – Hardcore Vibes (11:56 – 12:46)
Stingray & Sonicdriver – Cold As Ice (12:34 – 13:42)
RMB – Spring (13:36 – 18:01)
DJ Paul Elstak – The Promised Land [Digidance Edit] (18:01 – 18:35)
Critical Mass – Believe in the Future (18:24 – 20:05)
Hardsequencer – Brain Crash (19:14 – 21:12)
Manu Chao – Promiscuity (20:28 – 22:03)
The Stunned Guys – Musica Nevrotica (21:12 – 22:08)
DJ Neophyte and Evil Activities – One of These Days (22:06 – 25:53)
T-Marc ft. Vincent & Cleon – One Two (25:31 – 27:31)
Megaman – Megaman (27:20 – 28:35)
Highlander – Open Your Eyes (28:13 – 29:39)
Nina Feranzano – Keep it Up (29:39 – 31:19)
2 Brothers on the 4th Floor – Come Take My Hand (30:58 – 33:11)
Skorpus Ravers vs. Cyntex – Bomdebomb (33:11 – 36:21)
Roni Size – Time Out (36:21 – 37:04)
Promo – The Tablet (37:04 – 38:26)
Angerfist – Broken Chain (38:26 – 41:03)
Tieum & Hellfish – You Want To Stop Us? (40:42 – 42:29)
DJ Lancinhouse Meets The Stunned Guys – Atmosfera (42:09 – 43:30)
DJ Paul and DJ Rob – Lords of the Hardschool [Paul’s Forze Mix] (43:10 – 43:30)
DJ Jappo and DJ Lancinhouse – Exlxaxl (43:30 – 46:25)
Promo – Shut Up! [Mix 1] (45:05 – 47:17)
DJ Gizmo – The End of the Beginning (46:25 – 48:04)
DJ Paul and Teenage Warning – Brohymn (48:04 – 50:36)
Rotterdam Remix Project – Loving You (50:17 – 51:52)
Neophyte and Evil Activities – Alles Kapot (51:52 – 54:48)
Wargroover – British Nightmare (54:44 – 55:20)
I:Gor – Bassdrum Generation (55:20 – 58:10)
Catscan and Promo – Toch Welleuk (58:10 – 60:32)
Nosferatu and Ophidian – Psychiatric Ass (60:01 – 61:19)
DJ Paul Elstak – Rage (61:07 – 63:53)
DJ Dione – Pain Till I Die (63:34 – 66:07)
Art of Fighters – Earthquake (65:55 – 67:28)
Ophidian – Butterfly [VIP Edit] (67:17 – 68:14)
Meagashira – Through Inner Core (67:51 – 69:06)
Tommyknocker – Showtime (68:42 – 70:50)
T-Junction and Osiris – What’s Up With Life [Masters of Ceremony Remix] (70:38 – 72:34)
The Prophet vs. Deepack – Stampuhh!! [The Beholder & Max Enforcer Remix] (72:23 – 74:30)
Tommyknocker vs. Sunbeam – Twisted World [the Viper Mashup Mix] (74:19 – 76:44)
Black Identity – Blckr Thn Blck [the Prophet vs. JDX Rmx – EvilAngleFasterForward Edit] (76:38 – 79:16)

Download here
or at uploaded.to

Presented by The MiX-Files!

So about Ahmadinejad…

If I could think of one word by which I could express all the thoughts and feelings about Ahmadinejad’s visit to Columbia University… I would probably not speak it, since I’d be too busy explaining people the meaning of life.

It’s just a bit overwhelming really… Let’s just take some of the things we’ve seen in the last 2 days or so.

– “Evil has landed“, very coloured headlines from US media, simply indicating how ‘balanced’ US media is;
– The awfully unprofessional and disrespectful introduction given by the Dean;
– Ahmadinejad reversing the terrorist issue, which I must say was a good point, but a half truth;
– Ahmadinejad actually making good points, such as calling for a referendum and explaining why Iran opposes the US (he did not deny that the Iran was aiding “terrorists” (defined by the US, NATO & a group of UN countries));
– The opportunity of hearing the opinion and views of a majority of the people in the Middle East when it comes to international affairs, and the way American and a lot of other international media simply refused to listen to this opinion;
– The threat of cutting public funding to Columbia University for letting this man speak.. I have nothing to say about this;

It just shows how caught up and fueled we are by propaganda and double-standards. The following is from an article of the Columbia Journalist: “Ahmadinejad made a mockery of the freedom of expression,” said Ari Gardner, a 22-year old student. “He took every single accusation against Iran and lodged it against the U.S. and the western world.”

Of course, dipshit. Has Iran attacked the U.S. before? No. Has the U.S. attacked Iran before? Yes. They have a very different view about current affairs than we do. By turning this around, he points it out, but by being so caught up in this whole “War on Terror” (what happened to “ism”?) you refuse to see the point. Actually, the “war on terror” is a perfect example of Orwellian psychology. Doesn’t war cause terror? Isn’t terror part of war? How can you fight against fighting?

The U.S. is the biggest defender of democracy and freedom, yet in the country itself, laws like the Patriot Act or other terrorism-related laws are breaking down freedom bit by bit from all sides possible. And democracy… Don’t start. The UN should have stepped in during the previous elections, because some strange things were going down. Exactly the type of things the international community sends UN observers to developing countries or former dictatorships for. U.S. democracy is run by money, friends and networks. The U.S. democracy is no better than Iran’s and I’m sure that if they could, these self-righteous, conservative, let’s-use-Jesus-as-an-excuse Republicans would love to execute homosexuals. I bet they envy Ahmadinejad.

So now I’m probably ‘abusing’ or ‘making a mockery’ out of freedom of speech, because I speak my mind freely, which is not what some people want. It seems like freedom of speech is only extended to those that have the least necessity for it. If there was no freedom of speech, they would be the only ones speaking.

It’s time for a change. Not through violence, but through courage and non-violence. Just look at the Burmese monks. Civil disobedience. Just stop taking the crap, just refuse. Don’t fight.

Holy shit, two police officers just came into my office… No idea what they were saying, it was in Bulgarian.. Something about “preventive” and “computers”. Maybe reading 1984 spooked me, but damn that’s scary when you’re typing a post like this. Wooh! Adrenaline rush, haha. I don’t know where I was going with the post, but I guess this is a good ending.

9th Day of the Protests

And you all know what I’m talking about…

The army has given out warnings and are doing so right now, but the monks are protesting anyway. For their safety, let’s pray, meditate, vibrate or whatever your spiritual tradition is. Radiate love and care.

If you’re not as “out there” as I am, maybe this is a good alternative; a petition calling to the members of the UN Security Council to step in!

Make sure you sign that. If you have any extra time, check out the US Campaign for Burma.

A tip for WordPress marketing

Notice that on the right-side of the frontpage you can see a list of tags. Next to this tag it says “more”, which will lead you to “Hot Topics” on WordPress. Use these as categories! If one of your categories is “Showbizz” for instance, see if there is a synonym that ranks higher, such as “Entertainment”. Use this instead. It will get you more page hits through category-tags. Especially with the addition/separation of categories and tags. Use the tags to be specific, use the categories to attract a broader group.

Specific: more likely to be a smaller group of visitors, but you can expect these visitors to be interested in the content.
Broad: more likely to be a bigger group of visitors, but expect a lot of them to not pay attention to the content so much.

Use both ways, especially if it’s this easy.

Compulsion

I might have a ‘problem’. I’m going to spill the beans to some people here, but in Holland I was smoking too much probably and I’m not talking about cigarettes. However, I have a rather responsible personality, so I decided going to Bulgaria would be a good opportunity to stop. So I left that behind. Days got more hours, time was better spent, energy was restored.

Besides this, there was something else. Besides having a responsible personality, I also have a rather lazy (I say: effective) personality. I do what must absolutely be done and then I go back to doing nothing. I don’t know why, but  for some reason I’ve always been getting good results for this (hence me dubbing it “effective”). Anyway, I didn’t have my placement secured just before the summer, so in the summer, and especially the two weeks before leaving, I had to do a lot. It was a moment-to-moment rush and when I came to Bulgaria I was still in that rush, minus the cannabis to calm me (and my mind) down. So I started doing a lot, arranging everything very fast and within no time I was settled.

Here comes the problem though… When I sit at home, I can’t relax. I have to do something. I realize now that this sounds similar to nicotine withdrawal (I think, anyway), which would also be it, because I didn’t smoke cigarettes, but I smoked enough to get myself a nicotine addiction.  In Holland I got rather used to not doing what I had to do, so there was always something I should be doing instead of relaxing. I have the same feeling here, but there are only a handful of things I have to do:
– Go to the bank where I opened an account, to get my card and settle some mistakes I made;
– Call my landlord to get internet at my place (I’m in a restaurant again now);
– Call an institute for languages to learn Bulgarian;
– Buy a coat, scarf and candles.
But the last thing is not so pressing, I suppose.

Maybe it’s stress, yet I don’t feel stressed now, I feel very calm. It’s only when I sit around the house that I get the feeling I have to do something. Ahh well, I’ll just fix the things on the list and see how I feel then. My prediction: the same.

A sidenote: why is it that I can’t go anywhere without getting a card… They’re coming from all directions and closing in fast captain! Just now, while typing this post, someone struck up a conversation and added another card to my collection. This contact might actually be useful though. I hate it when people give you cards directly after you’ve introducd yourselves to each other. I will not call or email you if I don’t know you. I guess that’s a lesson for me. Don’t let it get to my head when I get my own card, haha.

When will I sleep…

What a weekend… I met up with Mitko, the Macedonian graffiti writer I interviewed at the Balkan Youth Festival. He stayed at my place for a couple of days, starting last Friday. I hadn’t really rested well, so when we went to a drum ‘n bass party at night, I was already pretty tired. About the drum ‘n bass scene here… Man, do they like loud fking drum ‘n bass. I love it too, but when I came in, they were playing loud already… There was no build-up or -down whatsoever. Bad DJ’s. Besides that, everybody was on drugs and they overused the stroboscope which is VERY annoying in an overcrowded room. Very dissapointing, I hope to see better drum ‘n bass parties here, since I heard Sofia has a good dnb scene, but I spoke to some people there and they told me that this is basically the average dnb party in Sofia. Utrecht 1 – 0 Sofia.

The next day we got up waaay too early (somehow we had managed to find our beds at 7am). We got up at about 11, so we were both pretty tired. I met some cool people though, friends of Mitko (he’s lived in Sofia for three years). Basically, we chilled out the whole weekend.. On Sunday I had a couple of hours alone, so I cleaned my whole apartment… you know… vacuum cleaning the carpets, moving around tables so I could place another carpet (it’s getting really cold here), cleaning bathroom sinks, toilet, putting one of those soap dispensing things in my toilet (how ‘burgerlijk’), making my bed, doing the laundry, wiping down my tables, doing the dishes, putting things in closets and drawers instead of having them laying around everywhere…

Then in the evening I got a CD of a local psytrance duo called Asoma. They’re really great producers and since they’re Mitko’s friends and he’s coming back in Oct/Nov, so I suppose I’ll be hanging out with them.

I’m just balancing on a very bad cold though, so today I’ll set out to buy at least a scarf and candles, and if I see anything good: a coat. Because I did not take one here.

Getting more serious

Just talked to the director of Radio Bulgaria for the first time. Looks like they’ll be using more of my capabilities and skills soon. They want me to analyze and make suggestions about their internal and external communication, the latter nationally as well as internationally. Besides that I’m going to be analyzing and making suggestions for their website and create a presentation showcasing Radio Bulgaria to the outside world. This is good, because now I can set this project up for myself and won’t have to depend on others for tasks. If I can spend 20-27 hours per week on this, it should be finished in about 4 weeks. I calculated 8 hours in for lessons in Bulgarian language and contributing to the radio as a journalist. The other 5 (that would make up the 40 hour workweek) are for assignments related to school.

Looks like I’ll be gaining some great experience during my placement here.