Brand New..

Found one again; Wooh Alright Yeah! The Rapture. And these guys sat right across from my old house:

If I have anything to do with it, they'll be playing this song some time after midnight at Tino's little party on Sunday.

Sad Christmas

When I opened the door at my mother's, I heard James Brown had passed away last night. For a moment I felt really sad. I rate him on a same level as the first djembe players in Africa, Mozart and Depeche Mode. Absolutely one of the most influential musicians of all time. Probably only topped by the King of Pop last century.

Christmas started on a sad note this year.

Thomas & Joris

Anne and I discussed Joris Luyendijk. She had met him at a debate in Brussels recently on life in the Middle East. I had seen him host the 'Zomergasten' TV-shows this summer. We agreed he is a fascinating person, great to talk with. He is a true journalist in the sense that he just mirrors what he sees and doesn't have strong opinions on things he hasn't seen. That makes him a person you can learn a lot from but maybe not as inspirational as he could be. It reminded me of Thomas Friedman, who hás strong opinions and is very inspirational, but also political. I read his New York Times columns twice a week for about three years and started reading his book again. If you are interested you could listen to him talk on issues such as the internet, terrorism, American leadership, outsourcing and the changing lives of ordinary people everywhere.

Turns out Floor is reading Joris' book as well. Mom has already read him.

Nelson Mandela

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us most. We ask ourselves, "Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and famous?" Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world."

You

Oh yeah, I became person of the year. So did You.
Thanx Time, right back at ya!

Tino´s getting married

We celebrated Tino´s last fortnight as a bachelor on Saturday. He asked me to be one of his masters of ceremony. They marry December 31, so it's gonna be a cracking party.


It was a great day, especially because I won the kart competition, ahead of 15 certified drivers.

An original agenda, please!

Barack Hussein Obama is the hottest thing in American politics and seems to be a shoe-in for the Democratic presidential nominee. Supposedly even Hillary Clinton, the sure-fire next president of the United States for some six years now, is well advised to back out of the race if Barack decides to run. (It would be progress to see three Great Western Nations -Germany, France & USA- with female leaders, wouldn't it?).

When you've been reading these hyped success-stories for some time it's a bit of a disappointment to see Barack in real life for the first time and learn more about his political views. The same goes for Hillary by the way. It seems to me that the major political challengers of incumbents these days are more preoccupied with basing their views on what spin-doctors tell them they should say according to polls and focus groups, then on a genuine personal political vision. That goes for Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Ségolène Royal, David Cameron and Wouter Bos. They carefully choose their standpoints on the war in Iraq, health care reform or democratic improvements listening to what they thínk voters want to hear. There is nothing wrong with listing to the people or with carefully choosing standpoints of course, but it would be nice to see a future political leader with some original political views of her/his own or addressing new important issues. At least John McCain has a campaign reform agenda as a defining characteristic.

Maybe I'm wrong or naive, but I almost long for the days when Bill Clinton and Tony Blair where climbing up the ranks.

Carfreax California

My old buddy Mattijs landed at LAX for the second time this year to do some private/professional carspotting and design(research). In our high school years he was already designing the cars of today. Yesterday he designed the interior of the Q7 (see right). Today he's designing the Audi you'll hopefully own in five years (see left).













On his blog he keeps us posted on everyday mobile-life in California.

Turns out he's a pretty solid celebrity spotter as well. I like to think of myself as a pretty good one too, but my Chris Zegers doesn't compare to his Laurence Fishburn or his flight with Herbie Hancock. I'll be following you Mattie..

WOW~what a terrific audience

Vince and I just watched Chelsea-Arsenal in the Mick 'o' Connels pub. The Africans, who where there in large numbers, cheered for all African players, such as Eboue, Djourou, Makalele, Drogba and especially Adebayor. When Arsenal scored some of them celebrated by diving on the floor. WOW~what a terrific audience! English football is not always good but always spectacular and a terrific past-time.
We imagined life in London, going to football-matches on Sunday, going on musical tours and returning to 'significant others' waiting for us in the hotel room.

Junk mail

When your working hours are filled with questions relating to introducing market forces in the (long term) care sector (a free market, auctions or yardstick competition?) or figuring out the optimal level of product transparency for consumers in health care markets, you get junk mail like this:
------------
Friday, December 08, 2006 3:40:36 PM
Paardenkooper-Suli, Klara
To:

Subject:
Privatisation and Regulation Symposium - Call for Papers
CALL FOR PAPERS

Symposium EAEPE and PRESOM / EU on

Privatisation and Regulation
On the co-evolution of Technology, Policy and Institutions.

Date: 22 and 23 March 2007
Place: Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
Deadline abstracts (500 words): 15 January 2007
Submissions to: John Groenewegen

Fee: 100 € (including registration, lunches, coffee and tea)
Detailed information: www.eaepe.org and www.presom.eu
Theme:
Transactions in infrastructures used to be centrally coordinated by ministries and vertically integrated state owned firms. Liberalisation and privatisation created markets and fundamentally changed the modes of governance of the transactions with the aim to increase efficiency. When firms are privatised in network sectors like energy, telecom, water, public transport, and the like, regulation is introduced in order to safeguard the public interest (universal service, affordable prices, etc.)
Central questions:
What has been the performance of the network sectors after the liberalisation and privatisation with respect to the technological integrity of the systems (unbundling and segmentation have implications for the technological performance of the system), the economics (the allocative as well as the dynamic efficiencies) and last but not least the social impact (universal service, security of supply, labour conditions)?
Abstracts are invited not only on the traditional sectors of telecom, energy and public transport, but also on water, social security, financial markets and education.
-------

Sounds intellectual doesn't it?

Yo Vince!

The Infadels are in town tonight! Well they are in Amsterdam at least. It´s a free concert in the Westergasfabriek on account of the FIFA 07 interactive world cup. Gaming turns out to be good for something.

I noticed this downloading ´A Love Supreme´, Paolo Conte, Dwele, Harry Connick Jr., this beer song and Burt Bacharach & Elvis Costello for Tino & Jac's wedding reception. So you know it will be a smooth and joyful occasion.
















(Does anyone know how to link to a song and avoid using youtube all the time?)

Do YOU know 'm?

So it's been a while. Been losing elections, working hard, exercising the knee. Same old, same old. But I díd discover something! Why aren't these guys world famous? Stupid low-budget video, great music. Their from Sweden. As are Peter, Björn & John. But you knew them.