Reading material - sci fi

It's my birthday, don't tell anyone :-) Reading material - I got my hands of some very good stuff!!! Science fiction, from the 1930, at the level of Orwell's 1984. Very cool, really,I love when someone has the vision of the perfect society and rubs it under your nose to show you how fundamentally wrong the concept is! So, I am reading Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Excellent read. Highly recommended, in case you have not read it yet! Also, as a follow up: I just hear about the The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. Still need to get it, but I think I am on to some pretty impressive stuff here. If you know of similar stuff, stop being so mean and share it! Looking for some out of the box science fiction! Thanks a lot in advance.

Google doc

By this i don't mean google documents, but the doctor, my GP. So my skin goes dry under my eyes and i want to figure out what's wrong. Most fora talk about tge various brands of facial cream I should use to make my skin look young and beautiful again. The forum participants are so particular about the brands of the creams they recommend that I doubt the opinion's innocence. How awesome can cosmetics companies be to pay people to follow these online conversations to promote their own products.
But this is probably true for all industries, not just cosmetics, dropping an innocent good word here and there when people are looking for quick fixes to their problems. How naive was it from me in the first place to hope to find a reliable answer online.
So I go on thinking about reliability, transparency, professionalism and the rest.
And the red dry skin under my eyes stays there, when I'll look in the mirror tomorrow morning, I will ask myself why I turned even this into a philosophical question and set out on the path answering the big questions of life...
Anyways, I also learnt online on one of these fora about the benefits of cranberries - which has been confirmed by professional doctors to me as well. There is hope, not all online search for answers is a dead end!

Triodos ad

The new Triodos ad - a good one, expecially for a bank. For a bank that is growing really fast!I am a client. Maybe that makes me like the ad even more!http://youtu.be/3Wmdzx8_Oi8 (Sorry, I am trying this new version of blogger and ...I could not embed the video...)Enjoy - and let me know what your favourite bank ad is!

3 months on - on writing and inspiration

Hi. Welcome back, I say to myself.
A lot has happened in the meanwhile. I decided to delete my blog. I am all for streamlining information, and since my blog does not provide much added value, much news, it should not be around just to dilute other people's messages.
But still, I decide to keep it. I received some encouragement from some friends to keep going. So, here it is.
This time, somewhere between wondering why there was no summer in Amsterdam, wondering how friendships are built, strengthened and then eventually let go off, but mainly, wondering why I changed my mind and decided to write this blog post.
I do not know any of the answers ot the above, and I also do not have an opionion about it, I am merely observing the state things are in.
I am sitting on the sofa and looking at the streetlamp dancing in the wind. I should water the plants, the basil in the window looks sad. Hm, I love plants. They are quiet. But they actually say a great deal, if you observe them. Well, I am not always sure what they are trying to say, but I flatter myself by thinking that they are happy around me. And that makes me happier. (A rather simplistic philosphy, I am aware of it.)
So, I was looking out of the window. I had this thought.
Ok, I am reading the Shadow of the Wind, an OK read. In the book is a writer, he sits in his attic in the armchair, typewriter turned towards the window, window overlooking a Notre Dame, or other touristic thing in Paris. It's ...1933. The writer is broke and sad. What else.
In my view, the window should overlook a park, not the Notre Dame, for inspiration, but that's a detail. Since I am in the mood of flattering myself, I say: I want to have such and old armchair in the attic, window to the park, inspiration for writing. I would write on a type writer... no, it's too tiring for the fingers to keep punching those old buttons. On an electric typewriter .... no, the noise of it kills all inspiration. By hand ....that takes way too long. On a laptop...whay bother being broke in the attic in Paris if I write the novel on a laptop? Ok, none works. Hm, but if technology would allow for a "thought transcriber", to be used in inspired moments only, by taking this magic item in your hand and simply thinking what you would write...that could work!
But then, everyone would become a writer, just like now so many people are amazing bloogers, photographgers, networkers...it would become simply too easy. And that wuld most definitely kill off the romance! And here's the practical morale I got out of my thought process: while watching tv in the background last night, I saw this kids book (by Hallmark) that has a voice recorder. It's for busy mums. You read the book once out loud, record your voice and give the book to your kid. After this, the kid can listen to the story, told by you, without you being there. How awesome is that! And how lonely for the kid!?