I just had my attention directed towards ‘Troogle‘, via Pixites, who are uncovering the truth about Google on a WordPress blog. The first post on their page basically states Google (and 4 other companies) are conspiring to take over the internet (mirror) and they’re going to start talking about it on a site called The New Web Project (mirror). It urges people to keep an eye on that site. That’s when my bullshit alert went off. Maybe earlier. Someone dropping some secret papers right in front of the feet of an anti-Goole blogger seemed a little too convenient.
So I looked up who registered The New Web Project. A quick Whois (mirror) showed John Nijenroode. So I figured I’d check out who he is. So I ran his name through Google (ironic, I know) and found his Twitter account, even the username matches his email address. In his bio he claims to be a blogger for Troogle (mirror) and the Troogle blog says the same (mirror).
If you’re gonna invent conspiracies, at least be more crafty and make it believable… And turn on domain privacy!
I should be working on my thesis right now, but I feel I would work more effectively once I get this out of my system.
Yesterday there was a tragic accident as a 30 year old bus cut its way into a group of tourists in Southeastern Bulgaria. Brake failure. 16 people died. 4 are still in the hospital. For the specifics, see Martin’s blogpost. Now this of course made some impression on me, but not as much as what happened after I learned about the accident.
I continued working for an hour, maybe two. I decided to take a nap. By now, the newsstory had already left my mind or at least gone to the background. While I took my nap, I had a strange dream. Just before I woke up, we were in a coach pulled by horses. There was one carriage in front of us with two women riding it which crashed into the shrubs in the roadside, but it didn’t look bad, so I didn’t think much of it. What stuck with me most, is what happened inside the coach I was in. We were about 6 people in there, two families – mine and another it seemed. A girl of about my age was on the phone with a friend of her and said: “Sofia is doooooood” (dood is Dutch for dead). She said it in a strange way and her parents commented on it, disapprovingly. Shortly after, I woke up.
I immediately started thinking… Does this have something to do with the recent tremors and earthquakes here? Will something bad happen to the city of Sofia? But this was maybe 2% of how I felt, because for the other 98% I felt that Sofia was a person… So I thought of the bus accident again. I tried to see if there were any names of victims released yet. Not yet. I became convinced that something happened to Sofia – either in this bus accident, or in some other way. As I woke up this morning, there was a list of names of the casualties.Β Including a Sofia.
Creepy. On the one hand I’m a very logical person, on the other I do have a believe in the paranormal and spiritual. And I have been experiencing a lot of synchronicity lately… Which I haven’t really experienced in nearly a year (and I’m very happy it’s back – it’s a good sign in my eyes).
Don’t know what to make of it. Given the increase in synchronicity, I have a feeling I’ll be able to put it into perspective through future experiences. For now… It will remain a mystery.
π
How about you? Have you experienced such things before? What do you make of your own experiences?
As promised, here is the video of my recent travels in the last month. One month ago I was in Prague for a conference and some sightseeing, then went to Greece for a weekend a few weeks ago and I spent last weekend in the Bulgarian countryside! I’m having a great spring!
Since I didn’t upload any pictures yet, I decided to 1 UP my promise and to deliver a video. π
Over the last weeks I’ve been in Prague, in Greece and have also been working hard on my thesis about the future of music distribution, which is due in about 2-3 weeks. This weekend I’m going to the Bulgarian countryside, which I’m very excited about, since I’ve lived in this country (off and on) for a year in total, but have never seen the core of Bulgaria. The countryside is very important to Bulgarians and I love seeing it, because you see some old practices that have left our western societies for decades.
When I come back, I’ll make a video compilation of all the pictures we took in the last few weeks, in Prague, Greece and then the Bulgarian countryside. It will be great. I promise!
And now a request
I’m doing a survey for my thesis about the future of music distribution. It takes about 9-10 minutes to fill it in and as a reward I offer you 9 free songs of a great variety, one for every minute you spend on the survey. π
Do me a HUGE favour and spread this link around a bit, to music lovers or people that don’t care much for music… It doesn’t matter, I’m interested in all of them. Please consider blogging about it, putting it in your Facebook or Twitter status, etc. and give your friends some free music and help out a student in the name of music and education! π
As you all know, I’m writing my thesis about the Future of Music Distribution. For this thesis I’m going to be doing a survey to add more authority to the findings of my thesis so far. As an incentive for people to fill out the survey, I figured it would be appropriate to offer them FREE MUSIC! π
The idea is as follows:
After filling out the survey, the users will be shown the end page.
I’ll get some cover art, plus 10 tracks. I’ll put the cover art at the top, then tracklist:
1. Artist – Song (Download)
2. You – Your song (Download)
3. Artist – Song (Download)
etc.
The word download will link directly to the song, whereas I’ll make the artist name link directly to the profile page / website of the artists. It should be a good deal for everyone involved I believe π
I’ll also offer the whole thing in one ZIP file, and will include an information file with all the websites etc. I’ll also edit the artist websites into the ID3 info of the MP3’s.
Will do my best to make this a good promotion opportunity for all those involved!
Please get in touch with me asap, because I want to launch the survey within the next 36 hours!
So, before I write about the joys of Prague last week… I want to get something off my chest first.
The public transport in Prague is not too expensive, although some people would disagree with me. The problem is the availability of tickets at night. There’s no machines available, no shops open, metro stations where there are offices: closed. If you can reach machines, but don’t have exact change: good luck. Even the guys from the tram/metro service won’t change money with you. Oh, and the tramdrivers don’t sell tickets.
So if you don’t have a ticket already, sometimes you’re more or less forced to ride the tram illegally, or put yourself in danger by walking through a city filled with junks and bums for 1.5 hour. So you get on the tram, but a lot of trams at night have police officers in them… who help to enforce the public transport company’s rules. By helping controllers fining you for more than 25 times the price of a ticket. That, by my book, is fascism. Using state security forces to enforce corporate interests at the cost of civilians.
There’s the option to send an SMS to a number to buy a ticket ‘code’ or something, but we were told this only works with Czech numbers… and at the information display at tramstops, the number to SMS is not mentioned. Great job, guys.
Yes, we got fined.
More about Prague soon! It was awesome. So was the 24 hour busride through Europe π
I’m about to embark on a 24 hour busride to Prague with my girlfriend. I’m invited to speak at a conference about social dynamics and hope to change some lives with the speech I will give there. I’ll be staying with a friend of mine who’s a DJ and who’ll be playing at 3 gigs that weekend, but before having a blast in Prague, I’ll have to make the best of my time in the bus.
I believe it will be a wonderful trip. Instead of flying across Europe from the south east to the center and seeing only clouds, we’ll be driving through a bunch of countries of which we’ll be able to see the beautiful landscapes and nature that they offer. Last summer I got in a car that was going from Holland to Bulgaria and even though it was exhausting, it was a great experience to witness the diversity of Europe. It made me feel a lot more European at the same time.
Also, when we arrive, a day after leaving, we’ll really have the feeling that we’re somewhere else – which I sometimes miss after a 1 or 2 hour planeride. Let’s hope all goes well and it won’t be too boring. π
I’ll be publishing some pictures of the trip if I manage to get any interesting shots and else expect a bunch of pictures from Prague up soon!
And to my fellow expat bloggers who are reading/viewing this…please do something similar! I’m very curious to see how you’re living! π
BasBasBas.com is about my life abroad. I regularly write about my adventures in Istanbul, Bulgaria and travels in the region, but like to ponder about the future also. If youβd like to stay up to date, you can subscribe to my RSS feed or get email updates in your inbox. You can also follow me on Twitter.
When I got back to Holland I first moved back to my parents but really want to live in my old city, Utrecht, again.
How I Got There
I looked at a few places online and replied to some, was invited to one. They were renting out a furnished room for 5 months, since one of the guys was moving abroad for his study. I figured I’d take the offer and just find something new in the summer – but it turned out I was moving to Istanbul, so everything worked out perfectly.
How I’ve Lived There
It was an all-male house and in the half year I lived there I lived with Remco, Niels, Jurre, Tim and Pim. It was an all-male house with a nice living room and everyone had quite spacious rooms. The bathroom and kitchen were also quite big. This is the only time I’ve lived in an all-male house and I never expected to enjoy it like I did. After this place I moved to yet another all-male place…
Well, not really Turkish prison, it was a state dormitory in Istanbul and one of the better ones. It just wasn’t for me though.
How I Got There
I decided that in Bulgaria I didn’t get the culture shock I anticipated, so I decided to take it one step further. The language course I was taking housed me in this place for 3 weeks. I couldn’t wait to find my own apartment.
How I’ve Lived There
Well, I got some flu from the climate change, so I spent a lot of time near the toilets, which were not European toilets, no they were holes in the floor, with a little tap for water and a little bucket to use for washing your ass… with your hand. There were no power outlets in the room, so I had to go to communal study areas to charge my telephone or to use my laptop. There was also no wireless internet, but there was an internet cafe in which I spent quite a lot of time. See the video below for my impression of this place:
There were some fun parts. Every morning I’d meet with the international students for breakfast and we were off to the language course and in the evening we’d often leave the place to go have a beer somewhere. It was nice, but it still sucked. More than Uilenstede. Much, much more.
I got in touch with an agent and looked for a few flats. We were in a rush because we had to move out of the dorms, but plans fell through and in the end we couldn’t finance the flat we found. I got to work with some friends at my university and called a whole bunch of places, but with no luck. I ran into a Danish guy I knew and he gave me the card of his landlord and told me the guy had more places. I then called him and he said “ok, can you meet me in 1 hour at the Starbucks in Moda? Ok, bye”. Well, I rushed my way to find the place, since I had never been there before. I found it on time and the guy showed me three affordable apartments. I said I’d probably be interested in one of them and the guy immediately gave me the keys. I told him I’d have the rent in a week as I needed to find some flatmates, which was no problem.
How I’ve Lived There
I found 3 flatmates; one from Germany, one from Italy and one from Poland. 2 guys, 2 girls. I figured it would work well, however I should have listened to my feelings when getting my flatmates in. There was one person that didn’t sit too well with me from the beginning, but I ignored my gut feeling, because I really needed to fill the flat up and let this person in. Because of this, I could never really feel at peace or at home in the apartment, which was a shame, because it was in a beautiful location. Looking back, I also realize I had a slight culture shock and it was hard to deal with that if there’s no place where I can really be at ease and feel at home. Also, just when I arrived I got some stomach flu – maybe because of the change in climates – and it stayed with me for about 4 months (maybe it was stress though). It was a great half year though, living in Istanbul. I had a really light schedule in university and had plenty of time doing things that really mattered; like developing my knowledge about topics I’m interested in and networking with people there – oh and of course hanging out with fellow students.
That’s it. Part 3 soon… Including a video of my newest apartment here in Sofia, Bulgaria! π
BasBasBas.com is about my life abroad. I regularly write about my adventures in Istanbul, Bulgaria and travels in the region, but like to ponder about the future also. If youβd like to stay up to date, you can subscribe to my RSS feed or get email updates in your inbox. You can also follow me on Twitter.
I should be working on my thesis right now, but I feel I would work more effectively once I get this out of my system.
I’m about to embark on a 24 hour busride to Prague with my girlfriend. I’m invited to speak at a conference about social dynamics and hope to change some lives with the speech I will give there. I’ll be staying with a friend of mine who’s a DJ and who’ll be playing at 3 gigs that weekend, but before having a blast in Prague, I’ll have to make the best of my time in the bus.
When I got back to Holland I first moved back to my parents but really want to live in my old city, Utrecht, again.
