August 26, 2014

Dutch DJ duo Soul Cartel remix Yoko Ono

Filed under: Music by Orangemaster @ 11:13 am
Bed-in, Hilton, Amsterdam

The 1980’s song ‘Yes, I’m Your Angel’ by Yoko Ono has been given a dance remix by Dutch DJ duo Soul Cartel (Nicolas Vesters & David van Ansem) and they only had a week to come up with it. They kept the vocals and changed the rest, which Ono’s management liked and put it on the album ‘Angel (The Remixes)’ along with tracks by a bunch of other DJs, all of which is available as of today in iTunes.

You can hear part of the song here, and if you go to iTunes you can hear more.

What strikes me is that if you listen to the original, Yoko’s not so great singing seems quaint, but on a dance track – imagine someone sang on the dance track like that today – it sounds more like keeping Yoko alive on a respirator, musically speaking. The remix is tight, but I think it could have had any number of vocals on it.

By far and wide I prefer Junkie XL’s ‘A Little Less Conversation’ using Elvis’ vocals. Dutch DJ Junkie XL made the news in 2002 as he was according to Wikipedia ”the first artist outside the Presley organization to receive authorization from the Elvis Presley Estate to remix an Elvis Presley song.” I wouldn’t really picture another set of vocals on this song.

(Links: www.nieuws.nl, imaginepeace.com, Photo Parool.nl)

Tags: , , , ,

August 22, 2014

Guacamole pulled from shelves for not containing avocados

Filed under: Food & Drink by Orangemaster @ 11:36 am

2624324882_a9ff1a24d5_n

I was in Munich earlier this year and went to a tapas bar with a German friend. He ordered some guacamole with nacho chips and then said that he really liked the guacamole he had eaten in the US, but didn’t understand why guacamole in Munich looked like mayonnaise with wasabi through it. I tasted it, and it was bitter: it looked very pale and didn’t taste like avocados at all. Then I told him about the guacamole dip you could buy at the Albert Heijn supermarket here that had almost the same questionable colour and tasted like weird mayonnaise.

It turns out that AH guacamole dip, which the supermarket chain has said should not be compared to real guacamole (so why do they feature a bowl of guacamole as a picture on the product?), has been pulled from their line of TexMex-style products for containing all of 0.7% avocado powder. More than 7,000 people have voted the dip ‘the biggest marketing lie of the year’. The supermarket chain has pulled the product and agreed to find another product to sell to replace it.

(Link: www.deondernemer.nl, Photo of Guacamole by my_amii, some rights reserved)

Tags: , ,

August 21, 2014

Man claims his drug lab was for research

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 1:34 pm

A 40-year-old man from Knegsel, Noord-Brabant is going to jail for five years for having built an underground drug lab. After spotting a manhole on his property, the police found a fully equipped drug lab with traces of MDMA and speed. Guns were also found on his property, and since the man had a prior conviction for growing weed and possession of weapons, he was given five years.

During the hearing, the man claimed that his drug lab was a ‘bomb shelter’ and a surprise gift for his girlfriend. He also claimed that he had found all the equipment in the woods and brought it home. The drugs found in his lab were from men who told him to hold it or they would kill him. And if you think the man’s lies couldn’t get any more pathetic, he also claimed that the entire operation was to develop a new medicine against Parkinson’s disease.

(Link: www.crimesite.nl, Photo: DEA)

Tags: , , ,

August 20, 2014

Dutch film so bad Amsterdam won’t show it

Filed under: Film by Orangemaster @ 4:08 pm

Don’t get me wrong, there are some excellent Dutch films out there, some of which even helped me learn the language before I immigrated here many moons ago. However, if Dutch distribution companies and cinemas think a film is so bad they call it ‘a low point in Dutch film history’, then it must be some 50 shades of shitty. Surprise, it’s a total ’50 shades of grey’ rip-off if we believe the media because I already planned to ignore the original for as long as I live.

The film is called ‘De Overgave’ (roughly ‘The Surrender’) and here’s the trailer if you must). Major cinemas in Amsterdam have snubbed it, arthouse cinemas who are known to appreciate an underappreciated film have turned it down and the film’s Amsterdam distribution company only made 5 or 6 copies instead of the planned 50 or 60 because it’s, well, shite.

The directeur Paul Ruven is apparently well known for writing books about how to copy Hollywood film successes. Gosh.

(Link: www.parool.nl, photo of film cans by tallfoot, some rights reserved)

Tags: ,

August 19, 2014

Protesting free Wi-Fi that doesn’t even work

Filed under: Sports,Technology by Orangemaster @ 3:04 pm

2548206259_8eebaff3da_m

With a banner that probably made international news because it featured the word ‘fuck’ on it and was written in English, PSV Eindhoven supporters were recently sporting a banner at a game that read “Fuck Wi-Fi, support the team”.

After paying good money to attend a football game, the last thing many fans would be caught doing is staring at their mobile phones. The thing is, free Wi-Fi is great because you can take pictures and post them to social media about all the fun you’re having. You can also throw the score up on Twitter and check if the media has more news on the player they just carried off the field than you would get at the stadium.

Omroep Brabant has claimed that the Wi-Fi connection is crap, which is not good advertising for a tech region made famous by brands like Philips and ASML.

However, many of us in the Netherlands can just turn on 4G and ride the interwebs. Banning something that is free and doesn’t even work seems like a waste of time, but we do get the point that it’s about joining in and not being a douche with your phone.

(Link: www.omroepbrabant.nl, Photo of Football by Bramus, some rights reserved)

Tags: , , ,

August 15, 2014

Oldest Dutch citizen passes away at age 111

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 6:47 pm
birthdaycake

On 14 August Egbertje Leutscher-De Vries, the oldest inhabitant of the Netherlands, passed away at age 111. Born on 22 October 1902 in Uffelte, Drenthe, she claimed her secret to a long life was eating a boiled egg every day for breakfast, a detail she told the media on her birthday last year upon receiving a telegram from King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima. She has also donated her brain to science.

(Link: www.elsevier.nl, photo freegeorge.us)

Tags: ,

August 14, 2014

Supermarket lets clients test different toilet paper

Filed under: Weird by Orangemaster @ 2:55 pm

1403206961-0

Although it looks like a beginner’s art installation, someone snapped a picture of a toilet at Dutch supermarket Jumbo that lets people try different kinds of toilet paper. The assumption is that the toilet could be for employees rather than clients, while many people are surprised that there are rolls and have not all been stolen.

(Link and photo: www.neatorama.com)

Tags: ,

August 13, 2014

A WWII war vet receives his medals in the mail

Filed under: General,History by Orangemaster @ 12:36 pm

Ereteken_voor_Orde_en_Vrede_1947

A 97-year-old man from Groesbeek, a village well known for its WWII cemetary, received two medals 70 years after WWII in the mail.

Arnold Nijenhuis wasn’t one to talk about the war, but recently started talking about it, telling stories. In one of his stories, his son Vincent understood that his father was put forth for a medal, but never received it. Vincent found a document in a pile of old papers to claim the medal and sent it in asking the Ministry of Defense to finally honour his father.

Almost like subscribing to a magazine, Arnold Nijenhuis was sent not one, but two medals, roughly translated as the War Memorial Cross as well as the Decoration for Order and Peace, again, in the mail.

(Link: www.gelderlander.nl, Photo of Ereteken voor Orde en Vrede 1947 by Robert Prummel, some rights reserved)

Tags: , ,

August 12, 2014

The NoPhone, the no-tech smartphone for addicts

Filed under: Gadgets by Orangemaster @ 10:27 am

noPhone-640x426

There are people addicted to using their smartphones, and maybe you’re one of them. Fear not, you can buy or ask someone to buy you the NoPhone, so you can finally have conversations with humans instead of checking your phone the whole time.

Dutch creatives Ben Langeveld and Ingmar Larsen together with a couple of New Yorkers thought up the 3D printed NoPhone, a black rectangular bit of plastic that feels like a smartphone in your hand, but isn’t one.

According to them, a person touches a smartphone about 150 times a day, significantly reducing a person’s real-life interaction. The NoPhone is like the pen a smoker puts in their mouth to ease cravings.

I bet people would buy the NoPhone for someone else as a huge hint that watching them stare at their phone is annoying. In fact, Langeveld and Larsen made the NoPhone with that specific type of addict in mind.

(Link: www.adformatie.nl, Photo: NoPhone)

Tags: ,

August 11, 2014

A sunken kitchen and letting all the sunlight in

Filed under: Architecture,Design by Orangemaster @ 9:35 pm

Apartment_in_Amsterdam_by_MAMM_Design_dezeen_468_10

An 85-year-old apartment in Amsterdam was recently redesigned by MAMM Design of Japan to provide maximum sunlight for an apparently non-Dutch family of four, which explains the very bright white walls.

The sunken kitchen is quite nifty, creating more space vertically, and by taking away stairs, walls and a part of the upper floor, the designers managed to get sunlight to spread all over the house. Although it looks a lot like an office space in the pictures (see link), I’m still impressed by what this Japanese firm did to a Dutch flat, considering how well they deal with small spaces themselves.

(Link and Photo: www.dezeen.com)

Tags: ,