December 13, 2011

Man promotes push-up bra

Filed under: Fashion,Weird by Orangemaster @ 10:07 am

An inexpensive push-up bra from Dutch favourite brand Hema that gives you 2 extra cups sizes sounds like a good deal. And it works so well that even a man, world-famous model Andrej Pejic who poses both as a man and a woman, looks like he has breasts.

For the record, he doesn’t have breasts, he is an unaltered androgynous man, which makes him the perfect model: a good looking, young, flat chested person with no hips. Remember that most major designers are gay and that their ideal model is a man, not a woman. This goes a long way in explaining why many female models stay super thin and have no curves: to look like a young boy. Yes, it’s confusing.

(Link: at5, Photo of Bras by Jill Motts, some rights reserved)

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December 9, 2011

Picture the Eiffel Tower full of green plants

Filed under: Design,Nature,Sustainability by Orangemaster @ 5:54 pm

Dutch engineering consultancy Grontmij, the third largest in Europe, has come up with a plan to help Paris establish itself as one of the greenest cities in the world. It involves filling the Eiffel Tower with some 600,000 plants.

The Eiffel Tower would look like it had a green carpet, which would block the view of the tower being light up in the evening. The plants are able to absorb some 87 tonnes of CO2.

The entire plan is to cost a whopping 72 million euro, and some major companies have already agreed to contribute to the project. If they get the green light, the plants will be placed from summer 2012 until January 2013 and stay there until 2016. A system of hoses will water the plants, which will weigh about 375,000 kilos.

(Link: www.depers.nl)

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December 8, 2011

Aggressive partners get free hotel stay in Amsterdam

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 10:48 am

Men (or women technically, although statistically men) who beat their wives and kids get a free hotel stay in Amsterdam thanks to the law of the temporary restraining order. (The English and French translations are a sloppy read, I bet the rest is too.)

Last year Amsterdam spent about 66,000 euro on the hotels and cab rides of aggressive partners, but Amsterdam wants to put a stop to it. Municipalities are not obliged to pay for these expensive stays by law, but it did make it easier to remove someone from their home for the 10 days of the restraining order.

Remember, this is a country where just last year a national government advert suggested battered women just talk it out with their aggressive partners and where in 2010, it was the only member country whose domestic violence phone help lines were not free to call.

In a time of serious cost cutting, other big cities will probably follow suit. I don’t see why we should provide anything to abusers but psychological help.

(Link: www.telegraaf.nl)

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December 6, 2011

KLM lets you choose who sits next to you

Filed under: Aviation by Orangemaster @ 11:46 am
airplane1.JPG

After spying on passengers using Twitter and Foursquare to offer them gifts last holiday season, KLM is planning to let people choose the passengers next to them on flights using social media. They call it ‘social seating’.

The idea is to check Facebook or LinkedIn when you check in to pick where you want to sit according to people’s profiles. KLM believes that would be a good call for business flights and making contacts.

As far as ordinary flights are concerned, I’d be more inclined to eliminate who I wouldn’t want beside me, including any type of person who takes up too much space or makes too much noise, be it tall, big, with small children or a loud mp3 player. Of course, nobody would have to allow this kind of linking to social media, as it could also be used for evil.

What if some strange man who accosts single women during flights sits next to me? He picked me, but I surely didn’t pick him. Or a thief. Just saying.

Great idea for business, but I can foresee a lot of issues for anyone who is tall, big and has small children.

(Link: www.spitsnieuws.nl, Photo of a Lufthansa plane at Schiphol)

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December 2, 2011

Shopping mall in Heerlen on the verge of collapse

Filed under: Architecture,General by Orangemaster @ 3:09 pm

As if the troubled old mining town of Heerlen didn’t have enough problems, just before Sinterklaas, the biggest shopping time of the year in the Netherlands, shopping mall ‘t Loon (residential tower shown here) has been closed off, as it could collapse at any moment.

There is a parking garage under the mall, which has been propped up with big steel beams since October. A part of the garage was closed off for security reasons and the people living in the 12-story tower above were told that the cement pillars in the garage had cracks in them.

That’s the only information residents got until just a few days ago when the authorities announced that the mall was unsafe. A dozen shops have had to close and cars have been removed from the parking on the roof, while residents have been offered alternative accommodations in a motel.

Today, the shopping mall is empty and ‘potdicht’ (totally closed off). It could be months before they reopen, if it the entire thing doesn’t collapse before then, which actually could happen.

Experts and specialists are working on it, as it wasn’t just some construction error. Something underground is accelerating the sinking, but nobody knows what yet. And it all got worse overnight. As I write this, the city of Heerlen is holding a press conference and twittering about the situation.

(Link: limburger.nl, Photo of ‘t Loon shopping mall, Heerlen by unicron1bot, some rights reserved)

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December 1, 2011

The Polish bring billions to the Dutch economy

Filed under: General by Orangemaster @ 12:30 pm

Social Affairs Minister Henk Kamp, known for his unfounded and dare I say xenophobic arguments against Eastern Europeans, is apparently totally wrong about the burden he believes the Polish are to the Dutch economy. Kamp’s usual argument for not being a fan of the Poles, or Romanians and Bulgarians (stlightly different situation because of work permit regulations still in effect) is that unemployed Dutch people should be doing the work they do, which has more to do about his perception of the unemployed in the Netherlands.

According to financial daily Het Financieele Dagblad, the 150,000 working Polish are good for € 1,8 bln towards the Dutch economy and pay taxes to the tune of € 1,2 bln. The research also showed that these workers barely push any Dutch workers out of their jobs. In fact, Kamp reinforces their point by saying that the Dutch unemployed refuse to do this low-wage, difficult work, so of course companies will turn to people who are willing to work.

In a country that likes to see price tags of everything, I suggest Kamp stops with his tired xenophobia and does something about the exploitation of Poles and others in these low-wage jobs. The unemployed aren’t stupid: why should they run the risk of being exploited themselves when they can just get money to stay home?

It seems to me that hard working Eastern Europeans have put a mirror up to Dutch society and the Minister didn’t like what he saw in it.

(Link: www.welingelichtekringen.nl, Photo of graffiti in Amsterdam that best translates as ‘F*** the police’ in Polish (with a small typo, i = j), aka HWDP.)

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November 30, 2011

Marketers make stunt out of scrapping word from dictionary

Filed under: Food & Drink,Literature,Weird by Orangemaster @ 12:58 pm

I love the smell of a good marketing stunt in the morning: jarred food company Hak is campaigning to get a word out of Dutch dictionary Van Dale. The word is ‘potdicht’ (literally ‘jar tight’, meaning tightly closed and implying cannot be opened) and since the claim that their new jars are no longer ‘potdicht’ and easy to open, they feel the word should be scrapped from the dictionary. It is totally absurd to scrap anything that does not exist anymore on a whim, and so a lovely marketing stunt it is.

Besides offering jarred Dutch food products, their claim to fame with the non Dutch is that their jars are see-through. You can see what you’re buying and they do look nice on the shelves.

(Link: www.waarmaarraar.nl)

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November 29, 2011

Jos Verstappen’s temper allegedly flares up again

Filed under: Automobiles by Orangemaster @ 11:46 am

He was the darling of the F1 racing world here in the 1990s because he was Dutch and talented. He was also the best weapon I had to get my Dutch friends to glue themselves in front of the TV on a Sunday while I was watching Jacques Villeneuve pull his own variety of stunts.

The rumours had started back then as well, about Jos Verstappen’s temper. He was accused of harassing and assaulting his Belgian wife at the time, ex-kart driver Sophie Kumpen. In the end, the judge only chose to punish him for sending threatening text messages and violating an existing restraining order. Last time I checked, a restraining order does look a lot like a red flag. There was something about slashing the tyres of her car as well.

A 24-year-old woman from Roermond, Limburg has recently filed a report with the police of a 39-year-old man from nearby Maaseik who attacked her at a hotel after a party. Since the police wouldn’t say who it was, the press is assuming it is Jos Verstappen, although the racing driver told the press everything is fine with him and his girlfriend.

There’s also an incident when Verstappen and his father ‘assaulted’ a photographer (a man) who ended up with a fractured skull at a karting event. They both got five-year suspended sentences after reaching an out-of court settlement.

(Links: www.limburger.nl, www.duemotori.com) Photo of Jos Verstappen by Mike Philippens, some rights reserved)

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November 25, 2011

Banner vending machine world premiere at Schiphol airport

Filed under: Dutch first,General by Orangemaster @ 4:46 pm

A Facebook friend of mine just tried out the new banner vending machine at Schiphol airport to decorate a colleague’s desk for when she comes back on Monday. Nope, she’s not on Facebook, so it’ll be a surprise.

The banner vending machine is billed as a world premiere, or at least the first ever installed in an airport. The vending machine can be used in English, Dutch, Spanish, French and German, and offer three products: a name board (3.95 euro), banner (9.95 euro) and a big banner (14.95 euro).

The demo woman made a Welcome Home (why in English?) with windmills and clog trimmings, which she then tried to give away to some Dutch person waiting for loved ones. The first man flatly refused, saying it wouldn’t be appreciated, while the second person thought it was odd. The entire outside lettering of the machine is in Dutch, which means it’s not really aimed at foreigners. You can only use bank card (maybe credit card), but not cash it seems from the video.

The banner vending machine seems like a great idea, but I for one was greeted by surprise at the airport two weeks ago coming back from Cork, Ireland with my roller derby team and I wouldn’t trade in their homemade signs for the world.

(Link: rnw.nl, Photos: Marie-Claude Falardeau-Dekker and Kirsten Gesink)

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November 24, 2011

Bert and Ernie will guide you there

Filed under: General,Technology by Orangemaster @ 11:52 am

TomTom records Bert and Ernie’s navigation voices from AmsterdamAdBlog on Vimeo.

True, after the ones with John Cleese and Darth Vader and Yoda, the format is getting repetitive. The adverts are long, but Bert and Ernie make it work for me. This one was created by Pool Worldwide, based in Amsterdam for Dutch product TomTom.

I heard a story (by story I mean I have no facts to back it up) from a Dutch friend that the product was named TomTom because in the United States, obviously their main target market, you cannot have a product named after a person, like Bob or Michael. Feel free to comment on this.

I’m not a fan of the TomTom anymore for a few reasons: it totally went blank on me once as I drove into Germany. Every other European country was on that thing, but German vanished. Bad road trip.

My smart phone does a better, more accurate job. Sure, I have make sure the phone stays plugged in while driving, but the instructions were always on time and the female Dutch voice didn’t sound like she wanted to be euthanized. I actually have several Dutch friends who use the Flemish voice on their TomTom’s because that’s how depressing she sounds.

But then there’s always Ernie and Bert.

(Link: www.amsterdamadblog.com)

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