Tiring move day
August, 2004
24
Aug 04
The Dante Club – Review
I finished reading The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl. Here are my comments:
My favorite part: when two members of the Dante Club found that their
friend GW Greene preached at the veteran club about Dante and well
before the scheduled discussion/translation session at Longfellow’s
house. They (and I) have never suspected that GW Greene would do this
since he was (almost) always asleep during the session and the other
members kept the murders and mistery as a secret from GW Greene! I
thought like (half laughing) jee, I should’ve known that, how typical,
etc.
The most gruesome and memorable part for me is the death of P
Jennison. The other murders were “ok”, this one really gave me goose
bumps. The death of the judge and the reverend were decribed vaguely in comparison to Jennison’s. I think this is because one of the protagonist (Holmes) really witnessed when the victim drew his last breath this time, and saw how he looked. The author described what Holmes saw through Holmes’ eyes. On the other murders, none of the protagonists was present and thus, no detailed description.
One thing that bothers me is the way Fanny Longfellow died. This might
not be an important point for the book/author, but I thought it is a
bit unrealistic (??). She died because of the injuries she had after
her dressed caught on fire. This fire was caused by hot wax which
dripped on the dress…. to me this doesn’t really make sense, or a
bit impossible. Hot wax for seal does not burn paper when it drips on it. So it can’t make fabrics catch fire, can it?
I would certainly recommend this book to others. It is not a book that is
easy to read, at least in the beginning. But once you are absorbed in
the mistery, you just want to go on. I have to admit that I cheated 
.
I was so curious after reading about the death of the reverend (not
even half way of the book). And not long after that I took a peak at
the end of the book, and found the murderer 
. I’d have never guessed
that it would be him! He was introduced as a nobody like somewhere in
the middle. His name was mentioned only a few times except in the
chapter which is sort of dedicated to his own story.
The ending: I think it is a bit weak, not satisfying.
15
Aug 04
It’s finished!!!
Today I finally finished formatting this blog template!
To be able to do this, I have moved the blog to our own server. Nor has helped me with this. Now I can have my lists of current reads, past reads and to be read pile on the sidebar. VERY COOL!
13
Aug 04
Sandra’s Place
Sandra has invited me to her place, so I went to visit her today. It was raining very hard for a while, but I managed to go by bike to her place. I waited until it rained a bit less.
She has a pretty large house, 3 stories and a backyard. The interior is in good condition and Sandra has kept it, except the master bedroom, the same way as the previous owner left it. However the style is a bit mix and match that it can be considered as no style.
Our chat was nice and cozy. I briefed her on what I’ve gone through since the last time I saw her. I told her shortly about my tooth, the visit to the surgeon, the *ambeien*, the visit to the GP, the bee sting. We laughed together about my experience with the GP.
Next, she showed me her pictures that she has taken during her vacation in South Africa. She went with her boyfriend, Eric. The pictures are mostly photos of nature and animals. They have made little pics of them self. Then she showed me the house.
On the 1st floor they have the entrance with the WC and the stairwell. The kitchen is on the 1st floor as well and opens up to the dining and living area. The master bedroom, the work room, a guest room and a bathroom are all located on the 2nd floor. Another bedroom is located in the attic/3rd floor along with 1.5 storage rooms.
After the tour of the house, we also talked about her experience meeting the IWCU, International Women’s Contact Utrecht. According to her it is a nice club and she gave me an old newsletter to bring home to read. I said, I am interested in joining and I’ll probably drop by during a pub night. Sandra also mentioned that IWCU has a bookclub and she is certainly going there the next time. I couldn’t possibly show up the first time during a book discussion. I think it would be odd and would divert the meeting from its purpose.
Before I left, Sandra also showed me some of her family pictures. Her mother has passed away and her father lives at this moment in Cape Town, S. Africa.
The rain stopped when I was leaving her house. She let me out and we promised to contact eachother about what and when we are going to do next.
8
Aug 04
Languages TBL list
TBL list = To Be Learned list
English (to perfection?)
Dutch (to perfection?)
Indonesian (for the sake of my man?)
French (for Paris, the number one on our list of places to live)
Italian (esp. for reading their fine design magazines)
German
Japanese (for reading manga and recipes)
Chinese: Mandarin and possibly Cantonese (for ordering in a chinese restaurants, reading recipes in internet)
Spanish
Norwegian (for the possibility that we are going to move there one day)
Dannish (for reading design magazines and write to cat breeders. Those Dannish breeders breed magnificent cats.)
Swedish (for working at IKEA Stockholm???)
8
Aug 04
Why Gastrono-Me?
A brand new blog, a fresh mind, thus the enthousiastic posts. Gastrono-Me. Where did the name come from? For some people it might be obvious that the name is derived from the word “gastronomy”. Totally correct, I say. I love cooking thus gastronomy. However, what I read yesterday on Algemeen Dagblad -a local newspaper- about Nigella Lawson has inspired me to pick this as the title of my new blog. (BTW Where is the old one? Gone, deleted).
In AD it is mentioned that Nigella is the GastroPorn for TV audience in England. GastroPorn stands for Gastronomy Pornography. Cool term. It has something to do with some people’s overactive imagination while watching her on TV with eggwhites dripping from her fingers or licking a spoon of super delicious chocolate. But it is not far off. I, myself, think that cooking and eating can be sexy.
The term and also my hobbies define Gastrono-Me. So it is clear that Gastro is gastronomy. I’ve got more than 100 cookbooks and way too many other books. Me stands for me, myself, the writer of this journal. I’d like to also say something about my day-to-day life.
So there it is.