An employer should keep social life in mind…

On more than one level by the way. I feel it is the responsibility of an employer to at least contribute as much as possible to a balanced and happy private and social life. Since the better part of your waking day is taken up by work it plays a large role in how you feel about your life in general. Employers should realize this, in the big picture they have an obligation. This year again some companies were actually held responsible for rises in suicides and I think, in some extreme cases rightfully so.

http://www.hazards.org/suicide/index.htm

However, it’s not all misery and gloom. I for one have a pretty decent job and lots of fun, interesting or at least entertaining colleagues. Half of my followers on my blogs are colleagues. Even though the company itself puts no special effort in the selection, in my experience it has been succeeding in creating a great atmosphere among co-workers for as long as I have worked here. Off course there are things that rub me the wrong way, getting a day off when you want to seems to be a challenge for instance and it’s not always easy to get my progressive, idealistic, politically left orientated head wrapped around the übercomercialism, but says more about me than the company itself. But on the whole I have little to complain about.

But… recently excrement is coming into contact with the mounted three lobed propeller. It would seem that a majority of colleagues I had categorized as “interesting”, “fun to talk to” and even “cute” are leaving the company. In short, cool people are leaving. So coming January I will have to make a new selection of people to waste time with. The company should really pay more attention to my needs, trust me, you don’t want me around when I have too much time on my hands or when I am unable to have a pointless conversation. Not being able to get a day off is one thing, taking away my entertainment is verging on criminal.

Guys, I’ll miss you lots…. You know who you are!

Jingle my bells…. The obligatory seasonal greeting.

Jingle my bells…. The obligatory seasonal greeting.

Jingle all the ff-ing way, and I mean ALL the way, everywhere, every day this month. On my list of things I hate about Christmas, the inescapable seasonal sing-a-long stupidity rates extremely high. Every performer out there at some point seems to feel the need to bring out a song, add bells and say the word “Christmas” or “snow” at any given point in the song and tadaah! We have another Christmas song. So now I am jinglebell rocking through the grocery store, walking home through a winter wonderland, dreaming of a white Christmas while Rudolph the red nosed reindeer is telling merry gentlemen “God rest ye”, not really a silent or holy night is it?

And there we have it… the silent and holy night. I am not a traditional (or any kind) of Christian, but I can clearly see how there is little left of the original messages this holy day is supposed to deliver. As with it’s pagan roots, Christmas is a celebration of the return of light on earth. Be it a messiah or literally the lengthening of days, it is a celebration of hope, life and light. Not money, noise or arguments about the proper way to relay seasonal greetings.

Oddly enough, it is almost considered offensive to relate the holidays to it’s religious roots, be it Pagan or Christian. Saying “merry Christmas” is almost an insult, because, Jews, Muslims, Hindi, Atheists, Buddhists, Satanists, Asatruar, Raeliens and Scientologists….(and any I forgot) might not celebrate “Christmas” and take offense. Now I get the point where Jews celebrate Hanukah… and I understand that Satanists might not be too happy about celebrating their “adversary’s” birthday, but for the rest of ‘em, what’s the fuzz? I consider people wishing me a merry Christmas a friendly bunch… and I hate the whole Christmas thing, but the fact that someone is wishing me a good time seems to me like a good thing to me and I appreciate it as such. Off course when I wish them a happy Yule in return they stare at me blankly, blink once and then turn away, visibly remembering that I’m “weird like that”.

So frustrated as I may be about Christmas songs, kids celebrating Santa Claus’ coming to town instead of the spiritual feast, everybody being too political correct to wish each other a merry Christmas and the fact that there is absolutely no way around the whole blasted holiday!!! I do wish all of you out there a merry Christmas, A Happy Yule, Happy Hanukah, A good feast of light and the best of times the coming days of celebration and light.

Thor wants me dead….

Here I was riding to work on my recently fixed bike…. mind you it’s freezing and the roads and sidewalks are covered in a layer of ice, when all of a sudden it starts raining ice water, wind sets in and within seconds the rain turns to hail. Hailstones I can tell you when it’s freezing and the wind is blowing just hard enough, can actually hurt you. Just when I was thinking; “Oh hell, it will pass” a thunderclap sounds, almost immediately followed by a lightning flash that created a second of daylight. In that moment “Oh hell it will pass” shifted to “Oh fuck, the gods want me dead”.

Yes, today's blog is complaining about the weather... I can do that, it's my blog.

Intense visual impact

This morning, on my bike I had to stop at a railroad crossing. There was a thick mist that left me about two meters of vision and it was dark, very dark. Suddenly I saw the three yellow lights of the train emerging from the dark suddenly racing towards me, it was such an intense sight. It’s hard to explain but it was awesome and a bit creepy, it gripped me, triggered something inside. So I started thinking about what sights are the most intense. What makes for a strong visual impact?

There are different types of triggers, I feel fear and eroticism may be two of the strongest. They specifically often have a physical effect, from blood rushing to specific parts of the body to adrenaline pumping through your veins. Maybe eroticism is more of a male thing, considering the popularity of porn under males, or maybe women don’t like to admit it. However, there are certain images that somehow seem to grasp something in your mind. Many of them seem personal but may actually be quite universal. One of those strong images I know for instance is that of your lover looking up at you during, well… you know, receiving a…uhm… well just fill it in for yourself. Another one in the same category is a naked or barely dressed female body. The image can be so strong that it seems to influence your perception, making you focus more on a single subject, even seeming to lose part of your peripheral vision.

Fear and discomfort, quite the opposite of previous examples may be even stronger. Receiving a letter with really bad news, getting back an important exam you failed, your mind seems to zoom in and block out the rest. I experienced a similar thing when I saw the WTC tragedy on the news. A similar thing happened when I saw a cat get run over by a car, time slowed down and my mind zoomed in collecting details. Like this, some of the tarot cards can have that impact; obviously Death and the Devil, but ten and four of swords as well can have such an effect. Different cards can have that effect on different people, I have met someone who got scared out of her mind when she saw the hanged man. I always have to remind myself of this when doing a reading for someone. To some people seeing the Rider on the pale horse has quite the impact and if you’re not careful this can set a mood for the rest of the reading that is hard to turn around. Since few people enjoy a gloomy reading these things can actually cost you clients.

I think that in many ways our eyes are our primary source of information, which is why you have to take extra care when confronting people with certain images on all sides of the spectrum. I know certain people are scared witless when the image of a “grey Alien” is flashed on the TV, likewise I know I lose all focus and concentration when my wife wears certain tight fitting or revealing garments… which is basically 90% of her wardrobe. Which is why I can only simulate any form of intelligence when I’m not with her…

You make me dumb honey and I love you for it…

iceman....

Cold…

Not in a very bloggy mood today, I blame it all on the weather. I don’t mind the cold and I don’t mind the snow…. The two of them combined with wind however make an awful combination to have to bike through to work.

Thanks giving... thanks for what?

Okay, I sorta didn’t want to post a blog like this at first because it might come across as negative, which is in no sense my intention… quite the opposite actually. So before you get angry keep in mind, best intentions and I am not an American so my view on things is a little different.

Here’s how I get all that’s going on during Thanksgiving and how I as a Dutchman perceive it.

In North America, later the united states, the early colonists gave the original inhabitants hell. Bringing all kinds of nastiness and enforcing their own believe system. Since many of the pioneers were Dutch I claim the right of critical tone here… Anyway, we stole some of their land, killed some of them because they didn’t want to be “educated” and then made them foreigners in their own land. So far I think we all agree on history. But somewhere along the line came a story of sharing food and gaining some understanding, which didn’t stop anyone being all round nasty to the natives in any way BTW.

(pic. A layout of a Dutch (or like a Dutch) slave trader vessel and how to transport as many African slaves as possible)

After a few hundred years people celebrate this whole event by eating turkey, thanking God for stuff and watching American Football and a Parade.

The Netherlands, being responsible for quite a lot of the pioneers has had a lot of things to be proud of in its history. Being responsible for filling a lot of blank space in early seafaring maps, claiming land back from the sea and being a industrial giant internationally while being one of the smallest countries are among them. However being one of the larger slave trader countries, claiming South Africa and instating “Apartheid” (A Dutch word) and being all round nasties all over the globe for quite some time with the VOC (Unites East-Indian Trading Company) are more of the wish-we-hadn’t-done-that category… however…. We don’t celebrate that. Bad time in history no need to celebrate, seems logic right? Which brings me to the part I don’t get, doesn’t having a celebration linked to a part of history you can’t be proud leave a bitter after taste? Or Am I seeing things completely wrong here?

Then there’s the thankful part. I am proud of the things I have achieved in life. Through blood, sweat and tears I have managed to get my life on track and heading in a progressive direction. The job I have, the way I’m raising my son, the house I live in and the relationship I am in, are all things I put effort in, worked for and made sacrifices for. Being thankful implies there’s is someone else to be thankful towards for fixing shit for me… God? I am sorry my dear Christian friends out there, but I don’t buy that and quite frankly neither should you. Ever since we got kicked from Eden we have had to manage on our own, that’s almost the whole point in hits exercise we call life. Everything you have achieved you should be proud of, not thankful for, you did the work, you take the credit.

So celebrating messing with the Injuns, giving the almighty all the creds for all you ever done and heading for a heart attack and high cholesterol by stuffing yourself as well as the turkey to me seems like a weird celebration… explain?

Interesting fact, historically the celebration may very well have been inspired by the Dutch celebration of the Leids Liberation from the Spanjards.

INSANITY WOLF!

Not Really in the mood, so I'll leave you with some insanity wolf pics I generated today with meme generator.... wisdom is found in these words!

I love the sheer brutality of insanity wolf, though I kept it within reasonable limits for this blog...

Don’t know the meme? Look it up: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/insanity-wolf

A limit on possibillities…and undead monkeys

I don’t mean to be a whiny bitch…. But sometimes it just happens. So here you have a small blog type thingy with little more to read then me complaining about things you can do f**k-all about. In the Netherlands we call this “het is zo’n dag” which translates as, it’s such a day. Roughly the same as “one of those days”.

Around me a lot of things are happening some cool, some less cool but many of them hold interesting possibilities for me. It’s weird though, how having options can be depressing. Let me explain… but before that here is a non-Organ player…

I am good in a lot of things, I can do some drawing and painting, I am an okay poet, sometimes I manage to make music without being too annoying and I am a reasonable mental coach. There are more talents I have, but these are examples for the sake of argument. However… I excel in none of my talents, I am above average in most but exceptional in none. I blame that on there being simply too many options for me. Because, there are many different ways for me to express myself and make use of my talents I have too little time to develop one of them to it’s maximum potential.

Being confronted with this a lot lately I have this terrible feeling of “meh”… so meh.

Temperal schizo… or how to cope with Chronological split personality syndrome

Yes I know schizophrenia has nothing to do with multiple personality disorder… still I used the popular misconception to produce a remark with humorous intent.

Today I realized something, I am not the same person I was ten years ago. Now this may strike you as rather logical but there’s a thing to it. Normally I always see myself as more or less the same timeless person. I don’t really feel different then I did when I was eighteen, or six or whatever age. And I certainly don’t feel thirty five! But today I realized that the guy I was before made decisions, had thoughts and did things the guy I am today would never do. I have changed so substantially I hardly recognize the people I have been through the years. So much so that I actually regard parts of who I was as a different person now. I may be weird that way, but look at yourself, is this not true for so many people?

Hell I have been Sidney’s in the past I would definitely not like today.

BTW, the pic might look it spans some years but it is actually two years of pics.

Dead guinea pigs and such…

So here I was this morning riding my bike to work, listening to the radio…. When all of a sudden the music faded away and did not come back. It cost me about a whole minute before I remembered that that was what happened when I got an incoming call (listening to music on my phone these days). Off course I missed the call by now, but since calling someone 7:20 in the morning is usually not done I decided to check who it was so I knew who to yell at.

It was my ex’s phone number. Now my ex and I aren’t the best of friends anymore so I didn’t really feel like calling back, but since calling that early was kinda weird I figured it must be important. So I called back.

What I got on the other side of the line was my son crying, his guinea pig Bruno (I think he was called) had died. For an eleven year old this is off course an awful event, so I spent the rest of my bikeride comforting him. I even explained to him that the creature could not have died of having been carried to school by his mum, my ex, how noble of me not to put the blame on my ex. After having explained the impracticality of burying the animal in my garden (we live above a carpark, so our garden is about a foot deep and frequently visited buy adventurous feline’s) we decided it was best to “bury” the creature in the green waste bin since that way he was being restored to nature.

All that even before I logged in at work….

So RIP Bruno (right?)

Not a good day…

Not a good day…

Now I won’t go into (much) detail, but today is not a good day. When personal shit, work related shit come together with having actual problems with shit, my stomach is telling me my diet should consist of less hamburger and more vegetable through the subtle medium of splatterpoo, life becomes increasingly less fun.

Now don’t get me wrong I can manage a lot of stress, I have managed a lot of stress in the past, but since a few years I have been diagnosed with diabetes and stress has the annoying effect of raising your bloodsugar, a quick BS raise causes me to get rather moody, impatient and takes a lot of energy from me, which in turn makes cope with stress in a less productive way. I am still learning how to cope with this downward spiral without having to simply ignore stuff until it blows up. Overestimating my stress handling capabilities has proven a serious handicap in this, my utter lack of discipline the second most serious handicap.

So what to do… well I will actually pick up the one thing I always advice others, my tarot deck… A month ago I would have told you I rarely read for myself if at all nowadays because I don’t “need” it. But today, I do. So here’s to you mister Waite! (probably gonna draw the Tower, The Devil, Death and Ten of Swords).

BTW Have you checked out NLGaming yet, my new gaming blog?
http://nlgaming.blogspot.com/





***UPDATE***





So here's the spread I did:



Appearantly I have been a fool, or I have reacted without having full knowlegde of the situation. I may be cautious but I am trying to combine aspects that don't match well. I am obviously picking fights with the wrong women and I should expect harmony but time for judgement is comming near. In short off course.

With regards to my questions actually a very intersting spread... which I will kepp to myself... which means the whole thing you just read will have absolutely no vallue for you whatsoever.

Sorry... but hey, no tower right?! That's good...

Ladies Night… yeah baby!

Okay, how about that, I will be an attraction on Heerhugowaard’s movie Theatre’s Ladies Night… how much awesomeness can one little Tarot reader contain?

Seriously though, 14 December I will be doing tarot readings during the theatre’s ladies night. I have no idea whatsoever of what to expect except for probably being the only one with y chromosomes there. Still, it is another good opportunity to train my short reading skills since most of my regular readings run up to 45 or 50 minutes instead of the intended 20 to 30 minutes. On the world summer festival a few months ago I did manage to slim the 15 minute readings down to 20 minutes instead of half an hour or more so I am getting there!

More on ladies night soon! Like… what the fuck will I wear?

Here is another Tarot beginners tip...

Here is another Tarot beginners tip.

Other noobilisious Tarot lessons:

http://nltarot.blogspot.com/2010/10/tarot-noobz-take-this-from-me-i-know.html

http://nltarot.blogspot.com/2010/10/so-there-was-this-poem.html

http://nltarot.blogspot.com/2010/10/what-tarot-deck-is-best-starter-decks.html

I was thinking about how I was neglecting the whole tarot-noob guidance thing I had going here, sorry I will pick it up again today.

So here are some bits of strategy for getting a better grasp on your deck and reading in general. Many seem to obvious, but I’ll post ‘em anyway.

No mater what others tell you, read the little white booklet that comes with the deck. Keep it in the toilet for instance to read through when you’re taking a… well you know, when you’re knitting a brown sweater. Though it is far from complete, the catchphrases are useful and the general meaning is usually correct.

Try reading for others as much as possible, even when you still have to look up every card, try reading for friends and family. Keep the subjects simple and objective. The feedback you get will help you make sense of the cards in a way a reading for yourself simply can’t.

Don’t be afraid to try different decks. Most decks cost somewhere around 10 to 30 euros which in most countries is less then people pay for gas every few days. SO it’s not that big an investment, and it really pays of to have a deck that you can relate to.

Okay I do really value a bit of mysticism when working with tarot but don’t let yourself get distracted by so called rules like: Don’t let others use your deck, a tarot deck has to be given to you, you can’t use a second hand deck, only deal with your left hand, you cannot ask money for a reading, you cannot do a reading and more strange rules like that.

So there you have it… feeling ready to start reading at parties yet?

Thus ends this lesson….

New Blog, game type thingy, go check it out there's free stuff.

As of today I will try to manage two blogs… this one you are on right now and this one: http://nlgaming.blogspot.com/ .

As I’ve announced earlier I will be doing a blog on computer games in which I will even be giving away games from my own stash. Well the day is here, so check it out and spread the word.

I will use this blog for Tarot based articles and for venting any thoughts about life the universe and everything… in general and the other blog will be used for game-related stuff specifically. No doubt you are thinking the new blog will e the most interesting, you are off course wrong. Since this blog will be more personal this is the one to watch and the gaming blog is the one to advertise due to the giveaways and for the helping me get rich concept behind it all.

Seriously though, I will try to keep both blogs interesting… ;-)

Since this blog has not yet reached the 30 followers I so desired before doing the giveaway I am starting to get worried about your advertising skills. So... being the cool guy I am I will try and see if I can revise my rules a bit, more on that soon. Now go read the gaming blog...

Riding my bike in meditation or A blowjob by the Goddess…

I was riding my bike to work this morning with the wind in my back, force nine or something which means I really didn’t have to paddle to move. This, I can tell you, was a good way to start my work day, especially after having spend most of the morning on the toilet wondering why fluids were coming out the wrong end. Well the whole “being blown to work” experience got me all meditative and theological and I decided to attribute this bonus to my Goddess. My goddess was obviously flirting with me. That’s the awesome thing about my deity you know, we are kind of close that way, I feel it is perfectly fine to flirt with my Goddess. Off course the current unhappy state of my bowels is Gods fault, I love manipulating my believes.

So the weekend is slowly drawing near and I feel terrible… I hope you all have a better time then me…

Signing off for the week,

Sidney

PS: “Yes… the gameblog plans are still there, it just takes some time to actually start it up…. I’m lazy…”