Yet another report from the world of the weird and wonderful. A friend of mine is a big rugby fan, so sometimes I end up watching rugby with him. While he assures me that the sport abounds in complicated rules, after watching a few games, I think I can narrow it down to two fundamental concepts.

First of all, my friend tells me that most professional rugby players start playing early. And not because the sport is so difficult to master, but because if you're going to play rugby for real, it's a good thing to get used to getting knocked around as a kid, that way your body will resist injury much better. In fact, I'm told, it can be quite hazardous to start playing rugby late, in your teens or in adulthood. And when I watch rugby, that makes perfect sense to me. It does look like a game that kids would play. "If you don't give me the ball, I'm going to chase you and take it from you." The only anomaly with that parallell is how to explain the team aspect of it, because it is indeed a team sport, they all help each other out. Well, if you imagine kids from two different families who are hostile to each other, then we're getting there. "Don't let him through, get him, get him!!"

Then there's the issue of running across a line on the grass, at which point the whole caramba suddenly ends. What does this remind you of? Remember one of those old movies where the criminal is chased by the police and he's trying to flee across the border to Canada or Mexico? It's a bit like rugby isn't it, running for the border? Once you get there, you're safe, but the closer you come to the border, the more dangerous it is for you and the more anxious people are to stop you.

"To every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." Newton's first law. Or third. I never remember which is which. In any case, the clever Englishman was onto something. Most recently illustrated by the following example.

When I met my new landlord a couple weeks back, he was helping this Japanese couple move into one of his apartments. I met him there as well, he said he would show me some places after he was done with them. The guy was also showing some places to this Malaysian girl, who remarked to me how effin cold that morning was. As we're waiting for the Japanese to get sorted out (and indeed they are efficient people), the last formality is signing the contract. He gives them the paper to read, and explains things that aren't quite clear. It was fairly routine, except one thing which made both me and the Japanese exchange puzzled looks. "Tenant will not use pot in the house."

Erik has a new roommate. Well technically, housemate, apartmentmate, flatmate, whatever. Just that any of those words sound so corny to me and so I prefer 'roommate' even though it's a bit misleading (or at least ambiguous). Erik complains of a smell of marijuana in his room. It's the roommate smoking pot in the other room, and the smoke (as gas generally does expertly well) spreads in every direction where there's less air pressure. In fact, when my roommate smokes in his room (only it's cigarettes, not pot), I can sometimes smell smoke in my room. Worse yet, when the asswipe neighbor downstairs goes outside to smoke and I have my window open, I get smoke in my room.

No wonder then, that my contract says "If you smoke pot in the house, you will get booted out and your shit will be tossed in the nearest canal." Well, it doesn't actually say that, I have the same one the Japanese got. But it sounds reasonable, doesn't it?

My bike broke down last week (not surprisingly), the axle is actually broken, I didn't notice it before, but eventually it jammed the pedals. So since I have no tools and don't own a garage, I had to take it to the shop. They told me they had to order a new axle, it would take a few days. I come in this morning, the guy says he'll fix it by this afternoon. I come back at 5, it's still not done. Here's the interesting part, guess what he says? "I'm sorry, I forgot about it, it's my fault." Oh good god. Yes, it is your fault and thanks for apologizing, no hard feelings. I said I'd be back in the morning, he even offered me a replacement bike in the meantime. Now it's starting to feel like civilization again.

Sweden has made a commitment to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels to...zero. It's time someone took a bold stand like that!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/oil/story/0,,1704954,00.html?gusrc=rss

So I was walking the streets again today, was getting dark when I got home. Starting to know Utrecht better and better now, it's fun to walk some place I haven't seen 403 times already. The housing here is pretty unique, very condensed. In Norway, every house will have a flight of stairs leading up to the entrance, so in effect the ground floor is a meter above the sidewalk. That means you can't look into people's windows, unless you make a special effort to do so. But here there's no room for stairs, so the entrance to a house on the street will be right on the sidewalk, you take one step inside, you're already in the house. And so the ground floor is at the level of the sidewalk, you can look right into people's homes. It's a bit rude, but I'm a curious person, so I look in. I don't stop and stare, but I do look as I walk by. Most people don't want you to look, so they put up curtains and blinds, a lot of windows at street level have matte glass.

When I do look in and I see people in there, most of the time they're watching tv. It's usually their living room facing the street, so they're on the couch, remote in hand and tv set illuminating the room. For some reason, I feel sorry for people when I see them watch tv. I kinda think to myself "that's a shame". I guess that's because most of the time I'm watching tv, I wish I was doing something else. Sometimes I see them at the computer and that I like better. "Maybe he's learning something, maybe he's getting enlightened." Or maybe he's just gaming, but even that is much less passive than watching tv.

One thing that strikes me about these houses is that none of them have mailboxes. They all just have this slot for the mail in the front door. It seems so backward and 1st millennium, doesn't it? It's like in 976, before there was print, you would get messages on stone tablets, the mailman would deliver them through that slot (which seems to be dimensioned exactly for that purpose). Invariably, those mail slots have these special stickers on them. My Dutch is still crap, so I can't read the text, but I assume it's something along the lines of "No advertising without a recipient to this address".

Just as I was getting back, I was walking in the center and I see these three funny looking guys turn into my street and so I ended up walking 30m behind them for a couple of blocks. It was a curious sight cause in Utrecht you don't see a lot of skater/hip-hoper/gang-banger types, and so as a curious person I was watching them. Skater clothes, baseball caps, sagging pants (that's a given), very funny walk. It wasn't until a while later that I realized they were talking Polish to each other, one was saying something about how the other owed him five grand. As we pass this coffeeshop (ie. weed joint), the tall one gestures to some people inside, giving the impression that the proprietor is a buddy. Interestingly, there was a long line inside the coffeeshop a Friday night at 6.30pm. Just as I pass the coffeeshop, I see this girl standing outside the entrance, looking incredibly bored, then her wacky looking male companion steps out of the shop with a little bag and a goofy smile on his face and they walk off.