Vendetta

Haleluja ! Finally I’m rid of those Smart4Four’s. Say hello to a Mazda 2 with about 12000km on the clock. Okay it may lack an airconditioning (lets hope autumn is quick this year) but the overall buildquality, performance and handling is SO much better then the Smart’s.. Its simply undescribable sometimes. The first tests went smooth with driving to the dutch border and back for a customer today and yesterday a nice zoom thru rushhour traffic in Brussels and the tunnels later on during they day. Very nice.. Okay the interior is a wee bit tacky and on the plastic side but hey, look where I came from.

It’s the season !

I had to skip Buenzli due to FiberLan but here we are for our yearly trip to Evoke. All the stuff (well, laptop and beer) is thrown into the car and of to Cologne.

This time the party is held in the Vulkanhalle in the north-west corner of the city. A nice and modern location compared to the Friendenspark and Essigfabrik from the last 2 editions.

Miraculously we (thats RBBS) released our first PC demo on Evoke as well… Not that the people understood the message of it, no people want to vote for pictures with not even a scroller underneath with boring text and a political message.. But wait, its a Farbrausch demo so we HAVE to vote for it.. Nothing against Farbrausch, just the people namevoting for them. Let this be an inspiration to release something better for the next party : The Ultimate Meeting (or TUM for short) in the south of Germany in late december.

Speaking of TUM, you *REALLY* have to check out the party management system created for, and used by, this party : PartyMeister.. Its your one-stop show for competitions, voteing, beamer messaging.. The works… Hey, its used at Breakpoint as well so it *HAS* to fucking rule.. And it does.. Harrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Ahwell.. We had fun, lots of it… Altho not everyone remembers it probably :-D.

Links:
Download the RBBS demo at Scene.Org
Evoke
The Ultimate Meeting
Partymeister

Marktrock is only a week away and again it is time to visit, yet another, city festival… Of to the City of Mechelen (just north of Leuven) for Maanrock we went last sunday… In general I only went over there to check out a single band : De Mens. Sadly the show started with some of the non classics and slower songs, and honestly I just dont like these but at the end it improved tremendously… Coming back onto my Chemical Brothers rant in the Rock Wercher 2004 entry, De Mens did a better version of “Hey Boy, Hey Girl” then the Chemical Brothers themselves.. Go Figure..

Links:
Maanrock

Today what someone call the inventor of the analogue synth passed away : Bob Moog… Creating usable synths from the Beatles to The Cure and the Black Eyed Peas over Daft Punk this single man influenced electronic music as we know it.

Analog music will not sound the same anymore…

Links:
Moog Music

It’s official… This Smart4Four I’m driving really hates me… Discovered I had a flat tire yesterday and the spare wheel they give with the car is a sissy like minitire that’s only good for speeds up to 80 km an hour… This happened to me on a saturday so I called the Smart Centre in the town of Mechelen asking if they had any spare tires in stock. Well they didnt know but I could come over.. So say hello to B-Roads driving from Erps Kwerps to Mechelen for a total of 20 kilometers. Arriving at the Smart Centre I got the message that, if they could not repair the tire, they couldn’t sell me a new one as the contract with the rental company didnt allow for it.. WTF ??? you GOT to be kidding me !!!!!! Luckily (for them) they could fix the tire so I lost only 2 hours of time, not having to go to a tire-dearler instead…

Now what has happened with these Smart4Fours ???

First one :

• Leakage of water in the roof

Second one :

• CDPlayer was dead when I got the car
• Left indicator in the mirror stopped functioning
• Horn does not work when pushing the steering wheel on the right hand side
• The car thas the tendency to start the engine’s firmware in “grandpa modus”, as in flooring the pedal in 3rd gear and absolutely NOTHING happening.

I really hope to get rid of this car as soon as possible.. It all looks nice on the outside and inside with the fancy and hip finishings and placements of all the buttons the the reliability and build quality of the thing is really REALLY bad… This really is a car to avoid if you think of doing some serious mileage/kilometrage…

Going further on a minor martial arts movie theme that has started here, we go on with “New Police Story”. Now if you think that this movie is realted to the great “Police Story” of the 80’s and 90s you’re wrong.. But well lets be very open minded here and enjoy a new Jackie Chan movie.. This time not one coming from Hollywood but back from good olde Hong Kong. Sadly enough the version shown in belgian theatres was dubbed into english, wich takes away much of the story for me… If they could bring Kung Fu Hustle in the original soundtrack, why not this one ??? People really apreciate the original soundtrack over a badly dubbed english one.

Anyway the movie… Story is, maybe as could be expected, a wee bit thin about a cop who fails on a mission and goes hiding into alcohol but supported by a younger coleague fixes himself up and gets the bad guys.. Hmm original, no ? Nahhh.. Well but thats not what you’re going for in this movie.. You need the nice fights and the great stunts, and you do get some.. The bus scene is amazing so expect that to be seen in about every other Hollywood movie in the next 3/4 years.

I really cant review this movie in a propper manner.. It’s dubbed.. Even the outtakes at the end are dubbed.. Come on !!! This will have to wait for a 2nd viewing on DVD that will hopefully include the original language track…

For every year my hometown of Leuven is transformed into a festival ground around the 15th of august for something called “MarktRock”. In total this city-festival gives you over 50 bands on 4 stages spread out over 3 days. The mainstage is payware but the rest you can just walk around freely.

This year I started of on the “Hogeschoolplein” with an afternoon drinking various thingyz at “De Werf”, sitting there the first band that performed was Yevgueni, explained as a joke band thrown together by some university students that got a wee bit too serious. For flemmish songs the lyrics were pretty good and it sounded really nice. I especially liked their cover of Belgian Associality’s ‘Morregen’. Following Yevgueni was Reset, something acapella music wise but that had to be cut in half because the reason for being there that day was coming up on the main stage : The Human League. 25 years of electronic music and still going, together with New Order they are one of the bands I regret never seeing live during the 80’s (as I was still too young most of the time) but with the revival of the era that is going on right now here’s my chance. So quite obvious I took it.. New Order on Werchter and now The Human League. Their show just rocked throwing in all the classics and finishing of the set with the best of the album Dare (got it for €1 on eBay :-D) Love Action and Don’t You Want Me. As a predictable extra there was Being Boiled and to end with a bang a fucking marvelous version of Electric Dreams (of wich the 2005 remix is a free download on their website by the way !) After that the idea was to visit the set of Ultrasonic 7 on the “Vismarkt” but we never got any further than our usual seat at the Entreprise, ending the day with a walk thru pouring rain and playing 8bit videogames… Long live the 80’s….

Second day was headlined by DJ Tiesto… You know that dutch dude that is self-claimed to be the best DJ in the world.. Well, I can agree that he’s the most popular one but you should visit a set of Dr Lektroluv before you call that dutchie the best in the world.. gna gna gna… Anyway… The main organizer and founder of Marktrock died late last year so they set up a special tribute band with the best of what belgian rock had to offer in the last 20 years… Props to Daan, Big Bill, The Scabs, Polle Pap and The Radios for coming on stage… Moment to remember : “She Goes Nana” from The Radio’s.. Respect !!! No as that dutch dude was coming it was time to go somewhere else… Choice was back on the Hogeschoolplein where we all started for the “Young Presleas”, a band existing out of Axl Peleman of former Ashbury Faith and current Camden fame and Ben Crabbé, who drums with De Kreuners. Great set, fakkin’ funny lyrics but please learn to articulate dudes…

So much for Marktrock this year.. Didnt go the 3rd day, sorry, the bands scheduled just didnt do it for me.. Better luck next time.

Links:
Marktrock
The Human League
Yevgueni
Axl Peleman

Some things never really go away.. One of these things seem to be Herbie, the VW bug with a mind of its own. After a load of successfull movies in the 1960s and 70’s the idea was stuffed into the freezer but now - maybe partly because VW introduced its new ‘bug’ ? - good old number 53 is back in theatres. And those not familiar with the older movies there is a nicely edited recap of Herbie’s past adventures in the beginning of the movie, of wich some are hilarious (Herbie hangs with the Knight Rider ? Common !!).

Yet all good things come to an end and Herbie finds himself on a junkyard where he’s picked up after crushing a Nissan in style and off to the races again. Most of the movie is about the races and thats good actually, throw in the old fashioned Herbie jokes such as the flapping doors, moving windscreenwipers, oilspitting and sexually activated antennas and this is a positive ride all the way trhoughout the movie.

In addition, the music that goes with the movie is excellently chosen, setting the mood at the right moment and as the songs are singalongs from the 80’s even the older audiance can enjoy them, sometimes even resisting to yell along to them (included but not limited to Lionel Richie’s “Hello” and Van Halen’s “Jump”).

Herbie Fully Loaded has something for the little guys (cars going funny) and the older kids (loads of 80s references and not a too large change form the Herbie movies you saw on TV and VHS). Dont forget to leave your brain outside but for a fun afternoon, this movie should be a good start.

Not that I’m a huge fan of the genre but I’d say I can enjoy some hong kong acion movies, or what some people might call kung fu or martial arts. One of the most successfull movies to come out of hong kong is undoubtfully Shaoling Soccer. Now from the same people comes a new movie who’s title roughly translates as “kung fu hustle”.

Plotline for the movie is, as with most of hong kong movies in this genre, something of simplicity… A gang of criminals wants to take control of some extra streets and areas and the next one on their list happens to be inhabited by some old shaoling masters who have gone into retirement. Somehow uou can guess thatthese inhabitants are not too happy with these plans and in their book resistance is not futile. Add some wafer thin love story and sudden change of a badguy going good guy and thats it…

But all in all this does not matter…

The setting is very nicely done when it comes to the surrounding in the movie, the fighting scenes are excellently done and the bad guys all have remarkable skills and techniques that will surprise you. Acting I cant really comment upon as I have to rely on the subtitles to understand what the hell people are yelling/saying during the movie :^).

What did annoy me a wee bit is that the version released here in europe is cut. Some scenes have been cut out for some bloodspots flying around and others have been cut completely… I’ll probably have to wait for some kind of hong kong dvd in order to see the complete version.

If you are able to check this movie out, its recommended.. Even if you’re not into the genre this is light and playfull enough to use as a nice introduction into the genre. Recommended.

Having been driving with a Smart 4Four for some time, this car does tend to get on your nerves.. The engine is way too small for the amount of highway driving that I’m doing at the moment (1000km a week) and its totally unresponsive when pushing - even flooring - the accelerator pedal.

Not to forget that I had to get a replacement because it was leaking inside the car. The upholstry in the roof got an entire wet spot from the rain with drops coming down from the inside of the doorframe… Nasty… Things should be fixed then but in the replacement I’ve got the CD player wont work, AND THEY DONT PLAY MY MUSIC ON THE RADIO.. damned… Contacted the renting company and I joyfully should point myself towards the official dealer who can fix the stereo system in oh say.. a week.. So thats august 8th.. Not liking this.

And the car thats ordered for me wont be delivered before the end of september. Seems that I’ll be stuck in that Smart 4four for at least another 2 months..