The country in which things make sense

Now that we moved to The Netherlands, we plan on doing as the Dutchies do, and let our cats roam around outside. Since we have already spotted several ‘Missing: Cute Cat’ posters, we will not let them go out just like that: they will have to wear a collar. One with a small thingy attached with our name and phone number in it, so that should they get really lost and eventually very hungry, the nice person who fills their bellies can check who they belong to (and send us a cheque for the food). But these collars don't come with a cat-saving device only. They also come with a little bell attached. A little bell that tinkles every time the cat jumps, runs, or even licks its back feet to enthousiastically. It drives us insane, and it drives the cats insane, so Walid figured he’d remove the little bells.

Not so quick, dear man! That little bell is there for a reason! Dutch people really, really like cats, and cats really, really like catching birds… and a drastic decline in the bird population led to the idea of bells on cats.

Oh, true, Walid sighed. In this country EVERYTHING happens for a reason.

Blog Action Day 2009: Climate Change

Last year on the 15th of October, bloggers all over the world united to write about poverty. This year, the topic of Blog Action Day is Climate Change.I think we all know what to do:

Car less – bike more Plastic less – paper more AC less – fan more Meat less – vegetable more Fly less – walk more Artificial less – organic more Heater less – sweater more Garbage less – recycle more

Or, in short: Consume less – live more

So this is what you do when they instate paid parking in your street...

... you collectively park on the other side of the road. Brilliant.

In the analog era there was no CTRL+Z, either

I was waiting in line at the photo-shop on the corner for the girl in front of me to pick up the prints of a roll of film she had brought in earlier. She was probably around twenty years old. The man in the store fished out her order from the stack and opened the envelope. Instead of a pile of prints, however, what came out was an unrolled roll of film – entirely overexposed. Not a single image captured on it.

See, he explained, there was too much light when you took the pictures, and you kept the lens open for too long, so they are overexposed. We weren’t able to print any of them.

The girl didn’t understand. What do you mean? she said, your machines can’t find what’s on the film?

No, he explained patiently, there is nothing ON the film. It’s overexposed. It didn’t capture anything. He held it up against the light for her to see – a completely yellow strip, with a dark spot of something or another on each end.

So… so… the girl asked, is there anyone I can go to who has the machines to retrieve the pictures from a film like this?

The man in the store just couldn’t explain. I think he advised her to use a digital camera again, next time.

You'd think they sell contraceptives here

... but no, it's a jewelry store. (Found in Basta, Beirut, June 2009.)