Christ’s Blog (beta-max)

When i told you many times that our European passport has now more value than your US passport :p
Too late now, i’m not “very single” anymore hehehe
(however, still working on “how to get a US passport “someday” :/ ; and with a girlfriend with a vietnamese passport, it won’t really help much ^_^ )

So since yesterday, December 21st, first day of winter, 9 more countries join the Schengen’s space.
For any european backpack travellers citizens of those 24 countries, it means that you can visit those 24 countries without any visa needed or passport ; just a simple ID card is requested.

After being qualified for the Soccer European Cup 2008 weeks ago and after a quite lucky hand, France was into an “easy pool” for the World Cup 2010 qualification - Roumania, Feroe Island, Lituania, Serbia and Austria. See it could be worse.
In that time, in the french papers, it was possible to read : “what a lucky hand” “easy pool” “it could be worse” “no worries” …

God finally has eyes on everything lol

For the next European cup in Switzerland and Austria, we have in the pool : Roumania (the most serious oppenent for the qualification of the world cup 2010), Netherland (ouch) and … Italy hahaha

? Que pasa ?
Kinda weird what happens in Belgium. Have you heard about it lately ?

The country without any government for months. And people from Flandre (north area of Belgium with dutch speakers) claim, at least talk, to divide the current country in 2.
The second area is Wallonne ; south of the country with most french speakers.
Since in the chamber of deputies, 60% of deputies are from Flandre, the idea to see somehow soon (?) is not unthinkable.

How is it possible ?
Hard for me (a view from outisde) to imagine what it is really going on out there.
How Benelux (founded during the WWII in 1944 between Belgium-Netherland-Luxembourg) founders of CEE (aka EU since 1992) in 1957 with France, Germany and Italy could arrive at that point ?

How about Brussel ? The current capital of Belgium which is an enclave in the dutch area ?
What does the king of Belgium think about all of this ?

Plus the current capital of Belgium, Brussel, is also the capital of the European Union.
So does it mean that the idea about “Brussel D.C’ is possible somehow in a near future ? hahahaha

Definitely a belgian’s joke ^_^

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An entire month without any ticket.
By the way, who noticed it ? I’m pretty sure no one ^_^
Maybe the day i’ll stop the beta-max thing, i’ll have to move my ass to “spread” this link. But i need to find any motivation first. That i still don’t have ^_^ despite of receiving my second bill for the domain name anh hostspace O_o

For the 1st december, here is a weird ancestral custom from … Kyrgyzstan.

You might ask me what’s the f… ; why am i talking about Kyrgyzstan ? I’m pretty sure you are not able to localize it in a world map. Don’t you even know it refers to a country ? :p (sowyyy :p )
So wiki is your friend as Google is my best friend ^_^

Last day i saw a tv report about … … … (pretty sure you have the answer ^_^) … … … an ancestral custom from Kyrgyzstan.
I missed the beginning of the report (damned Prison Break S3 ep01 on the other french channel which i have already seen somewhere in the Internet) but it seems like the custom was suspended during the country under USSR administration and was back since the independance of the country somehow at the beginning of the 90′. (Red were not that bad after all :D)

As the title said, the silly custom is about “kidnapping your future wife” !
Yep ; i haven’t done any mistake ; you read “k-i-d-n-a-p” !

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!!!!!!!!

While typing my previous billet, i read that Colin McRae passed away in a helicopter crash on saturday afternoon ! His younger son, 5 (!!) years old, was also in !! (2 others were in)
Colin McRae was 39 years old.

The beginning of the weekend, on friday, Grönholm (champion twice in 2000 and 2002) announced his retirement at then end of the current season.
The day after, another champion quit 

For any video game players, many games were named after Colin’s named.
McRae was a WRC (Rally) pilot.
He won once the championship in 1995 in a Subaru Impreza 555 and retired from the competition in 2005.

After Richard Burns (England, champion in 2001 with a Subaru Impreza WRC) in 2005, now Colin McRae

Still hard to believe for the racing fan i am !
Safe after a long career, a “simple” helicopter trip was fatal to him.
He was the own pilot of his private helicopter.
It reminds me John John’s accident :/

(photo from rally-live.com ; damned Google image ; there is only video game screenshots !)

RIP Champion !

In a week row :

Rugby - World Cup :
As being the country hosting the Rugby World Cup, we lost the first game of the competition a week ago.
France 12 - Argentina 17 (could be won though if :p we didn’t missed 2 shots)
You can imagine easily how the papers were the day after lol

Soccer - Eliminatory for the European Cup 2008:
The day after the rugby game, our national team played in Italy against the “same” we lost during the last world cup in Germany.
We did a quite good 0-0 and still remain the first of the pool.

But we lost against Scotland on wednesday 1-0 lol
The game was in Paris.
And from the 1st place, we are now 3rd with 3 games to go to get a ticket for the European Cup.

Voleyball - European Cup :
To be honest, i didn’t followed the competition ; all i know is that we … lost quite early in the competition.

Basketball - European Cup :
In spite of having T.Paker the Great, we couldn’t go further than the 1/4 against Russia.
Out of the competition but still in to try to get the “best” rank counting for the Olympic Games 2008.
But we lost again against Lituania.
Last chance for the OG 2008, to win the last ranking game against Slovenia to get a ticket for a “pre-olympic game tournament”.
My little fingers is telling me that we will loose :p the game and therefore won’t be in Beijing in 2008.
alalalalala when i’m thinking about a great OG game France - “Dream Team” (aka USA) in Sidney 2000 ! ^_^

Judo - World Championship in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil :
COCORICO !!!!!
Teddy Riner, a 18 (!) years old from Guadeloupe, a french territory closed by South America, defeated all “monters” in his path in the heavy (+100kg) category.

Moral of all of this ? Because there is always a moral in any stories :

We suck when we are a band but doing great when we are alone !

Maybe we have to think a bit about INDIVIDUALISM !

After the hoax and the silly joke from the ex-prime minister of Belgium, here is another story from Belgium. This time, it is a serious one.

To be honest, i have never heard about it before until break news talked about it yesterday.

Back to 1995, august to be more accurate, i first spent time in the US of A.
That was also the year where the great last album of the “King of the Pop” aka Michael Jackson was out : History (Jackson was a visionary :p )
One of the summer hit was Jackon’s “You are not alone” ; remember the clip where his wife was half naked ? :p

Here you go for you … ears’ pleasure :p

The music is “from” R. Kelly ; in fact not really. At least that is what a court in Belgium thinks so.

Yesterday, after a 12 years trial, according to a court in Belgium, the music belongs to 2 sibblings from Belgium.
It seems like 75% of the music by R.Kelly was written by Van Passel bros, Danny and Eddy.

At first i didn’t wanted to believe it, i did some research and … bad bad R. Kelly ! Hard to believe but the evidence is against him.
If there is a thing i have learnt during my short stop at Uncc, is that american do not kid about plagiarism !

Now listen to the Van Passel version from 1993. It sounds more like a “maquette” (workin’ progress ?) though.

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In fact i wanted to title this billet : “A reason to not get an iPhone” but after reading a “great” article, it became so.

The story is : M. and Mrs. Levy and their daughter went crusing in the Mediteranean sea (it is in Europe for those who cannot locate the sea :p )
Each member of the family own an Apple iPhone.

Back home, despite of not using the phone during their trip, they got in their box mails their AT&T bill : 4800 usd !

I quote the article from here :

The iPhone regularly updates e-mail, even while it’s off, so that all the messages will be available when the user turns it on.

Data are unlimited in the US but charged internationaly.

Bad bad Apple and AT&T ; that must be the end of my “A reason to not get an iPhone” billet.

However browsing down in the article, here i quote again :

Levy said he didn’t expect data transfer charges internationally because he believed the data network in Europe wasn’t compatible with the iPhone

Pfffff
According to a great youtube video starring Miss South Carolina lately, it is said that 1/5 of americans cannot even located their own country in a world map O_o ; So it aslo seems like for some others, the US of A is the center of the World …

(and Bush the Kid first )

It reminds me when i went an overnight in Mexico with my cousin from CA a long time long time ago :pOnce we crossed the border, a friend of him said :

What a difference between a rich country (usa) and a poor country (mexico).

O_o

(link of the article found here on blogeek.ch)

Just to say that it begins tonight and it took place in France.

In fact, i don’t really care about Rugby but i saw this pretty neat commercial in tv, so …
It is after the well known and impressive Haka from All Blacks, New Zealand team.

Enjoy (and Yummy :p )

Girls, for once i have something for you here :
Les Dieux du Stade (Gods of Stadium) and i’m pretty sure you’re gonna enjoy :p

(And also the opportunity to say that the headquarter of our national team is about a mile from my place, but who really cares since i don’t ^_^)

Outch !
September 6th, 6h50 am, Pavarotti passed away.

R.I.P Maestro !

(photo from here)