Nick Cave in the Netherlands

Yesterday was the day! Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds were playing in Amsterdam and it was GREAT!!!

There was a support act which, of course, sucked big time. It was some Australian band with incredibly incoherent and boring music. The lyrics were bad as well. They often had to make up a bullshit story to even make the lyrics about themselves. Very bad...

Nick Cave played for a solid 2 hours and did lots of great old songs and many songs of the new album as well. Especially Jesus on the Moon, Red Right Hand, More News from Nowhere and The Ship Song were very well done.

It was damn loud as well, which is not too bad. The music was very well set up, so all instruments were properly audible.

I know for sure now that this is my all time favorite artist. Been thinking that for long, but his shows never let down, the albums are always good, if not great. Even the DVDs are kick ass.

Let's hope he plays at Lowlands :)

My whisky budget

I have been keeping a wish list with only whiskies on it for the last couple of months. I also have noticed that I tend to be more satisfied with whisky purchases if I decide before going to the shop what I want to buy, so there is a little bit more structure in my expenses.

Now I have seen in a news message on the Whiskykoning's site that there is an 18 year old Laphroaig coming up which, of course, looks very very interesting to me. The guy emailed me to tell me how heavy his job was to be tasting all these things, just to give proper advise.

After my offer to help him by tasting a couple of his new bottles I have decided to put some of those on my wish list. He did not take me up on the offer to help, though...

Now there are some 20 bottles on my list, 4 of which are over 100 euros, way too much for a bottle of booze. Maybe when I get a nice bonus or something.

A couple of them are put on the list blindly, some of them I have tasted. On one hand I have promised myself to stop buying random bottles, but sometimes I am in the mood for a surprise. It is hard to do it right, even by my own standards...

Maybe I know more after this weekend whisky festival in Wageningen. Looking forward to that. There are not too many incredibly special things there, but that is not bad, since they are not affordable anyway. I have still so many regular bottles to taste that my night will be packed nonetheless.

On the list for Saturday:

Glenlivet Nadurra 16, several Caol Ila's, Springbanks and a selection of other Islay and Lowlands whiskies. Choices to make...

Grinderman

I saw on the latest update from Rock Werchter's site that Grinderman would be doing a little show. I had my hopes up high that they would do a few gigs here and there in the Netherlands. Unfortunately, they will only be doing a couple of festivals, Werchter being the closest.

 
Maybe I just have to go to Werchter after all, just for the Sunday. John Butler is playing there as well on the same day. I will most likely wait for the final program, to see if they are not playing at the same time and then find out that whether they are playing simultaneously or that Sunday is sold out...

Bottoms up!

Yesterday a bunch of friends were over at our place in the evening, and we decided to have our own little bottoms up tasting. A couple of bottles that had been sitting on the shelf for a couple of months without being touched were put on the table and in a few rounds we finished two of my bottles and two of my friend's.

After finished four bottles we had a couple more without finishing the bottles. A good night all in all. Should do this kind of stuff more often!

Credit Cards and me

I have always prevented myself from having a credit card. But before our holiday to Mexico we got one, since we had lots of troubles last year in Barcelona to get money from an ATM.

Now I have started using it on the Internet. Not that this is a problem, but I need to keep myself in check. I tend to go wild in a momentary lapse of reason. Now I have ordered a bottle of whisky for the first time, and a little while ago I placed a huge order at Amazon. The books are not just for me, but the whisky is (of course).

It just so happens to be that that bottle of scotch is a limited release, most likely not easily available elsewhere. 5000 bottles world wide. The current value of the Pound Stirling is quite nice too, which made it even more attractive.

Lately I have been very good at buying whiskies I never tasted and have not bought a bottle of so so whisky for a long time. This one will fit in that line of things, since it it Ardbeg! Was looking for a new Ardbeg anyway...

Portishead

requires ear plugs. Yesterday was their first show in the Netherlands for 11 years. They have yet to release their third album (named Third) but the show was sold out before the first tune of the new album was released.

They are quite old, but that doesn't stop them from kicking ass on stage. The were on stage for little over 90 minutes, but it was 90 minutes of pure violence for our ears. Wicked! They played all their hits and many songs of the new album, which are a bit more chaotic, but just as cool.

I think this was the best show I have seen this year and one of the best ever I guess...

The opening act, as usual, sucked big time. Kling Klang was their name. Try to avoid them, unless you are really interested in British dorks playing strange and monotone electronic music.

How did that happen?

This morning when I turned on my computer, it did nothing. Well, almost nothing. It looked like Windows was booting properly, but then the screen went black. Reboot. Same thing.

I tried starting it in safe mode. That worked, but when I tried normally again the screen went black again. Luckily I could do a system recovery with a roll back to yesterday afternoon.

The only thing that I changed in my setup since yesterday is that I removed the Internet Explorer plugin from Skype. That annoying thing which screws layouts because it wants phone numbers to be clickable.

Annoying feature, but apparently I have to watch out uninstalling it. Lucky me, the system recovery worked (never done that before) and I can use my computer again...

Allergy

I knew that people could have a certain food allergy or be allergic to cats, but that cats can have a food allergy was new for me.

About two weeks ago a small wound appeared on our cat's chin. We didn't think too much of it, since the idiot usually bites in everything that is around. So something sharp or hot would be no surprise. It did start to worry us a bit when a second wound popped up this weekend.

We went to the vet yesterday and he said the critter had gotten a certain food allergy. Of course, it is hard to say what causes it, so special food was mandatory (€ 10 per kilo!!!). Now the "black danger" can only have 80 grams of that food per day, and nothing else. Usually he eats about 150 grams of dry food and another ounce of the wet stuff. So it is more a diet than food correction.