Ouch!

Bruno dances to YMCA in karaoke

Bruno danced to YMCA karaoke last night. Pictures to come.

House warming

Last sunday (after recovering from our dive experience the day before) we had our house warming!

Unfortunately we don't have pictures as Danielle didn't know where her camera was but we had a great time. We had several babies (joined by their parents) visiting us and many other friends (without babies) as well.

As Peter said when he left "consider your house warmed" and indeed, that's the feeling we had. Seeing all these friends coming over and having a good time made me very happy!

/B

Mates come over and we play a dodgy game

Had a few mates over on Sunday night to our new flat. A proud point of fascination for us were our really dodgy chairs that really rock, as in they rock from side to side, thanks to the fact I put them together. But I digress. It was supposed to be a school night, but our personal chef, ala Mattarollo, cooked us up some amazing swordfish steaks, which we washed down with several bottles of wine. That was the best homemade fish I've ever eaten. Then after that Dave had to go but Arron and Dan stayed behind and we played a card game called ‘Grass', which really encourages you to be evil. Thing you can do to the other players include;

Stealing their pot
Putting them in jail
Taking their money
Taking their pot plants

You can also
Get double crossed
Get completely wiped out
Go on a euphoric binge that gets you loads of money and dope
Get stoned and tax all your friends
Fall in lust

You can also pay your fine, pay off the cops and smoke your pot. What a classy game, perfect for two ex Amsterdamers. We both had a toke on a really really badly rolled little joint, which made Bruno extremely sharp and super concentrated, and me, ah me, my little mind blew away and I couldn't remember what in the hell was happening. The worst thing was that I could see how dumb I was but I couldn't stop being stupider than playdoh. I really felt so grateful that Bruno was actually looking out for me as I played, telling me things calmly, when I was so obviously method acting a moose.

Then, the next day though I felt super! Yaaaay Grass!!!

d

Ultimate answer

Bruno's antidote to when I'm a bit drunk is to buy me a packet of tim tams. Whether this works or not is an academic question. Tim tams, the antidote to everything. Drinking, the reason for antidotes.

Also, Bondi is better than Newtown. Welcome home Dave.

Dylan is born!

Welcome Dylan!!

Born 11:15 pm 3.6 Kilos (7.9 pounds) big strong and happy. Congratulations Martha and Brian! A little brother for Doony!

Welcome Liam ...

Today Liam Tune was born. It was a long labor but, after resisting leaving the comfy womb of his mother, little-giant Liam finally took his first breath. He was 9.9 pounds according to the proud dad.

All our love to Trina and Zhiron and welcome Liam, we are anxious to meet you :)

Pirates of the caribbean

Danielle decided that we should have our going away party with a theme. Since she has her own uniform, she decided that we should be all pirates. Of course, since I am a shy piece of work, I didn't dress up but most of our friends showed up with something "pirate-ie", Brian brought a parrot from hell (a small parrot that had two glowing eyes, red and green), Danielle, Alexandra and Adele had swords and jewels taken from some prior raid ... We met up at a mexican restaurant, where I guess they never had the privilege of seeing so many fine people together because they were so impressed with us, it took 3 hours to get our food on the table. I guess they wanted us to stay there and never leave. You never know...

After dinner we went to the Bamboo Bar, a cocktail bar very close to Leidseplein. Unfortunately, the friend of Danielle that used to run the bar wasn't there, we understood that it had been taken over by someone else and the people that we knew didn't work there anymore. Which was a real shame because the music and the drinks used to be fan-bloody-tastic. This time, the presence of most of our friends was the real kick! It was so nice! I just can't start to describe how happy and proud I am to be able to say that these people are my friends! And this is with total honesty, I am really really lucky! In the bar, promises of BBQs on Bondi beach near New Year's eve were made, promises of visits to Australia, of visits back to The Netherlands, etc ... You haven't seen the last of us! :) I am going to miss you!

We will be back!

THANK YOU! Really, THANK YOU!

-- B

Just a bit more than one week...

On monday, a week from now, we'll be jumping on a plane and travel to the Land of Oz. This morning, well, it's 1 PM, we checked our e-mail just before going out for some brunch and I heard the distinct voice of Dan saying "Nobody gives a shit that I am coming home in a week" when she saw she only had one email from Carl. So, friends ... out there ... reading these pages, please make her happy and send emails to her telling how you feel about her coming back home (good or bad but that's better than nothing).

-- Bruno

Zombie-ism

Crazy zombie movies

Well, this week it was raining and my friend David Symonds and I stayed home and made a Zombie film on David's crappy digicam. Our acting is trully criminal. This is why you have to stay BEHIND the camera, it's all so clear in retrospect. Enjoy.

Quicktime, broadband low res:
http://mattarollo.net/zombie-ism/zombie-ism-dsl-low.mp4
Quicktime, broadband high res:
http://mattarollo.net/zombie-ism/zombie-ism-dsl-high.mp4

Babies!

David and I ran into Kirsten at Maoz off the Albert Cuypt straat yesterday. Her baby is one week over due! She is having a little boy, and they have already decided to name him Liam. What a nice surprise it was to run into her - she was happy to find us still in the country, so it was a good moment all round.
Just so I can keep a track, the baby order right now is:

Kirsten due yesterday
Bianca due mid August
Trina due late August
Brian's wife Martha due September
Olivia Bradley due round September
Lou Fraser due late this year