Oy_the_Great

Indeed. :D It's 5 AM here, but this moment is just as glorious as the 9/11 moment and all its following tragedies was a horrible one.

Yep, 297 vs. 145 electoral votes: Obama will lead the US into a new age : :thumbup:

I have lost my grandmother last week, apparently so did Obama, but I have rarely been happier in my life. I care tons about the sake of the world, and a victory for a democrat with a name like that, a black one even, is a fantastic sign for the future. It's not that I loathe McCain, it's just that another republican victory would cause our world to slide down even further, evgen if McCain would do the best he could. I'm even pretty confident that the first, and atm hopefully not last, term of Obama will not even differ that much from a possible McCain-dominated USA. The economic gap is just too big to make any real change soon. But a victory for the democrats would be the strongest sign to those other 6 billion people that the world's most powerful country actually wants to change it's attitude. And that is, above all, what we need. edit: the actual popular votes are terribly close compared to the electoral college votes: 35,722,638 for Obama vs. 33,836,029 for McCain oppsed to 243 - 141 electoral votes. By the way: I just received a phonecall from a friend in NY that Obama has crossed the crucial 270 electoral votes barrier! Oh happy days :)

That's great news, please keep telling me, being a European without easy access to up-to-date information, how things are going.

Standard Liège, Belgium's best club, lost yesterday, which means Club Brugge can expand their lead to 3 points this weekend :) They're doing pretty well, in both the Belgian Jupiler League, as well as in European football. Barça is doing phenomenal, and the Belgium squad is getting on a roll. Right now, I can't wish for anything more in football. Now if Obama also gets elected, the world will be a better place :D

Although I respect the republican history, I can not agree more here: what the republicans stand for and stood for the last decades is sometimes no less than disgusting. It seems they have brought this very much upon themselves and I would be thrilled to see them losing their choking grip, finally, on the USA. Let's hope it can last for more than a couple of years and that they return to what they used to stand for.

We established that when Bush was not remorseful in the least when he invaded a country FOR NO REASON. You can come up with as many reasons as you want to defend him, but when he doesn't even apologize to his own country, let alone the country he completely destroyed, I am pretty dang sure that he would have gone in there for any reason. Ahaha, you make me laugh, look. You really think Iraq never attacked us, ever? Also, just because you believe something, doesn't mean it's established. Now, if billions of people, think of an opinion the same way, it's usualyl fact, sometimes. But because you believe it, well, quite frankly, doesn't mean [cabbage]. And what the [bleep]? You're saying we destroyed Iraq? Are you [bleep] blind? Do you remember in April when we took over Iraq, and tore down Hussein's statue, the people were cheering! You want to know why? Because, unlike America, if you spoke out againstHussein, you were tortured. In so gruesome ways, I'm not gonna tell em (pm me if you wanna know) Ok? Also, he commited Genocide! Do you know know this? He nerve gassed thousands of Iraqis simply because they were a different kind of Muslim! He was a terrorist in executive position, I thank GOD that we are in there. Now, maybe, we should start pulling out, but never going in in the first place? Get real. You thank GOD that you guys are there? I hope GOD saves you from your naivity.

Can't agree more there. They say you earn your luck, but too much is just too much; the Turks didn't deserve to get that far in Euro 2008 and Liverpool doesn't deserve its current streak of luck, even though they have some brilliant players on every position of the pitch. You can't blame Arsenal for being inconsistent though; they're a young squad, and they still have to be able to turn around a bad game into a win like more experienced teams like Man U or Chelsea can. Wenger is still my favourite coach, what he does with talent commands respect.

I've been to all 3 countries as well, and I'd have to add that, if you're planning on spending that year on your studies as well, Greece is not the country you want to go to. It's a great place to go on a holiday, but as far as European schools go, Greece tends to lag behind. I don't know where in France/Spain you would go, so I can't give you any tips on the educational system there unless you can tell us what your options are. The schools in both those countries are often quite different, though French schools are all pretty solid. I would choose France, because it's a vast country (in European terms) and it is without a doubt on of the top 3 of the most beautiful countries in the world, and I've travelled to all sorts of places :) The people are friendly as well, though the mentality differs from which part you're in.

Here's the highlights from a great game against Spain, Sonck scores yet again, 5 goals in 4 matches now, breaking the 715 minute clean sheet streak from Spain. It's too bad we lost, but what a match! And I'm sure no one that watched the game will now think Belgium is the same [cabbage]e team we were a year ago. What a wonderful progress! Despite the unfortunate loss, it's still a good day for our qualifications, as our n°1 competitor for the 2nd place, Turkey drew against Estonia, shoulda been a walkover. Here's the highlights of the Belgium-Spain match, more than worth watching it for the fabulous and spectacular football both teams brought: edit: I just heard the 2-1 goal from Fellaini was NOT offside! Damn it, if we would've been ahead 2-1 that moment, we may have possibly (likely actually) taken home 3 points against the team that has dominated all others for 23 games in a row. Here's a (brief) summary of the game: http://www.sporza.be/cm/sporza.be/voetb ... a_verslag# Click 'wedstrijdverslag' on the right for the movie to load.

Once again, good news from the Belgian front: Brugge beat Bern 2-0 after tying 2-2 in Switserland and Standard Liège beat Everton 2-1 after 2-2 in Liverpool. Barça is also doing good again, so I hope I can say Hasta Guardiala! by the end of this season. :lol:

I don't understand why some people find some sketches that keep coming back boring or uncreative. Some of them are the best part of FG: I love the Olly scenes, because they stay fresh, and part of the hilarity in FG is the repetition. Like 3rkid said, that episode where Peter hurts his knee and keeps breathing in fairly loud is great, even though it easily takes like 30 seconds.

I wasn't going to post anything, but because I disagree with you for once here Daan, I will ;) I think guitar solos are often the best part of songs, they put you in the shoes of the artist and put you in a temporary high, as if you're playing yourself, simply because the instrumental part if easiest to blend in to. It's probably also one of the major reasons I listen to so much post-rock and progressive rock; good instrumental music somehow sounds so much more pure and does more to me than most other music. I didn't check the list though, i don't really like listing subjective things from great to less great.

Now imagine another republican victory. And although this is sad, he wasn't exactly 24 any more. The music lives on, and thank the gods for that.

Well, I'm a fan of Club Brugge in Belgium, and they just won the clash vs. Genk, one of the 4 major teams, next to Brugge, Anderlecht and Standard. Only 1-0, in Genk, a close one, but a win is a win! Now they just have to make no mistakes against the minor teams they are yet to play, because Brugge is 2 games behind on most other teams. Most of their young stars were at the Olympics in August, so they decided to postpone those games. I'm very, very exited about their new player Ronald Vargas, who seems to live up to the (high) expectations I, and all other Brugge fans, had about him. He's the lesser version of Ronaldinho, but still; for Belgian standards, that's very good. Nabil Dirar, the other winger they signed, is also doing great. And then, our best signing, Joseph Akpala, last year's top scorer, has already scored in every league game. I'm very pleased with what Brugge is doing, and looking forward to their European adventures against Bern, at home, after drawing 2-2 in Switzerland. Standard is doing superb in the European contest as well, too bad they didn't win against Liverpool n those 2 games, although they certainly deserved to. The Reds all admitted they were shaking in their boots both games. And now, that other Liverpool club, Everton is about to get whooped in the UEFA cup by the same team, after they too drew 2-2 in Liverpool, now they just have to make sure Everton doesn't win in Liège. So, all in all, I'm very pleased about the way Belgian football suddenly lifted itself up where it belongs again. Even our national team does great for what they're worth: an obvious win against Estonia in Belgium and a very nice 1-1 draw against Turkey, in Istanbul, in the qualifying games for the 2010 WC. On international level, I've always supported Barça, but the Blaugrana have been doing pretty awful the last 6 months. Still, today they did win 1-6 against Sporting de Gijon, which is exactly the way things should be. Barça has, IMHO, the best team in the world, but they just lack concentration and endurance sometimes. With 4/9, the Liga hasn't started too great for them, but it's not a horrible result either. I hope that they can continue the nice way of playing they showed today and last week against Sporting Lissabon, and then they will be heroes again. Vargas in action: YzziCzL3ev0 We signed him for only 1mil I believe, which is a steal. Right after this game, offers of over 5mil came in, but Brugge happily refused them.

Thanks for sharing this with us Phil, I looked forward to reading about your adventures :) I saw 'Into the Wild' yesterday, and although your trip is not quite as risky and luckily enough yours didn't end in drama, I would love to repeat both of those journeys myself. But first, I still need to go on that bicycle trip to Scotland I wanted to do last year. I believe it was you who gave me the must-sees and all, but I still haven't been able to do it. If I will, I'll be sure to ask your advice first :

I often am part of the organisation of parties, so I'm familiar with the local sad drunk chavs trying to pick a fight. Although I'm far from a muscular guy, most of the time I can easily talk those guys out of there. Some dudes don't take my often sarcastic remarks, and become aggressive, but usually they're too drunk to land a punch, and I just stand there with my mates, laughing at their pathetic attempts. But one day, this guy, pretty big, didn't try to punch me, but just took me up (I'm 6', so not that small) and tossed me a couple of meters away. Man, that was unexpected. Took a beer from a friend of mine, threw it right in his face and taunted him a bit. Now, I expected to get kicked, or punched, or whatever he had in store for me, but he just wobbled a little, and walked away. That was the closest I ever got to an unwanted fight. When I'm on camp with the chiro (= kinda like scouts) though, the elder members and the leaders often have these little wrestling contests. I used to suck at it, but because of my interest in MMA, I learned some useful tricks: arm locks, grappling techniques,... and even though I only weigh 135 pounds, I still often win, just because I'm fast enough and have some tricks up my sleeves :)

The thing is: I forgot about Kaká the first time, even though I just read an article about him... He's definitely one of the very best players in the world, but there are so many fantasticly skilled players on his position: Cristiano, Dinho, Messi,... You could even put Rooney on that list. And even if I hadn't forgotten about him ( :? ), I would still prefer Ronaldo over Kaká, though it's a close call.

I once had this crazy vision: all the people who saw ghosts and experienced other paranormal events just had a screw loose and their mind played tricks on them. Luckily I quickly woke up and realised that they were of course not imagining things, but actually were gifted with a sixth sense.

What does that have to do anything at all with the fact that Rosenborg is not the same level as the very few top teams in the world? Besides, I already said THREE times that Brugge is not good in comparison to quality teams like Arsenal, Liverpool, Man U, Chelsea, Juve, Real, Barça, Roma, Inter or A.C. And it's not my fault there aren't any videos of Club Brugge beating some team in the Belgian Jupiler League. I would love to see a video of Rosenborg beating a couple (not just one) of the teams I just mentioned, because there are none.

Yeah, that's proof enough to me that you don't know [cabbage]e about football, but are a fankid instead. One last thing perhaps: not losing once, or twice against a good team isn't nearly the same as winning 10 times against a variety of top teams. If you can do that, you're a candidate to be the best team in the world. As far as I know, the only teams up to that task are a select group of 10.

I think a lot of you people would be astonished by the amounts of money that are used for other purposes. Is all of that wasted as well then? I doubt most of the people that said the money is wasted are older than 18 (with that I mean: aren't part of working society) or know a good deal about economics and our society. It's investments like those, and ridiculous other things, like those damned adds on TV every 5 minutes, that keep us going. Besides, I don't like using caps, but I'm going to have to: DO SOME RESEARCH BEFORE YOU SAY IT'S WASTED MONEY. That relieves me.

I never said Brugge was good, or better than Rosenborg did I? I even said, twice, that on a large scale, they suck. They may have won against big teams, like you said, but that's most likely because they had a great day, and the other team underestimated them and had a bad day. Exactly like the scenario where Rosenborg won against other big teams. Did you perhaps see the CL qualifying games from Liverpool? They had to defeat out champions, Standard de Liège in 2 games, but in BOTH games they were outplayed. Standard missed a penalty in the first game and had all the good chances of the game. In the game at Anfield Road they were also better the largest part of the game, but once again, it ended goal-less. In the last 3 minutes of extra time, Kuyt scored a goal, which got Liverpool through and probably saved Rafa Bénitez's carreer too. I'm just saying that because every team that is rather good, like Rosenborg, Standard and Brugge, can play a few great games against much better ranked teams, but that doesn't mean they would achieve anything for real. Standard would never be able to get to the finals of the CL, nr would Rosenborg. They can be underestimated and be lucky once, twice or even three continental games in a row, but not all of the games. The quality of the players and the team in total is just not as high as the big one out there. And if you disagree, perhaps even mention Porto winning it in '04, then I have to say that no team has won it the last decades that did not have any very famous players. Porto '04 had Deco, Carvalho, Ferreira, Maniche, Costinha, Pepe,... I seriously doubt any (true) underdog team can ever win the CL.

You really should! dEUS is obviously very popular in Belgium (since they are Belgian, heh) and for good reasons too: they've been around for about 15 years, but their work is still a great variety of very entertaining, very touching and very rock-able music. I've got everything from them you can have, apart from some live sessions maybe. I've also actually met Tom Barman (their frontman) quite a few times in Antwerp and Leuven. He once asked my mates and I if we knew if there was a good party that night, when in the pub. Well, we were about to go to a birthday part form a friend of ours, and he (and CJ Boland, another musician) came along for a while. Had a great time :) I'm currently listening to Yndi Halda, which I love, thanks to the golden tip of a certain Dutchman with great taste. And I just finished downloading (I do that if I don't know if the album is really worth buying) Glasvegas's album, which is Lateralus-approved, so expectations are high ;)

Oh God, there we go again. Sure, toss a few billions to the Africans, that'll solve their problems. You know what? Why don't we just give them every penny we spend on advertising, luxury products and all entertainment. Those aren't necessary either, and it counts for hundreds, if not thousands of billions. If used correctly it will, "give a man fish will feed them for a day, give a man the knowledge of how to fish he'll be fed for life". If we operated on the 2nd part of that saying we could eventually help Africa's problems. What's your view? Throw money away on something we don't need to know and that could possibly destroy us while millions upon millions suffer and die in pain? Nice opinion, you sure care for other human beings out there :thumbsup: Look dude, before you try to stigmatize me as selfish, try to remember you don't even know me. I wonder how many of the people who like to picture themselves as halve saints because they 'care about Africa' actually do something for it. Well, I spend one week a year helping with preparations for Doctors Without Borders here in Belgium, for whatever cause they have. It's not much, but at least you won't hear me saying how sad it is Africans are dying every 2 days. I'm also not one of those people that has once bought a friggin' calendar for a good cause and based on that they assume everyone else cares less about the world than they do. I hope I'm wrong, but I seriously think you're one of those people that just talks and stops right there. And about 4billion being wasted on the experiment? How about you do some [bleep]ing research first, what they are doing is actually useful, unlike your contribution to this thread.