Belgium

Today was the Brussels 20km (half) marathon. I didn't participate because I was busy doing battle with an Emsen, wielding only a Fixa (bloody Swedes), but a mate of mine did run today.

John: my congratulations on the achievement! I feel sufficiently like a fat-bastard now, possibly even enough to encourage me to get fit for next year's run on May 25^th 2008. Maybe even the ING Brussels Marathon, since it's basically a choice between a 5km, 20km or 40km run back to my apartment. Hmm…

Meet Louis: Ordinarily he works for Bruxelles-Propreté, the garbos here in Brussels. Louis is an incredibly busy man since he started his second job with Nintendo as the half-brother of Mario. Unfortunately, this has left Louis little time to properly communicate with plebeians with regard to how garbage should be handled.

Lately, Louis and his team of public relations boffins have decided to attempt rectification of their past communications that disappeared silently — They have attempted to convey to the great-unwashed how glass should be recycled. In order to tailor the message to the masses, they've decided it's a good idea to treat everyone like children.

Belgian politics is amusing for outsiders, which probably helps explain why most Belgians are not particularly open about their political views.

Floating around lately is this, the NEE party («nee» is “no” in Dutch). NEE aims to provide voters in the up-coming general election a the choice to not vote for any of the candidates, as opposed to a blank vote which still essentially gives votes to all parties.

As a concept this really isn't too bad, since a vote for NEE would steal votes from parties you didn't really want to vote for but had no choice — overcoming the lesser evil principle. NEE's principal, Tania Deveaux, is offering 40,000 blow-jobs as a publicity stunt which has lately pushed the group into the international spot-light.

One month after Walibi started its 2007 season, and it seems the park continues to struggle. Rides are still failing, despite another busy day within the park during some stunning record breaking weather.

Thinking of visiting Walibi? Perhaps save yourself the disappointment and wait until July, presumably when all the problems are solved. My visit today left me feeling empty and has, as you can see, left a rather bitter taste in my mouth about this season.

Last time I wrote about Walibi, I detailed that the Vertigo was still unfinished, and the Turbine was still in disrepair. Unfortunately, not much has changed since then.