Schop Logt

Grocery shopping...

Posted on Monday 01 February 2010 at 12:46 pm in category: USA
In the past week 22 people read this, in the past month 83 people read this.

... is usually my job on the weekends. I like grocery shopping. And I'm good at it, as long as I get an itemized list from home. The list has to be detailed for me to be good at grocery shopping though. A simple item like peanuts does not suffice. It has to be "Planters Cocktail Peanuts, jar, 1lbs.". Luckily, the person that writes the list knows that (she learned that the hard way), so most of the time I come home with the intended items.

How Toyota is saving the American auto industry

Posted on Friday 29 January 2010 at 08:50 am in category: USA
In the past week 21 people read this, in the past month 71 people read this.

On January 21st, Toyota announced a massive recall of vehicles in the US, Europe and China, because of a sticky accelerator pedal. Although there is a very small amount of cars in which this might actually happen, Toyota has taken its responsibility, and offers to fix 2.3 million cars in the USA alone.

The American public has seen Toyota outselling the big American automakers in the last couple of years, and the media couldn't wait to jump on this news. In the past week, I have not been able to turn on the radio in my (American) car, and hear some kind of report on the dangerous faulty gas pedal in Toyotas. Toyota's stock has taken a little bit of a plunge, although probably not as big as a lot of people would have hoped. Finally, the press has found something bad to report on a Japanese auto maker.

Bizarre: The story of Elizabeth Báthory

Posted on Wednesday 27 January 2010 at 1:51 pm in category: Anti Helden - Anti Heroes
In the past week 75 people read this, in the past month 303 people read this.

After writing that thing about Issei Sagawa a while ago, I wanted to write some more about evil people.  In my search for evil people in history, this time I've come across somebody that may or may not be the most evil person ever (not taking people like Hitler in consideration).

The evil person I would like to introduce to you today is probably the most prolific serial killer in history. The fact that it is a woman is pure coincidence.

Stanislav Petrov, the guy that saved your life

Posted on Friday 22 January 2010 at 08:57 am in category: Helden - Heroes
In the past week 116 people read this, in the past month 463 people read this.

You probably don't know this, but there is somebody that saved millions of lives, including yours. He might even have saved the whole planet. The guy I'm talking about is Stanislav Petrov. Back in 1983, when the Cold War was still going strong and Miley Cyrus wasn't even born yet, Stan had a pretty important role in the army of the Sovjet Union. As a lieutenant colonel, he was responsible for monitoring the Sovjet satellites hovering over the United States, to make sure somebody wasn't firing nuclear missiles at the motherland.

Stranger in a strange land, part 1

Posted on Wednesday 20 January 2010 at 10:38 am in category: USA
In the past week 16 people read this, in the past month 64 people read this.

It is now 5 and a half years ago that I first set foot on American soil, on July 4th 2004. After that things went kind of fast, and since September of 2006 I am officially a resident of the United States. You would think that after all that time I wouldn't really feel like a stranger anymore, and most of the time I don't. But still there are certain things that I will never get used to. For somebody that grew up in The Netherlands, the US can be a strange place to live. And I'm not talking about the fact that there are 12 McDonalds restaurants within a 10 mile radius of my house, or the fact that some stores here are open 24/7, but more about the way people think.