Amsterdam is my hero

Yesterday I stumbled upon this article during my daily perusal of boston.com, and it gave me quite a laugh. To give you a short summary, the article discusses Amsterdam's practice of including a video as part of the immigration entrance exam. Would-be immigrants must buy a copy of this "racy" video that includes images of two men kissing and a topless woman on a beach. I think this is genius. What an excellent way to keep out radical conservatives that clash with the general political mind-set in Amsterdam. This will ensure that immigrants will not threaten the values that the citizens of Amsterdam hold. Of course there are many people that understandably oppose this rule. Yes, it's a bit radical, but I think it makes complete sense. I'm not sure why anyone in opposition of what is being shown in that video would want to live in Amsterdam, anyway. If you don't agree with it, then don't go there. It's that simple. The video requirement is to make sure you accept their culture before you try to live there, and if you don't accept their culture, then why would you want to live there in the first place? Unfortunately, it is a bit pricey. The package, which includes the movie and is used to prepare for the entrance exam, is $75, while the exam itself is $420. Needless to say, you'll have to really want to go to Amsterdam for all that. I think that's what they're aiming for, anyway.

P.S.: After reading this, my friend Morgan just pointed out to me that Amsterdam's entrance exam is $420... as in 4:20 (or 4/20, depending on which definition you choose to support). Hahaha. Coincidence? Hmm... either way, that just made my day.

It's already Thursday, and I've only gone to track once so far this week. That was on Tuesday. I didn't actually practice with the track team that day, instead I went with my friends Amanda, Morgan and Simon and we pretty much went off and did what we wanted... which was running to Wendy's. Yep. We ran to Wendy's and ingested all of the calories we had just burned off from running there (I had a large Frosty), and then burned them off again on the way back. It was pretty awesome, actually. It just goes to show that - in the words of Morgan - we are "THE FATTEST PEOPLE ALIVE." It wasn't a great workout (I'm sure we could've done a lot better, starting with the removal of the stop to Wendy's), but I was still pretty sore on Wednesday, and I'm still rather sore today, too. Yesterday, on Wednesday, it was snowing so we decided not to go (actually we were just being lazy, we simply used the snow as an excuse). Today none of my buddies were going so I just decided to go home. I'm not sure what's going to happen tomorrow, but I really need to do some running because track begins for real next week and running just once this week in preparation doesn't cut it.

The other day when I went to Newbury Comics (it was actually a while ago... last Saturday, when Amanda and I went to see 16 Blocks) I purchased the oldest Strokes album, Is This It. I don't like it as much as their newest album, First Impressions of Earth, but it's still rather good. The only two songs I recognized from the album were Someday and Last Nite, which were both singles. Last Nite is the best song on the album, and it's still played on the radio frequently because it's just that good. I've noticed that compared to Is This It, Impressions is generally heavier and even fuller-sounding, if that makes any sense at all. There is a significant difference between The Strokes as a new band versus The Strokes as a band that has been around for a few years. They have certainly developed and evolved. I still have to get their second album, Room on Fire, which I've heard is their best album, but I haven't seen it in record stores.

Anyhow, I've run out of semi-interesting things to discuss, so I think I'll go fill my grumbling belly with last night's leftovers. Ciao.