I don’t know why, but I am feeling quite tired the last week or so. Annoying. Even more because I can’t really find the reason why. As often it might just be a combination of things, but it can’t be a good thing that on a Monday, after coming home at 1730, I am already feeling tired. I can’t blame it on the long working week right now, as the weekend just finished… And besides the squash the main event last weekend was relaxing. Which I was practicing at a very high level I must say. Only moving from the couch for the bare essentials, and always back within minutes! :-)
Maybe that is also part of it… As not doing much isn’t usually helping a lot when being tired. But as I feel tired, I enjoy watching a movie from the couch! Mmm… a puzzle. Maybe the answer is in a more diverse approach. A bit of relaxing combined with some things that require a bit more brain activity then the coordination of moving my hand from the bag of chips to my mouth and back to repeat the process.
Sounds good. For a start. Also makes sense, as my daily job at this moment doesn’t offer that much challenge to the brain. The work can’t get more routine (or should I just say boring?), then it is at the moment. And 40 hours a week without any form of challenge, or just even a sign of a challenge somewhere in the future can’t be considered a healthy thing. Well… you would think. As for most working people on this planet it’s probably the most normal thing to do the same thing every day. So why do I complain? Do I just raise the bar to high for my work? Or life in general? Why does there always need to be a challenge somewhere? Well, maybe not always, but every now and then… yes. Yes, please. Mmmm… I am drifting off… I think I can write a whole new post just about this subject! I probably will soon, but let’s focus first one finishing this one! ;-)
So this work thing is clearly not helping much. The travel time from and to work is also not much of a positive contribution… Quick math learns us that leaving home at 0700, getting home at 1730 and being at work for 8 and a half hours, I am located somewhere in between for two whole hours. When I can borrow my moms car it’s quite ok, as I mainly spend the two hours singing a long with the car radio or laughing with the morning DJ, but when I have to take public transportation I have a bit more shame and it’s always a long quiet ride.
I seem to sleep an average of 7 hours a night. Could do with one more probably, but I have managed with less, so that should not cause any problems. Although the biological clock isn’t helping much by not letting me sleep extra late in the weekend! That would be nice, but as I never feel physically tired when I am on the squash court on Saturday all eyes seem to focus on me being mentally tired… Mentally tired?!?! Is that really something? And could that be it… It sounds very vague. Mentally tired of what? Work? Being bored? It sounds to serious as well. Terms like “burnout” now cross my mind. Way to strong terms for me. It’s not like I can’t work. It’s just boring. And staying home and doing nothing wouldn’t be the answer. As I would still be bored.
Fascinating… I clearly have some more thinking to do on this one.
I must say I felt quite tired when I got home and when I started writing this, but I don’t feel so tired at the moment… Seems like the blog is a good way to challenge my brain and make me think. Well, I will leave some brain exercise for tomorrow as now it’s time to chill on the couch again. It has probably been wondering where I have been! ;-)

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No, not the movie. Me. Squash yesterday left it marks. On my face. Two possible explanations. One. I got slapped in the face with the racket. Two. I run into a racket. Well, as it never happened before it was most likely a combination of the above. As I couldn’t see my own face while on court, I didn’t really understand why Bastiaan was laughing at the marks on my face, until I saw myself in the changing room mirror… *hahahaha* I sure was a funny sight! :-)
The people in the supermarket where I had to do some shopping not long after the match seemed to agree… People were looking a bit weird at me. I couldn’t blame them. Three big red stripes on my forehead and my nose was all big and red. I would have smiled as well if I saw someone with a racket print on his face! ;-)
This morning I expected the red marks to have disappeared, but they are still there… plus there appeared a couple of little bumps on my forehead and nose. Well, if they are still there tomorrow, at least I have a heroic story to tell at work! ;-)

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We love you Russia! We do! Ooooooooohhh, Russia we love you! :-)
Yes, I have to pay deep respect to the people that saved my day! On Monday my laptop crashed again. Big time this time. It would hang on start-up with a funky sound from the harddisk every time. Last time the workaround was to just reinstall Windows on top of everything, this time even that failed… After about 40 failed reboot I was getting quite desperate and sad… yes, I was so stupid to believe that the computer after the last crash would keep working, and didn’t make any back-up of the data on my computer… Argggg… stupid, stupid, stupid!!!!! But as I couldn’t turn back time, I could only except my stupidity and move on. But well, that wasn’t easy as the computer didn’t wanne turn on anymore…. But!!! Praise the lord there is a but! :-) For no reason and totally unexpected reboot number 41 all of a sudden worked!!!! WHEEEHOOO!!!!! That was a very happy moment! Now the plan was simple: BURN, BURN, BURN!!!! Only I hadn’t installed the burn software on my laptop yet after the first crash… Oops…. Little problem… Luckily I have the original CD with the burning software! Installation went quickly, but then the installation program required a reboot to finalize the installation…. mmmmm…. that didn’t feel like a good plan… the 40 failed reboots in the last 15 minutes were still very fresh in my memory and not giving me much of a comfortable feeling to reboot again. No option. But what now… Other burning software! I remembered Nero. The plan was now to download a Nero trial version and pray it wouldn’t require a reboot after installation. Downloading… 30MB file… 35 minutes left… 34 minutes left… pffff… I was already getting impatient… Then a glorious moment: I remembered the old version of Nero I put on my machine just before the last Windows installation! Maybe that would work! It did… but as it was an old trail version, it wouldn’t work with a official registration key… mmmmm… that could be fixed. That’s where are Russian friends come into the picture. Yes, a quick search and about 62 popup porn windows later the Nero registration key was there! Would it work?!? IT DOES!!!! Yes, I know these Russian hackers are maybe a bit naughty by supplying a very wide range of registration keys for any program can think off, but damn I couldn’t care less at that moment! These people were true hero’s!!! They saved my day! :-)
After entering the registration key everything went according the simple plan: burn, burn, burn. Now, 18 full CD’s and a very long Monday and Tuesday night later I am ready for a total cleanup. As I have no clue if this will actually be successful, it could be that the activity on the limecrush blog will be quite slow the coming days… But stay tuned! I might be back before you know it! Although I might have used up all my luck on the 41st reboot! ;-)

Update (February 24, 2005):
Hello again! Luck was definitely on my side. Formatted the machine, spend yesterday evening as well as this evening reinstalling some of the software and it’s looking good again! But as I have a constant fear in my head now that it could crash every moment, I will have to get a new laptop soon! Although knowing myself longer then today, it could well be that if it keeps working for one week running and I forget all about it again! *hahaha* even the weekly backup plan I was convinced I had to have two days ago, is already interpreted quite flexible… Will I ever learn? ;-)

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There was no escaping possible. Just a matter of time before it would happen, and it will most like happen again in the future: “The category shuffle”. Already had the idea to add good restaurants to the blog, but didn’t go to one until yesterday! So when I wrote about last nights spare-ribs this morning, it was also time to re-shuffle the categories. Now the recipes and restaurants belong to the new “food & drink” category. Not much about “drink” there yet, but not to worry, I am thinking about adding a list of nice wines that I will come across. Whenever I have to pick out a bottle of wine, I can never remember the good ones I had in the past… Now I can make the blog help me remember! :-)

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If you like spare-ribs and happen to be in Holland for any reason, drop me a line and I will be more then happy to take you to the place they serve the best spare-ribs in Holland! :-) Yesterday evening we went celebrating my parents 31st weddingday anniversary with a little dinner at “De Resident” in The Hague, and their most popular dish are the spare-ribs. And it’s not weird they are, as they are really nice! They use some secret marinade sauce which makes them really “Jammie!” :-)
Oh, if you happen be so rude to go without me, don’t try and finish off the spare-ribs with the desert called “Soes Resident”… For the second time running I came, saw but didn’t conquer and stranded half way… For you who like deserts, “soesjes” are very nice little Dutch pastries. A little search on Google translated them as “Cream Puffs”. Well as this was a “soes” it was just one and big! Little Dutch language course: we add “je” for one or “jes” for multiple to words to make things small: book = boek, small book = boekje. So it was big (about 10 centimeter in diameter), filled with vanilla ice-cream, overflooded with chocolate sauce and whipcream on the side!! I should have known better, but I couldn’t resist! :-)

De Resident
Denneweg 58
The Hague, The Netherlands
Telephone: +31 (0)70 364 87 88
Internet: http://www.deresident.nl

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Today on the squash court (match starts at 12:00, red.) a new philosophy will be tried out: Fun on court. After loosing all 3 matches this year it’s time for a change. The first game I just lost. The second I had the excuse of the broken racket, but the last match I was without any chance. I expected an easy win, but that was never possible so I got very frustrated… Not good. Not good at all. No real excuse either, other then the fact I don’t like loosing. In the last 4 years, I have won 31 out of the 36 matches… guess I was getting a bit spoiled… Playing should be fun. So today having fun on court will be a little bit more important then winning. But, as winning is of course more fun then loosing, it would still be nice to leave the court as a winner this afternoon! :-)
I am really looking forward to play again, so we will see what happens! Hopefully the new philosophy works and I will be smiling when I am writing the update to this message later today!

Update (February 19, 2005 at 15:25):
The smile is there! :-) The victory as well. 11-9, 9-2, 5-9, 10-8. Although it could just as well have been the other way around. The game was very close (Bastiaan missed setpoints in the 1st and 4th set) and at an unbelievable high level! Lots of beautiful points throughout the match and a lot of running… That was also quite noticeable in the 4th set… we both were in great search of our breath between the points. And started missing balls because of that… but the game was great fun! Just one little scary moment just after the match, when we were playing a bit in our cooling down. I chased the ball, hit it and all of a sudden I couldn’t move my right hand anymore… it was stuck in a 90° angle from my wrist… Very strange. Not painful, and it went away really fast, but scary for a moment. But the smile is back, the philosophy worked and I am already looking forward till next week! :-)

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Some Dutch politicians have received a death thread after controversial remarks they made about mainly the Islam. I don’t think death threads are a constructive way towards a solution, but apparently people got quite offended, else they wouldn’t express there anger like that. As the Dutch film maker Theo van Gogh got killed last year, because of a controversial movie he made, the Dutch government takes the death threads serious and the politicians get good protection. Good thing. They keep the politicians at safe and secret locations, where people with bad plans can’t get to them. Smart thinking. Until today… today a threatened female politician was tired of being at the safe secret location and thought it was necessary to complain about it in the newspaper. I can understand it can’t be much fun to live in a hidden location for quite some time, but she shouldn’t forget why she is there. Because she offended people. Freedom of speech is an important thing, but if you express things that offended other people you should also be ready to face the consequences. Good or bad. Now they are bad, she has to stay at secret locations and all things are costing our society a lot of money on extra security. And now she starts to complain about those places. Apparently she says at a safely guarded army base in Amsterdam. Nice and safe, but not good enough for her… She wants to stay in a nice proper house… well, don’t we all? And everybody need to know where she is… Even the biggest celebrities don’t want the whole country to know where they live! Her 15 minutes of fame most be messing with her mind. What does she expect? That the government rents out a couple of rooms in the Hilton? Or that they buy her a nice house along the canals in Amsterdam? Just for her, because she doesn’t like the beds on the army base?
The world up side down if you ask me. Being threatened should never be used as an excuse to start demanding things. She should be happy with any place the security people come up with. It’s their job to secure people, so they shouldn’t they know best?? I would be quite offended if I was in charge of her security and she would complain like this. For fun I would put her in a cardboard box under a bridge in the middle of Amsterdam tonight. Very safe! Who would expect that! See if she has something to complain about tomorrow! ;-)

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I couldn’t find a solution… my cold feet were keeping me awake last night. For over an hour I searched for a winning solution. Wrap feed in blanket. Works, but no quick success. And I was seeking quick success. Socks… don’t usually like wearing socks in bed… so let’s stay with the wrapping. Maybe wrap a bit more… no, uncomfortable. Less wrapping, more patience. 20 minutes later. Feet still as cold as can be, and me still awake as I can be. Let’s go socks. Why not, I am tired and wanne sleep. There are the socks. Mmmmm…. no instead success. But don’t get to impatient, give it some time. Another 20 minutes later. Still awake. Socks are not helping much. What is wrong with my feet? I am not on the North Pole, in Siberia or on mount Everest… And before I went to bed I didn’t have cold feet. At least not that I remember. Maybe I am thinking about them to much… let’s try and think about something else! Pfff… I am tired, what can I think about. Well, let’s don’t think about the alarm that will sound at 06:20… you know what, let’s add some more socks. 2 pair know more then one! :-) There we go! This feels nice. Let’s wrap a bit as well! Mmmmm… I think I found a solution! Finally! But how do I get rid of the socks when I am finally sleeping… well, worries for later. Worst case I have them on all night, and that shouldn’t hurt me too much! ;-)
Well, I did woke up around 03:30… with hot feet. Took off my socks and fell asleep quickly again. Good thing. But either way, I still hope I will fall asleep quickly again tonight! I have been quite aware of my feet temperature all evening and I must say, I am all ready for a good night of sleep, they feel nice and warm! ;-)

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Pfffff…. It’s done! 3 long, long hours… And finally it’s all done. Pffff…. it was about time, because I was really starting to flip out! I was trying to make a birthday card for my dad’s 70th birthday party, to send to all his family and friends. I didn’t want to try and make something in PhotoShop and bring it to a printshop myself, because I am realistic and don’t think it will look very nice… So I decided to first find a website where I can build my own greeting card online! Well, it wasn’t very difficult to find such a website, only as my dad’s birthday is next month, I had to skip a couple of sites that put “could take up to 30 days to deliver” in the small print… But, finally I found one (greetz!, red.) that would deliver already on the 17th of February! Briljant! Just what I needed!
Well, easy stuff, uploaded the photo, played around with the look and feel a bit. Border, no border, border, no border. Border! Put the text my mamma wrote on the inside of the card, preview, change some things, preview again, etc. Well, that took about an hour. Then I was ready to fill in the addresses! My mamma had written down 35 or so, so I spend at least half an hour copy and pasting addresses… horrible thing, but when the last ones came near, I felt better and better! But… then disaster hit me as unexpected as a tsunami on second Christmas day! The program crashed with a fatal error and the pop-up message told me clicking ok would close the browser… NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!
Ok, very bad comparison maybe, but if people who live in Holland and had their basements filled with a tiny bit of water when some rivers flooded some years ago, can compared themselves openly with the tsunami victims, as they can so strongly relate to their problems, I wanna claim that as well!! Or should I call myself mentally challenged as well now??
Either way, after some very strong words I can’t repeat here, there were 2 options. 1 and 2. 1. Find another website that works. 2. Try it again. As I didn’t wanna search again, I decided to give it another try… and just pray this internet tsunami wouldn’t strike again. Well, another good hour later and with severe pain in shoulders and neck, I was ready to go “check out” again and pay for my cards. The big moment. Flashbacks to the first fatal error pop-up window filled my mind… I hesitated, but finally got my act together and pressed the button… silence… YESSSSSS!!!! :-) It worked!!! Victory!!!!
I expected it to be a steady ride to finish now, but how wrong could I be… They show off with there many different ways to pay your bill. American Express, Eurocard/Mastercard, Visa, Rabo Direct, Moxmo and Way2Pay. Take a pick. All possible. Well, not really… in real life only Way2Pay is an option. And my way out, the one time authorization for them to write the money off my bankaccount. Well, the lack of payment methods put me through some scary moments, but finally it all worked out well! Pfffff…. what a night… and now I am so pumped up and excited I probably can’t sleep… damn those online birthday cards! ;-)

Update (February 16, 2005):
I forgot to do this yesterday evening, but here is the front of the card! When I just followed the first steps again to make the screendump of the card, I wondered why it took me so long last night to get it finished… it went really fast this time! Well, I guess I knew the steps now! ;-)

Daddy’s birthday card

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One of the news topics of today. The cow population has decreased with one third in last 20 years! They found a couple of reasons. Cows seem to give more milk these days then 20 years ago. Makes me wonder how they made the same cow give more milk… I don’t think I wanne know… I just guess 20 years of training is starting to pay off! ;-)
So we need less cows for milk, and the other big reason, we are importing “cheaper” meat from Argentina and Brazil. Another interesting fact. First thing I thought was, “why have I never heard of an Brazilian steakhouse”. The Argentineans are using it as a great export product, but if the Brazilians supply just as much meat, why don’t they do the same? But well, that’s a different discussion I guess, as the highlight of the news item was about to come! According to the reporter, the great thing of getting less cows, was that it was great for the environment! True. Can’t deny that. Less cows, less cow poo-poo, less bad things in the surface water, good thing. So he definitely had a point, but I do think he is forgetting something… Because as we don’t eat less meat, I don’t think the environment is improving that much… yes, here in Holland maybe, very locally, but less cows here still means more cows somewhere else! Do the math! :-)
It’s weird that as soon as we are able to move things over the border the problem seems to be go away. I can only wonder about what we will be moving next…

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My brother is making a list of popular Dutch songs. Not just in Holland, but ones that were also well known abroad. I recognise the game, as I have had similar discussions with foreign people (often after a couple of cocktails) and unfortunately the list is not that long… Well, we are a small country, so it must be a bit harder to score a world wide hit, or at least it will make a little excuse. Today I was able to add a couple of winners to his list, as there are: “You” from Ten Sharp (who still knows them?) and “Better off alone” from Alice Deejay (gotta love her! ;-), but the list stays rather small…
But how could I forget the best of all! Or at least one of my favourites! :-) 2 words sum it up: Reservoir Dogs. Great movie! I think anyone who has seen it can only agree. But the thing not a lot of people know, is that the title song is Dutch! Brought to you by the George Baker Selection! Yes, “Little green bag”! That one should definitely make the list! George, or Hans Bouwens as we also know him, even had another big hit with “Una Paloma Blanca”, making him a 2-hit-wonder and someone we can be proud of! ;-)

For you who haven’t seen the movie, or can’t remember the song, I got some of the tunes here for you. I really liked the tune, so I just made it my new ringtone! ;-)

George Baker Selection - Little Green Bag

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“Would you like to sign the card?”
“Sorry?”
“Would you like to sign the card?”
“Sorry, what card?!”
“The card we bought for the girl and guy who are leaving the department.”
“Why would I wanne sign that?”
“Well, it’s a present. For when they leave. In the other envelope you can donate some money so we can buy them a nice present.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yes…”
“Why would I wanne sign the card, let alone give money? I don’t even know those people?! I got here 3 days ago…”
“Well, you don’t have to, but it’s ok if you wanne sign it as well.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Ok, if you don’t want to…”
“You sound disappointed?!”
“Yes, everybody is signing it and giving money.”
“So? I don’t know them, they don’t know me! Why would I join in??”
“Never mind.”
“…”

As you can see, I still have some slight problems integrating in my new working environment :-)

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Yes, he is off. Off the list. The list of potential names for my still potential unborn children. I never actually realised he was on the list, but there is no doubt anymore, he doesn’t belong on it! Well, now that I think of it… there isn’t a list with potential names, only one with names that didn’t made it! So in the more positive approach, Victor surely made that list! ;-)
You might be wondering, what’s wrong with the name Victor? Well, there is nothing wrong with the name, it just belongs to a guy I am currently working with and he associated the name with a very bad picture. Victor and I don’t have much in common. Not a real problem, I have that with more people and they could still make the list, but Victor adds something to the picture. Victor annoys me. From the start, and that is usually a bad sign. Normally I can judge fairly quickly if people will suite me yes or no. And a very short meeting with Victor was enough for a rapid conclusion: HELL NO! :-)
I am not totally sure why… Maybe it could be his scary moustache… maybe his love for king size sweaters (yes, who thought that XXXL was exclusively deticated to the rap and hiphop industry, should defenitly revise that opinion, as Victor proves the difference! Every day…) and maybe it’s his passion to share his broad knowledge of useless facts on any given moment. I don’t really know what it is. Most likely a combination of the above, or just the simple fact that some people in this world just don’t suite me. Either way and whatever it may be, Victor is off! Although the option for me to still change my mind is always possible, but the odds are currently strongly against Victor. But who knows, by the time I need the list I hopefully have long forgotten this Victor! ;-)

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Whoopiedoo! It’s alive! I got it to work again! Last monday, at 0630 in the morning, my laptop crashed… Or crashed… it just didn’t wanne start anymore. Quite annoying at that time, as I was getting ready to go to my first workday and had to look up the address where I needed to go. I could remember it a bit, so I managed to get there in the end, but it still was rather frustrating my computer broke down, as it’s the only one I got. Frustration was also the key word when trying to fix it. But that’s partly because of my lack of patience with my computer. Why doesn’t it just work?! So I wasn’t able to fix it and put it away for the rest of the week. It wasn’t worth it to get frustrated over it every night trying to fix something that didn’t wanne be fixed. Finally I was able to re-install windows. 2 times, as I forgot to install the network options the first time, and those turned out to be quite essential… But well, after the second time it worked! *hahaha* it’s was also the only thing that worked, but a childs hand is easily filled! And after some installing I am able to write on the blog again! :-) It’s maybe a bit weird, but I actually missed it. Guess because the last weeks I really got into writing on it. But now I can write down my thoughts again! ;-)

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With great amazement I just watched the 8 o’clock news. The Pope is feeling a bit better again and was able to speak to the public today. Just a couple of words, not even relevant sentences. No big speech, no big preach, a little blessing. He is still in the hospital, so they put the poor old man in front of his hospital room window. Already questionable I think, as the Pope is still recovering from his flu and breathing difficulties so why bother the man with a 5 minute session in front of the window at his age. But the thing I can’t understand at all, who was the genius that put him in front of an open window!?!? The poor old man is recovering from the flu!!! I sure hope the nurse closed the hospital room door, else he was sitting in the draft as well! So weird. He is already sitting behind a microphone, so it’s not like the window needs to be open because else nobody would hear him…
Because I got curious, I just looked up the weather report for Rome. It was 10 degrees today. Fairly ok, but for an old man recovering from the flu, I don’t think many doctors would give the advise to sit in front of open windows!
Well, he is the Pope of course. As he should have a direct open line to God, he might have quickly asked him for a little blessing before they opened the window! ;-)

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