featuring lots of cookies :D

and I brought to the neighbours.. judging their reactions they are not really used to such acts of random and undirected friendliness.. odd.
On the other hand there are children running around all day and trying to sell things for dubious organisations.. I can understand people look at you suspiciously when you knock on their door…

This morning I got up at 14:00 :P

Well, I spent the last night drinking wine, watching “Arizona Dream” and then reading about Drizzt Do’Urden again.. nevertheless, I think I really needed the rest.

However, after getting up I began working in the kitchen producing dough for cookies.. after not managing to do this in the days before christmas I thougt I do them now and excuse myself by making them “new years cookies” ;)

I got physical and moral (moreorless) support from Ben, who came to visit over the holidays, and we succeeded in making a total mess of the kitchen, despite his efforts to keep it structured/organized; my chaos-potential is just too high :)
(It really is too small for 2 people there, I realized, as Ben periodically freaked out over me being too uncontrolled or him feeling cornered – next home will have a big american kitchen where 5 people can dance and cook ;) )

After we had played enough in the kitchen, we started doing exercises, as we both felt we need to do something to compensate for all the tasty food and the sweets. So it was a genuine kung-fu warm-up and stretching session. Felt really good to do something again.
Now of course, one should shower.

Suprise, suprise, there is no water anymore. :P

And not just no warm water, no water at all. Nice to know if you are full of soap and standing there.. ;)
Good for me that that I am so polite and let Ben go in the shower first :D
I finished his shower by using the tea-water that was left in the kettle and I had to shave with oil instead of water (which works surprisingly well!)

Now we are going to leave the house and have a look how the rest of Amsterdam is celebrating.

Anna, I wish you and your family all the best, and whoever is reading this, I wish you a merry christmas (or alternatively a happy winter solstice, for the non-christians :P
(Joke is stolen from SomaFM, my favourite Internet radio station)

just nice to see that the guys that (wasted) spent their youth with similar things as we did made it into business, too…

if you smile at this ad you know what I mean.
If you don’t, you probably never will… ;)

Indigo, I’ll never forget you!

Now that I work for a global network provider, I thought (credits to Da5id for the idea) to make a geeky christmas joke:

The Backbone Team wishes you:

Less packet loss.

After my rear wheel overtook me today on my way to work, destroying a pair of jeans in the process (apart from causing pain to my leg, creating a lot of scratches on my bike and leaving a dent in my pride) I hereby announce the motorcycle season of 2006 has ended.

I’m so pissed…

UPDATE:
This morning I was wise, used the bus, and while waiting for it to arrive, I saw a street cleaning team of the city of Amsterdam, brushing the street with motorized iron brushes and hot water, apparently cleaning the dirty smear that caused me to slip… seems it wasn’t ice after all.
I had to calm myself down to prevent jumping their necks immediately.

Well, my timing has always been perfect, hasn’t it?

Jesse is the baby of Alex and Patricia, friends of Anna (well, of ours, it seems)
He is 7 months now and has a smile that is more than contageous.. he makes the coldest iceberg smile when he does. I so much hope our son is going to have a smile like that.
We are taking care of him today – it makes me realize how it’s going to be when we have our son around. He demands lots of attention – to Siepke’s disgust who has a new enemy now. :)
Using the laptop instead of paying attention to him is punishable already.. but caring for another living being in the house gets him really jealous. He is all around and tries to get himself in the center of attention.
I pity him for once we get our son here he will be permanently Number 2 in the house. (just like me) :P

Yesterday I took another day off to go with Anna to her scheduled pregnancy examination. It’s really nice to hear its heart (correction: HIS heart.. we have evidence) beating and see him move around. As the doctor says all is good.
Anna is feeling well, too, apart from some deficiencies in short-term-memory ;) She has begun writing post-it notes to herself, just like in “Memento“. :D
We have dubbed this symptom “pregnancy dementia” with a wink but the doctor confirmed this and also scared Anna by telling her that many women report that they never got as “sharp” again in their jobs after the pregnancy… there goes my dream of Anna managing the family and me staying in the background.. ;)

UPDATE:
In American books they call this issue “the pregnant brain” ;)

I just stood in front of a nintendo Wii in a toy store in Amsterdam and asked the guy in the store if I could also play with it, having heard about the new controller that they invented…
You basically swing your controller around when you want to perform actions in the game like strike with a sword or swing a tennis racket. Sounds cool enough to me :-)
BUT…
Some american lawyers have done their homework and Nintendo now has to clarify who is responsible if you injure someone or destroy something while playing.
So there won’t be any playable demo-Wiis in Amsterdam. Unbelievable.

Either this is some amazing marketing gag or else some lawyers in the states just have waaay too much time ;-)

UPDATE:
Ohwell: Looks like they are right: See Wiidamage and wii have a problem ;)
It’s not the lawyers, humans are just stupid by default.

Kruidnoten are a terrible dutch invention.. they are mean!!!
and someone had the terrible idea of wrapping them in chocolate.. the bastard wants me to get fat! ;)

Always remember:
Ubuntu NFS shares cannot be mounted on Mac OS X without the parameters -o and -P

And don’t eat too many kruidnoten ;)

Thanks to:
http://anotherubuntublog.wordpress.com/2006/09/14/sharing-folders-between-systems-with-nfs/
http://forums.macosxhints.com/showthread.php?t=30250