2009-11-21 20:59:00
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We're very very lucky with Dana: she's an extremely easy kid. Sometimes I'm afraid she's using up all her sweetness in a hurry, so she can get an early start on being an uber-bitchy teenager later on. |
The reason why I say she's such an easy kid is because after a long and tiring morning she only slept about 45 minutes while driving home. Instead of going directly home we visited the Batavia Stad outlet village first and again she behaved like an angel: patient, quiet, sometimes laughing. Then the whopper: upon returning home Marli went to bed (completely nackered) and I gave Dana her four o'clock snack. After that I'd imagined her to get noisy and tired, but instead she played quietly and I actually managed to catch an hour's snooze on the couch! o_O
Wow :)
kilala.nl tags: baby,
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2009-11-20 19:39:00
Today it was exactly five years ago that Marlijne gave up her cigarettes.
Early that morning, before going to work, I removed all ashtrays, put away all lighters and hid her last packet of cigarettes (inside my old Linux PC). The night before she'd asked me to do all of this, so the 19th of November 2004 was the time she'd smoked a cig.
She quit cold turkey and never looked back. Within a year her senses of taste and smell had improved a hundredfold. These days she hates the scent of smoking and our house is completely smoke free. Obviously this is also good for Dana.
Personally I'm the one tiny exception in the house: I haven't gotten rid of my pipe yet and I've actually dug it up recently. The next time I'm raking the yard I intend to smoke one bowl, after which it'll probably go back into storage again. I am adamant that I'm not making it into a habit... One pipe a year should be alright :)
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2009-11-19 16:25:00
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Today, just by accident, I happened to stumble upon the 1994 classic The Unix haters handbook (PDF). At the time the book gathered criticism and outright vitriol from orphaned TOPS, ITS and Vax folks who'd been forced to switch to the much hated Unix platform. It makes for a great read in many senses:
1. It's funny.
2. It's a great history lesson.
3. Some (if not many) of the points raised are still valid today.
With regards to #3: I've lived through many of the frustrating situations described by contributors, but I have to admit that I'd completely forgotten about them. Thus the book is also a good reminder to experienced Unix admins about what their junior / rookie counterparts still have to live through today.
Some quotes that I liked:
“Two of the most famous products of Berkeley are LSD and Unix. I don’t think that is a coincidence.”
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Then there's the story of the poor student who happened to have a file called "-r" in his home directory. As he wanted to remove all his non directory files (I presume) he typed:
% rm *
... And yes, it does remove everything except the beloved "-r" file... Luckily our backup system was fairly good.
Some Unix victims turn this filename-as-switch bug into a 'feature' by keeping a file named "-i" in their directories. Type "rm *" and the shell will expand this to "rm -i filenamelist" which will, presumably, ask for confirmation before deleting each file. Not a bad solution, that, as long as you don't mind putting a file named "-i" in every directory. Perhaps we should modify the mkdir command so that the "-i" file gets created automatically. Then we could modify the ls command not to show it.
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Playing with Unix error messages:
$ "How would you rate Dan Quayle's incompetence?
Unmatched ".
$ If I had a ( for every $ the Congress spent, what would I have?
Too many ('s.
$ sleep with me
bad character
$ man: why did you get a divorce?
man:: Too many arguments.
$ ^What is saccharine?
Bad substitute.
kilala.nl tags: reading,
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2009-11-10 20:21:00
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I have always loved movies like Whispers of the heart, My neighbor Totoro and Only yesterday. Yes they are all Ghibli movies, but they also have something else in common, something which I've only now learnt the word for: mono no aware ("sadness for the transience of things"). Each of these movies gives me a feeling of warmth and happiness, mixed with a feeling of sadness. Each story shows you beautiful moments in life, but also makes it very clear that they have already passed and will never return.
And now, thanks to a recent article at Japanator I'm reading a manga that is the quintessential example of mono no aware: Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou (Wikipedia). The series spans 140 chapters and was published uninterrupted over almost twelve years. It has never been translated into any other language, though it has a strong fan base outside Japan. To quote Wikipedia:
Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou is set in a peaceful, post-cataclysmic world where mankind is in decline after an environmental disaster. Exactly what happened is never explained [...]. The reduced human population has reverted to a simpler life, and the reader is told this is the twilight of the human age. Instead of raging against their fate, humans are quietly accepting.
Like the aforementioned movies a lot happens in each story, while at the same time almost nothing happens at all. In my favorite chapter up to now (chapter 12) the main character Alpha has just received a photo camera which is limited to 300 shots. She sets out for the day to make memories, to capture beloved scenery in photographs. However, she grows more and more hesitant due to the limited capacity of the camera as well as a feeling that everything is very beautiful but nothing feels "just right". In the end the only photograph she takes was taken very carelessly as practice, but it was one of her happiest feelings for the day.
As I mentioned YKK was never translated into english, so the only way for me to read it is through scanlations. However, the next time I'm in Japan I will definitely try to get my hands on a full set of the books, just to have the original beautiful artwork.
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2009-11-10 10:18:00
I don't know why I never included this in my previous blog post about Haruo Suekichi's "steampunk" watches. As I mentioned before, the shop in Yoyogi Uehara that I visited in 2007 has closed, but there's still two shops selling his watches left. The addresses are:
1) Shimokitazawa Tabatha. 2-13-13 Kitazawa, Setagaya-ku, Tokyo.
2) Seiyo Hyakkaten. 2-25-8 Kitazawa, Setagaya-ku, Tokyo.
I'll add the addresses written in Japanese tonight. For some reason this PC doesn't handle kanji etc.
kilala.nl tags: haruo suekichi, japan,
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2009-11-08 21:32:00
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Yes, yes, yes! Ooooh yes! ^_^ |
EDIT:
Haha, no way! They're actually ready to release a drama CD! O_O
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2009-11-06 20:35:00
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Dad, where is grandpa right now?
kilala.nl tags: life,
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2009-11-05 20:16:00
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Just like the last time I used this image I have some great news. Today we paid our last visit to the hospital in Utrecht for Dana's checkups. I say "last" because the doc announced that Dana's hips are now 100% OK. To my layman's eyes they even looked perfectly symmetrical. |
kilala.nl tags: body, health, baby,
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