2007-05-31 06:23:00
Menno, remember how a few weeks ago you told me how you and Peter have a tradition where you start your trip to Anime 200x with Knights of Cydonia by Muse? Well, I think fate is playing some funny tricks on us, because guess what video just played on MTV2 on my first day of the festival? :D
I've never paid MTV2 much attention, but I have to admit that completely commercial-free formula is great. Not only do they play nonstop music, but their selection is actually quite eclectic! So far I've seen three really weird, but awesome videos. If you've got a spare fifteen minutes, go check them out :)
Dashboard, by Modest Mouse.
Knights of Cydonia, by Muse.
Shoot the runner, by Kasabian.
Foundations, by Kate Nash.
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2007-05-31 03:33:00
*moan* *groan* *zombie noises* |
I don't know what it is, but the last few days (maybe a week) I've been sleeping real badly. It takes me way too long to fall asleep and when I eventually do I sleep very lightly. I don't get well rested, I wake up at least three times each night and I wake up way too early. Case in point: tonight. I've been awake for half an hour now, feeling tired but not sleepy. Seeing how I went to bed around 23:30 I really haven't had enough sleep yet. :/ |
EDIT:
I'm gonna make some warm milk and some tea, then put on NBC or CNN for some reeeeeally boring TV and hope that I'll fall asleep on the couch. *yawn*
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2007-05-30 07:28:00
Unfortunately I won't be attending Assembly 2007 this year ;_;
I've mucked about a bit too much with my vacation days at work, meaning that I'm already at a negative subtotal for this year. I've also had a little accident with my company car in Paris, the repairs for which come from the same budget that would have covered my trip.
No money + no vacation days = no Assembly 2007.
Shame, 'cause I was really looking forward to visiting my family and Helsinki.
kilala.nl tags: holiday, conference,
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2007-05-30 07:25:00
As I mentioned a few days ago my calf and shin muscles aren't properly up to the task of running yet, causing me some great pain. Apparently, now that I've gotten me some real running shoes my whole body needs adjusting to the new movements it's going through.
For now this means I won't be running any real C25k sessions, opting instead to do regular muscular training of my legs. I'll do shorter runs as well, but I won't be following the real C25k plan for at least a week or two/three. Of course I'll stick to my regular training days so I don't completely fall out of it.
kilala.nl tags: sports, c25k, health,
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2007-05-29 13:39:00
Welcome to Anime 2007! |
There are two days left before I leave for Almelo to run Anime 2007 with my friends. Unfortunately there are still a few things that I need to take care of personally (let alone a few dozen things that the staff as a whole still needs to tackle). I will be spending my little remaining time on the following tasks. |
Creating the info system was a fun little project insofar that I finally found something to try Apple's Keynote for. I have to admit that it took a little getting used to (especially that Inspector window), but in the end I found the software rather pleasing in its use. Since the hotel's integral TV system accepts DVDs for their info channel I've exported the Keynote presentation to Quicktime clips, which are then used in an iDVD project. The end result looks pretty good :)
Two minor snags that I've run into:
1. When exporting to Quicktime the clip either ends in one additional empty sheet, or in a repeat of the first slide. This depends on whether you've configured the presentation to loop or not. Since I found it a horrible idea to have twenty seconds of blank TV screen every two minutes, I've decided to add the loop which in turn repeats that first slide.
2. When creating a slide show that is to be used on TVs, adjust your slide's canvas size. When working with PAL TV systems, use a 720x576 slide.
EDIT:
How could I forget such tasks as packing our bags, gathering our clothes, my uniform and our toiletry? There's a boatload of crap that needs to come with us and I do believe I'll be dragging along my iBook and an USB key as well.
kilala.nl tags: anime 2007, anime 200x,
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2007-05-27 14:17:00
Be honest, does this shirt make me look gay? ^_^ |
That's right, bitches. |
kilala.nl tags: movies, awesome,
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2007-05-27 11:45:00
Paris, the city of lights, the city of love... The city that perpetually smells like an open sewer...
Marli and I have never gotten what the big deal is about Paris, or at least we've never been as enamoured with the city as some of our relatives and friends. In all honesty I do believe that a great part of our distaste for the city is caused by prejudice, but still it just doesn't excite us that much. I'm glad to say though that one of my prejudices about France has been broken, for no longer will I say: France, great country, shame about the people. Just about every single person we've spoken to during our stay was great :)
Our two nights' stay at the Porte d'Italie Holiday Inn Express came courtesy of my employer Snow, who'd given all their employees a Bongo Weekend Paris in the fall of 2006. The hotel was comfortable, clean and the staff was -very- good. Unfortunately the breakfast served was the standard Paris fare, which would barely sustain an anorexic. The hotel also lacked a restaurant of its own, so we dined next door at the Porte d'Italie Campanile. Their food is absolutely great and still affordable, although I'd really wouldn't want to stay there overnight.
Disney Land Resort Paris as it's called these days was an absolute blast! I'd never expected to have as much fun as I did, thinking that I'd feel overall meh because of my expectations of the Disney company. Well, it was nothing as I'd expected and I found myself grinning from ear to ear for most of the day. Something about that amusement park just got under my skin and got me feeling very, very happy.
We didn't go into that many rides, instead choosing to take things easy and to take in the sights and sounds of the park. While everything is uber-cultivated I have to say that I found the whole park stunningly beautiful. Each attraction is lovingly crafted and I just couldn't find any flaws with the designs. The gardens were clean, well kept and colourful and the attractions were fun and queues weren't horrible (mind you that we did go on a weekday).
So what rides -did- we go on? Well, since I've always loved trains and such we just had to start the day off with a train ride around the park. The ride offers you a quick and comfortable way around the park with the added benefit of driving an actual 5/8th scale steam loc. Glee!
Star Tours is one of those flight simulator deals that has you on board of the Dagobah Express (it's set in the Star Wars background) which accidentally gets side tracked into a battle around the Death Star. Very awesome and I'm still astounded by how convincing the gravity effects of a tilting box are ^_^
Pirates of the Caribean is an indoors boat ride that takes you past dioramas of towns being raided by pirates. Puppetry and silly effects galore, including one or two steep water slides. Phantom Manor is a similar deal that takes you through a haunted mansion and the surrounding graveyards. We really loved these two rides as we're big fans of puppetry dioramas. The devil's in the details, you know?
Being the big kid that I am I would have loved to trounce around Adventure Island ^_^ I'm crazy about huge jungle gyms like that :D
By the by, travelling by car was no problem at all with the TomTom we have. It guided us right to the hotel without getting us lost in Paris or on the Peripherique for one minute. Speaking of that dreaded piece of highway, we can now wholly sympathize with Youp van 't Hek's diatribe on traversing said route. I really cannot stress the fact enough that tourists have no business on the Peripherique in the mornings and evenings.
kilala.nl tags: family, holiday,
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2007-05-27 10:17:00
Ow...
I had to break off this morning's run halfway because my calfs and shins started to hurt real bad. I'll take that as a sign that I need more stretching and more exercise of these muscles, as per this article. I'm fine again about half an hour after the run, so it isn't too bad just yet but I'll need to take care anyway.
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2007-05-27 08:07:00
Like brother and sister they sit happily together |
This month I'd saved up enough money in my individual IT budget at Snow to buy me a new laptop. I've been using my iBook for two years now and it's been great, but it's about time to get a faster piece of hardware. Luckily, the iBook is still covered by one more year of Applecare so I'll have it looked over and then it goes on to Marli. |
kilala.nl tags: apple, macbook, toys,
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2007-05-27 07:55:00
My lovely assistent, showing off the Supernova. |
When I started running the C25k program three weeks ago I ran on my flat-soled Puma sneakers. They weren't very comfortable and they didn't protect my ankles worth anything, but they were at least better than my traditional curb stompers. |
I'd been sent to Run2Day by my colleague Remco who's a frequent shopper over there. I have to agree with him that it's great to have someone really inspect your feet and the way you run to pick the right shoes. The only downside to going to a brick'n'mortar store like that is that the prices are rather high :( I paid 120 euros for the same pair that would have cost me 80 dollars at Amazon.
Still... The shoes are great and I'll go and take them out for a jog later this morning.
kilala.nl tags: sports, c25k, toys,
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2007-05-22 08:24:00
Last week I decided that I'd graduated the first week of C25k, meaning that I could move on to the second week, thus upping the level of my training a little bit. Well let me tell you: those extra thirty seconds tacked onto each run? Wow, do they make a difference! It could be that I wasn't prepared enough, but boy did it hurt ^_^
On the other hand, I feel great afterwards and I realised two other, rather positive things:
1. My breathing is great, falling down to a normal pace almost immediately after running.
2. The same goes for my heart beat, which is steady and calm after running.
Unfortunately I'll be in a bit of a fix with regards to day 2, since I can't really run on thursday morning. Wednesday would be too early and on Friday I could only run in the evening. Meaning that I'd have to run on Sunday as well... I think that that's what I'll do... Friday evening, Sunday morning and then next week go back to my regular T/T/S schedule.
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2007-05-21 20:52:00
Image graciously borrowed from DLRP Magic. |
In a few days Marli and I will be spending a day at Euro Disney (which is currently known as Disneyland Resort Paris) after years of promises and wishes. Due to budgetary reasons we'll only be staying one day, but that ought to be enough for us to enjoy ourselves properly. |
Well, you'd be assuming wrong :/
You see, the abomination that is DLRP's website is smeared across various sub-websites, each in its own style without any clear line connecting the sites. They don't even LOOK alike! D: If I were Karl Holz I'd fire the company who made that crappy-ass website along with the guys in PR who approved their work!
So thank $DEITY for websites run by DLRP's fans!
DLRP Magic is a staggeringly beautiful website, displaying what IMNSHO should have been Disney's real site! Their website is clear, user friendly and actually provides a lot of useful information. Unfortunately it didn't provide that one little piece of info that I needed...
DLP.info however did! They finally were able to answer my rather rudimentary question of which credit cards are accepted in DLRP. And thank $DEITY again that my AmEx is accepted as well! Now, DLP.info may not look as pretty as the other site I just plugged, but they sure as heck come through with the info.
EDIT:
Oh! Here's another one! Let's say that we're travelling by car and that we're using our SatNav system. Those boxen usually require a regular address for their destination. So, do Disney in their awesome wisdom share such information on their website? No. :[
EDIT2:
Luckily someone asked the same question in the TomTom online fora. I'll repeat the answer over here.
Anyone travelling to Euro Disney by car using satellite navigation should set the following destination: Boulevard du Parc, Coupvray, France. This street doesn't have any numbers, so when asked for an intersection, choose: Disney Village / Gare TGV.
kilala.nl tags: holiday,
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2007-05-21 11:07:00
I'd love an iMac of my own |
For the past three years we've been using Macintosh computers provided by Mac Rent for the Anime 200x Internet Corner. We started out with the pretty G4 iMacs, upgraded to Mac Mini's with Cinema displays and now we've moved up to C2d iMacs. |
The upside of this story? We rented one of the four iMacs for an additional week, during which it's stationed at my place for me to tinker with ^_^
Once the Mac is set up in the way I want it I will create a disk image again, which will allow me to install two Macs at the same time. Remember: the already installed iMac can be booted in Firewire Taget Mode, in which it'll work as just another external hard disk. This means that I'll start out with two source disks, instead of just one as I did last year.
For now I have to say I rather like the iMac. I love its screen and would love to have one at home. Not in the least because my 20" CRT seems to be dying on me :(
kilala.nl tags: anime 200x, anime 2007, apple,
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2007-05-20 23:14:00
Now, I have never embedded YouTube objects before in my blog and I doubt that I'll be doing it any time soon again. In this case though I'm going to have to make an exception, because I just love this song. I don't know what it is, because it's actually not exceptionally good, but I adore it anyway. The main theme of the song just sticks in my head, I love the melody and the video is just uber-tacky... Meaning: great stuff! :D
So without further ado, here's Zombie Nation, with Kernkraft 400.
This'll be a big trip down memory lane for guys like Menno and Mistoffelees, who've heard this song countless of times as well. Even back in high school I used to love this tune, especially because of that horribly cheap-ass video ^_^ Mind you, the girls do absolutely nothing for me... It's the idea of some costumed loon selling nuclear (nucular?) powered gizmos through TellSell.
/me presses play just one more time...
kilala.nl tags: music,
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2007-05-20 19:05:00
Well, I have finally unsubscribed myself from the Nagios mailing lists. It was great being a member of those lists while I was working with the software on a daily basis, but these days I've put Nagios behind me. I haven't written one line of Nagios monitoring code for months now.
I'm sure I'll also be skipping this year's Nagios Konferenz unless a job involving monitoring comes up again.
Thanks Ethan, for making such great software freely available! All the best to you and maybe we'll meet again o/
kilala.nl tags: nagios, unix, work, sysadmin,
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2007-05-20 13:10:00
Just a few of my favourite settings |
If asked, I think that a lot of people would assume that my favourite stories take place in futuristic, science-fiction settings. Being an IT geek I would fit the stereotypical image of the Star Trek nerd, the Star Wars lover, or even the Babylon 5 buff. While some of the futuristic stories do hold a charm on me (Firefly and Space: above and beyond most notably), most of these settings usually don't fascinate me that much. |
If any of you are curious about seeing death rays and giant robots clanking through the forties, or about magic and demons walking among normal men, may I suggest the following titles?
Sky Captain, featuring the maniacal Dr Totenkopf who attempts to destroy the earth with giant robots and a Dooms Day Device (tm).
The rocketeer, in which a stunt pilot gets to fight Nazis using a jetpack.
The shadow, who has the ability to cloud man's eyes in order to fight crime.
Crimson skies, a video game set in a world quite similar to that of Sky Captain.
H.P. Lovecraft's works, just about any of them. Awesome horror stories about demons older than time and the evil that is in the heart of man.
Cast a deadly spell, in which a private eye investigates a case that leads to C'tulhu.
The prestige, illusionism meets weird science.
kilala.nl tags: movies, reading,
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2007-05-19 08:37:00
Park Transwijk, our communal greens |
W00! Today's run went great! ^_^ |
So far the park suits my needs for training grounds quite nicely. It's close to home, I can take multiple routes to prevent boredom, there are multiple track types (asphalt, grass, dirt) and I actually like it there :)
Here's an overview in Google Maps.
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2007-05-17 10:21:00
The all new Dashboard. But is it improved? |
You may remember that I've been using Google Analytics to track visits to my website. So far it's been treating me well and I've been getting some useful information from its statistics. |
kilala.nl tags: website,
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2007-05-17 08:13:00
Seeing as today is Ascension Day (a national holiday in the NL) I could've slept in until ten if I wanted to. I chose not to, because I didn't want to miss my regular C25k run around 06:30. Getting up that early was a bit hard after last night, but I managed.
The session itself didn't go altogether that well: I skipped the sixth run (again) after getting a pain in my shins that I hadn't felt before. To me that was a signal to take it easy. Afterwards, during the cool down, I also had some aches that I usually don't have :/ Ah well... Saturday's the sixth day of the first week's training schedule and I think I'm ready to hike things up to the second week. Let's see how that goes on Tuesday.
Also, if you're prone to chafing in the loin-area as I am, baby powder (talcum) rocks! It's completely prevent the painful effects from even appearing.
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2007-05-17 08:08:00
Double damn! I promised to call my mother last night and I forgot :( Crap...
/me sets alarm clock for 10:00 so he can call her at 11:00 (Finland is ahead of the Netherlands by an hour). I'm sorry mom ^_^
kilala.nl tags: family, snafu,
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2007-05-16 22:38:00
Burn baby, burn... |
Yet again Turner Classic Movies comes through and provides me with an evening filled with classics. Tonight they've served us Quo Vadis, from 1951. |
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2007-05-16 19:27:00
*sigh* I'm gonna be very, very tired afterwards |
|
I'm very happy that I have taken three weeks off, starting next Monday. I really wouldn't be able to make all the preparations for the Anime 2007 festival, since I'll be driving around the country in a van to gather a lot of Big Stuff (tm) that needs to go to Almelo.
Up there you'll see my schedule for the next three weeks. Items in blue are activities that I'll be doing for the festival, work, or our relationship. Items in red are sports-related. As you see only the last four days of my holiday are empty, meaning that I can relax and rest up a little by then. Everything else is booked solid...
Well, here I go! *strikes fighting position* Ikuso!
EDIT:
After I left Marli of course took it upon herself to make guests of our household think that I'm a complete loon. She's left literary greats such as "Boobies rule!", "Cat's are great" and "I *heart* Thomas" littered across the board. Knowing that my wife can enjoy herself with such silliness really makes me love her even more :D
kilala.nl tags: anime 2007, anime 200x,
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2007-05-15 06:54:00
Ah, that felt good! This week I've week 1 of the C25k plan on repeat, making sure that I'm well prepared for week two (which ups the length of each run from sixty to ninety seconds).
Day 1.4 is good!! \o/
I was having trouble getting myself motivated this morning (although waking up wasn't an issue) because of some annoying stomach pains. Those faded slightly once I openend the drapes to be greeted by a beautiful, sunny morning! Things went even better once I got outside and started to give myself a sort of motivational speech (in order to ignore the stomach cramps). It's silly, but saying stuff like "Yeah! You can do it! This is beautiful!" and "Ignore those cramps! They are -nothing-!" out loud to yourself really does help ^_^
I've also figured out what the heck's going wrong with my right ankle. It seems that the muscles in that ankle aren't strong enough to move my foot in such a way that I land on my heel and then roll through. Instead I land on a flat foot, causing more pain. I found this out by deliberately trying to walk (not run) in a rolling fashion. I noticed that I simply couldn't tilt my foot upwards as it felt like the muscles just wouldn't go. I'm thinking that AsphaltBuffet may be having the same issue.
I intend to put some extra training into my ankles, getting them stronger in both directions. One exercise would be to stand on flat feet and to repeatedly lift myself onto tiptoes. The other would be to stand on flat feet and to lift the front off the ground, remaining standing on my heels.
w00t! I'm feeling good! \o/
EDIT:
You'll have to excuse my enthusiasm :D I think those were the endorphins talking. For any of you who're still hesitant and have trouble getting motivated: think of the endorphins! Yummy endorphins! ^_^
Now, I'd better get to work, my colleagues are starting to look at me :]
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2007-05-13 18:04:00
I'm a sucker for period drama. |
Watching E! International's 50 best chick flicks I got inspired to add about a dozen movies to my DVD wishlist, as if I didn't have enough already ^_^ |
kilala.nl tags: movies,
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2007-05-12 22:27:00
... |
Menno, I don't know why it took me so long to go and watch this movie (seeing as how you gave it to Marli for her birthday almost a year ago), but I did tonight. |
kilala.nl tags: movies, awesome,
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2007-05-12 09:16:00
"X" (or actually "O") marks the spot! |
So much for day 1.3 (week 1, day 3) of the Couch-to-5k plan! It was a bit hard to get up this morning and to get motivated for the run because I'd been working for two nights in a row (stand-by duty pays well, but it kills your sleep). I got myself happy about the run though, so all's well ^_^ |
EDIT: BTW, today was the first time running in the rain and that felt pretty good too. I didn't let myself be bothered by the eww, nasty cold rain, so that's cool :)
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2007-05-11 13:19:00
This is too cool! Someone's taken the time to build a model of Serenity out of Lego. Serenity of course is -the- spacecraft from my favourite sci-fi TV series Firefly.
kilala.nl tags: lego, awesome, geeky,
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2007-05-11 11:24:00
The past two weeks we've been having a rather mysterious problem with one of our TruClusters.
During hardware maintenance of the B-node we moved all cluster resources to the A-node to remain up and running. Afterwards we let TruCluster balance all the resources so performance would benefit again. Sounds good so far and everything kept on working like it should.
However, during some nights the A-node would slow to a crawl, not responding to any commands and inputs. We were stumped, because we simply couldn't find the cause of the problem. The system wasn't overloaded, with a low load average. The CPU load was a bit remarkable, with 10% user, 50% system and the rest in idle. The network wasn't overloaded and there was no traffic corruption. None of the disks were overloaded, with just two disks seeing moderate to heavy use. It was a mystery and we asked HP to help us out.
After some analysis they found the cause of the problem :) Part of one of the applications that was failed over to the A-node were two file systems. After the balancing of resources these file systems stuck with the A-node, while the application moved back to the B-node. So now the A-node was serving I/O to the B-node through its cluster interconnect! This also explains the high System Land CPU load, since that was the kernel serving the I/O. :D
We'll be moving the file systems back to the B-node as well and we'll see whether that solves the issues. It probably will :)
kilala.nl tags: work, unix, problem, sysadmin,
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2007-05-11 11:01:00
In a few weeks my department at $CLIENT will be moving into a new office building across the street. This of course entails that all of us will be packing up our stuff to take with us. Unfortunately this department has been gathering cruft since some of the colleagues have been with the company for over fifteen years. Our team was given six book cases to store all of our stuff (aside from the usual drawers of our desks) and all of them were filled with binders upon binders of documentation, some of it dating back to 1989! That's like the Jurassic Age of computing!
Personally, I love cleaning and there's nothing I like more than a tidy workplace. Since most other people usually can't be bothered with cleaning I took the task upon me to go through each bookcase and get rid of all the unneeded things. Most of the binders contained printed manuals from the 1990's or e-mail conversations about projects long forgotten. It's stuff like this that people in IT usually cling onto with the excuse that "it might come in handy" in the future; an incorrect sentiment in 99% of the cases. In the end we got rid of at least three big wastecarts of paper.
The only thing I regret is not waiting for one of our team's dinosaurs as he seemed genuinly hurt that I got rid of a huge pile of stuff. I repsect the guy tremendously (he's a nice and smart guy who has a lot of experience) and I hate the idea that I hurt him. I'm still sture that everything I tossed would've gone anyway, but it would've been better to let him sort through the pile with me. *sigh* Live and learn.
kilala.nl tags: work, problem,
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2007-05-10 21:56:00
Clooney's still quite hot ^_^ |
Lordy this is such a great movie! It's a shame I was just called for stand-by duty so I'll be missing most of it :/ |
kilala.nl tags: movies,
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2007-05-10 18:58:00
Jawsome, hawsome and awesome combined! |
A little over two weeks ago I ordered three shirts from Diesel Sweeties taking advantage of Rich's offer for three shirts on the cheap. I got two of my beloved Cherry Pi shirts and one Crush all humans! for added coolness. |
The shirts look great, although I'm scared what the laundry machine will do to the Pi shirts. The numbers look a little delicate, so I'll be sure to wash them extra carefully. Mr Stevens also included a great sticker (Warning! May contain up to 20% angry robots by volume!) that I hope to find a cool spot for. I don't think I'll be putting it on my company car ;)
kilala.nl tags: comics, geeky, awesome, clothes,
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2007-05-10 06:57:00
Today's run went quite well! Breathing apparently is no longer a problem as my lungs no longer feel tight or tense while running. I didn't skip any of the runs (as opposed to day 1.1, when I skipped run nr. 7), although I do believe I made far smaller steps than last time. I'm going to have to keep an eye on my right ankle because the muscles and tendons around it ache while running, probably because I'm planting it incorrectly.
Aniway... Good run! Now, to have a sammich, take a shower and head off to work! Bring on Saturday!
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2007-05-09 17:22:00
Piles and piles of movies... |
You know those evenings when you're tired and you want nothing more but a cozy night with your wife, a nice drink, some snacks and a movie or two? Don't you love them? Well, so do we! But there's one thing that could always ruin such an evening for us. |
While sorting all the DVDs I gathered some "interesting" statistics.
* In our collection, movie titles starting with letters C and S rule supreme. You can see their piles sticking above the rest in the photo. The letter C's stack is particularly large, which is probably due to our collection of CSI seasons.
* There is no love for the letters K and Z. Not one movie starting with either of those.
* Letters Q and U both get one movie. Surprisingly both movies are trashy horror flicks: Queen of the dead and Urban Legend.
For now I'll just use my own crappy DVD database, but I'm literally lusting for a copy of Delicious Library. Unfortunately the current version doesn't support any of the dutch databases out on the web, so I'll have to wait and see whether version 2 does.
kilala.nl tags: movies, apple, other tech, problem,
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2007-05-08 18:31:00
Restaurants De Noordmolen and Het Braadspit |
In my previous blogpost I made mention of the great service we had received at one of our favourite restaurants, Het Braadspit. This in turn has led me to think of family traditions and how, often, each side of the family has their own special place that they keep returning to. |
On Marli's family's side, Het braadspit in Maartensdijk (very close to Utrecht) has always been the place to go on special occasions. Unlike De Noord it's not chique, but rather rustic and quaint. The kitchen specialises in poultry dishes and serves nothing but! Apparently the tradition started with Marli's grandparents and it has continued until today. The restaurant's manager, Joop Vendrik, is a wonderful fellow who's always in for a laugh and who takes his time in talking to every guest that comes in.
Until a few months ago, it looked like Asian Tower had become our personal favourite, but ever since the management has changed, all we've done is get takeout from them. Maybe we should go back again soon, to see how the restaurant itself is doing. Shame though, that most of the interesting characters who used to work there have already left.
kilala.nl tags: family, restaurant,
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2007-05-08 18:01:00
Today we said goodbye to Evert. The funeral service was wonderful and emotional and the reception afterwards was a great success thanks to the wonderful people at Het Braadspit (see next post).
Ave Maria gets to me every time ;_;
kilala.nl tags: family,
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2007-05-08 08:18:00
I'll keep this post a short one, to prevent myself from over-analysing my first run.
I prefer the Ullreys podcast Ben linked to above the VRT1 podcast for two reasons: the ambient house background music (versus pop music) and the fact that the Belgian schedule is too ambitious for my tastes.
One thing I'll need to learn is to tread lightly. One coach said that you'd need to run like you're walking on eggshells. Well, me, I just made two thousand omelets. I keep slamming my feet down flat, which is hurting my ankles.
Another thing I'll need to learn is how to breathe properly. I can do deep breathing with tai chi and cycling, but not when I'm running.
In conclusion: I'm feeling quite well, considering my condition. Bring on Thursday! /o/
EDIT:
Oh yea! Special Dark's mixes are great for the cool down afterwards. Thanks for the tracks Hersch!
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2007-05-07 23:31:00
Mark Selby, one of the two finalists. |
While we're absolute laymen when it comes to the wonderful game of snooker, Marli and I are currently enjoying the hell out of the snooker world championships on BBC1. Some of the time we have no clue whatsoever about why certain plays are made or what the heck certain terms mean. But that doesn't mean we don't enjoy the genius of some of the math and physics going on in the players' heads. |
EDIT:
Heh! The outtakes reel with The great Gatsby playing in the background was rather hilarious :)
kilala.nl tags: tv,
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2007-05-07 09:00:00
From zero to five kiloms in ten weeks |
This will help me greatly in my attempts to start running: the VRT1 Start to run podcast. If you don't mind the occasional banter in Flemmish, go on and download all twenty-six sessions. |
Each session provides musical background for the various phases of your training, clearly indicating when you should go from walking to jogging and back. I was planning on making something like this myself, but this saves me -a-lot- of trouble.
Thanks go out to my colleague Ralph for sharing that link on the company's Wiki.
EDIT:
Thanks to Ben for reporting the broken link to the podcast. It's been fixed :)
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2007-05-06 22:32:00
Finally, a smashing episode again. |
I was let down by the last two episodes of Doctor Who, even though they were centered around the Daleks. Something about the writing just got to me and made me dislike them a bit. Shame. |
And if this week's episode wasn't enough to restore my faith, the trailer finished me off completely! The trailer is rumoured to cover the rest of this year's season (which explains why it seems to be strung together from various story lines) and it looks awesome!
The scare crow baddies are bound to scare me almost as shitless as The empty child did *shudder*. There's the mysterious Harold Saxon (who's rumoured to be one of the Docs ancient Gallifreyan rivals and there's Jack! Oh yes, the uber-cute and sexy Captain Jack Harkness makes his return! *swoon*
Now, speaking of that Harold Saxon guy... Upon hearing that name at the end of the episode I got really curious about who the guy's supposed to be. Well, the Internet seems to be rife with gossip and one of the prime suspects appears to be The Master. Unfortunately I know next to nothing of the classic series and looking for backstory on the guy has just made me more confused.
Because then I realized that it would take up any and all of my free time, just to learn all of Doctor Who's amazing backstory.
And even though I would seriously -love- to know everything there is to know about my favourite time traveller, I'm just not willing to commit that much time to just one sci-fi story. There are loads of other things that I need to pay attention to, so I'm just going to have to sit back and enjoy the ride :)
I don't mind one bit!
kilala.nl tags: doctor who, tv,
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2007-05-06 10:06:00
Oh Jeez, there's still so much work to do! I just remembered that I still have to write two full pages of copy on the Doujin room and the Dealer room. Oh fsck, how am I going to get this done in time?! *panic some more*
kilala.nl tags: anime 2007, anime 200x,
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2007-05-05 11:30:00
It's no secret that I've been down in the dumps for about a month now. No motivation at work, no energy to enjoy stuff at home, no libido worth mentioning... stuff like that. Let's call it a depression. Not clinical depression mind you, just an ordinary depression.
It's obvious to me that this moping around is being caused by me not being happy about the state of my life. One of the most important factors I believe is that I'd like to do creative work as opposed to the maintenance and upkeep that I'm doing right now.
I found it awfully interesting to read something on Freud's ideas about depression and the process of self improvement. The snippet below (from Wikipedia) supports what I already knew, while also suggesting that this rut is going to last until I've changed my life sufficiently.
The depressed mood is adaptive in that it leads the person towards altering his thought patterns and behavior or way of living or else continues until such a time as he does so. It can be argued that depression and clinical depression is in fact the refusal of a person to heed the call to change from within his own mind. [...]
Depression appears to have the effect of stopping a person in his or her tracks and forcing him or her to turn inwards and engage in a period of self reflection; it is a deeply introspective state. During this period, which can last anywhere from days to years, the individual must find a new way to interpret his thoughts and feelings and reassess the extent to which his appraisal of his reality is realistic. [...]
Some psychologists have speculated that the depressed state more accurately reflects reality than normal perceptions due to reduced self-image, a theory known as Depressive realism.
The way I read this, it means that:
1. I'm feeling crappy because I am not happy about some thing(s) in my life.
2. This crappiness allows me to find out what the heck is bothering me, by stripping me down to the bare essentials.
3. This crappiness will linger until I have changed the thing(s) that I am unhappy about, or until I have changed my opinion on the subject.
Or to put it succinctly: put up, or shut up!
Well, I've decided to put up simply because I'd like to do something useful with my time, instead of lying down and taking my days as they come. In order to get a good hold on things I'll need a plan. So let's start by making a list of all the things that I need to do and that I want to do.
Anime 2007: I have less than a month to finalise the Dealer Room paperwork and designs. I'll then run the festival with my friends and afterwards I'll spend some time documenting my work so it can be transferred to my replacement. I expect to have finished my work for the festival by half July.
Assembly 2007: I'm organising a trip to the Assembly demo-party in Helsinki. I'll be going to Finland for a week with a few of my colleagues from Snow. This means that I'll need to get together with our lovely girls in Operations, to sort out things like hotels and flights. It's not much, but it's still something weighing on my shoulders. ASM07 is over by the first week of August.
LPI 201 and 202: My employer requires me to get certified on multiple subjects, including the Linux Professional Institute stuff. I need to pass two large exams before the end of the year. Instead of spending free time on this in the evenings I will take leave from work for eight to ten days, to spend on studying. I expect to have all this out of the way by January.
Physical condition: Remember how I started riding my bike to the office back in December and how I flunked out by February? On the one hand I want to stop beating myself up about this, since such negative vibes are rarely helpful. On the other hand I'd like to start getting back in shape again... By riding my bike, by taking my best friend Menno up on his offer of going climbing together (in spite of my vertigo) and by trying my hand at the couch-to-5k plan. My biggest challenge will be twofold: to get that ass off the couch and to not let myself get distracted by the idea of leaving Marli alone at home. My goal? I'd love to nail that running the three miles within two months deal.
Also, thanks to Wynk for telling me about the couch-to-5k plan at just the right moment.
Getting creative: As I've said earlier, I would like to start doing something creative. I'd love to get started with etching. This requires that I build a proper workshop first, which is more creative stuff. Yay! I would like to have a complete workshop by the end of August, then I'd like to start etching sometime in September.
Thankfully I have some good friends and colleagues who're already rather busy with woodwork and such, so I know where to go for advice on the workshop.
Now... *sigh* ... I've done this whole here's the plan deal before and it didn't amount to much. So this time around I'm going to have to try my best and stick with it! Any tips on how to go about that would be greatly appreciated. I do think that I'll ask some of my friends to help me out in this...
/me reads it all back... Wow! That's some blog post! Typing it all out took me thirty minutes o_O Now I'll go and get dressed and go out to the shops! It's time for groceries!
kilala.nl tags: health, life, meh, career,
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2007-05-05 09:32:00
I love Stella's style in drawing. |
A little over a year ago I modded my iBooks in a simple way: I put different colours of crepe papier behind the Apple logo lens, making it the rainbow apple (Apple's original logo from the eighties). Now that I've ordered my Macbook I was looking forward to doing the same with this new piece of kit. |
Instead I'll be getting a GelaSkin which is a piece of art, printed on vinyl, that adheres to the lid of your laptop. In my case, I really love the pieces called Nevermind, The great wave and Starry night
kilala.nl tags: macbook, apple, creative,
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2007-05-03 20:49:00
The dutch Open Solaris User Group |
Right now I'm at the fourth NLOSUG meeting that is being held in Waardenburg for a change (as opposed to the Sun Microsystems offices in Amersfoort). Unfortunately I'm bored out of my skull. |
Alright, that happens to the best of us, I'll admit to that. But what's worse is that the first hour of the meeting was spent re-introducing the NLOSUG, its goals and means and on discussing whether the UG is even needed and in what form the meetings should be held. After the break we'd continue with a presentation on Sun's Crossbow technology, which is really neat... But frankly, I can't be pantsed to stick around.
You see, the turnup this evening was quite horrible. The group rings in at around twenty-five to thirty people and that's only because Snow (my employer) had a company gathering in Waardenburg earlier in the evening. Six to seven of the group are people who aren't from Sun or from Snow... Disappointing, to say the least.
I know Bart and the rest of the NLOSUG core crew are trying their hardest, but I don't think I'll be attending another meeting. Unless it's held at the Sun offices again.
kilala.nl tags: work, unix, meh,
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2007-05-03 10:06:00
This morning, around 0430, Marli's grandfather Evert passed away. Of course it's a sad occasion and he will most assuredly be missed, but we also feel happy that this long sickbed has come to a close.
Goodbye Evert.
kilala.nl tags: family,
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2007-05-02 22:19:00
Well, this certainly has been an out-of-the-ordinary day for me! For starters I slept in 'till around eight, which is unheard of on a weekday. I got this opportunity because yesterday was a rather long day at the office and today I had the late shift (which means that I get off around six), followed by a change request that would last until 2000. So that was yummy! It also gave me the chance to make some official phone calls for Anime 2007.
The shift at the office went rather well, with our team having no open trouble tickets for most of the afternoon! Awesome! I even managed to spend an hour or so cleaning out the various book cases in the office, since they're mostly filled with decrepit crap. Piles and piles of printouts from the 1991-2003 era that served absolutely no purpose whatsoever.
I had to blow off the change request around 1930, since the customer hadn't supplied us with all the prerequisites. I'd installed the SAN connectivity software, but they hadn't taken care of the security zoning, so I couldn't actually get the server connected to the SAN just yet :)
The rest of the evening was spent with Peter and Elke, Marli's brother and his fiance, for dinner and for wedding arrangements. The both of us will serve as their maitres de ceremonie so we had to be on the up-and-up about their wishes.
A good day... That's what it was :)
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2007-05-01 07:20:00
Speaking of Koninginnedag... Yesterday was a lot of fun and it was great to see Peter and Wendy again. It'd been too long, especially considering the fact that we live only ten minutes apart by bike -_-;
It was great to just walk around Utrecht and watch all the other people who came out for the Queen's birthday. Loadses of pretty women abound, a lot of amateur musicians on the streets and cholera-infected kebabs wherever you look! There was this great Elvis cover-band playing on one of the locks in Utrecht's canals whose version of Fever really rocked. ^_^
Afterwards we went to Humphreys, a restaurant that came highly recommended by Peter. He classed it as "good food at a low price", while I'd say it was a decent price; twenty euros for a three course meal (excl. drinks) is about average to me. Still, the food -was- pretty good, the bread was awesome and I just loved the interior deco of the place.
It's just a shame that my stomach decided to go and ruin the day a bit. All the hot-cold-hot-cold inflicted on us by the weather had its impact on my intestines, causing me to jump at just about every lavatory I could find :/ Meh...
Still... That was a very nice day!
Oh! Did I mention that me and Marli -finally- managed to beat the Star Cup on 150cc in Mario Kart - Double Dash? W00t!
kilala.nl tags: holiday, friends, fun, health,
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2007-05-01 07:04:00
It slices! It dices! It even cuts through Barbara Bush's hairspray! |
Coming home from our day/evening out on the town I found four wonderful things sitting in the living room: my cute'n'sweet wife, a plate of Ben&Jerry's and two pressies, namely Kenshin Dragon Quest and a Japanese soundtrack CD. ^_^ My buddy Kaiju had been 'round yesterday and brought over some goodies for me to enjoy. Thanks man! I'll really enjoy them! |
Now all I have to do is trawl the web for an english translation of the manual ^_^
The soundtrack CD that Kaiju bought me is the Black Ambition EP from the Digi Charat TV anime series. Apparently the song is -the- signature song for the Black gema-gema dan, who're just about my favourite characters from the show. I'm betting Kaiju bought me that CD because my very fist cosplay ever was as Ky Schweitzer (OMG PICX!).
kilala.nl tags: friends, games, awesome,
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