March 2002 Archives

Well, not in the apartement (yet)... that's something I hopefully will get to tomorrow. I cleaned out the PC, and uninstalled a whole shitload of stuff I never used anymore anyway. I don't care about the space they take on the disk so much, as to what kind of crap is loaded when booting.
I somehow managed to force the box into a spontaneous reboot (after a blue screen) twice today, and let me tell you : that ain't good. I hope that by throwing out quite a lot of junk everything will restabalize again and a format and reinstall won't be necessary. (Last format and install is over 2 years ago, so that ain't bad, is it?)

I also switched to Trillian again, since it has matured and that would mean I can refrain from both having to load ICQ and MSN... Makes it easier on memory load, plus trillian supports encryted direct messages to other trillian clients. Check it out at www.trillian.cc

Yeah, I've been listing blogs I read like every day, but unfortunately, some of them are either boring, or don't update enough to my liking. I've dropped Fried - From the mind of a brilliant Moron due to a lack of updates, and I don't have a clue what's going on with pinkishblue box, but that blogs has been blank for the past week(s). Unless it is fixed, I'll drop it in a few days too...

Something completely different : iloveraving.com - I might be way too old for all of that, but when I see nice things like this, I do admit that even though I might not grasp the idea behind raves, I know fun when I see it :)

I woke up early today - yeah, 11 'o clock is early! - and finished reading Generation X.... It only took me a day to finish it, but counting only 221 pages, that's not really a surprise. I must say that I didn't like the book at all during the first chapters, as it are all short stories really, and it's not until you get to know the characters that everything starts to make sense. Apart from that, it's just a weird book. Let me quote something :

When someone tells you they've just bought a house, they might as well tell you they no longer have a personality. You can immediately assume so many things : that they're locked into jobs they hate; that they're broke; that they spend every night watching videos; that they're fifteen pounds overweight; that they no longer listen to new ideas. It's profoundly depressing. And the worst part of it is that people in their houses don't even like where they are living. What few happy moments they possess are those gleaned from dreams of upgrading.

Hm... could this all be right? I have bought a house : check - I'm locked into a job that I hate : incorrect - I'm broke : depends - I spend every night watching videos : check (I surf the web) - I'm fifteen pounds overweight : probably, but I still feel good. - I don't listen to new ideas : incorrect. I listen to them, but that's it. - I'm depressed : incorrect - I don't like where I live : incorrect. I'm glad about where I live, it's a home, but not my dream.

Damn... I might be a Generation X kid, but then again, I might be not. I'm not Generation X, and I'm not anything else. I fall in between generations, clueless about life, clueless about everything. Reading too much Douglas Coupland will depress you, I tell you.

... to keep a site that is in constant state of updating conform all the rules. After doing one of my (regular) validation checks, it turned out that the CSS I wrote a few weeks back went sour. Neither of the styles validated anymore, but after doing a quick check I found the glitches and fixed them. Now everything should be quite OK in most recent browsers.

/me pats himself on the back and goes to bed. G'nite!

I got a call from dad about two hours ago... he found a place where he can rent an Audi TT for me. Yeah, when he asked me what I wanted as a birthday present, I told him that I'd like to drive an Audi TT for a day. He went looking for it, but most rental companies don't have it. Fortunately, a friend of his works for a rental company and when he called her, she said that she would inquire about it. She returned his call and said that they could get any car... including the Audi TT cabrio.

I'm happy, now I just gotta find a good time to take that beauty for a spin... If I want to drive it during the weekend, I'll have to make a reservation months in advance, so I guess I'll just take a day off from work and enjoy it during a weekday. Preferably with good weather ofcourse... it's a cabrio, so the hood must be down! I also plan on making a zillion photographs...

I've just taken a look at the Audi site and the configurator... The Audi TT I want would only cost me around € 42.337,40... I've got about € 5.500 right now, so I will get there... some day. In the mean time, donations are accepted, and everyone who donates $5 or more will received an exclusive, customized photograph with signature and special note, to thank you for your donation. Hey, you never know who comes around and has some pocket change...

Links : AudiWorld - Audi Worldwide

I've just returned from a trip to the shopping mall nearby, and treated myself to some good, old fashioned paper-based books. I had two gift certificates that I got from my sister as a birthday present, and I didn't have the chance to exchange them yet, so I did get myself 2 books about cooking. First one is for cooking in the wok, second one is from The Naked Chef (aka Jamie Oliver) and is called Happy Days.. It doesn't ave anything to do with The Fonz however.

I walked over to another bookshop, coz I needed some leisure literature as well, and I went looking for some more Douglas Coupland titles. I could only find one, called Generation X, but as it was a translation into dutch, I headed off to the English departement and got myself no less than 3 books : Generation X - Shampoo Planet and all families are psychotic. They didn't have any other titles :)

I won't spend too much time online the coming days... I'll be reading. Chill out, back soon on a webpage near you.

amateurish.org for the Peer-to-Peer Review Project.

When you first open amateurish.org you are somehow distracted by the pink tones on both sides of the blog. They really dominate the page, but as soon as you dive deeper into the contect and scroll down, they disappear. I wonder what the idea was there? Is it merely a small coding error on Elly's side, or did she just use the pink to set a certain mood? One thing is certain : wether you explore the cam, the guestbook or the links, pink remains the main color.

Even if I hadn't read her bio, I would have reckognized where she lives immediately : Elly is from the UK, and her use of words shows it. Wait, don't get me wrong here, I think it's a very important feature, as she writes the way she probably talks in real life as well. At least she doesn't try to clean up her language, and she's able to blog in her mothertongue. That always makes a blog more realistic if you ask me.

The layout works in some mysterious ways : the black title nicely contrasts with all the pink power, but the subtitles that give access to her bio page, content, links and guestbook are not telling you anything until you actually click on them. Call me a stubborn idiot, but I would have loved to see some more description there. I fear she throws away potential there, and quite a lot of visitors might not see, or find the links, and that would be a shame.
(update : I messed up there... the subtitles are ALT-tagged properly... I just happened to review the blog first with the Opera 6 browser and I forgot that browser doesn't show alt tags. I should have noticed it later on when I checked it with IE 5.5... my mistake... Elly, will you accept my apologies and marry me? Okay, you win... the apologies will do...)

The amateurish.org webcam pops up by the power of javascript, and the thumbnailed image of it does have a nice alt description, so it's not that she doesn't have a clue on how to code it. I guess she has just been a bit lazy - by not adding descriptions for the other links - as we all are every now and then. Allowing visitors to change the size of the cam window would provide better compatibility with other resolutions, but that's something that can easily be fixed.

Now that I've talked about the layout, it's time to zoom in on the content... Elly is 16 years old, so she writes about her life and what she finds important. She hangs out with friends, enjoys life and "moans about her town". Nothing really shocking here, and amateurish.org fits nicely into the "take-a-read-into-my-life" blogs that you can find emerging everywhere.

Does that make it less interesting or dull? Not by far... Elly has an open mind and a witty style of writing, so if you're up for an unbiased opinion on everyday life, you've come to the right place.

who left me feedback and comments on some posts. Finally some readers are using it, and the rest is probably retarded anyway. Here are the replies or comments from my side :

Sweetpea : Get back to playing neopets now! - Yes, whitehouse.com is a porn site, but the mail originated from whitehouse.gov... and that's the official site :)

Nicole : thanks for the comment, I love it when people agree with me! Especially if they also say why they do (grin)

Tangent : I'll keep those guys bookmarked, but it seems everthing is fine again at skynet. Thanks for the suggestion though! (I only now realize that Tangent is the same as Cyborgirl... wow, cool!)

pylorns : According to google you are absolutely right. And if google says so, so do I. It does ofcourse explain all the problems at the skynet ISP as well... they are all evil terminators! Thanks for pointing it out, but I was kinda suspecting something like it already...

Remember this post? It seems those two eggs are no longer eggs... they have transformed into two little doves. I can't call them beautiful, coz they look ugly, but I suppose that in the coming days/weeks they'll become nice doves.

I've taken some pictures and just crammed them all together in another link. I couldn't look over the top of the closet, not even while I was standing on a chair, but as soon as I took the first photograph, and looked at it, I switched off the flash of the camera.
I don't know if the flash can damage their eyes, but I'm not taking any risks. All the other photographs were taken without flash. Expect more pictures in the coming days, and I'll prepare something tomorrow so that when the little ones start learning to fly, they won't crash into my terrace floor... I somehow feel that little birds landing on hard stone is no good.

It's hot outside, at least, that's how I experience it. The past days it's been sunny, light breeze and the forcast for the coming days looks rather good. It's a long weekend, as I don't have to work on monday (something about Easter, but if they didn't tell me, I wouldn't have known).

This morning I made plans to do stuff around the house :

• Remove wallpaper in bedroom (1 wall) and fix the surface
• Clean the terrace and remove all unwanted plants
• Kick out that crappy flowerbed and whatever is in it
• Paint the garage door

This is what I think I'll be doing this weekend :

• Sleep till noon
• Play tablesoccer (tonite)
• Call Alexandra, I wanna go have a drink with her
• Sleep more
• Spend too much time online
• Realize on monday evening that the weekend was sunny, but that I didn't see a single ray of sun

You gotta agree, I do know myself rather well, don't I? I don't have a life anyway, so why should I pretend... I'm past that stage (but not always).

Note : I'm gonna leave the office now... the boss has just called it a day.. it's too sunny. Yeah, I got one heck of a boss, I know. He's just the BEST!

Things ain't improving...

I just received 2 blowjobs from George W. Bush ([email protected]) and the comment was : "usa usa usa"... Good thing that I know for sure that it wasn't the real George W. Bush sending me that mail, and it wasn't too hard to be sure about that : the comment had three words without any typo's or errors in it. I'd dare state that's enough proof that George W. Bush can't be the sender. After all, da bushwacko is a dumb shit, and we all know it. I'm glad that I'm not an american :-P

Maybe Europe should impose a 30% tax on export of dumbness from the USA. That would easily cover the 30% import tax that USA is collecting on European steal, and I even think we'll make quite a few bucks on it. Each time da bushwacko says something we can cash in.... good idea!

I've been working at home today, and this afternoon I gotta help with a move that we are doing for the office. I'll be looking after all things concerning IT and make sure everything goes well.

Good news : when I checked my bankaccount this morning, the awaited refund showed up. It might not seem like much for some of you big earners, but if you suddenly see a sum worth 3 months of regular pay, you feel kinda good... I'm not spending too much of it, since there ain't really things I need right now (except for a girlfriend, but that's something everybody knows already), so most will be going into various savings accounts. I'll xfer it by tonite and thus have some sort of backup for the future, should anything go wrong.
If I were younger, I would have probably spend it all at once, but I've come to an age where one realizes that unless you look after yourself, you're pretty much fucked. I know that in times of trouble, I could expect help from my friends and family, but that's not how I live... I hate depending on others.

Hmm... the title doesn't really resemble what's in the post, does it? It's hectic coz I had to prepare 6 laptops for return to the leasing company, and prepare 6 replacement laptops for our technicians. It now turns out that there is no need to have the replacements done by this afternoon, but I'll have till next week to do so. Good, that gives me a bit more time to fix things, check settings and requirements. I'm declaring it [/HECTIC MODE] now...

Lol... it seems the "Donate Oral Sex" button was finally noticed. I received no less as 15 acts of fellatio from Amira (aka Gwen). Yes, that's 15 blowjobs to say it otherwise. I would be very flattered (and I am) but I'm wondering if she's trying to kill me? I'm old, I can't take that much action anymore!
oh, oh... no, not again... arrrrggghhhhhhh..... hmmmmm.... yeaaahhhh..... oink Wow! The good thing about oral sex is that you keep your hands free to do other things... like writing in a blog or so :)

Luckily all of this is happening in VR... I wouldn't even think about getting fellatio from someone of her age, no matter what, in real life. (I'm not a nerd... nerds use IRL. - I wrote IRL, but then edited...)

Note : I'm worth $1,863,036.00 according to the Human For Sale test.

Links : faded memories - simple pleasures v1.0 (Amira's Blog)

I am looking for a man,
who knows the rules of the game,
and who's able to forget them,
to realize my aim.

Front 242 : Headhunter

I still remember when I was reading about tattoos last year - before I got my own one - that once you are tattooed, you want more. It's been almost one year now, and I'm thinking about getting a second one done. I don't know yet what it's gonna be, but I will think hard about it before deciding.

A tattoo still reflects the view on life of the bearer, it's a personal choice and if well thought about, it can never be wrong. You should never disagree with someone's tattoo, as it is their choice for life. It is perfectly possible that they haven't thought it thru, or got it while being drunk or on a roll of some kind, but even then : it's a personal choice.

You must at all times accept that the tattoo is a permanent part of the bearers life, world and body. It can therefore not be rediculed, mocked or laughed upon without mocking, laughing or rediculing the person self. A tattoo can mean something that is visible for everyone that sees the tattoo, but it can also have a special meaning that others can't see, or understand.

I happen to like tribal designs, and the tattoo I got last year is a combination of tribal with 2 ferrets, as my ferrets are my kids. They are what I live for, and I will carry them with me in my heart, mind and tattoo forever. This year it will not be ferret related, but more personal, reflecting the way I look at life.

Those who read this and didn't know it yet... you know now - and you are welcome to leave feedback, as you are always welcome.

This morning I was awake and not awake at the same time... I had been awake, yet dozed back off I guess when I had this hot dream. I can't remember any details and the dream itself didn't make too much sense I guess because if I try to reconstruct it, parts are missing. I'm gonna do my best and try to describe it all :

I'm riding in a car, and there are some others with me - who they are and what they do is unclear, but I sense that I know these people and that they are friends - and we make a turn coz we have to be somewhere. When we park the car I see that there is a hotel next to the place where we have to be and there is a crew of women (no men) working in the hotel. Working as in tearing the hotel apart and doing renovation in it. In my right hand corner I see some women catching the sun as they lie on their belly. I suppose that they are part of the hotel crew, and are taking a break.

When we walk by, I hear one of them saying something like "I would really dig a nice massage and some sun lotion" and then I see myself walking over to her. All the other women look at me, but no one says anything or even moves. Then I look back and someone throws me a bottle of sun lotion. I think it's one of those 'unknown' friends.

I sit next to this lady, and at this point, I don't recall how she looks, or maybe even who she is. I don't think she resembles someone I know, but I'm not sure about it. I open the bottle of lotion, and start giving her a massage. She doesn't even look up to see what's happening and I feel that she trusts everything that's happening. She is relaxed and feeling fine.

Somehow I apply way too much lotion and they is a whole lot of it on her back and shoulders, but she doesn't seem to mind. I just keep on rubbing her neck, shoulders and back till it's all gone.

Oh, did I mention that all of these ladies are totally naked? Doesn't really matter for the dream I guess, but it's just something that I need to tell you in order to understand the next scene.

When I'm all done, I get up and then she says "hey, you missed a part" and I suppose she means that I need to do her front too. Instead of getting up and turning around she says that I forgot her ass... This is when I realize she has a damn cute ass, and maybe she - at this point - also has a face that I know.

So, she doesn't turn around, but lifts her ass up in the sky and I find myself behind her, so I have a very interesting view. I do recall applying small drops of sun lotion on both of her cheeks and starting to rub it in, and after that... I woke up.

Well, maybe I didn't wake up, but what comes next is not for publication here, although I must state that I'm pretty sure that there was no sex involved. Depending on your definition of sex ofcourse. If you only call penetration sex, then there was no sex. If you call touching and enjoying sex, then there certainly was sex ;-)

Just believe me when I tell you that it was a very hot dream... and that I woke up feeling pretty good...

It seems the FTP access to the Skynet servers has been restored... I'm currently checking the damage and restoring all the data that I can access right now. I'm at work, so I don't have access to the last backups, but almost everything should be back later tonite.

I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Update : friedkitten - CVP Wommelgem - Ferret-Fun - PromoCow - Jerry - Netspecs and PornTrash are restored.

As of Saturday evening, most of our websites on users.skynet.be, users.win.be and perso.infonie.be ( read : Skynet sucks) are again available, although until Monday morning, the hosting server was acting much slower than usual.

Yeah right... I still can't reach anything!

Are you unable to open your website? This does not necessarily mean that your site is lost. It can happen that certain files are damaged. Or do you notice that what you see is not the most recent version of your website? In both cases, you can put your website online again as of Wednesday, 27th march 2002, at the latest. This means that you upload the copy of your website on your harddisk again to your web space.

No, this means that we will break the 7 days downtime mark with ease... And I can't even find 1 single file, believe me, I've tried all of them.

Of the total amount of data on the hosting server before the upgrade, less than 1% was lost due to the error.

Yipeee!!! I never win anything, and you can't imagine how lucky I am this time : I seem to be one of those "less than 1%". Yes, I'm pretty cheerful, as I've lost the ability to cry over the past few days. I think I'll have t-shirts printed :

I lost everything in the big March 19th 2002 Skynet crash.

Anyone interested?

I won't tell you that Skynet sucks anymore, I guess you know it by now. I also know that google is picking up on all these links. Nice, I'll let the web do the work.

Yeah, I've been out to see Black Hawk Down and I kinda liked it. Ofcourse it's basically an action movie, but it also makes you think about things. At some point in the movie I just felt like getting up, grab an M-16, and blast some of those Somali crapheads too... That's how involved I got, but when the Somali captured Mike Durant (the chopper pilot), one sentence made me realize that in their world, that war was totally explainable.

The sentence went something like this : "Do you think that by capturing Aideed, you will end this war? In our world, a war doesn't end if there is no victory".

Do we need to press our way of seeing things upon others, I really doubt it, but if I respect your way of living, I demand the same of you. And if you try to force your way of living upon me, you'll be up for a hard rumble. That's how wars are started, but it's also how wars can be ended and avoided.

Basic thing to keep in mind after all of this : No one is left behind. If you are a team, you either go all the way together, or you die together. You leave no one behind, ever.

And skynet still sucks... just a small reminder :)

Here's the story... I went outside two days ago, to grab a bottle of water in the closet on my terrace, and when I closed the door again, a dove launched and flew away about 30 centimeters above my head. It wasn't scary or so, but I was kinda surprised! Then everything started to make sense : about a week ago I found small pieces of wood on my terracefloor, and even though it had been a stormy night, I found it pretty weird.

I checked the open space above the closet and my guess was confirmed : a nest with 2 small eggs in it. I took some pictures and hoped I didn't scare the dove too much so that she would abandon her nest, but when I checked again yesterday and today she was happily nesting again. Good for her!

I'm thinking about installing one of the webcams next to the nest, but I don't want to interfere and disturb her too much. I'll have to think about it, but you gotta be honest... it would be cool to see them little birds get born live on cam, wouldn't it?

Note : Oh my god... I almost forgot : skynet.be still sucks! (Let google index that!)

... according to the mail we all got from Skynet. According to me, it's sunday and as you can see : nothing is fixed. At least two newspapers have reported about the fuckup skynet made and skynet has confirmed that they will be doing a 'commercial' effort to make up for all the problems. Yeah right. I don't need a commercial effort, I need a reliable host! Update : Skynet has officially confirmed that they made an error and 24.700 site are affected (unreachable, possibly deleted). It's more as 120 hours now that I can't reach/update my pages, and I'm getting very very fed up with it.

(I've moved the pages to another ISP for the time being. Sorry about all the broken links, crappy look and missing GFX... I'll fix it all again the second skynet has fixed their servers)

So, I'm gonna keep on stating it here till they have fixed everything : SKYNET.BE SUCKS!

that all sites of the 'residential' customers of our ISP are not reachable. Yes, I do mean 96 hours! If you ask me, I would avoid picking www.skynet.be as an ISP. Any other ISP out there is better. Skynet is the biggest ISP in Belgium, yet they are able to crash a disk and not have a backup, and let their users down for this long. And you know what's they say?

Only about 44.000 users might be affected and have lost everything that was on that hosting server.... on a total of 70.000. They are probably implying that's not too bad. Yeah.. right. If they have fucked over my site, I'm gonna hit them with an SLA (Service Level Agreement) as large as a batllecruiser. Bang! Now get that bloody server back online, or at least put in a backup!

Aarrggh... this site looks like crap now, coz it can't load the GFX, can't load the CSS files... :( - I can only hope they get some competent technicians in before monday.

As you might have noticed, www.friedkitten.com has been unreachable for nearly 3 days now. I'm still very alive, but the ISP has somehow majorly fucked something up, and the complete hosting server is down. I don't know yet when it might be back, so I've switched to another ISP for the time being.

You will experience missing GFX, broken links and other funny things like that, coz I can't even log in to xfer it all. Skynet, you suck!

I don't even remember where I found the site, but I'm hooked to NeoPets. I've created this really cool blue Kau (forget Cows... Kau's are much cooler!) and I'm now exploring vast worlds, and plays games all the time. Last night I went to bed around 02h30... no wonder I couldn't get up this morning. I'd better get to bed a bit earlier today ;-)

Ofcourse, you might wanna get yourself a 'so-much-less-cool' other creature, but the Kau's rule... - Oh, in case you wonder : yepz, it's free!

Links : NeoPets

It looked OK this morning, but we have another typical Belgian day : rain, rain and more rain. Yuck... I don't like rain. I like wind.

Apr�s-birthday-thanks : Dad & Hilda (call yesterday) - Stephanie (e-Card today, in German ofcourse!) - Marianne & Dimi (Card today) - Pascalle & Martin (e-Card today).

"people are surprised when I'm not smiling and immediately comfuse quietness or solemnity with anger. they usually flatter themselves by thinking the've done something to upset me, because my world obviously revolves around them"

I couldn't have said it any better. Thanks go to Sara who blogs at Dissonance.

Bad news. The fab "We Are Networking" LAN party (better known as WAN) will not take place this year. Due to time problems the peeps that organise it have moved it to at least 2004. Talk about bad news, I was so looking forward to it :(

Links : www.wan.nl

Ever tried tracking your banknotes? Based on Where's George, you can now add your € to the Euro Tracker site, and follow them all around. I've added a permanent link to the site in the right hand menu. Check it out, and make sure you add your notes!

I was actually asking the following at askjeeves.com : "How do I make napalm?", but Jeeves didn't know. I did however find out how to make an Ocean Drive and a Naked Girl Scout. What's in a name? The peeps at WebTender know all about it.

Too bad they don't show the actual cocktail when it's prepared, and neither did they know how to get a real Naked Girl Scout in my bed. Damn, another illusion shattered :(

Last night I read a call for help on usenet from Henri who had registered a domain name, but now found out he couldn't link it anywhere, unless to a business account that would cost him around € 250/year. A business account he ofcourse not had.

I reply to him, explain everything and also point out that he is somehow fucked and can't fix the problem easily. This morning I read the reply from him in usenet :

"Thanks for pointing out that ISP X is only good for people that know something about it, and not for John Doe ... [snip]

I did read the text on the site, but since I don't understand english, I didn't know what a leased line is and I presumed everything would work...[snip]

Thanks for your answer without help, advice or solution."

So that's what you get for helping out people. The fact that he doesn't know shit about the web, is something I can't help. Everyone can learn, if they are willing to do so. If the ISP would have used the dutch term for leasedline, Henri still wouldn't know what the hell they are talking about. That is once more something we can't help...

But the thing that really pissed me off, is the fact that he basically says : Your answer was totally pointless and doesn't help me in any way. Well, thanks a lot. I spend my time answering to your call for help, and then you answer something like that.
I didn't make the mistake in the first place did I? I told him to piss off and stick his domain name somewhere the sun don't shine. Ofcourse while remaining polite... Always remain polite, it's some much more classy to tell people to go to hell when you do it politely.

Went to see Oceans Eleven tonite and while the movie itself was OK, it was not really awsome. I would call it very predictable and there wasn't one second where I wondered if they would or wouldn't pull off the stunt. But, before the movie started, we saw some ads, and one of them was for Levi's I think. Maybe you've seen it : two people (a guy and a girl) run through walls in some sort of a hotel or apartement building.

Ain't that an awsome idea? That is something I'm gonna do this summer : run through a wall. Ofcourse, it won't be some brick wall, but some specially crafted wall made out of a wooden frame and paper of very very light wooden pannels. Consider it Mission 1. And I guess I can convince some other wicked friends of mine of the possibilities of it, so I think I'll have some company while running through walls. I'll check with them tomorrow.

Off to bed now... see ya'll tomorrow.

Thanks to : Baba-G for the nice birthday comment he left on the page, and ofcourse to Row as well.

It's hard to pick the thing you like most out of two things you like. Around 12h00 my sister called me to check if I was awake already and then she brought over dinner. Damn nice of her. Later on Johan called to wish me a happy birthday too, and tonite we'll be off to the movies. Just a few seconds ago, Joco (and Eef and little Lex too ofcourse) called to wish me a happy birthday (again) and see if I was coming over tonite to have dinner with them.

Yikes... I can't be at two places at the same time (not yet, but I'm practicing!) so I decided to pass on the offer of Joco and stick with the appointement I made with Jess & Johan. Hey, fair is fair as I like both options.

Big thanks (for birthday calls/cards) go to : Esther (Call) - Alexandra (4 e-Cards!!) - Joco, Eef and Alex (Call and Invitation) - Grandma 1 (Call, waaay too early this morning... I didn't pick up, she called back later) - Grandma 2 (Call yesterday) - Jess and Johan (Call, Card, Gift, Food and Invitation) - Nadia (e-Card) - Caribax (e-Card) - Sandra (Card) - Babs, Kurt and Caro (Card) - Sandra (e-Card) - Stephanie, David, Danny, Suzana and Esther (Card) - Bob and Hilda (Call yesterday) - Aunt Doris (Card) - Chipinoy (ICQ message) - Karine and Joeri (e-Card).

The pictures of Cebit 2002 are online. Check the Photo Trippin' Section on the right handside of your screen :)

Hey, take al look at what the Kabalarians Name Analyzer had to say about my real first name :

The first name of "ServMe" creates a dual nature for, on the one hand, you desire change and varied experiences in order to avoid monotony, and yet you are attuned to system, order, and attention to detail. You can be very analytical, exacting, and patient in your undertakings until your interest is exhausted, at which time you switch to something else even though it means leaving your undertakings unfinished. This name makes you inquisitive and scientific in your approach to life, requiring everything to be proved to satisfy your skepticism. You can be a stickler for detail, and very fussy and particular. As spontaneous verbal expression can be difficult for you, you often feel awkward and embarrassed in situations requiring tact and diplomacy. This name creates strong physical desires, such as an appetite for heavy, starchy foods and meat. Tension affecting the solar plexus and digestive organs could lead to ulcers, growths, or constipation.

I can agree with everything, except the verbal expression part. I love verbal expression, and I don't really have any problems with diplomacy and tact, but apart from that small inconsistency, it seems pretty correct.

Really, I mean it. I know all of you were cheering and singing and wishing me a very happy birthday, and I was happy to be amongst good friends. I couldn't live my life without you. Therefore I hope you can also understand that I wasn't really in the mood to be singing and dancing. I'm tired, I've had a good, interesting (and possibly rewarding) but very exhausting week and I'm beat. I'm off to bed.

Yes, I will throw you all a party - it's the least I can do - and those who I consider to be good friends will be invited for sure. It just won't be today, nor tomorrow. I have other things to do right now, and while that should not interfere with my personal life, it does. I will find a balance again some day, and then I will be the cheerful and happy person I was before, again. Mind you... I'm still happy and cheerful and full of crap, jokes and stupid idea's... just not all the time. I'm 29 now, gimme a break, will you? :-)

Note to B. : I'm not the person that will jump around and joke because people expect it of me. If I wanna take it easy, be sarcastic or even look sad, I'm entitled to do so. You should know me better than that, and those moods never last long, unless ofcourse you try to push me. Then I become irritated and I will just ignore you. If you'd know me well enough you wouldn't be pushing me in the first place. I have certain principles and opinions I stand and live by. Pushing, nodging or sweettalking won't help you to make me abadon those. Even if my principles don't match yours, at least respect them.

ServMe waves to everyone, makes a big theathrical bow, and disappears into the dark void called sleep.

Zzzzzzzz. phew.

PS : smile :-)

Yepz... I survived three days in Germany, one day in holland and a total of 9 hours of evening course this week. I'll have to give myself a pat on the back for that (pat pat). Ofcourse, the lovely company of Stephanie in Germany was very helpful in making it enjoyable. I even wrote some posts, but they are on the notebook, and the notebook is not here. No, I'm not gonna get it either. You can read about them tomorrow. Then I'll also upload the pics.

Exactly 2 hours and 8 minutes before it's March 16th.... and everyone knows what that means, not? Then I'll be 29 years old and officially old. Crap, I think I'll go out to the pub and have some drinks and fun with my mates before I'm too old for that too. Chill.

Yes indeed.... Grrrrrr!

I received the following mail from the admin of abortionismurder.org :

Did you look up the actual owner of that domain name and compare it with the actual owner of abortionismurder.org? We don't own nor did we point that name.

Ok, I admit that I mailed them first and only later on did a registrant check. Even before I got their reply, I knew that the registrants were different. My mistake.

I now also know that the wwwblogger.com domain was registered to someone who wants to make a profit on it... check the registrant info :

Request: wwwblogger.com
Registrant:
Domains for sale inc.
5444 arlignton ave.
bronx, NY 10471
US

If I bring all of this in the open, he gains 'coz the domain gets noticed and thus commercially more interesting. If I leave it as is, people might think there is a connection between blogger.com and abortionismurder.org - I'll just wait and see what Ev might have to say about it, but I wonder if there is any way to legally prevent someone to link to your site/content?

Let's say I register thepopesuckscock.org and I point it to some organization that happens to criticise the vatican, but in a decent and adult way, I could do quite some harm to them. Can they, or can't they prevent the redirection to their domain? Anyone got a clue or experience with it?

Hm... it certainly seems blogging is really starting to have an impact on the world we live in. I was gonna write some weirdo post again, but I've found a much better topic now, although much heavier and probably more controversial too. I was heading over to the blogger site (www.blogger.com) but I forgot the dot. I ended up at wwwblogger.com instead. Yes, that site is live. Of should I say life?

It hosts a site that simply claims that abortion is murder. Now, according to me, that's a really strong statement, and however I can agree to some extend - basically I'm pro choice - I'm pissed off that they use the impact of blogger to attract surfers. I don't even know if Ev knows about it, so I'll throw it in the blogger discussion groups and see what the reaction is there. I'm pretty sure most bloggers won't like it.

I'm gonna mail the crew behind abortionismurder.org too and check out their reply. I'm totally pro discussion, but I hate people that piggyback to stick out of the mass. Below is the e-mail I've send to [email protected] :

Hi,

I noticed that you registered wwwblogger.com to attract visitors who happen to forget the dot. This is pretty low don't you think so?
You try to gain exposure by abusing the blogger name and fame. I'll be contacting Ev about it (the owner of blogger.com) and I'll also be dropping this in the weblog community. You could be in for some serious heat, as I think most bloggers don't like the abuse you commit.

I'd like to get a reply from you, before I spread the word... You might reconsider you action and at least put up a page that clearly states that wwwblogger.com has got nothing to do with blogger, and that the surfers will be redirected to abortionismurder.org - But that would give the surfer a choice, something you don't like, correct?

Very disappointed greets,

ServMe
www.friedkitten.com

have hotdogs for dinner. That's the good part about being single : you can do whatever you want, whenever you want it. If I feel like eating soup with chopsticks, I can. I didn't try it though as I realize that it would be next to impossible. My dad found out a few years ago, that even japanese people use a spoon to eat peas... ROFL, he ate all of them with chopsticks!

I've talked to some interesting people on the fair, and it was interesting but not superb. Just got a call from Steph and she's feeling better so that's very good news. Now I gotta go pack and eat them "hei�er Hunde". I can expect some hits from german peeps now I guess... And I don't even wanna know what exactly they are looking for :)

Note 4 Shelley : thanks for the nice comment you posted on the 12th of march. However, the webpage you entered seems to be incorrect and I'd really like to read your blog to see who you are. Contact me at contact@friedkitten-dot-com or just leave me a new comment. Chill!

Note to all : ain't I getting good at these notes? In the last 15 posts I've used 6 notes... hehehe, I think I'm going senile and always forget things and then add them later on.

I had the weirdest dream this morning. Well, it might not have been a dream, but more a state of fuzzyness as I was awake and asleep at the same time. To simplify things, I'll just refer to it as a dream. I dreamed that I was in some store, probably a supermarket and when I put all my groceries on the till and the cashier gave me the total I had to pay, I wanted to pay with my card. However, I just couldn't remember the pincode for the card, or so it seemed at first. Then I realized that I did know the code (it's "beep beep beep beep") but that I couldn't get a solid fix on the buttons on the terminal.

I entered the first character, but with the second one it always went wrong. Instead of a 3 I entered a 5, or an 8. And each time I blinked my eyes, the way the buttons were organized changed. Even hitting the correction key was difficult and I always ended up messing the complete terminal up, accessing functions that customers are not supposed to access, resetting the thing and such. Very bizarre and I felt totally helpless. I always mumbled something like "oops... sorry, lemme try again" to the cashier and the row of people behind me that was growing steadily.

And then it all just started again from the beginning. Entering character 1 OK, and then the buttons started dancing. I even convinced the cashier to give me another terminal to try and with that one the same thing happened. I finally gave up - it felt like I had been trying to enter my code for like a month - and told the cashier I wanted to pay cash. And for some reason that didn't work either. I called over my sister (I don't have any clue how she turned up in this dream, but suddenly she was there) and I wrote down my code for here on a business card and she entered it and it was correct. Ofcourse it was! I didn't forget my code, it was clearly in my head all the time. I could see it before me, yet I couldn't enter it on the terminal.

It felt so weird and I was totally helpless. I'm confused about this all, and wonder if this has some meaning? Don't use bankcards for the first 24 hours maybe... Beats me, it was a scary experience.

I've just returned from an evening course and I feel like mashed potatoes. It was very interesting, yet quite a lot of stuff in a 6 hour session. I'm currently doing the dishes (dishwasher), doing some laundry and preparing for a fair (Nationaal Security Evenement) I'll be attending tomorrow. The original plan was that both Stephanie and I would be there, but as she's rather ill she'll stay home in bed and hopefully feel better wednesday when we're off to cebit.

A few stats for those of you that don't know what cebit is : 7.962 companies, 8 days, streaming radio and video, in short : a wet dream for everyone that does IT or wants to keep up with recent developments. I'll have the notebook and digital cam with me, so if I can hook it up somewhere, expect updates.

Note to Jess : thanks very very very much for looking after my lovely carpetsharks. I'll miss the boys like crazy, but I know you'll take good care of them.

I guess Michael was the smart one : he said it would be the same as every year... he was right. Entrance fee was € 15, so it's not really that cheap, and it was just like the year(s) before. Lotsa people, but nothing special. We did catch some photoshoots, and the results are online here, or click on e-Fair 2002 in the Photo Trippin' section. After reviewing all the photographs again I decided to put none of them online. The quality was just not good enough, and I'd rather have no pics online, as have crappy ones online. About the photoshoot : I think Joco and I shot about 150, maybe 175 pictures, but the lighting sucked and most turned out to be too dark.

I switched to a B/W setting for quite a few shots, and some seem to be OK'ish. Joco managed to get a better spot, closer to the models, so most of his shots were better. I really had problems with the bald guy on the first row as his skull kept on reflecting the flash. New rule : bald people can't be on the first 5 rows at a photoshoot.

Got home, drove over to Joco's place, played PS2 (Metal Gear Solid 2... it's friggin' difficult! Each button has like 13 different meanings) and ate some great spaghetti that Eef prepared for us.
Also entertained Alex a bit, and he returned the favor by starting to scream for quite a while. Nice kid, he makes sure everyone knows he's around. He must take after his daddy :)

I am quite discrete with my mods � no visible piercings apart from my ears, which are usually covered with hair, and my tattoos can't be seen unless I deliberately choose to show them off. I am intensely private and enjoy the fact that if I so wish I can look like your child's nursery school teacher. I am a chameleon � I like to be able to blend in to my background, and you'll know no different unless I choose. But the wrist piercing would mostly be on show, even if I wore long sleeves.

I've found this post on green fairy dot com, and I can totally agree with green fairy. Tattoo's and piercings are personal and intimate. If you don't feel like showing them off, you shouldn't and if people are offended by them, you can go two ways : tell them to bugger off and accept you as you are, or hide your mods and therefore adapt your own life to the rules of conduct made by others. I usually go for the "accept me as I am" option, but I do blend in as well.

There is a time and place for everything and just as you have the right to have body mods, other have the right to react negatively to them. There is nothing more pleasing as blending in with a (non modded) group, yet realize that the blending in is just eye candy. You are different, you are modded and that will always set you apart from the others, even if it's not visible, you know it's there.

I decided to get up around 11h00 today and set the alarmclock, but I woke up at 10h00 coz I somehow also set the current time wrong. I now have 1 hour extra to do stuff. I'll be fixing my door, doing some laundry and have breakfast.... 3 things for which I usually don't find the time. I know it doesn't sound too exciting, but life is not always what you expect of it. I am not a famous actor, superhero or political hotshot. I don't live my life as you see in the movies. But I can do my own laundry, ironing and have breakfast any time I want.

The mere thought of it makes me drool. :-)

Update : the door is done. I'm now off to do some laundry and have breakfast. Yes, I'll be combining things and gain even more relativity time.

According to the "Which Matrix character are you" test, I am Morpheus. Morpheus : When it comes to being mysterious, that's what you do best. You like to leave others puzzled and speak in riddles. You're not out there for the fame and fortune, you're just being yourself, doing what you do best. You're strong and courageous, and you're always the leader of the pack. You're skillful; people respect you, and you respect people. Right on baby!

Three things I grabbed on my desk : Renewal notice for 2 domains - Photograph of Caro, daughter of my ex girlfriend's sister - Front cover of Computer Magazine (March 2002).

Weekend update

It's already march 9th and my last post was 3 days ago. It's not like I didn't have anything to post, just no time to post it. So here's a small recap of the past day(s).

Friday : Morning meeting in Brussels. As I leave, there turns out to be a gigantic traffic jam and I arrive 30 minutes late. Meeting only lasts around 25 minutes since we are obviously talking to the wrong person. He agrees to send us the details of someone who we should talk to. Off to drink something, then dinner. Restaurant is completely filled to we end up elsewhere. It's a great day and we have a great time : sun, light breeze, lotsa weirdo's in Brussels, and great food and company. Oysters, Martini, Paella should give you a good direction... We're done around 14h45 and I don't head back to the office, but go straight home. Off early, do some shopping and meet with some friends at Michael's place later on. Stay up too long and crash into my bed around 01h15.

Saturday (today) : Slept till 12h45, woke up, entertained the ferrets, left to go and help someone paint the ceilings. Had dinner (soup, chicken and french fries) and got back home. Took a bath to get rid of sweat, dirt and excess paint. Now blogging.

Sunday (tomorrow) : Will probably be off to an erotic fair in Antwerp with Joco. Michael will not be joining us coz : "it's the same stuff each year". Ofcourse he's right, but since I havn't been there the last 2 years, I'll head over again and see if anything has changed. I'm single, I gotta stay up to date with the latest techniques and developments, don't I?

I feel like I've lost bits and pieces here, coz I think more stuff happened. I might remember it, someday.

Note : I discovered a first link to www.friedkitten.com, and the honor goes to : wetwirednews v7.0. Thanks for the link dudes!

Note 2 : BlogSnob is correctly tracking and sending hits now. Thumbs up for them too.

Note 3 : This one is for Noah, who posted this comment on my site :

Every day I wake up and capitalist americans make me sick to my stomach. If I were on the Forbers list of richest people I would donate all of it to Osama Bin Laden, my new god

Thanks for sharing your opinion. I really don't care if you support Bush, Osama Bin Laden or the Pope... You are entitled to an own opinion and I respect that. However I'm entitled to one too : fuck off.

Build your own Gauss Gun. Damn, that's interesting stuff! I never have been into physics much, but this makes me realize that all the sci-fi things you see are explainable with some basic physics. I might even build a Gauss Gun myself if I have some spare time. (link thru : Ends of the Earth).

People search and find me thru the most wicked searchengine entries : "latex e glove e fucking e free e picture" turns up www.friedkitten.com as hit number 16 on Yahoo. I don't know yet how to interprete all of this : Is my site perverted, or are people just looking for the wrong stuff?

While I was working on some website project for my job, I stumbled upon a Microsoft Scrollbar Properties Editor. Makes selecting the correct colors for your scrollbars easy. Too bad it doesn't support exact colorcodes like #FF0011. But hey... it's Microsoft, what did you expect?

Had problems getting up this morning, I guess the added workload starts to take it's toll. Next week will be totally hectic, but if all goes well, you can expect updates from Holland and Germany (Cebit).

I've got a nice and fast ADSL connection thru Skynet, and everything works fine, but uploading to the FTP server thru blogger takes ages, often times out or gives all loads of crappy errors. I've also got a Planet Internet account and while FTP is fast there, they don't allow to overwrite files in a subdir directly (after a server/software upgrade, but they claim nothing changed... sure, and I'm Santaclaus!) so I gotta delete all the stuff manually first, then upload the new files. If only I could combine those too and I'd be happy with a fast and good FTP connection.

I've moved the complete blog to Skynet for the time being, but if nothing improves, I think I'll have to get a hosting account somewhere and put some cash on the table to get good service and connections.

Yesterday I've lost the following keys : shift (both), g,h, and ALT. Losing both shift keys also disables all proper capitaliziation, plus ?, . and /. I can assure you, the world does look totally different when you look at it without these simple tools of expression.

Note : this keyboard sucks. I'm not used to it, and although it has all those nice special function buttons like 'e-mail', 'FFWD', 'RWD' and 'WWW', I don't like it. I want my old green keyboard back. Look out for repair and photo's of it in the next post.

Oh, and just to make sure the CaptionMachine cops are happy too, there is your link. Crapheads :-)

remember were i told you tat my keyboard was broken, today it is really broken; i've lost bot sift keys, and some oter ones as well;

it's really crap, and te reason it's broken is truely a funny story : i ad tis bottle of campane and i was tinkin about openin it, but i felt really decadent openin a full bottle of campane just to drink it by myself; i opened te box, took out te bottle and loosened te wires tat old te cork; ten i started playin c and c reneade wile te bottle was just standin tere; i uess te music or soundeffects set it off, coz in te midst of a level i eard a loud "pop" and i ad my own personal campane fountain!!! too bad it dropped it's load on my keyboard wit te obvious results :(

bye bye to 10 keys or so;;; i'll ave to et a new one, but i tink i mit ave a spare keyboard around; pew;;; it pay off to ave spares; i'll connect it tomorrow and ope tis one isn't beyond repair; if it is, ten at least i know wat to ask as a present for my birtday : a siny new campane proof keyboard!

note : tis is no joke! i'm really screwed ere :( [i copied te g in te stron ta for te title] - damn lanuae becomes really strane wen you suddenly lose some letters!

'Nuff said.

I've been out having 2 games of bowling with a bunch of old friends and we had quite a lot of fun. It was also good to see everyone again. I've also been chatting with Joco about the new splashscreen, and it seems the idea's (or tips) he had, were already on my 'to do' list. It must mean that the idea's I had were not so stupid (or that we both suck @ design).
I'll look into some of them tomorrow, and maybe you'll see things changing around midnight. No promises though, there's a whole lot of laundry and ironing to be done and I can't just go to work in the nude, can I?

I've finally gotten around to redesign the logo, and have just finished the first splashscreen logo. I'm not sure it is perfect yet, but it really beats the old crappy logo. You can expect an appearance of it very soon.

Update : Hmmm... the new splashscreen is on as you might have noticed. Looks cool, not? Yeah, I think it's a bit too large too. I should have kept it the same width, but made it 'flatter'. I can ofcourse just resize, but it all looks so weird. Oh, wait... I'll brb.

Update 2 : I just remembered that I had saved the initial design as a .psd file, and that it should contain all the layers. It did :) I just recreated the design and it now has a nice 600x300 size, and is only around 18kb 23kb. Cheers for myself!

I was driving home tonite (totally sober! I never drink and drive) and there was a small car in front of me. Nothing special really, but when we both slowed down to take a corner the driver suddenly slammed the brakes, even while there was no car in a 500m radius except me. I nearly crashed into him as I was surprised by his unnecessary braking. I overtook him about 50 meters into the street and while I was doing it, he was really trying to push me to the side of the road and block my passage.

Ok, so far so good, and while I was pissed at the dumbass, I wouldn't have mind it anymore, but the second I had passed him, he turned on his big lights so that he would blind me.

That was the drop that did it. I slowed down, and if it wasn't for Michael who was in the car with me, I would have stopped and really kicked the fuckers' ass. Luckily he told me it wasn't worth it and I drove off without looking back. However, as I dropped off Michael at his place I did continue to drive in the direction where the moron had been going to see if I could still spot him. Too bad he was gone already, man I was really pissed at him.

If you're drunk, then don't fucking drive! Stay of the road coz you're endangering others... it seems some people just don't get it.

Yepz... what's the first thing that happens when having a businessmeeting with other people? Exchanging business cards, indeed. I've been to a seminar on wednesday, had a rather important meeting on thursday, and you can guess it : no businesscards. Today the cards arrived. I'm officially the ICT & Security Manager now. This means I keep on doing the same job for the same pay, but now have a businesscard to show it. Congrats to me. Another task accomplished.

(Note : businesscards are a good thing, don't misunderstand me. I just didn't know how to let all of you know without sounding too geeky. As if the above ain't proof enough. Never mind.)

Upcoming Product Test : Total Shaving Solution

I've been shaving myself for the past years with shaving gel and razor. A few weeks ago I came across a product called Total Shaving Solution, and it's supposed to be better, easier and smoother. I've just done a first test with it, and I'm not really impressed. I feel like I'm gonna smell like menthol for the next 48 hours (if not 48 years), and although my skin feels smooth, it's also sticky coz of the oily substance TTS is made off. I guess I'll give it another try next week, when there's more hair to shave.

Off to bed, hope I can sleep in this cloud of menthol... beep beep, I've transformed into a Tik Tak from Inner Space.