November 2002 Archives

Grrrr... what have I done??? I've added - over the years - multiple male ferrets to my all male bunch of fuzzballs, without any problem, and the day I add two females to it I run into problems.

That little devil manages to crawl under the sofa! I just had to move my sofa all over the place before I managed to get a hold of the little bitch again. Sure, she looks cute... I think I might have found a solution though... remove some parts (check photo's below) to lower the sofa to the ground. That'll fix the "crawling under" problem.

However, she also keeps on attacking the other ferrets, whereas the other new female doesn't pose any problem. When I corrected her she even nipped my nose. Luckily I'm used to handling ferrets and don't mind a nip or two. It's probably just stress induced nipping and it'll pass over time. When she starts to feel at home it won't pose a problem anymore.

I still recall when I took Max & Happy in... My hands, feet and fingers were bleeding constantly for the first 3 weeks. Ferrets handle stress very badly.

As you can see... I've adopted two new fuzzies. Both are female, born in the first half of 1999. I took my three boys along and put the five of them together. Some squeeks and noises, but nothing major. After about 10 minutes (or even less) I put all of them into the carrier and head off to home. During the ride home, apparently Ticha (the second photo) kept on biting Bono, who - dumbass as he is - didn't fight it. He just squeeked. Weird ferrets I've got.

When I got home, I let all of them run free for about thirty minutes, while I replaced one of the hammocks with a new one (I bought two instead of making them myself) and I dropped all of them in their cage. Once again some squeeks and turning around, but now everything is quiet on the ferret front.

I don't like the names Ticha and Futsy though... Feel free to suggest new names for the two fuzzies. Remember, they are females, so the name should be kinda female sounding. Oh, and preferably something that sounds like their current names... after nearly 4 years it's not that obvious to get a totally new name.

Things I've done so far :

Vacuum the place - clean up - change water & food for the ferrets - entertain the ferrets - correct and edit a newspaper clipping from november 25th, which appeared in Het Belang van Limburg (also ferret related) - write some files to CD .

Things that remain on my To Do list for today/this weekend :

Go over to the Belgian Ferret League and check out potential adoption ferrets - buy fabrics and cut out some new hammocks - find a way to properly stich it all together - stop by the bank and withdraw money, and think about how I'll handle finances next week - install HD coolers - test Joco's CD writer - buy food.

I watched the Miss Belgium contest at Joco's place and I managed to pick three girls (as mentioned in an earlier post) that weren't even in the contest anymore! Yey for myself... So I picked one other girl (Geraldine something) and she managed to get 0 points from the jury, and get an additional 0 points from the voters at home. It seems I picked the good ones, grin.

However... Julie Taton won the contest, and even though I didn't list them in my favorites, while I was discussing the contest at the office, I told the three ladies in the office that she'd win... which she did. I suppose I do know something about beauty, but not all the time. Had a good time discussing with Joco and we still disagree on women, but sometimes we think alike... it's actually scary :)

There is just one thing we cannot agree on : He thinks Ann van Elsen is fab, I think she's ugly. Well, maybe not ugly, but not hot either. But... we agree that Halle Berry is one hell of a babe!

I'll have to go over to BFL tomorrow, hand over some money of stuff I sold/delivered for them on thursday, check out the (possible) new ferrets, and when I'm back home I'll try and install the HD coolers that I've ordered weeks ago. I also have Joco's CD writer with me to do some tests on, as he can't get it to work at all. I also fixed some small shit on his computer, nothing difficult when you know what it might be, or where to find the correct solution. I like helping out friends.

Last night Dyab Abou JaJah, one of the leaders of AEL (Arab European League) was apprehended and arrested in Deurne, the town I live in.

The local justice departement, police and the major refused to give more details at that time, but have disclosed what charges are brought against him today :

- mededaderschap aan weerspannigheid in bende met voorafgaande afspraak en wapenvertoon
- weerspannigheid in bende met voorafgaande afspraak
- kwaadwillige belemmering van het verkeer
- onbruikbaarmaking van voertuigen in bende
- opzettelijke slagen aan een agent

I don't have the knowledge to give correct translations of the charges, but the big picture is something like this :

- accomplice to public display of weapons in group
- obstruction of traffic with bad intention
- disabling vehicules in group
- intentional violence against police officers

Give or take a bit... Dyab Abou JahJah has been trying - and succeeding - to bring everyone to a point where extreme positions are being taken. You are either for, or against, there is no more inbetween.

I was just going over the 20 candidates for tonight's Miss Belgium contest and I found all of them to be really disappointing. What bird would you like to be? Most answered that they'd wanna be a bird or a dolphin. Only three picked something else (cat, horse and rat)... and - suprisingly - they all love italian food.

Is the contest sponsored by some Italian food chain??? Most also listen to R&B.

After careful selection and reselection, I present to you, my top 3 (in no particular order) : Julie Philippot - Valerie Van Meel - Ilse Bruggen

Should I go off to Joco's place tonight, I'm sure we'll be discussing all night long, and Eef will probably pick the winner.

I called my boss today and asked him if it was possible to come in a bit later coz I wanted to pick up that registered letter. He said it wasn't a problem - thanks a lot - so I arrived at the post office at 08h45 while it only opened at 09h00. I waited 15 minutes and finally got what I needed.

It turned out that it wasn't a letter, but the shipment from BME that got stuck at customs, got extra taxes imposed on it, and then was send by customs to me... by registered mail. To put everything into perspective : I order shirts in Canada, pay quite a lot for shipment, it arrives 1.5 months instead of 2-3 weeks after shipping date, I get taxed additionally and get to pay the costs for registered mail as well.

No wonder people don't order things over the internet... bureaucracy and international taxes make it next to impossible!

I suddenly am very tired and I think I'll head off to bed early. When I came home today I found a note from the mailman that I gotta pick up a registered letter personally.

Would it be the BME shirts that showed up? I don't think so, as it wouldn't be registered mail. I'm really curious what it is, but unfortunately, registered letters only seldom bring good news.

I'll call the boss tomorrow and ask him if I can come in later so that I can pick up the letter first. Which reminds me that way too often institutions and agencies just presume that one can skip work to do things... Get real, will you? I'm a single guy, working about 1 hour away from home and family and friends work too. It's not that simple to "just pop in".

Actually, there's not much to laugh about. 3 technicians are working on the heating system since 10 this morning and they still haven't finished it.

P. just came in and thought she was funny... NOT! I just can't keep my mouth shut whenever she thinks she's funny. I usually answer something that shuts her up right away. Yes... I'm a badass, I know. :)

I'm starting to flip a bit... I think the fact that I couldn't get up this morning has something to do with it. I woke up around 07h56 while I gotta be at Suzana's place at 08h00. I jumped out of my bed - I wished I could have jumped out of someone elses bed, that might have made things easier - got dressed, feeded the ferrets, grabbed something from the fridge, and arrived at Suzana's place around 08h15.

Shake, rattle and roll... I don't think I'll wake up today...

Unannounced BFL meeting - Talked about new ferrets, taking my current carpetsharks on saturday to see if it's possible - New Mozilla (release 1.2) - link and details tomorrow - Played with PHP Nuke, got it running... finally. Had to go to 5.6 though - No real news about important things. D-Day coming very close now. - Gotta check planetickets with KLM, as Visa was (still) not charged, but tickets show as confirmed. - Harry da Potter on Sunday? - Wanted to bring the cops some hot coffee or tea, but don't own a large enough container to transport it. Nor do I have enough cups, tea or coffee. Will have to get those - just in case. It's pretty cold outside!

Note : I'm well aware that this post is not XHTML 1.0 transitional compliant. I'll check out how to properly code the "ordered list" tomorrow. I'm off to bed now.
Note 2 : It is now... I removed the OL tagging and created some unreadable line mess to replace it. I don't really care :)

Late last night and continuing into early this morning riots broke out in Antwerp, Borgerhout (also known as Borgerokko) after a 66 year male old psychiatric patient shot the 27 year old son of his Morroccan neighbor around 16h30. Police arrived to investigate the case, and was soon after it attacked by about 100 riotting youngsters that claimed the murder was race related.

Abou JahJah (AEL) of course also showed up with his "private militia" to "keep an eye on the police" as they handled the case. This only enraged the already violent mass of people. Apparently, it's quite common for this type of people to throw stones at the police, damage parked cars and break the windows of shops, instead of being constructive and helping the police solve problems.

I think this clearly shows that there still is a very big difference in mentality and perceptance of reality between these violent young criminals, who - on the one hand - whish to be respected and accepted by the populace, but are far from accepting and respecting the law and mentality themselves.

If the situation keeps on evolving as is, one can be assured that certain right wing orientated political parties will grow even more during the elections, due next year.

Links : VTM News - Teletekst - De Standaard - Het Nieuwsblad

I just watched the new series of Life as it is : Police and I still love it. What makes it even more interesting is the fact that the makers of the series have been following cops from Antwerp, the city I live in. I understand the dialect they speak, all those small differences in tone and choice of words. It must be one of the best series made, ever.

Should you be able to watch it, I highly recommend it!

my descision was correct. SANM stock continued going up, and went as high as 4.83 (my target!) today, and the stockmarket has just opened. Unfortunately, I didn't get to buy the stock as they opened higher as my limit.

I'm gonna cancel all orders for it now, and check out some other stocks that look promising. Although I didn't get profit from it, it's good to see that my instincts were correct.

As you might have noticed, friedkitten.com has been offline for a few hours today. I've been monitoring the site all the time, and it seems 3 servers went down at the host.

Everything seems to be running fine again, but I've posted a message at the hosts board to see what was the problem. I'll keep an eye open!

Update : Message from Annette (Super Genius) You'll note that those timestamps were from much earlier - the script got itself hung up without updating, which is another reason we're working on replacing it with something a bit more robust. The NOC is in the process of rearranging our servers in the racks to consolidate their locations, but was not supposed to start until the end of the week, so caught up unawares without a notice that this was going to happen (a notice that will be posted in about ten seconds after I finish this one). I suppose a schedule bump up is better than a delay, but I'm not all that fond of surprises.

I've just send out an eviction note to a girl for whom I was hosting her blog. While I offered her to host it, it was very active and alive, and she got closed down because some people couldn't handle what she wrote.

Over the past months it has become a content-less, irregulary updated boring site. Since it's still my webspace, I've decided to mail her and stop the hosting at the beginning of january 2003.

Hey K****,

I hope you don't mind, but I'm gonna have to ask you to move the blog and such to another server starting from january 2003.

I've been watching and monitoring your subdomain, and it's hardly alive to be honest. No updates, all the content is gone and you don't seem to be around much any longer. I hope you enjoyed your stay, and have enough time to relocate everything.

Feel free to contact me should you have any questions regarding it.

Greetz,

Friedkitten.

I've just grabbed the new PHP-Nuke 6.0 from PHPNuke.org as I am intending to use it to (re)build the current site we've got for the company.

Unfortunately, I'm not used to working with it and it seems to be quite a pain in the ass to configure. I'm sure I'll figure out what I'm doing wrong in a few hours, maybe even days, as I managed to get MT running too. After all, both are CMS and it can't be THAT hard.

If anyone has very good knowledge on installing PHP Nuke 6.0, feel free to leave a comment. I'm installing it on a subdomain right now, but I don't think that makes things much harder. I've upped all the files in the archive in binary mode, and I suppose that's where I made the first mistake... the .sql and .php probably need to be upped in ascii.

Unfortunately, the install file that comes with the package is pretty worthless if you ask me. It basically says : unzip the files on your server, configure config.php and you're up and running. Right... and what when things go wrong?

In that case... I'm off to check some phpnuke forums. I'm sure I'll find what I need there.

I just placed a new order to buy on Nasdaq. Apparently ATML and VTSS (two stocks I've traded in the past weeks, and both got me a nice gain) are still doing pretty well, but I've decided to go for something else : Sanmina-Sci (SANM). Friday they closed 15 percent higher and I think they could do quite a lot better.

I intend to buy at USD 4.00 and sell at USD 4.84. More info about what exactly Sanmina-Sci does, can be found below. I'm off to bed now, as I should be well rested for another busy week.

I should try to make an appointement at the bank as well, since they are planning to install some new features in their software and everyone needs to come by personally to get new access codes. Which I think, sucks bigtime. The main reason I use phonebanking all the time is because it doesn't require going in each time. I just don't have the time for it.

A molecule of water is composed of an atom of oxygen and two atoms of hydrogen (H2O). An atom of oxygen is composed of eight electrons (negative charge), eight protons (positive charge), and can have varying number (creating isotopes) of neutrons (neutral charge).

The electrons orbit the nucleus of the atom. The nucleus is composed of a cluster of protons and neutrons. The protons and neutrons are composed of quarks. A quark is a fundamental particle, which possesses both electric charge and 'strong' charge. They combine in groups of two or three to form composite objects (called mesons and baryons, respectively), held together by the strong force.

Protons and neutrons are both are made up of three quarks. The quarks come in six different species, each of which have a unique mass. The two lightest, unimaginatively called 'up' and 'down' quarks, combine to form protons and neutrons.

I can hear everybody wonder why the hell I posted that info here. Because I can, and there is nothing wrong with learning some new things. For that same reason I'm reading a book about how language evolved, and how sarcasm works.

After all, in many cases sarcasm is saying A while actually meaning B, and in most cases A and B are opposites. Yet most people 'feel' what the correct interpretation of the sentence is.

I've only read a few pages so far, and it does require a rather high level of concentration, yet I think it's pretty interesting. Even if I only understand 10 percent of all the content, I'll have learned a lot of new things.

I just noticed... somewhere along the line, visitor 10.000 passed the blog. Congrats to whomever it was. I hope you enjoyed the read.

I am not addicted. I just find turning my box on and off takes too long. I require instant readiness, web connection and such. Those are pretty normal things, not?

Come on, tell me I'm normal?

Note : Sorry about the crappy statistics pictures. I forgot to adjust the compression level on that first picture, and as you might have noticed, compressing a file with sixty percent, is not a good idea. I did the second one only with ten percent compression. Much better!

I just took a hot bath, hoping it would be relaxing, and it was... kind of. My right shoulder is in pain, but not blocked (yet) and the hot water did remove some of the tension in the muscles. However, it's not yet all gone. Could somebody - preferably one who knows a lot about massaging - pop in and massage all the tension out of my body?

Thanks a lot.

Sledrun, just try it. I got to level 7, but never cleared it. Funny stuff, especially if you have too much spare time on your hands.

Update : I cleared level 7 as well.

I've been working with ferrets all day long (10h00 till 18h30) and I'm pretty tired, even though there were not that much people. Apparently saturday is quite a bit slower as sunday, when looking at the number of visitors. On the other hand, today we worked the fair with only 3 people in total, tomorrow BFL will have a crew of 9...

I was even offered to adopt 2 ferrets, really cute ones too, but unfortunately they're females and I already have 3 male ferrets. It's not that it would be a terrible problem, but somehow I don't feel like bringing fights and chaos into my current group. No offense to anyone, but female ferrets tend to be more dominant when it comes to social behaviour. Apart from that, the three boys are aproximately 5-6 years old, and the two females are only 3.

It would be a nice way to bring some new blood in the group though. I've got to be realistic and consider the fact that my current ferrets will not be there forever. I'll have to think it over, and maybe I should try if the females fit into the group. After all, I introduced more ferrets into various groups before, and it never really posed any problems, but all of them were males.

Damn, it seems I'm already considering taking them in! Actually, why not? If I don't, they'll have a hard time finding another home, as they need to be placed together - they are sisters and it wouldn't be wise to separate them - and not everyone is interested in adopting 2 ferrets at once, especially when they're already 3 years old.

See? I'm really considering it now. I'll see what news comes along with the new week, and since there should be a BFL meeting somewhere during the week, I might discuss details.

Heather : Yes... unlike women, we have quiet times too :D

The things I've heard today were kinda suprising and not all that suprising at the same time. I've got a whole lot of thinking to do this weekend.

Even though things have not really really changed, they did. It's really hard to explain, and because of that reason won't even try to do so now. I'm a typical male : I need to figure things out myself first, before I can comment or express what I think or feel about it.

The future might be very interesting, that's for sure.

I decided to change some of the Mood GFX that are on this blog. And just because I was feeling like it, I replaced two of them with shots that hopefully cheer people up.

I'm still thinking about the last one (top right) coz I want it to be a contradiction to the mood of the two others, and still be nature related. I'll find something soon, as I already have some ideas about what I want.

Update : Done. I figured a shot of an atomic blast and cloud would be a good opposite to the still and peaceful beaty of flowers and animals. Atoms are what everyone and everything is made of, and therefore also part of nature. How it is or should be used however, remains open for discussion.

I just got home about 20 minutes ago. I promised to help set up everything for the animal happening in Hasselt that's taking place on friday, saturday and sunday. At first they thought the other would arrive around 19h00, so I figured I could stay in the neighborhood and leave right from the office.

They showed up at 20h45. Yes... bye bye planning. I'm gonna entertain the ferrets for a few minutes now, then hit the bed for a while and leave for work again tomorrow. No special meetings during the day, but I've arranged for a meeting with some people that have become pretty important to me over the year(s) later in the evening. The subject will not be joyful, but I'm sure we'll have a good time.

Schtroumpfs doesn't have anything to do with the content of this post. I just felt like writing the word to see how it looked.

Update : I just got a message from Ashley that the stickers arrived at her place today. 1500 brand new limited edition FK sticker to spread all over the globe. Stick It!

I just noticed that I was able to dump VTSS on Nasdaq at a very small profit after they plunged into oblivion last week. Bought at USD 2.20, dropped to USD 1.68 and today sold at USD 2.43.

Only a marginal profit, but I was actually thinking I'd have to dump them at a loss. It ended up giving me a net positive result of about € 85.00

This time it paid off to hang on and not sell in a panic reaction. I gotta become more careful though and not gamble that much anymore. After all, the idea is to build up some spare cash, not to stuff cash in a bottomless pit.

I thought I'd never say this, but really... beware of the evil called Nasdaq :)

Update : They even went as high as 2.73. I could have almost made the initial target I set when I bought them. Well, better safe then sorry I guess.

Lalalala... fuck the system, especially when it's an HP OfficeJet D145.

You know... blue cows can't fly, even though they match the color of the sky.

You know... wet beavers are a species that is not yet on the verge of extinction, but should be supported by everyone anyway. I hereby launch the "safe the wet beaver" organization.

All support, ideas, slogans, or wet beavers are welcome! (Yups... that means you gotta comment)

These facts have got nothing to do with eachother... I think.

- I'm suffering from a terrible headache, and feel very tired.
- Stopped over at my dad's place and went out to dinner with Bob & Hilda, had a good time and lots of laughs.
- I received a book in the mail today, send by someone of a book exchange/gift ring I'm part of. It looks promising, thanks a lot Vanilla! (Title : "Talk is Cheap - Sarcasm, alienation, and the evolution of language")
- WinMX seems to be fucked up for some reason I cannot pinpoint right now. I'll hopefully be able to look into it over the weekend.

has thus far not been a very good day. Nor business wise, nor personal. I've been in a meeting quite a long time, spend even more time in the car, and although the concept that was presented could be a short term solution for a technical question we got from a client, but a long term solution will take about 6 to 9 months to develop, test and get certified.

Some other things happened, but this is not the right time nor place to talk about it. If all of it is completed and passed I'll say more, but I think (<- Stephke, thanks for pointing out that I forgot that word) she did fine.

Yey! I just received a mail from Contagious Graphics that my sticker order has already shipped... 7 days earlier as their first estimate. Ashley will be receiving them shortly and I'll be picking them up in a while.

I also contacted Ryan of BMEshop as my last order still hasn't arrived, and it should have been here about 1 and a half week ago. Unfortunately, it was send without tracking and thus I have got no clue where it might be. Neither does Ryan. I just hope it shows up soon! Otherwise I'll have spend quite a lot of money and still don't own cool BME work shirts :(

Been in and out of meeting all day long, and the net result was "nothing". Well, maybe slightly better as nothing, but still... it sucks. D-Day comes closer, only 10 days left. I'm starting to move things into position and clean up shit for the final outcome, whatever it might be.

Shelley : The Bonds that I know (no particular order) :

- Pierce Brosnan
- Roger More (wasn't he The Saint too?)
- Timothy Dalton
- Sean Connery

And for once I didn't revert to IMDB to check on things ;)

Note : Don't trust names of files in WinMX. I just spend 31 hours grabbing Die Another Day, and now that it's complete, it turns out to be... tadaaaahhh... "The Emperor's New Groove", some Disney movie.

FUCK!

Sandy goes to a gyneacologist for an exam and he tells her she's pregnant.
Sandy is very pissed off and calls her boyfriend, who's at work at the time.
She yells down the line "Asshole, you've made me pregnant!"
To which he replies "That could very well be, but who am I talking to?"

"Mom, is it true what I've just heard from a girl at school?" asks a teen girl to her mom.
"Do babies really come out where boys have put they thing in?"
"Yes dear" the mother answers, while being relieved that her daughter is very open about questions regarding sexuality.
"But mom, if I get a baby" the teen asks with a concerned voice, "won't my brace be terribly in the way?"

Because some radio station had a question about the soon to be released James Bond movie Die Another Day, I ended up at the James Bond site.

I suggest you check out the 30 pictures of the movies, the poster section or certainly the video section. It has the trailer online, as well as the fabulous new madonna videoclip for the movie. I just streamed it over a simple 10 Mbit connection and it looked fab!

Halle Berry stars in the movie too, so it just can't go wrong. Is it obvious I like Halle Berry? She played a fantastic role in Swordfish, and I think that her playing Jinx is a move that will increase the quality of the movie a lot.

Fuck Bond... Halle is the best :)

Thanks to everyone who voted! I actually decided to send the inverted (white letters on black background) design off to the printers, and it should be shipped around november 27th to an address in the USA. I'll pick it up later and start sending off free samples to the following people :

Joco (Belgium) - Shelley (New Zealand) - Ashley (USA) - Cy (USA) - Eve Hill (USA)

And because these people took the time to send in their vote, I decided to increase the number of stickers to be distributed to 25 instead of 20. If I'm correct, this means everyone mentioned above will get 5 limited edition FK stickers!

Congrats to all of you!

I've been playing GTA : Vice City with Joco on PS2, toying around with little Alex who's not that little anymore, and later on I had Jess & Johan over for dinner. I've just kicked them out, so it's peaceful and quiet again.

I'm gonna reply to some IM's, read a few mails and pass time till 23h00 - I'm gonna try and go to bed early today. Last night it was 02h30 :)

Are you too disgusted by all the "we mean well, but don't have a clue about the real world" organisations that offer teenagers advice concerning sex and relationships?

Yes? Head over to Technical Virgin and find out how to make the smart choice for your future.

No? You don't know what you are missing, really. No, god doesn't kill a kitten everytime you masturbate. If that were the case, cats would have been wiped off the face of the earth since 1973!

Remember : Masturbation is a form of selfexpression. Didn't Madonna sing "Express Yourself?" She definately knows! Do you express yourself? Tell me all about it... it'll lift my selfexpression abilities to higher levels.

According to Yahoo! I'm the "worlds weirdest person". Yes, I was quite surprised as well, but try searching for those exact words and this site turns up as number 1. Thanks Yahoo!, I'll remember you in my non-existant prayers :)

So, let's look at some other searchengine wickedness. Someone asked iWon about "dumb crap pics" and I turned up as result 521 in a total of 23.400 sites. iWon is powered by Google. Not too bad either I guess, but it really makes me wonder who'd go thru 521 sites looking for dumb crap pics. It must be someone with way too much free time, don't you think?

Should someone be looking for "erotic + fetches + sex + shop" on Yahoo! (again) I score a nice 5th place out of 98. I actually think the search was intended to be "fetishes", and not "fetches", but hey... we're not all a genius, are we?

Google tells surfers that I'm hit number 56 out of 309 when looking for "sports blooper pics". I don't even recall ever having written anything about it! And when looking for "erotic fair" on the german google, friedkitten.com is hit number 53 out of 607.

And last, but certainly not least, I have to tell you about an AOL Search for "human, getting pregnant, by canine sex"... yes, you've read that correctly. I'm hit number 7, right after time.com. Incredible, don't you think?

I'd wish people would search and find me by terms like intelligent, smart, goodlooking, witty, humor, blogging, crazy fucking belgian... but alas, it doesn't seem to be like that. I'm not witty, smart nor goodlooking. But at least I beat hundreds - if not thousands - of sites in the searchengines when it comes down to the nitty gritty perverted things everyone wants.

I should consider changing my byline from "insanity included. Everything you didn't wanna know in the first place" to somethings along the lines of "the least understood blogger", "picked by the searchengines for the wrong reason" or finally "a perverts paradise come true".

Joco's comments are in italics

First of all , i do understand a tattoo is kinda a way of expression, it's a part that belongs to your body... it's part of you.

But imagine, someone who is not yet 16 years old, going into a tattoo shop getting tattoo's and piercing that will remain for the rest of their lives.

Getting a tattoo is not a decission you make in 5 minutes, it's something you have tyo think bout, think about the concequences....

Children younger as 16 do not have the mentallity, the life expirience you need to make that kinda descission.

Why not forbit ppl younger as 16/18tattoo's ? Imo, thats a good step forward; although i know even ppl in their40's don't really think about concequences when getting tattoo's.

I seem to remember writing "I do support the fact that in some cases it's not wise to get tattooed or pierced that young, but there is no way to let age alone be the deciding factor."

This means exactly what you said... age is no guarantee to have achieved the necessary wisdom and experience to make such permanent decisions, neither is being young a guarantee not to have achieved all that. It depends on various factors.

Therefore I'm not in favor of an age-restricted law, but would prefer to have the artist decide whether or not they see it fit to do the procedure. Parents signing a release form for minors would be a solution too. This is the situation in a lot of countries btw.

And about tattoo's in public : A tattoo is something personal that you get for yourself, not for showing off, but for yourself.

While I do agree that they are personal for most people, that would not mean they have to cover them up. Everyone should have to accept others as they are, even if that includes someone wants to show their work of art in public.

Tattoo's should NOT be forbidden in public, but... if it's shocking, or whatever.. they should indeed be forbidden....
Imagine i'm judish, and you have a tattoo telling me judish ppl should get killed, or you have a hitler sign tattoo'd on your arm and you show that in public.

Is that freedom of expression ? no.. it's a vioolation, cause if you would write that down on in a paper, you would get into trouble....

The case where you put tattoos to reflect a certain belief that might (or will) shock others has got nothing to do with the tattoo itself, does it? Those cases come down to plain common sense, the same goes for writing, publications, records and such. Where does one's individual freedom start, and where does it end? Allowing someone their personal freedom might result in others having less.

I'm not saying that everything should be allowed to be visible anywhere and anytime. The bearer of whatever body modification they have, should realize that it might shock others, and be prepared to act accordingly. If getting mods for the sole purpose to shock, you are obviously not wise enough to realize that what shocks today, may not do so in 5 or 10 years.

freedom of expression: Oke... but withing certain limits of age, morality and ethics!

True. So, where did you think we might get into a discussion? :) I just wished everyone looked at it this way and so mature.

Senator Destexhe (MR) wil dat tatoueerders en piercers verplicht worden zich in te schrijven in het handelsregisters. Volgens Destexhe zijn er aanwijzingen dat nogal wat jongeren een hepatitis C-besmetting oplopen door het laten aanbrengen van tatouages en piercings in ongecontroleerde omstandigheden. Met zijn wetsvoorstel wil Destexhe piercings en tatouages bij jongeren jonger dan 16 jaar verbieden.

De verplichte inschrijving zou een betere controle over de sector mogelijk maken. De senator zal een wetsvoorstel indienen waarvan hij verhoopt dat het door minister van volksgezondheid Tavernier wordt omgezet in een Koninklijk Besluit dat onmiddellijk in voege kan treden. Volgens Destexhe, die zelf arts is, werkt het ministerie van Volksgezondheid momenteel aan een "code van goed gedrag" voor de sector. Maar daarmee kunnen geen misbruiken uitgesloten worden

That's the text that appeared in a newspaper on november 15th. Apparently, some senator of whom I've never heard want to forbid people under the age of 16 to get tatooed or pierced. That would prevent them from "getting tatooed or pierced in uncontrolled environments, often leading to Hepatitis-C infections".

This discussion has be going on for a very long time on international sites (for instance on BME Zine) and now this wise ass thinks he can regulate everything swiftly? I do support the fact that in some cases it's not wise to get tattooed or pierced that young, but there is no way to let age alone be the deciding factor. Besides, strictly regulating shops and studios will only force under aged kids to explore other options - self piercing, self tattooing, or ended up in shops that don't take hygiene as serious as they should.

In other words... it won't solve a damn thing - they are using the wrong arguments to get control over yet another community. Thus far, the community has been selfregulating, and it has worked well. If government starts interfering, it'll just result in good artists quitting because they cannot afford the extra costs that obviously will come along.

Next thing we know is that tattoos or piercings are illegal, or cannot be shown in public. I have tattoos and that's who I am. Should someone forbid those, they deny me my basic right of expressing myself. And that, I'll never let happen.

Fallen Angel Studios : extraordinary photographic and digital art.

You've got about 47 hours left if you still want to enter the sticker contest! Closing time is october november 17th, 00h00 (GMT+1). Simple rule : send a mail and tell me which sticker design you like most (scroll down to check the complete post). If you include your name and snail mail address, you might receive free stickers!

I'm off to bed now, as I seem to be pretty tired - and the weekend just begun ;)

Oh... forget about the "free stuff" sites that I linked to. They're all full of crap, bollocks and shite.

I can hardly believe it : Wouter Tyberghien (the jeweller that shot a burglar in 1999) was convicted for manslaughter today, but the sentence will be suspended for a year. He has to pay for legal costs though, and those add up to € 9.688.

What signal does justice want to send to criminals? "Hey, just come over here, rob our stores, steal our goods, threathen us with guns... it's not like we can or will do anything to stop you!" Noooo, 'coz when we do, we are sentenced for it, while the criminals face much lesser punishments.

If a criminal enters my place, or robs me, you can be damn sure thay - should I have the chance - he'll make a nasty fall. I can always say that I came home while he was in the room, and that he tried to run but tripped and fell. Hey, he should have watched where he was going. Yes, he was very desperate and 'jumped' off the terrace, to escape. The fact that I live 3 high has got nothing to do with it. Would I be sorry? Not at all! If they decide to step out of normal regulations by robbing me, they cannot be expected to be protected by that same judicial systems. One goes with the other.

I work(ed) hard for everything that I own and have right now. I'm not a sheep that will be taken to the slaughterhouse without fighting. Criminals get more and more aggressive, and civilians that obey the laws get restricted in their defences.

People should have the right to defend themselves, and their property!

Do you know the frustration when you are trying to recall the name of an artist, or band from memory, and it just doesn't pop up? It's on the tip of my tongue, but it just can't remember the name of a band I once picked up from MP3.com and I listened to some of their tracks. I do seem to remember that it was a brazilian band, and they did (amongst others) an X-Files remix. I'm pretty sure one of their tracks contained lines from Star Trek as well.

Splurt! Damn, I "know" the bands name starts with a C, and I already tried searching my MP3 CD's but I couldn't find those tracks. And yes... now I remember : Central Dogma! I knew it was something with a "C" in it :)

However, it seems the old songs are nowhere to be found anymore :( I guess I'll have to send the man a mail to see if I can find them anywhere.

Note : I checked the MP3 CD's again and it seems I still got the tracks! Yey for myself!!! "Locutus of Borg" and "Terrestres (Trust No One)", performed by Central Dogma. If you're into totally hardcore Electronic Body Music, or whatever you want to call it (Experimental?) I suggest you somehow check those tracks out. I like them, but that might be due to my... insanity.

I went in late - it actually was close to 13h30 - as I had some things that I needed to take care of rather urgently. I settled most things to my satisfaction, even though no real news has become available.

Worked on the curriculum in anticipation of things that might be heading this way. I don't know what to think anymore : one half says the I need to remain loyal and trustful, the other part says abandon ship and save yourself! I've come to an agreement with myself that I'll still go for the first option, but also be prepared for rough times. Even if I don't need the curriculum anytime soon, it'll never be a waste of time.

Good news too! I picked up the new passport today. USA here I come!

Excerpt of a text I've written very recently (not on this page though) :
I look after myself and some very close friends and family. If I can say I can take care of myself and them, I'm very pleased with myself, honestly. I am not Atlas and have no intention to take the weight of the world on my shoulders.

I always believed women went on a shoppingspree to free themselves of stress and bad moods. I just did the same, as I ordered a bunch of stickers! I figured out a way to get them shipped, so expect stickerpower to be available in Europe around the second week of january 2003!

Yes, that's a pretty long time, but since they couldn't ship to Europe, I'm having them shipped to the USA, and then I'll pick them up when I visit Ashley.

Does this mean the sticker voting contest is over? No! So, I decided which design to send off to the printer, but that doesn't mean you can't vote anymore, and maybe get some free stickers. Scroll down for full rules and explenation.

Now... how much of them did I order? 250? 500? 750? 1500? 3000? 6000? The minimum is 250, and the max mentioned on the site is 6000. Tell me how many you think I ordered, taking into consideration I'm pretty much stressed and really needed to calm down a bit. Comments are welcome!

Tired of using Office 97, 2002 or XP? Fed up with the extreme licensing fees M$ forces upon you, or don't trust the registration and activation that's needed?

Check out OpenOffice.org and download a free Office Suite that should be able to do almost anything the Micro$oft Ca$hcow Office has up it's sleeve, without the harrassements that come with it.

Latest release is OpenOffice 1.0.1 stable and builds are available from Windows, Linux, PPC Linux, Solaris and Mac X (beta). Link thanks to GeekMan

I got home around 20h00 after working on a machine for a client all day long. I expected it to take only about four and a half hours, but I think we came closer to 6 or 7 hours in the end. Hell, it was the first one we did, so we'll be able to make a better estimate next time.

Does anyone know why a HP OfficeJet D145 connected through USB doesn't show up in Windows XP Professional? The system obviously detects the plug in of a USB device, and it even installed the printer, but it just doesn't show up, and when asked to print, complaints that no printer is installed. Pretty irritating, let me tell you that!

I already did a cold boot, reboot, uninstall software, reinstall software, reinstalled more up to date software, nothing solves the problem. Unfortunately, the customer does expect us to solve it, but I'm sure I'll find a way to get the stupid thing to work - even if it takes kicking it around, or threathening to do so.

I just got a call from Viviane, and it seems a helping hand is required, so I'll be helping out the people of the BFL on thursday evening (21st) and saturday (23rd) during the day. I don't mind doing that at all, but I am not too enthousiastic about it either. Especially saturday will be totally exhausting again. Don't get me wrong, I really like the BFL and all the ferrets, but well... I'm not in the mood for all of it. Especially when I load and unload at a 110% to get everything done as quickly as possible, and some are just cruising around. I know not all of them are as fit and young as I am, but there's still a difference between just being there, or trying to get things done.

If you are looking for the sticker contest, scroll down a bit... it's still there and kicking ass. Just got another vote in from the USA, and both designs are equally preferred it seems. Which reminds me : if you need some nice new boxers, thongs or a ski hat for the coming winter, check out the brand new FK shop on the left hand side! We also got Baseball Jersey's, fleece pullovers or a Baby Doll T-shirt that looks totally stunning when combined with a superb black FK cap!

Can you imagine your love in front of you, wearing the FK thongs, a Baby Doll T and nothing else? I can assure you... the temperature will be hotter than hot!

I've been busy creating some simple stickers. Nothing fancy, just something that should stand out, and remain easy to read. I'm gonna put two designs up, and hope some of you will take the time to let me know which one pleases you the most. The sticker will be high quality weather proof vinyl, so there shouldn't be a problem sticking it on your car, favorite lightpost or sexy aunt for the next 3 years!

And... because I know my world, those who take the time to vote by e-mail ([email protected]) and include their snail mail address are eligible to receive 2 stickers for free by mail. I'll reserve a total of 20 stickers for this little voting giveaway, so if 10 or less people vote, everyone gets 2. If more people vote, I'll throw all entries in a hat and draw 10 lucky winners. Those winners will be announced here.

This voting contest is open to everyone, wherever you may live. Yes, I do ship worldwide.

Rules : All entries should reach us by e-mail before november 17th, 00h00 (GMT+1). All entries received after that, will be void. Your snail mail address or e-mail address will be deleted from our system after the stickers have been send, and will under no circumstance be used or passed on to someone else. I hate spam as much as everyone else! Everyone can only vote once, and multiple entries from the same e-mail address, or the same snail mail address will be discarded.

If you vote, clearly mention Regular or Inverted. In order to avoid misunderstanding : the first one (black FK logo on white background) is the Regular one. The black background sticker is an Inverted one.

Update : Votes are pouring in and right now it's a close call but the Inverted design is slightly in the lead. Wanna get some cool free FK stickers? Vote by e-mail ([email protected]) and include your snail mail address!

Update 2 : Wow! Things have turned, and now the Regular design is in the lead again. Currently votes have been cast from Belgium, USA and New Zealand, so it's not too late to join in!

Update 3 : Apparently Contagious Graphics doesn't ship internationally. I'm either looking for another company, or somewhere I can send the stickers to in the USA, and then pick them up, or someone who wants to ship them to me.

More free stuff can be found at : TotallyFreeStuff - The Free Site - Fab Free - Killer Freebies They're all full of shite! It's a complete waste of time, and probably just a scam to collect e-mail addresses. I can't believe they actually tricked me into believing they were genuine and respectable sites.

I just got back from the 18th edition of Jazz Kroegentocht Lier, and I really liked it. It would have been better though that it lasted a bit longer, as bands only started playing at 21h00 and quit around 01h00. We (Bob, Hilda, Dimitri, Marianne, Nadia and I) started off in a pub called "De Valk" where we saw "The Smokey Midnight Gang" play Boogie Woogie, Rhythm & Blues and Jazz, in a pub called "'t goe voorbeeld" we watched "Sofie & So Four" do their thing, which is Funk R&B, and we ended with "Fetch" in a pub called "Falstaf" and they brought mostly covers but in some really fantastic blues version.

I think I'll return for the nineteenth edition next year, but I truely madly deeply hope that the pubs are bigger and less crowded by then :)

I just finished cleaning the ears of my three carpetsharks - I already clipped their nails yesterday, and now I'm off to Joco's place to enjoy the company of my friends, play with little Alex and kick Joco's ass in Fifa 2003 on PS2.

I'm gonna mail my old Flying Dutchman card in, and hope to win a zillion of airmiles or so. Who knows :)

Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons.

Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to the dull and ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexations to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery.

But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection.

Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment, it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.

Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.

But do not distress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline be gentle to yourself.

You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars and you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore, be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be.

And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.

Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

(Max Ehrmann, 1927)

I just recently received a call from Jess and one from Joco. I wanna thank both of them for their understanding, even though they have their own problems. It's just great to have friends like that!

I've got a terrible headache although I did joke around quite a lot today. Unfortunately, there is not much to joke about. When or if the descision is final, I'll disclose more info.

Those who are prepared, survive.

Note : I'm getting pissed off now. I just checked my account balance and at least one of the accounts is about € 150 in overdraft, and there is not much I can do about it right now. I already transferred some money from a savingsaccount to get it to only € -150. Yes, I can have the possibility to transfer more, but I refuse to do so. If this situation cannot be cleared by next tuesday, I'll draw definate conclusions.

Nothing much interesting happening today, but at the same time we progressed in the right direction. When results will be available is not certain yet though.

Ok... I promised you feedback on all those comments about the post on juvenile prisons I did a few days back. Cy just added her two cents, and I don't figure I'll get any other comments from you freaky lazy cunts out there, so I'll just state my point on those brave enough to step forward and speak their mind.

Richenda : so you actually are convinced that community should never give up on kids, no matter what they have done? And age restrictions should be applied to the letter, in all cases? I'm sorry to say so, but you do live in a very ideal naive world I think.

Criminals, and juveniles know exactly what the punishment is when an underage 'kid' violates the law : practically nothing. The result is that victims lose faith in the judicial system, and in youth. And they know that it's very probable that the offender will return to treathen the victim even more, fully realizing that nothing shocking is going to happen. Welcome to dream land. I'll make sure never to vote for you. Thanks for speaking your mind though... I just hope you can one day put things in perspective.

Eve Hill : that's a much more differentiated point of view you have. First of all you have a kind of experience (with your cousin) which makes the feedback more valuable. I still think though that age should not be a limiting factor on conviction. Even the youngest kids (5-6 years old) can do awful things, AND realize that it's wrong. However, in that case the parents should be punished as much as the kids themselves. After all, the parents are (or should be) 1. responsible 2. educating their kids.

I see more and more parents blaming the school and education system for whatever goes wrong. If it's your kids, take responsability for them. You (referring to the parents, not you personally of course) can make the difference, don't force that upon others.
I agree that juvenile prison is not always the right punishment, but I refuse to let everything just go... What message are we sending to young violators then? "Do as you please, but when you turn 18 and one minute, we'll go down on you so hard you won't know what hit you." Doesn't sound like the correct message to me. I guess alternative scentences could solve the problem or at least make juveniles understand what the result of their action was.

Cy : Yeps. I have to agree here. Age should not be used as the sole factor to take into account anymore, when deciding on how to try some juveniles. If they are 'old and wise' enough to rob someone, they are also old and wise enough to be treated as adults. One thing comes with another, but you just can't pick and choose when you want to be treated as a kid, and when you want to be treated as an adult.

Age doesn't make you an adult, but your actions do. People often say : "they are just kids..." but you hardly ever hear the victims say things like that. But I won't get you started :)

So... everyone, thanks a lot for the comments, and feel very welcome in the future to agree of disagree with me again. We can also agree to disagree on something of course. We're adults, right?

Really, it does. And there ain't much I can do about it right now.

Note : Fuck... I was trying to implement something here, but I found it to be too intrusive and I removed it again. I guess I'm trying to tell you not to mind what I meant. Today, I don't know what I'm doing anyway.

I was watching a documentary about juvenile prisons and how the 'kids' are treated there. I'm not gonna go much deeper into it, but I wonder about two things :

1. Do we - as a community - have the obligation to keep on trying to help these kids?
2. Should age always be a factor during trial, or be used to decide if the kid should be tried as a kid, or as an adult.

Think about it, and feel free to give feedback. I'll discuss all feedback during the coming days.

Since I didn't really eat anything during the day, I got quite hungry around 19h30 and I ordered a chinese rice table for two. I'm all alone, but I'll just finish the rest of it tomorrow. It's good stuff :)

This is what it contained :

Tomato soup
8 Mini eggrolls with currysauce
Chicken with various vegetables
Baked chicken parts with sweet & sour sauce
Nasigoreng
Chop-choy

Nice combination, don't you think? And the stuff is damn healthy as well!

Oh, next week I'll be off on sunday to some Jazz thing in Lier, together with my dad, Hilda, Nadia, Dimi and Marianne. It's gonna be fun, that I know in advance...

Katelove2 sent me this link where I found absolutely stunning B&W photographs of July Snow who also has her own site.

If you can reckognize wonderful art when you see it, and are not offended by nudity, go check it out!

As I turn around in bed I notice a presence unknown. When I stretch my arms, I feel a body nearby. A hot, living body. Instinctively I feel that everything is alright, and I let my hand roam the body. Neck, straight back, nice ass, firm tummy, perfect breasts. I move closer and we lay in a spoon position, as if it were like that forever. I drift off again, very comfortable and close to whomever it may be.

Some time later I wake up again, and I'm flat on my back. That same body is still next to me, laying against my right side, one leg over my groin, one arm over my chest and a head resting on my shoulder. I hear both of us breathing slowly, bodies in rest. I drift away again, knowing that everything is exactly the way it is supposed to be.

Isn't it wonderful that in dreams, things are always how they are supposed to be?

No, I'm not gonna write about porn here, although I might feel like it :)

I'm off in a few minutes to pick up my sister and then to the theatre to see XXX aka Triple X, starring Vin Diesel, who also starred in The Fast & The Furious.

It even seems there is a sequel scheduled - conveniently named XXX2 - for 2004. I'll let you know whether I liked it or not.

Update : I've just returned from the movies. Getting there was a total pain in the ass! It was raining, saturday evening and for some reason unknown to me, people tend to loose all sense of intelligence during the weekends, and especially when it rains. I left home at 21h30, picked up my sister (left at her place at 21h48) and the movie starts at 22h30. Lot's of time, don't you think? Not! We entered the theatre at 22h39, just in time for the start... and we were on row 3 or so. Watching movies from row 3 really sucks, let me tell you that.

Anyway... XXX was Ok, not great, not bad either. Lotsa action, great stunts but a total lack of plot. I'll give you the ingredients and instructions on how to make XXX :

Ingredients

1 Vin Diesel (both bad boy & good boy)
1 Russian secret agent called Yelena
1 tsjechian boss (bad guy)
1 tsjechian secret agent
1 submarine that turns out to be a kind of flying boat instead
several tracks of Rammstein
lots of tsjech big and evil men (bad guys)

Instructions

Stir, don't shake. Present with a bit of lime, and drink ice cold.

I'm up kinda early and am sitting - naked - behind the keyboard. Yes, those are some of the things I can do whenever it pleases me.

I've got some Dire Straits music playing and my back is definately improving. I've got quite a lot of stuff to do today, but knowing myself, if I manage to do 50% of it, I'll be glad.

To Do :
1. Shopping for ferret food & supplies
2. Shopping for human food & supplies
3. Laundry (a lot)
4. Ironing (an even fucking bigger lot)
5. fix wallpaper in bedroom (will be on the list for a looong time)
6. clean around the house
7. enjoy myself
8. check finances and xfer cash as my pay has not yet arrived (also see 1 & 2)
9. enjoy myself even more
10. try to decide what I'll have for dinner tonight

Went over to the Belgian Ferret League and booked a cage for my boys (for the time I'm off to the USA). I also installed a modem and fixed some PC troubles they still had. In return (and for the hours I've spend fixing their PC's last month) they didn't charge me for the 13kg of litter and 10 kg of food I needed. Fair deal for everyone!

I just successfully moved from MT 2.21 to the recently released version 2.51.

Movable Typ version 2.5 had been out for a while, but I know bugs and patches are a part of software, so I decided to skip the first release and wait for a 'field' tested version to be released.

Upgrading - providing everything keeps on working flawlessly - has been a really sweet thing. Upload, change some settings, run an upgrade script, delete some files and here we are again. It too me less than 10 minutes to back everything up, and successfully upgrade. If only everything went that smooth!

I'm almost done with my maintenance at the office and I'm about to go home. I just fired up my online quote tracker and I almost fell of my chair. I've placed an order to sell a certain stock at USD 1.89, and it has already touched USD 1.82! This is going MUCH better and faster as I expected. I only hope that it passed my limit before people starting taking profits and selling. After all, it's friday :)

This would make me pretty happy. I know money is no guarantee to be happy, but not having money certainly makes things more difficult in this materialistic world.

I won't be playing tablesoccer tonight as I'm still having problems with my back, but it seems to be improving slightly. When I woke up this morning it did feel awful though, but right now it's OK'ish.

Update : the suspense... the suspense. First the stock levelled at around 1.82 - 1.83 hopping up and down those values, then rose till 1.86-1.87 where it did bounce up and down for 30 minutes. When it hit 1.88 however, I knew I'd be able to sell at 1.89... and just a few minutes ago, it jumped to 1.91! However, it does not really interest me how much it rises above 1.89, since that was my limit to sell.

I could have made more, that's true, but greed is a very very dangerous thing.

I arrived at the office just a few minutes past 10, exactly as planned. Well, to be honest... a few minutes late, as I intended to be here at 10. Thus far I've verified, patched, checked and updated 2 workstations, checks are running on the server too, and three other workstations are somewhere at the beginning of the tests.

So for everything seems to be going OK... it's so much easier to do maintenance and such on the network, computers and server when there are no users to be seen :) Ask any true IT professional, and they"ll all tell you the same : the problem isn't the machines, it's the users. Unfortunately, it's kinda illegal to FDISK a user. Gentle rebooting however...

Not too much phonecalls either, as everyone is enjoying their day off. It's oh so quiet, it's oh so still...