December 2003 Archives

Well, that title couldn't be more "off" from the truth, could it? I'm not lean, in fact I'm several kilos overweight, I definitely ain't mean although I sometimes look a bit like a bully, I've got a heart of gold. I like fucking, but not like a machine, that's for sure. How about passionate sex with a twist of kinkiness instead?

You gotta give it to me though : "Slightly overweight mean looking dude with a heart of gold makes passionate love with a twist of kinkiness" that's not a title for a post, right?

But hey, I'm clean! No drugs, no smoking, I do drink but always moderately and I know when to quit.

click to enlarge

Ladies, year 2004, everyone, watch out : here I come!

Let me tell you, it too fucking cold outside, but never too cold to fuck outside. Lol, there you go! What an opener, ain't it?

The year 2004 has arrived at last, only a matter of hours before 2003 will be history. This seems to be the time where all kinds of people make all kinds of resolutions for the new year. Well, as you might already know, I'm not all kinds of people, and therefore I don't make new years resolutions. I made some earlier this year and even had them listed on this blog for a few months, but they died in the redesign that I did.

Not that it really matters as they were far from accomplished anyway. I always made these things, but hardly ever worked towards them, although I nearly reached some of the goals I set for myself back in 2002. Well yeah, nearly reached them doesn't count, does it? It's a bit like getting 5 numbers correct on the lottery : nice, but it ain't 6.

No new year, old year or any other day resolutions for me today, nor tomorrow. You can tell me about yours though, if you feel like it. I promise I won't laugh at them hard Oh forget it - I don't promise you anything!

Just have a jolly good time, enjoy yourself and the ones you love and everything that goes with it.

As reported in various newspapers (link, link and link) as well as a lot of blogs, the US is thinking about making armed sky marshals a requirement for flights going into the USA.

Maybe I'm dumb, but I really wonder what the benefit is of bringing guns onto a plane? Do you really think that a group of determined terrorists are scared by a few armed marshals? If they are able to pass all security checks and bring explosives on board, a couple of handguns will not stop them. A plane filled with 300 passengers is cruising across the Atlantic Ocean when a sky marshal starts firing shots in a crowded plane because a passenger refused to follow his orders to sit down. It's just an example of course, but even with special ammo that "can't" pierce the plane structure, I see havoc as a result.

Why? Because that armed sky marshal is not recognizable, and why would anyone obey orders from someone that is not allied with the cabin crew of the flight at first sight? Yes, the sky marshals will travel as regular passengers, so nobody knows they're there.

After the USA forced every other country to comply with their overly harsh "pre-screening" regulations, they are now forcing guns on planes. How about we stop flying to the USA? I'm rather certain that would trash the US economy so badly they'd stop pressuring everyone to comply with their demands. It's probably the American Way of solving problems - as has been proven in the recent past : if we have a problem, lets throw guns at it.

Truely delicious. Yesterday when I went out to pick up some food, I had the bright idea to get some smoked salmon, a pair of baguettes to treat myself to two great smoked salmon sandwiches.

I delayed it till today but it paid off tremendously : pure bliss! I baked the two baguettes in the preheated oven (200� C) for 10 minutes while I chopped an onion up and put it in the fridge. I took out the hot baguettes when they had a golden brown crust, cut them open and let them cool off.

Butter on one side, plenty of salmon on top, sprinkle chopped onion over it and let your tastebuds go wild when the salmon almost melts on your tongue. Yummy!

I called Little Wabbit around 13h30 and spend approximately 30 minutes on the phone with her, and I might be mistaken, but I think she was happy to hear me. That's something that makes me happy too. I am a happy guy right now, yes I am.

I did some reorganizing on my links and separated the blogs from the rest, and added 3 Internet Radio stations to that last section : PlanetSoul Network Radio, SomaFM and Netmusique.com.

In the "Blogs" section, eller (DJ Testosterone) was added and in the "Other Links", LiquidGeneration was removed. I'm all happy again now :)

in my PHP book is storing orders in a flat file, aka a plain textfile. After I manage that, I suppose up next is creating and accessing databases - I just checked the book, apparently my assumption is wrong. After flat files, I head on to handle arrays.

I just realize something that could hinder me slightly : I don't have spare databases on my hosting account, and I'm quite reluctant to start manipulating data on a live database, for obvious reasons! I'll have to look into a solution for that problem, although it might solve itself over time - I'll have a chat with my hostee about it.

Tomorrow the weather is expected to be quite dry and good, so I think I'll head off to the mall to see if I can pick up some new clothes. I really need some new stuff and with the cash I got for x-mas and new year, it's actually possible. I would be better off to wait till the 4th of january - as sales start then - but I doubt that cash will still be available then.

Nothing interesting in the snail mail box today : a x-mas card, some advertising from a financial institution and that was it. I hoped to receive the new C'T magazine today as well, but it seems to be delayed quite a bit with the holidays. Maybe tomorrow...

Aarrgh, another e-mail address down the drain? I just got a virus infected mail at an address that is shielded from 99.9999% of the internet population - I think less than 10 people worldwide know about the address, let alone use it.

But now it seems some AOL dumbass managed to get infected with the Ganda (aka W32/Ganda.A@mm, WORM.SwedenSux, Myzli) virus... which means I can probably kiss that address goodbye real fast :(

I've been progressing in my PHP book, although I still haven't gotten much further than the first example code (order processing without MySQL connection) - but I've added some validation to the input like catching zero'ed fields, negative input and such.

It brings back memories - yikes. I'll probably have a gigantic nightmare tonight when I (mentally) start testing conditions to see if all exceptions are caught.

Anyway, if you want to play around with the script, go here.

63 lines of code, "just" to do something you could do easier on a calculator, it makes me wonder. On the other hand, it's a great way to get used to the syntax (arrggh, those damn ' instead of ") and to omptimize code later on. Strangly enough, I've never been good at coding myself, but I rocked when it came to optimizing code someone else wrote.

Note : after I posted this, I realized that at least one condition was not handled the way I think it should have been. So I dove back into the code to fix it, but after staring at the code for 10 minutes trying to get the exact conditional if that I needed, I gave up. I might look at it again tomorrow, or somewhere next week. Only 820 more pages to grasp and store in my brain :)

I'm quite certain a lot of folks have wondered about it before. After all, it's not the first time humankind has send probes to Mars in an attempt to find out more about the mysterious planet.

Only days ago a proble called Beagle 2 reached Mars after travelling towards it for 205 days and covering a distance of approximately 400 million kilometres. After successfully orbitting around the planet, Beagle II was scheduled to touch down on Martian soil a few hours later, but so far NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter, has not been able to get in touch with the Beagle 2 probe.

On December 26th, the 76-metre radio telescope dish at Jodrell Bank Observatory, UK, tried to detect the 5 Watt signal from more than 157 million kilometres away, again without success. Later on during the day contact will be attempted again through the Mars Oddessey orbiter, followed by attempts by the large UK dish. If all that fails, the Stanford University radio telescope will also join in the effort on December 28th.

In the first week of January, Mars Express will fly over the landingsite of Beagle II and try to contact the probe. While this seemingky means we have enough backup plans in case we can't get in touch, it turns out that only Mars Express was been tested and designed to transmit and receive signals from Beagle II.

Earlier on, there have been numerous attempts to land on Mars, let's take a look at some data :

In 1975, a US mission referred to as "Viking 2" was launched and a probe landed on Mars. It remained there from september '76 till 1980. The USSR lost "Phobos 1" en route to Mars in august '88, and "Phobos 2" bit the bullet in March '89 near Phobos. The "Mars Observer" mission, conducted by the U.S. lost their orbiter just before arrival on August 21st, 1993, whereas the orbiter "Mars Global Surveyor" arrived in Martian orbit in september 1997, where is still hangs out.

A wrap up of other missions, conducted after 1993 is as follows :
USSR - Mars '96 (Orbiter and landers) : launch vehicle failed
US - Mars Pathfinder (Lander and Rover) : landed june '97, last transmission september '97
Japan - Nozomi (Planet-B) '98 (Mars orbiter) : currently in orbit around the Sun with Mars arrival delayed to December '03 due to propulsion problem.
US - Mars Climate Orbiter '98 (Orbiter) : lost on arrival at Mars september '99
US - Mars Polar Lander/Deep Space 2 '99 (lander/descent probes to explore Martian south pole) : lost on arrival December '99.
US - Mars Odyssey '01 (Orbiter) : currently conducting prime mission of science mapping (orbiting).

So if we take a closer look at all the data, from 1975 till today, 2 landers/probes made it to the Martian surface successfully, of which one lasted less than 3 months. And now ESA possibly loses Beagle II...

I think we can stop sending landers, orbiters and probes to the Red Planet. If they still don't understand the reason behind this all, let me point out the obvious :

There is life on Mars - and they keep on pressing the OFF button on those landers.

What more proof do you want?!

Yay, I've started some reading in that gigantic - and scary - PHP and MySQL webdevelopment book, and managed to pass data from a form to PHP variables and display them.

While I never was any good at programming - I used to take courses in C++ and Cobol in school - PHP is more geared towards where I spend 95% of my time : online and on the web.

One thing ain't clear though :

&variable only works when register_globals is turned on in php.ini
$_POST['variable'] only works for versions after PHP 4.1.0
$HTTP_POST_VARS['variable'] is guaranteed to work on every server at present time, though is being depreciated, thus could result in broken code in the future.

Starting from PHP 4.2.0, the default setting for register_globals is off, so unless the server admin turns it on in the php config file, using &variable won't work. In some examples I've noticed that they perform a litte trick to copy the content of $HTTP_POST_VARS['variable'] to &variable, but I don't see the benefits. Especially not when both types are relying on uncertain conditions (the first one being depreciated and the latter requiring a setting that's off by default).

Why not immediately go for a use of $_POST, $_GET or $_REQUEST instead and make the minimum requirement PHP 4.1.0? The current version is 4.3.3, so that should be possible, and keep code usable in future versions as well.

to accurately describe what the x-mas party yesterday was like :

Johan, Jess and I arrived early - expected at 20h00, we got there at 19h51 or so - and everyone was there already. The "kerstboomballenbar" was open as Hilda did a great job pouring various types of liquor into ball-shaped forms and hanging them in the x-mas tree. We just had to cut the cord, open the ball and drink whatever we wanted. Let me tell you, it was a very colorful spectacle.

While enjoying the food (excellent soup! wonderful fondue! magnificent icecream with english sauce and warm cherries) we all chatted laughed and discussed all kinds of things. You know, it's just wonderful to see how this group of 8 gets along like if they've known each other for the past 20 years - where it has only been 2.5 years.

Some people ran into a bit of stability problems after mixing liquor from the "kerstboomballenbar" with wine during dinner, followed by champagne afterwards. Around 03h30 things were getting so out of hand we bailed out and headed back home. I don't know whether the remaining 5 kept on partying, but as no signs of life have been received yet from that area, I guess they are still recovering as well.

Thanks to everyone for the wonderful gifts (towels with washcloths, Living History (the biography of Hillary Clinton), PHP and MySQL webdevelopment, and a subscription to C'T magazine) and even more thanks for the superb time. I love you all!

Just got home from a very fun X-mas party at my dad and Hilda's place. Going by the amount of smiles, expressions of joy and similar things, I think everyone had a lot of fun! A slightly larger update tomorrow probably, after I've had some sleep.

Photo's will be placed in the FK Gallery when I get them myself - I forgot my own camera, typical.

Fun, fun, fun, what else can I say? Oh, and a lot of booze, but we can have fun without booze as well, let that be clear.

While most people on this earth experience that the global climate is changing, and quite a lot of people agree that this is probably caused by human activities (I know, there might not yet be hard proof, but there are a lot of pointers in that direction), some just don't get it.

What do I read today? The Bush administration has reversed a policy instated during the Clinton era which protected the 9.3 million acres of Alaska's Tongass National Forest from road building. This change in plans will open up 3% of the area to roadbuilding and possible logging - expect to see 300,000 acres of wood disappear.

The change could ultimately result in the Alaska Tongass National Forest - also referred to as "the last pristine temperate rain forest" in the United States to disappear completely over time. The Tongass comprises 16.8 million acres.

Opening up 3% of the area to roadbuilding is defended by stating that "this step reinforces the 1997 plan for managing the Alaskan forests (protecting 95% of the area), while paving the way for some wood harvesting - enough to support the surviving timber industry in southeast Alaska."

Do the math, I ask you. The 1997 plan protects 95% of the area. The new regulation opens up 3% of the area. Where's that missing 2%? I wouldn't be suprised if that was openened up later on, without anyone crying "fire" over it.

It's harder to push a 5% loss of forests through as it is to do the same with only a 3% figure. Adding another 2% later on, will still get you the 5% you wanted, but without that nasty opposition to it, or even the public knowing about it.

It's X-mas eve tonight. Does this make it a different day as any other day? Nah, not to me at least. I never really understood all the commotion that comes with public holidays, festivities and such. I just like spending the time with a kick ass family and kick ass friends. That's what counts for me, really.

Yesterday we (Joco, Alex and I) tried to go bowling but that didn't really work out as planned. The first bowling alley had the women league playing and no free lanes - since the women league seems to imply +50 year old women, they were not really of much interest to us - so we left for a try elsewhere. They too had a waiting time of over an hour, so instead we went to the Wijnegem Shopping Center, and it was actually manageable. There were lots of people, but not so much that strolling around with a 2 year old in a buggy became impossible.

We had fun, what else can I say?

While 2003 was pretty much a shitty year - both on a professional as well as a personal level - I tried my best to put a positive message in my yearly x-mas/holidays/best whishes digital card. Don't get me wrong, there have been quite a lot of good moments as well, actually those are what keep me going, but when I look back... the year appears like a dark shadow hanging over me.

While the card may appear a bit simple this year, it was exactly my intention. You can see and interprete the meaning behind it all as you want, but these are the messages that I hid inside the design :

In a complex situation, often the simple things hold the solution.
Things that appear to be simple, are often not.
2003 was my autumn - I was discarded, thrown away and left to rot.
2004 will be my spring - full of life, joy and love.

If you didn't get my digital wishes by december 24th, yet would like to get them, please get in touch. I'll be happy to wish you the best as well!

I've just done some maintenance on three sites, because of a security issue that was found in MT2.64 - they've all be upgraded to MT2.65 now. See the post from Ben Trott over at the MT homepage, and while you're there, read the announcement for MT3.0 as well!

While I was happily transferring files, I decided to replace MT-Blacklist with the latest version as well, and update the blacklist it uses.

It's all done now, and we're back off to blogging land!

Update : Yikes! After a hailstorm that came down, we're now having SNOW. It ain't much, and it doesn't seem to stick around for now, but it's always fun to see the first snow of the winter!

Crap. Remember that I had a website deal meeting on saturday? I just received a mail that there is a possibility to host it all on a server elsewhere - which means that I don't get to pick my own preferred hosting package, but rather have to deal with limits and regulations set by a party that I have no control over.

Apart from that, it also means that I can't charge my clients for hosting, which means that I see a nice profit go down the drain. Well, I suppose I'll have to make up for that loss in the development fee...

But what bothers me most is that the saturday meeting lasted 30 minutes (or even less) but prevented me from attending a bodymodification related meeting in Holland, where I really wanted to be. Looking at how things are developing right now, I won't even make a lot on this website deal, which makes it taste even more sour!

Went over to Joco & Eef's place to celebrate Alex 2nd birthday - that kid is growing so damn fast! I bet he'll be dating his first girl before I have a date myself.

Warning : it seems some fuckers managed to get themself infected with W32/Sober-C (aka Sober.C), a worm that spreads via KaZaa and other peer-to-peer networks, as well as by e-mail. According to the flood of virus infected messages ending up in my mailbox this moment, it seems Germany has been hit hard - most of the received mails originate there. So far the Skynet Anti-Virus Protection tool has been catching them, but it seems some people you never learn.

So far I couldn't find any details about a possible payload on this baby, but it wouldn't suprise me that infected machines will turn out to be zombies (infected computers that are later on used to DDoS sites and relay spam). The future of e-mail and internet seems very bright, don't you think?

Update those damn virusscanners people, don't piss me off even more!

Although I don't watch TV often, today I feel that there were some things on the telly that somehow were very interesting. Most of them I ran into while zapping through the channels - actually, I was pushing the button on the TV itself as I have an old set with a missing remote - and I just kept on watching.

First thing that I ran into was "Zij gelooft, Zij niet", a program about a dutch couple that had some sort of a problem : She is totally devoted to God, while he is an atheist. Throughout the show there would be talks with both, to let them explain their view on their marriage, life and religion.

He didn't want her praying to the Lord downstairs, or putting up religious artifacts everywhere, so her created a special room for her to pray in. She was happy that she could have her personal "shrine" but on the other hand she felt convicted to practice her beliefs in a confined area. It was mighty interesting to see how they tried to accept the others views on the matter and how it influences their life.

Then while continuing I ran into a stand up comedian called Jochem Myjer on a Dutch channel. Wonderful show he put up, even if I probably missed some jokes because they were focussed on the situation in Holland. I found it very entertaining though and I came to realize that I like that kind of stuff a lot. I think that I'll have to go see such a show in 2004 someday - and since I know Joco also likes it, I think I'll have to convince him to find some time in his busy shedule and join me :)

After that show was done, I came across a business channel called Kanaal Z where they were discussing a book written by Christian Leysen, called "Antwerpen onvoltooide stad". They were talking about how the skyline in Antwerp doesn't change, creativity drowns in paperwork and how the city needs to attract at least 100.000 people in order to keep on living. Very interesting discussion to follow, and while things are changing, we're still far away from the ultimate goal.

To finish of the day (or night?) I tuned in to Ricochet on TV1. Even though it only gets 5.7 out of 10 on IMDB, I liked it. I was quite sure I had seen it before, but it turns out I didn't.

I hope some potential clients show up within minutes, as they requested to meet me today to talk about a website project. Nothing major though.

Finally a good chainletter. In comparison to "normal" chainletters, this one doesn't cost a thing. You can only win!

What do you have to do?

It's very easy : first put your wife/girlfriend under narcosis, put her in a large box (don't forget to put holes in the box for air, preferably before stuffing her in there) and then mail off the box to the first person on this list.

Add yourself to the bottom of the list, and send this mail to five very good friends of yours, that are at least as potent as you are. Soon enough, your name will be in the top position of the list and you'll receive 823.542 women by mail!

According to statistics, at least 0.5 of them will be Miss Belgium, 2.5 will be a model, 463 of them are wild nymphomaniacs, 3.234 are attractive nympho's, 20.198 of them are women capable of multiple orgasms and 40.198 will be bisexual.

Which amounts to 64.284 women that are hotter, tastier and more open to things than that old bat you just mailed off. And the best thing is that the old bat is guaranteed not one of those you'll receive!

Warning : don't break the chain under any circumstance!

An unidentified male who only mailed 3 instead of 5 friends, got the old bat returned to him in the same ugly pyjamas, with the same everlasting migrane and constant nagging. The same day the Brazilian bisexual supermodel - that he had been living with since the day he mailed off his wife - left him and went to live with his best friend - whom had not received this mail!

While I relay this mail to my friends, the dude 4 positions above me has received 837 women, and he's in the hospital suffering from exhaustion. In front of the door of his hospital room another 432 new boxes are waiting for him! You simply have to trust this mail!

This is a unique opportunity to reach a satisfying sex life - no expensive invitations to restaurants, no conversations that drag on for hours about topics that only women are interested in, just to have sex with her. No obligations, no irritating mothers-in-law and no chilling suprises like engagement or marriage.

Don't hestitate and send 5 very good friends this letter today!

PS : If you don't happen to have a wife, you can also mail a vacuumcleaner. It amounts to the same thing.
PS2 : Linking or backtracking to this post will not be considered the same as mailing your wife/girlfriend to me, although it'll help you reach the number one position sooner, because more men will join the chain. Don't waste time, get the women of your dreams now!

I just preordered the limited edition 2CD version of Geography - a digitally remastered release of Front 242's debut album. There'll only be 4000 copies of this special edition and given the fact that I own almost all CD's from Front 242, I don't think I could forgive myself if I miss this one.

You can preorder online at Alfa-Matrix, the official release date is scheduled for february 27th, 2004. Both the limited edition as well as the regular edition that'll be available later will have the unreleased track "He runs too fast for us". I'm already looking forward to it!

I just downloaded and installed OpenOffice 1.1.0 on my box here, to see how userfriendly and easy it is to use after having worked with the MS Office suite most of my life. Sure, back in the days there also was WP5.x or something alike, but that is actually prehistoric now.

Installation was pretty easy, no hassle and swiftly. I opted not to change the way files are handled for now, so .doc documents are still launched by MS Word, although I can send them to OO as well. Did a quick test with opening some documents in Write (the OO version of Word) and it seems pretty easy to get used to.

I might play around with it more in the future, although I hardly use the Office suite much - most of my quick and easy notes are done in a notepad replacement called Metapad. I've blogged about Metapad before, if you want a review or a link, search this blog, or google for it.

I'm especially interested in installing a bunch of dictionaries in various languages in OO, as I find myself in a bit of a bad spot when it comes to editing/correcting and writing pieces in other languages.

A Chinese couple that both work in a restaurant are getting married. She is still a virgin and when their first night as a married couple comes along, they lay in bed, naked, cuddled together.

"Deal," he says "I know this is youl filst time and I'll be vely caleful with you. I want to give you evelything you want, just anything you'd like."

She says "Then I'd like a 69 please"

After which he stares at her, very suprised, and says "You want flied peking duck?"

Thanks for the great one, Dad! Don't like me laughing with the Chinese? Oh well, too bad. Tell me a better joke then :)

Apart from having a duel on the soccerfield every now and then, it seems a rather important match Belgium - Holland was played on the domain name field as well. The Belgian government started a procedure to retrieve the domain name belgie.be from the Dutch company Domain Services Rotterdam BV.

The domain name itself was registered on December 12th, 2000 and the complaint filed on October 9th, 2003. On November 10th the defendant replied, and by November 20th the 3rd party Cepina was requested to investigate the case out of court. After the hearings - till November 27th - the final resolution on December 11th was that the defendant (Domain Services Rotterdam) had no legal rights to the domain name, even though they registered it on a "first come, first serve" basis.

When I checked just a few seconds ago, the domain name still had the ON HOLD status, which means it can't be transferred anywhere. The content on the site is still that of the defendant, but I suspect that DNS.be will transfer the domain name within a matter of days, now that there is an official ruling in this matter.

In case you're a real geek, or have quite some domain names, check out the PDF file that has the full explenation of the case (in dutch).

So I didn't get the (re)desgin and hosting contract for that site. Oh well, it's a thing less to worry about. Even though I had cut my fees by over 60%, he decided that one of his customers would get the job. By looking at how quickly he replied to my offer, I think he decided not to give me the job in advance. It's a shame, but at least now it ain't my problem anymore.

I'll be taking down the redirection tonight - why should I continue providing resources for a site I don't host or design?

I was hoping to get a letter from ABVV today - 'coz Zwork told me he got one yesterday - but my mailbox was pretty empty when I checked earlier on. Maybe tomorrow?

It's strange how a little pressure on a business site suddenly makes the owner move his ass and deal with things that should have been dealt with a long time ago.

As some of you might have noticed, Jenni from the famous JenniCam will be quitting the camscene on December 31st 2003. Where are all the "good old" cams going I wonder. While I never was a real fan of JenniCam, I'm sorry to see such a monument go - I guess nothing is timeless.

So I set out to check on some webcams that I used to follow a few years back...

SusiaFly aka DeafGirl from Germany seems to be gone, although a new site was said to go live in the summer of 2003. It seems she's doing lots of great work for deaf people, so I guess that's superb. I'd love to chat with her again though. Her old fan site has gone commercial, and I don't know whether or not she actually runs that.

Katie is still around at katies-world.com and doing her thing.

Corrie and Rickert still seem alive and well at cam@home as well. It's been a looooong time since I talked to them, and even longer since I saw them in real life.

Yeah, I used to follow the cam scene pretty closely, and even run a few cams myself. My old cam site is still online, but the cams have been off for over two years. Yet the site still gets about 30-40 unique hits every day, having had over 90,000 unique visitors so far. I think I might have to either bring it back online, or recycle the domain to this blog :)

I should have gone out and do some shopping today, but erm... I didn't. Instead I've been filing papers, I got a print out of some more CV's, wrote applications for a few jobs, and reviewed some experiences on BME.

Add to that the fact that I did a very short entry in the Alex blog, called him to wish him a very good birthday, listened to music, did some online tech support and some other things around here, I've been quite busy. Not really busy, but busy nonetheless.

So I didn't go out shopping. Maybe tomorrow, who knows.

Today Alex is celebrating his second birthday - that kid seems have found a way to defeat time and space. Congratulations Lexi!

Check out his site for congrats, photographs and more stuff : Alex blogje

I've tried to avoid this topic since sunday, but I just have to get something of my chest now. So, the USA captured Saddam - that ain't news anymore I guess - if you somehow missed that fact, I wonder where you've been? Hiding in a hole somewhere maybe?

Bush (or someone of his administration) made a statement today : "Saddam will be considered a prisoner of war (POW) and will receive all rights and duties that come with that status." Sounds pretty fair, don't you think? But wait... they weren't done talking just yet : "However, for the time being, we have not yet declared him a POW."

Of course they have not yet declared him a POW officially, and here are - according to me - the reasons for that "delay" :

1. POWs must be protected in their honor. In particular they must not be subject to insults, violence and public curiosity whether from enemy forces or civilians. They must not be paraded or interrogated in front of the media, and their images should not be used for political purposes.
2. Among the rights afforded to POWs are to: practice their religion, send and receive letters, receive a copy of the Geneva Conventions, and appoint a representative among themselves to deal with the detaining authorities

(source : Human Rights Watch, Rights and Duties of Prisoners of War)

In short it comes down to this : if the US forces had declared Saddam a POW, they would not have been allowed to show him off in the media, nor use his capture (and images of him) for political purposes. What do you think they are doing right now? They also wouldn't have been able to question him as they pleased (much like they did with the hundreds of "illegal non-combatants picked up off of the battlefield" that are still locked up at Guantanamo Bay).

So, while the USA continues to "police" the world, while it preaches peace (what a fine choice of words, don't you agree), and fights for Freedom - so help us God - they continue to play by their own rules. International treaties are only accepted if it fits, and as easily abandoned and disregarded if they interfere with those plans.

Where will Saddam be tried? Iraq seems the most correct place to have the trial, but as the country is still in shatters - and will be for a few more years at least - that trial could be a decade or more away. The UN tribunal in The Hague is another possibility, but... I almost forgot : the US doesn't recognize that tribunal. One starts to wonder why?

I just received an unexpected package in my snail mail box : a small gift and x-mas wishes from the registrar I use from my .be domains. I never expected such a thing, and have never gotten anything like it from any registrar in the past - these guys are pretty cool, don't you think?

Apart from excellent service, they think of their customers when it's this time of year. Thanks for the nifty steel key hanger with the engraved @ symbol and your url (www.nucleus.be) on the backside. I've put it to good use, cos my old key hanger broke a while back :)

I blogged about a week ago that I was working on an interview, and it has been finished. On the 11th I put up the original dutch interview with Kor of Ego Kornus, and today I published the translated english version on www.bodymodification.be. If you're interested in suspensions, pulling and related performances - and especially if you're living in Belgium or Holland - go check out the interview!

(Yes, this is a shameless plug for one of my other sites. But as this is my blog, and the other site is my site, I can do whatever I feel like, don't it?)

It's easy, really. Pick the artist/band you like the most, and answer all questions below with the title of one of their songs. You can only use a title once, duh. Here's who I picked and what I answered :

Artist: Front 242

01) Are you a male or a female? "Modern Angel"
02) How old are you? "Rerun Time"
03) Describe yourself: "Soul Manager"
04) How would other people describe you? "Quite Unusual"
05) What is your mood right now? "Neurobashing"
06) Describe your main interest: "Body to Body"
07) How do you feel about yourself? "Born to Breathe"
08) Describe your childhood: "Welcome to Paradise"
09) Where are you? "Moldavia"
10) Where would you rather be? "Animal Zoo"
11) Describe how you live: "Never Stop!"
12) Describe how you love: "Kinetics"
13) Describe what you want: "Happiness"
14) What can't you live without? "Principles"
15) Describe your career of choice: "Punish Your Machine"
16) What do you look for in the opposite sex? "Special Forces"
17) Share a few words of wisdom: "Rhythm of Time"
18) What do you think of this thing? "Junkdrome"

Bonus questions (to get to 20) :

19) How do you see yourself die? "This World Must Be Destroyed"
20) What enrages you? "Religion"

Jay blogged about the "Powerful IE bug" that was discovered a few days ago. I picked it up before, tried it out - yes, the bug is out there and is easily exploitable - and laughed.

I didn't feel like bringing out the news here because all most IE users are too dumb to understand the consequences of it anyway.

A harsh statement? Maybe so, but don't come whining when you were tricked into divulging your creditcard information on a site that seemed very "legit" but in fact was an unknown page served from somewhere in the former USSR.

The information is out there for those who want to read up on it : Jay Allen about an IE Security flaw - Secunia advisory 10395 - IE URL spoofing test.

Update December 18th : It seems Mozilla 1.x can be spoofed in a similar way by encoding a "%00" code in the URL, which would lead to the statusbar not showing the full (correct) URL. Check Secunia advisory 10419 for more info.

So much for having a good feeling about the job interview I did on the 3rd... I just got the standard letter :

Dear ServMe,

We regret to inform you that we have not selected you for the job of network/systems/maintenance engineer for which you applied. This doesn't in the least mean that we underestimate your capabilities, but your profile doesn't completely match our expectations.

Thanks for the interest in our organization and we wish you the best of luck in your carreer,

Sign off,
blah blah

Rougly translated it comes down to this :

Blah blah blah, while you might know how to write your name, we are looking for someone who has space exploration for a hobby - even though we specifically stated that no prior experience in anything was required. Now piss off.

Why the "cowards" title? Because they called me when I made it to the first round, but they write me a letter when I don't make it through the second. Maybe they didn't have the guts to tell me directly? Your loss people, I hope the network crumbles at your feet and a *lot* of data is lost.

Am I a bad loser? It might seem like it, yes. But getting the same rejection letter time after time really gets to you. Someone, somewhere must need a jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none person like me?!

People who have a serious offer can comment below, the pranksters can fuck off today. But they are allowed to comment again tomorrow.

Note : I just finished writing my application letter for Expeditie Robinson 2004. The only thing I've got to do now is dig up a photograph or two and head off to the mailbox.

I probably am, and people that know might quite possibly agree that I often have more than one loose screw - but it doesn't seem to hinder me a lot.

So, why the obvious title? Because I just downloaded the Expedition Robinson 2004 contender application form and filled it out. Tomorrow I'm gonna write a page long explenation why they should pick me, and on monday I'll send it all off by mail.

Am I a robinson? Who knows, but it is certainly something I am more than willing to give a shot - worst case scenario, I don't even make it to the selections - best case scenario, I get on those islands and meet myself. Now that I think of it... that certainly is a scary thought!

As nothing even slightly interesting is going on in my life, I have no drive to extensively blog about it.

I've just contacted the FSO to check on the calculation of something, even though they probably have not made a mistake :(

It's once again time to point my anger at things that infuriate me. If you are not willing to read through my rant - and sometimes subjective point of view - you better go read another blog.

US Congress pass anti-spam bill is the first thing that caught my eye. Why should that get me all worked up, ain't anti-spam regulations welcome? Oh yes, they certainly are, but not if they fail to accomplish anything except giving spammers the legal right to spam.

(I gotta run quickly to check on some things. I just got a call from Little Wabbit and she was very very disappointed about things. I need to see if I can cheer her up first, and hopefully have some good news.)

What do I mean with "give them the legal right to spam"? Allow me to point out the differences between the anti-spam laws in the European Union and the USA.

Europe : businesses cannot send you UCE unless you have a priior relationship with them (are their client, have requested information etc)
USA : businesses can send anyone UCE, unless the customer requests to be taken off the list
Europe : anyone can sue the perpetrator for damages from receiving their spam
USA : only ISP's can sue spammers

The big difference is that Europe uses the OPT-IN system, whereas the USA wants to go with the OPT-OUT system. European anti-spam laws prevent spam by making it illegal except in strictly defined cases, whereas the USA allows spam except in strictly defined cases.

If you wonder why, here's my answer : Europe suffers from spam originating from inside the EU, from the USA and wellknown spam havens like China, Korea, and South America. However, over 80% of its spam originates in the USA. What can our laws do against it? Nothing, because it doesn't come from within the borders of the EU. This accounts to US businesses and spammers remaining virtually unrestricted.

In other words : this US anti-spam act does nothing to fight spam, but is only a deception to throw off the people that want to enforce strict regulations against this infinite stream of harassment. If they had opted for the same OPT-IN laws, spam could have been stopped - or at least slowed - on a global level.

What else? Ah, let's talk about A bacteria resistant to antibiotics killing 18 in France. Apparently, in various hospitals in France a total of 18 people have been killed by a super bacteria, immune to antibiotics. The source of this is the french Departement of Health, so I guess it could be correct. Now, if you wonder "why" antibiotics fail the answer is simple : because we use too damn much of them! Feeling under the weather? Pop a pill, gobble down some syrup or get a shot. Having a cold? Do the same.

Bacteria also evolve and should be seen as an organism that's trying to survive in a hostile environment. The more it faces antibiotics, the more it'll change to become resistent to it. The solution? Stop popping antibiotics for the slightest infection, desease or problem and let your body deal with it. Humans are much better at fighting off infections as you might think when going by the ever increasing use of medication. Get some rest and fight it off yourself - you'll be glad about it in the long run.

Age: 30
Where did you grow up: Belgium

WHAT DO YOU CALL:
1. A body of water, smaller than a river, contained within relatively narrow banks?
A creek, and if the banks are engineered it would be a canal, although a small one.

2. The thing you push around the grocery store?
A (shopping) cart.

3. A metal container to carry a meal in?
A lunchbox? But why should it be metal?

4. The thing that you cook bacon and eggs in?
We fry our bacon and eggs... in a pan.

5. The piece of furniture that seats three people?
Big ass sofa :)

6. The device on the outside of the house that carries rain off the roof?
Gutter.

7. The covered area outside a house where people sit in the evening?
Could be anything going from pergola to veranda. I don't have such a thing anyway.

8. Carbonated, sweetened, non-alcoholic beverages?
Evil :)

9. A flat, round breakfast food served with syrup?
You mean pancakes? Why only have them as breakfast?

10. A long sandwich designed to be a whole meal in itself?
Ah, this could be anything. Depending on the contents of it, it could be called a "smoske", just a sandwich or a durum when filled with kinds of meat. Although that's not really made out of sandwich but more pancake like.

11. The piece of clothing worn by men at the beach?
Swimwear. Duh.

12. Shoes worn for sports?
What sports? I'd hardly call them sport shoes when you go ice skating... then it would be ice skates. This question sucks.

13. Putting a room in order?
Cleaning up.

14. A flying insect that glows in the dark?
Lost? I'd guess it would be a firefly, but I don't think they exist here.

15. The little insect that curls up into a ball?
A hedgehog. Wait, that ain't an insect. Not a clue... a shy fly?

16. The children's playground equipment where one kid sits on one side and goes up while the other sits on the other side and goes down?
In dutch : een wipplank. In english I wouldn't have a clue.

17. How do you eat your pizza?
Cut in parts, stuff mouth with hands. Yes, the easy and single-person kinda way... straight out of the box it came in.

18. What's it called when private citizens put up signs and sell their used stuff?
Prehistoric ebay ;) We don't actually have garage sales I think.

19. What's the evening meal?
Dinner. And it can be anywhere from 15h00 till 23h00, at least at my place.

20. The thing under a house where the furnace and perhaps a rec room are?
The basement.

21. An unusually heavy rain which does not last long.
A shower. I've also got one in my bathroom though.

22. A window covering on rollers that pulls down.
Could be a lot of things.

23. A new, limited access, multi-lane road.
A highway? Why does it have to be new? Maybe we should call it a waste of space?

24. Heavy garments worn for work.
An overall

Right now, these songs are cheering me up (played in random order) :

Dead or Alive - You spin me round
Dee Lite - Groove is in the heart
Dusty Springfield - Son of a preacher man
Bj�rk - It's of so quiet
Creedence Clearwater Revival - Suzie Q
Every brothers - Wake up little Susie
Falco - Jeanie
Falco - Rock me Amadeus
Human League - Don't you want me
Inkubus Sukkubus - Pagan Born
Kim Wilde - Kids in America
Lipps, Inc - Funky Town
Lords of Acid - Spank my booty
Missy Elliott - Let me fix my weave
Modern Talking - Brother Louie
Mel & Kim - Respectable
Metallica - St-Anger
Michael Jackson - Blood on the dancefloor
N.E.R.D. - Lap Dance
Negativland - Christianity is stupid
OMD - Enola Gay
OMD - Talking loud and clear
Pink - Respect ft. Scratch
Paolo Conte - Max
Paul Oakenfold - Starry-eyed suprise
Paul Young - Love of the common people
Sugababes - Round round
Survivor - Eye of the tiger
Santana - Jin-go-la-ba (live)
S'express - Theme from S'express
Smoke City - Underwater love (Morales Underwater club mix)
Soft Cell - Tainted Love
Stan Ridgeway - Camouflage
Tom Jones - Ghostriders in the sky
Tatu - 30 minutes
Tatu - They're not gonna get us (russian version)
The Animals - House of the rising sun
The Eagles - Hotel California (unplugged)
The Proclaimers - I'm gonna be 500 miles
Within Temptation - Ice Queen (live at leidse kade)
Warren G & Sissel - Prince Igor
ZZ Top - Sharp Dressed Man

I hate it when I'm right. Last night around 5 I woke up from serious and painful bowelmovements and cried out in tears. I can stand pain pretty well, but have quite a problem dealing with "internal" pains.

Allow me to explain : A cut, bruise, something visible I deal with without too much problems. But your bowels contracting in a painful way leaves me helpless. I can't reach them, or do anything about it apart from suffer. I hate it, but I was doing a lot better after 4 or five visits to the bathroom.

I slept in late, probably because I needed the rest and I'm feeling better every day although I'm far from my normal healthy state. I'll get there though.

Before I went to bed I ran into some problems online and it affected me more as I expected. After all, I was just trying to do something good, but apparently that's no guarantee of it being percieved like that. Even the best of intentions can be done wrong I understand now. I'll have to rethink quite some things and see where I want some projects of mine to go. I was extremely disappointed last night, and ready to throw the towel in the ring and let others figure it all out.

Today I think I can look at it all in a more objective mood and know that there is no need for a decision anytime soon. After all, I'm the only one to decide and say where I'm going - or want to go. Very cryptic, I know, but that's who I am sometimes.

I'm up and awake - these two conditions are not always connected - early today, although I had a very hard time falling asleep last night. My condition seems to be improving, if you consider the flow of snot being diminished to a small stream every now and replaced by a sore throat an improvement. A few more days and I'll probably suffer from infected lungs, followed by racekak and spetterpoep (slang for a common spray-the-place-diarrhea) and after that I'll be fine again. I hope.

So, why am I up this early? I haven't got a frigging clue to be honest but the weather looks fine though a bit on the cold side, but clear and dry nonetheless. Has that even influenced my decision to get up early, I doubt it. It was just something I felt like mentioning - you know, make conversation and stuff.

I'm off to sniff snot, cough as if I'm dying and do some work that has been pushed back this weekend thanks to the lousy state I've been in.

If this entry ain't cool enough for you, undress and step outside. You'll have enough cool for the both of us in a matter of seconds. Chill people - FK out.

[Listening to "DJ Testosterone - u shook me all n8 long", and downloading two new mixes from her spot at Anal0g]

They're comming! Run! Help! Aaaaarrrggghhhh.... They got me!

Yes, I feel like a seventies B-movie character right now, you know, one of those "scary horror movies" that had very low-budget special effects and blob spreading aliens all over the scene. One of those aliens must have gotten me and inject my head with an infinite amount of snot.

It started last night while I was doing some editing and has hopefully reached the maximum today. Since I haven't been out much last week, I believe this thing is very contagious so unless you need to see me in person and urgently, stay the fuck away from me.

If you enjoy laying in bed with an terrible headache, an overflowing bucket of snot and a general feeling of drowsiness, you can ignore that though.

I had a lot of things planned for the weekend, but this illness might push some things back, unfortunately.

As you might have noticed, FK went down for a couple of hours today, following a DNS problem at the host. When I noticed - I sometimes sleep as well - I put up a temporary page at another host so that no one needed to wonder what happened.

Everything seems to be back now, so let's just assume it remains up and running for the next couple of years now!

OK... I just got a letter from the union that had both good and bad information in it. The good news is that FSO has agreed on October 16th to accept the case and pay the money my ex-boss still owns me. It can take another 3 month, but I don't really care about that. The main thing is that I know I'll be getting what I'm entitled to.

The less positive news is that out of my claim (over 33.000 euro) I'll be probably getting less than 22.500 euro, and both figures are gross, not net. This means that with taxes and everything deducted from it, there won't be much left, possible not even enough to get some wheels and be mobile again. However, being the positive sucker that I am, I will freak out over that when the time has come to do so.

Dealing with problems as they come along is the best way to live a stress free life :)

Yeah, no worries, I'm still around. Job interview yesterday was OK I think, more news probably somewhere around December 17th.

Been busy working on an interview today and yesterday, did review a few experiences, and proofread an upcoming article that deals with Copyright and Tattoos.

Apart from that, I've been playing The Need For Speed Underground - it's fun!

In less than 2 hours I'm off to my job interview, cross your fingers! More updates later today.

I've mentioned this movie before, but since they'll be broadcasting it again tomorrow, I'm bringing it up once again.

Details : Amores Perros - Canvas - December 3rd - 21h00

I wonder how many of the friedkitten.com readers think "gay" is a bad or dirty word - so bad that they would punish a kid that uses the word in school?

Apparently a teacher and a principal of Ernest Gaullet Elementary School think of it as very bad. When the 7 year old Marcus McLaurin was talking to a classmate in school who has asked him about his mother and father, Marcus responded he had two mothers because his mother is gay. When the other child asked for explanation, Marcus told him: "Gay is when a girl likes another girl".

A teacher overheard the conversation and told the boy to go see the principal who ordered to kid to write "I will never use the word 'gay' in school again." several times. When the principal phoned the mother to inform her of the "problem" he said the 7 year old used such a dirty word that he couldn't repeat it over the phone.

Hopefully to be continued, as the ACLU now requests for the case to be removed from Marcus' file and apologies to be made both to the kid and his mother, Sharon Huff.

So much for the Land of Milk and Honey, Home of the Free and the American Dream.

Let's start off with the bad news, shall we? I just received a mail from one of the employers where I applied for a job. Apparently the position has been filled already... which suprises me a bit as the deadline for applications was November 21st. This means they either picked one of the candidates without bothering to interview the rest, or maybe the position was filled internally but the ad wasn't pulled. Oh well... it was for a temporary 3 month job anyway.

The good news is not related to jobs, unfortunately. I was just granted the limited right to reprint photographs used in a new article, which is pretty damn exciting as it is a very good article and wonderful photography that goes with it. Yay for asking and getting things. One could argue that I could have just use the photographs without asking, but I like to do things by the book here - otherwise I'd throw away all chances of this thing ever taking off.

I felt like crap this morning, legs still hurting after a long day on sunday and walking lots of miles. Big thanks to Steph for paying a visit at the BFL booth!!

I got home just past ten, entertained the ferrets for a while and then watched the recorded episode of 24 and the Big Brother Live episode that I also recorded. I just had to see the dive that Vanessa made on saturday once more. It was hilarious although I am glad that she didn't get hurt too bad.

As was expected, all 4 players in BB are nominated - even with the ex-players voting as well - so it'll be up to the public to decide who they want to see leave the game before the grand final. Mathousca was visibly touched by the comments given by the former players and cried out like a big wussy wondering what she had done wrong - it was all a misunderstanding though as Hannes did say something positive after all, but Mathousca didn't seem to have understood it that way.

John was a bit suprised by Douglas' comment that he was too "good" to win a game like Big Brother, and firmly said "I don't know what he [Douglas] means with it, but I'll be sure to ask him when I get out of here. It doesn't make sense, especially not when I recall what he told me before in private."

Dike was the normal and down to earth guy once again - not visibly moved by it all, and just accepting the game as it develops, whereas Vanessa remained "normal" as well with the expected but unintended strange choice of words she often has... again leading to lots of laughter and embarrasment.

[If you wonder why there's so much BB4 info in this post, the reason is simple : people keep on looking for it, so why not give them what they want?]

Later today I'll be off mailing a letter, cleaning up around the house, probably do some ironing, and I managed to send off my X-mas whishlist to the family as well. Then I need to work on an interview I'll be doing later this week for one of my other projects. Yay for myself!