Archive for the ‘friends’ Category

McBamain

Saturday, September 6th, 2008

Probably anyone remotely interested in the American presidential elections has by now learned who the running mates for the major candidates are. Did you notice it too? The running mates seem perfectly poised to appeal to the target demographic that the opposing candidate is popular with. Indeed, given the choice of running mates, it seems like both Obama and McCain are making the statement that the other one would make a good vice-president.

Rather ironic, don’t you think?
But perhaps there is more than a small grain of truth to this. McCain seems to have understood Obama’s message of change, and have witnessed the appeal it has, and (by his choice of running mate) seems to indicate that change is necessary. On the other hand, Obama has often been criticised for being inexperienced — which is marvelously addressed by having a senior senator as a running mate.

Either way, both parties now have a unique candidate team. Either a man from African-American heritage (PC mode enabled :S) or a woman will end up in the White House, in a position of unprecedented power for someone with that background (arguably overlooking mrs. Clinton ;)

Given that, I am estimating that mr. McCain has the advantage. Overall, I think more Americans are ready for a female vice-president, than for a president with an African-American (*) heritage.

(*) I dislike Political Correctness, Would love to say “black president” here instead (meaning no disrespect). Would you be offended?

wow.

Friday, August 22nd, 2008

… … … … … … … WOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOW!!!!!

HAPPY AGAIN!!!!!

Wake up & SPORT!

Wednesday, August 20th, 2008

Woohoo! It is 9:00 right now, and I did my sports for today already! Running went especially okay — well, the first 45-50 minutes at least. Since I ran for an hour (as planned), that is really perfect! Am forcing myself right now to have breakfast. After the exertion, my body is not really in the mood for digestion, but it does seem unwise to hazard starting the day without sustenance.

Got a potential holiday / long weekend coming up too, will check on that today. All in all: things could’ve been worse :)

Now playing: Super Paper Mario (Chap 2-4).
Now reading: Walter Moers – Die 13½ Leben des Käpt’n’s Blaubär

Backblogging…

Friday, July 25th, 2008

it’s just a bad idea. So in short: I went to Germany, it was great. Played Rockband, that game seriously rocks. Wish i could afford the empty pool to have sufficient space to play that ;)

Was seen off on the station by Maren, a couple of hours before she left for Canada. Less than happy. Went to WOTE / PETS workshop and conference. WOTE was very good, and PETS is quite nice too. Enjoyed Leuven so far a bit, plan to do more later. Maren landed safely in Canada and has yet to wrestle a bear. I pity Canadian bears. I gave a rump-session talk, which means I had 5 minutes to explain our current (unfinished) paper. Ran out of time… took too long on slide one (which I drew on the whiteboard, since I was too lazy to actually make slides and ensure that the Eee hooks up nicely to the beamer).

That’s enough backblogging for a Friday morning. Tty’all later! ;)

It’s raining men?

Sunday, May 18th, 2008

Nononono. The weather girls weren’t that accurate. Turns out it’s raining baby’s. And what a wonderful shower that is!

So hearty congratulations to Tim&Marcella with Linus and to Marcel&Jessica with Siënna. Now the wait is for Mark&Diana — that is, the wait here in ‘Bourg. As mentioned earlier, news has a habit of traveling at a slightly slower speed, so hope I am not way too late.

Sounds like it’s about time to go to the Netherlands for a full-round offspring check… Hmms, that would include (just thinking aloud) Siënna, Linus, baby M&D, Berend and Annika, Aleksander and Daniël, … .

(You know, every time I make a list like that I get the feeling that I am so forgetting the obvious. Perhaps it’s better not to make such lists ;)

Anyway, welcome, all you to-be-born, recently- and not-so-recently-born children! Hope you’ll get to like this place. It’s nice, as long as we grown-up(pish) folk don’t mess it up too much.

Brainpowered

Thursday, April 24th, 2008

Rogier & me saw Brainpower‘s theater show in Eindhoven the other day. HiphopNederhop and theater, it seems a weird match. Even worse, thanks to several progressive “improvements” in education, high school kids are supposed to go to several things in a theater per year. We realised we were in trouble when this 45+ year old lady ordered 27 cola in the intermission…

Anyway, short synopsis: Brainpower is nice, the crowd sucked. The crowd sucked harder than Brainpower’s power to start a party — to bad, especially for him. He did his best, did have some nice points, but all in all, a half-filled small theater with someone actually picking up their phone, with someone interrupting Da Brain to ask for post-show autographs for his class, well… no amount of Nederhop coolness can live up to that.

In that light (Nederhop == cool?), I am now reading the following (in Dutch):

Ice Cube zelf was een tijdje terug in Nederland voor een concert en na vier zinnen was ik al banger voor hem dan ik ooit zal worden voor die blozende boskabouter Baas B.

— Nico Dijkshoorn (column at nu.nl)

PS: Sjouke’s inauguration approaching :)

Hoopje Weekend

Monday, March 17th, 2008

Just returned y’day from the Hoopje Weekend 2008. It was really good to see the group again, and to catch up with people. Of course, in such a weekend you never manage to have a good talk with everyone you would like to catch up with. But I did enjoy myself tremendously :)

In a nutshell:

  • There were less games and more whisky for me this time around (although not that much whisky).
  • To me, it’s very nice if people make an effort. Case in point: Bianca baking pancakes for everyone, Sjoerd & Rinske creating a wonderful curry, etc. Not just grand gestures, but also the small things. And I really like that in this group, there is plenty of that going around.
  • Bringing the DS was not really necessary, and there was quite a bit of electronic gaming going on Saturday. That was a natural reaction to being lame, lack of sleep and not bringing a book, I guess :)
  • Being last to go to bed because of a very good chat is cool
  • Being first to wake up then is not really necessary ;)
  • Werewolves of Wakkerdam is a nice game, but can be played easily without the accessories (i.e. the game). That’s of course what happens with role playing games
  • I should pay more attention to the cards I get. Seer != werewolf :)
  • Ghost in the shell still is a cool movie. But not that fast-paced :)

Siinterklaas

Thursday, December 6th, 2007

Yesterday evening we celebrated Sinterklaas again. As usual, we had loads of fun. As usual some of the gifts were outrageous. Can’t wait to get some of the stuff to Luxembourg to have fun with it!

Congratulations to Maartje (and also Stijn), who will (also) become parents — and good ones at that!

And now: to ‘Bourg, to work, to classes!

Hoopje of good news!

Saturday, November 17th, 2007

Wow. Wowowow. I just learned so much good news from the Hoopje crowd: Marcel & Jessica will become parents, as will Mark & Diana! And, on top of that, Ferry & Yvonne are going to get married!

So, tonight it’s PARTY TIME!

Congratulations to you all, and I will be celebrating your happiness tonight in one form or the other!

The prequel (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday)

Saturday, November 3rd, 2007

“One word sums up the responsibility of any vice-president, and that one word is `to be prepared'”

After waking early on monday morning, I quickly got myself to working. Not my favourite thing in the morning, of course, but there was this presentation hanging over my head, and there was not sufficient material yet in the presentation. One of the first things is of course checking mail… hey look, a mail from the symposium organisers. Turns out that I do have enough material already! Woohoo! :) Okay, time to hop in the train to Enschede, meet the people there and finish the slides there.

Getting to work in Enschede took some time (even though it is handled neatly, explaining my laptop that it is handled neatly was step 2… eventually, I get connected, work on the slides, meet the people (it’s nice to see them all again), work a bit more and then it’s time to visit Ileana & Stefan’s new apartment. It has changed incredibly since the last time, Stefan & Ileana worked quite hard to get this far it seems. Ayse comes over for dinner too, and we have a nice, traditional Romanian dinner (cabbage+sour cream stuff). Good, I like to be prepared for the wedding :) And, if these tastes are anything to go by, Romanian food will be OK!

Next morning, some more work on the slides, and then they feel finished. Of course they aren’t, but that’s okay, the seminar doesn’t start until two o’clock, so let it settle a bit, have lunch, go through it once more and then: done! There’s actually some new stuff in there compared to the WISSec presentation. All of that is fairly new, so I am not feeling too confident yet. Luckily, there’s enough time to prepare…

And then surprise, surprise, turns out the seminar starts at one instead of two. UH-OH!!! A hurried lunch and a couple of quick glances at the slides later, it’s almost time! Most of the audience are familiar to me, so that’s a relief… waiting to be dissolved by the last-minute entrance of a couple of new folks. :) Good thing I thrive on this sort of thing, I guess. At least, perhaps if I think that I’ll fall for that.

Talk went okay-ish. Somehow felt it could/should have been better, but it wasn’t a substantial miss apparently either. Aah well, something to think about for a next time. Later that evening, I help Ayse out cooking a nice dinner for Stefan & Ileana. We have some fun, and too soon it’s time to go get a train. In the train, I find that I am exhausted. So instead of going to Eindhoven, I get off in Nijmegen and meet up with my sister for a change. It had been a long time, so this is actually really nice.

The next morning I quickly go to work in Eindhoven, to prepare the final things for the trip (doublecheck the Romanian cheat sheet with Simona to see if there are some other words that might come in handy). Home: pack, early to bed, and prepare to get going!