Yesterday, on a last-minute whim (prompted by Sjouke), I ran 10km in the Escher Kulturlauf. Weather was excellent, training slightly better than for the half marathon, and time was reasonable. Surprisingly enough, the track is a bit longer than 10km — according to the booklet it’s 10.7km, and sure enough, we passed a 10km sign quite some distance before the finish. That was actually quite funny — I hadn’t realised it would be longer until I passed that sign :)
Daniel and Marjan joined for the 10km run, and Sjouke ran the 10 miles / 16 km. Daniel kept up with me for the first 2km, and then dropped back some 25 metres. Didn’t see him anymore for quite a while. At the 10km sign, I was overtaken by Danielle (one of luxembourg’s top amateurs and a secretary at uni.lu), and I joined her… for about 40 metres. Damn, that girl runs fast! Anyway, I reverted to my old pace, got some wind back in my lungs and turned the last corner. I shifted gears and sped up a bit, wanting to make a nice time. Suddenly, Daniel strutted past, and waved jovially. Grrrrr….. That was sooooo not going to happen. But I didn’t have that many reserves left, I couldn’t sprint the remaining 100m. So I waited a short bit, and shifted into an even higher gear. Almost caught up to Daan, but then he glanced over his shoulder, saw me, laughed, and out of nowhere just started sprinting. Pfffft… no way I could put on a power explosion like that. He finished 5 seconds before me
In the end, my time was 1:02:53.7, which is just (but only just) over 10km per hour (Note that due to confusion on the website, they marked me and Daniel as having run 16km, and Sjouke as having run 10km. It’s the other way around). And they refuse to spell my name correctly, even though I did correct them when they copied it from my inscription form… man! (I know why, but still… if I correct you, and I can see you wrote it down correctly, please keep that, okay? Plus, somehow they always mess up the “o”, but adding the “c” happens a lot less… le anyway)
Escher Kulturlauf
September 6th, 2009Doing the impossible in 4 days
September 3rd, 2009Yes, there are pending updates on the defense. But for now, I am quite busy and not getting around to them. Intermediate update: Me and Baptiste (with loads of support from Sjouke and the rest of SaToSS, and various other people at Uni.Lu) are trying to do the impossible in 4 days.
So far, it seems we’re succeeding :)
Go go go London, you know what they say!
August 13th, 2009London was aaaaaaaaawwwwweeee….some!!!
We arrived on Saturday. Bro & Sis were delayed (traffic), so I got myself a book, and started reading (finished it yesterday :). Within two hours, Anke & Rogier arrived, and after some phoning, we found eachother and were on the way to the hostel! Hostel was pretty good, though the room bordered on a very busy street… didn’t sleep well, then again, I didn’t go to London to sleep well.
First evening we just went out and for a walk, and happened upon a free theatre right outside the mayor’s office. The play was actually a lot better than I anticipated. I figured it would be a single actor, perhaps maybe as much as three people, and that it would be a rather boring affair, not well played. But no. Imagine my surprise when a group of about 12 actors were singing with verve, dancing, acting well, changing costumes, etc. The story was “Jason and the Argonauts“, and it was delivered in an incredibly fun and exciting way. We had just arrived in London, and we were stumbling upon fun :) Afterwards, we stumbled 20 metres on and found ourselves in a roller disco! Well, being untrained we all refrained from trying it, but it did remind me of going skating.. I definitely will in the near future.
The evening ended at the roof terrace bar of our hostel. As we didn’t realise that the bar would be open, we brought some of our own drinks. Then we met some people, it was fun, and we ran out of drinks. Since the bar didn’t serve anything interesting, I made a quick stop at a nightstore and we had something more to drink… As a result, I was fast asleep before my birthday :)
Sunday we slept in, and went to Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park. We happened to arrive early, so we took our time, enjoyed the sun and just hung about in the park a bit. After a while, we started to explore the park and happened upon a pond with pedalo’s. We lounged about on the pond for almost an hour, got more of a tan, and then we set out to score some theatre tickets. Unfortunately, there were no tickets that were interesting to all of us available, so we settled on Harry Potter. The movie started out in a fantastic way! We were in London and had lounged about London quite a bit in our 1.5 days of being here. Walked about South Bank, Picadilly Circus, London bridge, Tower Bridge, Millenium Bridge, the London Eye, St. Paul’s… We had seen quite a number of the sights already (not stopping to admire, because we all had done so before — we just passed them at one point or another). The movie commences with some Death Eaters flying over and through London, past all the places we had seen, past the skyline we had admired… it was very cool to see all of that while being in London :)
The rest of the movie was okay too, although (for my tastes) it is really an in-between story. It sets the stage for the final book, which is necessary, but in itself it’s just not that interesting. Well, not too surprisingly, the movie suffers from this as well. However, if you know the story, you’ll roughly know what to expect. Upside: the new actor for Dumbledore (I call him new, even though the “old” one only lasted one movie) finally has a moment in which he comes across at pretty capable, and perhaps even a bit cool. It is about time he did though. The old one just dripped awesomeness all over the movie, and this one finally gets a Crowning Moment of Awesome.
Other than that: Monday we went to the Phantom of the Opera. It’s a horror. I didn’t know, and that made it pretty unsettling for me. Of course, the music was still awesome :) On Monday, we also checked out the Prime Meridian in Greenwich. Boring! But the boat ride back (with a swifth catamaran) definitely made up for it.
Tuesdays I got Rogier a newspaper for breakfast (it was his birthday, after all), and we checked out Covent Garden (really cool place to be) and Camden Market (check out my new jacket!). After that, we chilled with Anke’s friend Bart at the far west side of London. Tuesday was good :)
That’s sort of what happened in London. Have to admit, on Tuesday I came across the t-shirt “No I don’t have F#$%^KING Facebook” quite some times. Later in the evening, when I hadn’t bought it, someone actually asked me for my Facebook. Guess I should’ve gotten the shirt anyway ;-)
Exploring Guildford with visitors
August 7th, 2009
I’ve had two visitors in Guildford (so far), Jennifer and Michiel. Jennifer came in first, and apart from chatting a bit despite being a bit caught up with our own affairs at the time, we did have a good time together and we actually ended up exploring a bit of the city together. But I’ve written about that before.
Thing is, Michiel visited me the other day, on what turned out to be the English Summer (the one day of summer England has). We walked around Guildford, saw some of the sights and chatted a bit. As you may or may not know, Guildford has a strong connection with Lewis Caroll, the author of Alice in Wonderland. (Honestly, I didn’t know until Jennifer pointed out the statue :)
Anyway, Michiel took some nice pictures (such as the delightful one shown here). Check out the rest here. And don’t worry, Guildford isn’t all like this, but it’s there in Guildford too :)
Condensation of chicklit?
August 2nd, 2009I once read a piece called “Condensation of all gaming fiction“. That poked fun at all the overused stereotypes rampant in gaming fiction. Having read one teenage horror/romance story starring a teenage girl in the lead (see previous post) and now halfway through a fantasy book with a teenage girl in the lead, I am beginning to become weary of chicklit.
Some caveat’s:
- Both these books were written by women. I do believe that guys wouldn’t factor in the below observations in the same manner (i.e., equally annoying ;-)
- I am basing this post on a statistically very unsound sample: one teenage “dark romance” book, and one fantasy book. There’s scores of chicklit out there which I do not plan to touch, which may differ. (or maybe not)
Be that as it may, I do believe I have stumbled upon several tricks of the trade in at least a class of chicklit. Here we go:
- Main character: female teenager, feeling as if she is very unskilled compared to those around her.
Not fitting in well with the group. - Two guys (at least).
While blatantly obvious for the necessary romantics, somehow this stays at the level of getting goosebumps from the one guy, and a lot of “hmmmms, maybe him, but he’s cute too…”
Really, a lesbian lead would probably so much less annoying at times. - The Rival(tm)
This is the bitch that hated our lead from the start. Apparently. Halfway through the story we learn that while our lead is feeling totally worthless, the Rival is so angry with her because she is totally freaking awesome.
Unlike guy books, the rivalry doesn’t turn to Best Friends Forever status, nor to Mortal Enemy status. An uneasy truce is reached, usually backed by some mutual understanding and parents/mentors/teachers/responsible adults telling them to stop behaving like little children and start acting their age. - Power Explosion:
The lead turns out to be already a lot more valued than she herself would estimate. People (enemies) are interested in her. Guys too, although not too blatant, because that would detract too much from the outsider feeling we get.
Basically, it’s the coming-of-age story told once again. Difference with the Belgarion (and some other fantasy stories) is that here, the environment is considered by the lead to be normal.Contrast that with the Belgarion, where Garion finds himself in the sudden company of a rattish, thieving, scary guy and a bear-turned-human warrior. To then learn about Mister Wolf being able to move mountains at a whim. Definitely he’s the only sane and normal person in the bunch. Drizzt? Same thing: while his society doesn’t perceive it, he feels he’s the only sane and normal person there. Angsty teenage chicklit: everyone else is normal, I’m the outsider…
While I do believe my emotional range transcends that of a teaspoon, I can’t imagine all girls feel as total outsiders sufficiently for this sort of literature to establish a report with teenage girls. But, apparently, it does.
Anyway, back to my book :) Where I get to read more of “If X noticed EVENT, (s)he didn’t show it”. (That sentence crops up every 15 pages and it is becoming soooooo annoying. Other than that: so far, so good. Do switch your chicklit-filter to medium if the above points would annoy you otherwise though ;-)
An ocean of leisure time
August 1st, 2009There I am, all by myself, far away from friends and family, what does one do for leisure? Obviously, I sometimes call friends and family, occasionally chat a bit, and waste some time browsing the web. However, I found myself turning once again to reading. Somehow, when the going gets tough (or stressed), the tough start reading :)
And I have been reading quite a bit:
- Dan Kieran & Ian Vince – Three men in a float (across England at 15 mph)
Three guys get together to make an epic journey from the easternmost part of England to the westernmost part. In a milkfloat — an ancient electrical car used (in a previous age) to bring milk to all. It’s the level of a summer read: the kind of book you bring with you to the beach and leave there. Somewhat entertaining. - Dan Brown – Angels & Demons
Dan Brown again. Except for some horrific abuse of physics, okayish read. Entertaining, not great but interesting enough. Same thing basically as the Da Vinci Code: crap, but interesting enough to read through it once, if you don’t have anything better to read or do. - Jodi Picoult – My sister’s keeper
Made now into a movie, and, judging from the book’s cover, a typical girl movie. The book poses some interesting questions — although the characters are somewhat too simplistically motivated at (crucial) times. Nevertheless, posing these moral dilemma’s is in itself already engaging, and makes you (well, made me at least) think about it for a second. Again, a good book for the summer, and more engaging than the above - Kelly Armstrong – The Awakening
Feels like Twilight fanfic. I didn’t even recognise the fact that a particular scene in the book was probably intended to be quite arousing to teenage girls. Goes to show how far off-target I am, I guess. Anyway, I’d venture to guess that if you like Twilight, you might dig this. Haven’t seen Twilight (nor read it), but based on this book, I can avoid it. While it was more entertaining to read than the Float book, the Float was clearly not having any pretentions about having an interesting story. This book… it’s simply just not good enough. - Neil Strauss – The Game
A story on a guy who learns how to pick up girls — easily. As a thought exercise for yourself, analysing how you go about picking up girls, and how you could go about it if you approached it more scientifically, interesting. As an actual story: skipable. - Ian Caldwell & Dustin Thomason – The Rule of Four
Interesting book, bad timing for me. Right now, I’m not that in the mood to read a book where the main character loses his girlfriend because of his obsession with his work :)
Still, read 3/4ths of it before it resembled reality too strongly for comfort. That part is definitely read-worthy. - Angus Donald – Outlaw
Haven’t finished yet, but so far this retelling of the Robin Hood story through the eyes of some child who joins his band at a young age is quite okay. Don’t expect to read great Robin Hood things, expect to read about the kid’s experiences. Definitely recommended. - Roger Penrose – The Emporer’s New Mind
Haven’t finished, and doubt I will before returning. This book is quite strongly in the line of Hofstadter’s “Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid”. It tries to pose a direction for an answer where human intelligence originates from, and in the journey there, crosses just about any beta-science known to man (it feels). I always figured I had this very high-level awareness of Einstein’s relativity theory. Turns out that one of the leading theoretical physicists view of “high-level” are disturbingly more deep than mine :)
Yes, I love a challenge. Just finished the chapter on classical physics. To my surprise, that included general relativity (although frankly that is not that surprising, I just hadn’t thought about it that much). Much more surprisingly is that Penrose sketches that the idea of an independent framework can be traced back to at least Galileo. Definitely thought-provoking. Also definitely not light reading material: I will have to reread that chapter again :)
Other than that (as mentioned previously) I indulged myself when Jen was here, and we watched Harry Potter 1-5 on my brand new DVD player. And, surrounding that, I watched a lot of Farscape with my neighbor. Almost finished season 1 in roughly 3 weeks. On top of that Michiel swung by the other day. I hadn’t seen him in a while, and it was really good to see him. Being a father has changed him, but in a way he’s also still the same :) Was good to see him. Am curious to see Barbara and Daniel too, will try and swing by in the near future.
Jen’s visit
July 19th, 2009Jennifer visited me the last couple of days. Unfortunately, at the same time Maren and me made our breakup official. As you can imagine, this made things a bit weird for me, and I was probably not as good a host as before. Nevertheless, it was definitely fun having Jen around, and we watched a lot of Harry Potter :)
I am all prepared to go for the movie, part 6 :) Will see if that actually happens, but who knows ;) Anyway, I guess Jen’s visit here was entertaining, despite being rainy. I heard a lot about India — have to admit, it does sound amazing to be able to go on internships (for doctor) to a hospital in India… have fun!
Cool!
July 4th, 2009Ghi, I just found out that a webcomic I submitted a long time ago to Comments on a Postcard got published! :)
Enjoy!
Internetdemocracy: how not to
June 24th, 2009I just read that the Dutch government has opened a site where they ask citizens for input on pending legislation. Sounds promising, no?
I checked, curious as I am (it’s in Dutch, of course). The items I saw:
-
Wet prejudiciële vragen aan de Hoge Raad
-
Implementatie EU kaderbesluit recidive in strafzaken
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Regeling gewasbeschermingsmiddelen en biociden
Great! We get to give our views on legalese!
They have got to be kidding.
“De consultatie betreft het voorontwerp van de introductie van een prejudiciele procedure…”
I really thought no one was using such language. Well, I guess this is doomed to failure untill they get a translation into Dutch.
Funny home video: having your car stolen
June 18th, 2009http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHadC4zlwXw. Nuff said.