Thinking Machinima: New TF2 Machinima tools on the way?

Thinking Machinima: New TF2 Machinima tools on the way?
This site is about Machinima, a way of producing 'films' with 3D engines derived/used by Games.

Kuru Kuru

And another one:

MTV Top of Japan 1997

During my research for old computer graphics, I 'discovered' this video, pretty cool gaming if you ask me :D

Haarlemmerpoort in the morning

This morning, biking from the Westerpark, I just had to shoot this picture...

Lovely video by Justice: D.A.N.C.E.

The Unreal Demo by Futurecrew (1992)

This video was the ultimate thing back then. I remember it as if it were yesterday. being flabbergasted by what was possible...

See for yourself:

Chaplin - Clown Illusion

It speaks for itself ;)

Mehr als das Gold...

Original

Fixin Les Clos 1999

I have to many good bottles of wine lying around in my apartment. Most of them go way back, like summer 2001, 2 or 3. A lot were bought in the Bourbons-department. Those Bourgogne-wines are not supposed to lie around for ages, like some premier or grand cru Bordeaux-wines can. So, this bottle was a bit of a try-out (as I have 2 more left)...
And it is absolutely delicious! Fresh, like a young wine but with a long, fresh 'aftertaste'.

I think the other bottle should be drank shortly, as this is the top-quality (I think, not sure though...). But have 3 bottle from 2000 left, so enough to enjoy in the near future :p

Also a Dutch Blog...

It crossed my mind a few times before: I should Blog in Dutch, as that is my Motherlanguage.
So, now I claimed the address:

letatcest-nl.blogspot.com

A true change of species by changing the genome in one cell...

First genome transplant changes one species into another from PhysOrg.com

For the first time, scientists have completely transformed a species of bacteria into another species by transplanting its complete set of DNA. The achievement marks a significant step toward the construction of synthetic life, with applications including the production of clean fuel in as little as a decade.

[...]

All shall be well; and all shall be well; and all manner of things shall be well (Tod Wodicka)

Just started in a novel with an interesting point of view on life. I pre-ordered this work when I read about the author in the VPRO programming guide for radio and television. It was not published back then, but what I read about the author and his first work was interesting enough to buy without reading any reviews at all.
The interview with Wodicka is an interesting read: he dislikes youth-culture, he loves history but as he is a romantic and not a researcher he didn't start a study in Medieval History as he did not want to learn Latin and research everything so all is completely correct and scientifically accurate.
I've only read the first two chapters of the book now, but it is a very encouraging read, as I regularly escape into the past myself in my dreams...

The cover shows the An Old Man and His Grandson by Domenico Ghirlandaio. Burt, the main character in the book, often feels like the man in the painting.

Tourism (by Nirpal Sing Dhaliwal)

Tourism, I borrowed the book from a friend of mine who was definately quite fond of the harsh style, the filth and the fast pace of writing.
I must say that I didn't dislike the read, but it was not what I expected. The main character 'Puppy' is not likable. That is not a problem. The thing is that most of the characters in the book are not that interesting, although the contemporary view on modern life in London City is interesting.
After all, not a bad read, but not a must-read.

Train tickets..

In the Netherlands it is still NOT possible to use a credit card to buy train tickets from a machine.. If you are 'lucky' there is a point of sale which is manned by a human being. For the use of this service you pay an extra fifty cents on top of the price of your ticket.. Oh and this only works if you are so lucky to have actual cash money. I don't understand this at all.

Bridging art and vandalism ;)

At first I thought that I was looking at some simple dead-body lookalike joke. But look a bit closer :)

Slashdot | The Big Bang Vs. the Big Rumble

Slashdot | The Big Bang Vs. the Big Rumble WBUR radio in Boston hosts a talk with two physicists, Alan Guth and Neil Turok, who represent, respectively, the consensus theory of the inflationary Big Bang and an upstart theory of the initiation of the universe in the collision of two three-dimensional "branes." Turok and Paul Steinhardt developed their "Ekpyrotic proposal" out of the mathematics behind string theory. In the audio the two physicists are perhaps more respectful of one another's views than the host wishes them to be. If you ignore the "let's you and him fight" framing of the debate, you will hear some interesting physics elucidated.

I wanted to hear the discussion before posting on my blog... but haven't had the time yet to listen, but before the links get lost in a big pile of /. newspostings.. I blog it anyway.

Heaven, Hell and Purgatory, Encased in Glass

Just came across an article in the NY Times on the new museum in Hilversum on the Netherlands institute for Sound and Vision.

HILVERSUM, the Netherlands — It’s almost daunting to note how many young architectural talents are flourishing today in the Netherlands. If Rem Koolhaas, the profession’s reigning intellectual prince, casts a long shadow, it’s clear that plenty of emerging architects have managed to assert strong creative voices of their own.

Dutch Men

(Apologies to any non-Dutchies, but this had to be in my native language ;) )

De Nederlandse Man is hopeloos in de war. Misschien is het wel een pan-Europees (of dan in ieder geval Noord-Europees) probleem, maar het manifesteert zich voor mij het duidelijkst in de Nederlandse Man.

De NL-Vrouw is ook van het rechte pad af. Waarom? Kort door de bocht: NL-mannen zijn allemaal mietjes. De gemiddelde homo is nog mannelijker. Dit kan niet de bedoeling zijn natuurlijk.

Hoe kom ik op dit dit idee, waar komt dit gevoel vandaan? Laatst zat ik op het vliegveld van Barcelona om een vlucht terug te nemen naar Amsterdam op een donderdagmiddag met Transavia.com. Zo'n vlucht die gebruikt wordt door 50+ers die hun hele leven gepamperd zijn geweest met sociale vangnetten en zo voort. Ook is er nog een handjevol werkenden. Ik dus, zo een van achterin de 20 (eigenlijk vrijwel 30).

Die mannen die niet op Aeropuerto Barcelona zijn omdat ze werken of gewoon te veel geld hebben, nee, die gewone mannen. Daar gaat het hier om. Die overdreven gebruinde handtasflikkers of grijzende, kalende mannen met klein buikje, neerhangend hoofd, angstige blik in de ogen en zelfs bij de gate nog het buideltasje stevig onder de buik vastgegespt. Geen ietsepietsie kracht spreekt er nog uit. De vrouw ernaast daarentegen... Maar het gaat niet over de vrouwen.

Dit beeld wordt niet allen in het echte leven naar voren geschoven, zelfs in de film van de Da Vinci code (ja, ik heb hem gezien, hoort erbij) zien we een krachteloze, zweterige, licht obeese Tom Hanks een idem karakter (Robert Langdon) neerzetten me teen fobie voor afgesloten ruimtes. Daar wil ik toch een Man Man (of in ieder geval één die doet alsof) zoals... of ... Ok, tja..., nou Brad P. bijvoorbeeld, of die andere...

In mijn beeld toen ik het boek las, was die Robert L. toch echt wel een stoere, goed uitziende man van rond de 50. Stoer ook. Misschien heb ik de passages over angsten voor afgesloten ruimtes en dergelijke per ongeluk niet gelezen of uit mijn geest verbannen.

Ik had het voornamelijk over mannen boven de 40 tot nu toe, maar hoe zit het daaronder? Ik weet het niet zo goed. Aangezien men de adolescente fase momenteel doortrekt tot tenminste 35 jaar, is men rond de 40 pas net wat gevormd. Althans, zo lijkt het.

Feit is wel dat de nieuwe generatie net afgestudeerden tussen de 25 en 35 een andere kijk heeft op geld verdienen dan die half impotente, softe man waar ik het net over had. Men regelt het nu zelf wel (of niet) en trekt daar zijn eigen conclusie uit. Misschien dat deze generatie mensen van het mannelijk geslacht weer wat meer balls krijgt. Wat machogedrag overgenomen heeft van de importman (eh.. allochtonen).

Hoe de huidige generatie jongens man zal worden, zal de tijd leren. Laten we hopen op andere tijden.

(Written right after flying back from Barcelona, somewhere around half May 2006, just rediscovered this story while cleaning up my hard drive)

Deforestation: The hidden cause of global warming

In the next 24 hours, deforestation will release as much CO2 into the atmosphere as 8 million people flying from London to New York. Stopping the loggers is the fastest and cheapest solution to climate change. So why are global leaders turning a blind eye to this crisis?



read more | digg story

Space... the final "thing" to keep us confused?

Just came by this article on /. about the discovery of a fossil star which is found to be 13.2 billion years old (recent studies show that the galaxy is about 13.7 bn years old). In one of the reactions someone answers the question of someone who wants to know if there is a 'place' in our universe where the Big Bang occurred. He/She states it nicely:

If by "origin" you mean "point of origin", then we already have that answer. The big bang was not an explosion which occurred at one point in space, spewing matter and energy out everywhere. The big bang was a big explosion OF space, and spewed out a glob of space which began to expand, making points more distant from each other.

So you cannot ask "where" the big bang occurred, because if you take all the points in space as far as can be seen, all of those points in space were at one single point at the moment of the big bang. So the best answer to "where" is "everywhere".

It may be nonsense (I don't think so, but I am not very well educated on the Big Bang topic), but if it is in a simplistic way correct, I like it :)

All modern humans descended from the same small group of people

Researchers have produced new DNA evidence that almost certainly confirms the theory that all modern humans have a common ancestry.

Ever since a member of my year club told me about the Dawkin's book, I all the time stumble onto stories which are related to science and religion... This one which I blogged from Digg is a lovely piece on evolution and read the reactions given by it's readers...

read more | digg story

45% of Europeans watch TV online

"A new study from Motorola has found that an amazing 45% of Europeans now watch television online.The survey covering the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Spain found that the French lead Europe in terms of online television consumption with 59% of people choosing to watch previews and episodes of their favourite shows via the web."
What is not stated here: 45% of all Broadband users. Nevermind, I am pretty curious about the use of watching through www.uitzendinggemist.nl in the Netherlands.

read more | digg story

My dear old asus p2b :)

The inside of my old desktop computer from 1998. The apparatus still functions pretty well with its overclocked celeron 1 Ghz proc. Right now it contains a 40 gig hd and the Ubuntu os and it runs like a charm. My plan is to donate it to one of my grandmothers as it contains only one big firefox button in the middle of the screen saying: The big internet for everything. As far as I'm concerned everything is online (email, wordprocessor, calendar and the rest, finally those old people only need to remember what butto to push)

Dorem i Fasoll a Sido (i.e. 3FM Awards)

The 3FM Awards 2007 were held in Pop Temple Paradiso in Amsterdam. This former church now served as an "altar" for the Dutch pop music (not necessarily  in the Dutch language, most artists sing in English).
The Grand Opening was the most spectacular part (although on tv it did not look as catchy as on stage). First a lecture by Eric Corton, after that a spectacular mix of music and music videos (lot's of different styles combined into one mix) and after that Claudia de Breij hanging from the cross (pictured below during the preparations) just like Madonna did in her criticized show. Claudia her song was about her act not being offensive at all. 

 

Slashdot | 48% of Americans Reject Evolution

Slashdot | 48% of Americans Reject Evolution. WTF?!?! Is the world finally coming to an end? Is the Apocalypse there? Of course it is not a /. article, but a poll by Newsweek, you can read it here.
It states that 48% of the USA residents do not believe in evolution. Furthermore, 34% of college graduates (!) accept the Biblical story of creation as fact. Also we (earth and everything) were created by a godlike figure and not more than 10.000 years ago...
I am totally flabbergasted. Even more because of 91% (!) of the adult Americans say the believe in god.

But, this hits the alarm bells in my mind:

Nearly half (47 percent) of the respondents felt the country is more accepting of atheists today that it used to be and slightly more (49 percent) reported personally knowing an atheist. Those numbers are higher among respondents under 30 years old, 62 percent of whom report knowing an atheist (compared to just 43 percent of those 50 and older).

Like thinking for yourself is merely a crime... (at least, that is what I read in those sentences).

Quickly religions seem to take over the world once again. I hope it is their last gasp. But infiltrating everywhere, even paleontologists claim official degrees and tell the world that it is only 10.000 years old...

Cars and bikes

The same as the previous tow-away dog post. The removal of bikes + cars. Well, I can see how to remove a bike which is parked in front of this house. I am really curious about the cars. Again I have some very interesting mental pictures.

Dogs

If you walk the streets instead of being in a hurry, you often notice small oddities. The things you never notice when you pass them quickly on your bike.
This tow-away sign for dogs is one of those things. Interpret it the way you want. I have a lot of different interpretations, that's for sure ;)

Cars...

Recently I read about men and their cars. Men (as in: male homo sapiens) are known car lovers. The more noise the thing makes, the better it is. Also, cars gives men sturdy feelings. This will certainly not surprise anyone. This is widely known. Probably the Oempa-Loempa's would have known if they existed...

I'd say: it is far from sturdy and tough to drive a car. It shows you to the world as a weak person. Someone who cannot walk or drive a bicycle. Someone who misses the physical strength to do those things. Someone who is a pussy instead.

"Why so harsh? Do you not drive a car?" Yes, I do even own one (which has not left the garage the past 4 years... but that is due to maintenance which I still have to do). But, that car is not a car, it is a 2CV.

"But, you hate public transport don't you?" Yes and no. I hate the bus. Except for when it drives me to a location somewhere in the Alps to do some skiing. Also I hate the tram/metro/tube/underground. Except for when they come in handy because of something is too big to carry on the back of your bike (I could say: when it rains, but it always turns out that you have to wait too long... so the bike would have been a better choice).
And I simply love the train (except for when I am obliged to take a bus after arriving). Though the train is most lovable when the ride is long (eh.. long in the Netherlands is between 2 and 3 hours...) in which case you can easily watch a film on your laptop/I-pod/Archos/cellphone/whateverdevice, finally read that book which has been next to your bed for ages, just do some studying, stare blank out of the window or just sleep.

"But by car you would have been 30 minutes/1 hour faster!" Yes, and then I have to pay attention to the road, all the time pay attention if there are no camera's to catch my speeding as I am always speeding as driving a car always makes me fall asleep as it is very verrry boring and only fun when I drive waaay too fast or when it is snowing very hard or there is a dense fog... And you cannot drink. Not that I always have to drink, but I hate soft drinks, and when there is a party...
Another thing are traffic jams (in this country for sure). Nowadays they say: oooh , this morning there are some light traffic jams. A very quiet morning. Just about 220 km of jammed traffic in the country, most of it in the Randstad (this country only measures 41,526 km² and has about 2360 km of highway...). I did an internship in Rotterdam and would sometimes try to get back to Groningen by car on a Friday afternoon. The first half (about 90 kilometers) would take up to 3 hours (!). The second half, ~140 km (where you could easily go 160 km/h, ok, not allowed, but..) would be a little hour... By train you had to switch trains once, somewhere in the middle and would be about 2,5 hours.
Why did I use a car back then? Eh.. well. I lived somewhere which you had to reach by metro... So, for me I should always try to live close to a main train station.

Back to the pussy-story. Using a car also means you drive a vehicle which uses fossil fuel and needs roads which are mainly made out of - yes yes we tend to forget that one - asphalt. Made out of the semi solid products found in most petroleums. A part of fossil fuel. And using the car, which still uses the basics of a system of combustion from over one hundred years old... the car likes flat roads, no bumps. And as so many people seem to like it, a lot of very flat, very expensive roads are needed.

To cut this pile of thoughts short: I don't understand why there are no vehicles yet using Jetsons like systems on hydrogen or something like that. Hmm.. Anyway, no, I dislike the environmental part in this piece. I stick to the men who need to run to the gym by car all the time to lose their weight as all you can do in a car is: consume and consume. Eat, drink, eat, drink, eat, drink and SIT and wait until you can lift your right foot from the gas pedal. In case of cruse control even those muscles are not in use...

I think I made myself clear ;)

Amsterdam by rain...

The Netherlands can be a rainy place. Though it also has its beauty. See for yourself. Later on I'll post more 'urban jungle' pictures.
View the bridge between Rusland viewing alongside the Kloveniersburgwal.

View of buildings at the Waterlooplein from the end of Rusland (street name)

Urban jungle

The fascinating urban 'jungle' of Amsterdam. This is a view from the Prins Hendrikkade. I will post more pictures when I am home and have the ability to alter the colours a bit as the weather was a bit grey..

A creationist takes a place in the world of fossils - International Herald Tribune

A creationist takes a place in the world of fossils goes right against what I wrote about here. The dissertation by Marcus Ross is standard and about a certain class of marine lizards called mosasaurs. These animals lived more than 100 million years ago in the Cretaceous period and went extinct about 65 million years ago. The thesis is written within a conventional scientific framework.

The thing is this Ross-guy is hardly a conventional paleontologist. No this does not mean that he is some kind of Indiana Jones, doing his work under questionable circumstances. No, he is a "young-Earth creationist." Those people believe that the bible (the thing used by christians) is literally true about the creation of the universe and that Earth and all species were created in a 6 day week and at most 10,000 years old...

As he has his degree now, he can 'show off' with having his title. And, as what we are warned for by Richard Dawkins, we are even talking about it, writing about it and giving a minority in the scientific world a loud voice! Even I am part of the people who are shocked now and 'shouting' it out loud from their blogs.

I can only hope that a person who uses his scientific degree as a statue to gain even more power within the fundamentalistic christian world will be dethroned by taking away his "Dr." title.

Someone who is capable of using words in a much stronger way with views I totally agree with, is Larry Moran, a Professor at the University of Toronto. You can find the article I refer to here.

Biotex, Bio-Tex

However you spell it, Biotex is a Dutch detergent brand. In the mid sixties they produced a series of short child stories on 7" double-sided vinyl records.
The two posted below are both hilarious (if you can understand them ;) ).
One is called 'Bio-tex and the holiday box (carton: the box the detergent comes in)' and the other one 'Bio-tex and the box which could cry'.
The first one is a story about Bio-tex going on holiday with his favorite housewives... (by the 'lovely' names of Loeki, Rieki and Wieki... if those are still Dutch names, please tell me).
They go by car and a caravan. When they are on the campsite, they hear about an escaped lion (duh...) and clever Bio-tex captures the lion in the caravan...
The second one is about a child thief... a bad bad man who steals children! (hahaha, oh, it is SO funny in the light of today! well.. it is nearly 40 years old this record... back then child-thieves did do nothing else but steal children...)
Here they are:




Compared to the other records posted before, those Bio-tex ones were very popular. There is even a Wikipedia entry about it... (Dutch only).

Coffee, Espresso, Etcetera

Coffee has been an important drink in my life ever since I am fourteen or something like that. What happened back then? I believe we went canoeing somewhere in the polder of Noord-Holland. My parents brought food and drinks of course, that's what parents do. On the way back home in the car I was rather thirsty and my mother poured me a drink in a baby-cup (looks like a lidded coffee cup for a takeaway coffee, but back in the late eighties or early nineties those things were not common in the Netherlands yet...)
Nevertheless, I received the closed cup and did not see or smell what I got to drink. I may have thought something like tea or hot chocolate. I took a sip and did like it! It was coffee with milk and sugar. Before that moment I always said I hated coffee.
During the years I first got rid of the milk and eventually lost the sugar as well. The losing the sugar I remember quite well, it was back in 1996 when I lived in Spain and where I lived first the sugar was finished and later on the artificial sweetener which was still somewhere in the house got finished as well. As no one ever thought of buying sugar we all quit using it ;)

But traveling around the (western) world, you start to get to know your coffees. A certain taste is developed and you become more and more critical:.

Me: 'Hey, you brewed this coffee with old coffee!'
Someone: 'Eh, well, it may be two months old, I don't taste anything odd?!'
Me: 'Ordinary coffee should never be older then at most two weeks...'
Someone: 'Errr...'

Me: 'Hey, you should decalcify your coffee machine.'
Someone: 'Errrr its only 10 years old...'

Anyway. Even I sometimes long for a solvable Nescafe as it reminds me of good old times (it's not that bad for when you are traveling light). It is often even better than those coffee-padmachines (Senseo Drama, not talking about espresso systems with pad, those are often pretty fine, depending on the brand of the pads).

But now... I thought I knew a bit about making coffee (hey, I'm not a Barista!).

Personally I never really thought about those machines with levers to pull... Until I got to pull one myself. Timing is everything. I am talking about the Mirage Idrocompresso by Kees van der Westen:

Well, see for yourself. Apart from the wonderful taste you can produce with it, it even looks impressive.
I tried to find out how much such a machine would cost. Nowhere to find. I would say two times half the price ;)

From what I read about it in reviews, it is one of the top-models you can get these days. Although I am pretty curious what will happen when fully automated machines can do the same...

C.T.I. Vliegreizen

This paper promotional record for a Dutch (?) airline/charter from the sixties (?). I have not been able to retrieve any information about this former airline company, but it served fully accommodated trips in Europe and Northern Africa.
To capture this record I had to adjust the weight on the needle to 3 grams, otherwise it would jump of the record as it is far from flat.

Corry Brokken en de Hi-Five introduceren de BP Super Mix Song

This is a song about a new fuel: the BP Super Mix. BP introduces three 'new' types of fuel. Those fuels are mixed from the two types of 'ordinary' fuel in the sixties: Normal and Super (nowadays in Western Europe you hardly can find any Super anymore, as it was leaded fuel, Normal I haven't seen in ages).

The record itself was pressed the same way the Senton-record which I posted before: by use of the 'Procédé Sonopresse'.

Funny thing on the front-cover: in small letters it tells you that Corry Brokken only sings on PHILIPS records.

Anyway, enjoy:

Bayer Kinderaspirin

Well, this is the second 'record' I captured from an advertisement disc. It is a paper record with a plastic layer on top of it which contains the grooves. The disc may be from the fifties or sixties. Unfortunately no one added dates anywhere, so it is just a guess.
The front cover shows a boy who doesn't want to take his medicine. The promotional record tells us about the new aspirin for children with a fruity taste.
The back cover has the complete song printed out, so children could even sing along.
On the back of the record there is information on the medicine and the front shows a smiling child.

Well, listen and look for yourself:

Senton - You must go on, you can go on

Well, this is mainly for the dutchies only, as what you are about to see below is a Dutch 'song'.
It was captured from a promotional disc (as in record) to promote some anti-depressive medicine.
Organon was the manufacturer of the product Senton (I have not been able to retrieve any information on the product so far).

On the back of the cover it sais:

Het geriatrische preparaat om oud te worden zonder oud te zijn
(The geriatric preparation to become old without being old)

Well, listen to the song and enjoy :)


The so called 'flexi-disks' which were often used for those promotional records were often made by a Rotterdam based company: Sonopresse Rotterdam. They produced over 100 million of those thin, flexible records between 1961 and 1984.

Socks...

Almost everybody knows about the hassle of doing laundry. Maybe not putting it in the machine itself, not even the hanging the stuff to dry, no: the folding afterwards is the worst part.
But ok, you start doing it and then the smallest pieces remain, mostly socks.
Socks are the most difficult thing to pair. Shoes - if you would wash them - are usually quite distinct and trousers come mainly in one piece. But socks, no.
Often it is hard to tell if one black sock should be combined with thát one or thát one. But, the oddest thing about socks is that you always seem to end up with a few leftovers of which the counterparts are never to be found again. But if you throw them away, you can be sure to end up with other single socks.

The solution is: bind them together, put them in the bottom drawer and maybe after a few years, some of the single socks will end up as a pair again! The rest: throw them away!

The God Delusion

Many people already know by the title of this post what I am talking about: the book written by Richard Dawkins on the subject of the improbability of an existing god(like) figure and how useless religion is in general (in Dutch the title is 'God als misvatting').

Well, I do fully agree with what I have read so far. The regret I have is that the book might only be read by those who are already (converted) atheists.

It is not a science textbook and the views are not all unbiased, but it at least has the courage to question out loud what millions of people do not or cannot.

In times where even the Dutch government went back to a heavily Christian winged reign to possibly turn back lots of recently earned freedoms (from the past thirty years) we - as atheists or possibly agnostics (although the book has something to tell you if you are agnostic) - should show our teeth as well...

Again, a year has past...

So, most people may have noticed. I did too (that a year has past again). I had the luxury to have the most wonderful view of Amsterdam out of a penthouse situated in a renovated silo in the IJ (a big piece of water, connecting Amsterdam with the IJsselmeer, which is also quite a big lake). A pleasant place to be at that time of the year. No fuss, no 'big things' coming up. Just some friends, some drinking. You know the drill.
The thing was that i took pictures of the fireworks with my very old Chinon CP-6 analog photocamera. Well, that's an easy one to answer. a) I know how the thing works (with diaphragm, exposure time, etc. etc.) b) I know how to set those options! and c) It has a better lens than my Canon Ixus 4 an my Sony Ericsson K800i. And it's old school, I should not forget the vintage part!

What i did not remember was that there were still pictures on it. Not from like a year ago, no, more like three years ago! Snow, old housemates, drinking coffee, smashing toilet doors, stuff like that. Things you do when you are a student...

Anyway. After one of the most annoying days of the year (Christmas is the other one) I even survived 2006. Well.. what's for starters for 2007 then? A bit of doing taxes? I should have. I should have... I did not. No, I left the night of the third of January to find myself playing games on a bloody LAN-party. Yes yes.. even as a thirty year old guy I know how to make time to stop sleeping and start gaming/drinking/smoking (damn.. I hadn't smoked so much since... a VERY long time.. then you know immediately why you shouldn't do it anymore.. but, doesn't matter as I try to do this only twice a year :) )

What happens after such a week (okok, four nights or something like that) of doing 'the best for you body' Ha, well.. then you feel completely empty. Nothing is good anymore. Nothing can make you happy anymore. It is amazing what it does to you. You never want to get out of that dark dungeon where you played games.. This time the 'jet lag' took me three days of recovery... and still I feel a bit... well.. not quite under the weather.