Life is like a poker game

if you have a short stack, you have to play like a short stack...
but if you have a big stack, you can afford to wait it out a little

sometimes you get dealt a bad hand, sometimes a great one...
but there's always someone with the best hand

one moment you could be chip leader...
the next moment you are hanging on to your last chips

you can bluff, and represent you have a better hand than you actually have...
or you can just take risk that you'll hit the straight on the river

you'll win some, you'll lose some...
but to win, you have to play the game

My Buddy Network

I take great pride in the expansive network of people I've built up in the past twenty-something years. As far as I am concerned I was (and luckily still am) able to connect with a lot of different, valuable, intelligent people with good stories, extraordinary characters and/or immaculate skills. Every single one of them filled a gap, a need at that point in time (no matter how small), and for that I am grateful.

However these people and the relationships I keep with them must be managed meticulously. This involves, but is not exclusive to:

• remembering birthdays (MY DEEPEST APOLOGIES)
• coming over for babyshowers
• helping people move
• keeping track of your friends' friends names
• going out together for dinner or clubbing
• having lunch/espresso together
  

As you can see this is already a huge list; nevermind that you still need to eat, sleep, do the chores, do the groceries, take out the dog, work and pay the bills, and go on vacation every once in a while.

Unfortunately the cost of not maintaining your relationships is... well... they stall and wither basically.

This is where internet fulfils a demand: without having to call, write, visit anyone anymore you can still stay in touch with the likes of Hyves, Hi5, Orkut, MySpace, LinkedIn, Flickr, YouTube, even this Blogger. Anyone is updated about current affairs, current job, and what you ate last night. If you move, you don't need to send a forwarding address by post (soooooo 1980s): just leave a message on your profile page and people are up to date very quickly...

At least, if they take the effort of actually looking at your profile!

I do think this stuff helps save time in keeping relationships up-to-date. It persists relationships you had at one point in time, and keeps them safe for all-time. It prevents you from losing contact altogether... Otherwise you get these awkward e-mails from people from the past who are hesitant to contact you because it's been so long since you last spoke.

Of course this also allows for situations where you just want someone's name in your list for the sake of it ("yes the PM of the Netherlands is in my Hyves friends list!!"), or you get someone's name in your network whom you don't want there ("oh no the President of the USA is in my Hyves friends list!!"). Wonder if the police do their relationships audit on-line as well... I might have to remove some of these people very fast...

Truthfully, some relationships are worth keeping, even after a long bloody time. There's even a television genre for this: emo-television (cf. "Vermist", "Het Spijt Me").

Relationships should take time as far as I am concerned. These sites cannot account for everything, they should not replace the very limited interactions we already have with one another. And that is something I fear we are doing. We are getting complacent about meeting each other ("I don't need to see this guy now, I read his blog and he's doing fine."). Also we are alienating a lot of people who still don't want anything to do with internet (grandma, great-uncle Pete, Greenpeace Jill and so on). Only Sandi Thom can say (sing) it better than I can.

I myself do have an on-line presence, simply because my phone bill is far too high as it is, I cannot fly off to everywhere on a moment's notice and finally I cannot clone myself to attend two events occuring at the same time. So look me up on Hyves or on LinkedIn. (And of course, you already found the blog...)

Privacy, schmivacy. I'm not getting into politics anyway.

Just give me my Haka dammit!

In Rugby Union no team is better, no team is more intimidating than the New Zealand All Blacks. A great deal of their appeal and intimidation factor has to do with the Haka, the war dance that they do before their test matches. It is truly a riveting sight: fifteen burly, strong men, calling upon the power of the gods to beat their opponents. After seeing that across the pitch, you don't wanna play rugby anymore. You want to run home to mommy for safety.

And today the All Blacks decided not to do the Haka against Wales.

!@#$%^&*(^$@!

Pride plays into this: home teams want to be last to be introduced, but a visiting New Zealand squad demands their anthems to be played even after that of the home team's. Or else no Haka.

You wanna see how quickly you can make a crowd turn on you? Don't do your song and dance. Don't do your gimmick. Don't do what people pay hard earned money to see.

Inner-outer space

Our motivations are strongly diverse, but eventually they all come back to survival and making sense of life and the world around us. We differ most in the way we drive our value system. Some of us are inherently inwardly oriented, others are outward. The former does not derive value from external factors (e.g. other people's opinions, gossip, awards, recognition), up to the point where he does not care what others think of him. The inwardly oriented person checks himself if he is doing well or not, goes about his business, regardless of circumstances. He can be arrogant, aloof, superior, but also nerdy, uncomplicated, stubborn.

The latter derives much, if not all of his self-worth from how others see him. He is acutely aware of other people's opinions and works to great lengths to bring them in his favor. He does so by being nice, looking people in the eye, showing respect, handing out gifts, shoulder pats and so on. He is uncontroversial, but also seems unreal and sometimes even not very authentic.

Depending on your outlook in life, physical traits, interests, skills you have and/or obtained, one approach or the other works better for you. The great challenge is finding out which one. Unfortunately not everyone gets it right, despite clear evidence to the contrary.

Career Achievements

As of today, I have achieved the following in my long and distinguished career as a matchmaker:

• # relationships brought together: 0
• # relationships witnessed coming together: 4
  
• # relationships witnessed broken up: 3
  
• # (partially / fully) responsible for broken-up relationships: 3

I might have to quit while I'm ahead.

Lunar Cycle

It's been a strange week altogether. I've heard people in my immediate vicinity had fallen into puddles of mud... twice. Some of us are sick or nauseous, or even just plain tired. One of us is nearly spooning his eyes out because of the pain it gives him. One of my colleagues couldn't get his residence permit renewed, so he is off. A couple of long-term relationships just hit a dry spell, and the parties involved informed me they just needed a break... right.

Seemingly the moon's current state suggests that we are all in a rather strange and disturbing period. Some of us are getting better, while others are doing worse. It just happens to occur all at the same time.

What does this mean for the coming week? The strangeness should still continue, with job opportunities vanishing, deliveries getting f'ed up, and bowels acting up. It should still be a little while before things turn for the better, so be careful for now.

But I'm fine.

If I ran a political party...

• you could only vote if you took an exam first; and you MUST have a high school diploma
  
• traffic is caused by people who can't drive; they must be cut off at the source; anyone who cannot drive (e.g. 60 km/h on the highway; parking halfway in two spaces) will have his driver's license revoked permanently;
• Anyone from foreign countries wanting to work here, fine. But you're getting paid in air miles.
  
• television stations are disbanded in favour of tv on-demand, and a surprise channel (Nederland 1 will work for this)
  
• organized religions are taxed 80 %; if you want to show your religious colours (put a fish-sign on your car, wear a kabbala or a headdress etc.), you can obtain the right to do so for a 50 % tax hike. Doing so without paying tax? Ask yourself what happens to you if you stop paying normal income taxes...

It's probably best for me never to run for office...

I know what you should vote!

I think you can do away with all these stemwijzers, and vote analyzers (like stemwijzer.nl). They try to help you make up your mind which party to vote for, but in the end it doesn't matter: no matter which party you vote for, there's no single party that can fully bring to bear their entire party program (when they finally get to rule). There's simply too much to choose from and eventually no single party can get the majority. Eventually the government will consist of a combination of different parties, and all party programmes will be watered down significantly.

On the other hand the two-party system as active in the US is not good either, since the Republicans and the Democrats keep each other in a deadlock. Or they have to trade one activity for another, and so governing becomes not much more than playground economics. You remember that? trading one big marble for several smaller marbles? That big one shiny sticker for the other one that you don't already have?

Next week in Holland by all means vote with your gut. Don't listen to party rhetoric. Don't follow the advice of the stemwijzers. Think about who do you want to place in power, who do you trust enough to represent you? You don't always get what you want (I sure didn't the last few years), and contrary to what Mick Jagger says, you don't sometimes get what you need. But you're making a statement.

Discuss.

The Secret (behind) Santa

The month of December brings us another opportunity to offload our crap trinkets on our unsuspecting friends and family. There's Christmas, Sinterklaas (if you live in Holland that is), and if you're really unlucky birthdays. Altogether it is a good thing christmas bonuses get paid out now indeed.

Of course this brings the discussion to gifts, or more accurately the process of buying gifts. The person you're buying the gift for obviously is leading what you pick for him or her. However I've found that the length of the relationship you have, is just as important.

• If you just got to know someone within the last 6 to 12 months or so, you can pretty much get away with something from the souvenir shop, or the bargain bin: budget eau de cologne, wine from the supermarket, a paperback
  
• If you're friends for some time now - say between 1 and 5 years - you probably need to team up with your pals; the gifts you buy are not elaborate, but probably too big or expensive to buy alone: toaster ovens, jewelry, gadgets
  
• If your relationship goes back for five years or more then there's an issue: there's not a lot you can still give that you haven't given before (try buying your wife a 27th anniversary gift, you'll see what I mean); now the gifts become less material and more immaterial: dinners out, vacations, concert tickets, spa treatments

N.B. The total dollar amount of the gift is not in any way an indicator of the length of the relationship (although if you're buying a $ 100 necklace on a first date, you are either Donald Trump, or you completely missed the point). And milestones (25th and 50th anniversaries, lustra) obviously call for something special, no matter how long your relationship.

Don't ask, don't tell

Apparently I am very good at keeping secrets... or actually I am very good at not telling secrets. I am extremely bad at hiding I keep a secret.

In all actuality I do want to tell everything I know, but there's a couple of things stopping me:

• is it appropriate to just spill the beans?
• trust is big virtue for me, and I associate keeping something inside with being more trustworthy than just gossiping around
• sometimes whatever you think is a big secret, is actually not; I feel you can lose face if your big news is in fact not so big

So basically if you ask the right questions, you can get loads and loads of information from me

The Ultimate Top Gear Match-up

After seeing this guy racing all over Europe, amongst other things riding his motorcycle from Rotterdam to Amsterdam, across the A20 and A12 to Utrecht and then north to the nation's capital on the A2, in just over 20 minutes, I came up with the ultimate Top Gear challenge. The one that will shatter all viewing records, and be the legendary story for years to come.

I wanna see Ghost Rider take on The Stig in a winner take all fastest time lap around the Nurburgring. (of course Stiggie should have a car which is comparable in power-to-weight ratio to the Ghost Rider's cycle).

Winner gets to replace Richard Hammond while he is recuperating from his crash.

I really don't wanna help you but I don't

Here's a strange way of helping out: offer to help with something, but only if the other has already done so.

Also add that it when you offer to help, make sure that the other ones know you've got something alternative planned, that is very, very hard to get out of.

Survivor Series: Techies vs. Consultants

For years techies and consultants battle for total supremacy in the company. Consultants can act all high and mighty, Techies turn off their access to the internet. Techies treat the customer like shit, consultants get treated to dinner by the client.

There's a fundamental difference between the two groups. In the Dilbertian world techies are fuzzy people, practical, lazy, curious and highly logically oriented. According to them, the world has one solution (the right one), and they are insulted by anyone who doesn't see the same solution.

Consultants are political animals, theoretic, formal and by-the-book. As long as everything is put to paper there's no problem. If someone tries to prove them wrong, consultants can point to their precious documentation.

In the end both groups can rile up the other very easily. And that's where I should come in. I am the guy to alleviate the pressure between the groups and reconcile any differences. Through me each can elaborate their ideas better to the other. I can translate, draw examples that speak to each group. I can work in both groups effectively and lead by example.

And that's where the money is.

Three Steps to make a Good Music Compilation

• Have a theme; it can be a music genre, a specific subset of artists. However make sure you are original in your theme. There are just too many love song compilations in the world today. Get inspired by a movie that just came out, a football game that just played out.
• Make sure the tempo of the compilation varies. All slow songs are boring, but everything uptempo tires you out quicker than you can say huh. If all songs are rock loud, your ears start ringing after just three tracks... however make sure the songs don't switch gears from track to track. Make it flow naturally.
• Anchor the compilation with the strongest tracks at the start, at the end and in the middle. (I usually pick my strongest track as the eighth.) When you put tracks at the start, the track needs to start strong. The track you put at the end must end well, either with feeling or with a climactic finish, which all depends on your intentions.