Cutting loose

Sometimes you need space, and just want to clear out, get away. There are many ways you can do so. Going on vacation to a far away country. Stay in house. Turn off your phone. Change your identity. Block your relationships.

Each way has a motive behind it. It depends if you need space temporarily, or long term. If you want to go back to your old life when you come back, or if you want a desperate change. If you are disruptive and fickle in nature, or if you're harmonious and just don't want to trouble anyone else.

What is your motive to take a leave of absence?

More Personal Investments

I generally stick to the idea that - like stocks - every relationship requires personal investment. You spend time, effort, attention, perhaps a little bit of money, and that allows the relationship to blossom.

It hurts when an investment doesn't pan out, especially a significantly big investment. Even more so if the payoff you expected was important to you. And yet even more when that same payoff was almost reached and then cruelly taken away at the last possible moment.

Of course you will try to protect your investment, reduce risk, provide more incentives. Sometimes it helps, but like the DOW, there really are no guarantees. Results in the past, do not in any way predict anything about the future.

Comparing friendships and relationships to stock symbols is far fetched, but the comparison rings true. Does it help? Does it make you feel better? Unlikely. It helps to deal with human emotion by taking the emotion out of the equation, and being all business-like. Question is, would you want to?

Being Pretty Sells Games

Looks and attractiveness go a long way today. It's sad to see, but more true than you might admit. Actually, I will admit that when given the choice, all basic conditions have been met and all other factors being the same, I will choose superficial beauty and image over actual depth and longetivity.

Case in point: Assassin's Creed, a video game coming out on all the major gaming platforms, but also a game that by its very setting (medieval times, during the crusades) won't appeal to me, despite looking great and being free-form, and having all these subtle cues and immersive atmosphere... until I find out who the game's producer is...



Definitely, I would not even have considered giving this game a second thought, if it weren't for this pretty face. I'm not saying Jade's actually convinced me upfront to fork over my cash in November when Assassin's Creed is released, but she's got a far better shot than say Grand Theft Auto IV, Crysis or Rock Band.

Quiet For The Storm

Ever get the feeling that something's coming up real soon, a potentially big moment, milestone or event that could change your course in life quickly and severely, but in the mean time there's nothing to do? You're just waiting, keeping yourself busy, without really being very productive.

That time is here now.

Probably the best thing to do is take a long trip far away, and doing something else. At least when you come back, regardless of the outcome, you're doing your thing. Otherwise you leave after, and have to deal with the results then and there.

The anticipation is killing. The tension makes people do moves, that are at best ill-advised.

It truly is the quiet before the storm.

Observations from a self-learner course

I've got this Spanish-English course here, a set of audio CDs that basically keeps repeating the same conversations over and over again until you get the hang of it. For me repetition is a good way of learning stuff, especially if I'm doing other things at the side (like in this case, driving). Focus is a funny thing. I focus better when I'm not focusing at all.

Anyway, I just realized the absurd background of my course. It's about two business people going to a seminar in Spain, and asking for their rental car, their flight, their itinerary etc. The guy person asks for all the transport stuff, but the woman colleague is all over the sleeping arrangements. She wants one room for the both of them, a kingsize double bed, for several nights. In fact she corrects the poor hotel desk clerk for messing up the original reservation. The man and the woman have different surnames, so I guess they are not related.

Which leads me to believe:

• these two colleagues are bumping uglies at the seminar
• they made reservations separately not to draw any suspicion, and then changed the reservations afterwards

It's either that, or I truly don't understand a word of Spanish, and I'm imagining things.

Can you name 'em all?

I got to Kung Fu (obviously), Mario, SMB3, Digdug, Street Fighter 2, Street Fighter Alpha (I think), Mega Man, Mega Man 2, Donkey Kong, Gradius, Karateka, Pacman, Urban Champion, Dragonball Z, Track & Field... and then I got stumped... Which are the others?

I told you so... sort of

The following is one of Nostradamus' Quatrains in his work The Prophecies (Century III, Quatrain 70)

La Grande Bretagne comprise l'Angleterre
Viendra par eaux si fort inondre
La ligue neufue d'Ausonne fera guerre
Que contre eux il se viendront bander

The great Britain including England
Will come to be flooded very high by waters
The new League of Ausonia will make war,
So that they will come to strive against them.

Yes, Britain is flooded nowadays, and they are somewhat involved in a war... coincidence?

How To Mess Up a Perfectly Good Car

A Volkswagen Golf is quite a milestone in automotive history. Especially the GTI has become one of the most deceptively quick cars on the road, ever. They made the Golf nice with each new generation, tacking on more and more expensive stuff, while keeping the main characteristic alive... a solid, well-driving car with decent speed and maneuverability.

And then Volkswagen messed it up.

The Golf Plus is the biggest atrocity in the entire line. Driven by misguided market demand, the people at VW decided they needed a people carrier in the series. Probably to cater the boring market segment. As such, they made the Plus higher than a normal Golf, squished the front, and then afterwards gave it a good coat of dull to finish it off.

The drive is terrible. You can't make a bloody left turn without nearly tipping over. The car is so high, the center of gravity has moved up to your neck. And the Plus has all the aerodynamism of a brick wall.

It does seat four to five adults comfortably, so that's a plus. But then again, I wouldn't splash out for one if it were my own money.

I'm glad I'm getting rid of this one.

Road Rules when I'm driving

As I'll be getting new wheels in the very near future, let me reiterate the basic rules for anyone hitching a ride when we're going out...

• If you puke in the car, you're cleaning it immediately... by licking it up. This also goes if you pee or shit your pants.
  
• Only the driver decides who gets added to the ride if need be.
  
• Only the driver decides what that person must do in exchange for the ride.
• Nobody touches the windscreen, the climate control, the radio unless you're the driver or instructed to by the same.
• In case of discussion the driver is always correct. If you still disagree, you can find your own transportation.
• Any of these rules can be strongly adhered to or bypassed at the driver's discretion.
  

Toxicology reports

• I think it's absolutely fantastic that German tv stations ARD and ZDF quit the Tour de France as soon as one single cyclist got caught with doping. It takes quite some balls to walk away from obviously a lot of commercial income to stand up for ethics, and sportsmanship.
  
• Another tox-report eagerly awaited... Benoit did have some kind of steroids in him, but apparently our friendly neighbourhood CSI couldn't determine if these were present at the killings of his wife and son. Thus we'll never know what happened that faithful weekend. Of course everybody's going to spin it in their favour, so WWE will do a hatchet job on Benoit, FOX will turn it back yet again to steroids and the evils of pro wrestling, ex-workers of the industry will spout their personal grievances, company men will sing their praises, and the fans... well... will move on.

I knew I'm stupid, but I am dumb as well

Nope, I am not the smartest guy around, but I could more or less hide that fact behind a facade quite well. Now however even computer games are rubbing it in, that frankly my IQ is not as high as I would like it to be...

We cannot win

I am (along with my colleagues) trying to get a survey running for some time, because we should try to find out what our co-workers think about their jobs. Problem is, so are a lot of other intra-company teams, like HR, the internal telephone service, the lease car service, the management, the facilities department, the finance department, the tea lady and the guys writing marketing articles in the local news flash magazine.

We found ourselves in a position, that we didn't know when it's a good time to ask someone about his job? Right now is no good, since everybody is on vacation, two months ago was no good because everyone was getting three surveys a week, and two months from now everybody will be revving up for the new fiscal year...

Maybe we'll just wing it...

Eighties Denied

The eighties and nineties were the time of my youth. It was all A-Team, Knight Rider, Michael Jackson, Ruud Gullit, Top Gun, Berlin Wall, teen angst, toys and cartoons. Most of what we had back then was crap, but it was what we had, and it is what we nostalgically come back to. How else can you explain the scores of people going to Transformers The Movie, or going to Eighties parties etc.

Some of the things that were cool when you were a kid, are quite embarrassing to admit right now. Some of those actually are best left in the past (certain hairstyles, tube socks). Other things are actually worth quite a lot of money (He-Man action figures, mint condition). Some of those things you might be even proud to say you're still a fan of.

And that's what's been bugging me. Let's say you like Hulk Hogan, or gabber music, but everybody around you found that to be an insipid pastime, and basically ridiculed you for it. Or even worse, they dismissed it as a fad or a phase, and you would grow out of it in time. What would they say if you still like now, what you did back then? (HA!) And have you been fighting for your "right to like", or did you stay quiet until the movie comes out and it suddenly became hip and happening again?

I would say to today's youth that there's enough things in the world people will try to discourage you from. But it's not you who has to stop. The detractors must sell the alternative, or otherwise leave the fad be. You are the only one who can determine what you're supposed to like. Nostalgia will hide the deficiencies of the past anyway, so you might as well work with it, as the years go by.

That's why I don't do jumpstyle, but will let others go right ahead.

Personal Investment

Sometimes things just end. Shows get pulled, companies go bankrupt, wars are lost, people get dead. We are forced to deal with each instance in the best way possible. Often this is directly linked to how much we've invested in someone or something.

For example, I invested a lot of time into pro wrestling. I know and follow the characters, the storylines and am quite up to date with what's going on at each show. These people are real people with their own set of problems and demons. Sometimes one of them just doesn't make it and dies. Sometimes it's unfortunate, other times is downright tragic. It is always however a point of note. Bear in mind, other than being a fan, I have little to no interaction with any wrestler.

Now the other day a message arrived in my inbox, informing me one of my old colleagues from several years ago died. I know the name, probably spoke to him once or twice, and I've likely seen him at a reunion a couple of weeks ago. But I've never worked with him before, and come to think of it, it's rather hard for me to picture his face. So my most immediate reaction was... a shrug.

The difference here is personal investment. I have very little invested in a relationship with this guy, even though objectively he is closer to me than any athlete across the Atlantic. If I invest little, the loss is limited. If I think I can weather the loss of investment, I don't feel bad or worse.

It's a real shitty attitude I realize. But unfortunately it's one that hits closer to home than most people will admit.

Transform And Roll Out (Spoiler)

It's a very Zen-like moment when you hear the voice of Optimus Prime utter the opening monologue. Instantly you're taken back to a time when the world was a clear place. When Autobots were good, Decepticons were evil, every sentient being had a right to exist, and Sky Channel carried the single best cartoon of the eighties.

You hope the live action movie doesn't impact that romantic idea, and still you want it to be upgraded to 2007 standards. With all the CGI, professional soundtrack, Hollywood summer blockbuster production values, vast media exposure and multi-thread merchandise (toys, comics, video game) you can shake a stick at. And thankfully Transformers The Movie does exactly that.

I'm not going to reiterate the movie's plot, and instead we'll just focus on what made the movie great in the theater: the first encounter with Optimus, the interaction between Sam, Mikaela (and Bumblebee), actually the first encounter with Mikaela, the Camaro 2008, the Deceps Blackout, Barricade, and Starscream, Prime kicking ass and taking Bonecrusher's head, Megatron ripping Jazz in two.

You have to appreciate the humour in the movie, which is solid gold. Anthony Anderson doing the Matrix brings the funny. Bumblebee being better at picking up Megan Fox than Shia Leboeuf is just too much. And the Witwicky mother trying to be the understanding parent for an insecure teenager, simply hilarious.

There are some flaws though. The action scenes are MTV-style, as in much too fast to actually see what's going on. The movie moves intermittently from day to night even within the same scene, making it seem like either the scene in real-time would take really, really long, or the director couldn't get the actors to finish their grimaces in time. And like most cult franchises to movie adaptations, the hook of the original had to be Hollywood-ized to make it more tenable to the average movie-goer. Yes, Transformers is definitely a good movie to go to, even for someone who doesn't know TF from the past, but the Autobots and Decepticons don't get nearly enough screentime or dialogue to flesh out their characters, which is the point of the franchise anyway.

The problem is that for all the good things in the movie, it didn't need to be a Transformers movie. Apart from the names, the premise and some of the leitmotifs, anything in the movie could easily have been Go-Bots, or G.I. Joe. Or even the Ghostbusters.

• Will go to the movie again: no, probably not. Can't get the same reaction from the crowd on a post-premiere viewing.
• Will buy the DVD: absolutely. Day it comes out.
• Would go see a sequel: depends if they're gonna focus more on the Transformers themselves next time.

Sore Losers

Apparently Sebastien Bourdais, he of three-time Champ Car World Series champion fame, wasn't too happy how Dutchman Robert Doornbos earned his first victory in ChampCars this past weekend.

Little bit scared of competition are you now Sebastien?

Of course, I would be too, if some upstart rookie from Formula One's nether regions jumped the Atlantic and then proceeded to kick my butt. Especially if I had an inkling of hope I could actually make it Formula One...

But our French friend is not the sore loser here... it's the other Dutch Formula One racers, Jos Verstappen and Christian Albers. They were too proud to race in the States, they'd rather stay at home nursing the kids (Verstappen) or race for 20th place on the grid (Albers). Maybe just as well that the Spyker experiment is not gonna last too much longer.

More Brain Training

Dr. Kawashima must be doing well for Nintendo: the game he inspired and gave his name to, Brain Age, was the killer app for the Nintendo DS, sold millions worldwide, and helped create a new gaming genre from the ground up.

Brain Age 2, or More Brain Training is the sequel to this title, and serves to cash in on the success of the DS and the edutainment/training game genre. It is delightfully similar to the original, making you feel instantly at home. All the controls are still there, the styling hasn't changed, and the sound is what you'd expect. And then of course you throw yourself into the training proper:

• you start off with a rock, paper, scissors game that takes quite a while to get used to. Especially if you've all been growing up to win rock, paper, scissors, it's strange to have to lose when Kawashima asks you to; it takes so much time, I was 68 when the game ended.
  
• then you can start doing some small exercises. Now after one day only three exercises are open to you: a maths exercise requiring you to fill in the missing operator, a spelling exercise where you have to form words from jumbled up letters, and a musical exercise, that asks you to tap the right chords to a song in time to the music. Another opens very soon, another maths exercise that requires you to give back correct change at a cash register, and one where you have to identify words spoken to you from the DS. I've not opened up any more exercises yet, but these are already challenging.

Compared to the original the exercises seem a little harder. It was terrible to see that I couldn't really do the jumbled letters test well, but maybe that's just a matter of recognition. The listening exercise is really, really hard, but that may be a technical limitation. The DS speakers are simply not that good.

Then again the original's exercises (the house occupants' one for example) proved to be no challenge at all after a while, were stale or boring (100 maths formulae, or the memory game) or were seriously flawed (the reading aloud one). So these are somewhat of an improvement.

Of course, we have to hold off on the final verdict until I've gone through the entire game, but for now, let's call it a 30 Euro luxury, instead of a necessity.

World Crashing Down Around You

So you're a world champion, idolized by many, regarded as the very best of your kind. You are a hero figure, a fighter, a warrior, a well-respected fan favorite.

And then one day you don't show up for work. Actually you call-in with a family emergency, and you go home. Next thing we know, you're found dead in your home, along with wife and son. The investigation is treated as double murder/suicide, which is confirmed by all the authoritative sources. And then the world comes crashing down on you...

Only you know what happened this past weekend. It doesn't stop everyone else to try to cope with your death. Speculation if rife, drawing conclusions is done plenty. How did you come this far? Some see it as an opportunity to mock pro wrestling, or to point out the character flaws, the lifestyle and the addictions that many personalities have in that industry. Others don't want to accept this harsh reality as a given, and either wallow in tears for the loss of a dear idol, or murder the person after the fact, just to make sense of it all.

Details and conclusive facts won't be available for some time. Could be days, could be months. In the meantime people will do everything mentioned above just to make sense - mainly to themselves - of what is obviously a tragic, unexpected and disastrous turn of events. People won't wait for the truth. They can't. They'd go crazy.

As a colleague of mine displayed recently: the truth is how people see themselves, not what the truth actually is.

- Chris Benoit 1967-2007

Two Months Later This Still Deserves A Mention

Geeky? Maybe. Looks like this guy has too much time on his hands? I guess so. But it is the best homage to the Matrix, John Woo, video games, feminism seen so far.

The Nintendo Generation

Slowly approaching 30 and already I'm berating younger, more junior colleagues. I could say stuff like "Kids today...", or "In my day...", and I would be right. I could ridicule them for jumping, and I would still be right.

It's not just an age thing though, the entire mentality of my generation opposed to the one coming out of school the past two years is completely wack. These guys want everything, from their cars and their pay, to their career choices, houses, sports and television to be fed to them on a silver platter. And they want it now. As if they're pushing buttons and stuff is supposed to happen to them, just like that.

Thing is, with the internet, MSN, hyves, youtube and the like people hear about the latest information and the greatest success stories faster than ever before. And people tell you exactly how to emulate it. Next, people get frustrated because the trick only worked once, and it did not work for them. And then they up and leave.

People are much too used to experiencing immediate cause and effect, with a remote controller or a gamepad, and they expect everything else in life to work the same.

Welcome to the Nintendo Generation.

Crash and burn

What's with these guys lately? NBA baller J.R. Smith gets thrown out of his vehicle in a wicked car crash, that actually killed his passenger. Baseball pitcher Josh Hancock gets himself killed in a motorcycle accident. Last year Pittsburgh Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was involved in a motorcycle accident as well. And now fellow NFL player Lavar Arrington suffered the same fate.

What's with these guys? Even if you are a big superstar on the road, in traffic you are just the same as everyone else. Okay... maybe you got the bigger cars or the faster ones, but they wreck totally just the same.

Then again since when did their off-game activities become national news? Normal accidents, with just as much impact are not even a sidenote in the local newspaper, but when one of these guys gets himself wrapped around a telephone pole, they get frontpage billing.

Learning from past mistakes

When the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated, careful analysis after the fact showed that part of the shielding was damaged during takeoff. This was not picked up upon until it was too late. Now with the current mission the bright guys and girls at NASA are more alert to damage sustained during takeoff.

About a week ago there was this newsbite that basically said the shuttle was damaged. Then later on the news said the damage sustained was minor. Just a little thermal blanket. Still considering the cost of one shuttle, and the fact they won't make any more, it's better to be safe then sorry.

Do you think astronauts applaud when they land safely?

Unwanted attention

Humility is a great virtue, one that saves you a lot of trouble, and can still bring you a lot of good things if you're really, really good. (Unfortunately, if you show great humility, but aren't good at all, then you - rightfully - don't get anything.) Coupled with a well-developed skill like social awareness humility can become a strong weapon to build your career on.

Here's a real-life example. You could try to do a group picture shoot, and keep to the side and let others take the front. Suddenly Mr. Photographer might just switch the point of view around and shoot the group from the side... where you just happen to be front and center.

Of course, your positive attitude brings out the best in the picture. How's that for exposure?

Where was Don McMillan when I needed him?

Nuff said.

How Many Bad Gambles Can You Have

Dutch television agents are probably the worst gamblers in the world. These are the guys who buy television shows (usually American) to fill their programming with. You would think that they would be able to discern good shows from bad ones, but unfortunately they keep missing the mark.

It gets worse: when they start advertising shows heavily as the big hit series from the U.S.A. and then find out the show was cancelled even before the show hits the Dutch airwaves, how stupid would you feel? It happened to:

• The Nine
• Daybreak
• The Class
• Summerland
• Out Of Practice

Now apparently good shows the Dutch can't pay for. So much that they get dumb and start programming it at around 23:55 on a Thursday or Friday night. This happened to:

• The Sopranos
• The West Wing
• The Agency
• My Name Is Earl

And of course you keep rerunning the same old shows over and over again, like:

• Friends (ENOUGH ALREADY)
• The A-Team
• Will & Grace
• ER
  

If you know a series is gonna cost a lot of money, why would you spend it so unwisely? And if you wanna gamble, why do it this way? Why do you programme a television evening like a novice poker player plays a hand?

The Heart, The Head, The Gut: NBA Finals 2007

One more final to go before we head into the summer, and it's a doozy... Tim Duncan and the San Antonio Spurs versus LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers.

The Heart says: Cavs win. Simply because the Spurs are rather bland, not really colourful (literally). Okay I give them Eva Longoria, but other than that there's nothing really fun about the Spurs. They're decent but boring, opposed to Cleveland's new found pizzazz in LeBron James. It's good to see if the NBA finally has its new superstar, after Michael Jordan, and winning the NBA title this year will definitely usher in that era. James has certainly brought the franchise back from their weak period starting in the mid-nineties, when the Cavs themselves were a boring team.

The Head says: Spurs win. On the grand stage of world basketball the Spurs have a collection of players that's simply impressive. Manu Ginobili, Tony Parker, Bruce Bowen, Michael Finley, and of course the indomitable Tim Duncan. The Spurs have experience on their side, having been to the NBA Finals three times already since 1998 and winning each trip. The Cavaliers have nothing to show, except for some regular season wins over San Antonio, and the rush of having beaten the Detroit Pistons for four straight in the Eastern Conference finals.

The Gut says: Spurs win. Two years ago I simmed a couple of NBA seasons in EA Sports NBA 06 (playing the Lakers mind you), and for the 2006/2007 season I couldn't beat the Spurs in the West playoffs. I was blown out. The Spurs would go on to reach the NBA Finals... against the Cleveland Cavaliers. That means a computer game called this match-up two years before it actually happened! Mind you the Spurs won that simulated series as well, 4-2.

Wink

It's getting really scary now... I don't even have to say anything, just a wink and a nod, and I'm in.

It would be really useful if it was for a club, or a fancy restaurant, or a championship game final, or even a bloody plane ride. But NOOO... just your regular neighbourhood hospital...

The Heart, the Head, the Gut: NHL Stanley Cup Finals 2007

The Stanley Cup final is coming Monday, and this time it sees the Anaheim Ducks face the Ottawa Senators. Either one could win their first Stanley Cup. Supposedly its going to be an exciting series. And like the last couple of finals, it pits a Canadian team against a southern US, non-traditional-hockey territory team.

The Head says: on the one side you've got a Ducks team, that - while powerful - is not very effective in front of goal. Teemu Selanne has always been a feared scorer, and in fact many different Ducks managed to score, but it's not exactly a tale of riches to say the least. On the other side you've got the Senators, who've got Jason Spezza, Dan Alfredsson, Dany Heatley who pretty much make up half Ottawa's entire goals production these playoffs on their own. If the Ducks defense, Scott Niedermayer and Chris Pronger, can stop this line, and the Ducks can get production from all of their offensive lines, they will win. It would suit the last two finals as well, when the Southern U.S. team (Carolina, Tampa Bay) would beat the Canadian team (Edmonton, Calgary). Purely from an observer point of view, the Ducks have the better and more experienced goalie (Giguere over Ottawa's Emery), although the difference isn't all that great. Even so... Ducks win.

The Heart says: I've been playing EA Sports NHL for a while now, and two players that always got roster spots in my teams, were Mike Fisher and Mike Comrie. Lo and behold, both play for Ottawa this season.
In addition I found it a travesty to see the Stanley Cup in the hands of regions where hockey is not really appreciated. After all these years it's about time that a Canadian team brought the Cup back north of the border. Senators win.

The Gut says: Difficult, difficult... which one has the better story? Either one would win their first Cup, so that can't be it. Media has been calling attention to Daniel Alfredsson being the first European-born captain in the Stanley Cup finals, so maybe I'll swing that way. Ducks have home-ice advantage though, and there's still that losing streak that Canadian teams have at the moment... it would be nice if the Senators would bring back the Cup to Canada, after two previous failed attempts.
Senators in seven.

Relationship momentum

After you've been around for a while all the people you've met, - worked with, had fun with, played sports with, drank with, ate with, slept with, went on vacation with, - are going to be running around the world and sometimes you won't speak to each other in years. And then all of a sudden you get into contact again, either through pure coincidence, similar interests, MySpace, class reunions and... you always get the same couple of questions:

• what are you doing now, where do you work
• have you seen or do you still speak some mutual random person tm
• ... and that's basically it...

When people enter into any kind of relationship, be it friendly, business, sports, romantic, or adversarial, the roles, personalities and events that play around them decide how things go. Sometimes a relationship is established quickly, others take years or even generations to develop. All that is a matter of momentum. Some people have a lot of it with some, and nearly nothing with others.

Now when erstwhile friends meet up who haven't spoken to each other for quite a while, the relationship has to be rekindled. The longer you haven't spoken to each other, and the farther the distance, the more a previous relationship's momentum (if any) has died down. In this context people must regain momentum to move the relationship again to any significant level.

Of course some people gain momentum extremely quickly, no matter if it has been fifty years since they last met, or if they've never met before. There are also other factors that influence the speed that people can re-establish relationships with: similar interests or shared experiences, family bonds, institutions (marriage, birthdays, funerals, graduations, traditions) a degree of personal friendliness and being accepting to others, willingness to reset the relationship at all. A relationship with high momentum is more likely to get sustained and is more likely to get revived after an idle period, than one that has none.

So when it comes to relationships, momentum is key. If you are inclined to keep as many relationships alive as possible, then keep triggering those positive momentum changers.

Silver Linings

Busy is in the eye of the beholder. It can't really be called busy if the majority of your activities are self-inflicted, self-served or self-chosen. Nonetheless everybody can fill up all hours of his or her day extremely quickly with all kinds of tasks. It could be a sport, a job, even a person.

You can complain all you want about not having enough time, but it's all a choice. You can be as busy or not as you want... as long as you realize that there are consequences and if you want to carry them.

Sometimes you get less busy involuntarily... you might get a signal from your body (getting sick or getting stressed), or something else happens: You get locked in your elevator, or you crash your car, or you get stopped by police. Anyways, when that happens it's best to look at the silver linings: at least you got to fill up your time with something new and exciting. And that is the source of great stories...

The Head, the Heart, the Gut: Champions League 2007

The rematch is here: tonight Liverpool will take on AC Milan in the final of the UEFA Champions League. Two years ago (that long already) Liverpool shocked the world by coming back from 3-0 down to beat the heavily favoured Italians after a penalty shoot-out. Of course this time, Milan won't be so blase. They will be cautious and careful to hopefully not trip over themselves. The teams playing will be roughly the same, even though Milan has seen some turnover opposed to 2005 (no more Shevchenko, Crespo, Stam), and the Reds added Kuyt, and Crouch.

The Heart says: Liverpool wins, because you cannot hear You'll Never Walk Alone too many times.

The Head says: Milan wins; Liverpool simply hasn't been consistent enough this past season, which is why they had little to play for in the Premiership. Milan has been impressive against Man United, and I do see them attain the same level of play. Milan in Kaka and Seedorf have more elite players than Liverpool (Gerrard).

The Gut says: Milan wins; I'm going out on a limb here, but the Italians will be more careful this time around. Despite the true cupfighter mentality of the Reds, I don't see them upsetting Milan twice in the same decade.

I do hope for a penalty shootout though. In which case, I think Milan should not put all their eggs in Dida's basket...

It's just a game

I know it's just a game, and I know Korea is a bit weird (especially about this particular game)... But just look at this video (which is actually pretty good), and listen to the crowd, when the title comes on.



Truly I haven't heard a whole crowd go nuts like this for a video game ever.

My Company's Favorite Jokes

For some reason people who've been with the company for longer than two years generate a form of humour that's kind of subtle, and oh so very typical. It is also very shallow, and is repeated far too often the higher you get up the pyramid.
Jokes include:

• if you happen to leave at about 17:00, people will quip "you got the afternoon off boy?" or "working half days now are we?"
• when you've been around, you're bound to have left behind a lot of projects, teams and old friends. If you did good, you probably meet up again at a banquet, company drink, or dinner. Managers always like to joke about "hey, did you hear already? you're coming back to the team next week!"
• somebody in another team messes up, that person becomes a running joke throughout the week. If someone in your own team messes up, you ignore it.
  

Somehow this has to be a sign that the company culture is not heading in the right direction. I just can't tell which sign.

When the stars are aligned

...you could break your locks, have water leak through the ceiling, get rubbish smeared all over your walls, get chewn out, receive speeding tickets, get picked up, get shot down, laugh your ass off, cry like a baby, forget where you are, find your way, meet old friends, lose new friends, get promoted, get booted...

...and at the end it just feels like you didn't spend a worthwhile weekend, and you just feel tired. You didn't do anything physical, but it feels like you ran a marathon three times over.

When the world seems to throw you sliders, do you duck or back away? No, you face everything head on... and it's this mentality that tires us out. Sometimes it may be better to get struck out, and try again later.

More work observations

• I know I've been talking about the differences between consultants and programmers a while back, but maybe the differences between managers and the rest are more funny. For example managers are good at patting their people on the backs. In fact they're so good at it, they they pride themselves on it, even to the point where they get competitive with other managers who can get the best compliments down, who can do it the fastest, who can do it with the most fervour, etc...
• Consultants and managers look down on their computers. That's why they never (take the time to) use a separate screen for their laptops. A computer is a tool, something to be used as a means to an end. This also means they look down as a natural posture. If they're tall from the outset, that's fine, but it looks rather funny if they are smallish.
• Programmers look up to their computers. Programmers take the time to put laptops on a pedestal (or in this case, a desk riser), or to use a proper, bigger separate screen. They always look up or straight. Of course, seeing they spend a huge amount of time behind their computers, they have to do all this, lest they get all kinds of physical complaints. To them the computer is their friend, a pal. Some even give computers first names.
  

This is why consultants look down on programmers.

All Alone

In NFL you win together, and you lose together. Every pass, every run, every block, everything is a joint effort.

In baseball a pitcher is completely on his own on the mound, but he's never alone on defense and he has fielders around him to get his ass out of the fire.

I guess in basketball you could conceivably get the last shot of the game (the infamous buzzer beater), but while definitely dramatic, it has to be a team-on-team exercise.

But the penalty shootout in soccer is where you can truly be alone. Nothing is more dramatic than failing to convert a penalty. Much like Ryan Donk did today against Ajax in the final of the Dutch Cup. All the weight of the team, the club, the fans, maybe even the nation, rests on the shooter's shoulders. And if you miss, it is you that has missed. It's just you against the keeper. No one else. No team mates to blame. No one there to pass back on.

Ironically in the shootout the shooter is in the firing line, not the other way around.

N.B.: showing just what a class roster AZ has, at the end of the game the entire group gathered round Donk, who was crying his eyes out. In a great show of support, they shared his grief with him.

Wet

It's been bone dry for quite a while now, over forty days I believe. Ironically my downstairs neighbours have been in trouble dealing with a leak coming from upstairs... which is where I live. Their wallpaper is coming off and parts of the wall look really black, so yeah it is a big problem...

However for the life of me I cannot think what could be there that should be leaking. There's my bathroom, but that thing hasn't been changed since I moved in. The leak also is in a corner where I don't have anything there; no sink, no shower, no nothing. I also never had any flooding or something like that.

The only thing I can think of is that the mains are starting to deteriorate in between our floors... that would be nasty...

Halfway Brilliant

That was a brilliant idea to play tennis on clay AND on grass at the same time! Bring together the best tennis player on gravel (Rafael Nadal) and the best tennis player period (Roger Federer), and let them slug it out!

How would other sports handle this... Formula One races that are held on asphalt for the first bit, then move into the dirt for the last... an American Football field that is on one side normal grass, and astroturf on another... a bout between wrestlers and boxers, where one round they both must box, and the next they both must wrestle... (oh wait, that's been done to death already)

As a novelty it was halfway brilliant. Unfortunately also a bit half-assed... but good on them for trying.

Playoffs? Who needs playoffs

The American style of sports league always culminates into some kind of playoff, knock-out system. Everybody is always working to get to one game, be it the Super Bowl, the Fiesta Bowl, the Grand Final; or maybe a final series, like the World Series, the NBA Finals, the Stanley Cup finals.

And it's all well and good. Attendance, viewership, the quality of the games is usually high (you are pitting the two best teams together). And yet I cannot stress enough how fantastic a climactic finish to a normal European league can be. Teams involved in championships play in different venues at the same time, but everyone has their ears on what happens in other stadia.

• Dutch eredivisie national championship 2006-2007: Before the day's matches AZ Alkmaar, Ajax and PSV are all level on points, but AZ has the clearly better goal differential. AZ loses unexpectedly away from small-time club Excelsior; Ajax beats Willem II 2-0, but PSV beats Vitesse 5-1, and achieves a better goal differential (50 over 49) to win the Dutch eredivisie.
  
• German Bundesliga national championship 2000-2001: Bayern Munchen held a three point advantage over Schalke 04 before the last game, and just needed a tie against Hamburg to win the Bundesliga title. Schalke however beat Unterhaching 5-2 and heard Bayern losing 0-1 to Hamburg, leaving Schalke virtual champions. There was however still stoppage time to play and a last gasp free kick gave Bayern the necessary goal to edge out a draw and win the Bundesliga.
• Spanish La Liga Primera Division 1993-1994: Deportivo La Coruna led Barcelona by two points by the final day of competition, but Barca had the better goal differential. Coruna played Valencia but couldn't score the goal that would give them the title. Barcelona beat Sevilla 5-2, and were virtual champions, until Valancia conceded a penalty kick in the last minutes of their game. Djukic took the penalty, hoping to score and give Deportivo their first title in history, but missed.
  

Careless Whisper

Another example that television really screws up our youths (or in this case, me)...

There's this unwritten rule in television shows that the hero figure is either

• a loudmouth, gung-ho, loner-type action hero; lack of respect towards authority comes as a bonus
• a brooding, mysterious dark stranger; no affiliation to anyone
  

And both, coming face to face with their adversary of the week, start spouting their threats... in a tone that I can best describe as whispering.

Now, in all my career so far no one has ever looked, seemed, or sounded menacing or intimidating or even charismatic enough, by whispering to everyone else. Everybody always has to shout.

Thanks to television, my description of a hero is forever tainted. An admirable person in fiction is someone who doesn't need to speak loudly. In real life, the people we most admire are the ones who speak most clearly. Not necessarily loudly, but definitely not whispering.

Do NOT read if you are depressed

"Respect is never given; Respect can be lost; Respect must be earned."
(Yes, tell that to a sociopath, or someone at the edge of his sanity.)

"If you see light at the end of the tunnel, it is usually a freight train."
(funny signature - not so much for a desperate)

Virginia Tech

I really cannot stress enough that the tragedy at Virginia Tech was shocking... and I do share my condolences to the people personally affected.

Yet there are plenty of cynic aftershocks I have to mention:

• true statement by woman at supermarket counter, seeing the shooter's face in the newspaper: "hee kijk, das die klootzak die al die mensen in Amerika heeft doodgeschoten. Het is maar goed dat ie zichzelf heeft afgeknald, anders had ik het wel gedaan..." (I don't think it's hard to imagine how this guy got so crazy; also kind of convenient that the guy shot himself in the face... did anyone actually see the body?)
• true statement on the radio: the opponents of free gun sales in the United States use this tragedy as a strong argument for their cause... but so do the supporters. In fact, the supporters actually say that had there been MORE free gun sales, the people who got shot this week actually had the chance to defend themselves... (*sigh...* c'mon guys...)
• the victims roles were nicely distributed. You've got the man who had the heroic sacrifice, the innocent, the beautiful girl... but strangefully, I didn't see people who were supposedly the ones that irked this guy so much, the charlatans, the arrogant assholes... where were they?
  
• what little time will pass until we see the first scenes of riots against Koreans? The over-under is at one week.
  

Yeah, that could happen

"Until a man is twenty-five, he still thinks, every so often, that under the right circumstances he could be the baddest motherfucker in the world. If I moved to a martial arts monastery in China and studied real hard for ten years. If my family was wiped out by Colombian drug dealers and I swore myself to revenge. If I got a fatal disease, had one year to live, devoted it to wiping out street crime. If I just dropped out and devoted my life to being bad."

Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson

Tales from the front

The war is on between Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft for supremacy over your video game budget. With all three consoles on the Dutch market for a month and a half now, it's time for some observations from the front:

• Sony is doing badly. You've got stacks and stack and stacks of big huge PlayStation3 boxes in every electronics store in the country. It's huge and it's heavy... and so is the price tag. Seriously, 600 euros!? I would have believed 400 euro. I don't pay 500+ euros for a DVD player/recorder, so why would I pay that money for a PS3? Seriously overpriced. And that's why the boxes are still there... or is that Sony's marketing strategy? Use electronic stores as your own personal advertisement boards?
  
• In contrast the Nintendo Wii is NOWHERE to be found. We are now about five months into the release and I have NEVER seen a stray Wii in the wild. As soon as somebody finds one, it's gone. The Wii is like urban myth. You hear about people who have one, but no one can tell you where to find another.
• And now Microsoft is getting egg on its face because of the Dutch consumer market. Apparently DVDs and game discs in the XBox 360 get scratched, even after a small amount of time. Microsoft has now been featured in at least two nationally televised consumer programmes, Kassa and Radar (coincidentally, both from our local communist station VARA). Microsoft might finally get some backlash, after a year of moderate success in the market.
  

Maybe I better skip this video game generation...

Time spent at work

Contractually I'm obliged to work 40 hours a week, save holidays. I also have 26 free days. In 2006 this amounts to a grand total of 2.069 hours I am paid to work for.

Now, I've been keeping track how much time I spend at work. I note when I arrive at the office and am ready to actually do my work, and note when I leave. Generally I'm accurate to about five minutes in this. Of course this time also includes non-productive things like coffee rounds, smoking breaks, and lunch, so I'll take into account an extra hour per day.

I summed up the numbers and I spent the grand total of 2.122 hours at work in the calendar year 2006. This amounts to seven working days of difference across the whole year. Four can be attributed to me taking up less vacation than I have allocated (23 instead of 26). That leaves three days I am at work more than contractually agreed.

Considering some of my colleagues work nights (at least according to their e-mail sending times) I'm actually not that bad. At least, if you happen to think half a week of unpaid work is not bad.

Difference in style

Sometimes you'll see a commercial coming by about joining the air force, or the army or the navy. The emphasis I see here is on helping people in far away countries if need be, growing as a person and toughening up.

The army's commercials in the US are a little bit different. For one, they look like the trailer of Blackhawk Down, Saving Private Ryan and Starship Troopers. Very Hollywood. Also they emphasize (quite heavily I might add) being a patriot, much more than over here.

I guess marketing departments in the armed forces do quite some checking on demographics before they do this. I just don't really know if you actually get the recruits you want fighting your wars using the US commercial.

You know you're too old

Now I know I'm officially too old for clubbing.

Jumpstyle. Who got the bright idea for this?

Professional Suicide

After a couple of years in the business I am glad to say I've managed to survive many of the growing pains one would get in professional life. Actually becoming somewhat successful in doing so. It also never ceases to amaze me how others remain blissfully clueless.

Now here's a guy who has the mad skillz, but not the chops to make it in the business. Delusional, single-minded, severely non-empathic... those would be terms to describe him. He is also figuratively a roller coaster ride. And apparently someone who is capable of committing professional suicide, without even knowing it.

Usually young inexperienced guys you would shield away from harm, but I have to say... when someone really, really gets on your nerves, all bets are off.

I'm not proud of this, but I really feel like letting this guy go.

You Don't Know Anything

The funniest on-line game I've seen in quite a while is one that's one of my old favorites. Way back in the day there was this trivia game that wasn't actually completely on the level. The questions where a bit weird, and slightly far-fetched, but always made sense. The pace was frenetic, and it was great fun with two or three friends around, just like in a game show.

In fact, it was a game show.

And now it's back. You Don't Know Jack is back weekly with new shows, new trivia questions and more fun! It's easy to get the hang of it, although most of the questions are U.S. centric and you have to be up-to-date on American pop culture if you wanna get the high scores.

Idols

Must be wonderful having someone to idolize, someone to look up to. You always have a goal, a wish, something to want. Someone that blinds you, cannot do anything wrong in your book. In fact his or her signature in your book will actually mean something for you. (When in fact most of us put down our signatures daily at least five times, and it doesn't sell better on E-bay one bit.)

Could be a movie star, that you've fallen in love in. It could be an author whose stories or poetry you admire, an athlete whose performance sent you in raptures (strangely enough, win or lose), a scholar whose theories speak to you, an religious figure that you believe in. It could even be mom or dad.

What if you didn't have all that? You'd be unimpressed by pretty much everyone around you. That could be easily mistaken for arrogance, although that wouldn't be the case per se. There are just no qualities in anybody else that justify you idolizing them more than the next person. You'd also have to be self-motivated, because pretty much no one else would be able to. No one else in this case would be able to set goals or examples for you.

With global mass media the exposure to people whom you could potentially idolize has grown exponentially. You get to see them from much farther away, as we get live TV feeds from the Pacific, the southern-most tip of Latin America or the deep Arctic. The range of people is also bigger, because we have local news that covers only what dogs a family in Lutjebroek, Pennsylvania keeps, and specialized news that covers South-Eastern Asia. There's talent and reality TV shows for god knows why (Idols, Who wants to marry..., MTV Made etc.).

So all in all everyone of us has a huge number of people to select an idol from, with performances that are - by nature of numbers - growing more insignificant.

Don't blame me for not being easily impressed. Blame television.

They actually did it

Wow... simply tragic. As if the death of Pakistan's national cricket team's coach Bob Woolmer wasn't already sad enough, now the officials have come forward and declared that the guy was actually strangled.

Strangled.

Somebody actually took the time to choke out every last breath of air in his body. That's just pure hatred. What did this South African dude do, to deserve this? I'd imagine he stole large amounts of stock and bonds, gambled away lot's of somebody else's money, or insulted someone's mother.

Don't Call Us, We Call You

Funniest line read today (paraphrased): the ABN AMRO board of directors and strategic braintrust are in closed door meeting to discuss next steps, possibly even a merger with Barclays. They sent out a memo to the second echelon of management: "You are in charge now."

As in: "Don't even try to contact us right now."

When you least expect it

I'm a supporter of the movement that says everything, every event, every person is connected. Things happen, because things happened before and things are supposed to happen (if you think that's cryptic, try me when I've been awake for 33 hours straight)...

Anyway, this comes back to me for example getting phone calls. Lately I've been getting them when I'm in the car (so I can't pick up), in the bathroom (so I can't pick up), sleeping (I don't wanna pick up), when I'm on a date (I don't wanna pick up), or in a meeting (I can't pick up) and the list goes on...

I'm going to need a personal secretary for this very soon. At least then I can get calls when I expect them to.

Travel Note #4

I'm pretty sure these regulations for fluids on airplanes is only helping retailers. If you can't take a bottle of Spa along in the plane, you're forced to get one at your destination... at tourist prices.

What's next? You can't take your clothes on the plane anymore? That would be... interesting.

Travel Note #3

Whenever two consultants meet for the first time, they will try to size each other up. It's a bit like two dogs sniffing each others crotch to determine who is the Alpha, and who is the submissive.

Usually this means consultants introduce themselves by career level, tenure, engagements they've been in, people they know and so on.

A conversation would go something like this:
Consultant A: Hello, I am So-and-So.
Consultant B: Nice to meet you, So-and-so. My name is John. John Doe. (with the undertone: why don't you know me in the first place man?) What are you doing?
A: I am currently senior manager for a multi-million dollar Random company. I lead the team that covers operations for half of the continent.
B: Is that right? I am department head of anotherRandomCompany.com, our recently started joint venture. I work with BigWig A, BigWig B, and report to Hugo G. Partner.
A: Wow, nice. Ehm... hey, you know what? I'm gonna talk to someone who looks smaller than me.

Travel Note #2

So, we were advertised a travel time of about one hour from the airport to the hotel. We just needed to book a cab. That proved to be quite difficult in itself, but eventually we got one, with a young woman behind the wheel... who was a month into her job.

Because of the distance between airport and hotel, we negotiated a price, about fifty bucks. She got in the car... and about an hour later we were still driving around. The SATNAV was not doing much: it couldn't find the street name.

We didn't really mind though... we were not in any hurry. But slowly we could sense the taxi driver getting frustrated and starting to despair. Eventually she stopped driving and just gave up.

Luckily the people on the street were quite helpful. One even jogged into his home and came up with a nice Google map with directions. That even did the trick.

We felt sorry for the young woman. She was so distraught at the end of the ride, that she basically told us that the ride was for free. That was not an option for us, so we paid everything plus some tip.

So the moral of the story? Women can really mess with men's minds. Even unintended.

Travel Note #1

My most uncanny ability is probably the one where I - more than average - get singled out for "routine checks" at airport customs. I understand, I usually travel alone, I pack lightly, and I speak muffled when I've had a 10 hour flight, and I'm from the Netherlands (So There Must Be Something In His Suitcase); a customs officer will have found enough suspicious things sizing me up to take me in.

All I can say is, BRING IT ON. I got nothing to declare.

Also, it's probably not a good idea to have me bring stuff over. You're better off giving it to someone who's more... average looking, and doesn't attract as much attention.

Or until I'm travelling with someone.

I hate my trip computer

Having a trip computer in my car is something of a new thing for me... and it's pissing me off. Mostly because I am now forced to face the cold, hard truth about my driving... it's just not very nice.

According to the car maker's manual, my Golf is supposed to drive 6.4 l/100 km in general use (mixed freeway, inner city driving), or 15 km to 1. I drive on average (after about a month of relatively incident free driving), 7.4 l/100 km, or 15 percent less efficient than the car could potentially drive.

However I must say that my Golf can only make 6.4 in case:

• there's little traffic (try that on a normal working day)
  
• average speed is about 10 km/h less than the legal speed limit
• you pull up really slowly (as in geriatric mode) from traffic lights
  

Coupled with two inner city speed traps, this makes the most disconcerting month of car driving I've had in some time.

Oh well, at least the radio is still intact.

Conflicting interests

Strange thing this... consultants are hired help. That's true. Companies take in outsiders to help them do a job, complete a project or help them (consulting them) with a conundrum.

Consultants however (especially the ones at my employer) are quite young, often hideously ambitious, and extremely quick to move. That means that whomever takes on anyone of us, should not be looking to keep us long-term. And yet that's exactly what clients expect (especially if you're really good).

In the current market a consultant is really a commodity with a high turnover rate. Consulting companies are falling over themselves to gain headcount, but at the same time just as many consultants are dropping out and moving away. If any consultant thinks he's not appreciated, or he's bored, or he's stuck in a rut for too long, he straight-up leaves.

This leaves a client in trouble. A client would desperately like to keep good people, even if they are outsiders. The client could offer them a lot of things, maybe even the same things as they would to their own employees, but realistically speaking that is not their duty. It is the duty of the consulting firm to keep employees happy. The consulting firm however has little control in this. They are too far away, and it's one thing to sell services to a client, it's an entire other thing to tell them how to treat your people. But the firm has to do something, anything, lest their employees leave in droves.

So we have a conflicting interests here: a client whose needs are best met by people serving them long-term; consultants whose needs are met by having exciting jobs; consulting companies who see that making jobs exciting involves moving people around at high speed. And then having to make a client unhappy and frustrated, because you're pulling away people, experience, knowledge.

I'm somehow transported back to the monologue Jack Nicholson gave at the end of A Few Good Men:

Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Whose gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinburg? I have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago, and you curse the marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know. That Santiago's death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall. We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said thank you, and went on your way, Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon, and stand a post. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you are entitled to.

Taxes

I don't get taxes.

• I don't get why it's supposed to be due in April
• I don't get why my tax returns are exactly the same as my deficits two years ago
• I don't get why for each individual source of income arbitrarily a tax percentage was created

And it takes so bloody much time.

But then again, everybody has to do it, apart from the queen.

The Unnatural Profession

Consultants would usually be involved in engagements with only a limited timespan. After a while a consultant would leave, and everybody knows about that. It is quite an unnatural way of working, because the very livelihood of man is to make your mark, build relationships, and become skilled. Moving around has not been the traditional way of doing this, although technology has helped somewhat in this department.

Also it is the nature of man to grieve at goodbyes. Airports are full of crying mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, girlfriends, boyfriends who have to part with family and friends. The very nature of consultancy however reduces an emotional moment into a rather bland afterthought.

All I'm saying is that consultancy is an unnatural profession. I'm sure consultants play a good role nowadays as experts, or specialists or professional help. But in the grand scheme of things none of the characteristics a good consultant has, fulfill the relationship needs of a human being. By definition a consultant is temporary. By definition a consultant will leave.

Of course, you can always get a consultant back.

Sometimes I amaze even myself

Truth and objectivity are often confused. What people believe to be true is not always based on fact. Sometimes what people believe to be true is simply based on what they themselves believe to be true. That is called faith.

Reason is faith hidden behind a sliver of objectivity.

Speeding and thinking

I wouldn't know if this is a natural reaction or not, but if you're driving a car and you get caught speeding with a big flashy speed camera:

• either you sit completely still, keeping your head straight (thinking that if you don't see them, you don't get a ticket), and you slow down to WAAAY below the speed limit (thinking if you compensate enough, the average speed is going down)
  
• or you get pissed, flipping the cops off (thinking you can scare the police from giving you a ticket)
  
• or you floor the pedal, thinking, "hell, I'm caught anyway, can't get any worse, can it?"

And all the while, none of these points is going to prevent a nice ticket arriving in your mailbox. Even better, you just might get to see a motor riding police officer moving up beside you, and waving you down. Arrr....

Guilty Pleasures

Considering it is a movie that's already been out for quite a while in other parts of the globe, and is not one of very high quality either, I may have been a little bit too anxious to see DOA: Dead Or Alive. But I did, and I'm actually glad I did.

Again this is one of those movies, where some Hollywood mogul apparently took notice of the revenue numbers video games generate nowadays, and decides it is a good idea to perhaps make a feature length motion picture out of a popular game. Usually this turns out crap (Super Mario Bros, Double Dragon, Street Fighter), or disappointing (Doom, Mortal Kombat, Wing Commander). Rarely does it turn out even remotely satisfying, let alone good. I'm afraid that purely on the criterion of quality, Dead or Alive is a movie in the brownish category.

But why am I not vilifying this movie then? Well... the video game Dead Or Alive is a fighting game pitting two characters against each other in a tournament. The big gimmick in this game however is that the characters are usually HOT women, even for a video game, with features that would fit nicely in a Playboy, FHM or Maxim pictorial.

Now the great idea here was to make this game into a movie. Forget that they tried to copy the game's plot into the movie, completely exposing the lameness of the story; Forget that they made Kevin Nash into a Hulk Hogan-lookalike (oooh the irony); Forget that they opened up every cliche in the book (nerd secretly in love with hot young broad with heart of gold; selfish thief turns noble (well... actually he doesn't); freaky businessman turns into freaky evil overlord); just enjoy the fine shapely bodies of Holly Valance, Sarah Carter, Jamie Pressly, Devon Aoki and Natassia Malthe (no, I don't know them either, but who cares?); enjoy them throwing punches and roundhouse kicks, in tasteful slow motion and Dolby Surround...

Okay, okay... in all seriousness... bad movie, but NICE visuals. Get the DVD and burn out the pause button.

N.B. Dare I mention? NOT a good date movie.

Riddle me this

It is white, and it carries a warning:

"it is legal to sell, but not legal to use."

No, it's not snow.

Apparently the Netherlands finally approved the sale of small FM transmitters for our iPods, so you can listen to your own music in the car, without fiddling with all kinds of wires and stuff.

Except that in the Netherlands one is not allowed to broadcast something, even if intended for personal use, across the FM band.

I haven't heard of any legislation that would soon end this ban, but apparently selling these nifty little gadgets is already going on. (in fact isn't Holland a little bit behind the times?)

Now, what I want to know is:

• the average iPod FM transmitter has a range of about three to five meters. Can someone actually pick this up if not in the immediate vicinity?
• if this kind of FM broadcasting remains banned, are you then left with a useless gadget? would you not use it anymore?

Deathly lack of inspiration

I've always found it pretty hard to write something in letters, or cards, for birthdays, for moves, for weddings. I'm not a poet, and although I'm sometimes able to get something nice on paper, it's rarely something that's more than three or four lines. It's also quite inconsistent.

Now imagine having to write something for a serious occasion (say, condolences) for someone you don't really know that well. Do you...

1. jot down a short formal sentence or even a word
   
2. scribble down a personal story and a wish, possibly taking more space than you actually have on the card
   
3. write a cliche down from the list as described here

On the one hand I've never been one to write down something that's already been written, and I'm at least trying to stand out a little. But maybe in this case, that's not the goal here. On the other hand I'm also trying to capture the core of the message in as little words as possible.

So... ehm... it's probably best for the future, don't mind my condolences much alright. Just know, I support you, I feel for you, and I hope you get back up if you're down. Just don't expect any wonderful eulogies from me.

An even more inconvenient truth

If you haven't heard about Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, you've been avoiding important news for too long guys. Hell, he even got people fired up for a Live Aid-like series of concerts this year, so you know it's gonna be big.

Basically Gore has been giving seminars all over the world to spread the word that the world climate is changing for the worse, and that we all must act now to prevent it from getting really, really bad. The seminar (dated 2005) is formatted into a documentary, interspersed with some brief personal notes from Gore, and released on DVD this past week. Of course, the DVD is very U.S.-centric, but still his argument, his evidence is compelling and an absolute must-see. In fact, this DVD may be the most important to come out in the past year, and comes highly recommended.

I however wasn't planing on making this post a DVD review, but I do want to make a couple of statements about Gore's message in general.

Gore's biggest challenge in all this has not been fighting climate change. It has been getting his point across to (the right) people, and to make them take further action. This is not a new thing. People have to spend a lot of time to put new priorities on other people's agendas, and this is hard. Our time, our energy, our money even is fully spent and fully committed on things that we find important (house, car, work, projects, love, children, mortgage, hobbies, fetishes, vacations etc.), and now someone else is telling us we should make room in our busy schedules for something else. Not to mention that it's about a subject (climate change) that most people know nothing about, want to know very little about, and is so off-the-scale distant and massive, that we don't see the added value fo us. Of course, what Gore aims for is that his argument can convince us that we should make this our problem. That we should re-prioritize and put climate change high on our agendas, because WE feel it is important.

And this is probably where Gore's approach has met resistance. I'm sure most people (orthodox religious excepted) can understand the scientific rationale, and see where Gore is going. What I don't think he has been able to do so far, is - despite all this - to make this more important than all the other points on even a single person's agenda. All our time and energy is already spent, and to put this in, is to take something else out. Maybe something that's actually the livelihood of a person (farmer in the Amazon; gas driller in the North Sea; car manufacturer in Detroit), who doesn't have no alternatives, and is not presented with any. His argument is strong, but much too general, and too final as well (Stop doing this now).

Gore's argument goes another way, and he makes it a moral issue. 'We should act now, because it is the right thing to do. Because it is what we must do to give our children a future.' He is absolutely right about internalizing the issue in people, tie it into things that are important for them, like progeny. Again however, this only appeals to certain groups of people. Plus, the argument appeals to making expectations about the future, and we all bloody well know how bad we are at doing that. Most people will just leave it at that.

The message is diluted with me in a couple of ways. I could use public transport to go to work, and leave the car. I could drive more responsibly, drive right lanes always, 90 km/h on the freeway. But I like driving my car. I feel inconvenienced when I have to wait on a train to arrive. I feel frustrated when I lose half an hour each way because I have to ride along longer tracks. I hate the look of the hybrid cars (I'm looking at you Toyota). And I worked hard to get in a position where I can actually drive a good car, not necessarily environmentally sound, and I can use it to get in the fastest way I can imagine. I have invested time and energy to get a car, and I was not about to let it go. The car is an internal value for me.

I could sign up for green energy, instead of the standard brown stuff. But why should I pay more for what's essentially something that I don't notice at all? My house is not gonna smell nicer, my lights are not gonna be brighter, my oven won't go any faster, hell my TV won't suddenly last twice as long.

You want to make sure I take part? Fine, but let me keep all the stuff I find important and don't bother me with extra costs. It's expensive enough as it is.

See? A very individual view on what this guy feels is important to him. And I doubt other people feel differently (not about cars and energy per se, but definitely about something).

Society consists of individuals now, because it can. There's no real big issue floating above us (hostile aliens, meteorites, war or natural disaster if you look at the local Dutch scale), that can make us re-prioritize. Things can change quickly though. It only takes one flood, one drought, one serious loss of life, to put global warming top on everyone's agenda. Only this time, it is forced upon us.

Al Gore hopes we individually see the light and take action before it gets that far. That we can actually do something about it, in our own time. Not when the tide is up to our nose. I sincerely hope he succeeds.

So true, So true

Can't say it any better.

Results from the Superhero Compatibility Contest

What Women Want 2007

Some observations about the Women's Fair.

• the knock against women that they can't park... It's true. For some reason the very concept of lines, wheels, and other visitors to the fair are foreign to them. Often they just park them across two parking spaces. The fair's parking garage had to be expanded with an additional wing, just to accommodate all the cars. Thing is, the same amount of cars, but driven by men, fit comfortably next week at the AutoRAI.
• know this scene from What Women Want? Where Mel Gibson finds out for the first time he can hear women's thoughts? Where he gets run over by jogging women? I've had that for real.
  
• single guys: you can see very quickly if the girl you're dating is worth the time: just look at her mother. And guess what... they're both here at the fair! If the mother's fine, you're set. But if the mother is dead ugly, RUN AWAY.
• are Call TV presenters failed fair promotion girls/guys, or are fair promotion girls/guys failed Call TV presenters?
• best t-shirt I found: "Your daughter is safe with me."
  

Road test: Cat-II Leasecars

If during the coming year you need an affordable, attractive, well-driving car to lease, you are not exactly spoiled for choice. It's pretty hard to find one that satisfies even two of the above-mentioned characteristics, let alone all three. Personally I like cars with a little more speed and explosiveness under the hood, but not at the cost of me having to sleep in the car, or driving a cardboard box.

It means I end up driving cars that fit these criteria:

• maximum car value of around EUR 26.000, which keeps the tax hit a bit manageable
  
• top speed around 200 km/h, acceleration 0-100 km/h around 10 s
  
• diesel engined-cars
• I have to like the look of the car inside, outside; and the drive has to be good, taking corners has to be brisk and sharp

At the moment two cars satisfy these criteria, the Seat Leon 1.9 TDI, and the Alfa Romeo 147:

The Leon by itself is a beautiful car, since the upgrade last year made it look more zesty. The streamlined look, the bubble-shaped back of the car all contribute to a great look. Inside the Leon is solid, if just a little bit uneventful. And the same goes for the ride: uneventful. The Seat drives solidly, but is very much like a Polo, a 206, a Clio i.e. unsurprising. It does exactly what you think it should do, it behaves completely according to your steering, and generally doesn't leave you hanging.

And that's a bad thing, because in that case I need to justify why I should pay EUR 26k for a car that drives pretty much like a car that's worth EUR 17k.

The Alfa drives a lot less predictable than the Seat. A 147 is a strange car that has a certain temperamente, and a mind of its own. For example it cannot make up its mind what temperature it is outside (5 degrees Celsius... no 3... now it's 4... oh now it's 0... err... 2, no wait 3... etc.). The exterior is beautiful, but in a more classic and chic way, rather than the brash and bold shape of the Leon. The interior is gorgeous at the first impression. However a closer look reveals that the gear shift stick is about as thick as a pencil, and the glove compartment is held together with two pieces of string.

Which one would I choose? I think I enjoyed the drive more in the Alfa than the Seat, and I think the extra nine thousand or so euros I can easily justify. Of course, I got suspicious about the over-reactive thermometer, the flimsy interior design, but in the end you have to know just one thing... which car pulls more women? Exactly...

Truly, to quote the guys from Top Gear, you cannot be a true petrol head unless you've driven - for any length of time - an Alfa Romeo. To experience the joy of driving it, the agony and frustration when you go back to the garage to have something or other fixed... this is what true motoring is all about...

...and besides I'm only gonna be driving it for a year or so.

Going Mental

So this is what a breakdown feels like...

Frustration sets in quickly. The feeling of irritation is far greater than before. Control over emotions is gone. Everything is full-on, head-first, attack-always.

Nobody's safe. Everyone's a victim.

Now I see the appeal for booze, drugs and rock and roll. Takes the edge off things.

Colts win Superbowl XLI

Seriously, I couldn't understand how many turnovers you could get in a single half of football. If you were even only slightly more of a fan of either the Colts or the Bears, you must have had a rollercoaster of emotions. We've seen fumbles, botched snaps, botched kicks, even more fumbles, and giveaways. It's just that the Bears were slightly worse at it than the Colts.

But let's talk about the non-football things: Billy Joel is a mean drunk with a coarse voice from the Jack Daniels; Prince's Purple Rain looked a little more suspicious and a lot less innocent than was intended behind the curtain; half-time shows were a lot more fun when MTV hosted them.

(Lifetime sports prediction record: 5-1)

P9UA: SonyE P990 Users Anonymous

We may need a P990 users association very soon. Here's what I found of this phone in the past month I've been using it:

• battery life is a mess when you turn all the features on (Wifi, camera, radio/mp3, screen light), so I end up turning everything off until I need it. Otherwise one phone-call will drain the P990. Luckily the phone can be powered up with the usb-cable, which I always carry around with my laptop, in a 15 kg laptop bag...
  
• turning the phone on takes longer than switching on my computer, which is damn long; luckily I don't need to turn off the phone that often...
• the battery cover is stuck to the phone with nails and staplers and superglue, and you have to call the green berets just to remove it. Pretty strange, since the cover itself is a flimsy sheet of plastic. Luckily the cover doesn't need to come off a lot. Unluckily upgrading the phone's firmware REQUIRES you to take your sim-card out, which REQUIRES you to remove the cover...
• the camera still is not too good in the dark, despite the flash light; also it locks up if it is too dark and you need to make adjustments. And if the phone locks up, you need to remove the cover...
• all the features you would ever need (RDS radio, business card reader, organizer, birthday calendar etc.) are in the P990, but to find them, you need a flashlight, climbing tools, a sherpa, a signed warrant, ropes and a GPS tracking system...
• the phone is highly intelligent: so much so, it knows when it is tired and turns itself off...

I've gotta hand it to SonyEricsson: the phone is quite good in what it does and offers. It also has some handy features (the slide lock for example is a brilliant idea), and some of the criticisms were unfounded (the reduced screen height isn't detrimental to the usability, and the keyboard is even quite good for my fingers). It is still however not as good-looking as the P900 (without keypad), and it is definitely not as user-friendly as a Nokia.

Heart, Head or Gut: Superbowl XLI

SUNDAY, SUNDAY, SUNDAY! Superbowl XLI LIVE FROM MIAMI

sorry got a little carried away... anyway, Chicago Bears vs. Indianapolis Colts

The Head Says: Colts win, because there's one guy in this game who is ostensibly the best player in the league today, and possibly the most gifted quarterback of the last ten years (I said gifted, not most successful or most clutch, mind you, because that's Tom Brady), Peyton "Hate His Ugly Mug" Manning. Seriously, the guy looks and speaks like a hillbilly, but he works harder than anyone else, throws the best passes this side of Canton, and he has the best story coming into the Superbowl... he is the guy who could finally end his championship-less streak. Otherwise he might end up like Dan Marino... a fantastic quarterback, probably the most powerful of his generation, but also one who was never able to win the Big One.

The Heart Says: Bears win, because I hope Brian Urlacher and co. kick ass and keep Indy winless for another year. Besides I don't much like the look of the Colts' uniforms, too clean.

The Gut Says: Colts win. Considering everything, the Colts have gotten together at the right time, beat their eternal rivals (Patriots) and seem poised to finally make good on their potential. And of course Manning is the Man of Destiny, lest he become the 21st century version of Marino.

(Madden 06 says: Indy wins by two scores)

All Connected

Using my mobile phone I am able to send and receive photos, e-mails, video, soundbytes, and so on. It doesn't matter if I am at home, at work, in the gym, in the pool, in the car, eating or sleeping. I can make pictures, surf the internet, write a letter, listen to music, setup a meeting everywhere (at least, if a connection is available)...

...and yet there's a strange emptiness in all this. Should I actually be able to do all this at any time, in any place, no matter what I'm doing? The promise is to be able to save time, because you should be able to react and to act on information and new events nearly instantaneously. But all this actually ends up costing me more time: instead of dedicating and focusing specific moments to specific tasks (like answering my e-mail, calling a friend, gathering information about a new topic), I end up doing everything at once. That can't be effective.

What can I do about this... well for one, my phone is not set up for e-mail, so that won't be able to bother me much (my personal high was reached the past few months: more than 200 mails addressed to me personally or requiring my attention per week, spread over five addresses); I cleaned up my phonebook to just the people I call regularly; and I still pay extra for SMS, so that puts a constraint on my thumb-exercises.

So I can just focus the use of my phone on things I find useful about it: listening to radio or Mp3, reminding me of appointments, and making pictures.

Scary Stuff

The scariest things I've noticed this week:

• I can go to the hospital, and without even introducing myself the doctor and the receptionist and the radiologist know my name, my face and my appointment. How scary is that that people working in a hospital recognize you just by you walking in the room?
• I can take a day off from work, and still get called by work by 9:00 am. (Not that I pick up or anything) How scary is it that a project you work at is dependent on your input all the time?
• I got to see where I rank in the age-category at my company, and strangefully enough, I am at or near the average. That means that there's a lot of people younger than me, and that I am old. How did that happen?
  

You Really Don't Want Me To Drive Do You

The process of selecting a new lease car is as quick or slow as you want it to be. If you don't really care, you don't drive a lot, you like the environment more than the ride, you'd probably not spend a lot of time on the choosing part. "Just give me anything that has four wheels and a roof and I'm golden", you say. In fact, you probably don't need a car at all.

However if you do mind, you can make a full project of selecting the best car out there. So you make a shortlist of cars or brands you like, compare the different extras and options between each other, you'll make some test drives, discuss some views with your friends or colleagues in the know, setup a budget, and so on.

Unfortunately there's this thing in the Netherlands called bijtelling. It pretty much screws up the whole deal, because it eats your net pay (literally!) like a fat guy in a snackbar. I'm sure most employers can happily pay for the monthly lease amount, because it's not that big a deal to them. Employees however have to bear the burden of covering the added tax. The alternative is to lease a cheaper car, with less extras, less exposure, less horsepower and so on.

In all fairness, if you want to drive a car, you'll have to pay for the privilege. It's just terrible though that we live in a country that doesn't trust people to drive, so much that it has to resort to paycheck stripping to discourage them.

Locked Out

Now: you spend a long time in the office just to avoid all the chaos and traffic during the worst storm in sixteen years. You end up driving home at about one hour past midnight, and everything seems to be okay (apart from all the tree branches on the road).

And then you arrive home and find the door doesn't open...

Argh!

Now, how was your storm experience?

Pattern of growth

Once you start something new - be it in your work, with people, in a new activity - you would be very reactive in your approach. You react to events, which at that point are all new. You have to adapt continuously to everything because you've had little to no experience with the subject matter. Basically it all boils down to not knowing what to expect.

Most people do okay in this reactive phase. People can adapt quite well and perform as best suited to them. A rare few may have genuine talent for the task, and thus not just do okay but even do very well. In the end though people still react to outside and current stimuli.

Once you gain more experience, confidence, skill and so on people become more proactive in their ways. They have learned which events require their utmost attention and which are negligible. They know when certain events or topics are due and anticipate on their outcome. They know what is important to accomplish the task and manipulate their surroundings to suit.

Proaction is being able to perform ahead of events, either by preparing for their occurance, or to be in a position where you can reap the most rewards from them. If you are really good, you can completely flesh out a full scenario with everything that could possibly impact the outcome of the task, and have the measures to control each factor.

But this is not the ultimate behaviour people should grow to. Eventually people grow so experienced that they not only anticipate on expected events, but can actually initiate unexpected events as well, which others have to adapt to. Only a select few can actually accomplish this. These people are called entrepreneurs.

Rugs. Pulling. From. Under.

Politics is not a fun game to play. In fact it's quite irritating that you can actually win with skills that seemingly have nothing to do with the game at hand. Looking nice, or having the most campaign money win you the presidency sooner than having a good story or a noble nature.

What's worse is that politics often involve you, even when you're not playing in that game yourself. For instance you could try to shape your career as best as possible, and your manager is trying to help you with that, but your boss blocks it, because his interests are best served by blocking the manager's.

That last one is the worst. Not being able to do anything, apart from acting like a petulant child, and just being thrown around between two raging bulls.

I vow to be in the position where I choose which games to play, or be played in.

I don't believe this...

1. Just to make your dishes smell better in the dishwasher, our favorite dishwashing fluid has added perfume to its arsenal some time ago. Now when you open the machine after the programme has done its job, your entire cutlery, all your plates smell like a Chanel No. 5... sort of.

People actually complained about the smell, so now our favorite dishwashing fluid maker has also made, get this, a smell neutralizer to put in the washer.

2. Is there actually no one else that finds two ice skating shows, running simultaneously, depicting the very same vapid, interchangeable, semi-famous Dutch people, a little bit overkill?

Gathering Info

My Modus Operandi for every new situation I'm in, is as follows:

• look around, observe; take up every little detail in the environment, the people, the relationships. get a feel for the place
  
• don't look out of place, but don't be too familiar either. I'm not here to play games, but we have to build some level of trust
• take time to think; I will not be pushed or pulled until I get an idea where I want to go

And once I've gathered all the evidence I need...

BLAM!!

• Attack, Full On, or Sideways. Subtly or out-in-the-open. It depends on who I'm dealing with.
  

Ruthless Aggression

Most people who know me a little bit would say I'm not a calm character. I yell, I slap, I curse and generally make it well known if things are not going my way. I can lash out with the best of them, and I will chew out everyone who gets in my way.

However, if you really think this is my standard demeanor, then you'd be quite mistaken. If you think I am an emotional person, then you'd be wrong.

Emotions to me are those feelings - when you take away all reason - is that which doesn't go away. You don't choose to be emotional. You're either sad, or happy or you're not. I however choose to be aggressive, if it gets my point across or serves my purpose. (Of course that's not to say that I don't occasionally shout out, but those specific instances are rare.)

If you are truly emotional, you let all your feelings just flow over you. If you feel like crying, you do. If you are in love, you zoom around like you're walking on clouds. That is definitely not the case with me. You'd see I'm tired, you'd see I was mad (but that may be my intention), but you would never see me miserable, or sympathetic.

I grew up being told never to cry and never to show emotions, and that has completely messed up my emotional growth. The only outlet I have in fact is frustration. Thankfully most people (most men actually) have the same problem. Apparently it is (was) the way society told men to follow. Be strong, be all business. Never show weakness.

Of course this was the source of many jokes about the differences between men and women.

The aggression, the frustration, it is not an emotion. It is not a cause, not even a symptom. It is a means to an end.

Selling

From the wikipedia: "In professional wrestling, the sell is the element of making the action (the wrestling move) appear to be at least somewhat realistic to the crowd."

Now when we try to sell products to our customers, we pretty much do the same. We make whatever we propose somewhat realistic and attractive to the customer.

There's also something called no-selling, and overselling. In our case, it would mean we either treat the customer like shit, or we offer something that is over-the-top, out-of-our-league, out-of-our-mind.

Now ideally we would be selling, but more often than not, we do the oversell. If the market allows, we would no-sell. Why do either? It's hard to find the right mark. And only the boys and girls who can effectively sell, are the ones who can keep the attention of the crowd (and thus sell tickets).

Guess that McLaren SLR will have to wait

Of course, you all hope you're a little bit richer after New Years, and that your lucky number finally pays off. That finally the television cameras head your way to interview you, hand you the keys to your new car (*cough* Nissan Micra *cough*), or a big five foot cardboard cheque with at least a six figure number...

You'll all be happy to know that I had the grand total winnings of...

Zero

Nil

Zilch

So that means that one of you guys actually won something in the lottery! Congrats! Let's Drink!