what happened?

Right, so all of you are wondering what I'm always blabbing about on the index page in the first paragraph? Well have I got the solution for you both! Here, I will keep a little archive of what I've written in exactly that paragraph. For your reading pleasure, I will try to put everyhthing on here one month at a time. The oldest post of the month will be at the top. When you have no idea what I'm talking about, go back a few days and everything should become clear. Whenever I think it's worth it, I'll add a link to the more interesting things I mention. Try to expect not too many links.

July 2003

1 - Tuesday - 12:27
I just had a conversation with someone from the KRO, a Dutch broadcasting company, and I'll probably be on the radio this afternoon, live. If I'm correct, I'll be talking about working in Japan as someone from the Netherlands, and the things you have to take into account when doing so. My ever-ongoing plan to get famous is moving along quite nicely.

2 - Wednesday - 11:58
After wrecking a kitchen cupboard, in order to have a nice flat table, Marije, Wouter, Robert and I played poker last night. Five card draw, 3 cards max. change. We used my poker chips and several decks of cards, including a few from Las Vegas, and of course the Iraqi most wanted cards. Everyone put 10 euro in the pot, I walked away with 15!

3 - Thursday - 01:56
The link has been on the site for a bit now, but I forgot to mention it here. I've converted my radio-interview to the mp3 format, so that you can listen to it now from the comfort of wherever you are, as long as it's behind a computer. Click here to hear the interview, which is completely in Dutch. It was quite a bit of fun.

3 - Thursday - 14:37
And then it was told that Microsoft came along and put out a new test version of MSN Messenger. Oh wow, this is a great toy! The new version of messenger (6.0) is such an improvement over the older one. Fully customizable, fully integrated, Microsoft did a great job on this. Download it as quickly as you can!

3 - Thursday - 23:39
To my big surprise, I got a phonecall last night from a girl who I've known for the better part of my life now. The great thing with her is, I can talk with her after not having done that for over a year, and still everything will feel just like it was before. For the rest, I still can't get over the bliss of MSN 6.0

6 - Sunday - 00:54
Tim went to Japan today. He's going to be in the wonderful little town of Fukui. Actually, that's a lie. Fukui isn't wonderful, it's just nice. And very, very boring. Anyhow, staying within the friends department, I spotted Marije on nothing other than the Japanese Amazon (.com) Check it out!

6 - Sunday - 16:29
While working for Philips, I developed a deep respect for the Japanese car world. The high level of engineering, the frustrations and the joy and pride that go along with it, I couldn't get enough of it. Do yourself a favour and check out this car ad from Honda. It's another sign how committed some corporations are to their product.

7 - Monday - 05:20
Realizing damn well that I'm lucky to have woken up in the first place, I'll be going to the town of Best today, to instruct a Japanese couple about Dutch customs and behaviour. Best is a bit far, so I had to get up before five, and I did it, too. I'm in my suit, looking not half bad I think, let's see how this works out.

8 - Tuesday - 00:49
My little stint in Best went really well, for which I'm glad. I hope that Mr and Mrs Kaito found it useful. I've been doing my normal teaching job too, so I've had quite the day. And then this movie showed up on my screen. please, have a look at it, and I hope you'll be as amazed as I was at the sheer ingenuity of these people.

8 - Tuesday - 15:28
I just had quite a long conversation with our good friend Jasper Bulk, who's linving 'The Life'(tm) in Kumamoto, Japan. Talking to him, I got really jealous, because he seems to be having an extraordinarily good time over there. But I've got nothing to complain about, seeing I'm doing not too bad myself. Come back Bulk!

9 - Wednesday - 19:38
Hmm, today was kinda rough. Robert called me yesterday night if I wouldn't go to jazz cafe 'Alto' in Amsterdam. Hey, I wouldn't turn down that, so we went there and listened to jazz. After that, we went to a couple of other places and I spent the night on Robert's couch. Today I had quite the hangover, but after taking Ibuprofen, I'm much better already.

9 - Wednesday - 23:58
Well, I spent the evening doing things that wouldn't require me to use my body too much, and I'm all better now. Sleep will have its revenge with me, now that I can sleep in my own bed again. I'll go lie down now and I don't expect to wake up anytime before ten hours from now. I'll put on some nice tunes or some comedy, that helps.

10 - Thursday - 13:40
Today I have to do some hard work on my internship report for Philips. Problem is, I think it has to be about twenty pages, but if I write down everything I'm thinking of writing down now, I'll easily end up with about sixty. So I have to cut into those plans a bit and decide what has to go in there and what doesn't.

11 - Friday - 03:50
It's really late, but I have a reason for not sleeping yet. First and foremost, I've almost completed the diary section of my internship report. But I've also been reading very interesting articles on the internet. Have a look at this one, about the uselessness of arguing on the internet. Now I'll go to sleep, geez.

11 - Friday - 13:58
I'm going to spend the weekend in Kerkrade, at my borther's place. There'll be a barbecue tonight, and on sunday my uncle's throwing a family party. It'll be good to see my nephew Mart again, he's probably grown again since the last time I saw him. The train ride is about 3 hours. Not ideal, but it's a necessary evil.

15 - Tuesday - 13:16
I was telling my Polish cousin about a song by Dave Brubeck, Dziekuye, which he wrote for the Polish people in the 1950's. She got goosebumps by just hearing the story about how the song came to be. I'm going to practice it on my keyboard, so that I can play it for her when I visit her and her husband in september.

16 - Wednesday - 02:00
Feel like reading? Well, I have two files for you right here. This first one is my speech for the Japanese speaking contest last year, which I won. It comes a bit late, sorry for that. This second one is the diary section of my internship report for Philips. I'm trying to get the errors out of it, so should you encounter one, please mail me.

17 - Thursday - 00:11
Niels and I went to Noordwijk today, to enjoy the beach. It's like we're in the middle of a heat wave, and I like it. I never did mind hot weather, but there is one thing I complain about and that's the temperature in my room. As always, my fan is pointed at me every second I am here. And oh, I lost a frisbee today.

18 - Friday - 03:02
The story of the frisbee is kinda sad. I bought it just before we got onto the beach, and after throwing it around for a couple of minutes, Niels and I decided to throw it around while standing in the water. Niels threw it to me, I missed it, and the frisbee sunk to the bottom like a rock. 13 euros down the ... sea.

19 - Saturday - 01:12
Huh? Bert goes commercial? Amazon? Hold on, it's not as bad as you think. I'm an associate of Amazon's, and this is only a test ad. In the future, I'll put links to Amazon when talking about Dave Brubeck etc. That way, you can actually buy the music I'm talking about right away. That's all.

20 - Sunday - 01:23
'Twas a hot day today. After a failed attempt to play a game of paintball, we sat down in Leiden and had drinks. In the evening, I went out for dinner with my students. We went to the marvellous Olive Garden in Leiden, and once again, it didn't disappoint. I hope everybody had as good a time as I did.

20 - Sunday - 23:17
Another 2 hours of '24', and I'm still as impressed as I was after the first couple of hours. Never before have I seen a series, or a movie for that matter, which had me in such a strong grip. The first 12 hours of the first season have finished now, and I can barely wait to see what happens next. It's that good.

22 - Tuesday - 01:41
My good website hoster and better friend Ad just told me that his server will be down for about a day. That means this homepage will be down too, I apologize if this causes any inconvenience, but I hardly think it will. The problem with his server will be addressed quickly, so I'll be back soon.

22 - Tuesday - 18:37
Even faster than I expected, my homepage is back online. The fan of the server on which this page is located was broken, so Ad got himself a new one and now I'm all back online again. My pc's still broken though, so Windows is acting so strangely. And all of that happened after I defragged it. Not very wise...

23 - Wednesday - 01:07
I got a lot of stuff done today, but it was more of the trivial laundry type. No matter how determined I am, I seem to have a bit of trouble finishing my internship report. It's almost finished, if I get myself to concentrate, it shouldn't take more than a couple of hours to finish it. Let's hope tomorrow I'll do just that.

24 - Thursday - 02:11
It's been a while since I met up with Ronald, but tonight, he, Ad, Nathalie, Go and I had fun in Leiden. Ronald and I went to "'t Keizertje" when the rest was gone already and had a drink there, which wasn't bad at all. A Mr Sullivan mailed me with a correction for the Take Five article, I'll fix it very soon indeed.

24 - Thursday - 14:07
You know, I really should iron my shirt before going out, and it's not a fitting shirt for this kind of weather either. It's very pink you know. But I have to go out anyway, so I'm hoping there aren't too many people outside to make fun of my shirt. Because you know frankly, I don't want to iron my shirt. Don't care.

24 - Thursday - 23:13
Noone seemed to care about my shirt, thank goodness. I went to the barber too, and got my hair cut. It's nice and short now, perfect for the summer. Tonight I'll sleep early, I hope to be sound asleep when I turn 23, because I have to wake up in the early morning.

25 - Friday - 09:34
Well! Today is my birthday. Tonight at around 9 o' clock I'll have been roaming around the earth for 23 years. Where did the time go? I'll tell you, it's been a superb 23 years, with its ups and downs of course. I'll probably go out for a drink this evening. Everyone's welcome. Of course, the first round's on me!

28 - Monday - 11:25
Sorry for the lack of updates, but I've been busy. I've been all around Holland the last couple of days, which was really good. Especially Lemmer was nice, with the last day of the 'Lemster Week'. I saw my old cat there too, after one year, and she looked so good! She's being taken good care of now by her new owners.

29 - Tuesday - 17:25
Wouter and I had lunch at The Bruine Boon this afternoon, and since I just started a small scale diet (for the first time ever!), we thought it'd be a good idea to jog every now and then. So we went to the store and I bought some running equipment, including these shoes. Let's hope we can run every now and then. That should shed off the pounds quickly!

30 - Wednesday - 01:18
Yes, I can put my new shoes to good use tomorrow, or today, anyway after I wake up. Wouter and I decided to go jogging at 13:00 tomorrow. Or today. We played Star Wars Monopoly today, and Marije won by a long stretch. She was very happy about this, but hey, who can blame her for that. I provided Wouter with an ultra relaxing Paul Desmond cd.

31 - Thursday - 00:47
Wouter and I ran and ran and ran. For just about 5 minutes. Well no, that's not true. We got some running in, and the rest we just walked. The weather was fine, so we didn't mind anyway. My shoes turned out to be pretty damn good, I didn't get hurt or anything. Not that one expects something like that to happen, but still. Tim, make it a nice day!

31 - Thursday - 14:38
With just some minor muscle pain, I'm quite happy with the results of running. Not that I see any change in weight or anything like that, it just feels good. Tomorrow we'll be going to the beach, the weather's still very good. Today I'll be inside mostly, working on school stuff. I've checked my usual web pages, but it's quite boring actually. Nothing new.

31 - Thursday - 23:31
I've been told that with PHP, it should be a breeze, but since I don't know how to use that yet, tomorrow the arduous task of creating another month for the Past Posts archive begins again. I have to add links to all the previous ones and change some of them, which is a real bore. Not that it takes so much time, it really doesn't, but it's just a bit sucky.

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