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.

April 2004

1 - Thursday - 23:59
If it were up to me, you'd see this same update every day from now on. You see, I was at the 'Grote Beer' again, enjoying the view from besides the water, the sun, and a couple of beers. Before I knew it, I was joined by Jasper 'Keith' Bulk, Raymond, followed later by Niels, Ronald, Dean and Tim. Sitting outside sure was good. The beer tasted particularly good. In the morning though, there was work to do! I went on an interpreting job at a Dutch farm. We had such a warm welcome, and talking with the cows proved once again that cows are indeed good people.

3 - Saturday - 01:17
While I was working, driving in a Mini to another farm, my brother had been training my nephew Mart to become the next drummer of the Rolling Stones. It appears he succeeded, as I've never seen a one-and-a-half year old picking up sticks that easily. With their newest member, the Rolling Stones' average age has dropped severely. At the moment I'm working on a German videotape (no, not that kind). I'm translating all of it from German to English, which is pretty fun work actually. Just a bit more (50 vs 15 minutes) than was expected.

4 - Sunday - 02:28
Congratulations to Niels Bierman on his birthday, first things first. Well, it took a bit of looking around, but when we finally found Marije and Wouter, he, she, Ad, Justus and I went to Jet's place. As if Justus wasn't unlucky enough getting his cash-card eaten by an ATM, he was called twice by people looking for Taco Modder. But, who is this mysterious figure? There's a reward of 10.000 euros for me if you have the tip which leads me to him. Special credit goes to Jet, for making the best tacos in the world. Ever. There was a lot of meat, too.

7 - Wednesday - 00:32
And yet another lull passes. I've been working actually. Like, in an office, with a desk and a computer. And a nice view too. I'm having a lot of fun actually. And to top it off, today I found out that I'm going to meet this lady, Yoon Son Ha. She's a girl from South Korea, who's made it big in Japan. Today, just before lunch, I checked the net and found out that Yunsona, as she's called in Japan, has a following, fanclubs, you name it. So that's something to look forward to. Maybe she could promote Coozer over in Japan and Korea.

10 - Saturday - 01:01
Today, I had the honor of receiving quite a number of people in my huge mansion. First, there were Wouter and Marije, soon followed by Ad and Tim. Because of the Schaamteloos meeting last night, I took it really easy today, and it seemed that the rest didn't feel like moving too much either. Later, Dennis and Yuko joined us, and we went to grab some food at Mickey D's. Jasper was there, but he didn't join us for a huge Momotaro Dentetsu marathon. I also proved my sharp shooting skills at the fair once again.

10 - Saturday - 23:51
Tomorrow I'll be going to the Efteling, the fabled Dutch themepark. Ad, Nathalie, Wouter and Marije will be joining me. If the weather cooperates, it will make for a great easter. Today was a quiet day really. I hung out around the house, having breakfast with Chantal. Well, she had breakfast, I had coffee. Gayo Blue Mountain coffee, the good stuff. I'll be needing some of that in the morning, seeing I'll have to be up at around 8. That's all worth it though. It's been half a year already since my last visit.

11 - Sunday - 23:36
The Efteling! What a great place to be. I went there today with Ad, Nathalie, Wouter and Marije, and it couldn't have been much better. Even the fabled No actor was sighted a couple of times. I've taken so many pictures, I couldn't possible fit them into this little post. Expect an update in the pictures section very soon. Fairy tales, coasters, good weather, not too many people, it all added up to a great day out. The coasters were scary, but the fairly tales were all the more beautiful. As said, dreamy.

13 - Monday - 01:13
Yesterday's post had a record 22 pictures in it. Not so much this time, but the weather sure would have allowed so. Of course, with weather this good, one goes outside for a couple of drinks. After having some really good lasagna with housemate Chantal, I joined Ad and Nad to the sneak preview movie. 'Taking Lives' then. Not the perfect easter film, but competent as a thriller nonetheless. You should have seen all the cool dudes jumping with fear. Check out my patented OWR right here.

15 - Thursday - 02:07
Well well, tonight wasn't too shabby by any means. In the afternoon though, I got quite a shock, because one key-item of the TV-show I'm helping produce has been cancelled. Tomorrow, we have to hurry up and find a replacement. Right, the evening then. After work, I called up Anika to see if she was interested in spending some time together. She was, and I managed to turn this into this. Where, you ask? Why, at the casino of course! Blackjack. Remember though, gambling is bad.

16 - Friday - 00:51
To be honest, I've never been much of a reader. I mean, whenever I would read a book, I had to force myself not to give in to the temptation of doing more interesting things like, let's say, staring at a plank. Bill Bryson just changed that concept for me. I got one of his books yesterday, in the evening no less, and I'm up to page 160 now. His book 'A Walk in the Woods', describing a huge hiking trip, is just so funny and great to read, I can't seem to put it down. Check out Bill's website right here.

16 - Friday - 23:22
As I'm hurrying through Bill Bryson's book, the weather seems to be in an equal hurry to get better. And better. The best passages of all books, movies, games, you name it, are always the conversations, if you ask me. Today I had a couple of good ones myself. Perhaps even more surprising than seeing Robert again after three months, was running into Yasuyo and having a wonderful talk with her. Robert, Aurum and I had a good time though, enjoying beer and english food.

10 - Monday - 00:51
Bill is dead. One just doesn't get deader than Bill is at this moment. The Bride killed him, of course. Before those of you who are not up to date with new movie releases start calling officials, let me tell you that I saw Kill Bill volume one and two yesterday. They ran a marathon of these two Quentin Tarantino movies, so Tim and I decided it'd be a good idea to go see that. Bill is no more now. No more talking, you know how much I like this movie. Here's my One Word Review.

21 - Tuesday - 01:53
We're almost ready to shoot the TV programme I've been helping coordinate the last two weeks. Tension is rising of course, everyone's hoping that all will go well. Me, I'm more anxious to meet Yoon Sonha, who is going to be the reporter. As for other work, I was at Hakata Senpachi again, teaching Japanese, Dutch, you name it. Afterwards, a couple of staff members and their friend Lindy got together to eat stuff that was boiled in a big pan of bubbly grease. I ran as fast as I could.

23 - Friday - 00:16
Tomorrow we'll see if all the preparation has done any good. Shooting will begin for the television programme which will air in Japan on the 15th of may. Today though, was really good. After buying a new TFT monitor by LG, I had dinner with Kwannie at van der Werff. She's doing an internship at Cartier, world famous maker of jewelery at extremely high prices. Me, I'm just happy with my new monitor. It's slim, silver, flat, and it just looks really cool. And the image is sharper than sharp.

24 - Friday - 01:38
The first day of shooting turned out to be really, and I do mean really, good. It started in the early, misty morning, and it would continue into the night. I've been to all kinds of places I've never visited before. Also, with now being april, the flowers were particularly nice. Thing with working with the Japanese is, that the joy of working depends mostly on your colleagues. And I've struck gold, or at least a bit of silver with these people. More on the jet-lagged celebrities soon!

25 - Sunday - 00:24
I caught about 1,5 hours of sleep before leaving my huge mansion for the second day of shooting. The cloudiness in the morning couldn't prevent us from shooting a couple of good scenes, and after that it just gave up, making way for blue skies, green fields, and another great day. Now there are a couple of complications with some pictures. I've officially become friends with a couple of people, but I'm not quite allowed to show their pictures here. Copyright issues you know. Blah, blah and more blah.

28 - Wednesday - 02:11
Well, the last of the tv-crew have returned to Japan. Sure, I wish I could have gone with them to the land of the rising sun, and a stop sign at the utmost southern point (a true story, by the way), but sitting in the train, and watching great fields of flowers shoot past me, I had to admit that things could get a lot worse. And I have the feeling anyway that it won't take much more time before I'm in Japan. But hey, the last time I had such a feeling, nothing happened, except for a dog dying.

30 - Friday - 00:33
It seems that the fact that the queen mother, whose birthday is celebrated today, died not long ago, didn't bother thousands of young people to go out on the streets and have a good time. Not me though. Tomorrow I'll be in Amsterdam, but today I'm just beat. After smoking pure crack (and beer) with Wouter yesterday, today has been a slow but satisfying day. Not only because I got paid for the television job, but it certainly helped. Well, tomorrow is Queen's Day then! Expect some pictures soon.