Today, four years has gone since the terrorist attack on World Trade Center. In my mind, that day marked the beginning of a new age of madness. Off course I’m wrong thinking that. The world was already mad.
It seems like we’re experiencing a lot of disasters these years. Terrorist attacks all over the world, flooding in Asia and recently New Orleans, drought in other parts of the world, forest fires, earthquakes and so on. Not to mention war.
There seem to be (at least) two reasons for all the catastrophes we hear about:
1: The news travel faster and longer. Millions of people have been killed in disasters throughout history, the rest of the world just didn’t hear about it then.
2: Every time we hear about a major flooding or forest fire, we also hear that the reason the natural disaster has grown so big is because we humans has removed some of natures own protection against these disasters. And that more of us choose to live close to the sea or areas with frequent earthquakes, or both (San Francisco). Thereby changing what could have been “just” a major inconvenience to these huge proportions.

My thoughts are with the families to the victims September 11, the people of New Orleans, the affected people of the forest fire in Portugal, the innocent victims of war in Iraq, Chechnya and several countries in Africa, the earthquakes in Turkey, the flooding in Asia, the casualties of traffic, and all the other people, who should have lived long and happy, but didn’t.

Oh, by the way. I forgot to mention the experience I had, when I’d return from vacation nearly two weeks ago. Normally I would just enter the office, log on to my computer, go get a cup of coffee, and then start to work. But this time, I first had to “un-wrap” my desk!

Each time I thought: “Finish! Now time for some work!”, another surprise unveiled itself.
After the tape had been removed, I discovered the cress, growing in my keyboard. Then the ugly picture of me, mounted with long hair (someone had been playing with a picture editor). Then the missing wheels on my chair. My computer replaced by an old non-working one. And so on. After all looked like it self, it was now time for a cup of coffee (I still hadn’t got my first cup). But no: my cup wouldn’t move! Damn superglue! After releasing my cup, I was able to get some coffee and finally start to work! 🙂
I’m glad to see, my colleagues had something to do, while I was on vacation. They usually aren’t that inventive. Maybe it was a little payback, for all the small things I’ve done to them over the years?!

Btw. Luckily the “cress-board” wasn’t my real keyboard – just some old one, they had found. The real one, however, had a few keys changed about. That took me a while to figure out! 😉

It’s not always nice to have your photo taken. Maybe you’re having a bad hair day. Or maybe it’s a policeman taking a photo of you driving a bit to fast.
For me, it was the second case.
Normally I drive below the speed limits. I’ve got my drivers license in 1989, and this is the first time I ever got a fine for anything (not even a parking ticket).
I had driven a few hundred meters, and had reached maybe 60 km per hour (38 mph) – I really hope, it wasn’t more than that (speed limit 50 km/h – 31 mph). Normally I would now look down at the speedometer, discovering I was going to fast – but I discovered a flashlight instead. Sigh!

It seems like the Hoverfly-season is almost over now, but if you see a hoverfly hovering about (as hoverflies tend to do), I’ve been told that you can place your hand underneath it, and it will land on your hand. But not only that, you should actually be able to “caress” the fly, without it taking off.
(Thanks for the tip, Susan 😉 )

I found this one at “Ask Yahoo!” … and since it fits “my” quotes too (I guess), I thought I’d write it here:

“Sic” is Latin for “thus.” Yeah, that didn’t clear it up for us either. But apparently, since the 1880s, writers have used [sic] next to quotations that include errors.

This little notation means, “Hey, I know this quote looks wrong, but it was that way when I found it, so don’t blame me.” Maybe the original text used archaic spelling or the original writer just messed up. But the person who’s quoting that text is aware of the earlier mistake and wants you to know it.

[Sic] is shorthand for all that, at least to scholarly types.

Btw. To my knowledge, all the quotes on this site are correct! But bear in mind that a lot of the quotes were originally written in another language, so details might have got lost in translation.

I’ve now reached a total of 500 quotes in my collection, by which you can see three (at a time) at this site. To celebrate that event, I want you to do at least one thing today, you enjoy doing. (I’ll go outside, where the sun is shining, and enjoy a nice cold beer).

These days it’s 17 years ago, I bought my first Compact Disc player, a Kenwood DP-660SG. The CD format was still very young, but there was no doubt, it was a winner (and so it was).

Now, 17 years later, I still have that CD player! It still works like a charm, so I haven’t had a reason to replace it. That’s quite something, I guess – but what’s more impressive: I never even had to replace the batteries in the remote control! Yes – the batteries in my remote control are now 17 years old – and they are still functioning! That’s amazing.

Fantastic device! Imagine this: you sit at a hotel room. The TV (which is about as old as you are) only shows three channels with reruns. With a portable DVD-player, I just couldn’t care less! 😉

The other day I bought a very small portable DVD-player (no-name, made in China, menus in French – yes, it was cheap). The main reason – besides my love for small electronic devices – is that I’m about to take a small trip to the other end of the country. While staying there, I might get bored, and therefore feel the need to watch a film on my new 7″ screen.
Thinking about it, it’s actually a bit funny. I plan to get bored (trying to get rid of stress, I almost hope to get bored) – and then I buy something to reduce that boredom.