The Magic Indoneesians

Yesterday afternoon proved to be a fun episode in the week. Driving from work to school i stopped at a local Car wash not far from Geel. I had seen these dudes before , 4 or 5 whacky guyz that wash your car for 15 euro's (inside and outside ! ! ) As you know I'm lazy , and the 307SW was not the modern example of a clean car (Soot and salt and dirt all over). So i pulled over and decided let these guyz do their worst. And Damn, they where GOOD ! 'Just like new !' the guy calls out to me. And after ripping into the car like 5 Borgs on speed go at a starfleet shuttlecraft I barely recognized the 307. It was spot clean ! Its like driving a whole new car ! I mentioned the blogg, pulled out my digital camera and made the picture you see above. They where Super friendly these guys and I recommend everybody to stop on by and have these guys attack your dirty ride !

After that it was of to Leuven. Took my lunch break on the stairs of the square next to the Tiensevest and with the soothing sounds of www.spacemusic.nl I checked out the fine looking female students and in general watched the world go by. After tinkering with another podcast-experiment it was of to school.

Got home pretty early that night to find Saskia still up 🙂 We went to bed early and ended up chatting and teasing each other. ( According to Saskia , people might think that I am gay because i'm a 'real man' and no silly macho) I've been pondering that statement for a few hours now .. but am not getting any wiser (no comments on this Mr Swift , just shut up) But Saskia did mean it as a compliment.. so.. there you go.

The whole ASTRA debacle is over, I ordered my company car today.. and let you know what it is real soon .. its a surprise.

Last but not least : Got elected for the I-city project in Hasselt (more about that soon) and found a feed script that might just do the trick and parse this blog into the knightwise.com site

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A day in pictures.

Haunted by the shadows of sleep I crouch down amidst the sleeping dwarfs and wish for slumber to whisk me away. There.. that about sums up how I felt this morning. After having my third migraine attack in a row yesterday evening I popped over to see the doc. who kindly told me to start taking it easy and park my tush in bed until next Monday. Can't do that of course .. although when I got home last night I crashed on the couch (didn't even boot up my pc) and went to bed at nine. I'm just exhausted :(. Don't know what it is but.. I guess I have a hard time keeping up the pace sometimes. from this morning up to next Saturday afternoon the book is full so Saturday afternoon will be the first moment where I have the chance to relax a little bit. School tonight, School tomorrow.. Damn.. Leuven is becoming a drag. Where I used to be so full of energy when I arrived in Leuven , now I’m just a sleepy soul in the back of the room trying to stay focused on what’s going on. Its not that I’m not interested .. but I just can't keep the fire burning like it used to be. Guess the mileage is getting to me. But still. I hope I feel a bit better later on ( Jeej , here comes another migraine attack) I'm really off my normal state …

Enough complaints , I need your help. As you know I get to choose a company car pretty soon , and I have a choice between two models to choose from. So check out the pictures below and tell me what model you like the best. There is the Astra Break (very mature) and the Astra Hatchback (very sporty) . I'm interested in finding out how your perception is of me by choosing what car would suit me best . So there's the question. what car would suit me best and why (you can also pick the color : black/bleu/Silver). I'm curious about your input.

In other news : I'm kind of thinking of adapting the whole knightwise.com website. This by moving my blogg over to live journal so I can parse it in the main page (and you can read all my entries straight from the main page) and by using my blogspot.com account (this one) to post pictures on and making it a 'picture of the day' item I can crosslink to. TO bad I haven't heard from the guys who made that script (they where going to fix the TAG error you get on knightwise.com .. but hey , I got to move on.)

Meanwhile I’m pretty proud to be able to say I post almost daily on this blogg. I also have plans for a weekly pod cast , but don't know how I’m going to get it all done. I can do it 'all mobile' I guess. Record it on Wednesday afternoon (in the 1 hour break I have between work an school) and upload it the same night or the next day when I’m at the 'angelus' in Scherpenheuvel. ( FYI : the Angelus is this little tea room in Scherpenheuvel , crowded with old folks , but it has free wifi access and good cappuccino.. So what do you know !).

Although I have been dragging my camera around I haven't had the time of taking any pictures yet. I just don't get out of the car a lot I guess 🙂 I do have an Idea called : My day in images, basically taking pictures of my life all day long. Would be a cool thing for the blogg.

Well To give you a little idea of tonight I’ve posted a pic from school along with this post.

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You Suck !

Hmm Haven't gotten a time to post these last days. It has been busy too 🙁 Went out on Friday and I had to get up real early on Saturday to help out in the shop so my brother could sleep in ( erm… yess). One does it out of the kindness of ones heart but still its a bit stupid of me. Oh well. Skipped the Saturday-afternoon-walk-and-sleep session in favor of cruising to Leuven to go have a look-see at the new company car i'm getting from the firm I work for. The dude in the garage was not exactly up to speed in what I could buy and I didn't know hells bells about it neither (its my first Comp. Car, don't know how all that stuff is arranged) Took one 'possible candidate' for a spin and decided it was 'good enough' but I had to have more info about what my options where. So back to the drawing board. Bounced into Leuven in the late afternoon and had time for a great cappuccino and some walking around in the town. But Leuven is a shitty place. Its crowded, there is not much space and people are not all to friendly. At the risk of sounding arrogant I will say i would prefer good old Hasselt above Leuven, anytime !. Worked on a pc-from-hell the rest of the afternoon before we trotted out. Sunday was filled with PC-nightmare. Had to sit by this computer as i carefuly copied and restored 9000 mb worth of pictures and word files. Didn't even get a chance to hop by my parents place to go say hello to my mom (great, I’m gonna get flamed for that !) Saskia's grandma had her birthday dinner at six and I tagged along for some 'poestahooi' (look it up if you want to know what it means) and had a great time with her family. (why the hell can't my side of the fam. be more like that sometimes) More and more I get the feeling i'm alienating from the folks back home. Its like our paths are drifting apart and I don't seem nor notice nor to matter. I look at myself and see how estranged I have become from the boy I used to be back there. But the problem is that that is still how they see me. Thus I pull back further inside the protective bubble of my life and… well you know how it is. Was not feeling to well Sunday evening and that resulted in a tummy-trashing on monday. Out sick for the day (bless Saskia for taking care of me). Alternating between the bathroom and the sofa proved my exercise for the day. Laptop on the lap, episode of Battlestar Galactica to keep me company… I survived !

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An hour in dawn

Just a quick one today, because time is short. Started work a hour later today but decided not to sleep in. Had a nice time just sitting behind my Ibook , cappuchino in hand and the on-line moment of peace when there is absolutely no one on line to bug you 🙂 Nyana thought there where burglars in the house when she got up and found me still walking around the house (poor thing). zipped up to work in broad daylight accompanied by some podcasts to keep me up to speed. I'm probably going to drop my subscription on the madge weinstein show : www.yeastradio.com. Allthough its a nice anti-bush rant from time to time its getting to disorganised for my taste (and i like my podcasts tight and tidy). Looking forward to the weekend. Not that there is a lot of spare time to relax, there are still some fun things on the agenda. Going out browsing for my new (company) car on saturday and probably will end up couch-lounging on sunday. No matter , as long as i'm with the girl I love. Today i've posted a few pictures on the blog that make me feel 'at home'. Living the life of a cyber-gipsy it's sometimes important to have these pictures around. They make me feel at ease , happy , relaxed.. In other technotalk : I've been looking at a way to incorporate this blog into the main www.knightwise.com website. No luck as yett, allthough I have found out a great deal as to how SWIFT would be able to do it. Its a little complicated to get things just the way I want them. But we will keep on trying. Perhaps a peace of Marjoleins Cake (the one she bakes for her family) will give me some inspiration (hint !)

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Sparse sunlight and a poem over an encripted connection.

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Watch out ! Porn !

Watch out ! Porn !

Not that I am on the verge of dressing in a white gown, putting flowers in my hair and dancing around barefooted through the grass.. BUT : I can feel the spring is coming !. Yesterday was one of these days when you can SMELL the winter going away. Temperatures are rising and so are my spirits. Hmmm would totally loooove taking a walk trough Rijkhovens swamps right now. (begin geeky part) After picking up a Power charger for my gps and rendering a home completely wire-less I found out my great ‘liberator’ project has taken one more step forward. I can access my files , via my Ibook from ANYWHERE !!!! Messed around with the RSS enclosure in my website and found out I can’t get it working … F*** Oh well..(end geeky part) Got a question yesterday from the lovely Marjolein, why this blog is in English : Well : 3 reasons . I spell better in English then in Dutch, I can express myself better in English then in Dutch, I have non-Dutch speaking friends and visitors.. so.. there is that for you. Hmm . took an ‘alternative’ route to work today, decided to trust my technology and dutifully obey my GPS in choosing the way to work. Turned out it IS a faster but also further. And not so much to see along the way. In the rush to leave for work I forgot my earplugs at home. Not only have I know misplaced my white Ipod earplugs, I’ve also left my Senheissers on the desk. So no music today, just the hum of my pc (boring) Good thing I have the I-trip in the car so I can at least catch some podcasts on the road. I sometimes scare myself when I see the media I surround myself with . Sometimes its like I live in a different universe. Where different things matter, different things happen, where I listen to different radio shows, talk to different people and do different things. Damn I’m so cyber-hyped sometimes it makes me wonder people don’t consider me insane on a regular basis. Speaking of crazy : http://labs.google.com/googlex/ A nice alternative Google page with an Osx tribute (cute pop ups) http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000270036222 is also soooo cute buthttp://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000767034455 is a bit tacky for my taste. On browse today I also tripped over THIS article http://www.eo.nl/portals/themes/article.jsp?portal=5254965&article=5584742&theme=5562377 (Marjolein , you will love this, its in DUTCH) about how the Dutch Christian TV network handles porn ! I mean . they have got a SPECIAL WEBSITE for their users on HOW TO DEAL WITH PORN. Not just one article : no no , a whole freakin’ website. Apparently those holy housefathers are one horny heard. My all time favorite is the ‘watch out for porn sign’ they posted on the site. I mean you’ve got to be kidding me. I’m just going to hang this sign on the back of my car or something : Shaggadellic baby !!!!
Ah yess , no war-driven update from the heavenly Scherpenheuvel tomorrow Got no school, teacher is out sick .. and that means that our carefully thrown together powerpoint (ieuw) slideshow will have to be blown out into a full scale report (Damn !)

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Big ass Cappuccino

Monday comes and goes again. Spent some time in the car catching up on my podcasts and spacing out with the vibes casted by http://spacemusic.libsyn.com/ (loooove that). Got home and had about an hour of free time (yes ! Free time) to squander. Wasted half of that on messing around with my sound equipment to see if I could not get a functional studio setup together using just my pc , my hercules DJ console and my Ibook. Several test and curses later I decided the only way to get the setup working the way I want it to is by using a mixer ( for mixing sounds) Now I used to be a dj for eight years and only sold my remaining DJ equipment last summer because it was just lying around anyway. (I had not used it for some years) So yesterday I was pretty damn mad at myself cause I wished I hadn't sold it all. But back then podcasting didn't exist yett (DAMN!) Still.. So its out to the shop tonight to see if I can pick up a simple mixer to do my thing. The urge to game a little overpowered me not much later and I found out that together with my Half life 2 I got Counter Strike. This kick-ass game used to be one of my favorites. But after playing on line for 20 minutes I realized I sucked at THAT too (haven't played in a long time). Swift came over at six and we did some work for school (along with consuming Grande Cappuccino’s) Tinkered around with a script to update our websites automatically and annoyed Nyana for the most part. It was fun to mess around with some html-stuff and feel the challenge to get it working once again. (and its fun when you have company to do it with). So before getting to geeky i'll just leave it at that. Couched-out with my Ibook and ended up talking to Nyana for a bit before going to bed. (barely looked at the tv that was playing) So… I guess it was a nice evening (one of the few evenings i'm home these days). Speaking of TV, apart from podcasting (broadcasting audio over the internet) there is also Videoblogging (making your own tv show and sending that over the net) How that works and what it has to offer is something i would like to check out too so i found this : http://www.antisnottv.org/ Select your shows , download them to your pc (mac) and there ya go. I'm gonna mess around with it a while , see how it goes and if there is something more interesting on the 'vloggosphere' then on regular TV. Should not be that hard to beat ! :).
 

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Half A Life

And the weekend has come and gone again. Like marching soldiers the hours have slipped trough my fingers and I find myself once again on the other side of that lovely break from work-and-no-play.

Saturday morning was nice : I had about an hour to sit down and have a big ass cappuccino while trying to hook up my Ibook to my windows network. And Guess what : It worked ! (thanx Manu) So step by step my master plan is coming alive ..( cross platform/open source etc etc) I was very pleased to get it working, and it only proved that I CAN get things done if I only have the time to sit down and concentrate on them. After that me and the Swiftmeister went out to test some practical network knowledge and rerouted a clients network together. It was way fun to work together and we also did some messing around with testing my vpn connection to the knights castle and stuff. So I hope I’ll be able to combine both and get my shit together on the Ibook so I can get to the files on our server from anywhere.

We also took a peek at this guys SKYPE phone (and it got me thinking about lowering my own phone bill…) Its like Adam Curry said : Skype is going to be THE phone company. I'm going to check out the Skype phone rates to dial-out and dial-in, and who knows perhaps its cheaper ? But before that I’ll start installing Skype on my Pc's (and do some testing) So soon you guys can call me up on skype. I'll post details later.

In the afternoon we went into town and I got me my copy of HALF LIFE 2. I had been in doubt whether to buy Republic commando or Half life .. But decided to go with the classics, If only so I could play COUNTER STRIKE once again. After some on line multiplayer gaming I realized I’m not the sharp edged first-person-fragger I used to be (more of a slow moving canon-fodder newbie) So I have to get some practice. Restraining myself from gaming at night and having a big ass fragg-lagg in the morning (fragg-lagg = being tired during the day because you've been up gaming all night) I will have to get some practice in the weekends. But I deserved a good game … If only so shoot off some steam. The single player game is great by the way (atmosphere !!!) and I spaced out all Saturday afternoon ducking mutants and anti-riot police while killing of my enemies with my famous one-shot/one-kill headshot technique.

Sunday ? lounged out , slept in late .. Fixed up Nyana's Laptop into a good modus-operandy while lending here my little I-Book for the time being. It was cute to see her starting to 'feel the love' for that little machine. Although she's a Windows girl by heart. And not only her pc crashes from time to time : So does she ! We where on the verge of going to bed when I heard a big bang and when I rushed to the scene , found out that Nyana had fallen down a couple of stairs. A big scare, a bruised hand, and a cracked spoke in the stairs 'armrest (?) ' was the conclusion. (big scare for me too). Luckily it wasn't so bad. What can you say : balance is fragile and gravity is a bitch !

While I’m driving to work these day's I’ve noticed spring is in the air. Not only can you smell it .. I can also see the darkness reside further and further into the night. Dawn creeps closer and closer towards my moments of departure and I find myself driving through a well-lit world on my way to work. As nights velvet cloak is pushed away , I see for the first time just what lies between my home and the place where I work. Away is the dark but intimate blackness that engulfed my these last few months. Gone is the bubble of light around me … gently blown by headlights and the display of my soothing Ipod. Now prudent sunrays dance over the horizon. Somehow it makes me feel lonely. Realizing just how many miles and landscapes lie between home and work … makes me feel I’m in a galaxy far far away. So gone is the cover of night.. the realm of shadows and headlights. Times are changing as I flow into another moment in eternity.

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Happy Birthday Ka-Rien !

Yep : Today we stop the presses and say HAPPY BIRTHDAY to our lovely friend Karien. She’s been Nyana’s buddy for over nine years now ( They used to work together in Bokrijk) and I have had the privilege and honor to call her my friend as well. Sometimes its funny how you can get to know people and how after all these years you get pretty close (even though we don’t see each other all that much, I can still call Karien ‘part of the family). So I can only pause the planet to wish her all the best. Love , lust , luck and happiness. With hands of gold and a heart to match she'’s the finest of friends and one of the few who sees right trough me sometimes. Time for a poem in your honor !

When you where born…..
A computer was something on TV
From a science fiction show of note
A window was something you hated to clean
And ram was the cousin of a goat.
Meg was the name of my girlfriend
And gig was a job for the nights
Now they all mean different things
And that really mega bites.
An application was for employment
A program was a TV show
A curser used profanity
A keyboard was a piano.
Memory was something that you lost with age
A CD was a bank account
And if you had a 3 inch floppy
You hoped nobody found out.
Compress was something you did to the garbage
Not something you did to a file.
And if you unzipped anything in public
You'd be in jail for awhile.
Log on was adding wood to the fire
Hard drive was a long trip on the road
A mouse pad was where a mouse lived
And a back up happened to your commode.
Cut you did with a pocket knife.
Paste you did with glue
A web was a spider's home
And a virus was the flu.
I guess I'll stick to my pad and paper
And the memory in my head

🙂 Happy Birthday !

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Have you taken your Fukitol

A few months ago I started out with my ‘new years resolution’ for 2005 : Using as much open-source cross-platform software as I possibly could. And so far that’s working out fine. With Openoffice, Mozilla, Fire, NVU, Deepburner, Freepdf, Firstclass and of course Mandrake Linux I’ve managed to stay afloat and do the things I need to have done. A few weeks ago I tried to center my focus on remote connectivity. Making sure I always had access to my data at home using VPN, remote desktop and so on. After that I went out of my way to be able to schedule and automate as much as possible in order to have my computers ‘work for me’ Podcastst downloaded automatically and sent to my Ipod, Mail Synchronized with my cell phone, Computer recording tv shows on demand, Emule downloading content that I wanted and so on. The general Idea behind this was that I did not have to set everything in motion manually. When you look at www.knightwise.com you might notice a lack of updates, when you look at the weblog you can see an abundance of updates. That is pretty typical for my next problem. I’m not at home enough to sit down behind a computer and update my webpage. Sure I can run the site from my laptop but I need to boot it up, get it connected, change the content and upload the whole shit. The thing I’m looking for is simplifying that too. I want to be able to update my on-line content with the ease I update this blogg (from any computer using just about any webbrowser) and to be able to distribute that content automatically (using RSS and XML feeds) This ‘liberation’ from a designated ‘web design-station’ towards a cross-platform / cross-workstation model is the key for my next project. What I’m basically saying is : I want to use technology to help me get my ‘life on the web’ without a lot of hassle. And a want this technology to support me in getting my stuff out there with a minimal hassle. Quick updates, fast fly by pictures and speedy podcasts with minimum hassle. THAT’S what I want. I call it : Project Liberator.

Oh yes , I’ve finally restarted my IPODDER client so I get these cool podcasts on my Ipod everyday and I must say I missed it. When you tune in to shows like the Daily source code, Yeast Radio, and the recently discovered www.spacemusic.nl these guys and galls keep me company during my long drives and are kinda like distant friends you tune into every day. Is that a sad quote ? No its not.. I just guess I’m a kid of my cyber-era and all my friends are only a few hops (and not blocks) away. Oh yes : for the curious ones ? Check this out

http://www.livejournal.com/stats/latest.bml

Listening to the podcasts in the car has cheered me up a bit, cause otherwise I just sit there and ponder over Babylon's ashes.. No more of that : Fuckitall 🙂

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