A new post

Oh my god, oh my god! There's a new post!
Yes, there is.

Now, I usually wouldn't add anything to that and simply post it, for the sake of pointlessness. But now that I'm at it, I'll write down something decent instead.

I don't know what the weather is like in your country, but over here it's at the edge of snowing. It has been -2 degrees (I've tried every button combination possible on my US Qwerty keyboard to find the degree-sign and haven't found it. Don't Americans ever mention a value of temperature?) all day and it's snowing these little tiny snowflakes. I hate it and if it starts snowing for real, which will happen sooner or later, I'll hate it even more.

Don't get me wrong. I don't hate snowy landscapes, as long as I'm not part of that landscape. Since I need to drive 30km to get to college, I spend pretty much time doing exactly that. If it were just the snow, I'd be fine. I'd just take it easy. But the combination of snow with other traffic on peak hours is impossible. I can't blame them though. After all, a situation like that requires caution.

Caution, something I need to have with my studies. I've got quite a bit of work to do lately, but have so little time to actually do it. The hours on which my classes are scheduled are always bang on in the middle of the day, which doesn't give me much time in either morning or evening to do some work. Work piles up.
But I've planned a bit! That now officially makes me a man with a plan, which is awesome. I summed up what work I have to do and it looks... pretty bad.

Guess I should spend my time working instead of blogging. Goodnight.

Laughing out out out out...

Today, I've noticed something. Something I have of course seen before, but it never really bothered me. But today, it triggered something. It triggered endless hatred.
And what would that, that which triggers such emotion? It's "looooool".
I saw a conversation:

Person A: "what a child, probably a jew, haha"
Person B: "who's the jew here? ass!"
Person A: "Him, not me, looooool"

There's two things that really bother me about that, ignoring the content of the conversation.

1. What the fuck is "looooool" supposed to be?
LOL is short for Laughing Out Loud. What does that make of LOOOOOOL? Laughing Out Out Out Out Out Out Loud? When you add "etc" (Et Cetera, "and so on") after summing up a few things, you don't write "eeeeeetc" instead, do you? No, because it doesn't make any sense.
There is no reason or meaning for those extra o's added to "lol". All it does is make you look like a complete retard.

2. Assuming "looooool" is subsitute for "lol", what's so funny to laugh out loud for?
If the "lol" expression is used in valid conditions there, meaning he laughed out loud for that, than what kind of person is he? Yes, a retard.
I guess it doesn't matter wether he uses "looooool" or "lol" then.
I'm fine with the word "lol" and I can accept "lool", because typo's happen.
But 6 o's instead of just one...

"LOL" is starting to lose it's meaning. Rather than being short for "Laughing Out Loud", it has become a word on it's own. (ab)Used in conversations where there's nothing to laugh out loud for, stretched by adding meaningless letters to make it sound more like you're 13 years old.

What am I trying to achieve with this ranting about something that's part of daily internet life, about something that won't disappear because I complain about it?
All that I aim to achieve, all that I hope to achieve, is that YOU will just remember this post the next time you use "lol". All I want you to do is to THINK.

Thank you for withstanding this horrible complaining.

Two very related subjects

So here I am. Sitting in my bed with my laptop on my lap. It's 5 minutes until midnight and I'm listening to some Cage The Elephant songs on YouTube. An excellent situation to think things trough and write on my blog while doing so.

Earlier this evening, I watched a documentary called "Sharkbite Summer". It's shark-month on discovery channel, so there's a shark documentary every evening. This one was rather interesting though.
When you're at the beach and there are sharks swimming at, literally, 5 meters far into the water, would you go for a final swim with your fiancée before going back home? Would you teach your 10y-old son to surf? Would you participate in a surfing contest?
If you have at least a tenth of my ability to estimate situations, which frankly isn't much, then you would not.
Sharks are fish. Sharks have teeth. Fish don't feel sorry for your kid before, while or after they bite a leg off.
I believe sharks don't realize we are humans. How could they, they're fish. But you know, I honestly think they don't really care. They see something that looks tasty, weak and smaller than they are, so they give it a bite. Sure, it's not like every shark that you encounter will bite you. But face it, when a 3 meter long Bull-shark is swimming at a throwing distance from the beach, it's not looking for someone to play hide and seek with. More like tag-your-it (it, or eat, whichever may be more suitable).
So, dear readers, when you're on a holiday at the beach and the place is swarming with news reporters that are pointing their camera's at shark-infested waters, it MAY not be a wise idea to go for a swim.

Now we're on the shark subject, I think it's worth mentioning I have this Australian warning sign that warns for great white sharks. I hung it on my bedroom door. It's awesome.

And now for something completely different.
I play bass guitar. Now don't give me the 'oh it's just a simple guitar' bullshit because it's an entirely different instrument. I play guitar as well so I can tell.
Seriously, why is it that people consider bass to be simple? Sure, it has (usually) got 2 strings less. But it's a lot heavier and the notes are at a greater distance from each other. On top of that, the playing technique is entirely different. You can of course just slam it as hard as you can with your guitar pick, but that's not playing bass. In fact, that's as close to playing bass as a go-kart is to a car. A real bassist plays with his fingers.

So here comes the part where I should come up with some smart conclusion that links shark attacks to playing bass guitar.
...
...
Seriously mate...

Don't touch my fries

It's been a while since I last blogged, again. That's because I've been busy. I've worked a lot of overtime, which becomes exhausting after a month. I wasn't capable of writing something decent, so I didn't write at all. However, now I've finished working and started studying again, so I have time to write blogs.

First of all, I want to make something clear. Touch my food without permission and you'll trigger endless hatred sprung directly from the darkest, most evil parts of my existence.
Yesterdaynight, I went out. It's a custom for me and my friends to end up in a certain chipshop thing called "chick-away". We don't exactly know where that custom originated from, but we like it.
As usual, I ordered french fries with ketchup. However, I didn't really feel well so I took my fries outside to get some fresh air. As I sat there, eating my fries, enjoying the nice evening weather, a bunch of drunk idiots came by. They shouted "RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA" and one of them threw my fries on my lap, which they found very amusing.
WHY?... WHY was that necessary? What did that accomplish? Sure, to them it was 'funny' and they had a good laugh. But while they probably forgot all about it within the next 15 seconds, I lost my food. My fries were all over the place, my ketchup on my trousers and I was still fucking hungry!
Had I been sober I would have put up a fight, despite the fact there were 5 of them. But since I was at least as drunk as they were, I decided it was wiser not to.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not someone who likes fights. I avoid them at all costs and I don't think I've ever actually been in one. But the rage I felt yesterday night, it was far beyond anything I've felt in the past years. I've been pissed off many, many times and I'm not saying that what they did was 'worse' than those other things that make me angry, but the emotion I felt this time was simply in a way different league.
So, dear readers, if you feel like standing in between me and my food, you'd better have a pretty damn good reason for it.
End of rant.

Coming up on Infra Red

I've got the best job in the world.

Yes, I'm still a student. So basically, it's a mere holidayjob. But yet, it's the best in the world.
What I get to do is drive around, set up a few camera's, record a few 10 seconds clips, drive somewhere else and do the same. That might not sound that fascinating, but for someone like me, who likes to drive and to set up camera's, it's the best job in the world.

It aren't ordinary camera's of course. It are infra-red camera's engineered and produced by XenICs N.V.. There are different kinds of infra-red camera's. You've got the long-wave camera's, that are used for thermal vision like in the movies, and the other camera I'm using is a near-infra-red camera, which makes it easier to detect different sorts of material. Next to these two camera's, I've got an ordinary visual camera to compare the images. So I just need to film a lot on different terrains in different conditions, to make a database of recordings. Today, I assisted one of XenICs' employees so I get to know things before I'm sent off alone.

While filming, there's also regular contact with the local population. Earlier today, at the railway station, an old women said "ooh, the first time I'm taking the train and it's being filmed!". So she then started to explain that she normally always goes to the coast by car, but for once, she's taking the train. She also told me her son is an engineer too, but one in informatics, rather than electronics (which I'm studying for).
A bit later, when we were filming elsewhere in the railway station, one of the railroad employees was interested in what we were doing. He informed us of the train that was about to arrive at platform 3 (which wasn't announced trough every single loudspeaker in the station, nor was our camera pointed at that track. Yes, that was sarcasm.). So we filmed a Thalis passing trough the station, which was nice.
In the afternoon, after I had filmed my rabbit and some parts of my backyard, me and the XenICs employee, who's name is Nick btw, went to some fields. More social interaction there! Some bloke came to see what we were doing. He looked like a typical 80's casino mobster. Tight black jeans, loose shirt with the top buttons opened, golden necklace, big cigar, green jaguar. He asked what we were doing. We said we were making recordings with infra-red camera's, including thermal vision. Then he asked wether we were here to check the level of the groundwater...
Yes, you've guessed it alright. He started talking about how the level of the groundwater dropped massively and how he blames a local factory for it. He already asked his 'friend with a high position at the water company' to check it out though. Then he went away. He passed by a few times and waved at us every time.
Next, the local farmer arrived. He was a bit suspicious about us and asked if we were there to film how he works. We won his trust by the joke "only if you want us to". Now we have recordings of his secret method to unload a wagon a manure, muahaha.

I must say, I appreciate these small interactions with people. Each person has their own life, own stories. It doesn't matter how funny they look, how boring their stories are or how intelligent they are. Funny how a bunch of random people can make the best job in the world even more interesting.

I was allowed to keep the camera's for tonight and tomorrow (which is a day off due to national holiday). So I'll be recording some stuff for work tonight. Should be interesting.

Pulverized

Last night, there was a moth flying around in my room. I smacked it with my bare hand, and it disappeared. It was simply gone. No trace to be found.
A few minutes ago, another moth entered my room. I swapped it out of the air and it disappeared. I found moth-blood on my closet, but no trace of the moth itself.
Conclusion? Moths are pulverized into molecules when hit in mid-flight.

It's been a while since I last posted, despite my promise to post on Wednesday, June 30th. I could make up tons of excuses for why I didn't, but the fact is, I just didn't feel like it. However, coincidence or not, it is Saturday today. So basically, I just shifted my original unintended posting schedule by one week. Not that anyone could possibly care about that.

Quite a few things happened in the mean while. I moved to a different room, I went to a festival, my computer broke, I repaired it, I completed my first week at my vacation job with success. All of these are things you by no doubt have boundless interest in, but I'm going to talk about something different. Or well, I was planning to talk about something. Now that I've set some sort of quality standard for this blog, I'd hate to ruin it by simply writing to write something. Last posts were written by simply writing down what I felt like writing down. Right now, I don't really feel like writing about anything.
It's not that I can't think of anything to share with you, but I'll share them at a time it feels suited to do so.

Goodnight.

Generating coincidence

You are visitor number 1.000.000! This is no joke!
Our coincidence-generator has selected you as potential EXCLUSIVE WINNER for a Mini!
">>> Click Here <<<"

What? Is that seriously meant to lure people into clicking?
Let's analyse that for a minute.

1. "You are visitor number 1.000.000!"
   So you're saying that I'm the millionth visitor on a 12 year old website with 1.420.161 registered users. Not to mention you told me I'm the millionth visitor twice by now... on two different computers.
2. "This is no joke!"
   Oh, it's not? Well I guess I'll click it then.
3. "Our coincidence-generator has..."
   A coincidence generator? What is a coincidence generator? How on earth can you generate coincidence?

I do not doubt that whoever designed that advert is a complete retard. It's ridiculous. But having that kind of poorly designed 'lure-in'-adverts spread across the internet is not what worries me though. What worries me is that, apparently, it's worth the time and effort to put such a monstrosity on-line. The mere fact that they haven't disappeared over the last decade, but instead increased, is proof that apparently they are successful. That, ladies and gentlemen, means there are people out there who believe those adverts.
I know there are thousands of 'hackers' and millions of computer viruses out there. But the knowledge that THOSE kind of people are out there somewhere too, frightens me a lot more.

Enough about that. It's time to pick up where I left last time.
I said I was going to tell you how the motivation thing turned out. Well, it was crap. I got a chessboard from the attic and set up a game, each day I did something useful I made a move at the end of the day. After 3 moves, I started to forget and go to sleep without having made a move. So the board is still there, with 3 moves.
On the bright side, I have started doing useful things. I've spend a few days working on a project, which got sort of cancelled, I've helped my brother and sister with cutting the hedges in the backyard and I've repaired an electric outlet (which was my fault it was broken, actually. But my client insisted on paying me). While doing the latter, I managed to blow up my multimeter. A multimeter is a device capable of measuring multiple things. This specific device was capable of measuring AC voltage, DC voltage, AC current, DC current and electrical resistance. Apparently, it's a bad idea to have it set up to measure resistance and then hook it up on 230 Volts. I of course was aware of it being rather harmful, but I forgot to turn the knob. I won't be uploading pictures, neither have I bothered to open it up yet, but I'm pretty sure the battery inside exploded. You can find pictures of exploded batteries on google, can't you?

Although I do not blog on a scheduled time or date, I've noticed I post a blog every eight days. So if I would continue this tradition, you would find me blogging Saturday next week. But you won't. I won't. Because Saturday next week, I'll be on a local festival called "Rock Werchter". Instead, I'll try to post a blog on Wednesday. It's the day before the festival begins and it's the day I get my results from this year. So you'll find me dreaming about the festival that is about to come and either bragging about how well I did or whining about how bad I did.

I'm looking forward to it. Let's just pray the coincidence generator doesn't generate too much unpleasant coincidences.

Playing chess with yourself

It's time for me to write something new here. I wouldn't want to disappoint all of you who read this (presumably me and my single follower, but who knows, someone might actually read this!).

Today, I woke up at 11 am. My vacation has recently started, a well-earned vacation after weeks of studying. I have the right to wake up this late and do nothing useful all day long.
This brings me to an interesting point.

This time last week, I was complaining to myself about how that one exam I still had on Monday stood in between me and doing all the things I had planned. And I had planned a lot of things!
This is going to be a pretty busy vacation, doing all kinds of things I consider to be fun.
Yet, now that I've had 3 days of vacation already, I haven't even started doing any of those fun things. Why not?
I couldn't wait to do so, yet now that I can I don't. There's no logical explanation for it. I still want to do those things, but whenever I think about beginning I have this "I'll do it tomorrow"-feeling and end up wasting the day. I wonder why. Is it because there's no obligation?
To find that out, I'll try to find a way to force me to do something, I'm thinking of something with a game of chess. I'll let you know how that turns out.

And now for something completely different.
Today, I heard that the bassist of The Eagles Of Death Metal has got cancer. I play bass myself, and The Eagles Of Death Metal are one of my favorite bands, so it sortof came as a shock. Not only because the man has got cancer, but also because I didn't know they had a bassist. Now this bassist I discovered has cancer and that isn't a very nice thing.
(and now some sneaky advertising:) I found out about this trough RMP, a Belgian community website for rock, metal and punk music. It can be found at www.rock-metal-punk.be. If you speak dutch and you're interested, you might as well join this community.

I've recently increased my activity on their forum. I seem to get along with the other users, so that's good I suppose.
I started to become and active member when I posted a question on that forum. Since it's a musical forum, I thought there might be some musicians there to tell me their thoughts about instrument amplifiers. Tell me what they would like to see in an amplifier they buy. Although I did have some feedback from one person, in general it was a disappointment. As on other places where I posted that question, I spent more time argueing against the "you can't pull this off because you're not a big company" sort of 'advice'.
If any musician happens to read this post, feel free to leave me a message to tell me what you think an amplifier should have. Anything you come up with, regardless of required skills or costs, just mention it.
Hey, this is the first I'm blogging about the amplifier I'm going to build? Well, expect a post dedicated to that alone! I'm not going to let you escape from that one.

Now I'm assuming you're interested in this amplifier plan. But fact is, I don't know wether you're interested in it or not. Because you are one of the bazillion people able to read this, for a start, but also because it's very hard to tell wether someone is interested when writing a blog. So please, whoever reads this, give me some feedback. Anything from half-a-book-of-thought-trough-commentary to "duck" will do.

I hope to get some feedback. The subject of my next post will depend on it. Don't think that not commenting will stop me from posting, though. I still have a lot of bullshit to share.

The savage jungle in the middle of the world

Hello.

Normally, I wake up with an interesting radio program. But not today, no, today I woke up with my radio playing unusual music.
Apparently the non-commercialized radio and television are on a strike. They are doing that because the government (or at least the one we had a little while ago, we don't anymore) told them they had to cut costs with a certain amount without decreasing the quality of the radio and television. The unions say that when cutting costs THAT much, it is not possible to maintain the same quality. Which means that today I woke up with music that didn't cost much author rights to play and lame news broadcasts about moronic politicians debating about pointless matters. Needless to say it didn't take long for me to turn off the radio.

Such a great start for such a wonderful day. I had a whole day of programming meaningless exercises ahead of me and weather was, well, simply crap. Too hot to keep windows closed, too rainy to open them. Wonderful.

A few minutes ago, after a day full of annoyance and boredom, I suddenly felt the urge to start a blog. Is it to whine about how bad life is? Is it to give cynical comments at my government? Is it to complain about the noise made by the buttons on a Nintendo GameBoy Color? No it's not.
In fact, I don't think I've started this blog for any reason at all. Just an impulsive act. But now that I've started it, I don't see why I shouldn't continue.

While writing all of the above, I think I came up with a theme for this blog. I'll dig into minds, perspectives, opinions, thoughts and dreams. I'll share knowledge and go on a search for more. I'll try to give you insight into the wilderness of my mind and open it for whatever escapes from yours.

So, dear reader, prepare yourself.
Sharpen your machete, load your rifle, give your jeep a final check-up and put on short trousers and a silly helmet.
We're going on a journey into the Savage jungle in the middle of my, your, THE world.