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Showing posts from 2011

Happy New Year! La Multi Ani! Gelukkig Nieuw Jaar!

Last day of 2011. In a few hours we'll kiss the old year good bye and start working on the new resolutions. At midnight everyone will celebrate in their own way: drinking champagne, firing up fireworks, partying, sleeping, karaoke-ing, telling scary stories, watching TV and so forth. This midnight moment reminds me of a story, as true as the reader wants to believe it. Of course, don't try this at home! One day, round midnight, this guy is driving in a remote area, along a field of pumpkins. All of a sudden he got aroused by a strange idea. "A pumpkin", he thinks, "is so soft and squishy inside and there's no one around". This being said, he pulls over, chooses a pumpkin that looks promising, cuts the right hole in it and begins to screw it. He gets so carried away that he doesn't even see the police officer who's approaching him. The cop comes by and says: "Excuse me sir, but do you realise you are screwing a pumpkin?" The

Christmas. Presents. Happiness

Warning: This post should not, under any circumstances, be read by children under the threshold of not-believing-anymore in Santa, grandparents included. Christmas is gone, we all got our gifts from the loved ones as well as from our employers :D. We also struggled to find the best for our beloved family, friends, acquaintances and so forth. Quite often we get it right, other times we just don't. But, whatever happened, keep it mind that it takes two to make a present a success. It's the giver and the receiver who need to get in tune with each other, as we will see it in this story (of course based on a true one, what else? )

Men. Christmas. Presents. Perfumes

(Previously in Men. Christmas. Presents ) As I said before, nothing beats the experience of two guys in a perfumery.  One with a serene look minding his own business, well tucked in, fully unaware of the whole rush going around, sucking at his own fingers at times, giggling happily whenever he sees a smiling face (mostly female). The other one - my ten-month-old son. Well, I'm in the dragon's lair. What shall I buy there? Plenty of options: perfumes, nail varnish, complexion powder, crayons, creams, the whole enchilada. I start making my short list: perfumes - ruled out, many smell differently on the skin than on the paper stick, varnish - possible, but as a backup, powders - complicated, crayons - wow, together with some nail varnish, that's actually a great idea. So cream it is :D.

Men. Christmas. Presents

I can't talk for others, but when it comes to buying presents I sweat like Mike Tyson at a spelling test. Especially when I have to do this for my wife, particularly for Christmas, specifically 2 days before Christmas. I want her presents to be special, she just wants them to be offered with love, but I'm a man, so I know better :). The presents should not be that expensive, as those have already been bought together. And you can't just go ahead and by a black laptop! Come on, what colour is that for a laptop? Anyway, I need something that's not very pricey, not more than, say, 800 euros :D (kiddiiiiing!)

Happy Holidays

As Christmas is almost here and you're all busy warming up your voices for tonight's carols or running around for getting the last presents for the loved ones, or unraveling the ultimate secrets of a delicious recipe (be it some dish or a cake), or vacuuming your homes (oops, that should be me actually, lemme hurry up a bit), or queuing up at the hairdresser's (I'm safe here, got a new hairdo, need a towel to comb) or cleaning the bathroom (me again!) or changing some nappies (cooooooomiiiing!!) or constantly checking the facebook for some blog updates (ahem!), but primarily because the brevity is the soul of wit, I will be brief! Before I wish you, my dear friends, all the best in the world, I do have some strong hopes for some people:  I really, really (I mean really really) hope that Mariah got him, whomever he'd be. Please God, it's the only thing she wants! Beg your pardon? You did everything godly possible? Thanks anyway.  Georgie, hate to bring

The Barometer

"Joy to the world, the lord has come, joy to the world...",  The Professor was singing and humming in an obviously joyous voice as he lit up his pipe and began the preparations of calling this an year.  "Almost there", he thought, "a few more test papers to grade and off I go, let the Christmas start". He wished for a white Christmas in the beautiful city of Copenhagen but chances seemed slim.  The test paper was an easy one, he didn't feel like getting anybody in trouble (as he'd done it for the past years, but somehow the buzz was gone :) ). "Given a barometer, how could one measure the height of a skyscraper?". It's trivial for anybody trying to pursue a career, however petty, in physics. The answers were good as well, all indicating the best known method: measure the pressure at the ground level, then at the top, convert the millibars in metres and that's it, we have the precise height. 

Balloon - Take two

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A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do! And this being said I bought the tickets. However, going in a balloon trip is not as going to the cinema, when you buy the tickets, the popcorn/tacos/ben&jerry and 2 hours later you've had a nice evening already. As the sunny weather in Holland falls on 3 Thursdays, 2 Mondays and  4 Wednesdays, never in the weekend!, you need to align your trip with it. And that explains why all balloons  seem to fly on the same day :)

Balloon - Take one

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I am afraid of heights. Always been and ageing doesn't heal it. Au contraire :). If you want a more expensive word for that, I suffer from acrophobia , but it doesn't make me feel any better. Anyway, I've learnt to live with it,  and also started to do some activities to beat the fear. Have I seen any progress in that? Certainly, but I'm still not a big fan of roller coasters and funfairs' attractions that happen at distances higher than half a metre from the ground. Speed, that I can take easily, as long as it stays on the ground. Years ago, in my first Holland's summer, on one of the few sunny days, I saw the first air balloon in my life, a real one that is. Actually, it was a sea of balloons, all beautifully coloured and floating freely in the air, at different heights. Some of them only seemed to be cruising around, you could even talk to the people in the basket!, others soared to greater heights, but all invaded the sky, a joyful fleet greeting a beautif

Sefton

They declared him the horse of the year and showed him on the telly. He had a rough night, didn't sleep that well. Lots of thoughts were roaming through his head and when he was about to finally fall asleep Rochester began to snore his muzzle off, fine for everyone who'd been dreaming already, but not for him. "We'll see the Queen tomorrow, rumours have it", thought Sefton, but he wasn't actually very convinced about that. He looked to his left, a few yards away, and saw Zara, sound asleep. He'd known her for years, they met right after he came from Germany. Memories come rushing up to meet me now... She was Arabian, one of the finest ones, shiny black with a lovely mane, which she wore with great pride. "She's so beautiful", he said to himself for the millionth time, "today must be the day".  He'd have to tell her everything, there's no way out.

Quit drinking?

A juggler, driving to his next performance, is stopped by the police. "What are those machetes doing in your car?" asks the cop. "I juggle them in my act." "Oh, yeah? Says the doubtful cop. "Let's see you do it.” The juggler gets out and starts tossing and catching the knives. Another man driving by slows down to watch. "Wow" says the passer-by. "I'm glad I quit drinking. Look at the test they're giving now!

Memories

A few days ago at work: busy as usual and me trying to get some answers, for which I needed to ask a colleague. The nice guy type, round 50, extremely high education (pre-phd, phd, post phd, highschool, university, phd...), very devoted to his work and always willing to share a piece of his wisdom with the others. So here I am, at his desk,  posing the question, not fully aware that I might not be able to handle the truth. Before I realised what hit me, he went on explaining to me about the Lessing's curves that are involved in the matter (don't look up, you don't want to know what they are). These scientists, sooo excited about their work! Had those curves been a woman they would have been doing it right there on the floor, sending a 200-page Code of Conduct into oblivion.

Insurance agent

Airman Smithy was assigned to the army induction center, where he advised new army recruits about their government benefits, especially their GI life insurance policies. It wasn’t long before Captain Brown noticed that Airman Smithy was having a staggeringly high success-rate, selling army life insurance to nearly 100% of the army recruits he advised. Rather than ask about this, the Captain stood in the back of the room and listened to Smithy’ life insurance sales pitch. Smithy explained the basics of the GI life insurance policy to the new army recruits, and then said: “If you have the GI life insurance policy and go into battle and are killed, the government has to pay $200,000 to your beneficiaries. If you don’t have GI life insurance, and you go into battle and get killed, the government only has to pay a maximum of $6,000. Now,” he concluded, “which group of soldiers do you think they are going to send into battle first?”

Owens or Nurmi?

As a little boy (not that many years ago, thank you very much), I spent most of my summer-and-other-short holidays at my grandparents' place. I'm not going to develop any nostalgic stories of my childhood featuring me getting lost in the near forest or having one of my first cigarettes (at the venerable age of 6), but instead I find it quite intriguing to remember a few peculiar details from that time. Well, in every house like that there are some old shabby books lingering around, with pages torn or undone and fixed back with sellotape, every single female face in the books having a moustache duly drawn with a dark blue pen, despite the constant-but-never-kept promise of my grandma that she'd tell on me to mom. You know, the works.

Always Use a Spell Checker

Oh buoy, eye have scene sew many spelling miss steaks published on internet and eye do knot understand why wood someone knot ewes a spell checker, as it comes four free with the pea sea.  There's know whey ewe wood bee taken buy surprise buy any treacherous words anymore and it dozen take any moor thyme to Finnish what ewe kneed to, as any miss steak is showed strait a weigh.  Weather eye am write ore wrong has know importance,  butt make shore yore frays gets cleaner and error free :)

What's in A Name?

Hello I've just finished the first task, namely finding a title for this blog. After having wrung my brains to the last cells I finally found the answer, simple and straightforward: ask the missus.    She just took a good look at the me in the morning and, without further ado, for a reason that was abundantly clear, she got it first time right: inside out pyjamas. And as I sat on the couch, sipping at my coffee,  creeping back to life, my nervous system all awry , I realised that I was another one wearing the inside out :) This is what I intend to do with this blog: to take out the inside and share it with the outside. In this spirit of fuzzy commitment, I leave you all to enjoy wearing the inside out ;) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCzOvgTCNuI