| | Hi! You've found me. This is kind of an experimental / placeholder journal, since the way LiveJournal has been changing recently worries me. You can find me there under the username m03m. That's m-zero-three-m. Since I'm (for now) primarily an LJ user, these entries have been copied from there. Some have even been copied from MySpace first! That causes some problems with linkage. And if there's something about site changes and other ongoing events that makes you go 'huh?' because it doesn't seem to make any sense, it's probably about LiveJournal, not Scribbld. I apologize for any confusion and other kinds of inconvenience. Oh, and copying the entries from elsewhere means losing all comments, as well.
| (Originally posted on MySpace)
Lumpectomy.
Not because of what it means, of course. But because it's an ugly, ugly word.
Lumpectomy.
Say it again: lumpectomy.
What does it mean?
It means the removal of a lump from the breast, by means of surgery.
The word (LUMPECTOMY!) is made of two parts:
Lump. Ectomy.
Lump is an English word.
Ectomy isn't: it has its root in Latin, the language that's still used for all things medical. You can have a hysterectomy (removal of the womb), a pneumonectomy (removal of the lungs or a part thereof), pretty much any kind of *ectomy you like or need.
But you can't, won't and shouldn't combine two words from different languages in the unnatural and perverse way it has been done to form this abomination of a word:
Lumpectomy.
(My sincerest sympathy to all those who need or needed a lump removed from a breast. I just can't stand the word.) | |
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| (Originally posted on MySpace)
Spring is definitely here! Not only is today the seventeenth anniversary of my company (as you should know by now, I'm a self-employed sign writer / decorator), but my business is springing right back into bloom. I just got an official 'go ahead' on the biggest job I've (n)ever done. It's a series of four (count them: F-O-U-R) large murals about nautical history. The biggest one will be over twelve metres high! So it's back in business, and back on the boom lift for me! Here's a pic of me on top of the world, four years ago:  I was painting the logo you see on the left on the wall of a brewery. Needless to say I took some lovely and tasty farewell gifts home when I was finished! More pics can be found here.I just love working on boom lifts, or cherry pickers, as they are also called. I really enjoy being able to see so far, and I don't find the gentle swaying scary at all... just annoying if it gets windy, because it's hard to paint a straight line when you're standing on a moving platform! This particular contract has been in the making for a year. There were so many bureaucratic hurdles to take, and by the time I could have begun it was way too late in the autumn. But I knew it was coming and I was looking forward to getting started. Right now I'm busy thinking of clever ways to enlarge the designs to 10 X 10 meter, and making a list of all the stuff I'll need. First thing on the list is the boom lift itself. I could rent one, but it would swallow a third of the budget, so buying one (and selling it afterwards) is going to work out cheaper... I'll be the proud owner of my very own diesel-powered dinosaur for the next six months! Now if you don't think that's exciting, you would not recognize exciting if it would be dancing on the piano in a pink tutu while singing 'I'm exciting, I'm exciting'. | |
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| (Originally posted on MySpace)Soms maak ik voor de lol gekke teksten op bestaande melodietjes. Vaak probeer ik dicht bij een deel van de originele tekst te blijven, dat is grappiger. Hier zijn er twee, je kunt vast wel zien wat de originele tekst was.
Yoghurt Of vla Wat is er nà? IJs of rijs- tepap Of ba- varois. Voor hopjes of vanille Ga ik door de knieën Knijp dat pak maar uit Griesmeelpap of fruit- yoghurt. Oeeeh oehoehoeee, yoghurt.*
Zeven brieven heb ik jou geschreven Zeven brieven vol van mijn verdriet Waar zijn al die brieven toch gebleven Zelfs de klantenservice weet het niet. Zeven brieven heb ik jou geschreven
Zeven brieven vol van hartezeer
Maar een antwoord heb ik nooit gekregen
Ik vertrouw de TNT niet meer.
* Voor wie er niet uitkwam: Love Hurts. | |
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| (Originally posted on MySpace)Now that spring's definitely here, I've started making holiday plans. The main part of my plan is that I'm definitely planning to have a holiday this year. I didn't really have one last year, although we went to a nice bikers meet in Germany. Oh, and my mother took me to France for a week, but that was more of a working holiday since we were there to help decorate an old farm house and I painted all week long, except on those days when I put up the kitchen tiles. I did have a good time, though. But this year I want to: 1) go somewhere with my sweetie
2) go there for more than a weekend
3) go there by motorcycle.
So when I heard about CCC2007, that sounded like just the thing. Apparently, it's an international hackers convention, going on during five days in the beginning of August, near Berlin (Germany, of course). I know I'm no hacker and only half a nerd, but I had such a great time at WhatTheHack two years ago that I don't think I'd want to miss this. WTH was just like summer camp. A kind of freaky techno summer camp for grownups. And it might even be fun to stay there a bit longer, say: two weeks, and help them setting things up, and running the event. So I sent an e-mail which went like this:
Subject: Hello, we'd like to join the circus please
Hi,
We read about the Chaos Communication Camp 2007 and we would like to be part of the crew.
In return for admittance we are offering two weeks of our time, and our mAd sKiLLz:
-one of us is a sysadmin with 25 years of experience, especially non-Windows
-the other is a professional signwriter and decorator since 17 years and occasionally builds websites
-language skills: Dutch, English, German
-we both enjoy and are good at tinkering, fixing things and building stuff
-we are easygoing, love to improvise and brush our teeth fairly regularly.
If you're the wrong person to send this to, could you please forward it to the right person? We had a hard time locating a contact address on the website.
Looking forward to August,
yours sincerely,
Now, what German hacker in his right mind could possibly resist us? *flutters eyelids seductively* Here's a pic of my tent and bike at WhatTheHack: | |
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| (Originally posted on MySpace) A survey arrives by snail mail. I'm politely requested by an accompanying letter to complete it and send it in. A winner will be drawn from the respondents, the prize is a gift certificate.Nice. But the survey is anonymous. There is nothing on the form or the postage free return envelope to indicate who sent it in. So how do you draw a winner? I send an e-mail to the intern who set up the survey, and ask him how he thinks he's going to do that. Says he: " I tried to make things as easy as possible for the respondents and so hope to get enough response. So the gift certificate will end up with someone who actually sent in the survey. Unfortunately I cannot be certain about that". Soooo... the winner of the gift certificate is drawn from the people who were sent the survey, not those who sent it back. Completing or not completing it does not influence the chance of winning. Frankly I fail to see how that would stimulate anyone to participate. Not only is it simply untrue that a winner will be drawn from the respondents, the chance that the whole setup will actually work borders on zero... except for those who don't show any brain activity. Would you want to use survey results gathered solely from that group? I should win that gift certificate just for figuring it all out!  | |
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| (Originally posted on MySpace.)My father came over and visited me, and he gave me a lovely, lovely gift. Here it is:
 Looks neat, doesn't it? And it is! It's a GPS receiver. No, not a navigation system, as it doesn't contain any maps. It will take you to any spot you enter the coordinates for. And you can get those from Googlemaps, or even from an ordinary paper map, if you have a ruler and a calculator. It's just like the good old GPS12 that guided us through Africa seven years ago, only ... - it's smaller - it's lighter - it uses two AAA batteries instead of four AA's - it works for up to 12 hours on a set - it has a better antenna to receive the satellite signals with - it has a faster processor - it can store more waypoints and tracks - it's mine mine MINE !!! Isn't it totally neat? I'm going to find a way to attach it to my motorbike. It's waterproof, too. I guess being so excited about a gift like this, and choosing it in the first place, makes me a bit of a geek. And you know what? I don't give a shit!  | |
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| (Originally posted on MySpace)
 Do check out this site if you haven't already. Especially if today isn't special to you, and even more so if there's someone who insists that it should be! Valentine's day is nothing more than an opportunity to play on people's guilt in order to get them to buy, buy, buy. If you wait for this day to express your true feelings then that's pretty sad. Do you really need to be told when and how to express your love? I'm so glad we don't value the day as much here in the Netherlands up until now, even though this specific kind of commercialism is slowly creeping up on us lately... and we see more and more red, heart-shaped crap in the stores every year. On the other hand, any reason for releasing a lot of BookCrossing books is a good reason, so I'm spreading 26 books with love related titles today ;-) Check out last years pics.But hey, at least I'm doing something no one is making money on! | |
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| (Originally posted on MySpace.) As some of you may remember, I was in Bremen last november, to meet the delightful ![[info]](https://www.scribbld.com/img/userinfo.gif) antof9 . Read all about it here. We 'released' eight books that day, and two of them were caught within a few days. Now the third one has been reported as found, too! Three out of eight, that's wonderful. And the journal entry is quite elaborate, too. Seems the book has done a bit of travelling on its own since I left it, it's gained a new member, and it has been read and will eventually travel on! What more can an old, battered hardcover sans dust jacket hope for? Those of you who can read German will probably enjoy reading the journal entry. Others can at least click the picture for a bigger version... it shows where I left the book. | |
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| (Originally posted on MySpace)Well, others are welcome too, but it probably won't be very interesting. This is just an announcement of the fact that my very serious and utterly useful (not...) site about instant noodle soup, which is entirely in Dutch (I told you it wouldn't be interesting) now also boasts a forum. Yes, it's also about instant noodle soup, and it's in Dutch, too. Sorry to have bothered you. *slinks away* | |
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| (Originally posted on MySpace)Time for some shameless showing off here! Yesterday we went to visit my aunt who had invited us for a family tea & tapas party. Good news all by itself as she has excellent taste in food. A good time was had by all. Just before we left, she asked me if I'd like something really silly. Of course I said yes. Silly is good. And then she presented me with something I'd been secretly desiring for years: her Goblin Teasmade!  Click makes big.Isn't it gorgeous? Go on, say yes. You know you want to! But what is it? It's an icon of Britishness: a teawaker. It's an alarm clock that brews tea and then wakes you up when it's done. Lovely, innit? The kettle and the tea pot are on a little scale, and when the water is transferred from the kettle to the tea pot the scale is tipped, and that switches off the heat and makes the buzzer sound. This one is from the fifties or early sixties, it comes with its own tray in bakelite. It's supposed to be in working order, too. I can't wait to give it a really nice spot in the living room and try it. It'll have to be the living room and not the bedroom, though. The thing is said to be rather noisy. I've read the sound of the water boiling and being forced through the tube into the tea pot will always wake you up before the buzzer does. Who cares? I was going to show it off anyway. Here's another piccie of the model I have:
You may all start envying me now.
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| (Originally posted on MySpace)
I guess I haven't anything to say to the world right now.
Sorry, world.
No, it wasn't anything you said. - Tags:
2007
- Mood:blank
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| (Originally posted on MySpace)
Not all that much, really. I just finished a rather weird and fragmentaric book by Charlotte Mutsaers, called De Markiezin. It was a bit vague, but the fragments in themselves were all interesting and/or funny, so I did finish it. Other than that, I haven't really been reading. Just some BC and Wizard of Id comic pocket books. I released one of them (yes, I'm talking about BookCrossing again, check it out if you haven't by now!) here in Arnhem, and it was found two weeks later in Alkmaar, by someone from Hilversum who's going to release it there. Way to go, brave little book! I'm currently looking forward to the two books at the very top of my Mt. ToBeRead: one is Paddy Clarke, Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle, whom I rather like as a writer, and the other is Het Zijn Net Mensen by Joris Luyendijk, a non-fiction book by a wartime correspondent who just spent five years in the Middle East. Should be interesting, and I got it as a Christmas present. I'm not sure yet which one is going to be first but I'm probably going to enjoy them both.
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| (Originally posted on MySpace.)
...a very happy, prosperous, thoughtful, peaceful, loving, healthy New Year!  I'm drinking to all of you as I type this. Let's hope we can bring world peace a little closer during the next year, and learn to take better care of the earth, and of each other.
Let's all do our best.
Happy New Year! *mwah*
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