I'm curious to find out how much you, unDutch people, know about a specific Dutch tradition: Sinterklaas, or the Feast of Saint Nicholas.

Please don't look it up, as I know is easy to do, I'd like to find out how much you know and where you picked it up, not how well you can look up stuff on the internet  ;-)

And please answer before reading the others' comments, as there might be spoilers.

Don't worry if you can only tell me that you know not a single thing about it, it's all interesting to me.
So humour me, please. Thanks!

stoneshop  bought it used, we went to get it today and he put it together so we could use it right away.
Lovely.
No need to say more, I assume.

Tiny, fire-bellied ones, of course.
Things are going well in the newt tank.
I was getting a little worried about my new newts, because they don't swim very much and I couldn't figure out how to feed them since they normaly eat in the water. Today I served them a dinner of bloodworms in a small plastic dish on the island.
Bingo!
Soon, two of them were happily stuffing their little faces. The other two are fat enough so I wasn't worried about them anyway.

As for the nice silvery little fishes polishing the windows and the pebbles, they are no longer with us. They were apparently too small and far too tasty to live with newts for a prolonged period. It's a shame really because they were so cute and I enjoyed watching them at work.
But the nice lady at the aquarium store, who told me that they'd be allright in there with the newts, took pity on me and gave me an Ancistrus instead. It's as big as the newts are, so not very likely to get eaten; it looks rather intimidating, too. It's a vegetarian, though, and eats nothing but algae. Here's a picture of a similar fish.

...taken from the artist's own MySpace, so you don't have to enter into that hellhole, and corrected to what he's actually singing. For the most part.
( When I say Oo, you say: Long )

gummihuhn  infected me with this one, so it's all his fault. I generally don't like rap at all but this is just funny! Tea lovers, enjoy. ( When I say 'Earl Grey', you say 'yes please'. )

My new fire-belllied newts aren't very eager swimmers yet, so far. They didn't have much room to swim in the shop where I bought them. On the other hand, they didn't have an island to hang out on. Which is what they have been doing for most of the time since I got them.

The island is overgrown with plants and mosses (and algae), so it looks quite natural. The newts look as if they're lurking in the shadows of a rainforest. Here's a pic. You can see one in the foreground, and the silhouette of a second one through the leaves. Sort of looming in the background. If you look at the bigger version (click the small pic to see it) very hard, you'll see the head of the third, very vaguely, just to the left of the one in the background. The thin orange line is its throat.

This was a comment but I actually think it merits an entry of its own. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you: my experiences with De Vliegwinkel.

futurecatnz  wrote in a comment: I always think buying the tickets is one of the most exciting bits of any trip - suddenly it's not just a vague dream, it's actually going to happen.

She's right.
Unfortunately the experience was spoiled a bit for me because the travel agency was bumbling...

When I went to their shop in October, a nice lady told me to come back on November the 10th, as by then they'd have the fares from all of the airlines for April, and prices might well be lower then. So I did, but prices weren't really lower; that wasn't her fault , of course. But it all went downhill from there.
First, they quoted me a great price and put it on reserve for me so I could talk to gummihuhn , since I was buying his ticket too.
Then, when I came to actually book, it turned out they could not really book it at that price because they'd made a mistake and applied the wrong airline's taxes.
Then I was handed the receipt and the price on that was a whole lot higher all of a sudden! Turned out they'd made another mistake and given me the 'normal' fare and not the 'low' fare I'd been promised. If I hadn't noticed, I'd have ended up paying hundreds of euros more.
And when they finally got everything right, the pin machine wasn't working and I had to go home and pay by electronic banking.
I'd imagined this part to go smoother... and I'm not going to recommend this company if anyone asks.

But hey, we've got tickets... and we've got a stop over in Osaka on the way back!
Only tricky bit is that we'll have to be at the airport in Christchurch at a ridiculous hour on the way back. It's probably best if we just stay awake.
Oh well... it's all going to work out in the end I'm sure.

Not long after writing the previous entry, I went into town to meet stoneshop  who was coming from work. He gave me something he'd found somewhere. It was a small embroidered iron-on patch. It consisted of the following text: "I'm Happy".
And he hadn't read the entry yet.

Oh, and I'm now the proud owner of four, count 'em, F O U R  fire-bellied newts. One of them is a climber, she likes to climb the plants that grow on the little island. Piccies soon; I've never seen a newt do that before and it looks silly.

Also, I bought tickets for NZ. Yay !!!

Today I went to a reptile (and amphibians, and arachnids) fair to see if I could buy my newt some company.
But what happened there made me sad.
Not only:

• I could not buy any newts as they had run out...
• I saw someone buy the very last pair right before my eyes...
• he also bought some firebellied toads, and he was going to keep them together, which you should never do because even though the newts spend most of their time in the water and the toads live mostly on the land, the toads are much more aggressive and will BITE THE NEWTS' LEGS OFF.

Of course, the buyer wouldn't believe me when I told him this. He probably thought I made it up because I wanted to buy the newts for myself.
Well, I did want to buy them, but it was still true and I went home all newtless and sad.

Three things that happened lately:

- I went to Belgium with aka_phoenix  to be present at yellow-star's goodbye ceremony / funeral. Like Phoenix, I didn't know her personally; yet I enjoyed her very positive presence in the forums, and I have a fond memory of the time when she won a 10 kg box of release fodder in my Newbies prize drawing. Since someone was kind enough to deliver the box to her home address in Belgium I could send an even bigger box so she ended up winning 20 kgs of books, and her surprise and happiness were so great they were contagious.
I'm still glad she won that prize drawing.
Yellow-Star, even though you're gone forever, you'll always be a winner to me.

Phoenix described the ceremony quite well in her journal so I don't have much to add. It was a bit strange for me to be at a religious service, but I'm glad I went. I'm pretty sure that our presence meant a lot to Yellow-Star's father and that alone was a good reason to be there.

- I joined stoneshop  in helping out at a motorcycle trials event. They always need so-called observers to watch the participants closely and see if they touch the ground with their feet, or make other mistakes while riding through the course. They get penalty points if they do.
It's a fun type of event because the sport is not based on speed but on balance and control, which makes it interesting to watch. For a competition sport, it has a decidedly relaxed and non-competitive atmosphere; riders will congratulate each other on good results, or point out tricky bits of the course to each other while exploring the course on foot before riding it.
Each course has different routes for different skill levels, marked with arrows of a specific colour, so each rider can ride at his or her own skill level. It's typically a parent-child event where fathers compete against their sons or daughters. Mothers, not so much; maybe in time we'll see that too.
I managed to punch my finger with the punching pliers that we used to mark the participants' cards to show the results. I'd never thought that was possible, but it was. Apart from that, it was a really nice way to spend a day outdoors.

- Last night I dreamt I found my Leatherman (which I hadn't been able to find for a while, and I was obviously starting to miss it). Then when putting on my working clothes this morning, I found it in one of my safety shoes.

My, this entry sure needs a lot of tags.

As some of you know, I'll be travelling to New-Zealand in April, to be at the BookCrossing Convention 2009. Of course, it's silly and a waste to go to NZ for just a weekend, so I'll be going earlier so I can rent a motorbike there (yay!) and do some exploring. All very nice indeed.

I've been thinking about what to bring. Going without any kind of computer at all doesn't sound nice to me. I'm an internet junkie after all. I might want to e-mail or blog every now and then. But bringing my laptop... well, if it's packed well enough to be shock proof (as it needs to be while on the bike) it takes up a lot of space. Almost an entire pannier. Also, it's another thing to worry about; it could get stolen or damaged. And I wouldn't want to have it for just the Convention weekend, and leave it somewhere during the bike trip.

So I'd need something smaller if I wanted to bring anything at all. Okay, the new Eeepcs look like they could do the job; but I haven't got one and frankly, they're too close to my laptop and there would be functional overlap. They're... too much of a computer I guess.

So I thought about the Africa trip. I had a nice little e-mail device then: a HP 320 LX palmtop. It's still in working order, and it's a neat litle machine. No colour screen, but it's OK for text; runs on two penlight batteries, which is utterly practical.
Only trouble is, it was outdated when I got it almost ten years ago, and it's pretty much obsolete now. It's got a PCMCIA modem that allows it to dial in; but in NZ, where would it dial in to? It might be possible to get a normal network card or a WiFi card for it, but is it really worth the trouble?

However, the 320 has a sibling: the Jornada 720. It was almost available when I made the Africa trip (it came out a few months later), but would have been way too expensive for me to consider. Now I can buy one used, with all the accessories I'll need (and even some that I don't ) for a price below 100 euros.
It's still small: about the size of a book. it's still got that familiair rugged clam shell exterior. And it can still dial in (built-in modem, no less). But it's got a nice colour screen, more storage space (and it still takes CF cards like my old 320 does, which makes it really easy to get software on to it), a faster processor and new connectivity options.
And we're picking it up this evening. I can't wait.( Go on, you know you want to see them. )

It's the season after all. I made it to bring as a dessert, when we went over to my mother for dinner today.
This one was round and flat, which made an hour of baking time enough. I put a paper cutout on top and sprinkled it with powdered sugar for decoration. See for yourself

...turned out pretty well. *burp* In fact I think I overate just a little...
Here's the recipe.

• 500 grams of cod. I buy small pieces that are cheap because they're full of bones. I'd call them 'cod pieces' but somehow that sounds totally wrong...
• A handful of peeled shrimp (I used deep frozen)
• A bag of what they call 'soup vegetables' here. A mixture of pre-cut celery, carrots, leeks and cauliflower. About 500 grams
• A small zucchini or half of a big one, cut in small cubes or strips
• Two cloves of garlic (I like how we call them 'toes' in Dutch!) (pressed)
• Two laurel leaves (bay leaves)
• Fish or vegetable stock cubes
• Pepper
• Pesto (basil sauce), about half a jar or several table spoons full
• One small tin of tomato puree

Boil the cod in about 2 litres of water until it is white and soft. Drain the cod but keep the water, it's used in the soup.
Spread the fish out on a cutting board and pick the bones out by hand. Now you know why you paid only one euro for a pound of fish.
Throw the bones away but give the skins to your cat, you'll make yourself enormously popular.
Put the fish back into the water. Add all the other ingredients.
Let it boil for at least 15 minutes and season to taste.

Very nice with ciabatta or other kind of bread. and white wine.
*hic*

Autumn is upon us, which means that everyone who has a garden tries to get rid of the yearly overstock in pumpkins. Apparently, they're much too easy to grow.
I was gifted with three. I used half of the first one to make a curry, which I thought was nice, and it also taught me a valuable lesson:
stoneshop  doesn't like pumpkin. Not even in curry.

This left me with 2 1/2 pumpkins and no one to feed them to. I decided to try a different approach, and baked a pumpkin cake. This turned out remarkably well. So here's the recipe I used:

• 250 grams of pumpkin, peeled and grated (300 grams works fine, too)
• 150 grams of sugar (I used cane sugar)
• 150 grams of flour
• 100 grams of chopped walnuts (I used half walnuts, half almonds)
• 50 grams of honey
• 4 eggs
• 1 tea spoon of baking powder (or more, up to a whole packet)
• 1 packet of vanilla sugar
• pinch of salt
• powdered sugar

Mix the eggs and the sugar.
Add all other ingredients and stir well.
Pour the batter into a cake tin (covering it with baking paper might be wise. I didn't and I was sorry)
Bake the cake for an hour in a pre-heated oven at 180 degrees C
Make sure the cake is done by sticking a fork in it. It it comes out clean, with no traces of batter, the cake is done. If it's not, give it some more time and check again. (My cake took 20 minutes longer.)
Serve cold, with some powdered sugar on top.
It turned out really nice. It was even nice when still warm.

...which is a fine reason to show you what it looks like now.
( Pictures behind the cut. Cuteness alert. )

Well they're not... it's Australia. And it's censorship.

As Sugaryfun wrote on the BookCrossing forum:
"Our government is bringing in a new system to filter out content deemed unsuitable for children or illegal. There is no 'opt out' allowed, it is compulsory, even in homes where there are no children. The filters tested will slow down broadband speeds and incorrectly block thousands of websites. The plan is wrongheaded and a total waste of public money."

I totally agree with her, and that is why I'm showing my support by posting this banner that links to a site about this issue:

But I haven't because I generally don't watch TV. And I love it.
The funny thing is, I first saw a much-used LJ icon which clearly was made from a XKCD comic; it looked like this.( Behind a cut. Because. )

...of my mother's husband, whose latest book just came out. It's called 'Fewer Headaches, Less Migraine' (Minder Hoofdpijn en Migraine), and it's his third book. The other two were 'the Jules Verne guide' and a book he wrote together with my mother called 'Growing Old Meaningfully'.
(These books are in Dutch, I translated the titles for your convenience.)
I've made a simple website about the book. Click the cover pic to see it.

I dreamt I lost the car.
I was going somewhere when I found that I was walking in front of the trailer, instead of being in the car. At the time I found out, I was talking to someone about the contents of the trailer. I don't remember very well but it was probably a motorcycle and he tought it was cool.
Of course, I had to go back and fetch the car. In this dream, the car was small and dark metallic blue. I think I found it, too, but the dream was not very clear on how I went back for it. In any case, as I found it it was still running.

That was a nice and silly dream. I'd be interested in any interpretations that you may be able to give, but I can't guarantee I'll take them seriousl. ;-)