Today was a fine day and Friday is market day. So we grabbed some BookCrossing books to release on the way, and walked into town.
Here's what we got:
- fresh shrimps and fish for a fish soup
- some fried fish to eat on the spot, one of my favourite street foods
- a pineapple (which was very ripe, and delicious, we just had it for dessert)
- spring onions, red peppers and soy bean sprouts for Nasi Goreng
- two kinds of mushrooms, and fresh spinach, for filled pancakes
- chestnuts of the edible kind, for roasting in the oven
- some useful stuff in cheap spray cans: wax spray to prevent rust on vehicles, an oily spray to prevent bread from sticking to the baking tin, carburettor cleaner, and a kind of copper grease for greasing things that get hot
- two pairs of jeans for me, at just 10 euros each, and you know what? They both fit!

The man in the vegetables stall was looking for a knife to cut something with, so Stoneshop lent him his Leatherman, which made a great impression all around. One of his workers wanted to see it, so I handed him mine (which is almost identical) so he could take a look. It took a while before Stoneshop got his knife back, but when he did, it came with a free pear as payment for 'renting' the knife.
Friendly people,  nice weather, happy day.

At the Chinese store, we also bought
- a block of tempeh, which was also for the Nasi Goreng
- and a bag of deep frozen shrimps.

I took pictures of the pretty flowering plants that were being sold. They happened to catch my eye. You'd probably prefer me to show you a Real Dutch Cheese Seller's Market Stall, wouldn't you? Well, I'll do that some other time.

I never realised I wanted silicone egg-poaching pods, but now I know that I do! Wouldn't these be perfect for poaching eggs to put in your instant noodle soup? And then there's the design. They have that whole retro- space age thing going on.
I'll be checking the fancy designish cookery gear shops around town soon...

I couldn't help myself and just had to order some stuff from Vistaprint again.
Of course, if you use the Very Very Special Offers Just For You - Hurry! that you can get by e-mail, the prices are quite reasonable. edko66 had forwarded me some of the mails (for some reason they'll only ever send me the American offers, no matter how often I try to tell the website that those aren't the one I want), so I could simply pick the best offers.
The best offers happened to come with free picture uploads. Good moment to make some new BookCrossing postcards to tuck into books, send to other BookCrossers or sneak into the Free Postcard-racks in OBCZs.
And perhaps some new stickers for labeling books would be nice, too.
So here's what I came up with:

What's Maoz?
Maoz is a chain of falafel restaurants started by a guy from Amsterdam. What they sell is basically fast food. But it's fast food with a difference.

The difference is that they don't sell meat in any shape or form. They sell falafel, a snack from the Middle East (or to be more precise, from Israel) that's made from chick peas and herbs, formed into small balls and deep fried. These balls are then served in warm pita bread with your choice of raw and pickled vegetables, olives, and sauces.
Sounds simple enough, and it is. And it's delicious.
I've had plenty of falafel in Egypt, and I can honestly say that Maoz sells the best falafel this side of the Mediterranean sea.

The first Maoz store was in Amsterdam, and there are four there now. Furthermore, there are stores in Groningen, Nijmegen, Leiden and Rotterdam, and also in other countries: India, France, Spain, Australia, the UK and the US.

Healthy, tasty vegetarian snack food is about to conquer the world. Go, Maoz!

Not computer related, though.
We've been having a bit of a mouse problem in the kitchen. The kitchen is rather far from our living quarters, so the mere fact that we have a resident de-mousing service going by the name of Tigger doesn't keep the kitchen mice-free by itself.
So we started storing all of the interesting stuff in closets with properly closing doors, and no holes or other possible entrances. All except for some macaroni, which was stored in a stainless steel container with a lid that doesn't quite close; the mice can still get to that, but they can't get out unless the lid is taken off, and that has allowed us to catch quite a few mice.
But lately the macaroni remains untouched: it seems the kitchen has been deserted by our tiny furry friends.


However, we store food elsewhere, too. There are shelves in the garage/toolshed/workshop where we keep our stock of flour, pasta, rice and other long life stuff. Oh, and let's not forget instant noodle soup.
A few days ago, as I grabbed a bag of bread mix to put into the bread maker, I noticed a familiar looking round mouse-sized hole in the back of the bag. It's funny how much they seem to like flour! I mean, they left the other stuff alone: sunflower seeds, raisins, chocolate... all of these seem more attractive to me than a bag of flour with a bit of yeast in it. But then, I'm not a mouse.

So today we went to Ikea (which is only 5 kilometres from here) and bought some see-through plastic crates with lids. All of the vulnerable stuff now goes into these rodent-proof boxes. From now on, this former mice mall is strictly window shopping only. And while they're gazing lustfully at our stock of bread mix, let's hope they forget to watch their little backs, so Tigger can wake us up by entering our bedroom with a mouse between his fangs, and loudly announcing another victory.

I just found my blue crayfish wedged between the fish tank heating element and the block of wood.
Dead.
Aww, and the tank was getting so nice.

I have mixed feelings about this... he was gorgeous and fascinating. On the other hand, he was dangerous to the fish and I found him a bit scary. I've seen pictures of other owners handling their crayfish with bare hands. I could never see myself doing that.

Oh well. These things happen. Thousands of crayfish like this one are eaten by gourmets and Ikea customers every year. And now that my aquarium is crayfish free, some new options are arising.
I could have kuhliis again! (I had some, but... you know.) Or shrimps. What about those nice little bright red shrimps? Or both...
I see more fish shopping in my direct future.

Anyway, he *was* gorgeous. Here's a nice picture to remember him by. Bye bye, strange and beautiful creature.

No, not fish for eating, fish for looking at.
Today, a good friend of mine came over, and while he was here, he looked at my fish tank and declared that it's now looking quite healthy. He's good with fish tanks, so I regard him as a bit of an expert. That's why if he says the tank is in good shape I believe him.
I'd promised myself to get some nice new fish as soon as things seemed to be going well, so today was fish buying day!

We spent some time looking at all the pretty fish, and contemplating how suitable they'd be for our tank, regarding the fact that it's got a crayfish as well. Obviously, we were looking for some fast swimmers, and preferably for inhabitants of the top half of the tank, since crayfish can't go there.
One of the salespeople came over to help us and started to talk fish with us. This lady clearly knew her fish, and her crayfish too.

We ended up getting some gourami fish: I already had a lone three spot gourami lady, widowed a few months ago, and blind on one side, which makes her swim in a peculiar slanted way. But she still manages to avoid the crayfish quite well, so she deserved some sympathetic company. We got her a female friend of the same species, and a male and female of the 'gold' variety. The color variety doesn't seem to bother the fish, they make friends just the same, so the male now effectively has a harem of three ladies, which is said to be a good ratio. (I'm glad I'm not a gourami!)
In fact, it reminds me a bit of a BookCrossing meeting.
The new gouramis are much smaller than the older one, which made them much cheaper, and they'll grow soon enough.

...but it would not let me because of the picture. Well, I hadn't saved it, so it isn't exactly the same posting, but it went something like this.

People who talk on the (non-handsfree) phone while driving tick me off.
Why? Because they're driving with one hand and with their mind elsewhere, or fiddling with the buttons, or even looking at the phone while doing so.
And you can tell from a distance, by their behaviour: swerving from left to right, driving at oddly slow or irregular speeds, clinging to one of the white lines. Yep, as you get closer you'll always see them holding a phone to their ear and merrily yapping away.
It's not just annoying, it's also dangerous.

And illegal. In my country you're not allowed to use a telephone while driving, except with some kind of handsfree device. That's great. And it would be even greater if that law was more actively enforced, so that there'd be a chance of actually getting nabbed.

I used to switch my phone off while driving (and I still do while riding the motorbike, since I don't need the distraction if it goes off and I wouldn't hear it anyway. Okay, so those two are mutually exclusive. Sue me.)
But no more. Because for a mere 20 euros I have purchased a tiny, lightweight bluetooth headset thingie. It allows me to answer the phone with just one push of a button, without ever taking my eyes off the road. Really, I cannot imagine why people would rather risk an accident or a 140 euro fine!
I don't mind wearing it at all, it's quite comfortable. And (and this is almost reason enough!) it has a bright blue LED that flashes.
Isn't that cool?
I *heart* blue LEDs. It's almost like a geeky kind of jewellery. It makes me feel like Seven of Nine!

I may as well tell you right away because there is no way you're going to guess.
No, not books. (Au contraire, mes amis.)

A new aquarium pump.

My (heated) aquarium holds a hundred litres and I've had some nasty algae problems. In particular the so called blue algae which is a combination of algae and bacteria, if I understand correctly, and very hard to get rid of except by using chemicals.
I recently did that. The tank doesn't look very happy yet. The blue crayfish in particular looks rather unhappy lately.


So I did some research, by reading up on the subject, and it seems that blue algae is usually a problem that rears its ugly head if the water is too still.
Hmm, I'm using a rather tiny filter driven by an air pump.
Furthermore, it seems that crayfish like streaming water.

Bingo!
*comic-book type lightbulb over head*
Appartenty I can improve both the water quality and the mood of my crayfish by getting a filter pump, one of the kind that pumps water, not air.
The one I just bought filters 700 litres in an hour; that means the entire water contents of the tank will be filtered SEVEN TIMES an hour. Sounds good, huh?

I think I'll install it tonight. And I'll be sure to tell you if the crayfish shows any signs of cheering up.

Today is market day, so Stoneshop and I went into town (by bicycle, as usual) to get some nice fresh veggies.

I just love markets. The fresh fruits and vegetables look so damn tasty, the way they're laid out, forming a colourful painting. And they smell so good! I think people who eat too much junk food and produced foods should be encouraged to shop at local markets, the smells and sight of all that tasty goodness would seduce anyone.
Well, maybe not.
But it certainly works for me. I always end up buying more than we need. Especially fruits.
Not that some extra fresh fruit ever hurt anyone... except maybe if you were hit over the head with one of the pineapples I bought.
What can I say, they were two for a euro.
By the time we left the market our bikes were well loaded. It's a good thing we have bags on them.
We rewarded ourselves by getting Vietnamese spring rolls at the Vietnamese spring roll stand. With hot sauce. Lovely.

I couldn't simply start eating all of the lovely stuff we bought without taking a picture first. I even went so far as to arrange it on an old curtain and make a proper still life. As always, click for a bigger version. Eet smakelijk!



I remember going to markets in Africa, and seeing how people had the habit of stacking things like tomatoes and bell peppers into neat little pyramid-shaped heaps. You were supposed to pick a heap that you liked, and buy all of it. Often, if you'd buy a certain amount or if the stall holder felt like it, you'd get a little extra as a bonus: a pepper, a handful of peanuts or a tomato.
Even the potatoes they sold there were stacked, which made them look very neat. They were all the same size, too. I wonder what they did with different-sized potatoes?
From all the time people spent on making their merchandise look nice, it was clear to see that time and manpower are readily available in Africa, and therefore cheap. You could even buy your garlic peeled, if you wanted.
I have some African market pictures. I might post them here, too.