No Balls

Last thursday we had our cat castrated. I felt really sorry for Kikker (Frog in dutch), but since it is a male (what else) the chance is pretty big that it would've started peeing on our furniture to mark its territory. We don't want that, and to prevent future frustration, we decided to have him castrated.

When I picked him up at the vet's he was only semi conscious and remained that way till the next morning. Lots of people warned us about him becoming fat and lazy, others said he'd be just fat, but still active. We'll see about that. Right now it seems he hasn't changed and still attacks anything that moves, including feet, hands, people, bits of paper and everything else.

Today I made and installed insect screens in our windows. Since we live in downtown 's-Hertogenbosch and there are a lot of canals in and under the city, we have mosquitoes almost all year round. This year it was a bit quieter in January, but it has already started again, with my girlfriend being up all night hunting them last wednesday. We both slept for about three hours that night, which is not too great if we both have to go to work the next morning. Hope that it will be a bit better now with the screens.

Zombies!!!

Yesterday our Dungeons and Dragons crew was here, but we didn't play our bi-weekly RPG. Anneke and me have been and are going to be very busy. Me with work and other things, programming, gaming and so on. Anneke with finishing university and writing a thesis.


So we announced that we are not going to play D&D for half a year. Instead we decided to play boardgames every once in a while. Starting yesterday with playing a game of Zombies!!!




Zombies is, as the box says "a no brainer". You just run around in an expanding game area, and shoot every zombie that you come across. At the end of the game about 100 zombies were still on the table, and we decided that someone had won, since they were closest (we played for 2 hours without a winner).

This game cannot be taken very seriously, so we had a lot of fun, a couple of beers and rolled some dice.

The end of the evening: Lots of laughs, about 150 zombie dogs on the table, fun. Maybe it's time to get one of the expansions for the game. Maybe not...

A Wee Dram

Yesterday a friend came by to do some whisky tasting, on a monday. I'm not a bad guy, and since it was more or less my idea we had a nice long night of scotch. Before the evening was done we each had about six glasses of the liquid gold. Usually when you're tasting you do drams, a little like half a glass, but not this time. Full glasses, each and everyone. This morning I had a bit more trouble than usual to get started and keep my eyes open.



We didn't do the proper order of whiskies though. We should have drunk the soft ones first, and then build up to the heavy hitters. But, we couldn't wait for the Talisker 18.

We had the following:

#1: Nikka Taketsuru 17
#2: Talisker 18
#3: Highland Park 15
#4: Coal Ila Distillers' Edition
#5: Amrut Cask Strength

We should have swapped #2 and #3. But the benefit of these kind of errors is that we have room for improvement, and have a very good reason to try again next week or so.

We also planned to do a "private nosing and tasting" at the Whisky Koning next month. We just have to get 8 friends together, which is not going to be an issue. I just might visit the "Blackadder tasting" in May as well. Great plans, great plans.

Now I have to start thinking which bottle I'm going to buy when we go there to plan the N&T night...

Music and Downloads

Last weekend, a friend of mine gave me a torrent for 10 gB of Fat Pizza episodes. Not many will know fat pizza, since it is a small Australian TV-Show that went off the air a couple of years ago after about 5 or 6 seasons.

And, yes I download for all you DRM mongers. I have bought the DVD, but since it is Australian, I can't play it on my DVD-player.


It is about a couple of lowlife pizza delivery guys in Sydney, all of ethnic origin, or Chocos as they call themselves. The entire serie is based on bullshit, with radio active cheese on the pizza, one dollar per sheet of toilet paper at work, Smart Roadsters with NOS injection and lots of chicks.

The main character is also the director and they made a movie in 2003. Which is fun, if you like things like Ali G, and the banality of Austin Powers.

Unfortunately, the torrent is big and slow, it's been downloading for a week and only at 63 per cent. Hopefully it will be in completely by next weekend.

Last week I went to a local cd-shop to cancel my order for the special limited edition of Grinderman's debut album, since it should have been here 4 weeks ago and still wasn't. I bought the regular one, and I got talking with one of their employees who recommended some other cds. I bought Yo La Tengo's "And then Nothing turned itself inside-out" and Sigur Ros's "Takk...". I'm not much for music in uncomprehensible languages like Icelandic, but for Sigur Ros I make an exception. Those guys really know how to make good music. Love it.

XSLT Course

Yesterday we (a couple of collegues and I) had an XSLT course. Not a too serious format with an examination, but just a day in which we all were supposed to learn how to work with it. We had fun, we learned a lot of things and I had the chance to dig up my ERD knowledge.

The first half of the day Paulus Klerk (the tutor) told us some things about data relations, XML and ERDs. After the lunch break we had a couple of excersises with a large XML file and XSLT.

Afterwards, we couldn't really say we had an XSLT course, but we did learn some new things. And, what's fun as well, we had a day at work, without work. That's always nice ;-)

Taxes

Today is tax-day. Since I bought a house last year and finished my school, I'm supposed to get some cash back from the government, which is always nice. I like it when Den Haag pays my holiday later this year (planning to go to Mexico).

Around the 25th of October we're planning to got there, to be in Mexico City when the Day of the Dead happens. That should be a spectacle. After that the plan is to use public transport to go to Cancun in two weeks, with a lot of stops to visit all kinds of cultural heritage sites, like those big pyramid temples.

With luck Anneke will have finished her Oncology master by then and we can have a good celebration and really relax. After that she has to find a job (finally ;-)) and another phase in our lives will be over. Sounds heavy, while it should be quiet. She still doesn't know if she want to become Doctor in Oncology after school... Time will tell.

Not too much

I had a quiet weekend this weekend. My mother had her birthday so I went to her place in "Eethen", some small hamlet (can't call it a town) 25 kilometers from here. We didn't do much there, but eat and drink.


Last thursday I had a quick run to the Whisky Koning, to buy myself the wanted bottle of Amrut, Indian Single Malt. I knew they had only one bottle of the 62.8% version, and I would blame myself if it would have been sold before I could get there, so I didn't wait for my next paycheck, as I thought I would.

Of course, I had a couple of glasses of it, and I can't say I regret buying it. It is such a great whisky. Even for a Cask Strenght "scotch" it is still quite soft, with a "flowery bouquet" and a strong bite afterwards.

Jim Murray (the famous whisky noser and taster) gave it a 94% score, and I agree with him on this one.

I decided not to go to the Whisky Live festival in Eindhoven coming weekend, since the Whisky Koning himself said it was a better idea to wait till November and go to the big festival in Leiden. He knows, he's been there, he's going there as a shop, so I took his advice.

Just posting

Just some things that are happening, or just interesting/fun

• I'm getting crushed in Supreme Commander (skirmish games).
• Jack Daniels, in Lynchburg Tennessee, is in a county where the drinking of alcohol is prohibited.
• A collegue has lured me into doing a presentation of Design Patterns used in the Sitecore CMS next month, and I have no idea where to start to get my knowledge up to an acceptable level
• John Butler Trio is touring though Europe in a couple of months, going to the UK, Germany, Belgium and France, but he's not coming to the Netherlands, bummer.
• I ordered the Special Edition of the debut album of Grinderman, but the cd shop fails to deliver.
• I'm still listening to Last.fm, at work as well, to the annoyance of a couple of collegues.
• My girlfriend is a amateur amateur (yes, twice) boxer, nowadays.
• Still looking for someone who likes to go to Whisky Live Brabant with me (see my post on sunday, the 11th)

Kitties aren't supposed to smell like cigarettes

Today I watched the Trailer Park Boys movie. I've never seen one of their shows, but a collegue expected I would like it, so I decided to watch it.

To be honest, I laughed a lot, it is a very funny movie, and it is incredibly overacted.

The characters are so unbelievably stupid, all of them, even the ones that are supposed to be smart.

I liked "Bubbles" most of all. The cool things he says and the way he reacts to all kinds of unexpected situations is quite funny. If you get the chance to see it, do so.

Rye whisky when I'm dry

From Nick Cave's "Rye Whisky":

Oh, whisky, you villain,You've been my downfall,You've kicked me, you've cuffed me,But i love you for all.

I've been to THE Whisky store in town yesterday, again, but now with my girlfriend's father. When we walked in he estimated a naive 30 minutes we would be there, and we walked out 90 minutes later.

My girl's dad bought a couple of bottles, including a Rye Whisky, which I never had before. A different taste, but (for a non-malt whisky) quite nice and enjoyable.

We were shown to the Tasting room, with a couple of hundred open bottles and I tasted a Cask Strength whisky from India called Amrut. A sweet and flowery bouquet, but a nice bite when sipped. Loved it, but since I usually don't drink cask strength and I was planning to buy something else. Maybe next time/month.

I've bought the 17 year old Nikka Taketsuru whisky. I did a little bit of research online about Japanese whiskies and the results were promising.
In several blind tastings the Japanese whiskies came out on top, which was not really liked by the Scottish.
This one is a soft, but delicious whisky, but I have not been able to really define some smells and tastes.
I'm just a novice "nose", but I'm trying to get the hang of it and recognize scents and flavors.

I also bought an 18 year old Talisker and the latest Whisky Magazine. A formidable Scotch which can never go wrong.

This month, I spent way too much on whisky, but I realized I have been doing that for a while, since before I bought .7 litre bottles I bought small 100 cl bottles, of about 10 euros excluding the bottle. Which is, of course, more expensive. That made it (a bit more) right and acceptable for me, and Anneke.

Now, I am going to enjoy the liquid gold and watch a movie with my girl.

By the way, if anyone is willing to join me in going to the Whisky Live Brabant in 2 weeks, please send me an email, or leave a comment.

Marvelling about Marvel's Marketing

Sometimes I wonder why some big companies do not understand marketing (IMO).

I like to read comic books from the marvel series. They publish lots of comics in the super hero type of story (X-Men, Spiderman, Fantastic Four) and so on. Since last summer they have been publishing a big cross-over storyline called Civil War.

The cross-over part means that the story is spread over several different series like the ones above and some others (Iron man, Hulk, Wolverine, Mrs. Marvel and so on).

A few weeks ago Marvel published the first book in this storyline, which was a combined book with a couple of Spiderman issues, Iron Man and Fantastic Four. I liked it a lot and was looking forward to the next one.

Issue 2 and 3 were published this week, but to my surprise they were released as a part of a different run. #2 is part of Mrs. Marvel, and #3 is part of The New Avengers. The fun part about this is that issue 1 of the New Avengers is completely sold out, and is in back order since November or something.

So Marvel decided to publish part 3 of their highly acclaimed comic storyline in a run that is not for sale anymore, and could be out of stock for another six months. Quite smart. Especially since next month about 6 issues in the Civil War story are about to be released.

How am I going to read the story, when there are parts missing? Probably not, and so I will probably buy a lot of other comics, and not theirs. Quite smart.

Last.fm

A collegue mailed me a link to last.fm yesterday. That is a very very cool site. It "scrobbles" music, meaning you type in the name of an artist and Last.FM searches its database for similar artists and generates a radio station for you, based on your taste.

You can alter its direction a little bit by saying whether you love or hate a song. It works a bit like www.pandora.com, but since you can download an application, you don't need to keep a browser window open. It can also load a plug-in into your media player (i-tunes, winamp, wmp, and more) which notices what you play in your media player too.

It does not do spyware, they say, and they don't record data of playing mp3's and other less legal music.

I have already found a couple of artists which I didn't know and will check out.

Too bad the program does not function as a media player for your local files, that would've been nice, but the personalized web radio is cool too.

Thanks Jurgen!