Car Part 2

This is fast. We were just looking around for a car. There was no urgent rush to buy one... But, last monday my dad called me, telling me that he was going to be at my place in 45 minutes, with a car, for a test-drive (that's what I call service).
So, in about half an hour he was here, and he was here with a 1994 Toyota Starlet (the older one of the two shown in Car Part 1.

I went for a five minute drive in it, and that was very okay. Dad told me that the car was pretty good for 13 year old one. Less that 100,000 kilometers on the clock, 1.3 litre engine, black. So I liked it.
Dad had it checked up by a mechanic at his work, and that guy thought is was a trustworthy car as well. Next thing I knew, I bought a car!!!

I have no pictures yet, I'm picking it up friday morning, and will be washing, waxing and vacuuming it the same evening. After that, pics will be uploaded here.

I wish it was friday already

Lowlands and Pinkpop, here we come...

The tickets for the Lowlands festival and the Monday of Pinkpop are in the house. So on the 28th of May, we're going to be in Landgraaf for a nice day in the sun (hopefully) and good tunes.

The bands we plan to see:

• Smashing Pumpking
• Wolfmother
• Maria Mena
• Arctic Monkeys
• Dave Matthews Band
• maybe some others, if there is a bit of time left.

Wolfmother

It cost me quite much, but there is nothing, short of a longer holiday, as cool as going to a festival. Pinkpop is not that good, since the food is quite crappy, and there are only 3 stages. But the bands rock...

Routine

The trip to the Whisky Koning is getting to be a bit routine on a lazy Saturday. Last week a friend, Floris, asked me to go there, because he likes a good scotch, but has never been to THE shop. So, I wouldn't be me if I would stay home while he went there. And of course, I had to buy a bottle as well. This week I had to make a choice between a couple of 'em.

Lagavulin Distillers Edition 1990
Bowmore Dawn, Dusk and Darkest
Ardbeg (not really an idication of which one to buy)
Laphroaig Quarter Cask

The Bowmores have been a bit downgraded, since the big whiskey tasters (Jim Murray, Michael Jackson) have been giving a bit of unreliable results (68% in one tasting, 85% in another).

I actually wanted to buy the Lagavulin, but since it is the end of the month, paycheck-wise, I didn''t have too much cash available, and that was the most expensive one (€ 73,00 / $ 90.00 / 50.00 pounds).

After being there for about 45 minutes I decided to buy the Ardbeg "Almost There". Ardbeg is a distillery that closed down a while ago, but has been back in business since 1997 and has casked the first big whiskies in 1998. Now it is almost 2008, and time to release their first new 10 year old. Since 2004 they have been regularly releasing "pre releases". In 1994 they put the "Very Young" on the market. In 2006 the "Still Young" saw the light. This year saw the release of the "Almost There".

I bought that one, since it was reasonably priced, and Ardbeg has the reputation to produce a really peaty, smoky scotch. I like that.

I tasted it yesterday and would describe the taste as:

A start of salted bacon.
Sea spray after that.
Then a finish of a strong smoky peat / peaty smoke.

Maybe I'm really offending the established whisky tasters, but I seem to be good at offending people (another hobby...).

Lowlands

This summer is going to be great. Even though I'm not going on a holiday then, I am going to Lowlands. Lowlands is an annual festival, to which I have been going for the last four years. It has never disappointed me.

Anneke and me at Lowlands 2003

This year it will be great. Some bands have already been announced by the lowlands crew, but some have been announced by other sites. There are a couple of sites that monitor tourdates from almost every band that has anything to do with being cool and fun, and (preferably) good.

Festival area and campings 6, 5 and a bit of 4

Ojos de Brujo, Pearl Jam, Nine Inch Nails, Arcade Fire, CocoRosie and Radiohead have been announced there. WICKED!!! I'm not much for Radiohead, but Anneke is, which makes me a sort of fan (like Samuel L Jackson being a vegetarian in Pulp Fiction, because his wife is).
Already looking forward to it, and the first thing I am about to do when my next paycheck is in, is getting us two tickets. Can't wait for the full list of bands...

Scotland Festival...

Last week a site called www.schotland.nl went live, and to thank the guys who built it (Internet Life) got two tickets to the Schotland Festival in the Netherlands. They guy who got them isn't able to go there, so the tickets were up for grabs. I was early so I got them. Nice, especially since I am actually planning to go there (see the post on it).

I am not really sure what to expect there, but as I can see on the site, it is more a Fantasy festival than something typically Scottisch. Since the guy who I am going to Scotland with (if it all comes together in the end) is very much not into that kind of stuff, I am not sure if he is willing to go there with me, but someone else might.

I can't say I am really excited to go there, but I am curious. Who knows what kind of cool stuff you just might encounter. The music, presented by two Dutch Folk bands (very much into Gaelic folk) are Rapalje and Omnia, and I like those for starts.

So I'll just see what happens.

Targets

To be a bit honest, I can have some slight self-motivational problems. Not so much at work, there I can (almost) always keep working, and finishing things at a quite fast rate (if I may say so). But when I'm at home there are just too many things I want to do, and I end up doing none of them.
A list (unordered):

• Building a site that is more than just a blog.
• Build a website for my father's soon to be existig company.
• Inform myself about cars, and buying one.
• Do the last MCSD Training, to get to the next title.
• Finish Command and Conquer 3 (NOD Campaign).
• Finish some other computer games.
• Read a couple of books that have been sitting on the shelf for the last 4 years.
• Try to sell some stuff on Marktplaats and/or eBay.
• Listen to all the music I have.
• Go to the cinema with Anneke to see 300.
• Fix my bicycle.
• Really get into whisky tasting, so I can recognize and describe tastes and smells a bit more.
• Read all the magazines about site building I have bought the last 6 months.
• Get my finances a bit more ordered.
• Start working with Microsoft Silverlight.
• Move the site to a hosting party with SQL Server support, instead of MS Access.
• And so on...

So I have decided to set some targets for myself. I think that the biggest problem with actually doing all those things is that I don't really have to. To name just one: Fixing my bicycle is not neccessary, because I can go to work with a friend of mine, or by train, which takes just as long.

So the first thing I am(/should be) going to do is put some of my old school books on Marktplaats. This Saturday Anneke goes shopping in Amsterdam, so that gives me some time to fix my bike, or at least look at it, and decide I can't fix it. Listening to all the music I've bought and downloaded over the years should be done while I am doing other stuff, so that shouldn't be too hard.

And one thing I almost forgot! Keep posting on this blog, and try to get the webdev version up and running.

A tour of Islay?

Today was another Whisky Saturday. A friend of mine, Thomas, and I went to the Whiskykoning. We both were looking forward to go there again, and spent a couple of hours on the internet and in the books to decide beforehand which bottles of gold we would acquire.

I narrowed the choice down to three:
Rosebank Flora and Fauna 12 years old.
Bowmore Dawn.
Caol Ila 18.

Of course we asked for suggestions of other things that didn't catch our attention. Thomas specifically asked for sherry cask finished whiskies. The owner showed him a couple and gave some honest suggestions. One of the lesser ones was described as "some people love it, but I think this one is whore's perfume". He didn't buy that one.
Rosebank was put into two categories. One fresh, flowery and light, and the other smelled more like old wet cardboard. I didn't but that one.

Bowmore dawn is one that is still on the wishlist, since I bought the other 2 of the list above. We got a taste of bowmore and the "Scotch with peanuts" description was right. A lazy man's whisky, since you'd only have to reach for the table once. It has a very salty taste, a bit nutty with quite a good strong finish.

And as usual after buying whiskies we tasted them. Thomas bought a Dalwhinnie, Distiller's Edition and The Macallan 15. The Macallan is lovely, a very good scotch. I'm not too big a fan of the Dalwhinnie, but our tastes are a bit different considering whisky.

We also planned a "private tasting" with a couple of our friends. So, the 25th of may we are tasting at least 6 exclusive whiskies, all malts. Looking forward to that. After that we wrote our names on the list for an "Islay" tasting, on the 16th of November. The shop owner is already collecting the whiskies for that event, since that is going to be special, with all kinds of rare and really hard to find bottles. We saw a 25 (?) year old Port Ellen and some lesser known scotches.

We are also planning to do a 4 day trip to Scotland somewhere this autumn. If it is affordable, we probably will go to the Isle of Islay. That's the spot where they make my favorite whiskies, the strong, long finishing ones.

Some interesting sites about whisky:

The Angel's Share (dutch)
Whisky Magazine
Malt Madness

Car Part 1

Since a few weeks we have been giving some serious thought to buying a car. We have always been able to get around by bus and train, with much annoyance, but we could get around.

I started working last summer, and since then only Anneke has a discount card for public transport, which means it has gotten MUCH more expensive.

My mom lives in a tiny town about 25 kilometers from here, but by bus it takes an hour to get there, and you can't get there after 6 pm, and on saturday not after 5 pm, not at all on sunday. My father lives in Den Bosch, but on the other end, which means between 30 and 45 minutes by bus. Anneke's parents live on the other side of the country (which is relatively close in the Netherlands), 90 minutes by train, with proper transfers and add about 20 minutes of walking.

And apart from the hours we spend in trains and busses, it is just easy to go to friends, on holidays or on whatever, whenever. So we talked to dad. He is a bit of a car know-it-all on an economic base.

We, of course, want an old-timer. A cool car, with a bit of attitude. That, when you have to go to work on a daily basis, and have no room to work on it would be a bit of a money sink. So we were advised by several people to a buy a small reliable car. My dad works at Toyota and is "close to the fire" as we say. He suggested a Toyota Starlet. They tend to keep going forever, and are quite cheap to repair and maintain.

The two different models that are available and reasonably new are the 1993 and the 1997 model:


The 1997 Model

The 1993 Model

If "I would get my sin" (as some Dutch people say, meaning to get their way) I would buy a 1975 Toyota Celica, or a pre 1974 Ford Mustang (keep dreaming), or to be completely cool, a Trabant 601. But, that might happen in the future, when (of if) I get a higher salary, or a lease car...

I'll keep you informed

And they won!

Absolutely justified that it happened this way. I Hope they prove our text-messages right on the 29th.

The final results are 64% of the votes for Den Bosch, and only 36% for Leeuwarden, their last opponents. Way to go Sven and Geertje!

Vote while you still can!

In the Dutch TV show "Mijn tent is top!" ("my place rules") a local restaurant has made it to the finals, which are happening live tonight. I think they should win, partly because they are from Den Bosch, but mostly because I think they have the best opportunity to make it happen after the show ends and because the quality is close to a Michelin Star (according to a mistery guest on the show).



The restaurant is called Coquille and a link to their site can be found here. To vote for those guys, Text "Den Bosch" to 5656 as soon as possible, you probably have 15 minutes left!!!

A Long Weekend

Always nice to have an extra day off work. Especially when the wheather is nice like yesterday and sunday.
The bad thing about this is that our house does not have an outside. No balcony or garden at all. So sunday we went for a walk through "Het Bossche Broek". The local "Wildlife" park. It is a swampy area protected for the diverse types of birds that live there.

Yesterday we went there again, with some friends and a bag full of beer. We tried to go and sit at a pub in town, but since the temperature was quite okay, everything was full (or since it was monday, closed).

John Butler Trio

Ever since I got back from Australia I've really liked listening to the John Butler Trio. I never got to buying one of their cds since they are hardly for sale in the Netherlands. But this week that changed. Their new album "Grand National" was released and I ordered it from the local cd shop.
Yesterday they called that it had arrived and after work I picked it up. Great cd, though not as great as the previous one. I ordered that one too (Sunrise over Sea), as well as their live album "Live at St. Gallen". The online shop has shifted the ETA, though, from 6 days to 6 weeks, so I'm surprised if I'm ever going to get it from there. I should have ordered it here at the shop.

When I heard their music for the first time in 2001 I was not too charmed by it. I liked it musically but the lyrics were really "leftist", and I wasn't. Since then my points of view have shifted, mostly thanks to my girlfriend. Their lyrics have become a bit more mature as well, with a more realistic point of view.

When I was google-ing for more info about John Butler, future gigs, cd releases and stuff like that I found a great online archive of live sets. Not all of them are acceptable quality, but some are pretty ok.

Funny thing, I actually met their basist once, on the train from Sydney CBD to Sydney Airport. Nice guy, was on his way to go to the USA for their first overseas tour I believe.

Welcome back, Commander

Last thursday Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars was released. So, in good fashion I pre-ordered it and picked up the "Kane edition" the same day.

I even had a bit of time to play it on the same day, and didn't have any trouble going through the first few missions. Every bit of the game is the same or an improvement of the previous version (Tiberian Sun, released in 1999).

The FMV bits between the levels are really overacted, as they should be and as I am used to.

The 3d renderings in the game itself are really good and my computer can handle them unexpectedly well.

So tonight, if I can find the time I'm playing again. Really enjoy having such a great game again. Hopefully the skirmish games will be great as well, since I don't really enjoy them in Supreme Commander.