Am spending this week doing an e-learning module. For today this meant sitting behind my computer in my underwear wearing headphones. For the record, I was working from home, I did not scare away any colleagues :-)

Managed to pop by the electro-shop to pay for my refrigerator and friends and to make an appointment to have them Thursday next week. *yay!*

More painting, the people joining me today:"McR, Nicktor and my father" I need my life back!

Guess what I did in the daytime?? Marlies joined me for a while to do loads of painting but I'm definitely in need of more weekend! Then only 2 weeks left before I move.

At night McR demanded that we'd visit the bar round the corner from my place because I had never been there in my life. (With reason, I have to say) Ended up playing billiards with somebody who claimed to have been in prison in Panama (probably true) but who spiced it with so many hard to believe stories that we had our doubts here and there. Still a fun night.

I definitely need my life back. A whole week filled with classes (yay!) and house (definitely *yay!* in a couple of weeks but currently all a big blur)

Mum and dad took the day off so I had to be all self sufficient at the new place. Or actually, loads of friends popped by and alltogether we managed to finish most of the painting (Well, there's still loads to do but at least 90% of the walls have been painted, and the doorframes and windows aren't doing too bad either. Al thanks to McR, Nicktor, Sabrina, girlfriend and Annemarie.

Spent the largest part of the day working at my place (what else??). Including carrying far too many things down 40 steps so that my dad could take them to the dump, Kaz spraypainting most of my radiators and girlfriend painting walls.

Had a highschool reunion at night, which I had really been looking forward too. Unfortunately it probably was one of the worst highschool reunions ever, all the old classmates that showed up were people I had told to go (because I see them on a more or less regular basis and don't need to see them at a reunion).

The highschool reunion 5 years ago was fun, with loads of unexpected people, not many happy thoughts will come from this one. Or actually... Rainier is going to do his housewarming sometime soon!

Found out that the Ford Fiesta I got as a replacement car sucks somewhat. Usually when I hit the accelerator pedal at 120 (kms, not miles) an hour, my little car accellerates. Not my new Ford. Have to adjust my overtaking-technique to avoid getting killed.

Looked at furniture at night. I fear I may be growing up, I haven't seen a bar on the inside for weeks, I'm looking at furniture on my Friday nights and I spend my weekends home-decorating. Eeek!

Oh! And suddenly I do remember what happened on Wednesday. Dad broke down the kitchen wall and the little hall between my livingroom and the big hall. And ever since I've been telling people that they're more than welcome to take a look at "my hole"

I must have done interesting stuff on wednesday, if not then at least I got my hair cut but I can't remember much more. Maybe I even did house-related stuff.

Wait a sec, I didn't even get my hair cut, that didn't happen till Thursday. Hmmmm... And on the same day I picked up the floor that will end up in my kitchen (they're look like proper tiles but they're actually laminate).

Seeing as I didn't feel like carrying 18 square meters of tiles up 40 steps, I invited Nicktor along to share the pain and then things took off a bit. Having quite a few tiles in my trunk, I decided to park on the pavement but found a bit of an awkward angle to hit the curb. The end-result:"A flat tire as a result of the tire-wall tearing". Gaah! Nicktor managed to give McR a call before even all the air had left my tire.

And then for the interesting news... Apparently Audi decided that spare-weels were for girls and they equipped my car with a handy leak-filler bottle + compressor. A brilliant idea but not when your tire-wall is torn. Got to call a tow-truck to tow away my car and ended up driving a replacement car. It took me a lot longer than it looks in that sentence, the time from the flat to me getting back home in my replacement Ford Fiesta was 3 hours. Did get some more work done at my place though.

At the same time all say:"Yay!" for company cars and the resulting free service and replacement cars :-)

Introductory Java-class, followed by me painting more of my new place. Now more than half my toilet has been painted as wel. *yay!*

More work with mum and dad. Loads more cleaning, loads more painting and then my uncle popped by and knocked over a wall (intentionally). There's now a big hole where my kitchen wall used to be. Wooh!

Silent night in with girlfriend at night.

Woke up fairly early (9:00-ish) to start work on my new place, girlfriend did not like. Apparently it's not supposed to mix well with going to bed at 3. Failed to notice this, I was excited after all.

Did loads of painting at the new place with mum, dad, girlfriend and sister. Well, I did loads of painting, the others got loads of cleaning done.

Spent the evening, at girlfriend's place with Nicktor and a headache. Strange, I usually don't do headaches!

The big day. Spent most of it at work and then moved on to sign the final documents and get the keys to my new place. Biked back home... and then stuff got interesting.

If found a terribly un-professional looking yellow piece of paper dated on the 28th of February telling me that I hadn't been paying for my rent and that if I wouldn't pay within 2 days that they'd remove all my stuff from my appartment. Obviously this letter was by a rental agency I had never even heard from and I had been paying my rent but I figured it might be a bright idea to give the person who sent the letter a call before he'd remove all my stuff a day ago.

Got somebody on his mobile who didn't speak the language (at all) but who managed to tell me that he'd look into it. Left for my new place to do some stuff and while in the car got a phonecall that I had been a bad boy, that mr rental guy was now standing in front of my place and that I'd better pay my rent or.... Tried telling rental guy that I really had been paying my rent (impossible), that I was not going to turn round my car to argue with him and that I'd like to see some somewhat more legal documents before he'd start removing stuff from my place. Private rental agencies in Dutch big cities aren't exactly known for their subtlety. Somehow the conversation ended in threats that he'd come and visit me some other time soon.

And then 30 minutes later the phone rang again telling me:"Whoops, I had to be at 19c, not 15c". Gaah!

Spent the night at geek Ronald's new place with Remco and Marjoleine, playing with his eye-toy and wondering how somebody can keep his house as incredibly tidy as Ronald does. Brilliant place though.

My last day as a none home-owner person. Loads of interesting stuff will happen in the next couple of weeks, eek!

Visited parents for food and ideas on the new place.

Girlfriend and new Eels dvd. Both:"Yay!"

Not much special happening today

Visited aunt and uncle (uncle had the blueprints for my new place, which I wanted), mightily amusing night. Aunt and uncle had re-found loads of old family pics, which were mightily amusing to look at. Also loads of funny family-stories, apparently my mum used to whisper to me all the time when I was a baby, which made me scream whenever my grandfather visited (he was deaf and talked loudly). Gladly she managed to correct that in the end :-)

Uncle gave me loads of new ideas for the place, let's see if I'll do anything with those. (Probably depens on my dad's will to break down stuff )

Worked, visited the Hague (work business) and spent the evening watching tv with girlfriend.

Slept in, thought of house-stuff and visited parents.

Was supposed to be in Cologne, celebrating the carnival but all my mates chickened out (well, Sabrina, Marlies and Nicktor did) so girlfriend and I ended up needing to do something on a Saturday afternoon, before all hell'd break loose. Last night we had decided that it would be Luxemburg, last minute I found some places to visit in Luxemburg on the internet and after 3.5 hours in a car, we found our first castle in Luxemburg, then moved on to a second castle and an Abbey. (Must have accidentally stumbled into the:"Castles in Luxemburg"-website. Had loads of fun and eventually made our way back home past Brussels and an Indian takeaway restaurant.

Note to self:"Next time do this in summer and camp somewhere overnight, driving 800 kms in one day is a bit silly". Still, I had never been in Luxemburg before so I can cross that one of the list now :-)

Found out why there are no Buena Vista Social Club-cds in my cd collection. Still a free concert (tickets provided by employer), so I shouldn't complain. And at least now I know what to expect in Cuba :-)

Girlfriend made pancakes, I chopped stuff.

Looked at lots of paint, and other DIY-stuff, while preparing for next Friday (when I'll finally officially get hold to the keys of my new place). Then chatted the rest of the evening away on the internet.

Visited parents' place to cuddle the cat. Did just that. Got told off by neighbour for not closing the kitchen cupboards. Blamed sister :-)

Kid sister blew up her car. Actually the throttle got stuck, which made driving it somewhat interesting. Got appointed as:"Drive me from garage to parents' place so that I can steal mum's car"-guy. Did well. There may be a career in this for me if my current job ever falls through ;-)

A great moment in history, today I filled the first cardboard box to prepare for me moving in a month and a half time. I bet I'll be needing my cds within the next 2 days now :-)

Went to girlfriend's grandmother's 80th birthday party with loads of people I had never met before. Fortunately most of girlfriend's family members appear to be meeting eachother only once every 5 years and they all appeared to be spending most of their time re-introducing them to eachother. Amusing.

And in other amusing news, we're apparently attempting to go to the carnival in Cologne next weekend. At first we were going to sleep over but all hostels were booked, now I volunteered as the driver in exchange for all the drinkers helping me out with painting my new place but we're 1 place short. All sorts of tactical games are now played to: 1. Assure a place in the car I'm driving. 2. Make sure that they're not the people who have to drive the other car back home :-)

Am starting to get more and more anxious about the moving-thing. Just sitting and waiting till I can finally do something is starting to get somewhat annoying. Spent the largest part of the afternoon staring at furniture, I guess I'm now able to form opinions about certain types of furniture (wahoo)

Another night in, watching Crackerjack

Got to take the train to the Hague for a project meeting. Found out that I'll probably be spending some more time there over the next couple of weeks.

At night girlfriend and I spent the night in with me playing San Andreas and she reading book. Managed to progress quite a bit futher.

Mystery solved, last night I was somewhat annoyed at the idea that while I had been trying my best to save loads of money, my bank-balance was exactly the same as last month. During the night I remembered that I had to make a 250 euro advance payment for my house, this afternoon I found out that I had actually made the payment twice. This means that I'm doing even better in the saving money department than I had expected. *Yay!*

Visited girlfriend at night and.... Am writing this while still at girlfriend's place so I may have to fill you all in on any highlights still happening after pressing "publish"

Was supposed to go out and see Spats Malone (Arnold's band) play. But got a last minute phonecall that their gig had been cancelled. Had McR and Nicktor pop by instead and made loads of progress in San Andreas. Well... at least I got out of the Ghetto and at least I got dumped in RedNeck county :-)

Am inclined to admitting that installing "Monkey Island" on my PDA was one of the highlights of my day but obviously girlfriend would castrate me for saying that seeing as it was valentine's day. Then... waiting for the lava-lamp I bought her as a present was more fun than I should be admitting.

And back to the classroom again. This weeks classes are a bit dull, especially when you just spent the past year and a half doing exactly what you're getting taught this week. Or do I really have to start worrying about bikini-season??

Had a bit of a suit-situation, where the trousers weren't exactly fitting anymore. Amazing how they shrink when they're not being used. Mum managed to fix this one but is now afraid that they might rip. All keep your fingers crossed for this Friday when I potentially prance around half naked in front of a customer in the Hague :-)

Urgh! Hangover! Managed to appear almost lifelike and even did useful stuff such as measuring my kitchen (it's apparently 6x3 meters). At night drove towards Almere and didn't even throw up or fall asleep. Pretty proud of me :-)

A pretty productive day. In the afternoon I had planned on dragging my mum along to decide on some colours for my new place. Have to say that I failed somewhat in that department. We did buy a kitchen floor though and we also bought a clothes dryer, a dishwasher, a stove, and a refrigerator. Or actually, mum bought them, I just pointed and said:"Want that"

At night it was Annemarie's party at girlfriend's place, loads of drinks, me going wild with girlfriend's camera (check over here for the result) and McR showing his behind on camera. *yuck!* Lots of fun!!

Highlight of the night for me was Nicktor's party trick of accidentally stabbing a knife through a bottle of coke while he tried to cut a net of lemons. His reply:"Hmmm... Guess I'm Sticky Nicky now"

I'm pretty convinced that I did plenty of stuff the past couple of days but then I kinda drank too much tomorrow and forgot all about it. The only thing I can remember about last week through the alcoholic haze is that my geek friends dropped by today, we chatted, drank lots of beer and had the neighbour downstairs bang the ceiling. And we weren't even that loud!

More course... and then even got round to working at night. *Eeek!*

The first day of my new course, left a bit on the early side (say 2 hours before everything was supposed to start) and was making a record time towards 's Hertogenbosch (without traffic jam it should take me just under an hour). And with only 12 minutes of driving to go on the PDA, I hit some traffic. Better said, I spent the next 50 minutes staring at a PDA which was telling me that it would only take me 12 more minutes. Arrived just in time and learnt loads of new things. *Yay courses!*

At night I found out that girlfriend is unwilling to write her bachelor thesis about me. Booh! Hiss!

Woke up, lazed around for a bit and eventually kicked into gear. Accomplishments of the day:"Emptied the paper recycling bin, did my laundry, visited parents, shouted at them for telling my cousin not to get me a hamster for my birthday and entertained myself for the rest of the night playing with the python programming language. Python is a really cute language to program in, both quick and readable, wooh! Does this mean I'm a geek now?

Visisted a book fair with girlfriend. Bought a dictionary and Umberto Eco's "name of the Rose" for the next time the urge to read books in dead tree-form pops up. After loads of calculations girlfriend had decided that tonight would be our 1 year anniversary if she hadn't gone to Helsinki. Always a good moment for a celebration I'd say. Celebrated. I'm now the poud owner of my own custom fortune cookies. *yay!* girlfriend!

Also matched the guardian top 100 book-list against project Gutenberg to see what else I should be pulling off the net. Then girlfriend would probably complain that I'd mention an evening of romance and books in the same entry. Apparently I need to sign up for romance-classes, ever since my romance tutor took off for Siberia I've had to figure out everything myself, I fear :-)

Sat on couch, read (e)-books. Project Gutenberg is brilliant once you combine it with a PDA with a good resolution! Yes, I may still need to pay for any new books I'd like to read, but now I get to brush up on my classics for no cost at all!

The book of the moment is How I found doctor Livingstone by whom other than Stanley himself. The hardships of the African jungle tend to get a bit repetitive after a while but who wouldn't be intrigued by an expedition into the inlands of Africa where one of the main concerns still is how much cloth and how many beads to bring to give to the African tribes. Apparently even the kind of bead matters, some beads are highly valued by one tribe, while they would be near worthless at the next tribe. And there's plenty of other brilliant books out there for example how about Thomas Steven's book about how he rode around the world on a bicycle in 1884?

I'd kill for commutes like these for the rest of my life! Made some sort of roadmap to go with decorating my new home. Next saturday I'll start having ideas on colours :-)

At night picked up a monitor for girlfriend at Sabrina's boyfriend's parent's place. (They had a spare). It turned out to be a pretty nice one as well *for free*. Seeing as girlfriend's monitor had more or less imploded, she's now a happy camper again.

First day at the new project, which is only a 10 minute tube-ride away from home. Woohoo. Then this did make me realise how frustrating it is to have a copy of the key to my new place, to know that it's currently empty and will be until I move in and to know at the same time that they'd grab you by the nuts and run around the block twice if you'd start decorating before you "officially" get the key.

Yep, for some reason it takes about 2 months to get all the paperwork to work out and I don't get the keys till the beginning of March. And I'll have to move out of my current place before the first of April. That leaves me only about 3 weeks to get the whole new place up and running. *gaah!*. Fortunately my dad will have 2 weeks of in March so with a bit of luck he'll be able to get some work done for me woohoo!

Bye bye project, bye bye long commutes, bye bye lots of people I've spent the past 1.5 years of my life with, bye bye 1.5 hour commutes both ways. Yep, mixed feelings on the last day of work at ING. Loads of people popped by to say "goodbye" and the whole ARINSO team gave me a painted toilet seat decorated with a dartboard (so that all my guests will have something to aim at when they're drunk).

Saw "Habana Blues" at night with girlfriend. Cool!

Only 2 more days of work to go at ING. Popped by my aunt and uncle at night to once again borrow their grinder (lost my bike keys again)

Went for a bike-ride in the afternoon on the bike I got for my birthday (dad finally managed to make it all look like a proper bike). First conclusion:"Really cool!"... and then I realised that I had biked for quite a bit with the wind in my back, after turning around, I found out that it was friggin' cold and even worse.... very windy! Add me sweating a bit to that and you'll probably understand why I was feeling a bit cold on the way back :-)

Saw the Posies play at night. They pretended it to be the last show of their tour and goofed off for most of it. (Very funny) Actually it turned out to be their last but one show. Still big fun!

Attempted to get some ideas on kitchen flooring in the afternoon. Succeeded.

At night Nicktor popped by, had some drinks and then went clubbing. I stayed behind under the new savings-act that went into effect somewhere last week.

Weekend!!! Watched It's all gone Pete Tong with girlfriend in the evening. Cool film!

Kick-off meeting for the course I'll be starting on the 6th of february. Really looking forward to that one. Managed to get loads of paperwork done at night. Realised that I may need to cut some expenses here and there to make the transition to my new place a bit smoother. Unfortunately girlfriend doesn't allow me to mention cutting expenses :-)

Still... I fear I won't be seeing too many clubs over the next couple of weeks.

Whoa, birthday time today. Failed to get girlfriend to wake up enough to realise this and to wish me a happy birthday though.

After a full day of work, I got back home to already find my parents at my place who apparently were afraid that my place would be too messy to show to relatives. Got joined by girlfriend and after that the whole place quickly filled up with relatives. And while my family is pretty small, my living room turned out to be even smaller. Guess I really need that larger place :-)

Only 1 more day left before I turn 29. Only 1 more week of work left at ING. Found out that my next work-project will be at crawling distance from my new place. Actually if you're willing to wear kneepads, it could be crawled from my current place as well, I'd rather take the bicycle and do the 10 minute bike-ride though :-)

Got my hair cut! Apparently my hairdresser is thinking of making me grow a mullet.

After buying a house, I'm trying my best to spend as little money as possible. I'm doing pretty well this far I believe. I fear I'll be pretty dull for the next while though.

Showed girlfriend around my new place in the morning. Girlfriend appears to like. Then took off for my place where McR and eventually Nicktor showed up. Nicktor is weird, he was supposed to show up at 2, at 5 past 2 my phone rings and he tells me:"I'm 10 minutes behind schedule". So I ask:"So you're at the front door in 5 minutes". The answer turned out to be:"Well... errrrm... no" as it took him another 15 to show up.

Were supposed to go straight to Ruben's farewell party (he's leaving for Signapore) but got sidetracked and ended up at my new place again (this time with Martijn).

As for Ruben's party:"Loads of Whiskey *hic!*, Rainier and some of Ruben's sisters who were 4 to 6 years old the last time I saw them. The scare part:"Nowadays I could date them" (Please don't mention this to Ruben or girlfriend)

Walked back home with Nicktor at night who claimed to be annoyed that we were trying to hook him up with Rubens 14 year old sister. He should count his blessings, after all it's only a 2 year wait :-)

Got to show my new appartment to parents, kid sister and kid sister's boyfriend. Lots of good ideas coming from all of them, unfortunately they all mean extra work. Main idea:"We're nog going to break down 3 walls instead of only 1". Well.. we're breaking down 1 tiny wall and we're making holes for doors in two other walls.

Spent most of the afternoon walking through DIY shops wondering how much stuff I'd need. Still clueless on this.

Went to McR's place at night to play Dance Dance Revolution. Currently I'm the (almost) unbeaten king of DDR in my circle of friend. Unfortunately you look like a complete arse while playing this :-)

Food at Shiwa's place. *Yay food!* Obviously lots of talk about the new house, I'm still scared!

Visited the estate agent to sign my contract (16 times). And I had to do this thrice. Guess you can say that I can now add:"Experienced autographer" to my resume.

The estate agent had told me that I could borrow the key but that they wanted it back before 5 because I really wasn't supposed to have it before my mortgage is approved. How can I live without access to my place till that time?? Well... let's just say:"Yay for locksmiths! ;-)".

Still not over the whole:"I just bought a house"-thing. Got round to finally reading my contract, I'm actually buying a house. Do you people think it matters that I can't exactly remember what my house looks like?? I bought a house! I bought a house!

... and back to work we go. Spent most of the day shouting:"I just bought a house! I just bought a house!".

Visited girlfriend's mothers at night (while still shouting:"I just bought a house! I just bought a house!"). For those of you wondering why, read yesterday's entry :-)

Found the preliminary contract in my mailbox when I walked in late at night. Scary stuff!

I fear that today I more or less bought a house, the papers haven't been signed yet but after a quick talk with mortgage-guy this morning and a quick:"WTF does this mean"-session with my mum at my parents' place, I managed to get myself a mortgage at a pretty good rate, it will kick up my monthly cost of living by at least 200 euros a month but I guess I'll survive. Guess I'll have to start working extra hard to earn myself a nice pay-raise :-)

Slept in, then visited uncle's birthday party in the evening. Played with my PS2.

Went clothes shopping with girlfriend, she needed clothes, I tagged along. I thought that I got bored quickly while clothes shopping, girlfriend already announced that she wanted to go and do something else while I was stil kind of enjoying the whole process. I fear my mum will have to buy my clothes for many years to come :-)

Out clubbing with Cindy, Shiwa and Nicktor at night. Fun!

Long day of work followed by a night of X-Box games at McR's place. Got an interesting phonecall from Nicktor, who had forgotten the name of the street he lives in (???). And he wasn't even drunk!

Only worked the morning because me and my mum were going to take a look at an appartment which sounded interesting. Mum was supposed to tone down my enthousiasm but failed miserably at this, we both walked out shouting:"We want this house" Made an appointment with mortgage people on Monday, if this is going to work out then expect things to go quick.

Visited girlfriend's dad to pick up stuff girlfriend dropped there before she left for Finland. Amazed at how much junk fits in my little car :-) Very misty on the way back home.

Two days best combined using 1 word:"Stress!"

After waking up in a hotel and a quick walk at the beach all hell broke loose again, worked from 7pm till 11.

An early start of the weekend when my standby-phone started ringing at 8am to tell me that there was trouble at work. Tried fixing stuff till 1pm, then rushed to the Arinso NewYear event in the Hague.

The good news:"We're going to Cuba for our annual Arinso holiday!!" The bad news:"Got a call again and had to rush from the party to quick fix stuff again between 11 pm and 1 am.

Worked till far too late because I somewhat forgot about the backup-system. (I needed to work click on just two more things but those 2 things were crucial for this weekend) Visited parents for (somewhat late) newyear's wishes.

On standby all weekend because my colleague is ill. Arse!

Had a mini ping-pong night at Nicktor's place. Also had to work till late. Sucked at pingpong.

Was supposed to pick up girlfriend's stuff at her father's place but he turned out to be ill. So, made girlfriend dinner and watched her fall asleep on the couch.

Back to work again. Had food at girlfriend's place at night. Expect her to be somewhat of a theme for the next couple of weeks :-)

To wake up on New Year's morning without a hangover is an interesting experience, last time that happened was in Hong Kong, but then the guy spent NY eve with ran away with the hookers, so that may have been a hangover as well :-)

Got a phonecall from McR to check whether he needed to have sex with Nicktor (apparently McR always has sex on Sunday mornings) I told them to masturbate in seperate room so that my group of friends won't go odd.

Spent the rest of the day with girlfriend, fetched her tv from my place, went for a walk and had pizza for dinner. Yay! For girlfriend being back!

The return of girlfriend. Spent the morning cleaning up me and retrieving lots of things that girlfriend might want to have, then eventually picked up Annemarie, drove to Schiphol airport and picked up girlfriend. She still recognises me and wasn't wielding a Finnish boyfriend called Yari *yay!*.

Got blindsided by Annemarie when I had to drive past my place to pick up girlfriend's bedsheets, right before I closed my door, she apparently asked me:"Bring weed". Which, if not expected can apparently be a pretty puzzling sentence. Spent a whole car-ride trying to decide what she wanted me to bring. In the end decided that she probably did say weed, after a quick visit to a coffeeshop and a quick check at girlfriends' place it turned out that I had missed a whole conversation about smoking pot on NY-eve.

Did the first part of my NY-eve in Rotterdam and then took off for Leiden with Nicktor and McR. (Girlfriend didn't feel like coming and we had already decided that we were going). Great party, loads of drunk people, McR managing to spoil Nicktors chances with every girl (and guy) in the room and me sober for the whole evening. Still wondering how that happened, after all I had already arranged for my car to be taken back by McR. A phonecall around midnight to girlfriend taught me that all the weed had already been smoked (the phonecall consisted of 20 minutes of laughter from the other side).

Eventually drove back home, tried to drop off McR at his place, failed, then dropped him off at Nicktor's place and drove girlfriend-wards. Strangely enough she hadn't even passed out :-)

My last night as a single person, well okay, semi-single. At least... girlfriend returns tomorrow. What did I end up doing? Well... there was this weather alert with loads of snow and I already had loads of trouble making it back home through said snowstorm. (The closer to Rotterdam I got, the harder it became to drive in a straight line). Spent another night with my Playstation.

At the same time all the trains in the Netherlands stopped running, Kaz' friend Katherine (who was visiting from Paris) got stuck in Amsterdam with her boyfriend and had to pay 250 euro's for a night in a hotel. (Yes, that's somewhat steep)

Had Cindy over for food, drinks etc. Great fun.

Spent the whoe evening playing San Andreas.

Fabienne has been back in the Netherlands for a while and with all the roads people-less due to the Christmas holidays it even sounded like a feasible plan to pop by right out of work. (She's staying at her parents' place somewhere in the east of the Netherlands)

Nicktor (who works more or less around the corner) joined in for the fun as did McR who would be bringing Lorraine and Arjan. Eventually all made it to Fabienne's place (even though Lorraine looked a bit shaken from the car-ride). Had food, had fun and then drove back home again.

Christmas at aunt's place. More presents, loads of food and loads of fun. Did forget to bring back a grinder for my bike-lock though. Arse!

Christmas! Weird, it feels a lot less christmassy when you wake up all alone in a house without christmas decorations. Threw all the collected christmas presents in the back of my car and took off for parents' place to replace them with new gifts. Got lots of clothes a book with household tips ranging from the useful to the blindingly obvious to the almost surreal ("Do you unexpectedly find yourself without a leather maintenance product?") *Yay!* presents.

Also now the proud owner of 3 packages with girlfriends' name on them. One is cylinder shaped and feels soft-ish, one is square, flat and soft and one is box-shaped and by the feel of it contains a cardboard box. Girlfriend come home, there's presents for you here!

And then Kaz and Martin took off and I got a sympathy christmas dinner from my mum because I didn't have nowhere else to go :-)

And tonight somehow Ellen made me cook her dinner. Ellen always makes me do things I'm not particularly good at (from riding fun fair rides and almost puking afterwards to ordering me to make food for groups of 30+ people). Nicktor joined in for the fun and I managed to make a passable Thai-ish curry. Got joined by Lorraine, and Sabrina later on and celebrated an early new year's eve. (Especially early seeing as the champagne bottle already got opened at 11pm)

Seeing as both Ellen and Lorraine are in the country, we all descended on "Sorgh and Hoop" for food and drink. Even Ruben showed up, Nice to have everybody together again. We are all getting old though, before 1am Ellen, Nicktor and me were the only ones left, with Nicktor being half asleep.

Distressing news of the day: Lorraine hasn't forgotten about the bet I have with her boyfriend about being the fastest to ride a skippyball from her parents' place to mine. I should start training for this match but how does one train for a skippyball contest without receiving the laughter from everybody out on the streets?

Girlfriend is currently in Lapland, she can text me but she can't receive text messages from me. She's taking her time realising this herself, while texting more and more agitated text-messages on the way. Thought this was cute.

Then tonight girlfriend gave up and decided to give me a call to check whether I was dead yet. Failed to pick up the phone in time but got to tell her in the end that I was probably still alive.

Had a meeting in Rotterdam which ended at 7:30 and then I realised that all shops were open for Christmas and that there was nobody walking around. Completed my Christmas shopping in less than no-time, which means I won't have to fight people all day on Saturday in overcrowded shops. *yay!*

Game Time! Spent the whole evening killing dealers, shooting gang members and running over innocent bystanders. Playing San Andreas does make you wonder why everybody in the US started rioting when they heard there were pornographic images to be seen if you modded your game.

Got asked by Erwin to join his pub-quiz team in Leiden. I'm one of the guest players whenever the usuals can't make it. Failed to make a good impression this time though. I did suspect that the suez-channel didn't have any locks but couldn't back it up so got overruled and the only question I knew that none of the others did was the title of the Brian Adams greatest hits album. And let's just say that I wasn't too proud about knowing that one :-)

Didn't even have to work on Sunday *yay!* Unforunately did have to do Christmas-shopping. Managed to spot some of the gifts I needed to buy but then decided that the queues were far too long and left town again. Actually.... the only gift I did buy was a copy of Grand Theft Auto San Andreas. But then that one was for me, and one can never have enough mindlessly violent games in ones gaming collection, right?

Popped by parents place and then failed to game all night because I ended up chatting with girlfriend. (Who was having her last day in Helsinki before taking off Lapland-wards for christmas)

Worked from 9 till 6:15, on a Saturday. Not the best idea ever, I have to say. Had food at Bianca's guest-parents place. Bianca is au-pairing in Rotterdam at the moment, lovely house, after which we hit the clubs in Rotterdam.

Had an interesting night trying to install cable internet at McR's place. Had loads of fun with McR and Arjan trying to get everything to work, at one point we even used a vibrator to check the network cable. (Arjan could work as McGyver) All brilliant ideas to get everything to work turned out to be useless in the end, Mcr had thrown away the letter with the internet-passwords.

Today and yesterday, two more days of business, followed by sleep. Really, there isn't anything else to say about it, I fear.

Good news, had my half yearly evaluation with my practice-manager. They still like me at work, they're letting me stay. Didn't do too bad in the pay-department either. All in all a happy camper. Celebrated by staying at work till 8. Note to self don't check something when you've almost left the place, it will turn out to be broken and you'll have to fix it before you leave.

Cocktail-parties suck, mixing drinks is stupid, hangovers end up somewhat massive. Urgh! Let's just say that I got out of bed at 14:30 and leave it at that.

Out for a team-dinner at night. All did a DIY cooking class, where we had to prepare food for eachother and then all eat it. Apparently the keyword was garlic. Glad that I didn't have to kiss anybody or anything when eventually I made my way back home :-)

The weekend should be for sleeping in... not tod though. Somebody had decided that it would be a funny idea to ask Nicktor whether he'd have food for us if we'd pop in at 7 (yes, that may have been my idea). And sacrifycing ourselves for a good joke, McR and I indeed showed up at Nicktor's place at 7 (am). Unfortunately the promised pizza and chinese food weren't there so we had to improvise him some breakfast. Nicktor looked a bit puzzled, I have to say.

Went back to bed afterwards, bought tickets for the Posies concert in Rotterdam on the 29th of januari. And eventually showed up at Nicktor's place for his birthday cocktail party. My little:"Hey, let's coordinate the alcohol everybody brings"-plan worked out great, many different cocktails were had by all. Amazed by Bianca's talent to think up weird:"Bianca special" cocktails. Also nice to see Oliver again after years and years. Stumbled back home late. Yay for cocktail parties.

Games night at McR's place, with Nicktor. Gamed till late.

Wednesday and thursday were very much alike, so lets put them in one entry. Work till late, home late, not much afterwards. Busy??? Why? :-)

Somebody at work decided that we should try out the stress thing. Interesting but I prefer life without. Home late, straight to bed.

Had the annual "cheese fondue on Sinterklaas"-day with parents, sister, Martin, aunt and uncle. Great fun, found out that 1 of the headlights of my car wasn't working. Have to get that fixed tomorrow.

The magic word of the day:"Sleep". (And trying to find back my bicycle-keys). Succeeded at the sleep part, failed miserably at finding my bicycle keys. I wonder where they are. May have to borrow the grinder again.

Left a chocolate letter in my neighbour's shoe at night (a Dutch tradition, chocolate letters, that is, not leaving them in neighbour's shoes). She'll be puzzled, I guess.

Still feeling far from super. Spent the morning looking at houses on the internet. Not that I'm in that big a rush to buy a place and move out of the current one still it doesn't hurt to keep informed. At the same time I wouldn't be terribly suprised if I were to buy myself a place before the end of this year. Obviously you'll be some of the first to know :-)

Bought a christmas present for my father in the afternoon, did some food shopping, had dinner and watched Madagascar. Not a big fan. Went to bed ridiculously early for a Saturday night. Seeing as Nicktor didn't pop by, I suspect he's out having plenty of drinks, while I feel like I a 29 year old. That's not fair! He's the 29 year old, I'm only 28! Guess I'll go to bed now.

Still not feeling great, unfortunately I get 2 days off extra next year if I'm not ill this year so I'm not going to skip any days of work in December because of me being ill :-) On top of that... When I get up at 6:30 in the morning I'm usually too asleep to notice that I'm even feeling ill :-) Eventually made my way back home and stared at the tv all night.

Startef off pretty well, then at the same time I something which felt half as if I was getting a cold and half as if I had the flu came up. Obiously that's the moment things got hectic. Drove home on autopilot and fell asleep at 9.

While yesterday I got out of work at 8 and found out that the only thing I could have for dinner was a terribly basic pizza with onions, ham and piles of garlic stacked on top of it, today I didn't get out till 7 and had to do my shopping by the:"Dash through the supermarket-method". Yes, I know that getting out of work at 7 isn't that shocking, but once you combine it with the 1 hour absolute minimum commute, your working days do get kind of long.

Oh well, at least I didn't have to eat pizza tonight :-)