Went bowling with Haidar, Erwin and Arthur (some colleagues). Failed to suck completely and even managed to win a game of Fifa at my place. Then I did suck big time at playing pool afterwards. Note to self:"Bowling for an hour and a half is a bit long, you haven't got the strength"

Took the tube into town after work and teamed up with Erwin, 2 of his brothers in law, a friend and one of his sisters for dinner in a pizza place smelling a bit poo-ish. (For some reason we had made it our meeting point and by the time the last person arrived, we all decided:"We can hardly smell it anymore"). Eventually made it to Paradiso to hear the last notes being played by a pretty good sounding opening act.

Have to say that I thought that the Fun Loving Criminals had stopped performing and making albums ages ago (I could have sworn there was only 1 other album besides "Come and find yourself", but I got assured I was somewhat wrong here). Saw a pretty good show, though possibly somewhat lengthy here and there.

Chatted with girlfriend on the internet, she misses me :-) Am starting to notice that lately:"Living on your own and having to cook for your self" tends to translate into:"Nuke something in the microwave", after a 2 hour commute.

Received a phonecall from my colleague Erwin, apparently I'm going to see the Fun Loving Criminals tomorrow.

Watched the second part of the documentary today. At least as cool as the first part.

Still dead-tired from the weekend. Sleep-walked through my work-day and then had to stay awake till midnight because I really really really wanted to see the first part of the Martin Scorsese "No direction home" Bob Dylan-documentary. Cool!

Girlfriend did notice me being not entirely sober, apparently me asking her to marry me (thrice), claiming that we were going to have kids called (Sean-Paul and Marinette (I still kind of like the latter) and shouting that she has got great tits were the giveaways. Took notice not to do any of these next time I drink too much wine. Oh, for those wondering, Maaike told me she's not ready for a wedding yet (thrice)

Got Maaike on the train to the airport and spent the remainder of the afternoon bumping into severely hungover colleagues. Home and back to bed after a long and somewhat tiring journey (due trains not running I had to hitch a ride with a colleague and then catch a train)

Hit the city streets and walked for miles and miles. Obviously saw the mermaid, the Nyhaven and loads of other Copenhagen places. Realised that the oddest thing during these company holidays is that in at every sight you keep bumping into colleagues.

At night had a pretty luxurious dinner, followed by a somewhat cheesy DJ. May not have been entirely sober, I apparently still need to practise on the whole champagne, white wine, red wine, dessert wine, cognac, beer-thing. Hopefully girlfriend didn't notice.

Also found out that our next company holiday will apparently be for a whole week somewhere in May in a sunny place somewhere. Bets on location are on.

Took the train to Schiphol airport, where I pretty quickly bumped into some of my colleagues with who I spent weeks in training in September/October 2004. Swapped stories on jobs, cars and traffic, chatting about cars and traffic being for consultants what the weather-chat is for normal people in the Netherlands.

Found out that Maarten had already missed a plane, noticed that another colleague managed to miss the plane as well and then we all took off for Copenhagen, the city where the 2005 annual company-holiday was taking us. After hanging around Copenhagen airport for an hour and a half, I got re-united with girlfriend, hugged and made our way to our hotel. Managed to bump into loads of colleagues while walking there and got appointed a pretty cool room at the 25th floor.

After a welcome party in Tivoli, with even more colleagues, girlfriend and I tried out a roller-coaster (don't mix rollercoasters and alcohol, people) before ending up in an Indian restaurant. Already liking the place!

Spent the evening chatting with girlfriend on the internet while packing my suitcase and feeling somewhat ill. Managed to pack 10 times as much as I'd usually bring on a weekend away but I blame that on girlfriend.

Had my hair cut, and managed to give Kaz her birthday-present. For some reason she managed to act as if she liked getting a gigantic box stuffed with drill-bits. Yep, I apparently give my sister drill-bits for her birthday

My kid sister's birthday. Called sister, watched tv waiting for sis to pop by. She didn't.

This week may become dull, haven't thought of much more to do than "stay at home, read book"

Had to pop by Annemarie's place to pick up clothes girlfriend needs in Helsinki (only 5 more days!!). Also repaired Annemarie's tire while I was there. Drove back home and spent the rest of the day reading a book (actually re-reading Kerouac's "On the Road") chatting with girlfriend on the internet and missing her terribly (She asked me to put that in (Hmmm maybe I shouldn't put that in)).

Spent the afternoon strolling through Rotterdam. Bought "Oliver Twist" and "David Copperfield" for cheap, also bought "Connected" by the Stereo MC's (had been meaning to buy that ever since I saw them perform at the Lowlands festival a couple of years ago but never got round to it). Also spent some time in the new music shop in the city center wondering what other music instruments I need. I'm definitely in need of a bass guitar but then mandolines are pretty cheap. Oh, something drum-ish might be fun as well (those would have to be digital then though). Yep, I won't let lack of talent stop me here :-)

At night popped by Rijsoord for the 5-annual gondelvaart (where they decorate the riversides with lights boat around in decorated boats and have fireworks afterwards). Nothing too great but nice enough to have a look at once every 5 years. Got to shout abuse at a guy who kept riding his bike into my ankles.

Then drove back Rotterdam-wards, where I tried hooking up with Nicktor in "de Consul", then found out that Nicktor had meant "Villa" instead and drove there. Found Marlies and Annemarie there as well, had a beer and then everybody disappeared into the night again.

Spent the whole evening listening to music and playing with Python, I should have proper geek-nights more often. Even brushed up on my numerical mathematics-skills.

Stumbled out a bit puzzled:"Where did I leave my car?" Then everything connected upstairs and I took the tube into town to pick up my car.

At night went to see "het schip" with Kaz. Pretty brilliant show, even managed to bump into Sander in the process.

Erwin's farewell party (he's leaving Arinso). Had some drinks in "de Oude Haven", then realised it might be a good idea to leave the car there and took the tube back home.

Had really weird dreams about underwear all night. Woke up to find that I was wearing my boxers backwards. Right

Went to the funeral of my old neighbour, he died of pancreatic cancer last Thursday. Really sad. Definitely the shortest funeral service I've ever been to. It all turned out into a reunion of the street my parents used to live in.

Read more books, spent 2 hours trying to finish 1 level in Grand Theft Auto, Vice City (success!!!) Visited parents at night and combed the cat. Ain't life grand?

Geez, I'm dull. Finally managed to finish my book on European history, then Finished 'Rule no 5: 'No Sex on the bus' as well' Had Nicktor and McR pop by at night and entertained ourselves with my playstation.

Read a book all evening and eventually fell asleep. Apparently missed a whole thunderstorm.

Barbecue at Arjan's place. Decided to pick up Nicktor to avoid losing him somewhere in Hillegersberg again, managed to pick up Cindy in the process as well.

Had lots of barbecue, managed to play football with burning torches as goalpost does everybody know about "stop drop and roll over"? and eventually drove back home. Girlfriend apparently still drunk.

Read book, watched football, spent an hour and a half on the phone. Received drunk text-messages from girlfriend.

Good news, the microwave lives.

Started watching "girl with a pearl earring" then a fuse blew and all electrical appliances stopped working. Stumbled into my fusebox, wielding my phone as a flashlight and attempted to flick some switches to get the light working again. Found out that they'd flick right back so got to play the interesting game:"Pull all power-plugs from their sockets, once again restore power in the house and then start plugging in appliances one by one".

Eventually found out that the appliance at fault was my microwave, earlier in the night a cup of hot chocolate accidentally boiled over and for some reason shorted the microwave an hour and a half later. Decided to keep it unplugged and let it dry for the night. Aaaargh!

woTime flies... apparently today me and girlfriend have been together for a year. That almost sounds like an eternity! And before girlfriend smacks me over the head with a large trout or even something more painful:"At the same time the past year flew to past like a banana", a bit odd at times but great fun.

Still... "Girlfriend, you made your point, I miss you when you're not around, can you now please come back?" :-)

And to make things even more eternal, I popped by the first girl my age I ever thought of getting married with (Kirsten, when we were both 4 years old) to finally meet her newborn (well 2 months old already) son. It feels like only yesterday that we were playing hide and seek!!

Did not do too much all day (besides reading a book, eating a grapefruit and biking through the Rotterdam city-center). Got visited by the usual people (Nicktor, McR) at night. Watched "grind", which was okay-ish.

The day of the second wedding of the year, today Marlies and Otto got married. Witnessed everything, they're now married for law, church (yes, I managed to squeeze in the second church-visit in my life).

Found out that my friends manage to keep amazing me, while Lorraine manages to text me at times that may be used against her somewhere in the future, Nicktor somehow completed a 30 minute drive in 2 hours, basically by driving off in completely the wrong direction, then calling me and asking me:"We're at completely the wrong place, where do we go to now?" and then repeating that process a couple of times. (Please somebody send him a navigation-system)

Fun party at night, drank lots of beer (McR forced me), chatted with lots of people and still got home before 1 am.

Got asked to drop off a beamer at the company headquarters tomorrow. Spent the evening watching films and playing ps2-games on my beamer with my usual two partners in crime.

Oh, by the way, I linked my vanalten.net e-mail address to my gmail-account and found out that I'm up to my neck in gmail-invites, if anybody's interested drop me an e-mail at my usual address.