Weblog | September 2004

I'm quite impressed with Picasa. It allows you to organize alle images and photos on your computer.

Just catching up on my reading and the news after 4 days offline.

• LoTR RoTK extended edition specs released
• Europeans to monitor American voters
• Dutch singer André Hazes dies. Mass hysteria ensues.
• The Sims 2 has been released
• And so has the new Rammstein album, Reise Reise.

Just got back. Berlin was great. Visited the classics, like Brandenburger Tor, Reichstag and Checkpoint Charlie where we also visited the museum.
Bought a daypass for the excellent public transport to travel through the city and back to the hotel near Charlottenburg.
Went to see Collateral, which was the only movie available in the original language, i.e. English instead of a German overdub. Das Dorf was not very appealing to me. ;-)
Watched part of the inline skate event, which opened for the Berlin Marathon. Bought an original Nosferatu movie poster at the fleemarket near Tiergarten. It's from the early nineteen twenties in a classic style. Very cool.
Update: there's now Berlin entry in my gallery.

I'll be in Berlin the next couple of days. Details will follow when I return.

Like the idea of Numbered Tabs for Firefox. Wonder what happens when you open the tenth tab.

Started back at work again since yesterday. Catching up on my reading. And the news ofcourse. Apparently Johnny Ramone died. Now only Tommy remains. There's also good news though, since Firefox has spread like wildfire.

Spend the last couple of days indoors, recovering from a cold. Experiencing the joys of daytime television. Not really something I'd recommend. An overdose of bad soap operas, Doctor Quinn and Oprah. Sigh.

I'm horrified by Flash123, which is a Dutch site stimulating the general public to exercise more. Nice idea. But the site won't open in Firefox. When I open it in Internet Explorer it opens a ton of pop-ups. Not to mention the frames, the blocking of the back button and all the Flash. Sigh.
I read somewhere that the entire campaign cost the government 800.000 euros. I wonder how much of that went to the website. I should really send one or two web design postcards, beginning with the one on discrimination.

Think I've seen it before, and I might even have mentioned it before, but this one is to good to miss: Standards Resources for Beginners.

My house was full of family today, including two of my aunts, whom I hadn't seen in ages. We all took a long walk through the city. We were in luck, since it was also Open Monumenten Dag, when most monuments are open to the public.

Watched the movie Onegin the other night. It was a bit slow and a bit long, but the scenary and atmosphere were quite beautiful. It takes place in Russia during the empirial age. There's one scene where the main characters go ice skating. The following night I dreamt the river Mare, which runs behind my house, had frozen over and I was ice skating on it. Sigh. I used to love ice skating. Why aren't winters like they once were? I hate global warming.
Oh, and I wonder what the book is like.

Though I tend to dislike Flash, I do like sIFR technique. Shame it won't work for i18n (think âéêïçøå). It simply leaves out all of those characters.
Totally unrelated, but still worth a mention: Best of Still Photojournalism 2004. Featuring some great shots.

I've been doing some experimentation with XSLT en XSL-FO these past few days. Started out with Learning XML, 2nd Edition and have since moved onto XSLT: Programmer's Reference. It's all looking quite promising.

Congrats to T&T! And may your first child be a masculine child. ;-)

Finally got round to showing my parents the grave of painter Van Gogh's mother. She's buried at the old cemetary. Quite a pleasant place to spend a sunday afternoon, since the old oak trees provide plenty of shade and there were hardly any people around.

Interesting site, which compares The Netherlands to several other European countries.

Like the initiative of Theworldvotes.org, where we can all participate in the upcoming US presidential election. Shame it won't have any real effect. Maybe reading the One Thousand Reasons will.

Downloaded quite a few programs from FreewarePalm. Can't believe it took me this long to extend the possibilities of my Zire. I'm especially pleased with Shopper, which allows me to keep a grocery list. I used old envelopes for that before. Now I can be decadent.

Finally got my hands on a Google Mail invitation yesterday. So now I can be reached at mirthe at gmail.com. :-) Not sure if I'm going to switch completely, but if I do, there will be plenty of utilities to make things a bit easier.
Today is the first day of september. Autumn is coming. And this date is extra special since the world was created on September 1, 5509 BC, according to the Byzantine calendar. Just so you know.
And then there's news of the new Les Claypool album, called The Big Eyeball in the Sky. Officially by Colonel Claypool's Bucket of Bernie Brains. It's now available for pre-order.