Holidays are coming!

The summer is coming, and with that also the vacation season (in English it is called holidays). Everone is planning their vacation, and the big question always is:"Where will we go to this year?"

YuMei is already doing her research, and checking internet for nice destinations. She is the one always making the decisions on where to go to. Hmmm....that doesn't sound so nice, does it? Hmm....she plans the vacation, and I tag along for the ride. Hmmm..no, that sounds even worse. I make it sound like I am being dragged on my hair all across the globe. Maybe I should explain the situation, before I make things even worse.

When it comes to vacations, I am quite an easy person. As long as I have a place to retreat myself once in a while, i.e. hotelroom, chalet, bungalow, tent, then I am fine. Of course there are restrictions to this, and YuMei knows those already.
Also, about 95% of her ideas for a destination are just great ideas. So, I usually just say:"Ok, looks great, go ahead and plan it." Of course, she will ask for my opinion, and I will give it to her. But because of the combination of me being easy, and her sharp nose for good deals and nice hotels, I never have to interfere much in her plans.

AND..I have to admit, she does have a certain good influence on me in that matter. Before I always have said, that I would NEVER ever go to France. I just didn't like the fact that they don't speak any English, and that we have to learn French, because they are to arrogant to learn English. Yeah, I know.....all prejudices, shame on me.
And I now know they are absolutely NOT true. You see, a few years ago, YuMei was nagging about going to Paris, and trying to make me wanna go to.
I decided to give in, and she planned the trip. And, to my surprise, I liked it. After that, she "dragged" me to the south of France, and to Normandy, and I liked that even better.

Just recently she had gotten the idea in her head to go camping. To me that sounds like fun too. I do however still have mixed feelings about this. You see, I have slept in a tent once, years ago. And I didn't get any sleep, even though I was pissed.
However, we just made the reservations on a camping for a tent with everything on it, including mattresses and kitchen. So, I am covered on that part.
But what scared me also was a DVD I saw about some Dutch camping site. And what I saw there scared me a bit. Tourism on a massive scale, coziness all around, and then I do mean the typical DUTCH coziness. The kind only Dutch among each other knows what it is. People staying on the camping in front of their tent, drinking beer all day, meeting up with the neighbours. Can't really explain exactly what is wrong with it....I think the Dutch among you guys might understand what I mean.

BUT......it can get even worse. There are Dutch people driving 2000 km to the south of Spain, to stay in a hotel owned by Dutch, eat Dutch food, drink Dutch beer, and meet Dutch people. They probably don't even speak any word of English in their entire vacation.
And of course they need to bring their own food, potatoes, vegetables, hagelslag (choclate sprinkels), cheese. I once heard on the news that a guy was stopped by the police, and they found 50 kgs of potatoes in his caravan.

I always learned that the fun thing about a vacation is to explore new cultures, eat new food, meet different people. And I always enjoyed that.
Well, I guess anyone has his/her own idea of a vacation. It's just not my cup of tea (as the English would say) to travel halfway across the world and still hear someone speak Dutch.
And about bringing own food, the only thing I have always brought along with me on my travels to USA was Douwe Egberts coffee, since the coffee there taste like sewer water, and is probably made from it too. Well,..that is, till Starbucks showed up.
And, I must admit, when I am in Taiwan, I also like to drink Heineken. And I do miss my cheese when I am away from home.

Anyway, knowing us, we just go to that camping, do our own thing, and probably won't interfere with the real die-hards that inhabit the site aswell. We'll be fine!

Funny Youtube videos

The other day I was surfing on youtube, and found these funny videos. It basically is about God (in the videos called Mr. Deity) and just a day in his life. It is just hilarious.



There are more videos here: http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=misterdeity

Telephone games: easy money?

Recently there has been a discussion about a ban on the telephone games played on TV. Word goes that these games are nothing but a big fraud. DUH!! They only discover this just now?
Oh, for those who don't know what I am talking about, these games are just as simple as the person hosting it. On screen there is a word, or at least part of it, and everyone can call a telephone number (@ 1 euro per minute) and can guess that word. Once you guessed the word you can win upto 5000 euro. Wow, easy money, right? WRONG!!!
Let me tell you how a game like that goes:

"Welcome Ladies and Gentlemen. Today I am looking for a word with 3 letters. The first one is a D, the last one is a G. I will give you a clue: it's man's best friend, it has four legs, and it barks. Come on, people, you can call now with the right answer.............nobody is calling?.......Come on, the lines are open.......Oh, YES Finally we have a caller (This is shouted like she's having an orgasm). Hello, who is on the phone? "Uh, hello....", "What is your name?", "Uh, John", "Ok, hi John, what is the answer?", "Uh.....Uh.......I think it's CAT". "Oh, I am soooooo sorry, John, it not the right word, but please try again soon"

Meanwhile, hundred people have already tried to call, and got some computer, stating that they are not selected, but please try again.
The above already shows the intelligence one must have to play this game, to actually make the call. Or to host it. Usually the girls hosting it, are really cute...........but, that's about it. Apart from the looks, there is nothing intelligent coming out of that mouth, apart from the.......oh, no. I was about to write something disgusting, but my mom is reading this too. So I leave this to your imagination.

Anyway, not only the hosts have an IQ which matches the shoe size, also the people calling, aren't really the sharpest knives in the drawer. And having said this, I have a confession to make. The shame is already overwhelming just by thinking about this: I ALSO called a few times. YES, I know! Shame on me! It truly is an almost unbearable shame I will have to carry with me for the rest of my life!
And don't ask why. Maybe temporary insanity, or the amount of blood in my alcohol. At least I can tell you from first hand experience, that all this is a fraud on massive scale.
The answers are usually so easy, that you almost HAVE to call. I mean, sometimes I am just flipping through the channels with the remote, and I see one of those games on screen. Well.....usually within 2 or 3 seconds I have already seen the answer. And I am not a great puzzle-player. So, when I called, in that state of temporary insanity, I get a computer, stating they are looking for the fifth caller, and they are now going to check if I was the fifth caller. And guess what? Nope, BUT, I was close, I was fourth caller. And since I still was in that state, it fed my sense of determination. So I called again, only to be the sixth caller.....Ouch, so close...well, try again. And YES!! This time I was fifth caller. Oh how sweet the victory! Oh, wait...now I have to guess a number between 1 - 9. And poof!! Gone was that euphoric sensation.

In Belgium there was this game in which the hostess visibly tricked the viewers. She had a piece of paper in her hand, showing the letters I and S. And the viewers had to guess which 2 -letter word(!) they were looking for (this proofs my earlier statement of the intelligence of these games). The last caller guessed the word correctly as being "si". The hostess quickly turned the paper, and told the caller that this word was wrong. Watch the video (sorry, it's in Dutch, but I think you can see what happens):



Anyway, the justice department here in Holland is now investigating if they can build a case against two broadcasting companies. FINALLY!!

Ice, Ice, Baby!!

Quite a while ago, a rapper called Vanilla Ice (what's in a name) had a hit with the song "Ice Ice Baby". I never knew what he meant with that, until this afternoon. Check out the pictures of the REAL "Ice Ice Baby"!

Your comments

First of all, I just wanted to mention that Alec has been so sweet today. He is every day, though. But just today, he just was able to play by himself, didn't nag for treats (much), and was just overall happy. He even "helped" with the cooking without driving me up the wall. God, how I love the little Bugger. He is my little "spookje" (Dutch for little ghost. Hmm...in English it doesn't sound so sweet).
Anyway, I just like to thank everyone who is reading my blog. Maybe you are a recidivist, and keep on coming back, or you read it for the first time. I also like to thank you for leaving comments. I must admit, even though I read then, I hardly respond to them, and I feel a bit guilty about that. I know for example most Taiwanese always respond to the comments on their blog. I even saw a guy who had to write long comments on the comments people posted, AND he mentioned everyone by name, and wrote a small remark.
Well, I do always read the comments, and I always enjoy reading them. Sometimes I just don't know how to respond.

Alec, our little devil

Our little angel is starting to turn more and more into a little devil. And I don't mean devil in the bad sense of the word. He can just be so naughty at times. And in those situations I never really know how to react. Should I be angry, or should I laugh and think it's funny? Like the other day, I had to go upstairs for a minute. And now I let Alec stay downstairs, since he can handle that. Sometimes he just come upstairs after a few minutes, yelling "pappa", to see where I am. However, in this case, it stayed suspiciously quiet downstairs. So, when I came downstairs, mister had opened the freezer (which is "on street level" in our kitchen", had taken out the ice-cream, and was sitting on the floor, with the ice-cream box between his legs, and spoon in his hand, ready to dig in. What can you do in this case?
And how about this? If you ever come and stay overnight in our place, Alec will be the one serving you breakfast. Some other day he decided he wanted to have fried eggs, and when I was upstairs, decided to make them himself. He took 2 eggs, and broke them in the frying pan. Luckily we can shut off our stove, because he would actually have fried them.



Also he knows how to make coffee with our Senseo machine. He grabs the pad by himself, put the bag on the floor, and really has a hard time deciding which pad to take, puts the pad on the holder, which I would have to give, and then I have to lift him up the kitchen sink, where he puts the holder in place. After that I have to lift him high enough for him to get a cup, and it HAS to be the cup HE chooses. Once the right cup has chosen, he puts it under the machine and presses the right button.

However, doing groceries alone with him can be quite an ordeal. He knows what he wants, and how to get it. Picture me with my hands full of groceries, and Alec running around in all directions, except the one I am going. Luckily, he is not one of those kids, making a scene if he doesn't get something...Well, sometimes he does, but just divert his attention is usually enough to get him quiet.

Also he already knows his way around when driving by car. He always is pointing the direction we should go. And of course Daddy never listens to him, the ****.
But Wednesday we let Alec tell us which way we should go. Just ask him to point out the directions, and I would just drive to there. And believe it or not, we actually ended up in one of the shopping malls we occasionally do our groceries.
And mind you, he is only 2 years old.

Some more funy jokes!

The 11th Commandment

During a recent staff meeting in Heaven, God, Moses, and Saint Peter concluded that the behavior of Ex-President Clinton has brought about the need for an eleventh commandment.
They worked long and hard in a brain-storming session to try to settle on the wording of the new commandment, because they realized that it should have the same style, majesty and dignity as the original ten. They began their brain-storming and came up with the 11th.

After many revisions, they finally agreed that the eleventh commandment should be:

"Thou shalt not comfort thy rod with thy staff."

What Parents Know

A child will not spill on a dirty floor.

A young child is a noise with dirt on it.

A youth becomes a man when the marks he wants to leave on the world have nothing to do with tires.

An unbreakable toy is useful for breaking other toys.

For adult education, nothing beats children.

Having children will turn you into your parents.

If you have trouble getting your children's attention, just sit down and look comfortable

It now costs more to amuse a child than it once did to educate his father.

It rarely occurs to teenagers that the day will come when they'll know as little as their parents.

You can learn many things from children... like how much patience you have.

Summer vacation is a time when parents realize that teachers are grossly underpaid.

The first sign of maturity is the discovery that the volume knob also turns to the left.

There are three ways to get things done:

1) do it yourself 2) hire someone to do it 3) forbid your kids to do it

Those who say they "sleep like a baby" haven't got one.

The best thing to spend on your children is time.

Unfair

For his birthday, little Patrick asked for a 10-speed bicycle. His father said, "Son, we'd give you one, but the mortgage on this house is $80,000 & your mother just lost her job. There's no way we can afford it." The next day the father saw little Patrick heading out the front door with a suitcase. So he asked, "Son, where are you going?" Little Patrick told him, "I was walking past your room last night heard you telling mom you were pulling out. Then I heard her tell you to wait because she was coming too. And I'll be damned if I'm staying here by myself with an $80,000 mortgage & no bike!"

Speed Devils

Two elderly women were out driving in a large car - both could
barely see over the dashboard. As they were cruising along, they
came to an intersection. The stoplight was red, but they just went
on through. The woman in the passenger seat thought to herself "I
must be losing it. I could have sworn we just went through a red
light." After a few more minutes, they came to another intersection
and the light was red again. Again, they went right through. The
woman in the passenger seat was almost sure that the light had been
red but was really concerned that she was losing it. She was getting
nervous .
At the next intersection, sure enough, the light was red and they went on
through. So, she turned to the other woman and said, "Mildred, did you
know that we just ran through three red lights in a row? You could
have killed us both!"
Mildred turned to her and said, "Oh, crap, am I driving?"

Some beautifull pictures

It was beautiful weather outside. On the calendar it is still winter, but it looks like it is the end of spring. We just took some really nice pictures from the sky, from our backyard. I hope you enjoy them as much as we do.

Smoking or non-smoking?

A few weeks ago we went to Wijnegem to a very large shopping mall. We just wanted to have a break away from the everyday routine, and what is more perfect than driving across the border, just to spend a few hours window shopping. At one point, Alec wanted to play at a play toy where already some kids were playing. Later on this lady came, with I think an 8-year old kid.
After a little while she just lit up a cigarette, while there is a non-smoking regulation in the entire building, and was smoking only a few feet from the kids. On top of it all, when she finished the cigarette, she put it out on the trash-bin on the "not smoking" sticker.
I have been smoking for quite some time, before I quit, and I have always tried to have consideration with others. Note that tried is printed in bold, since I guess that that didn't always work. First of all, cigarette smoke is kinda going anywhere it is not suppose to go. And second, some people are just TOO anti-smoke, that you can never satisfy them, no matter what you do, except for dropping dead right there on the spot.
I have met smoker's supporters, and opponents and I noticed that this really is a typical example of intolerance from both sides. Of course, I think the majority can get along just fine, and they just have consideration with each other. But the hard core are not willing to take one step back in favor of the others, and think that they know best how other people should live (well, this in the case of the non-smokers).

Of course we all know that smoking is bad for the health. And yes, it would be better for the finance to quit. But I know from experience that it is VERY hard to quit. I will tell you about this in another post, since it is quite a long story. And I feel that the hard-core non-smokers don't realize HOW hard it really is.
And I just feel that it's quite unfair to be bitching around on the smokers, chasing them, almost criminalizing the smoking. It is not allowed anymore to smoke at work, even if the whole staff is smoking. Probably in those cases, no-one keeps to those rules, though. And now they are talking about prohibiting smoking in cafe's, restaurants and hotels. Well, I must say that I can understand about not smoking in a restaurant, but in a BAR?? I feel, when you go to a bar, you KNOW people are smoking there, the combination of cigarettes and alcohol are glued together, are inseparable, like a marriage in holy matrimony, till dead do them part, or something. So, why change a winning team?
And what about hotels? Nowadays you can have a smoking or non-smoking room. They might have a complete floor reserved for smokers (or non-smokers). When you are in the comfort of your own hotelroom, you want to be able to light up a cigarette once in a while (especially on the toilet doing a big one). So why change that?

On the other hand side, I feel smokers should also have some consideration with the non-smokers. And I can talk from first hand experience.
In one of my previous jobs, we were working with 4 persons on our department, and 3 of them were smokers. So, basically there wasn't any consideration with the non-smoker. And no-one ever really thought about it, it just had grown that way.
And when we go to a restaurant, I liked to smoke after dinner. Of course I would wait till YuMei was finished also, BUT didn't have any consideration with the other guests who were still eating at the time.
And none of the smokers do have that. Have you ever saw a smoker asking in a restaurant:"Do you mind if I smoke?".
I did ask that question once in a while. And I think lot of smokers do that. But what if the answer is "no"?
Also the lady mentioned at the beginning is unfortunately a good example of the inconsideration of the smokers.

What I think is strange is the non-smoking sections in restaurants or something. Sometimes there is a nice non-smoking section, it's about 6 feet away from the smoking section. So, even in non-smoking section you aren't smoke free. I never really understood that.

Anyway, like I said, it should be a matter of give and take ON BOTH sides. But as long as there is hardcore, the tolerance is far away.

Spam Bam!

Once in a while I check my "Bulk"-folder from my e-mail, to see if any important mails slipped through, and it sometimes just amazes me the crap I find in it. It just got me wondering, who is sending all this shit? Every day I got like 15 - 20 e-mails I can just throw away. And sometimes I empty it, and the moment it reloads, I got a new one in already.
And I think I am lucky, because I know there are people out there, that receive hundreds of them,...DAILY!
Do the people who are sending this shit, really believe that people read it? Do they really believe that we are looking for cheap Viagra and jump it the moment we receive their e-mail? "Hey Honey, someone here is selling Viagra for $100 per 30, want me to order a few?".
But apparently it works. Apparently there are still people out there opening these e-mails. And why do they open it? Are they so lonely, that every time they have an e-mail, they go like: "By golly, I've got an e-mail! Who is that nice person sending me an e-mail?" Or are there actually people out there so desperate they need to buy Viagra through some sleazy internet shop?
And what about the subjects they use. Let me quote you a few from my mailbox, these are hilarious: "what further not known, my sacrifice, of Judah", "The commandments before thee; with fir having", "It ethereal of cauchy". What the F**K are they talking about? And I am sure I never send Kristie Lodge an e-mail with the subject "Hey". In fact I don't even know this lady, and if I did, I would NEVER send her an e-mail with a subject like "Hey".
And, if I go through the whole list of subjects, I am stupid going through newspapers and using job agencies to look for a job. I already got 2 job offers in this list:"Stop looking for a new part-time job - here it is." & "Best Job Offer – Don't Miss Your Chance!". Also I sometimes am not so proud of my resume. But that is not necessary anymore. I can just buy a university degree here:"Obtain a University Degree based on your professional experience.".
And these aren't made up subjects. I have made a screencap to show you.



And I saved the best for last. Apparently someone in 1960 already had a vision of the existence of the internet, and have send me an e-mail from that period. Can you believe it? Receiving an e-mail send even before you were born!!