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Cecil B. DeMille: “Creativity is a drug I cannot live without.”

I just noticed that I put up a Marilyn Manson quote on the blog two years ago.

The ‘personification of my dark side’ and my favorite musician performed at the Quart festival in Norway yesterday. I planned to see him at first, but as I expected to have some busy days this period and also didn’t want to take two days off to get to Kristiansand, made me decide otherwise…so no MM for me, unfortunately. It all was for the best though; I couldn’t have made all the arrangements around the house if I would have gone; yeah, everything happens for a reason!

The beauty of the iPhone is that besides the looks and nice hardware, it is mostly the software that makes things sweet…and software, as we all know, is pretty flexible.

One of the big improvements in the latest iPhone OS 3.0 is that it adds MMS capabilities, but…this option was NOT enabled for the first generation iPhone (no idea why actually), and happens to be the one *I* own…damn!

Anyway, here is where the flexible software part kicks in!

There are bright minds with programming skills in this world and one of them created a hack to enable MMS also for the iPhone 2G! You need to have a ‘jailbroken’ version of the iPhone, which allows you to install custom software next to Apple’s AppStore software, and the process of enabling MMS is really as simple as can be!

Check the iClarified site for a detailed decription and let the MMS’s roll in!

It was quite a nerve-wracking day, but with a perfect result: WE’VE GOT THE HOUSE!!

Our bid was upped a tad (pocket money ) by the owner so that he (or his wife? ) at least got the feeling that they did well in the negotiations, but the deal was inevitable, and so it was done before the end of the day!

Gjerdrum is the place, the forest with a lake and ski-tracks are literally ’round the corner (50 meter), Oslo center is less than 30 minutes away and the airport just 20 minutes…it’s PERFECT!

(pictures can be found here)

My brother turns 35 today, so Yo Bro, Happy Birthday…Hurra for deg!

The two of us normally don’t make a big thing out of it, I guess we both have been ‘infected’ by the Aboriginal approach; you only celebrate when you reached a next stage in life, having a Birthday is not an accomplishment as such (you just have to keep on breathing ), still, I hope you have a nice day!

We just sent in our bid on a house, exciting!!

I can’t say too much on it now, the bid stands until tomorrow 15:00h, so we know more by then. It’s obviously a great house, ha, we wouldn’t bid if it wasn’t!

The way this works in Norway is completely different from what we’re used to in NL; here it’s basically an auction, if you’re interested you place a bid (not too high, as no one wants to pay TOO much and not too low, coz that could offend the owner). The broker then contacts the other people who are interested and tries to increase the bid. We know that two other couples showed their interest also, and that one of them is on vacation. The time seems right, so fingers crossed!!

I’m gonna get my Elgato EyeTV today, yay! It got slightly delayed as I forgot to bring it with me from NL two weeks ago.

It’s a small nifty device that’ll turn my Mac mini into a powerful TV recorder…my good’old videorecorder died lately (well, not completely, it only decided to eat the tapes ), so this comes in handy. I wanted to give the EyeTV a chance over a DVD-recorder, it should provide more flexibilty, so I can’t wait to install it and get it going.

Damn, I hate it when people don’t follow up on their promises…I planned to visit two houses today with a carpenter, so he could take a look and tell what additional work needs to be done…all appointments were made for this afternoon and then I get a text message from the carpenter saying that he cannot come ’cause the weather is so nice and he has a bbq!!! Jeez…what’s up with that? I guess these people have way too much work and can afford to behave to this , it wouldn’t be my style though!

There was no way to miss the news of Michael Jackson’s death of cardiac arrest last night; it was all over the media and many websites have been struggling to stay online because of the enormous amount of visitors seeking information and updates on the news.

I was not sure to write a blogpost about it as it would only duplicate what has been written so far everywhere else. Still, the fact of the matter is that an amazing talented musician is no longer with us and that’s really sad. Despite the mixed feelings some may have on the last ten years of his life, let’s remember him for the 30 years legacy of becoming and being the King of Pop, he has been and still is a true icon for many generations.

Eddie Cantor: “Slow down and enjoy life. It’s not only the scenery you miss by going too fast – you also miss the sense of where you are going and why.”

Weather is truly amazing these days; summer is finally here and it decided to stay! Temperatures are up to 25-30 degrees and we have pure blue skies, then add the fact that it’s not getting really dark at night and you have everyone smiling (or is that because of the girls in short skirts? ).

It’s supposed to be like this for at least the coming 1.5 week, yayyyy!

The situation in Iran is worrying to say the least. Not only the internal politics (aka corruption?), but even more the effects it can have (has) on international politics and relations in the Middle East region. Some say that the US plans to go to war with Iran (one theory actually expected this to happen just before last years elections, allowing Bush to force the momentum away from Obama…). Let’s hope it doesn’t come that far, war is never a solution, but it’s clear that something needs to happen.

What better than to have millions of people join forces and let their combined energy make the difference? (you would be surprised how powerful this can be!)

Green is the color of this movement and the ‘fight’ takes place on the Web (mainly on Social Networks like Twitter and Facebook)…people around the world are changing their Twitter avatar to have a green overlay, I just did mine:

Check out http://helpiranelection.com, a single click there will change your Twitter avatar to have a green overlay…show your support for democracy in Iran!

Twitter has proven to be a great way to get real-time news distributed, check http://iran.twazzup.com for updates!

I saw a small deer coming out of the forest behind the house yesterday, nature is so close, I’m gonna miss this place! Then again, I know that there’s a new place waiting ’round the corner, with the same beautiful nature around it!

Watch this video; the cat looks a LOT like our cat Kwibus…and the deer? Well, that one’s waiting for him in the forest, what a wonderful world!

H. Norman Schwarzkopf: “You can’t help someone get up a hill without getting closer to the top yourself.”

Yesterday the iPhone Dev-Team released the updated version of their Pwnagetool, which is capable of activating, jailbreaking and unlocking my original iPhone 2G while running the latest and greatest iPhone OS v3.0.

I couldn’t wait and spent some time last night to perform the upgrade. A relatively easy and straightforward process, however quite some time went into creating and restoring the backup, I guess I have too many applications (100+).

I’m gonna spend the coming days playing with the new goodies, yay!