raymondpoort.com

In my professional career I used a pretty good problem solving technique; acknowledging that the problem exists, and they actually will (always unfortunately) occur and it is just how you deal with them (and THAT you deal with them) that makes the difference! (a technique which is also valid for private life btw. 🙂 ).

The ‘international guidelines for problem solving’ chart below show some different approaches (ROTFLMAO!), I am not so sure if they reach the same positive results, but perhaps real solutions are not the main objective in international politics… 🙂

Recently a hype emerged about a revolutionair new speed-reading technology called Spritz. The software developer has been working on the technology for three years, and aims to revolutionize the way we read.

‘Why it Works’ (from spritzinc.com): “Reading is inherently time consuming because your eyes have to move from word to word and line to line. Traditional reading also consumes huge amounts of physical space on a page or screen, which limits reading effectiveness on small displays. Scrolling, pinching, and resizing a reading area doesn’t fix the problem and only frustrates people.”

In theory it all sounds very nice, and you can see some examples below to verify that it actually works (yes, I was *really* ably to READ at those speeds, wow!). I believe there is a catch though; reading text is one thing, understanding what you just read is a whole different ball-game…TIME.com has a nice piece on it; ‘The ‘Brain App’ that’ better than Spritz‘ (READ it, the old-fashioned way 🙂 )!
250 words per minute:

350 words per minute:

500 words per minute:

I recently took the ‘What Country Do You Actually Belong In?‘-test (via buzzfeed.com) and got a pretty satisfying result: Norway! (lucky me, I don’t have to move LoL 🙂 )

Yeah, I am really happy living here, check out ‘Why Norway is arguably the most beautiful country in the world‘ for some of the reasons why! (and yes, it is all true! 🙂 )

A friendly reminder for y’all so that none of you will miss it, there are still some hours left to celebrate THE event of the year; yes guys, it is Steak & Blow Job Day today, yayyy!!! 🙂

Well, actually not so much ‘yayyy’ for me as I don’t eat meat (and am therefore ‘missing out’ on the steaks, which I don’t feel too bad about 🙂 ) and also, for some reason I have been home alone on March 14 ever since I found out about this Day two years ago (and *that* makes me miss out the blow job, which is definitely NOT good! 😉 ).

The whole theory of Steak & Blow Job Day is founded on it being a Man’s equivalent to Valentine’s day and the idea is simple; there are no cards, flowers, candy or other overpriced fluff. Partners need only to bestow their man with a steak and a blow job. But not necessarily in that order. And not necessarily only once that day. And it doesn’t even have to be them who does it.

It is also good to see that this memorable day is supported by some of the smartest and wisest man in the world:

– Stephen Hawking: ”Fellatio is awesome and makes you smarter!”

– Ghandi: “If only there were more Steaks and Blow Jobs in the world, we would have no War…” (~ Ghandhi on Steak & Blow Job day, before he turned vegetarian.)

(Oh, and for all you girls out there, don’t get too upset…your turn comes soon enough: April 14 is Cake and Cunnilingus Day! 😉 )

Fantastic!! (via Kerwin Rae, also via Facebook)

Once a group of 500 people were attending a seminar. Suddenly the speaker stopped and decided to do a group activity. He started giving each person a balloon. Each person was then asked to write their name on it using a marker pen. Then all the balloons were collected and put in another room.

The people were then let into that room and asked to find the balloon which had their name written on it within 5 minutes. Everyone was frantically searching for their name, colliding with each other, pushing around others and there was utter chaos.

At the end of 5 minutes no one could find their own balloon.
Then, the speaker asked each person to randomly collect a balloon and give it to the person whose name was written on it. Within minutes everyone had their own balloon.

The speaker then began, “This is happening in our lives. Everyone is frantically looking for happiness all around, not knowing where it is.

Our happiness lies in the happiness of other people. Give them their happiness; you will get your own happiness. And this is the purpose of human life…the pursuit of happiness.”

I flew home with my angel today and had a fantastic flight; Misha is talking more and more and has been entertaining everyone on the flight (including his proud daddy 🙂 )! Back home we were taken by surprise how little snow is left; the garden is still white but everywhere else all snow is more or less gone…already, yuk!! 🙁

After Misha hit the hay I couldn’t wait any longer and I set up my new Marantz SR6008 AV receiver! (he he, instead of unpacking my suitcases; two HEAVY suitcases in addition to one ‘odd-size luggage’ box containing the Marantz…traveling light is still not my thing 🙂 )

Setting it up was a charm following the easy on-screen procedure including the Audyssey automatic speaker setup, which honestly surprised me in its quality…the first hours of listening/watching/playing are already fantastic, quality sound is back in da house!! 🙂

Still some things to do though; I found out that I lack some HDMI cables, want to replace the speaker cables and I need to find another solution to get network access to the unit as my Ethernet-over-Power adapter is broken, darn! (Spotify, Airplay and controlling the receiver via an iOS app is a must!)

This is a great cartoon showing ‘Imagine’ from John Lennon as you have never seen it before!

It is made by Pablo Stanley, check out his site stanleycolors.com for more great ‘Comics and stuff’!

Click the picture for the full image (or click the direct link here), this YouTube video is nice too!

My Marantz AV receiver (SR5400) broke down and since I enjoy music even more when the sound system is right (I *love* that!) and movies/TV series are way better experienced with superb surround sound, it was time for something new!

While my old Marantz SR5400 was still performing fantastic until recently, it had its shortcomings such as no HDMI nor network access/other nifty features, the biggest one shortcoming was its -most likely- broken power supply. 🙂

As I wanted to re-use my existing KEF KHT 2005.2 speaker system, the new AV receiver needed to comply with the direct and tactile sound experience from the KEFs and after hours of resading reviews and listening to various setups, the verdict is in: once again Marantz! The Marantz SR6008 won the battle over the Pioneer SC-2023!! I can pick it up Tuesday, just in time for my flight back Wednesday to my new music and movie sound paradise at home!! 🙂

Happyyyyyyy!!!

Day/Night 4 of 5; Gladiators keep it calm…or scandalous?! 🙂

(c) Joost & Ingeborg thx!

Nothing beats a carnival parade after a all-night lasting party uhhhh…luckily the sun was out! 🙂

The yearly tradition of carnival kicked off yesterday when a not so random bunch of gold diggers and gladiators united! Also today we are o-so ready to reign and dominate the bar, with only four days left…!!
Wish us luck! 🙂

After being  home in Norway for two consecutive months (!), it was about time to get my ass in an airplane again…helloooo NL! 🙂 Bringing Misha to his mommy and five days of carnaval festivities from this weekend where the main reason, though I will stay for two full weeks to catch up with friends.

Similar to Norway, NL experiences an extremely mild winter; no snow and spring-like weather…being back in cycling-land brings me to the following YouTube video; amazing what this guy can do on a bicycle! His name: Danny MacAskill, a cycling artist…amaaaaazingggg!!

I don’t know where my head is these days; some days ago I saw this very cool video called ‘MOVE’ by Rick Mereki and was halfway blogging about it just now, and then something started to itch…..yeah, I had seen the video before, AND blogged it…uhhh over 3.5 years ago!! Anyway, it is cool enough to put it up once more…check this link to my original blogpost to see the other two related videos called EAT, LEARN, trust me; worth it! 🙂

TV series are ON again…time for something new though, as Sherlock Season 3 and White Collar Season 5 are in the ‘watched those’ bag, Person of Interest Season 3 is nearly done, and I haven’t been able to ‘find’ a high quality version of House of Cards Season 2 yet 😉 (which only released yesterday…he he, Season 1 went super fast a couple of weeks ago).

…and the winner is…The West Wing! A tad old though pretty good as I have been told, and…a whopping 156 episodes in 7 Seasons! Now, THAT will keep me occupied for some time eh? (uhhh, Season 1 is in the bag, and so is half of Season 2 🙂 )

Ha, if I ever get ‘stuck’ in a 1-room apartment of about 40 m2 I know what I will do with it; (re)build it similar to what Graham Hill did as shown in the YouTube below…an impressive optimization of a tiny space following the “One Size Fits All” design!

The full version of the project can be found here.

Woohoooo!!!!! I could write a thousand pages and would still not come even close to describe my first Northern Light experience last Friday February 7 on the Lofoten Islands!! Absolutely stunning, amazing, bizarre, emotional, incredible, wow-WoW-WOW, etc., etc., etc. Seeing is believing…when I close my eyes I am there again and I am totally hooked (I want moreMoreMORE!!)…for now I guess it is best to let the pictures do the talking…

Disclaimer; It was my first time with the camera (Canon D40, thx Sascha for borrowing, the iPhone would NEVER have been able to catch any of this!), my first time photographing the Northern Lights AND my first time seeing the Northern Lights for real (so my attention was obviously somewhere completely else than with taking pictures! 🙂 ). None of the photos have been edited or optimized (…yet :))

I added a professional picture at the very end, taken by a Lofoten local Northern Lights pro-photographer (Vidar Lysvold)…it came out pretty nice eh? 🙂

After nearly 15 years I am cat-less (not a great feeling actually…). Kwibus and Pluis flew back to NL tonight so it is all and only me in the house now (though *with* Misha for the coming two weeks, yay! 🙂 ).

Kwibus has some medical challenges and well, since I am traveling every now and then (understatement), it really didn’t feel good to have the care for them ‘outsourced’ so often…since Kristel moved end of last year to a more spacious home in a much greener area, the time seemed right for them to go back to NL.

One cat though, Nikky, will always stay here with me. I buried him in the garden last summer so he is always close…and in my heart forever!

Lianne and I are going to the Lofoten group of islands tomorrow, and will be celebrating her Birthday in a magical place. This amazing place will become even more magical when the Northern Lights show up…predictions for Northern Lights to ‘be’ there are fantastic, it is just that the clouds might decide to not play along….cross fingers they will not!!!

HI-LA-RI-OUS!!!! 🙂

————————

Don’t Argue With The Gay Flight Attendant:

My flight was being served by an obviously gay flight attendant, who seemed to put everyone in a good mood as he served us food and drinks.

As the plane prepared to descend, he came swishing down the aisle and told us “Captain Marvey has asked me to announce that he’ll be landing the big scary plane shortly, so lovely people, if you could just put your trays up, that would be super.”

On his trip back up the aisle, he noticed an extremely well-dressed and exotic young woman hadn’t moved a muscle. “Perhaps you didn’t hear me over those big brute engines but I asked you to raise your trazy-poo, so the main man can pitty-pat us on the ground.”

She calmly turned her head and said, “In my country, I am called a Princess and I take orders from no one.”

To which the flight attendant replied, without missing a beat, “Well, sweet-cheeks, in my country I’m called a Queen, so I outrank you. Tray up, Bitch.”

Wow, this is very inspirational; watch the video below (dutch spoken / english subs) and realise that the best kind of thinking is: Doing!

“At 5 years old, you are at the top of your creative ability and by the time you’re 8 your creativity is halved. At 44 you reach a state of ‘terminal seriousness’. Structure determines your life and reality can only follow. This video is a call to start ‘doing’!”