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This evening, on my way home, it felt as if I was chasing a rainbow; I noticed it from the moment I left the office and it stayed up in front of my car, acting as a guide home. 😉

I came closer and closer to the pot of gold and just before I came home even a second rainbow showed up, great picture, eh?

Rainbows, I have always been intrigued by them……and the pot of gold? Unfortunately not today…

I just read an article on costal ‘dead zones’ spreading globally. I was pointed to it via Adam Curry’s Daily (actual weekly ;)) Source Code #783, first thought was: “should I be worried for my home country, NL??”. Reading the article and remembering that the North Sea is (/was?) one of the cleanest seas around due to the constant flow of ocean water, I came to the conclusion that NL is safe…yet, are we? With a nearly 100% increase of these ‘dead zones’ every decade, I’d say we need to have a close look at our behaviour against mother nature!

Last year I wrote about the use of Google as a spell checker, today I found a website related to this principle; Google Fight. It gives you the option to have two keywords fight each other, the outcome of the fight is based on the number of Google search results for those specific keywords…NICE!!

I just used it for ‘seperate’ and ‘separate’, I always mix those two up. (the obvious winner is ‘separate’…I knew that, ofcourse! ;))

I saw a tv-registration of yesterdays MGMT concert at the Lowlands festival in NL, a great new band. They describe themselves as a future band playing 70’s music which is spot on!

Their biggest hit sofar is ‘Time To Pretend’ (also used in the movie ‘21‘)…have a listen (this is an alternative version, with lyrics…where would we be without YouTube? ;)):

BTW. the ‘official’ music video can be found here (all MGMT videoclips on YouTube have embedding outside the YouTube pages disabled), the bands YouTube channel has all the vids!

I just came back home after a quit intense week in NL.
The weekdays were what they normally are; filled with shitloads of work…it keeps you busy, eh? 😉
Then Friday, while I was at my parents, the phone rang with the news of the birth of my second nephew, Jurre! A beautiful baby boy…I’m so happy that I was able to see him this fast (nearly 2 hours after the birth)!!

Yesterday was a guys day out; Robbert and I planned to go to the Bavaria City Racing event in Rotterdam…major disappointment since it turned out to be held today instead of yesterday 🙁 (why check the date on a calendar, eh?)…but hey, at least I got to enjoy a beer (still cheap compared to Norway ;)) in Rotterdam and a nice dinner in Delft, it was great to be back in my old city!
We moved on to The Hague and after a terrific movie (The Dark Knight), we hit our favorite pub ‘De Paap‘, never disappointed there! We topped it of with a visit to ‘De Pijpela’, one of the few places still open after 4am, actually a place you don’t want to be. 😉
Going home wasn’t all that straightforward; a friggin’ flat tire!! Hehe, I guess it was the first time I changed a tire at that time of night/early morning…we finally came home around 7am! Yeah, I guess you can say we had a great day/night!

Some things never change, and today my struggle with luggage between Amsterdam and Oslo reached another chapter; instead of wrecking the suitcase, KLM decided to leave it in Amsterdam…hey, they’re not taking chances, eh? Damn!
Anyway, it’s always good to come home and see that the cats missed me, running around in circles around me, or is it just that they were hungry? 😉

I’m off to bed a bit early, catching up on sleep while another working week is coming up!

I’ll go to a special racing event today; Bavaria City Racing in Rotterdam!

Three Formula1 teams will race their cars through the streets of the second largest city in The Netherlands, Rotterdam…earprotection is a must! 😉

UPDATE…it turns out that the actual races and Formule1 demonstrations are tomorrow, around the time I fly back to Norway, DAMN! 🙁

Willem-Jan and Patricia (my brother and his girlfriend) just became dad and mom of a healthy baby boy, Jurre, born at 20.45h!! And that…makes me uncle for the second time this year! Amazing!
Great timing too; today was the due date, AND I am still in NL (am actually on my way to them now!!)

You can’t miss the Olympics these days, they’re literally EVERYWHERE! I have to admit; the games have a tendency to suck you in…I just can’t stop watching, so I’d better not switch on the tv. 😉

The Netherlands have won one medal per day so far, not bad, eh?

Wow, wow, wow!

I just finished listening to last Fridays Daily Source Code; Adam starts a new item called ‘Confessions of a Multimedia HitMan’. Believe me, this is visionary stuff…MANDATORY to listen to!

So, give it a try, it takes just 26 minutes of your day…you won’t be disappointed!

I first saw Jeff Dunham and his ventriloquist act ‘Achmed, the Dead Terrorist’ somewhere last year, and recently checked the clips out again…jeez, they’re timeless (and priceless ;)).

After watching Achmed, you should also look for his other characters; Walter, Peanut, José, Bubba J., Sweet Daddy D and Melvin…hilarious!

Part 1:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pK49WNXDI_g

Part 2:

That is what were doing this weekend; we are på hyttetur! It is the typical norwegian to do in the weekend; go to a cottage in the mountains with friends…hike through nature, make yummie dinners, drink some beers, all in all heaps of fun!

It’s quite a special day today; August 8 2008.
Well…special?
For some dates are just numbers with some random start point, I however do believe that date and time have influence in life, some call that spirituality or numerology. Anyway, it’s nice to mark today as being just a little bit more special than any other day.

I had to fill up the car this morning, since I was close to dry up the tank…the first fill would have cost me NOK 666…I’m not superstitious but to stop at the ‘Number of the Beast‘ would be a bit too much, I still had a 100km drive to go. 😉 So, I completely topped it up, bringing me down a little over NOK 700, then I realized; that’s a friggin’ EUR 90, for one tank!!! Jeez, this is only a 50 liter tank!!

Perhaps I should consider a hydroxy booster like Adam Curry recently installed?!? Anyway, I’m glad Adam keeps me/us up to date with the how and why of todays oil prices in his DSC, formerly called Daily Source Code, but since it ain’t daily no more, I expect it to be soon called, uhh, Dandy Source Code? 😉

Apple released their first update for the v2.0 firmware this week. No exciting new features, but there are some fixes which make life even better (for instance a decrease in the time needed to open the ‘Contacts’ and ‘SMS’ applications). I can’t wait until the iPhone Dev Team releases an update of their unlock/activate/jailbreak tool, supporting v2.0.1!

AppleInsider has a nice article on the features available in the iPhone OS and its software update pace/process compared to other smartphone platforms.

We have been playing the cardgame ‘Uno‘ a lot during my sisters (and brother in law) visit in the last week. It’s a relative simple cardgame yet HEAPS of fun to play with friends (or family ;)).

My tip; make sure you buy it when you see it in the store and take it with you on your next trip out!

One of the most remarkable things in last nights game (a draw, 1-1) was the start of the game; Vålerenga’s supporter club ‘Klanen’ (the Clan) is sometimes called “the best male choir in Norway”, last night we found out why: before the start of the game they all (and with all I mean ALL), sing the Vålerenga Kjerke song, a spectacular experience:

I’ll go to see my first live soccer game in Norway today!

Vålerenga – Fredrikstad is the game, and we’ll be with my brother in law Arjan and my best friend Willy. He is supporting Vålerenga, the best team but currently 7th in the competition ;), while Fredrikstad is ranked first…it’s gonna be an interesting game! 😉

Norway was one of the countries where one could see the solar eclipse. Way up north (in Svalbard so indeed, WAY up north!) the sun completely disappeared behind the moon. Here in Oslo we had just a 39% eclipse, still a special event:

(Foto: ERIK SUNDHEIM)

It is exactly one year ago today, right at this very moment (13.24h), that I arrived at the BIG house in Hagan near Oslo after driving up to Norway from NL.

I remember the handover with the landlord being smooth, and there I was…IN Norway with some basic stuff to survive (computers, tv, stereo, clothing), enjoying a beer in the sun on the veranda.

Wow, I’m living here for a full year now…life is GREAT! (and I DON’T want to leave!)

Oh boy, if these rumors prove to be true I am definately IN for a new MacBook! (actually almost bought one this month, but was expecting something new very soon…)

The new MacBook(Pro)’s would have new chipsets (kind of obvious, eh?), designed specifically for Apple in order to deliver optimum performance, and extended battery life. They should be lower in weight, thinner and overall have a more compact size…and they support a multi-touch trackpadmade of glass, wow!