Happy Newyear to you all. I’m back to work after a week of. A very lazy week, so the alarm this morning was cruel!
Jan 032011
Oct 292010
As long as I can remember, I used the alias SwitchBL8. It started when gaming got network-capabilities and the first “clans” started to appear. I was member of a clan of friends/colleagues, the [CBB]: Clan Brutal Butchers. At that time, we were brutal butchers. Look at what 15 years changes… 😉
Today I registered SwitchBL8.nl (or just switchbl8.nl) as a domain. This weblog will move eventually, but first I have to get everything in working order. I’ll keep you all updated.
Sep 262010
When I joined Facebook some time ago, I had nothing with the games being played on it. The strange wall and all it’s posts from others just felt alien compared to Hyves, where your page is yours own, and others can only comment on stuff or respect (like) them.
A couple of months ago, I was lured into FishWrangler (yep, pun intended), a simple (no Flash needed) fishing game, but with a very large and very active community. When getting the hang of it, I also accepted long standing requests for ZooWorld and FarmVille.
And here I am now, playing FishWrangler with 2 accounts, FarmVille with 2, ZooWorld with 2 and MafiaWars (very nice) on 1. Helping others when they are struggling with how the wall or a game works, and enjoying myself all the time. Well, okay, not all the time: accepting the zillionth Train Whistle for your collection when you already have a surplus of 30 is not always very entertaining, but overall, the games clear the mind and make a very good pastime.
Make sure you have (or make) a lot of FaceBook friends, they are key to the succes of most games. Have fun!
Sep 182010
Yesterday (well, last night) I was driving home from Groningen to Barendrecht, and switched on Navigon for the first part of the road and to see at what time I would be home (the estimated arrival time). I had the Milestone hooked up on the car’s USB-port to charge it, and was driving home quite happily, listening to David Guetta’s party on SlamFM. Of course the stereo was on 22 (which I can tell you is considerably louder than is good for me).
At a certain junction on the highway I wanted to make sure I took the right (as oppossed to wrong) lane, and looked to my Milestone to see what Navigon showed. To my suprise, the Milestone was blank. Black. Switched off. I turned on the Milestone again, only to see the Motorola “M” after which it died again. WTF?! Putting the car on cruise-control, I opened the back of the phone, checked the battery, replaced it, only to find that the phone would not even show the “M” anymore… My Milestone just died! It was still more than an hour driving, so I could not check anything else than I already had checked.
At about 3am I was home, I hooked up the Milestone to the charger, and it immediately responded with the charging-battery-icon. Phee-ew! When I checked later this morning after I woke up, the phone was properly charged and in 100% working order. Pheeeee-eeew!
Lesson learned: having Bluetooth for the carkit and GPS and the screen on all the time means that USB-charging is not enough to compete with the battery-drain……..
Sep 012010
Some people hack into resources of others. My wiki and my forums are almost constantly being hacked into, pages are altered, users are created, spam is left behind, etcetera, etcetera. That’s annoying.
I decided that the forums and the wiki will have to go. I hardly ever use them anyway. This is a message so you know where they went after they’re gone.
Aug 052010
The Bravo surpassed the 5000km early this morning. I don’t even have the car for 1 month yet (still 3 days to go). Wow.
Jul 092010
Yes, I received my new (lease)car yesterday. Finally! It’s a Fiat Bravo Business. With a lot of extras of course. Although the engine is about the same size as my previous car (1.6 common rail diesel, 120bhp) the Bravo feels and reacts more potent, and it’s a lot quieter, but that’s with most new diesels.
Driving in a traffic jam is a breeze with the automatic gearbox (which is not so common in the Netherlands), and I can even switch to semi-automatic so I need to change gear by moving the stick to + or to -, or by using the flippers on my steering wheel just like in a race car. When driving semi-automatic, I prefer the flippers.
The car came with Blue&Me, a voicecontrolled carkit. I’ve heard stories of voicecontrolled carkits in other carbrands and the stories were not happy stories. So I was a bit afraid I would have the same experience. But without any glitch I coupled my private and my business phone (you can register several users) and both of them work flawlessly. The voicecontrol is brilliant, and works when talking loud or soft of even when you’re mumbling a bit. Compliments to Fiat for such a good system.
Mar 042010
When I stopped being a freelancer, my salary dropped dramatically (to about 25%). We (back then I was part of a “we”) coped, but we needed to cut back some expenses. One of the things were my contacts. I bought them at a very good, but expensive specialist, so I switched to the so called LTP (Lens Totaal Plan) from Hans Anders. You save some money each month and after six months this money is enough for 6 pairs of contacts. And so it goes on and on. It was said, that whenever you would stop the program, the money you had save up until then, would be refunded.
Last week I sent in the form to stop the LTP. Today I got the confirmation letter. Along with a coupon for the money saved so far. To find that this money can only be spend on……contacts in a Hans Anders shop. Not even glasses, or sunglasses, no…just contacts.
What a big ugly fuck-up company Hans Anders is!
Period.
Mar 042010
Completely forgot about this occassion to party: RaRe IT Services became 10 this year!
Feb 022010
You know that you really left a company when you try to log in to the system and you get an “auth_fail_exception”. Buh-bye Transfer. Hello Merkator!