Fluffy has entered the building

Being a dog lover and an Obama supporter I must say I like the new addition to the whitehouse.

According to some newspapers:

Mr Obama had promised his two daughters a puppy during the presidential campaign. He had also pledged to the wider public that they would find a rescue dog.
However, the search for a puppy was complicated by the fact that Malia is allergic to dogs and the Obamas chose a breed which is supposedly hypo-allergenic.
The dog was given up by his previous owner but never spent time in a shelter before he was snapped up by Mr Kennedy, who owns three of the dogs.

Above the picture it says:Whitehouse finally has it's "first puppy"

Enjoy, doglover all over the world !

Andre

statistics and reality - mismatch by nature

Well, it's funny what you read in the papers. According to most Dutch newspapers we dutchies like grey cars best, followed by black and then, after a big gap, other colored vehicles.

Now, I've taken the liberty to copy results of a poll and measure that against the statement of the newspapers. What seems to be the case = most people that voted there like black cars most, followed by grey-metallic.

Now why would so many people like grey cars?

The answer seems to be that car manufacturers have found out that metallic grey is the most fashion resistant color. So they started producing more and more of that color. Knowing that most people that buy a car are not willing to pay extra for another color ( and possibly being afraid not to be able to sell it if it's not boring grey) they buy the grey one.

Searching a little further I found out that the statement regarding the color preferrences originated out of a study that mentioned the colors of cars in the Netherlands.

This brings me back to my gavorite saying of Queen Beatrix regarding " reported news":

It's all a lie !

In fact the only thing that the papers base their statement on is the just published statistic of " what colors do dutch cars have?"

So, should you feel the need to get yourself a bright yellow or blue car then know that your not alone and that there are more colored car liovers then the newspapers wnat you to believe!

Enjoy a colorfull life !

Andre

Spring in the Netherlands - 1 day early

I would like to wish everybody a wonderfull spring but then I just found out that spring start's on 20th of march here in the netherlands but official spring is not here before march 21st.

So you just have to wait one day longer. Interested in the topics?

Here some links:


Click on the language for a Wikipedia page on spring in DUTCH or ENGLISH

Obama Sushi roll

Like I said many times before:
If you want to be worshiped you need to be someone in the USA.

Latest evidence : Obama Sushi rools :-)
They do look nice though....















Click here to read the original article on Geekologie.

have fun,

Andre

Sping has begun

It's here and I couldn't be more exited about it. Spring, the time of the year that all those bold and ambitous plans of the year are being made.

This year I will of course:

- build a new porch in the garden and add a pergola

- plant a tree

- create a new and exciting water feature

- renovate the upper floor of the house

- build a garden infornt of the house

- grow fruit and begatables

- find a solution for the slug problem

- will not forget to water the plants

- clean the house more often

- make plans for a new kitchen, dressingroom, library and bathroom

- get a scooter

... and many more things to do!

Thats of course a rough planning and has nothing to do with the actual reality that I live in. Should, at the end of the year, 25% od those plans been realsied I'll be the happiest man alive but I am actually allready glad if I manage to plant the tree and do the backyard renovation.

One project-preparation I will do as soon as possible is cleaning up the autumn/winter mess in the garden so I can see where to begin with my backyard plans.

crisis everywhere

It seems to be a sign of these times. Everything is collapsing and there's nothing one can do about it.

Economies and people crashing I can certainly handle but now my new Iphone crashes on me as well. Seems it has problems with some apps and the sync with Itunes (or the other way around). Anyway, all basic apps like phone, Itunes, Calendar etc work well. All downloaded apps (games, news, etc) start up and then crash within 2 seconds stranding me back at the Iphone desktop.

Now, a solution I found is to reset the phone and then reinstall the apps. That would be quite doable but my mobile provider has disconnected me because they had a different start date for my contract then I requested.

So, since two days I spend time on phoning my mobile provider, checking problem causes on my crashing Iphone and quite less time on just enjoying having a new phone. Normally that would irritate me more but when it works it is AMAZING so I've decided to give it another week.

Will try to post my experiences here should I have time left :-)

Andre

Update: about 15 minutes after typing this post I checked my phone and my provider has enabled my service again so I can use the 3G phone again and reinstall the apps to see if it makes any difference. The first archievement of the day and the morning is not even over yet :-)

happy happier ihappy

It's a very very magnifient piece of work that works quite well !

After having spend a saturday on my iphone I will go to bed and have very pleasant dreams. I noticed that after using a Treo for years I need to practise typing on screen in place of buttons but that improved fast and typing became easier by the hour.

Now I can start hunting for apps and hidden treasures. I found a great remote app that lets me remotelly control Itunes but have to find the absolute killer app yet.

I am stil very shocked about how good the google maps route planning works. Will test it when I go to work monday to see it in action.

Please dont be suprised when my phone gets a few more blog entries.

It's just so much fun to share your joy :-)