Here's something fun to try out if and when you are in an adventurous mood to explore.
Take a 3D tour of the planets.

For Thea's birthday the whole family came up to Amsterdam, picked up Oma, and took the tram into town. After my work, I joined them and we had a fun and relaxing celebration at some Italian restaurant nearby. Hard to believe that Thea is already (?) years old. For me though, she is just as young and charming (and beautiful) as when I first met her more than twenty years ago. Sorry if that sounds corny, but it is true.

That old guy over there was getting older and older with an accelerated speed which was hard to deal with. And then all of a sudden, it turned around and he got younger. Younger and younger full circle until he just disappeared like a wisp in the wind caused by the passing tram. All the while I was standing nearby, had to avoid the tram at the last possible moment (in order to witness the exact moment of imploding nothingness), and when it was all over I just turned my head back around to the front, continuing on my usual way. As if nothing had really happened at all.

This is my new PDA.

What a waste of a long-deserved weekend. I finally woke up at around ten-thirty and did not get out of bed until way after eleven. During the week, I get up every morning at six o'clock sharp and it's a mad rush for me to shower, get dressed, eat breakfast (jam on bread and coffee) and then hastily cycle to town in order to catch the train to Amsterdam in time. Now on the first day of the weekend, I am already five hours behind the usual day routine. Oh well, I guess I needed the rest and relaxation, even if it meant lying around in bed with a semi-comatose mentality.

Have you ever wanted to keep track of your blog entries which are the most popular, e.g. those visited the most?

Well, here's a little something I created on my blog that not only keeps a running record of these totals but also allows you to display the results in a couple of ways.

Continued...

Although I was a little groggy, I quickly realized that it was an amazingly beautiful morning cycling along the water on my way to the train station. Greenness all over the place and the moist smell of grass and leaves and water lilies. On the bike, pedaling along, waiting for it to happen, or not.

Thea's alarm goes off this morning at six o'clock because she has to work an early day shift, and what does she do? She rolls over and shakes me violently, saying that I have to get up. Come on now, wake up you.

Alright, alright.

I meander downstairs to have breakfast reading the morning paper, and then my wristwatch alarm goes off (at the usual time of six fifteen) and I think: what?! How is this possible? Beep, beep, beep. I am really confused how this possibly could be happening, like time shifting randomly all over the place. One second you are here and the next second you are over there. Until that is, I am standing in the shower roughly fifteen minutes later.

(Notice how many of the time slots interestingly enough seem to be split into fifteen minute intervals).

Thea dashes in the bathroom with the mirrors all steamed up, and she asks grumpily why I let her over sleep, it is so late -- now she has to rush to work...

All of a sudden I get it.

I tell her that her alarm has gone off at the right time, but rather than getting up herself she was so dreamily confused that she thought it was my alarm.

(By the by, Thea's and my alarm clocks sound completely different, but you know how distorted external sounds can sound in dreams).

She could not even remember it so it was hard to convince her that that had really happened. To think that I could have slept a quarter of an hour more and feel that much more relaxed.

Rather than getting mad (my wife is always afraid that I might get mad), I jokingly say that the next time I will get up at five o'clock in the morning in order to make her feel better and make sure I would wake her up in time.

She was glad and/or relieved (and even laughed) that I could take things in stride and not get all worked up about it. No use now getting all irate about nothing, is there?

And then all of a sudden there were two of us standing in front of the very same door. The question was: what next? If I made a move first, would the other do the same? And if I waited too long and gave him the chance instead? While the average bystanders might have perceived the situation somewhat differently, I was not about to take any unnecessary risks. So that is what I did, or did not.

Is ther intelligent life beyond this planet? Better yet, is there even intelligent life here on Earth? Not quite sure.

I never could have imagined that I would be able to nod off in the train while sitting up. However, during the last week I have slowly but surely mastered this fine art of sleeping while on the move. When you think about it, things could get nasty if you fail to wake up in time. You open your eyes and the train is empty and you are sitting all alone at the final destination somewhere random in Holland. This almost happened to me in the afternoon on my way back home. Not like you are sleeping real deep, but it is close to the edge. A semi-light wavering dream state during which your hearing is blocked off like you have been placed in your own sealed jar. At the last possible moment when the train was slowing to a stop at the Gouda station, I just happened to wake up thank God. Kind of like when you somehow wake up ten seconds before your alarm clock goes off.

It never ceases to amaze me how many people there still are out there who underestimate and/or are completely unaware of the power to change the realities around them. Such a shame of the unharnessed, untapped unperceptions right there at our finger tips. Have a look over there and think about it. Maybe then you will understand a little better what I mean. Actually.

Boy I am sure glad that I do not live over there in one of the houses across the street, right next to the water. At night the croaking and squeaking sound of a thousand and one frogs, toads and other amphibious creatures is bad enough. Imagine having to sleep in bed with your windows open right above that cacophony of sounds. The ironic thing is that while those houses are exactly like ours, except for the fact that they are stand-alone, they cost about half as much more than ours. Then again I might be suffering an acute case of over irritation at trivial sounds, something I was born with and make more of a big deal about than is necessary. The so-called poor souls living over there right next to the bunch of bull frogs probably do not notice a single thing. So what am I complaining about again?

I happened to read on the CNN.com web site that "the U.S. Supreme Court today ruled that a California atheist could not challenge the words 'one nation under God' in the Pledge of Allegiance..."

The Dutch folks here look pretty amazed and puzzled when I tell them that when I grew up in America, every morning before classes started we all had to stand at attention, cross our hearts and recite the following now famous, patriotic pledge:

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

Every single morning, five days a week, the whole year round. A proud and patriotic voice would echo over the PR system, grabbing our attention by saying: "please stand now for the pledge of allegiance." Being chosen to make this announcement over the intercom was certainly an honor and a privilege, something to feel jealous about -- if only I had been chosen.

Like we are being brainwashed (which is kind of true when you think about it logically).

When I was little, somewhere around the first or second grade, I did not understand anything at all what it meant, this so-called pledge of allegiance. In fact, I remember being quite confused about the word "which" being in there for some strange reason. Didn't make sense at all. So afterwards, I quietly went to the front of the class and asked the teacher what that "witch" was doing in there. Why would a wicked witch with an ugly wart on her nose be in the pledge of allegiance?

I completely forget what her answer was.

So you just got back home, and already you are preparing for the following day. Just try and relax and enjoy the moment, will you.

So I am really sorry that I kicked you so hard in the knee. But please allow me to explain. There was this little old lady sitting right next to you. She had an over-sized fish bowl balanced ever so precariously on her delicate lap. There were even these exotic multi-colored fish swimming around in circles, all excited and nervous. As the train negotiated the curves, the water sloshed back and forth. When we hit the first slight bump and then the second which was a little bit harder, the bowl tipped over towards my side. The fish bowl and all began to tumble to the floor. That's when I jerked awake so I could catch it just in time. My reflexes caused my leg to fling itself upwards and kick you. Sorry about that, I hope you understand.

On Thursday, June 17, 2004 at 02:16:22 (PDT)
the hit-count for Gibberations is: 40000.

Alright so I decide to purchase this game called Fish Tycoon for my new PDA in order to help pass my time while sitting in the train.

The only problem is that I cannot figure it out. But I am not that dumb I thought.

Why are my fish dying? How come the pregnant fish never give birth? Why isn't anyone buying my fish?

Just a few questions I will have to figure out in the coming days.

"The account for gishteq.com has been cancelled as you requested."

It's now really time to say good-bye to an old friend.

Farewell gishteq.com I will miss you.

There is no way on earth that I am going to let this author bore me to death. That was more than likely his original purpose when he decided to start writing this book in the first place.

--- There he is that bugger sitting over in the corner laughing that evil laugh of his, wondering to himself how many poor souls he will fool, suck into his book and never let go. ---

I will beat him at his own game no matter what. Only two more short chapters to go, and I will have finished the book at last. Every few days a page or two, struggling to move my eyes from left to right, from the top of the page to the bottom and then on over to the following page. The book itself is actually not that thick at all, only a little over two hundred and fifty pages.

--- Each chapter is short enough to survive, as each and every step through the quagmire is attempted and completed with out-of-breath success. ---

I have made it this far and there is no giving up now. Each time I can flip the next page over there is an extreme sense of relief, senseless survival, temporary comfort in knowing that slowly but surely I am winning this unfair contest. Not an easy task that is for sure, but I will show him.

--- Even though he passed away a few years ago (1997), meaning just another death in the nuclear age. ---

The extremely boring man sat right behind me again on my train journey back home. I could hear him very clearly, but this time around decided to try and ignore his amazingly mundane words which repeated themselves endlessly. Yes, no, you must be kidding, I agree, uh-huh, sure, no way, hum, dum, hard to believe, you don't say, I disagree, ad infinitum and then a mad recycling round and round. I thought it would make me crazy again, but somehow I survived.

There is a creative mind out there but it is not mine. The challenge now is somehow to harnass that little bit of whatever or whoever and reform it into something that appears similar to me.

This MediaWiki thing could be the way to go when it comes to communicating in a pseudo-structured endless manner. You might want to have a look at the Wikipedia (an open-content encyclopedia in many languages), Wiktionary (a collaborative project to produce a free multilingual dictionary in every language) or Wikiquote (a free online compendium of quotations in every language) and more for a quick(?) glimpse into the endless possibilities of this intertwined medium. Pretty amazing stuff, that's for sure.

The long-haired bum was dancing around up and down screaming his lungs out. Like he was some kind of rock and roll star on stage for all the passersby to see in wondrous awe. In truth he was making a complete fool of himself. But he didn't realize it. Upturned cap lying on the sidewalk, hoping for some spare change (which never came). When he started strutting himself by taking long steps from one end of the block to the next, that's when the winds came up. Some folks had to jump away at the last moment in order not to get trampled over, seeking cover at the side of the building. Away from the storm. Safe distance from the rock and roll bum.

Rummage around a 3D human brain to see just where your own body clock sits, gently ticking away.

On the one hand for nerds only, but on the other hand quite informative for those who are curious about human nature (like me).

It is a well-known fact that God created everything around you including yourself. After that it is up to you to keep on creating things as you see fit. This must come from your heart and spirit, otherwise it will not work as expected.

In just two days from now, Sabien will be taking part in the class musical on Wednesday evening. She is a little nervous as you can imagine, because it is a big thing. She has this singing act she has been rehearsing for the last couple of weeks (even I know it by heart by now). As a kind of practice session, they tried the skit out today for the third and fourth grade classes, just to get a feel for the upcoming big event. Sabien was disappointed that they made so many mistakes and kids were forgetting their lines. Once the stage was even empty for two whole minutes as everyone panicked not knowing who was next. As an understanding father, I tried my best to explain to her that it was not so important to have everything run absolutely perfectly without any mistakes. Sabien just shook her head, she couldn't figure me out. Boring parents, they just don't know much nowadays do they?

Most people try to predict the future through logical thinking. Trends in the past extended into the future should be a relatively good indication of things to come. But is this really the most accurate means of deciding what the future will in the end bring? Intuition and plain common sense can very well balance out the boring technical details of what mathematically should occur, at least say within a ten percent margin of error. The differences are what we should actually be looking for and not the similarities.

Sorry but have no time to write this evening. Big game between Holland and Portugal. The semi-finals for the European Soccer Championship. At the break it's 0-1 darn it. Gotta go.