I have not written anything for over a year now. There have been some changes in my life, positive ones for sure. But it is with mixed feeling that I close this blog and finsih my life as a sunny. Over the last few years I have studied philosophy and got a Master in Applied Ethics. Now I have the opportunity to do a PHD in exactly that field here at my hometown university. I start 1st of June, my last day at Sun will be the 31st of May. Hence no more Sun Cluster for me. No more computer industry. I have worked here for eight years and it were eight great years. I would never dream of working for another company or working with a different product. But now it is time to change my life completely.

 

The other change is of course the birth of my son Roman on the first of September 2006. He is doing fine and is now a cute 8-months old baby who is trying to crawl but still with no great success. Being a mother has been great!

 

So I say goodbye now to you all and close this blog. Take care and remember that Sun Cluster is still the best piece of software around! Cheers...

 

 

David, my 'SO' has a blog as of today. So I promised to make some publicity. He loves JAVA so I guess there is a lot of interesting stuff for people visiting this site too.

Here is the link: http://www.jroller.com/page/upperdowner

I have not been blogging for quite awhile now and have been receiving some complaints about it...

I wanted to post a picture of the reason of the delay here, but I have been unable to configure my printer anex copymachine anex scanner to scan. Printing and copying works but not scanning. In fact this is the worst piece of hardware I have ever laid my hands on, but I'll be fair and not mention any brandnames.

So I shall just write about it. As of today I am 17 weeks pregnant :o) The picture I was planning to post was the ultrasound taken at 12 weeks where you can actually see the baby in its entirety: legs, arms, body, head. Admitted, the head is very big compared to the body so he or she looked a bit like an alien at that stage, but we have been told that that is normal :o)

The reason why I haven't been blogging about it earlier is that I have felt sooooo miserable. Not psychologically, because the baby is of course very welcome, but physically. The first 14 weeks I was tired the whole day long and instead of morning sickness I was suffering from afternoon and evening sickness. To say it in a nice way, whatever I ate for dinner did not stay for a long time in my body and when it came out it was the wrong way :o). Even now I sometimes feel sick but at least I am able to eat a littlebit. Also strange, but less annoying is that I have developed strange tastes: I am eating up to 6 nectarines a day, lots of oranges, but have stopped drinking coffee altogether. I just can't stand the taste of it (whereas before I drank up to 5 cups a day). As an ex smoker I never really cared about other people smoking or sitting in smokey areas but right now I can't even stand the smell of it, it makes me physically ill. I have thus become an unpopular person amongst smokers who have to share my table. Oh well.

So that was it, stay tuned, I shall post some pictures if ever I find out how this scanning thing works. In 3 weeks I have a 3-D ultrasound which normally produces very nice pictures of the baby's face, I hope I can post them then.

PS As for the FAQ: No we do not know whether it is a boy or a girl. We have decided we'd like to be surprised at birth so we are not going to ask next time we have the ultrasound. FAQ2: Due date is 2nd of September.

First of all I want to wish everyone a merry Christmas and a happy New Year. I especially picked out this New Years card for you, but beware it is only for those with a sense of humor and it contains nudity:
http://www.mortierbrigade.com/christmas/

I am not taking holidays this year as I have spent last year's holidays and have to save next year's holidays for the Master I am taking (and its associated exams and seminars). But I am a bit jealous though of those who do have holidays! Anyway enjoy them and think sometimes about the poor sods like me who have to work and write papers :o)

Anyway:

Well cocooning has been the next big thing for quite awhile now and what is better than a nice glass of wine and a TV series on DVD? It all started when I bought 24 series 1 two years ago and since then we have seen: 24 series 2 & 3, Blake's 7 series 1 & 2 & 3, The Shield series 1 & 2, The Singing Detective, Twin Peaks (a SHAME that they don't release  the episodes after 7 !!), Murder One, Star Trek (the original one with Captain Kirk and friends),  quite some Doctor Who, Red Dwarf, and I am sure I miss some..

So 2 weeks ago I got 24 series 4. As this was one of our favourite series it was anxiously awaited and we did have some nice evenings but overall it was a disappointment...

Here's why (contains spoilers):

-It wasn't Real Time !! Chloe for example in one episode does the following in less than 10  minutes: change from pyamas to real clothes, put on some makeup, make it from her appartment to CTU office.
And there are many examples of that. The idea of 24 was exactly that it was Real Time, and they should stick to it as best as they can.

-There just was too much going on in 24 hours. Focus on one big issue to be solved in the end and one smaller issue in the beginning like in previous series.

-Some episodes were just plain boring.

-The Chinese consulate storyline was just totally incredible

-What ever happened to Behrooz? I liked him!!! You cannot have your audience sympathize with a character for some hours and then just let him vanish from the story. That is not how television works...

-I thought that some of the content was not politically correct but that is my personal opinion. There were some meager attemps in the story to avoid that accusation (the 2 brothers helping Jack during the firefight in the shop, Behrooz...) but they were a bit stupid.

OK I AM looking forward to 24 series 5 because 24 has always been good fun but this time it was just less fun than usual.

During the months of May and June I have strictly allowed myself to think only about my 2 philosophy exams during my spare time. This means that I have only read stuff like Richard Rorty's Contingency, Irony and Solidarity (was quite good though) and that I had a pile of books staring at me from the shelves. They were my after-exam treats and now that the exams are over I am anxious to finish them all before the new academic year starts in October. Since I have discovered that I spend far too much money on books anyway, I plan to not allow myself not to buy anything new before these are finished.
The books are a combination of books about ethics (I plan to tackle a Master in Applied Ethics course next year in evening classes) and fiction.

I am currently reading:
*Animal Liberation, by Peter Singer
*Solaris, by Stanislaw Lem (NOTHING to do with the Operating System, but a brilliant SF book from 1970)

Here is an overview of what I plan to read:
*A Companion to Ethics, Edited by Peter Singer
*Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
*Applied Ethics: A Reader, Edited by Jerrold R. Coombs and Earl Winkler
*Omega Minor, by Paul Verhaeghen (Dutch)
*Pleidooi voor een moraal der Dubbelzinnigheid, Simone de Beauvoir
*Animal Ethics Reader, Edited by Susan Armstrong and Richard Botzler
*Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, Roddy Doyle

This weekend, while my David was away on a mountainbiking weekend, I fell in love with another man.
He is a slightly older guy, and has fathered 17 children who are currently in foster care. He himself is in prison but was allowed out for the Sunday afternoon. We went for a walk with my dog Lukka. He was shy at first but at when we sat down in the grass at the end of the walk he gave me a kiss on my nose. We went to my brother's and both my brother and my little niece immediately liked him. I took him home where after some minutes of restlessness he sat down quietly beside me. Too soon he had to return to where he came from and it was with a broken heart that I dropped him off. He didn't want to leave me so the guards had to push him back to his cage. Next week I shall visit him again, together with David, so that he also gets a chance to meet this wonderful guy and to consider allowing a second man to live in our house.
His name is Madde. You can see his picture here.

The BBC has just released Season 3 of Blake's 7 on DVD. For those of you who do not know it, this was a SF series from the 70s (played in Belgium beginning of the 80s). Far less posh than Star Trek but good dialogues and less straightforward goodies vs baddies. Blake for example is a freedom fighter who is willing to risk his life and that of his crew for his cause. His crew are criminals: hackers, smugglers and petty tieves.

Here is my first impression of Season 3:

-Blake and Jenna are no longer part of the crew. Dayna and Tarrant joined. Also, the federation is reduced to a sheer shadow of what it was before which means that the original idea (Blake vs the federation) is far less prevalent. However, this also means that the current crew is far more relaxed: they play a future version of monopoly and eat snacks.
-This season is far more sexy than Season 1 and 2:
*Avon kisses Servalan in episode 1
*Dayna kisses Avon in episode 1
*Servalan kisses a guy called Jarvik in episode 5. She is impressed by his virility and ancient Greek values (I guess)
* Vila kisses a girl (and it is hinted that they even make love but this is not shown) in episode 6.
-So far the individual stories were very good. Better than in Episode 2.

Let us hope the BBC, who is doing a great job releasing their old series, releases the final Season 4 on DVD in the near future.

Oh, please also go and sign this petition, to have the entire Twin Peaks series released on DVD at last!.

Or so it seems ...

We are getting our kitchen refurbished. We have an very old kitchen with adjacent a very old bathroom, now used to store pet  food and toys. There is a shabby toilet in the middle. This has to be transformed in one big kitchen area with glass doors looking out to our terrace. We will have a new toilet for guests coming out on the ground floor corridor (and not in the kitchen as is the case now :o(
We already bought all kitchen furniture and equipment in January. They will start placing it when the construction works have finished. And here's where the misery starts.
We were looking for an contractor that is willing to supervise the entire work: electricity, constructions,  heating...
But it seems like most Belgian contractors will not come out to play unless they are asked to do entire houses or appartments. At last there were two that were willing to come and take a look. The first one came and promised me to get back to me after 10 days. Two months later: still nothing. So I called him and he said he would show up in 2 weeks, which he did. He was going to send us a price offering in 10 days. It is now 2 months later and still we haven't heard anything.
The second one we really liked, and this one looked very professional. However: it is very hard getting hold of him as well.
-We had the first appointment on a Wednesday at 7pm. At 8pm he wasn't there so we called him and he said he was very busy and could he come the next day at 8pm.
-Next day he came! YES!! Very nice guy, we really wanted him. He said he would send us a price offering in 2 weeks.
-3 weeks later we were getting nervous and called him. He said it would take him another week. The next week he called to have an appointment 2 weeks later.
-This appointement was last Tuesday 7pm. When he hadn't showed up at 8pm, we called him: "Could he postpone it till tomorrow" he asked, because he had lots of phone calls to do. Oh well...
-Wednesday 8pm: got a phone call from him that his wife had an accident. Nothing serious he just couldn't come. Now he will definitely come next Sunday at 11am...
I don't want to accuse anyone of lying: everyone deserves the benefit of a doubt and I hope his wife, if she had an accident, was fine, but I found it striking that the "wife's had an accident, but she and the car are OK" excuse has been used by different contractors at friends and family. If they all are telling the truth there should be an investigation in the relation between being an contractor's wife and being more prone to non-severe car accidents.
The kitchen has to be finished before the end of October because afterwards it will be too cold to do the construction works.
Sometimes I think we are just too naive to deal with this kind of stuff or we do not play it hard enough. I hope we have to deal with contractors only very few times in my life so there is not much time for practice...

Last  week hasproven again that one week is just too short for a vacation :o( Especially when you are in the South of France, in a rented house with beautiful weather...
So here is a short recap:
Friday: We drove up to Macon in the Bourgogne where we stayed in a nice hotel and enjoyed a nice dinner. Dogs allowed in both hotelroom and restaurant!
Saturday: Continued our journey to the Gorges du Verdon where we had rented a gite 7 km from La Palud sur Verdon.
Sunday: Did an 8 kilometer walk. Very hot. Had a sunstroke in the evening. Had simple but good dinner in restaurant La Provence in La Palud. Fortunately in the evening David told me that we did not **have** to go for a walk every day: every other day would be fine...
Monday: Visited Moustiers-Sainte-Marie. Touristy but beautiful. Climbed all the stairs up to the Chapel of Notre Dame de Beauvoir (Simone?). At least Lukka enjoyed the climb, as you can see on the picture.
Tuesday: Another walk. This time along the very nice river Siagne in the Var region with a romantic bridge (Pont des Tuves) and cute little Canal de Siagne. Great walk except for the steep climb at the end :o)
Wednesday: Stayed at our gite the whole day. I have 2 exams in June so I spent this day studying in the Sun. In the evening we did our first Vegetarian Barbecue, and even my meat-eating David and dog did not miss the meat :o) Suggestion: artichokes on the barbecue dipped in aioli.
Tuesday: Did the famous Sentier Martel, or at least a dog friendly variant of it. More about this in another post. We also had dinner in a superb place called Le Refuge ran by a Belgian lady.
Friday: We rented an electric boat to explore parts of the Gorges du Verdon from the Lac de St Croix.
Saturday: Back home... Back to life and reality :o(((

***Beware: this is an entry especially for my grandmother who is 78 years old, has just recently bought her first computer and is taking her first steps on the information freeway. She has an email address since this week and I just wrote her an email pointing to this blog.*** 

Dag oma, dit is een berichtje speciaal voor jou.  Fijn dat je nu ook op het internet bent! Groetjes vanwege Kristien...

 

Well, I just discovered the Amazon Wish List functionality. If anyone feels an uncontrollable urge to buy me a present, you can look for suggestions here:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/registry/2JEYSJOYMGZEU/ref%3Dwl%5Fem%5Fto/026-9029452-3096423

:o))))))))))))))

 

 

 

The Ancienne Belgique is in my opinion the nicest concert buildings of Belgium. It has 2 concert halls: a (not too) big one and a smaller, cosy one. It also has a nice restaurant and reasonably good wine.
I saw 2 concerts there recently, one from Einsturzende Neubauten (their 25th anniversary tour), which was, as always, excellent. But then I think Blixa Bargeld is quite sexy (that sassy English with German accent, those dandy clothes, the pixie hair!) and they played all the singalong songs like Perpetuum Mobile...
They played 2 hours with a 20  minutes break for which I was grateful: last year they played a 3 hours set with no break which was hell for my feet...
Other concert was from a group called Sunno))) (yes, sunn and then a triple chinned smiley without the eyes). Only during the concert I realized what this name meant o))) is part of a sun pictogramme: (((o))). This was projected during the first 15 minutes of the concert. Sunno))) is an experience: they basically played a one strech song of 1,5 hours which was composed of loooonggggggg hypnotical sounds. Most people would consider it sheer noise I guess. I liked the first 15 minutes but I must say I was  glad when this concert was finally over, especially because it was really too noisy (fortunately the AB provides free earplugs and most people ended up asking for them).

March 18th saw Paul Schraeder and a whole bunch of his actors coming over to the Brussels International Festival of Fantastic Film to present the World Premiere of their movie 'The Exorcist The Prequel the Original Version' (or something like that). The story behind this movie is the following: Paul Schraeder (writer of Taxi Driver !!!!!!) was asked to direct a Prequel to the classical movie The Exorcist, but after the movie was finished, the powers that be decided that it was too psychological and had too few action scenes. So the prequel was redone by some other guy, but it wasn't a huge success. Schraeder was allowed to release his version by himself though and there we were, expecting a nice piece of psychological thriller anex horror story. Admittedly, I never even saw the original Exorcist movie (I do remember reading the book when I was 12, a friend's parents had it and this friend lent it out to the entire class without them knowing) so I couldn't compare but this "original-prequel" was a disappointment. Setting is the desert where a priest who is in a religious crisis discovers a kind of church buried under the sand. By uncovering it, guess what happens: Evil is set free and a boy becomes posessed by the devil. The rest of the story I don't think I have to repeat.
Anyway, besides from some very vague allusions on the subject of personal guilt there was not much 'psychological' about this movie and the action and special effects were really too weak to provide any kind of horror or tension (I don't really want my  horror movies to be very deep as long as they are at least exciting). A missed chance, especially since the topic does lend itself for good movies, think about The Omen and Rosemary's Baby.

On March 24th (the movie started at midnight so it was actually March 25th) we saw Izo by Takashi Miike. Saw another movie of this director lately: Ishi the Killer which was very good but also very shockingly violent (in fact I missed big parts of this film because I daren't watch some of the more gory torture scenes -- and there were many.) I could watch Izo in its entirety however, although there was a lot of killing and hacking with swords, in good Samurai tradition. Izo was a fighter who was crucified in the 19th century and came back for revenge in present-day Tokio. Although Izo deteriorates more and more into a senseless demon we do feel pity with this relentless murderer as we can almost feel his suffering throughout the movie. True, I probably missed lots of hidden content because I am not so familiar with Samurai movie tradition and the hour this movie played was also unfavourable for deep philosophical thinking, but I liked it a lot.