Holly's evil minions

What you can expect under Obamacare.


I am fully fluent in French... but whenever I hear Candian French spoken, it's like whole sections of words have gone on holiday. It's bizarre.

Current Mood: annoyed

So yesterday my friend Janine and I went to the beach with a friend of ours we know from way back when. Every now and then we make an appointment and go somewhere to have coffee and lunch. This time we took our bikes and went to the beach of Heemskerk. You can only get there by bike or on foot, it's all forest and dunes there. So we had a lovely bike ride trough the forest. We parked our bikes before the last dunes and went up the beach. The weather was wonderful, sunshine and a soft breeze. Early in the morning it had been raining heavily and we were worried it might stay that way for the rest of the day. But we were lucky.

So we walked and talked for about 45 minutes and then turned back again to our starting point.
There are some beach houses there and a pavilion with a terrace and we had a lovely cappucino with apple pie. After that we got on our bikes again and cycled to an old farm that they transformed in to a restaurant. It's in the middle of the forest and a wonderful place to sit. There was a donkey there and it's baby, and a scottish highlander baby (so cute) and little chickens.
We had a very good salad which is a main course with bacon and smoked chicken. And because of the lovely weather and we were having such a good time we took a white beer with that.

( and some photo's )

Then after lunch we cycled to Heemskerk where Anja lives and said our goodbyes, and Janine and I went to an arts and crafts shop and bought some lovely stuff.


Out of this material I'm trying to make a pretty bag, when I succeed I'll post a picture of it.

Current Mood: artistic

Found a great and simple workaround for sleeping in this freakin' hot weather! The apartment floor is covered with artificial stone tiles which retain cold very well, and when I put a blanket on it, it becomes a naturally cooling bed which is, surprisingly, not any less comfortable than my sofa (which may not sound like a compliment to my sofa, but I'm satisfied with it :) Also, very environmentally friendly - no need for electric fans (which I can't stand) or air condition (which we don't have).

A nice fangirling dream is a bonus - but this is, of course, not guaranteed every day :)

Current Mood: awake

( Today's lj-cut message is brought to you by radio 2: mmMayaHEEE, mmMayaHOO! mmMayaHEY! mmMayaHA-HA!) )

Thirty-two more work days. Work was surprisingly bearable today, until the last two hours or so, which for some reason were hell. I do have a three-day weekend coming up, so I'll just slog through and look forward to that.

1) Sweater - finished!
2) Bracelet - finished!
3) Quilt A - unchanged
4) Quilt B - cut the binding strips.
5) Afghan - finished!
6) Reading - started another book. The last one hid all the useful information behind impenetrable jargon. This one was written in 1939 by a guy who'd read way too much Cicero. He has picked up the old blowhard's habit of rambling on in paragraph-long sentences without actually saying a goddamn thing.
7) Lace Shawl - done 66 56 out of 82 rows. 16 26 rows to go, and then the border. Miscounted.
8) Use up my sock yarn - unchanged.

Current Mood: tired

Naar aanleiding van comments op mijn vorige post ben ik nog eens gaan lezen in het opinieblog van XS4all. De post over de bewaarplicht heeft inmiddels een indrukwekkende sliert comments. Iemand maakte een overzicht van wat de overheid nu al in databases over alle burgers bijhoudt of wil gaan bijhouden. Het is een zorgwekkende lijst.

- Het elektronisch patienten dossier
- Het elektronisch kind dossier
- De database van de OV-chipkaart, waarin alle reisbewegingen van de kaarthouders worden opgeslagen
- De bewaarplicht voor de internet service providers, die voortaan van iedere internetter gedurende een jaar moeten vastleggen met wie gemaild of getelefoneerd wordt en welke websites bezocht worden
- Het Centraal Informatiepunt Onderzoek Telecommunicatie van het ministerie van Justitie, wat van alle internetgebruikers en telefoniegebruikers (vast en mobiel) nummer, naam en adres gegevens bijhoudt in een centrale database, en van welke GSM mast je gebruik maakte tijdens het mobiel bellen
- De slimme elektriciteitsmeter, die als bij effect heeft dat men kan zien wanneer je thuis bent
- De database van het rekeningrijden, waarbij iedereen een GPS kastje in de auto krijgt zodat altijd bekend is van alle autos waar ze zijn geweest en wanneer

Dan zijn er nog problemen als het doorzenden van passagiersgegevens en internationale banktransacties naar Amerika. Elke keer als je geld overmaakt naar het buitenland mag Amerika de transactiegegevens inzien. Dit is nog niet alles, maar ik houd nu maar op, anders wordt deze post wel erg lang. Maar je begrijpt denk ik wel waar ik heen wil. De hoeveelheid gegevens die over de burgers wordt opgeslagen door de overheid is enorm en zal alleen nog maar groter worden. Dit is toch wel iets om even bij stil te staan. Heeft de burger nog wel privacy, is hier de vraag. En de risico's dat er ongelukken gebeuren met zo'n enorm grote hoeveelheid gegevens worden steeds groter.

En dan heb ik het nog niet eens over instanties als Google die uitvoerige databases bijhouden van het surfgedrag van vele internetgebruikers, dat is weer een heel ander verhaal.

( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. )

After spending the countless hours of hard work on YouTube API demo (not any less than 4 hours, and that's not counting all that time browsing YouTube under the pretext of getting clips for the testing purposes :) one would expect that they'd at least have a *look* at it! apart from "thanks, no need for anything else for now". I've been checking the server logs, yes I'm vain like that. And it's such a *nice* demo, with one of my favourite blogskins, and all the API code written from scratch because I didn't like the provided examples.

Of course it was the same with the Google Groups API, and then I even didn't show the script to anyone, my report that it works was enough. And just as I've guessed, noone's interested in proceeding with it, for the next few weeks or more.

Well, I should be pleased at least for being always kept on my toes! At any rate, playing with some new technology at your leisure and with no responsibilities beats adding an n 1 field to a stupid boring database report or something alike ;) and also, to the mad rush we had while implementing Gmail for students.

Current Mood: apathetic

One more observation about Voyager. There's quite a lot of episodes where the regular characters suddenly start to behave in an evil or controversial way, which creates the conflict between them and the otherwise nice & fluffy crew. But most of the time it's a result of some sickness / malfunction / alien possession /etc, i.e. the external circumstances beyond their control, and when this condition is amended, everything returns back to normal. Kind of a meta-level of playacting, like fanfiction - the authors borrow the characters to portray them in a way which is not consistent with their usual behaviour.

Just a few of the latest episodes: "Warlord" (Kes is possessed by an evil overlord's mind), "Blood Fever" (B'Elanna is infected through a telepathic link with a Vulcan suffering from Pon Farr), "Unity" (Chakotay falls under control of the Borg Collective) and "Darkling" (The Doctor is overpowered by his evil twin created from the various personality subroutines).

It seems to me that in DS9 it doesn't happen to such extent - the conflicts occur because of the characters' own actions and personalities, and they are responsible for everything they do - while in Voyager, the affected characters can just brush everything aside at the end because they "were not themselves". Easy life!

Current Mood: bored

Today I was supposed to work with the waiting-for adoption cats. I could clean their enclosures and stuff, but after that they called me back to the quarantine cats since they needed lots of help there.

It was cute, I could skip the Mean Kitty enclosure for once (it had already been done by someone else) and could work in the enclosure with the 6 kittens instead! I spent most of the day cleaning the cages there, doing the floor, washing some laundry, refilling litter trays... I kinda feel bad because I left the girl I was supposed to work with today kind of alone. I did explain why and all, she seemed understanding, but still, I hope she wasn't pissed or anything.

Also, the shelter manager wants to give me a voluntary-worker contract, to have more control about how many hours I work, I think I also get some kind of accident insurance (and the aansprakelijkheidverzekering too, I believe, dunno how to translate that so sue me.)
I'll get to hear more about it when she returns from her holidays. :D

Anyway, in a bit I will be off to the supermarket, I am out of allergy pills and today I could notice it clearly, my chest was tight and my eyes were itchy and my nose was sniffly... (no working with chlorine today, so it was weird that my chest felt so tight...)
I'll also get some catfood and probably something for dinner tonight. We plan on hitting the gym earlier than usual and perhaps have dinner afterwards instead of eating first and then going to exercise. We'll see how that works out :)

Current Mood: bit less tired than yesterday

( Muahahaha... muahahahahah... BWAHAHAHAH! AHAHAHAHA!!!! ...hahah... heh... hm.... *ahem* )

The LJ QoTD "Have you ever had a mentor or other influential person in your life who helped you along a certain path in school, work, or life in general" and the subsequent Voyager episode Unity about the Borg collective made me think how wonderful could it be to have a connection with other humans which goes deeper than friendship and mutual respect. Maybe that's what some religious people feel about their gurus, priests, rabbis or whatever? (even that IRL I abhor the idea... Wonder if it's ever possible to get any major help & guidance from another person without feeling inferior and humiliated?)

I suppose the feelings of patriotism and belonging to the community can be also compared to Borg collective, and it could be great to experience some day...

The way of life of lonely interstellar travellers from the next episode Darkling sounds fascinating, too. Pity that one can't choose both of such contradictory paths simultaneously... or any of thousands of missed possibilities. You can try to combine the non-combinable, as the Doctor did in the same episode, trying to improve his personality by integrating the character traits of various historical characters, and ended up a total mess. (And what a lovely surprise it was! a high-tech version of "Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde").

Overall, I have to conclude that I'm stuck and need to increase variety in my life, even at the expense of balance. After all, it's a win-win situation - if I do something stupid which pushes me down the Maslow's Pyramid and forces me to get preoccupied with the basic survival needs, that will effectively get rid of these pesky "meaning of life" ruminations.

And if not, I could always sue the Paramount Pictures for putting dangerous ideas into my head. Would be such fun if I win - the start of thought police!

Current Mood: bored

As a Latino, I am going to answer to Sotomayor's ridiculous statement that "A wise latina will reach a better conclusion than a white man": A wise latina ... oh, I don't know, like LORENA BOBBIT?

To think that your race and your gender and not YOUR BRAIN qualify you already proves you aren't fit to be a judge, lady.

Project Update

1) Sweater - finished!
2) Bracelet - finished!
3) Quilt A - unchanged
4) Quilt B - re-pinned and did a little less than half of the quilting.
5) Afghan - finished!
6) Reading - unchanged
7) Lace Shawl - done 48 out of 82 rows. The rows have stopped getting bigger at this point.
8) Use up my sock yarn - unchanged.

Current Mood: tired

Teacher: "Do you think government has the right to censor the internet?"
5 Chinese students: "Yes"
The one latino: "No!" (emphatically)


One chinese girl said that she saw Baron Cohen's "Bruno" and said that she was embarrassed to have seen it, that in China the government would have banned it- that it is too much for Chinese People! And she was saying this proudly.

She even said "In America you have this thing... is it 'freedom of speech'? We don't have that thing in China"

And I thought "It shows"

It reminded me of that Golden Girls episode where Magda, Stan's russian cousin comes to visit. She asks Dorothy at a bookstore "But... these many books, too many! How will people know what to think with so many opinions?"

I was so happy when Dorothy ripped her a new one later in the episode.

I hate Sacha Baron Cohen and his movies, but right now I feel tempted to go watch Bruno as a celebration of freedom of speech. Who could have ever thought that watching SBC shaving his legs could be considered an act of patriotism?

Here are two funny tidbits for you today:

This one happened to me: Funny stereotype galore. The teacher asked "How often do you use the internet?" to the students. The 6 Asians answered "Every day" and the one Latino answers "Once a week!"

And a second one, from a friend:

"One of my classmates was driving here to Texas from California. He stops in, I believe, New Mexico, at a gas station, and mentions he's a linguist. Fellow asks if he's there to listen to all those Arab terrorists. He says no, his language is Hebrew. Guy says, "Well, they're all al-Queda, right?"