Imagine this. You've been banging your head against the wall for a month and a half, you're patience is being thoroughly tested. Do you tell the person off and risk never getting on good terms with them or do you keep your mouth shut and keep hoping things might work out?

I won't say anymore for fear of compromising the situation. :lazy:

In case you're wondering what happened to the daily updates on this blog, you will be pleased to know that I no longer feel compelled to write them. Escaping the dungeons of Keizerstraat 35, on Friday I moved to a new house. An Erik-lead inspection yesterday approved the new living quarters and as I'm now back online, I'm no longer stuck in my head 24/7 and thus I no longer have to write compulsively.

This blog is back to normal, back to you, Sheryl.

First of all: Code like a girl

to which I say: bwahahahahaha  :dielaugh:

The funny part is that I tend to pay attention to the 'aesthetics' of my code, so if this new terminology becomes mainstream, I might be labeled a metro coder. :D

Hm, that sounds like a line out of a psychology book, now you have the impression that I know what I'm talking about, how about "the child in you"?

Well, the premise of this theme is that growing up is a very split and incoherent process. In fact, I would say that there is probably noone alive fully "grown up", we all mature in certain aspects, while we remain child-like in others. But today I'm not out to establish some grand theorem, this is a simple and possibly identifiable entry. The essay question follows. In what way(s) are you still a child? The answer is probably in more ways than I realize.

But to start off with something that [literally] craves attention.. I don't know if this is true for everyone, but when I was a kid, I was really desperate for attention. "Look mom, I can climb this tree." "Look mom, I can do a trick." And so on and so forth, it would never end. Parents are not easily impressed by what kids do, anything else would be strange. But kids look up to parents and they want to establish some authority of their own, they want recognition. Most of all, I wanted someone to willingly watch stuff that I did that I thought was really impressive. :D Well, times have changed a bit, I no longer try to impress all the time, but I do still have that instinct of seeking attention for something that to me merits attention. If something happens to me, good or bad, I want to tell someone about it. If I hear a good story, I want to repeat it to someone. I don't like repeating myself, so I would like to tell one person and that's it, but I enjoy the notion of having something exciting to tell. It often just gets piled on whomever is in the line of fire, whether I'm with someone or I meet someone.. then there's always im/email to fall back on. :D It isn't just telling stories though, I'm the same way with sharing something I think is really cool, be it a book, music, comedy, software, whatever. I get excited about introducing someone to something new, something really great.

I got my first bike when I was six and I adored riding my bike. For many years after that I was still very excited about having a bike, using it all the time. It was pretty much around the time when I realized I had seen just about every inch of Trondheim that I lost interest in my bike. There was nothing else to see, it was all the same. But when I do ride my bike, I ride in pretty much the same way I did when I was 10 or 12. Well, the last 10 years or so I used to be more reckless, I rode down steep hills with unreliable brakes, I rode in traffic without thinking twice about it and so on. Then a few years ago I had an accident, slid on ice and hit my head on the ground, and that made me slow down a bit ever since. There's no way I could have seen it coming though, I thought all the ice had melted, it was under a layer of sand. So I'm excitable, but a bit cautious now. The contrast in Utrecht is noticeable, here *everyone* is on a bike, you have streams of bikes where in Norway you would have a couple of them. But just as I would back home, I stick out when I ride here. I ride over bumps, onto the sidewalk, off the sidewalk, I ride on the pedestrian sidewalk, on the roadway, I ignore traffic lights (but I do pay close attention to traffic), I constantly overtake people, I ride with enthusiasm. It's about having some fun, not merely logistics.

That's two I can think of, what are yours?

"You wanna go with me to NBC?"
"Yeah, I think we really got something here."
"What do we got?"
"An idea."
"What idea?"
"An idea for the show."
"I still don't know what the idea is!!!!!"
"It's about nothing."
"Right..."
"Everybody's doing something, we'll do nothing!"

There is a worry that if you watch too much television, it may warp your perception of reality to believe that what you see on tv is actually real. That's one take on it, how about a second opinion?

The culture of soccer fans is one that I've become quite intimate with over the last 5-6 years. I won't say that I've seen it all, but I have seen the bulk of it. I've talked to maybe 200-300 different people about soccer, read their opinions, had discussions etc. I haven't adopted everything in the culture, in fact there's probably a lot more that I've rejected than what I've adopted. But if you blend in with these people, one thing that will strike you is how they manage to get their whole life philosophy all entangled into following the sport. That's right, if you talk to the "real fans" (as opposed to the "plastic"/"bandwagoner"/"gloryhunter" variety) as they call themselves, what they will convey to you is that supporting a "smaller club" is more "honorable". If you stick with a small club through all the ups and downs (but mostly downs) and then the club wins some trophy, apparently that victory is so much better than winning something every year. Why, because the accumulated "suffering" has made this climax look a lot better than it really is. Are you thinking what I'm thinking? It's not religion, but it does have a similar vibe, doesn't it? "Blessed are those who suffer"? I know there's a line that goes something like that in the Bible. So basically, suffering is a Good Thing (tm).

Which brings us right back to the core of the issue. I saw "Signs" on tv last night. If you haven't seen it, maybe you're under the impression that it's a nail biting thriller packed with excitement. Well, let me relieve you of that delusion right now. It is basically a movie about nothing. Just like George Costanza's idea on "Seinfeld". Only they based a two hour production on that idea. "No story? You gotta have a story!" "Who says you gotta have a story?" Who indeed. The story is this.. two brothers live out on a farm, aliens come to kill them. Only when I write it in one sentence, you probably get the idea that the movie actually did have a plot? My bad. This is the blueprint of every scene in the movie:

We start with an annoying camera angle that doesn't really show you much and clearly isn't showing you what you want to see. Then gradually it moves onto the character, the room, some more vital part of the scene. There is no sound, it's completely quiet, no music, no sound effects. You see Mel Gibson, he looks depressed. His face is like set in stone, expressionless, he's just standing there. He says one sentence. Camera turns to Joaquin Phoenix. He's sitting down, looks unhappy, he takes a long pause before he replies with one sentence.

And then they copy/paste that onto a 2h roll of film. The thread about the aliens is actually hard to imagine being done any worse. In the 1.5h build-up they are totally paranoid and terrified about someone making a crop circle in their field. Then when they actually meet the alien, they beat him up with a baseball bat and leave him bleeding to death in the kitchen, not even making sure that he's dead. Then there's something about how Mel is a minister, his wife was killed in a car crash and he re-gains his faith at the end, total bs.

So what about the suffering? You probably know where this is going, don't you? See, Mel Gibson is in this movie. So every Mel Gibson fan probably raced to the movies to see their favorite in this production. But this is a lot like that soccer fan supporting his team when they're about to get relegated. This has to be one of the worst movies Mel Gibson ever played in, and yet the faithful fan will still go watch it. Even knowing that it sucks, he will still go see it. Because that's what fans do. And after a movie like this, they go and see.. say, "The Patriot" and they think that is a great movie. Well, if you compare it to "Signs", it certainly is.