Whenever you start doing something after a long pause from it, you generally suck. But since you've been doing it in the past, you're don't suck like a beginner, you just suck cause you're out of shape. And that's why the first few times you improve rapidly. You go from zero, nothing, to almost-showing-signs-of-ability. In short, the steep curve. Today was my third time playing and I'm about half way to the level I once was at my peak.

Of course, after reaching the almost-decent level, the steep curve ends. Then comes the polish phase, which takes forever. I played football for 10+ years and I would have maybe 1 games in 10 when I felt it went off like clockwork. The rest of the time it was always part good, part not-so-good. And always working on the polish, repeat ad nauseum. Tennis is looking really good at the moment, I've drawn up a schedule to play twice a week and there seem to be more people out there interested in playing. Today was a beautiful 2 hour session, it started to drizzle toward the end, gorgeous.

My game still needs a lot of work, I'm slow and my reflexes are off. But once I get the basics to a half decent level, there'll be plenty of time to polish, polish, polish.

6-0, 6-1. :D And an improvement of about 100% over last time, which doesn't show in the scoreline (did I mention I don't play well under pressure?).

The beauty about being rock bottom is that there's only one way to go. Up. :D

Over the years I've been reading the Gentoo newsletters and there have been quite a lot of events happening all over the place (especially in Germany), although I was always far away from it all geographically. But now that I start from Holland, I can make the trip without as much of a hassle. I looked around the web and I found these events of interest in the upcoming year:

• NLUUG Najaarsconferentie in Ede (Utrecht province), September 14
• Wizards of Os 4 in Berlin, September 14-16 (seems to be all in German)
• aKademy 2006 in Dublin, September 23-30
• LinuxWorld Conference & Expo in Utrecht, October 11-12 :cool:
• FOSDEM in Brussels, February 24-25
• CeBIT in Hannover, March 15-21
• LinuxTag in Germany, May? (seems to be all in German)
• GUADEC 2007 in Birmingham, May/June?
• Linux Kongress in Germany, September?

That is a lot to choose from, I never knew there were so many. I've already registered for the NLUUG event next week. I was meant to visit FOSDEM this year, but I missed it, so I'd like to go next year. Then there's CeBIT, always wanted to go to that. And since the LinuxWorld Expo is in Utrecht, I have no excuse to miss it. :D

So that, I think, is the plan for this year. As for the other events, maybe in the future sometime. One thing for certain, it sure is practical to live in Holland rather than the high north in terms of geek events. :D

If you want to put together your own agenda, most of these events are listed on Wikipedia.

Do you remember the awesome action classic from the 90s, "Die Hard: With A Vengeance"? That's the best action movie I've seen, it really had everything - the cast, the special effects, the scenery and a solid, unpredictable plot. But it had one more thing as well. Do you remember they cast Simon as this guy who tells lots of riddles to confuse people? This is the portrayal of a criminal mastermind, flaunting his intellect to embarass the street smart, but otherwise "regular Joe", cop. Those riddles weren't university level problems, they seemed better than they were because of all the explosions and gunfire that accompanied those scenes (or indeed the imminent explosions and gunfire). But they were really just the kind of riddles you tell to kids.

So I was thinking, since the whole category of "educational" games in free software is pretty lame, ie. very few projects that actually look serious at all, wouldn't it be a good idea to make one game that features riddles from "Die Hard: With A Vengeance"? And to make it more interesting, make it illustrated. For instance, you could divide the window into two parts, one side featuring stills from the movie (McClane with a gun on the boat etc), the other side displaying this riddle with a multiple choice option:

As I was going to St. Ives? / I met a man with seven wives. / Every wife had seven sacks, / Every sack had seven cats, / Every cat had seven kittens. / Kittens, cats, sacks, wives, / How many were going to St. Ives?

Kids would love it! :cool:

One of the most beloved characters of the blog is back: the king! While he got some stick from me for serenading English football, he's back with a vengeance. This time he accepted an invitation to celebrate the Pakistani national holiday from the Norwegian Pakistani community. :cool::party: Pakistani politician for Høyre, Aamir J. Sheik, said his eyes teared up at the news. :D

Pakistanis are the biggest minority group in the Oslo region and possibly in the country as a whole. When I was growing up in Holmlia, it was known as an immigrant suburb (nowadays it's a bit more prosperous place) and I knew tons of Pakistanis. One of which was Omar, the best player on my football team, Holmlia SK, who tried to teach me that trick where you loop the ball over your head, but to this day I haven't mastered that. :D