Cogs can think.

I watch her when she thinks nobody’s looking. She’s sad about something.

That’s how Georgia portrays Daisy Adair in “Nighthawks”, episode 12 of season 1 - of Dead Like Me. And it’s the best description one can give of Daisy. Despite the fact she played a very important role in season two, we actually know very little about her and how she died. Yes, in a fire on the set of “Gone With The Wind”, but that’s all we know. We’ve seen flashbacks about all character’s deaths and lives, but nothing from Daisy. That makes her so intriguing.

On top of that, she of course first appeared on the show with a bang, after the mysterious disappearance of Betty in “Reaping Havoc” (s1e5). One episode later, she just came walking into Der Waffle Haus, joining Rube and his group of ‘merry reapers’. She was “transferred” from New York, but why? Nobody seems to know but Rube. The audience sure doesn’t know. This only adds to the mystery around her character.

Laura Harris portrayed Daisy in such a beautiful way, it’s really difficult to imagine anybody else taking on this role. Laura is a very beautiful woman, intimidatingly beautiful, and she really has this 1930s-actress thing going on. To me, it really does feel as if Laura, when portraying Daisy, walked right out of the ’30s.

That is why I am so sad that Larua won’t be playing Daisy in the upcoming direct-to-DVD film I blogged about earlier. Her role will now be taken on by Sarah Wynter. Sarah is also a very gorgeous woman, no doubt about it, but she just doesn’t have that same feel to her as Laura, and so I am really worried that the ‘new’ Daisy will have little in common with the ‘old’ Daisy. It’s going to be hard for Sarah to convince die-hard fans like me (and they don’t come much worse) that she is, in fact, Daisy.

I’m of course giving her the benefit of the doubt, but still. I hope she’s up to the job.

I regularly wonder, how on earth do you teach your children proper use of the computer?

On the ‘children’s news’ just now, they reported on an application for Windows which parents can use to timely shut down a computer. This functionality is of course built-in into Vista and OS X (parental controls), so I don’t really know why they had to report on this particular application, but hey.

I just don’t get this. What kind of parent are you if you cannot even control your own chlidren’s computer usage? When I was younger, my parents weren’t exactly very strict on this issue - they gave me enough time to play on the computer, and they quite effectively distributed computer time between my two older brothers and I. However, when my parents said, “and now it’s enough, shut the thing down”, I did just that. Of course, I did try to sneak in an extra few minutes, and of course tried to whine until they let me play longer, but in the end, when my parents really said “end”, it really did mean “end”.

I can remember one time I was playing Age Of Empires online, and since I did not want to ruin my online ranking, I kept on playing despite my father telling me to stop - he went back the living room. Since I didn’t stop, my father got quite angry (and rightly so), and after that, I never did it again. That is proper parenting.

I really don’t understand the present day culture in parenting; parents try to shove all responsibilities they have as parents towards the schools and teachers, the government, to programs that block computer usage, censorship, and more of that nonsense. ‘Modern’ parents in this country expect schools to teach their children morals and values, because they themselves are too busy at work and going out. They expect the government to teach their children condom use, the dangers of smoking and - of course, our biggest problem - alcohol (ab)use. And now, they expect computer programs to stop their children from sitting behind their computers for too long.

But in the end, all these things won’t properly raise children. Children ought to be raised by their parents. That is your job as a mother and father. Sure, it ain’t easy, but did anyone ever say it was? As a parent, you have to be strict, but at the same time, you need to be able to compromise. You need to make harsh decisions, but you also need to know when to let your children decide for themselves. And to make matters worse, each of your children requires its own specific parenting style - trust me, my own parents know a thing or two about that one.

You also cannot just take the easy way out - prohibing your children from everything won’t exactly work. It’s the classic story of Bluebeard - tell someone he can enter every room in the house except one, which room will that someone most desire to enter? Prohibiting your child form doing anything even remotely dangerous will not help in raising him - in fact, it will make him weak, unable to cope with the harshness of real life. In other words, a pussy.

My children will most likely be taught computer usage the way my parents taught me. Sure, you can use the computer, and do whatever you want with it. But when I say schluss, it’s schluss. If I have to rely on software parental controls, I probably failed as a father.

I went karting again yesterday eve. Improved my personal best - from 36.61 to 35.35.

Not bad.

After the problems of a few days ago, I decided to simply reinstall my Cube altogether - the only way ‘the world’s most advanced operatng system’ can make way for a 2nd operating system on its hard drive.

After backing all important stuff up to my Server 2003 server, I booted from my Tiger DVD, used Disk Utility to create two partitions, and then installed OS X, followed by Mac OS 9 (which you need to update in order to 9.2.2). All went mighty fine, and a few hours later I had two fully working installations of the Mac OS on my beloved Cube. Anyway, if you are pondering (re)entering the wonderful world of OS 9 too, here are a few things you should know.

First of all, the browser situation on OS 9 is rather daft. There is no Firefox for OS 9, and the latest Mozilla build is 1.3.1 - old. Your best bet is to use iCab 3, an up-to-date browser for both OS 9 and OS X. It supports all fancy schmancy stuff, including Flash (Flash 7 is available for OS 9 from Adobe’s website, and runs YouTube just fine).

For emailing, look no further than the best email client ever: Outlook Express:Mac, 5.02 (bundled and default). This is a very elegant and extremely resource-friendly (7.1MB of RAM!) email client, with some really, really clever stuff built into it. Especally if you have a lot of mailing lists to manage, Outlook:Mac 5.02 is a dream come true. One of the best things to come out of Redmond.

There are a lot of different instant messaging clients available for OS 9, so just pick whatever protocol’s official client you use. Sadly, I have been unable to find a decent multi-protocol IM client. For IRC, ircle is a good client, even though it’s shareware.

Another must-have for OS 9 is SmoothType, a preference panel which greatly enhances OS 9’s font antialiasing capabilities (quite similar to that of Mac OS X). It’s only $10. You’ll also need something like USB Overdrive or Kensington’s MouseWorks to enable multi-button mouse and scrollwheel support (both do not seem to work with Apple’s Mighty Mouse, though).

For all other stuff, there’s still a boatload of OS 9 applications available on the net.

The world’s most advanced operating system.

That’s how Apple introduces its Mac OS X. And it’s the biggest piece of bullshit marketing I’ve ever seen.

I want to install Mac OS 9 on my Cube. I want to do that because I want Classic support, but also because I want to boot into OS 9 from time to time (I actually like OS 9). Anyway, the reasoning is irrelevant. I want to do it. Anyway, in order to do this, I need to take a few steps: non-destructively shrink Tiger’s HFS+ partition, create a new partition in the resulting free space, initialise it as HFS+ with OS 9 drivers, boot from my OS 9 disk, and install it.

The world’s most advanced operating system can only do the last two - and let’s face it, that’s not even due to OS X.

You cannot non-destructively shrink the boot HFS+ partition on a PowerPC Mac using Apple’s diskutil resizeVolume command (booting in single user mode, obviously). This is the command used by Boot Camp, but it only works on Intel Macs. The command is present in OS X/PPC, but it simply doesn’t work - without even giving a useful error message. Even partitioning tools for OS X, such as iPartition, cannot help you on this one - it says this is a limitation in OS X.

I needed to resort to GNU parted on a Ubuntu PPC disk in order to, quite easily, shrink the HFS+ partition. Without a hitch, in 10 seconds.

Mac OS X also cannot create a new partition in the resulting free space. Actually - OS X cannot edit any area of the disk it is booting from - whether you are messing with the boot partition itself, the free space around it, or any other partition. The crap thing, now, is that GNU parted cannot create HFS+ partitions, so you’re basically fcuked on this one.

In Vista, I can right-click on “Computer”, select “Manage”, go to “Disk Management”, shrink any partition, including the boot partition (!), on the fly (!), in 30 seconds (!), without even needing to reboot (!), after which you can easily create a new partition in the resulting free space, and install whatever you want on it.

OS X the world’s most advanced operating system? Utter bogus. OS X is an extremely good piece of engineering (and I thoroughly enjoy using it every day) but only if you stick to the use cases His Steveness set out for you. Do anything even remotely exotic, and OS X will curl up in fetal position and scream “help! help!” at the top of its voice.

If you want to go all geek, stick to Linux, BSD, or Windows. Each of them covers a whole lot more use cases than OS X.

It was one of those things on the to-buy list for my house. A decent cabinet for in my bedroom, to be used to store clothes and towels and such. Since I’m working a lot lately, I have the money to spare, so I figured now’d be the right time.

I can be extremely picky and demanding when it comes to buying things like furniture. I have a certain idea in my head of what I want, and I’ll go to whatever lengths needed in order to get that idea transferred into the proper object. And in a rare case of luck, I actually found the item that perfectly matched the idea in my head.

It only cost a bit more than anticipated, but hey.

During the Cold War, a third world war erupts - a full nuclear war. Nobody knows who started it, and why, but it happened. During the first days of the nuclear war, billions of people die. Europe is turned into rubble, Asia is a wasteland, America is wiped off the face of the earth.

But that’s just the beginning.

Nobody ever realised what the earth itself would do. Can our planet actually cope with hundreds of massive explosions on its surface? Various powerful nukes impact places where the earth’s crust is thin; near volcanos, on the edge of tectonic plates, you name it. The shockwaves move into the magma mantel of the earth, causing massive chain reactions throughout the planet. The survivors of the first few days of the war are bewildered; where are all those massive earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and other natural disasters coming from?

When the dust and nuclear fallout settles, and that takes years, it becomes clear that something fundamental happened on earth: the poles have shifted. The massive impact of a total nuclear war has actually caused the planet to shift. Parts of the planet that used to be very livable, with gentle climates, are now scorching deserts. The north pole is now located in Japan, the south pole in South America. All civilisation is gone. Small groups of people try to get by on the outskirts of the known world.

This is the premise of the best trilogy I’ve ever read. The three books are set centuries (about 800 years later) after this great disaster - on Greenland. Due to the shift in climate, Greenland has thawed, revealing fertile valleys and rugged mountains. The population of Greenland, a mixture between Inuit, Europeans and some Americans, build up a brand new society. They are united by an Icelandic woman, who bases the new society on love for nature, respect for others - and, most importantly, under the rule of women. Convinced the ‘Great Disaster’ was caused by men, Thule (the new name for Greenland) is governed by women.

In Europe, a new dominant society also arises. Called ‘Baden’, this nation conquers most of Europe, in a society best described as a mix between the industrial revolution and the middle ages. They are much like our own society today, exploiting whatever’s left of Europe, and unable to combat the rise of the South European deserts. In search for more resources, they want to colonise other parts of the world. A scientist discovers ancient atlases in old city ruins, and comes to the conclusion that maybe, the poles have shifted, and that because of it, the ancient island of Greenland, covered in ice in the ancient atlases, should now be thawed and rich in resources. Baden’s dictator, The Egon, sends a ship out to discover and claim Greenland.

The following clash of civilisations is what the trilogy is about. Book one, Children Of Mother Earth (Kinderen Van Moeder Aarde), tells the story of that first ship. Book two, The Hellish Paradise (Het Helse Paradijs), tells the tale of the second colonisation attempt, this time by 5 warships. In the final book, The Golden Fleece Of Thule (Het Gulden Vlies Van Thule), set a few decades later than the first two, Baden actually succeeded in colonising small parts of Thule, but they are plagued by guerilla warfare by the Thule society.

What’s interesting about these books is that it’s not yer average struggle between right and wrong; as you read along, you realise Thule’s society isn’t all about roses, and the industrial society in Europe isn’t inherently evil either. They both have their major flaws, and the contact between the two makes both ends realise their wrongdoings. The clash of civilisations forces both to change their view on the world, and rethink their concept of what’s right and wrong.

Apart from Thule and Baden, a few other civilisations also make their appearance. Both Baden and Thule have been in contact with ‘Mericans’, the remnants of America. They are savages, but do capture a Baden warship - after which they have no idea what do with it. Canada also makes several appearances; a culture not at all dissimilar from Thule. A key role is played by the UK, especially in the final book, because both Baden and Thule have regular contact with Britain. Various wars have also been waged between Britain and Baden.

I just started reading the trilogy for the xxxxth time. If I ever have the money to do so, I want to turn this trilogy into film. The trilogy itself doesn’t have a name, but is written by the late Thea Beckman (of Crusade In Jeans fame) in the ’80s. I haven’t yet found any English translations, but if you do, don’t hesitate to buy them.

I made a quick stroll along the kermis today here in Warmenhuizen. I’m not going into the sociological and psychological aspects of the kermis, but let’s just say it’s an excuse to consume boatloads of alcohol. You drink, and drink, and drink. Whether you’re 25, 98, or 11. In any case, I’ve been completely wasted three days on end year after year on the kermis - up until last year. I just didn’t go, and didn’t miss it either. So, for the first time today, I was there sober.

And trust me, sober, it ain’t all it’s cracked up to be.

While leaving, I asked Marcel, a friend of mine, what other things aren’t all they cracked up to be when sober?

Without looking up from the txt msg he was writing on his cell phone, he said, “Women.”

That’s it. I’m not gonna do it anymore. I quit. I’m done.

That, my friends, is the difference between a true artist, and a fake one. These are the exact words Fiona Apple told to Sony Music after they imposed a “one song at a time” policy on her during the recording of Extraordinary Machine. This policy entails that Fiona would have had to make one song, send it in to Sony, and then they would decide if they liked it enough to allow her [give her money] to make another one - and so on.

And Fiona basically just quit the whole thing. She didn’t want to make music this way. That’s why Extraordinary Machine took 7 years.

And that’s the intriguing thing about Fiona. She has said numerous times that she, in fact, doesn’t like to write songs. This may seem weird at first, but it all makes sense as soon as you actually start to examine her music and lyrics. Her songs are mostly sad or angry - and always, very emotional. The reason she doesn’t like writing music is because she actually goes through the emotions she’s singing about. And trust me - you don’t want to go through the stuff she sings about.

It’s definitely wise to watch some interviews on YouTube with Fiona. They really make you realise what an incredibly funny, intelligent, and, of course, extremely attractive woman she is.

She’s almost 30. That’s only, like, 7 years. Just saying.

After going to the cinema yesterday evening in Amsterdam (The Simpsons, great stuff), my friends and I wanted to make a quick dash into MacDonalds. Here’s a transcript of me trying to order one cheeseburger.

Me: “Één cheeseburger graag.”

Guy: “EUR 3.40.”

That’s expensive, I thought. Weird. The guy behind the counter runs around for a bit, then comes running back, and shoves two cheeseburgers under my face. That explains the price.

Me: “Ééntje maar, hoor…”

I stick up my index finger to indicate the amount of cheeseburgers I want. The guy runs around again, and comes back with… Another cheeseburger. I’m now looking at three cheeseburgers.

Me: “Ik hoef er maar één, hoor. ÉÉN.”

Again, I point my index finger sky ceilingwards. How hard can it be?

The coin finally dropped, probably, as he got the manager to open the register for him, so I could get my money back. I had a long line of people waiting behind me in the queue.

Seriously, I don’t give a rat’s ass about immigrants (Indian, in this case, I believe) wanting to work here. Really. Come here, do the jobs we Dutch feel too good for (that’s the gist of it, really). But please, pretty please, is it really that impossible to at least be able to COUNT in Dutch, seeing you work in a “RESTAURANT” in THE NETHERLANDS, where they speak DUTCH?

Een, twee, drie, vier, vijf, zes, zeven, acht, negen, tien, elf, twaalf, dertien, veertien… Or, if you run into an American, tweeënvijftig.