Some people hack into resources of others. My wiki and my forums are almost constantly being hacked into, pages are altered, users are created, spam is left behind, etcetera, etcetera. That’s annoying.

I decided that the forums and the wiki will have to go. I hardly ever use them anyway. This is a message so you know where they went after they’re gone.

The Bravo surpassed the 5000km early this morning. I don’t even have the car for 1 month yet (still 3 days to go). Wow.

Yes, I received my new (lease)car yesterday. Finally! It’s a Fiat Bravo Business. With a lot of extras of course. Although the engine is about the same size as my previous car (1.6 common rail diesel, 120bhp) the Bravo feels and reacts more potent, and it’s a lot quieter, but that’s with most new diesels.

Driving in a traffic jam is a breeze with the automatic gearbox (which is not so common in the Netherlands), and I can even switch to semi-automatic so I need to change gear by moving the stick to + or to -, or by using the flippers on my steering wheel just like in a race car. When driving semi-automatic, I prefer the flippers.

The car came with Blue&Me, a voicecontrolled carkit. I’ve heard stories of voicecontrolled carkits in other carbrands and the stories were not happy stories. So I was a bit afraid I would have the same experience. But without any glitch I coupled my private and my business phone (you can register several users) and both of them work flawlessly. The voicecontrol is brilliant, and works when talking loud or soft of even when you’re mumbling a bit. Compliments to Fiat for such a good system.

When I stopped being a freelancer, my salary dropped dramatically (to about 25%). We (back then I was part of a “we”) coped, but we needed to cut back some expenses. One of the things were my contacts. I bought them at a very good, but expensive specialist, so I switched to the so called LTP (Lens Totaal Plan) from Hans Anders. You save some money each month and after six months this money is enough for 6 pairs of contacts. And so it goes on and on. It was said, that whenever you would stop the program, the money you had save up until then, would be refunded.
Last week I sent in the form to stop the LTP. Today I got the confirmation letter. Along with a coupon for the money saved so far. To find that this money can only be spend on……contacts in a Hans Anders shop. Not even glasses, or sunglasses, no…just contacts.

What a big ugly fuck-up company Hans Anders is!

Period.

Completely forgot about this occassion to party: RaRe IT Services became 10 this year!

You know that you really left a company when you try to log in to the system and you get an “auth_fail_exception”. Buh-bye Transfer. Hello Merkator!

The new phone is not going to be the Nexus One, but the Motorola Milestone (Droid in other countries).

Open Source benefits the customers. Google recognizes this, as you can read in their press release of the new Google Android (2.1) phone. Let’s see when I can import one, or whether I’ll have to wait for the Dutch (read: expensive) release.

Update: no, it’s not gonna be cheap, $530 + $150 = $680 ~ €475.

In 2009 I wrote “As 2008 was a year of pain and suffering for me, I’m already beginning to suspect that 2009 will not be so great as I hoped it would be. For starters, I did not win the 25M euro in the lottery. I started 2009 with the flu. And I didn’t get as drunk as last year (there’s no hole in my memory). Fortunately I didn’t make any resolutions, so I can do whatever I want this year.”

Well, for starters the lottery didn’t win me the 27.5M euro nor the 10M Jackpot, and I didn’t even drink as much as last year (I even drove home by myself this time, no cab). But I didn’t start this year with the flu. That counts for something. I did some overdue backing up of my pictures to DVD, I backupped my MySQL databases, and I upgraded WordPress and Gallery to the latest (stable) versions.

I have no real new years resolutions, but my intention is to have a little more exercise again. Some running or some in-line skating, not sure yet.

Merry Christmas everyone. I hope you can be with your loved ones and have a great time. Again, I will be celebrating Christmas alone. But I won’t be celebrating by myself. No!!! I will be surrounded by my family, and by my friends. I just hope Santa fulfills my wish next year…