The goal was simple: bring the stuff I need to Amsterdam, the rest to a storage space (courtesy of a friend).

Initially I contacted several moving companies. The high price they asked for caused my attention to shift to the (well-intended) advice I was receiving from friends: organize the operation by my own means. In the end, I realize it was a misguided choice…

The costs added up quickly:

• subscribing to a post forwarding service
• buying cardboard boxes
• renting a small vehicle to carry some stuff to storage space
• offering dinner to the two friends helping
• renting a larger vehicle to carry most of the stuff to Amsterdam
• filling a gas tank
• feeding the 3 people on board during the trip
• offering dinner to 3 friends for help afterwards
• hiring some help for the washing machine
• buying train tickets for 5 trips
• storing some stuff at the station
• asking a taxi to help on the last way between my old place and the train station

Note: I do not own a driving license nor a vehicle of my own.

For a grand total of approximately 1200€ — not counting:

• the stress of the organization,
• the time and energy spent packing, unpacking, unbuilding and rebuilding of the furniture,
• the sweat and energy spent carrying bags, boxes and other things on my own back,
• the time spent thinking and acting the move (nearly a work week),
• the strain on the relationship with my friends.

Retrospectively, delegating the entire work to a team of experienced movers would have amounted to around 1000€ without worries…

And yet, I do not feel frustrated. The physical exercise I performed was worth the effort, as it does help me feel healthier and overall more confident in my physical abilities. Involving my friends in my moving may have helped make the transition for them, smoothing their realization that I am actually leaving their usual surroundings for the foreseeable future.

One of my favorites pastimes when procrastinating: looking up unusual ways to travel by train. Using the journey planner with the largest database that I know of, I set myself imaginary goals and I search:

• the longest journey that can be achieved within a day: Marseille-Malmö
• the longest journey in a single night train: Hamburg-Villach, Paris-Barcelona, Amsterdam-Milano
• the longest journey that can be achieved at high speed within a day: Marseille-Berlin via Brussels and Köln
• the longest journey that can be achieved without changing trains: Amsterdam-Moscow
• the longest journey with only one change: Amsterdam-Beijing via Moscow

Removed from the daily reads: Dilbert, Daily WTF, UF. Added: PhD Comics.

You scored 36% I to E, 10% N to S, 23% F to T, and 52% J to P!
You are more introverted than extroverted. You are more intuitive than observant, you are more feeling based than thinking based, and you prefer to go with the flow rather than having a plan. Your type can best be summarized by the word "Healer", which belongs to the larger group of idealists. You have a capacity for caring that is deeper than most. You strive for unity, are fascinated by the battles between good and evil, and can be something of an idealist. Only 1% of the population shares your type.
As a romantic partner, you are usually supportive and nuturing, however, you have a high need for individuality. Harmony is extremely important to you as you are very affected by conflict and tension, which also makes you resist confronting your partner directly about problems. When you get angry, you usually blame yourself, rather than your partner. You can also be stubborn and unyielding when you feel you are being criticized or mistreated. You feel the most appreciated when your partner listens to you carefully. You need to be understood. You need to hear your partner express their feelings, the more often, the better.

(from okcupid)

Jabber servers are a bit like babies. Except that:

• they don't cry.
• they do not pee and poo everywhere.
• they are neither male nor female.
• they do not need both a father and a mother to appear.

But you still have to take care of them or they may starve.

More information: Jabber @ Vodka-Pomme.net.

Now that this new website has been running for a little while, it becomes interesting to see what people enter in search engines to come by...

• The all-time favorites: autotools · passphrase generator · vodka-pomme.net · moria · atchoune
• The expected but not so common: elvish writing · lojban tengwar · villa keops
• The unexpected:
  • porn star galleries — where?
  • triangle des bermudes — that's my secret: visitors come here and can never leave
  • images femmes torturées / supplice du pal — just don't want to know what you had in your mind
  • godemichet au lycee — now, that's something I would not have thought to bring to high school
  • stabilite des sharpies — did I mention I know nothing about boats?
  • caractéristique de la fête devant la télévision — I can find plenty of uses for a tv, but party is not one of them
  • anxiolitique naturel — I'm interested, too!
  • voir une image sol la si do pour la flute — if you believe you can learn to play an instrument on the internet… tough luck.
  • histoire dratique — I have some dramatic stories, as well as drastic stories, but unfortunately dratic are not to be found here (hint: that word does not exist)
  • que dit l islam sur la vodka — I believe it says “no, no.”
  • un morceau d os dépasse de la gencive — hint: you're nearly dead.
  • guronzan et alcool — hint: don't mix those. It's dangerous.
  • introduction to vodka — does it really need introduction?
  • capitalize uncle — what do you want to do to my uncle?!!
  • vodka suicide / poison vodka — that's awful! save the vodka!
  • législation du taravail — I guess taravail is one of those things there are no laws for.

And last but not least, the bizarre: viens dans mon bain a bulle et offre moi ta tentacule. Yeah, right, ET's take baths, too.

Take for example this summary of a study in the Netherlands:

Holland counts 4 million registered MSN users out of an internet population of 11 million. With 26 million MSN users for Europe all together this puts Holland far ahead of other countries.
55% of the dutch MSN population is younger than 25 years, with a fast growing group between 15-19. With an average of 49 buddies it is not uncommon for dutch youngsters to reach the maximum of 150 peers on their list.

The worst part of it is when I hear people actually tell me “why use anything else when there is MSN?” or just blink a clueless stare when I tell them that I simply do not use MSN because I do not need to.

Today I just dumped some thoughts to fight the monoculture. Here come some guidelines about messaging.

This week-end I decided to put my new website online. I had been preparing it for several weeks already, and there was where I was keeping this blog up-to-date.

After finding this beautiful skin from PyBOOM and designing a new logo myself yesterday (thanks to InkScape and The GIMP) I just felt it would be a nice touch for the week-end to make this work — at last — public.

It was a lot more work than I expected. Since my former hosting service, Zettai is currently going out of business and the future one, High Speed Rails has not yet enabled my account, I had to redistribute the different services across multiple service providers: Fastmail, FreeDNS, and a temporary web server courtesy of my friend from Z0pe.org.

The tricky part was to set up all the redirection rules for those various parts of my former site which have now a new home here. I hope I did not forget anything...

Whatever; it's not like I have so many visitors anyway.