The boys are back in town..

'nuff said

That guy with the ponytail..

On the way over to the MCI arrangement (previously mentioned) - we saw Karl Lagerfield (Is that how it is spelled ?). We had just parked the car in parking Place Vendôme - while "en route" to Boulevard de la Madeleine, we saw "that guy with the ponytail" (as Dimitri called him) snapping some pics of a model posing on Place Vendôme..

Who the hell wears sunglasses at around 9pm, when it's dark.. what a jackass..

I snapped a pic with my phone, but the quality sucks - so I'm not even going to bother uploading it..

Wine pop quiz

Last night Dim and I went to a wine tasting arrangement at Lavinia. The arrangement had been organized by MCI (our ISP) - and since we've been loyal clients (before-, during- and post-chapter 11) we were invited. It was great fun, and Lavinia is a cool shop, they have a vast selection of wine and booze of all sorts.
During the evening, a "wine trivia pop quiz" was held.. Jeez, that's stuff is not easy. First off, we tasted 6 wines (2 white, and 4 red) and we had to map down where in the world they came from. I believe, there were wines from Chili, Argentina, Italy, India, Australia and South-Africa. I think my favorite was the redwine from Italy (Tuscany).
The last part of the "quiz" consisted of 20 questions, about wine and its origins. Fx.:
Q: Who was Petrus?
- A famous chef
- A General under Napoleon the third
- A sommelier under King Louis the XIV

We tried to cheat, and looked some of the questions up over GPRS on my phone, but it was taking too much time, so we tried calling some wine-savvy person we know - whom helped us with a few answers..

We didn't win... (surprise surprise) - well, actually we believe that MCI "fixed" the winners, as the winners were all big accounts (such as Renault)
We were #1 of all the small companies, and we won a book about wine ! Yay!

We finished our glasses, grabbed our "prize" and headed for the exit.. Stopped by a pub and a couple of pints and a shot of Jack...

All in all a nice evening, though we both feel a bit busted today !

Peerio

Exit skype - enter peerio..



Pure p2p - no server - no hazzle !

A sign from god

Engaged in the extreme sport of Tennis this weekend.. big mistake.. I had played for about 6 minutes, when I lost my balance and slammed into the ground while running... Result: big wound on my right knee, and a fucked up right arm. I also seem to have a "pressured" rib. Which is the result, of me not being able to sleep very well, nor sit up, stand up, walk, cough, laugh, sneeze etc etc etc without an agonizing pain in my upper chest..
I suppose it's a sign from above, that I should not practise sport of any kind, I should just sit tight on the couch with my pint of lager while watching TV ?

Gmail

I've got invites.. anyone wants one ? Drop a message, or send me a mail.

SalesLogix BLOWS

We've been changing CRM systems. Before we used some semi-home-developed stuff called SuperOffice .. it blew. We had more and more trouble with it over the last 12 months, so some months ago we decided to switch system.
We chose SalesLogix developed by Sage. This was an obvious choice, as our financial systems are also Sage - this would in theory enable us to only have customer information one place. A "bridge" between the two systems have been setup, and we are able to synch the accounts. Excellent, in theory that is.

The salesrep from SalesLogix told us, that installation and import of data from the old CRM system would take approx. one day.... We've been in the process of getting it working for about one month now. Go figure..

Considering ditching it all together and go back to SuperOffice...

Ever noticed...

So... I'm trying get a new phone.. I've been looking at the Sony-Ericsson T630. Yes I know it's not state-of-the-art, and it cannot anticipate my toilet needs, do my groceries, and feed my cat - but it seems like a nice phone to me - in addition it is no too big, nor to pricy.

OK, I know which phone I'd like - the rest should be piece of cake, right? Not really.. I've been looking into the different operators in France, and also the subscriptions they offer.. jeeez.. you have to have a phD or something to understand that.. Apparently you need to know how many calls you place and receive and where they go to (national, local or international) how many MB you'll download with GPRS etc etc.. I have no fucking idea, alright ?

So, I call a "diagnostic service" with Orange... First off, when you call them, before getting connected to a "real-live-person(tm)" you need to tap in your phone number (the one you are calling from) via DTMF tones.. and what is the FIRST thing they ask for ? The number I am calling from ! Are you kidding ? I just entered that into the voice-service-system.. god damn it.. they are fucking with our minds..
On top of that, they weren't very helpful..

More to come..

Think McFly, Think !

Well, well, well.. today I received another good proof that city-officials have had their head replaced by their ass.
My street runs into a main road, that leads directly to central-Paris, and the other way the street heads to a bigger city, and the motorway network around Paris (A86) - I don't really need to get on this main road, but I need to cross it, in order for me to come to work... Thus this morning, late as usual, I'm going about my business and half-asleep on my way to work.. When I discover that the city officials have decided to make major road-work EXACTLY where I need to cross the main road ! Goddamn it ! I sat there and waited for 12 minutes, hence making me late for work.. AGAIN !

Now you might go, "ohh.. well road work needs to be done, and that does not make city-officials stupid.. bla bla bla".. well, yes.. yes it does.

Anyone knowing France (Paris more specific) are aware that the month of August is dead - because of school vacations and what-have-ya.. so why, oh why, can't they make their stupid-ass road work in August, thus not bothering a shitload of people ? Noooooooooo... we'd rather wait until the first day of September when everyone's back, and where we can annoy a bunch of people !

Argggghhhhh !!!!!!!

That's it ! I'm not paying anymore taxes.. they have fucked with me for the last time !

Fired for blogging..

As I was traveling through my daily load of blog feeds, I discovered that someone at Friendster got fired for blogging !! Even though, no formal policy on blogging was present in the company.

I find this outrageous, and urge everyone with a Friendster account to cancel immediately - this sort of behavior should not go unpunished.

(and no, the person in question did NOT blog corporate secrets)

via [Jeremy, Kasia, Dina, Chasing coffee]

Getting there...

Well well well... Dim and I are getting there... seems that the alcohol will not escape us tonight... At least we are not driving home.. so be IT !
We are hanging out at my new crib, having good food, good drinks and life in general is GOOD - for fuck's sake it's FRIDAY !

aka Dim speaking...

My legs hurt, my ass hurts, well basically everything part of my mortal body hurts [not for what you think... rugby guys, rugby], yet i feel light as a feather, giddy, happy, frank sinatraish, in other words, vunderfullll. Yes yes amigos, bring it on, it Friday night, we are on the Old Defender gunboat, and we are attacking hardcore.....

Need a medic please...

So I started playing tennis again.. It's been over 10 years (and many beers) since last time I played - so obviously, I suck. Not to mention, my incredible stamina and good shape - which can be compared to that of a dong beetle.
I played an hour and a half on sunday, and two hours last night. My arms/back/shoulders/legs and feet are KILLING me!!!
- It's great fun though, and hopefully I'm get into shape at one point (if I'm not dying trying)

As you can see, Dim is back.. Being his usual pissed-off-self.. It's nice to him in pain, and frankly, it's better to share the misery with someone.. hehehe..

Fuck AHHHHHHHH! I am sooo PISSED OFF

Well there you have it, as expected my vacation went by way to fucking quickly, and before i know it, here i am again, sharing this office with Abraham and the incredible Throat-noise Girl! I was on the beach, like 5 minutes ago... what the FUCK happened!! So yeah here i am, back at work, yipee, really looking forward to working my ass office for another year... not that i can afford any other vacations anyways... fuck.....

Well back to extracting files. I need a smoke.. and coffee, overpriced coffee... will write later, when i've managed to quiet down.


Ciao!

Prefecture woes (or not)

Since we've moved to another flat, I've been obliged to change the address stated on my car registration form (carte de grise). The rules state that you have one month to make the change after you have moved.
I've been putting it off, cause anyone who've tried to deal with French administration will agree with me, it is a royal pain in the ass. You need 40 forms completely correctly filled out, and each of those you need in another 40 copies etc etc..
This time we had cheated a bit, and printed out the form of their website (They actually have a website.. wow) - so when I finally went there I had all needed papers and copies.

Normally when I go there (I've been there a few times) I wait over 2 hours.. but this time I actually managed to get it all done in less than 40 minutes !! Perhaps it's because everyone is on vacation or something, anyway I'm happy as hell that it all went that painless.

To conclude.. go at the prefecture in august.. or don't move - I don't really care.

FreeBSD

Finally got some time to get some long overdue FreeBSD work done.. I had a couple of ports that had been broken for quite a while.. They were primarily broken on 64bit platforms (amd64 and sparc64) - arved kindly gave me access to his amd64 box - as I have none :-(

First problem was easy enough - some gcc 3.4.x compatibility problem.

The other wasn't quite so simple - this due to the fact that the port is written in C++ - and I am no expert (far from it - I'm a C kinda guy). It also seemed to be a problem with the gcc 3.4.x import. Managed to fix it (with some help from some C++ savvy people) and in the process found a typo-bug in source - which I reported to the author.

Also managed to catch up on all my mail - it has been a long time since I've had a clean inbox.

DSL

Yesterday I signed up for DSL with Free- they seemed to have to best offer :

• Up to 5Mbit/s down
• Possibility for WiFi on modem box
• TV (Don't know which channels, but it can only be better than what I have)
• Free phone in France (and competitive rates for international calls)
  
• 29.99 EUR/month
• No cancellation fee

Hopefully I'll get the gear next week.

I knew it !

First day Dim is not here, and our backup solution is not working as expected.. well .. perhaps as expected.. it did not back up anything last night.
We are using ARCserve on MS - and to no surprise, it blows. Every other day we are obliged to kill some its processes as it fails to shut them down properly. Today was no exception, and on top of that the tape would not eject.. Useless crap.

Managed to drop by castorama in my lunch break, to pick up some wood pillars I need for support in my closet (as the shelf is heavily overloaded, and about to fall down) - wood is good..

Going out to Ikea tonight to look for a small furniture for our kitchen, so I imagine that I'll enjoy myself putting together something tonight - I totally suck at it though. It's kinda like a jigsaw puzzle - but for adults..

On a side note, I'm happy to report that GDF dropped by today and opened for the gas to our apartment, so we are actually able to cook some real food tonight !!

Long time no hear..

Well.. It has been way too long since I've bitched about one thing or another, but truth is, I haven't had much to bitch about... Imagine that.. It's a sad state of affairs !
I've been off to Denmark on vacation, and we have moved to our new apartment as well.. I guess I've simply been to occupied to complain.

Anyway, now I'm back at work (damn it), and already now various things are starting to make my piss boil - that coinciding with Dimitri leaving for vacation tonight is not exactly helping out the situation. I know.. yes.. I know shit will hit the fan as soon as his dumb ass has left the building.. Printing problems, vira shit, and general PC hardware problems. I've got to be honest with you guys, I'm not one bit too happy about him requiring vacation...

Moving.. god I hate moving. Actually I like it once all boxes/furniture have been moved - but moving heavier-than-titanic furniture (fridge) three floor down is a no-go.. that, all while it is 35 degrees Celsius outside in the burning sun just kills me. It's all done now though.. and I love the place! We just miss a few furniture for the kitchen and then we are all set to go.

Alright, I'd better get back to work.. gotta write that code.. doesn't make much of a difference..

Another juicy vacation

Yeah yeah yeah... We are not writing here as much as we want to. If only we could come up with a way where we can blog and do real work at the same time.. oh well, perhaps someday..

Anywho, my ass is outta here.. going a couple of weeks to Denmark to chill out and see family and friends. (and maybe have a beer or two)

"If this blog is rockin' - don't come knockin'" - I'll leave it to Dim..

So, seee ya - adios - ciao.. or as Cartman might put it :

Screw you guys, I'm going hooooome !

We has gotta get our hands on thees burgas!

Big Burger Challenges Gustatory Gladiators

POSTED: 12:42 pm EDT June 30, 2004
UPDATED: 1:01 pm EDT June 30, 2004
CLEARFIELD, Pa. -- Denny's Beer Barrel Pub has a challenge -- the six-pound Burger Challenge.

The Clearfield, Pa., eatery this week invited big eaters from around the country to take on its biggest burger.

Here's the recipe: six pounds of beef, one large onion, two whole tomatoes, ½ head of lettuce, one and ¼ pounds of cheese, top and bottom buns, and a cup each of mayonnaise, ketchup, mustard, relish and banana peppers -- all topped off with some pickles.

The folks at Denny's Beer Barrel Pub says no one has been able to eat the six-pound burger in the required three hours.

Competitive eater Eric "Badlands" Booker has tried it three times. On his last attempt, he stayed at the restaurant for seven ½ hours and ate the whole thing.

Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed

Info taken from NBC51.com