Editorial - 26 May 2003

I'm going through some sad days. Last friday my trusty old Audi 80 wouldn't start. Having a brand new battery aged less than a year, that didn't sound good (actually there was no sound at all). Testmaterial showed the battery was quite low, so it probably doesn't get recharged while driving. Now that particular piece can cost a lot. And considering I have an oil-leak, water dripping in the backlights (already frying two of them which have to be replaced) and the beautiful age of 19 years and 263 thousand kilometers on the clock ... you gotta think whether it's actually worth it repairing it all instead of trading her in for a brand new one ... I'm not happy about parting with that car - I loved it. It may have been old and crappy, but I liked it. Nice and comfy, powerful grill in the front and good brakes. I've been driving it for 5 years now and I was just started thinking about replacing it in the next year. Started looking around, shopping for prices and options, checking the quality in reviews ... Things sure can go fast sometimes.
Song of the week : "Who Invited You" The Donnas
Oldie of the week : "No More Mr. Nice Guy" Alice Cooper
Last seen movie : " Cinderella 2000" : announced as an "erotic and stupid scifi cultclassic" this one was screened for free at the closing party of "Het Stuk", so I couldn't resist. Free. Erotic. Stupid. Scifi. Cult. Now those words are music to my ears sometimes. Nothing better than to forget about everything, laugh with the utter sillyness and maybe even fall asleep easy.
Off course the movie sucked : incredibly bad acting, stupid songs, cardboard sets, a lame rendition of the original Cinderella ... Wasted time then ? Nope, 'cause I sometimes like utter crap like that (at least when it's free) and to quote my girlfriend : "At least there were lots of boobies to watch." Can't argue there ... after all, it was an "erotic" movie so there were scenes which could be described as sex-scenes ... no huge frontals or penetrations off course, that'd be porn. Just the boobs and lots of frantic groping. Really stupid. Sometimes funny.
It just occurred to me ... search-engines will have a field-day referring to this page with all those words mentioned in the previous paragraph. To all you porn-seekers, I'm sorry to disappoint you ...
Doing this week : Further car-shopping ... awaiting the verdict for the old and trusty one.

Editorial - 19 May 2003

The votes are in and it's actually quite good. Sometimes a little harsh, but that's life. Obviously there's one major black spot on it all : the continuing growth of Vlaams Blok - damn racist fuckers.
I'm glad the VLD grew a little, I'm very glad the SP.A came back strong and I'm absolutely happy the CD&V got their asses kicked. And it's funny Agalev got such a big kick in the teeth.
Why ? Well, actually very easy. CD&V (christian-democrats) are still the same tax-loving, big mouthed, we-know-it-all's they have been over the last 50 years. They got our country in all kinds of trouble and therefor have absolutely no right complaining when everything isn't fixed in a mere 4 years. Off course not, give it some time will ya ?
So what's left ? VLD (the liberals) are somewhat of a fresh breeze, but have to be restrained sometimes. That's why they need another strong party next to them. When restrained they tend to get the job done quite well. I'm rooting for more changes in the next 4 years. I for one, want to give them more time to try and fix things over here. Increasing spending by creating jobs trough lowering taxes and stuff. Might actually work here.
Next to them there has to be the SP.A (the socialists) : the complete other side of the political spectrum, to bring balance in the equation. Since they revamped their style with new, young people, new leaders and a back to basics attitude they have attracted a whole new following. Quite nice.
Agalev (the green party, the ecologists) have beautiful ideals : saving nature for ourselves and the future. Nothing wrong with that. But being in politics means making compromises, adding water in yer wine (or wine in yer water in their case). It doesn't look good if you (or your sister-party) come back on a decision made with all the other parties, just because you had a change of heart and decide the new law or regulation doesn't go far enough. Or when you franticly hang on to your ideals when common sense says you should make the transitions easier, slower or longer in order to keep the economy going in these slow times. Most people like nature, but only when it doesn't fuck with their jobs, wages and life in general ... Remember that next time.
Song of the week : -----
Oldie of the week : "Censorshit" The Ramones
Last seen movie : "The 25th Hour" : Spike Lee's take on a book roughly based on emotions in NY after 9/11 featuring an almost completely white cast. Starting with a gorgeous shot of huge lights recalling the place of the Twin Towers Spike sets the tone for this moving and powerful film in which I couldn't help rooting for the main character - flawed and all, I immediately felt a deep sympathy from the beginning. He might be a drugdealer spending his last 24 hours as a free man, but thanks to the great story and excellent acting from Edward Norton (our generations Robert De Niro ?), you just can not hold that against him. I didn't want to see him go to jail, I felt bad for the treatment he got, I liked him when he saved the dog ... Some scenes made the hairs in the back of my neck prickle. I wonder how many people - totally different from this drugdealer - still personafied with this main character ? Excellent stuff ... at least top 5 this year.
Doing this week : Organising the videotapes : watching some old crappy movies I once taped for whatever reason, decing whether to keep them or throw the tape back in the hopefully growing box of tapes which can be used next time there's some old crappy movie I wanna tape for whatever reason and then stack in a cupboard for about a year. Yup, I know, I'm a bit strange sometimes.

Editorial - 16 May 2003

Well, since MS Exchange 2000 Server has a built-in limit of 16 Gb for the total amount of mail(boxes), you kinda hope, you don't get that far. Too bad our server at work did just that yesterday-evening. Serge and I got to stay and try to fix the thing via an offline defragmentation. Which freed up about 500 Mb. Today the first thing to do was overthrowing all the exceptions given by "the bosses" to "the other bosses" and limiting their boxes again. I've always known we'd get in serious trouble with two mailboxes totalling over 1 Gb each. Too bad no one listened.
Anyway, after relatively quickly freeing around 2 Gb this morning by limiting boxes and moving mail to .pst's under protest from those users (no sweat, this time we were backed by the manager), the mailserver was up and running again. Which gave us some time over the weekend to fix some things, re-apply limits on boxes with exceptions ... ? Nope, guess again.
Always count on users to fill things up quickly. The 2 Gb of extra space wouldn't become usefull until a new defrag (an online defrag runs each night but isn't as thorough as an offline one)) and the extra 500 Mb obviously wouldn't get us through the slower weekend. So, back to square one we are. Stopping the server, copying the files, defragging the whole thing (which can take hours) and hoping it frees up the extra 2 moved Gb's. We'll see what happens.
So in the meantime all mail for this domain is being buffered in two seperate places - nothing should go lost, but it might take a while before anyone with an alias here gets his or her mail. Don't blame me, blame the people who wouldn't or couldn't cough up the extra dough for an Exchange Enterprise mailserver which doesn't have these limitations ...

Editorial - 12 May 2003

Some good advice folks, don't bother acting all macho anymore. The numbers are in and I know for sure you're all secretly doing the right thing at home : helping in the house-hold. Seems most european men are likely to help around. Ranging from 96% (the north) down till 71% (the south) - which is still very impressive, isn't it ?
Song of the week : -----
Oldie of the week : "Ontario" The Posies
Last seen movie : "Punch-drunk Love" : Adam Sandler in a serious role in the new PT "Magnolia" Anderson movie : that's gotta be interesting. And it was. An empty beginning, a strange and quirky middlepiece and a short yet tense finale. Sandler is absolutely perfect as the simpleton with a plan, suddenly finding love where and when he didn't expect it, trying to come to terms with a new array of feelings. I honestly never thought he was able to do this. PT Andersons direction was spot on as usual (watch the lighting, there are a lot of important details) and 'm glad he kept this movie a lot shorter than his previous efforts. Probably in my Top Ten for 2003.
Doing this week : If I may qoute Ang Lee : eat, drink, man, woman ...

Editorial - 6 May 2003

Okay, seems I was a little premature again with the sun and stuff. Just been two days at our "wonderful" seaside and had lots of wind and rain. It was fun nonetheless, the smell of our sea always makes up for the possibility of bad weather.
Song of the week : "If It Kills Me" Therapy?
Oldie of the week : -----
Last seen movie : " Ed TV" : well, it ain't great, but it ain't bad either. Decent actors and a director who can tell a story. Totally different than "The Truman Show" - to which it is often compared - because here the subject of the tv-show is chosen from a group of volunteers ... what would happen if someone incredibly common is put on tv 24/7 ? Would he or she become famous ? Would he change ? What would happen to his surroundings, his family ? Interesting concept, slightly above average worked out, entertaining one time viewing.
Doing this week : If I really was lucky enough to find a working driver for my very old parallel port scanner I can finally install Windows XP on my PC. I have been using it on other PC's a lot, but I couldn't use it on my own PC because my very very old scanner isn't recognised in windows XP. And off course the Primax website with drivers is long gone and offline. Now let's hope the drivers I found aren't filled with spyware ... still have to check that.

darkman says sleep tight

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