This is yet another attempt to move away from this extremely limited journal on this nerd site :P. I created a blog on blogspot, the address is here:

http://thom-holwerda.blogspot.com/

From now on, I'll continue there. Have fun :).

It was a great evening, had enough laughs in any case :). Someone made his first ever joke! Amazing.

The guy turned 21-- kinda scary to see that I'll be friggin' 20 in three weeks...I'm like... Old... What if my friends around me start having kids and get married and such? I'm so close to thirty... And Erik Jan (I'm allowed to say his name) is now 21! How does he manage...

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Me and her still seem to get along pretty well, I really wonder where that comes from. I guess really bad experiences creates strong bonds too. Anyway, it was a good evening, and no, I still don't feel the urge to actually start celebrating my own birthday with all my friends and such-- somehow I always seem to think it's too much of a hassle. Well, I'll wait and see. Maybe I'll actually do celebrate it.

Just got back from work-- it was a good day at work, many customers, so time flew.

Tonight yet another birthday, this time one of my better friends celebrates his birthday. First, me and two friends are gonna watch some telly and drink "some", then we'll go to the birthday. Looking forward to it :).

One year ago, on the same guy's birthday, I met "her", so that birthday is memorized, well, pretty good.

*Sigh* What a year...

I'm currently watching the ceremonials surrounding the funeral of Yasser Arafat. Impressive-- there are a lot of people in Cairo out on the streets. It's the respect Arafat desrves.

What shocks me though, is the position the US and Israel take. The US only sent a vice-secretary of foreign afairs. Sharon didn't even mention Arafat, and no one from the Israeli Nazi government attends the funeral. This again shows that Mr. Bush and Nazi Sharon are not out for peace in the middle-east. If they really were, the US and Israel could've sent out a message by sending people with real status.

I hate Sharon and his government. He's a nazi.

AAARRRGGHHH It's been nothing but hell, the upgrade to OS 10.3.6 on my iMac....

Immediatly when I got it back from the Apple Store I installed the new update; it ran fine for a few days. Untill it apparantly had enough: it got into a kernel panic loop. On reboot, it'd panic even before the Apple loading window appeared; one could read the panic notice faintly on the blue backdrop.

I repaired permissions, and it seemed as though it solved the problem. Untill today. It panicked again. I immediatly backupped my important stuff, and did a complete Panther re-install. I figured I'd just stay the hell away from 10.3.6. Bad idea.

The problems I had before I took it to the Apple Store returned! I then read the changelog of .3.6, and read that they had updated the Ati/nVidia drivers. That explained why I hadn't been getting any screen fuck-ups... Right. So there I was, stuck between screen fuck-ups and kernel panics.

I chose the latter. I updated, but immediatly upon reboot, the panics resurfaced. At this point I was seriously thinking of giving up on all the crap. First the screen fuck-ups, now these panics, I simply had it. But, I didn't give up.

I repaired permissions... Again. And again. And again. Suddenly, it seemed that a few security fixes weren't installed. How the hell could that be?? I used the friggin' combo update to update my freshly installed 10.3.0 to 10.3.6! Well, I didn't complain, installed these updates, repaired permissions, and here I am. In OS X. I'm wondering how long it's gonna take.

Mmm they stopped the broadcasts of "Scrubs" today. Too bad, especially since they replaced it with "Nikki". A hot chick, that's for sure, but a boring series. Too bad.

I bought a new speakerset for my iMac today! After a thorough listening test I came to the conclusion that this i-Trigue offered the best price/quality/slickness ratio. I found slickness quite important since I didn't want a cheap-ass boring speakerset next to my expensive and beautiful iMac ;).

Yasser Arafat, President Of The Palestinian Authority, has passed away. His death was confirmed by the Palestinian Authority and hospital officials.

This is sad news. Arafat was no goody twoshoes, but he was someone who fought against the illegitimate occupation of his nation; he struggled for a free Palestine, where Muslims, Jews and Christians could live side by side.

I support this cause, I always have. Israel has no right to exist; they are a terrorist state oppressing the Palestian people.

Yasser Arafat, rest in peace. The struggle continues, free Palestine.

I just got word from my mom that there now has also been a bomb-threat somewhere near the back-gardens of Paleis Noordeinde (The Noordeinde Palace). Indeed, that's where my Queen lives...

Update: The two suspects inside the building in question were arrested-- one got shot and was taken away by ambulance. Currently the anti-explosives unit is searching the area for explosives, using robots.

I just learnt that the coffee market is, after the oil industry, the market in which the most money goes around.

Coffee rocks :).

My country is going to hell, I swear to god. There has been a huge anti-terrorism action going on in our administrative capitol, The Hague. There are hundreds of policemen, snipers, special forces, anti-terrorism people in a street in The Hague. Tonight they already raided a building; and currently they are preparing for a second, far bigger action in that same building. The neighbourhood has been evacuated, and most notably, the airspace above The Hague has been closed down. This is big, really big.

But more worrying stuff is going on: the past few days a couple of muslim schools and mosques have been attacked with bombs and molotov cocktails. Just this night, a muslin primary school was burnt down to the ground; on the windows the stupid pieces of crap that did it wrote stuff like "RIP Theo" and "White Power".

What do these sick, idiotic fucks want?? They are burning down primary schools! Where children go! Children for crying out loud!!!!. I hope they arrest the people that did this, and preferably lock them up for at least twenty years.

Man I'm pissed off.

Just got back from the doctor. I've been having some serious throataches the last 4-5 days, but I wanted to see what would happen, instead of running to the doctor at the first moment. Anyway, this morning I got up with a huge headache and some earpains, so I figured it was enough. Called the doctor, told him what was wrong and he came to the conclusion that I had anchina. I'm on antibiotics now, oh the joy.

And my friggin' head still hurts.

Had an extremely good evening today :). I watched Monty Python's The Search For The Holy Grail with the same girl I talked about in this entry. What a hilarious movie! Coconuts, Swallows, Three questions, bunnies, those are the keywords :).

We should definitely do this more often, I really liked it. Somehow I always prefer the easy setting of someone's home, combined with friends, over the busy and noisy setting of going out. I like the latter as well, don't get me wrong, but the former I simply like better.

Next time at my place? Definitely :). It's about time you people crawl out of that dirty city and come to the peaceful, easy feeling on the countryside :D.

My iMac is back! Finally I can enjoy a real computer again :)

I finally recieved word from the Apple Store. What I was afraid for has happened: after a week of rigourous testing they didn't get any further than I did. They found no hardware faults or whatever; I'm starting to suspect it's my own fault. I did play with how my power-cords were arranged behind my desk; that might influence my Mac's behaviour. I'm starting to suspect this since the lamp on my desk has also been sent towards lamp-heaven; it blew up two perfectly new lightbulbs. Expensive 7E-a-piece lightbulbs. Peace be with them.

And now for yet another extraordinairy piece of Fiona Apple, taken from "Fast As You Can":

O darling, it's so sweet, you think you know how crazy
-How crazy I am
You say you don't spook easy, you won't go but I know
And I pray that you will

-Fast as you can, baby run-free yourself of me

I may be soft in your palm but I'll soon grow
hungry for a fight, and I will not let you win
My pretty mouth will frame the phrases that will
disprove your faith in man

And I'll be your girl, if you say it's a gift
And you give me some more of your drugs
Yeah I'll be your pet, if you just tell me it's a gift
Cuz I'm tired of why's, choking on whys,
Just need a little because

Yeah, I think I'm gonna place her above Alanis Morissette both musically and lyrically. Difficult descision, but someone's gotta make it.