Tuesday, September 26, 2006
Following my Nabokov kick: Pale Fire (Boekenmarkt Spui).
Friday, September 22, 2006
I just got my official one-year evaluation from my supervisor, which ensures that my contract will indeed be ratified and that I get paid for another year. Actually I got the damn thing back to proofread (I’m getting a name for it…). I was particularly tickled with the summary: “The supervisors are content with the [...]
Thursday, September 21, 2006
It’s been a slow week, what with the houseboatwarming and the lurgy and all. But today’s mail brought me Electric Velocipede issues 9 and 10, which should keep me going for a while. Yay!
Monday, September 18, 2006
These cheerful little fellows were hanging out in the tree in front of our place a couple of weeks ago. (Cheers to Andi for the photos, and apologies for butchering them with the Gimp.)
Monday, September 18, 2006
We celebrated with great enthusiasm our third houseboatwarming last Saturday. (It seems we’ve miscalculated a little though: the boat is now too warm, so when Stefan leaves we’re planning a housecooling to restore the balance.) One event stands out as worth recording: at a relatively early point in the evening some random fellow let himself [...]
Monday, September 18, 2006
Robodock looks just fantastically fun, and is happening just down the road from the houseboat. I’ve been advised to catch Babylon Circus, ska at 1am Saturday night, but I must admit I’m most excited by the robots and fire everywhere. Robots and fire! Whee! (Thanks Erik for the tip.) With less robots but guaranteed plenty [...]
Thursday, September 14, 2006
Edward Johnston, Lessons in Formal Writing. If I remember correctly (and apparently I do), Johnston has been described as “the father of modern calligraphy”. All right, more or less. This is probably the last calligraphy-related purchase for a while… unless something else beautiful falls in my lap. Stephen Potter, The Complete Upmanship. This one (or [...]
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Apparently there’s an exercise for the new logic masters students, to find out stuff about people in the far-away land of Nieuwe Doelenstraat. Just to be helpful, then: my bachelors was in Computer Science, at Otago University (New Zealand), and then I did the logic masters right here in Amsterdam. Other people with a sciencey [...]
Friday, September 8, 2006
One of the organisational staff of the philosophy department here had a stroke (more or less) a few days ago. I’m glad to say she seems to be recovering ok, but at the time she couldn’t manage the stairs to get to the ambulance so they brought in a fire truck and took her out [...]
Friday, September 8, 2006
We have spiders. Like other people have … something you’ve got a lot of all over your house. To sleep at night, I don’t count sheep. I count spiders. And I’m usually asleep before I have to start imagining them. A couple of days ago I woke up with two tiny spider-bites on my shoulder [...]