A Decent Desktop

Hurrah, my Windows XP desktop now looks much more like Linux, thanks to a utility called Style XP and the Nautilus RC4 theme available from themexp.org.

It all came out of frustration that Windows XP only comes with 3 color schemes, 2 of which were ugly, and the third one (Silver) got boring after using it for a year. And somehow the system won’t allow you to define your own color scheme, unless you switch back to the ancient Win95/98 look.

Anyway, I’m a lot happier now. The window title bars aren’t as ridiculously huge as they normally are, either.

I can see clearly now…

…I have new glasses.

Some of you may remember me struggling with my old pair of glasses, which almost fell apart (and sometimes actually did). It’s all due to the customer-unfriendly opticians in Britain and Canada, who refused to sell me a pair of new glasses without doing an eye-test which cost not only L. 10, but more importantly: a few days time to make an appointment. I just want the exact same prescription! No, that was impossible… Therefore I muddled on…

Today, I found that while the British chain Specsavers is Not Very Helpful in their own country, in Holland they’re fantastic (at least in the Leidsenhage shopping center).

Awfully quiet

This morning, it’s so awfully quiet in the office. The room behind me, where normally 8 people live, is completely empty. Just as in the well-known Cup-a-soup commercial (here in Holland): “Here you see the entire Sabbatical Department” (pointing at empty room).

Anyway, some people are still on holiday (until today), and some other people have chosen to take a day off (Friday is very popular for that).

I wonder how many people will be having lunch in this building today (normally 4 or 5 people)???

Good and Bad News on Knees pt. 2

Visited the orthopaedic surgeon to hear the results of the MRI scans of my right hip and knee .

The good news is that the scans show that the knee is fine, and the hip is not much worse than last time (in May)
The bad news is that the discomfort has increased considerably, such that an operation seems necessary.

As the hospital in Delft doesn’t have the necessary expertise to do this specific type of operation, the surgeon has referred me to the university hospital in Leiden, where they do.

Hopefully, I won’t have to wait too long. OTOH, I’m not 100% sure that I want the operation done, especially if the discomfort would disappear by itself.

Quelle horreur…

What a tragedy… a bomb exploded today at the Marriott Hotel in Jakarta, with 10 people killed, and 111 injured (as I write this)…

Just last night, there was a program on Dutch TV, where Step Vaessen, a journalist in Indonesia, mentioned that islamic extremism in Indonesia was on the rise, and could not be ignored… Q.E.D.