Yes, it is I who has been a bad bad blogger (BBB). I mean, LORD! I have to walk like at least 10 minutes to this Internet cafe and somehow the harsh lighting and the strange atmosphere (a sort of passive aggressive desperation as everyone gets online in NOT-thier-natural-online-habitat, or is that just me projecting my own sentiments) is jut not conducive to the Blogging Muse (BM) that resides deep deep in my inner soul. Seriously, more than anything, I like to write late at night or early in the morning when I am not around a computer these days. I go to the Internet cafe with my BEST Intentions (BI) but I nearly always fail. I still can’t believe that anyone reads this thing anymore but I have found some comments which have put my linking abilities to shame so here is the correct link for http://get.a.clue.de/ProgStone/. Thanks Rabble. And since I am on the topic, Simon recommended this too: tao-of-programming which I have seen before but never read. Oh, it is on Kragen’s site, he is a friend from SF (In the words of Yoda, “HMMMMMMM. small small geek world, it is).

And Niels posted a nice summary of our bike trip so anyone interested in biking in the Netherlands please do read his very good summary. Niels, Mark-Jan, and I hope to go on one more bike ride tomorrow which should be nice given that it is not supposed to rain here, what a MIRACLE.

This last weekend was, like I mentioned in an earlier blog entry, was going to be a true goulash and the hilarious thing is that I ate actually ate homemade delicious Dutch goulash, at Wilmer’s farm house up north in Beiden. He is really the whole reason that I came to the Netherlands in the first place as he wrote me a long while back and in our email exchange he let me know that there were MANY Debian Devlopers (MDD) in the Netherlands. And was he SO right. Thus, it was funny that I had goulash at his house and that it was one of my more unusual and fun interviews I have ever had. I will have to write more about it at a later time but really, when you go out to herd cows into the milking barn with Ruby, the border collie, as your “interview break” (IB), you are in for an Interview Treat (IT). And if you use more than one interface for chatting, damn it, consolidate NOW and check out Wilmer’s wonderful Bitlbee which is not just a fine program but is just, well, a RAD name too..

And I found out about some other cool Linux stuff in the Nethelands too while at the Debian key signing dinner in Utrecht on Saturday. Rubin and Freek, yes, Freek (what a GREAT name, I though of naming my first born /bin freek coleman –> now that is a freeeeky name) started a very cool seeming Linux/Unix store called Vt100 in Da Haag. If you are a geek in the vicinty, what can I say, GOOOOOOO! And if you are a geek in visitation here, GOOOOOOOOO. Rubin is hilarious and he is very willing to make bets with you (which he will LOSE) about the imagery in what is now currently my favorite cartoon Fokke and Sukke which is not just a cartoon-experience for me but an interactive one. It is in Dutch which alas, I have NOT picked up here : ( and so, I need the fine help of my friends to decipher the cartoon of these two feathered friends who are obnoxious, gross, and irressistably cute and funny. If you know Dutch, read it and it might even be worth learning Dutch to JUST to read it.

Well, there are some Yummy Tid-Bits (YTB) to keep you waiting for some future posts when I am in the comfort of my home, punching away at the keyboard that I have come to love. I will be back more or less next Tuesday.

Well, I don’t think that I am any longer really a BBB as it seems like the BM has payed me a visit in this internet cafe despite the fact that I need to strech my neck to frikken see the screen (if there is one thing I have learned as an anthropologist, is that the world is not made for shrimps like me). And I will have more to write as I will continue to see more Debian folks as there are really MDD here and I might even have to take one more IB and hope to have even an IT (Wiggy, it is up to you to one up Wilmer’s IB) and if that is the case, I will have a YTP for you all again!!!!