Pussenboots

We heard about a cat sanctuary that was on a canal boat, so we decided to go and have a look. We wrapped up warm and headed out.



On our way we popped into the NZ shop: Kiwisauce. These guys sell mainly specialty gourmet sauces and NZ wines.



I think they also do Kiwi catering, and we are guessing that the NZ embassy would be their number 1 customer. They also have some Kiwi classics. Mmmm Vegemite!



But the best thing they have is: proper pies! Vege pies, mince, steak and cheese, all covered in yummy pasty. We bought some frozen pies to heat up at home, and a birthday present for our friend Marloes the Dutchie.

After stocking up on NZ supplies (no pineapple lumps though) we headed for the Pussenboots float. The kitties who live aboard have a pretty lavish pad! The whole boat has been designed just for them, and there are places to sleep, play and eat. They are taken care of by a group of dedicated volunteers.



when we arrived it was feeding time, so all the kitties were eating.



There were lots of nice kitties, but we liked this guy lots. His name is Kiss and he was very happy to receive some love. He was also pretty happy as he had a very comfy bed set up by a heater. Mmmmm..



Some of the other kitties are more scare-dy..



The kitties were all cute, but look at this cutie we met in a pet shop down the street! He has a very grumpy face, but is actually very friendly! We make the occasional visit to the pet shop to visit him.



Meow!

Paasve

We were invited to Schagen for the Paasve festival. This is a very localised celebration, a time whne the farmers auction off cows and show off their farm-wares. Its a sort of mini AnP show, but is also used as an excuse for drunken madness for the whole reigon.

Any excuse to drink! I took a day off work, as it was on a Wednesday during the day. We needed to collect our finalised Residents Permits (yes, we are 100% legal now, not temporary residents), so I used this as a 1/2 excuse.

I saw this sign on the way and had to take a picture.



If you don't find this funny you are mature. I'm not...

So we took a train north to Schagen. That is a hrd word to say - the ch and the g are both said like a loogie hoick. Something like sckkkkhaaaa-kkkkhen. It's very phlegm-y.



This is Robert, one of the Dutch we have talked about. He met us at the train station (not terribly sober) on the back of his brothers bike, and they guided us to a bread shop where his mate works.



We got given lots fo free food, including these baguettes. I joking suggested Robert should take them to the pub and try to swap them for drinks.



This is an awesome pose of Princess and Robert. The guy over Roberts shoulder is his brother - thats why they look alike!



Hmm, whats that coming out of his jacket?



The whole town was seething with drunken youth, and all the pubs had the drunken >18s ! It was truly messy, but very funny. It reminded me of Courtney Place after a rugby match.


We met up with Marloes (the other member of the Dutch) and her crew of friends. They had been drinking separately, and so we all kind of met in the afternoon, and most of us were drunk. By most I mean everyone but us :(



But no problem, we know how to fix that - Wheres the pub?



Before we headed in I took this photo. Schagen has a beautiful church in the center square. If this photo zoomed out you would see the youth pissing on the side of it... messy.



This is what it looked like when we left the pub. But I have skipped ahead - we headed in to this pub.



It was very packed and you couldn't move, everyone was pushing you around. At least everone was relaxed about the fact, you just had to put up with it. The weather meant that no one wanted to be outside, hence the pubs were MAD! We headed on in and claimed a spot.

It turns out that Robert accidentally found a way to get the ladies attention. It turns out that drunk chicks love a guy with baguettes stuffed in his jacket. It was hard work for him to keep them away, and even I got my jacket searched, in case I had any more snacks! Robert was very professional and didn't let the attention get the better of him.

We drank iced white wine (thats how it was served) and listened to Dutch pop music. Some was good, some was bad but it was cool to socialise with lots of Dutch people. All of Marloes friends also speak excellent English, and we all had a fun time. Eventually we stumbled out (took a picture of the spire) and headed to the takeaway shops.



This shop shows how ridiculously busy it was. we walked further away and still had to battle queues. Some chips and cheese toasties lined our bellies and we then said goodbye and headed to the train.

and introducing...

Our new hamster:

Both of us love animals and were really keen to get a pet. As we are only here for a short time getting a cat or a dog wouldn't be a wise decision. So we decided on a hamster. They are cute and small, and easy to take care of.
We did some research on pet shops in Amsterdam, and found one near our house that sounded good. So, one Saturday morning a week and a half ago we set off to the chosen pet shop to buy our hamster!



At the pet shop the guy spoke broken English, but was happy to show us the hamsters. We initially thought we would get 2 so they would have company, but the owner said they'd fight and may even kill each other! We then settled on a little grey and white dwarf hamster. Princess chose him because he was alert and cute; Toolman liked his grey racing stripe! We got a cage, with all the other bits and pieces and jumped on a tram headed for home.



Our new pet is in the box on top of the cage. He definitely didn't seem to like been stuck in the little carry box. All the way home he was furiously scratching the bottom of it trying to make an escape!
We finally got home and started to prepare the hamster's new house. Inside the cage is a wheel, food bowl, drink bottle, hamster kennel and a mezzanine floor with a ramp that goes up to it. We've covered the floor of the cage in a thick layer of special wood chips, as hamsters love to burrow.




You'll have noticed we haven't introduced him - we've have been teasing you since the title.

Princess chose the name Heikki (pronounced high-key) when Toolman was talking about Formula 1 racedrivers (see Heikki
Kovalainen). Heikki the hamster has a nice ring to it! He is very cute, but hard to photograph as he doesn't like to stay still for long! We are trying to make him tame at the moment by taking him out of his cage every night and letting him run around getting used to us. He's definitely getting more confident, he's quite happy to crawl around on us and isn't too hard to get out of his cage.



You can see his grey back with race stripe. He even has McLaren colors like his namesake. Hamsters have such cute stocky little bodies, and they only have a tiny little fluffy tail.



This is his little doghouse box. We bought special hamster fluff for inside it so he can keep nice and snug throughout the colder months.



If you look on the right corner of the laptop you can see him. We also got him a exercise ball as shown. He rolls around but our floor is very uneven and he has to work hard to go uphill. The ball is heavier than Heikki so he really has to work to run about, and sometimes he can't slow it down and gets tumbled about. He seems to enjoy his time in the ball though, and is always happy to hop inside it. Hamsters have a lot of pent up energy, so the hamster ball is the perfect way to use some of that up.



He is getting spoilt a fair bit! We have bought him special sand that he has in a dish in his cage so he can play in it. He absolutely loves it and spends lots of time rolling around in it! We also try and keep him entertained but putting cardboard tubes and things into his cage for him to explore. We are also trying lots of different types of food out on him. He is quite fond of bread and also raisins.

He is nocturnal, so doesn't tend to make much of an appearance until night time. Princess woke him up yesterday morning to show her family via Skype and he was most upset, squeaking and carrying on!

We will post more pictures of him as we take them :)

Toolmans tech endevours:

As I have mentioned, I am now working at JTeam. For my first few weeks I have been cycling around and working in other business offices. I dug up an old Dell laptop from the depths of the server room. It weighs a ton, but is quite powerful. This is my mobile office



When I am in the office, this is where I sit.



Since this photo, I now use the Dell laptop and this screen for a dual screen setup. The DPI difference is huge (the Dell has a very high res screen), so moving something from one screen to the other causes the size to scale up about 50%!



This is a sneaky photo of my workmates Tim and Martijn. Work provides a free lunch for everyone. It is well catered, with lots of breads, cheeses, spreads and other delicatessen items, as well as lots of nice drinks... Mmmm!



I love Pindakaas! Thats peanut butter for you non-Netherlands-types.



The view out the window is average, but we are moving soon, and the new place is very nice. I found a second of these old Dell laptops at work, and have taken it home so that we have a laptop each.

Now that I have my own computer, our Acer laptop has been Princess-ified ..

f

PINK!!

I have succumbed to temptation and bought a pair of C64 DTV joysticks. This is a complete Commodore C64 implemented in a single silicon chip and embedded into the joystick. It has a 2Mb flash rom that holds the 30 games included.



The developers were nice enough to provide ALL pintouts for peripherals: keyboard (ps2), second joystick port, original 1541 disk drive serial lines, S Video and the true C64 ROM basic. I bought 2 so that I can hack one of them. I'm not yet sure what the hack will be yet...



For now I'm just honing my California Games skills. These are cool, but I need to change some of the games on it.



On an unrelated note, the big supermarket chain here (Albert Heijn) are giving away Smurfs. Look at the left most smurf :

LOLSmurf!

Marksy

It was a beautiful Saturday morning, and I got up early to prepare for our pal Marksy to come stay. I found a single mattress stuffed in one of the communal closets. I pulled it out, and headed off to the train station.

Took a tram to Centraal and hung around to meet up. Eventually found him and took him back home. We dropped his gears off at the Van Eeghenstraat pad and then us 2 lads went for a look around town.



This is the Iguana park. "Hello Colin !?!". These brass statues look very real, especially on a grey day - I've done double-takes on the ma few times. We walked around the shops and then headed back to the pad to prepare for some drinks and food out.

We met up with the Dutch and went to a classic Dutch pub (whose name I dont know). We all tried the local favourite, Amster beer, talked some, sank a few more, talshkd, drinkded, tshalked then ...

then headed down to the cheap Italian pizza! We said goodbye to the Dutch after dinner and had a wander around the red light district. Yes, its actually pretty un-seedy. There are red lit windows and pretty girls in undies. You can wander around and window shop (so to speak). Not really our scene, but novel to wander around and observe.

Sunday we decided to try a few local foods, including some not-very-nice ones. His face says it all...



We all went for a Sunday walk thru the Vondelpark and saw all manner of doggies on their outings. Lots of great doggy-spotting in the park. I read a news article noting that the council here allow sex in Vondelpark; but dogs must be kept on a leash. Make of it what you will.

Mark felt a little ill that afternoon, so we let him rest and have a shower (ask him how he felt). We all had a lazy afternoon watching crap TV - you know, that reality TV that keeps on repeating the same clips over and over. Its like being in a infinite loop sometimes!

For the whole week, I had to go to work :( . Marksy and Princess spent the week together, looking around and taking pictures. You can read his blog post here (http://www.mechanicalmarksy.com/?p=500) and see his neat-o pictures. Some of them are quite pretty!



There is lots of junk food options here, so we sampled lots of new things. One nice treat we found was these "Fatty-Boom-Batty" cakes that are awesome. I don't know their names, but MMmmMmmmmm! We ended up drinking and nerding most nights. Lucky we had 3 laptops!



One night we went for a walk through town past this building I spotted cycling by a few weeks ago. Its all blue-lit and it looks like its hollow. We spent the 4 euro to get into the Sex Museum, and looked at all the weird and wonderful variety in sexual expression thought the ages. Plus its fun to point and giggle..



I know Mark found it amusing.

So yes, lots of computing - its much better then conversation and all that kind of thing. Why talk when we can just instant message? Or skype?



Another geek glamor shot.



This is a nice pic of Marksy checking the street below. Unfortunately he might be smoking a cigarette - thats naughty! I hear that he has given up now - hope so.



I usually take one cigarette out of his pack, out it down my pants and wiggle around a bit. Then I slip it back into the pack and give it a shake. Instant dis-incentive. I think that deep down he appreciates it even if he does get grumpy on the outside. Marksy took some nice pictures around town; check this one out:



...and in the window...



Yes, its as bad as you think it would be. But seriously, some of his pictures are very pretty.



Amsterdam has a style best summed up by my cousin, Scott:

lol, gingerbread houses!

We planned on hiring a bike for Marksy, but while we were looking for a rental shop we stumbeld across some people racing up and down the canal in bathtubs! it looked like a charity event, and looked cold!



I never found any information on why they were doing it, but I'm sure it was something very scouting-like. We got Marksy a bike and took a bike ride around a few local parks in Amsterdam: Vondelpark and Rembrantspark.



We pulled some skids and chirped a wheelie here and there. My bike survived a few bunny-hops and a jump over a ramp. I wasn't confident, but the bike has proven very solid so far.



There is a video that I'll be putting up on youTube soon with us doing some ace skids. Stay tuned. Was awesome fun to have Marksy stay - we had all manner of shennanagins!