Ogre's, a donkey and a puss

Yes, we saw it! Shrek the Third. Tina and I went to the local cinema last Friday. It is a lot like #2, but better. The dying frog scene, the horn blowing boatsman and - of course - Puss in Boots are fantastic! Haha. I cannot explain it, you must go and see for yourself.

Toy gun

I've seen one of the newest Guy Ritch films today: Revolver. Heard some good and some bad stories about it. My conclusion? It's shit. Read the user comments on IMDB and you'll read enthousiasm as well as anger. I go for the latter. What a pretentious bullshit. But perhaps I did not understand it... Have you seen it? What is your opinion?

Fixed!

Remember this post? Well, the problem is solved. We had two more days of rain and the roof leaked no more. Hurrah for roof-fixers!

Kid's stuff

Today Romeo & I went for a little visit to the pet farm. He loves animals so we took a look at the big pig with it's youngsters, petted the goats (who of course thought they we're going to be fed) and visited the bunnies. Amazing how kids react to animals. He was so excited just by looking at them! Jumping up and down and crying out loud with joy. Fortunately we stayed dry in spite of the dark clouds over us. We shared an icecream afterwards to celebrate good times.

Water down the hole

Summer in Holland comes in showers these days. We hardly see any sun and rain poors down like in an East European winter. Not so long ago we bought a small hundred year old house in the centre of Alphen aan den Rijn. And last friday and yesterday water came into our house... The ceiling in Romeo's room was wet and brown and a lot of water had fallen on the new wooden floor. Bad luck. Thank god we could contact a very nice guy from a roof repair service who came early this morning to fix it. It turned out the drainpipe was jammed with dirt and that the pipe was not constructed properly. So during heavy rain the roof floods and water gets around the pipe, under the roof and into our house (more specific: Romeo's room, just above his bed). The fixer fixed it in a jiffy. Weather forecast for today: 90% rain, wet, dark, depressing. So let's hope the fix lasts!

Back from Croatia

Yup, we're back. Quite some time now actually but we haven't had the time to tell you about it. And we will not do that yet. But you can check our photos here.

Alphen for capital

We live in Alphen aan den Rijn. A place in the middle of Het Groene Hart (The Green Heart). Some 30 kilometres from both Amsterdam, The Hague, Utrecht and Rotterdam. Ideal huh? Too bad it is such a dull place... Today Romeo and I went shopping on the market. It's nice, we do it every week. Every now and then a city committee of some sort invites artists to entertain shoppers. Just to give Alphen that "real European city feeling". This week a drumband with flag wavers from Belgium were performing. I could not really find out the purpose of their doings. And neither could they, I could tell that by the look on their faces... They walk with their flags waving not caring for people in the crowd being hit by the enormous flagposts and stop after a few paces. Drummers hit the drums, the group turns around and the whole party walks back to where they had begun. Some ten minutes later we saw a fanfare will old people dressed up as frogs. Playing drums, tuba, trombone. The works. The things frogs normally only do when they are really really drunk. Funny to look at, but again we missed the point. That's the whole problem with this city. They try a lot, but seemingly without any real purpose. Get some thought into it lads!

Donations

Have you ever made any donations? I think it's noble when people give their money away to charity, healtcare, etc. So recently I made a donation. I responded to a letter and transferred some money. They're happy, I'm happy. Simple as that. But a few weeks later I found out they were not happy. Yet... Since my donation I am being spammed with all sorts of request. Cancer foundation, Heart foundation, Save the forest, Save the whales, Save us. Litteraly every week I receive two or more requests. And before my donation? Nothing. It probably works like this: "We have no phonebooks. We have no addresses of possible donators. We only have a file with people who gave us money before. Hmm... what to do? Eureka! We'll send them another request!" And charity funds exchange addresses of donators to expand their databases. Or it is just one big database. I repeat: charity is a good thing. But this is not. I am willing to give money. But not to all of them. Not because I think their cause is not good enough, but just because I do not want to. So, go contact some of those hidden treasures!

It's magic

Have you ever seen Derren Brown? It's amazing what this guy can do. Neuro Linguistic Programming it's called. Some of his other stuff is plain magic. And in some flicks people actually fool themselves. Take a look at this example. This one is good also.

Read us, see us

You can read us here, but see us there. Check it out regularly for updates.

Back!

It has been a while. A long while. But we're back! A lot happened since our last post. Tina got pregnant by November 2005, Romeo was born July 2006, we bought a house in October 2006, redecorated it in February, moved in in March, went on holiday in May... We have enough stories to fill this blog for the coming months! Welcome back y'all.