I know, I know, I haven’t blogged for quite some time now (more than a month now actually) and you might be wondering what’s been going on. Well, for starters I am a student in what are hopefully the last couple months of getting her degree. I will keep blogging, but I’m just letting you all know that the next couple of months will be bumpy and busy and that blogging will have to take a second seat.

Now next to that I had a very nice trip to the dental surgeon (read my sarcasm, please) two weeks ago. I have to warn you, this is a very, very long blog post, way longer than I expected. If you’ve been following my blog longer, you might remember that I had to go to the dentist a couple of months ago. He discovered then that my bottom two wisdom teeth were impacted, meaning instead of growing in the normal way vertically, they grew horizontally against the other teeth (see picture, only with me there’s still gum completely covering it). I would have to go to the dental surgeon to have them removed within the next 2 years (at the moment they’re not doing any damage or so, but eventually they will get infected).

Two months ago I phoned to make an appointment with the dental surgery at our city hospital and the first free slot was two weeks ago on Friday. The weird thing though was that when I phoned they knew exactly who I was and what had to be done (bottom wisdom teeth removed). Oh, okay, I thought, the dentist must have sent them all the necessary info and forms already. Then I showed up on Friday and they had no idea what had to be done and if I had the referral of the dentist with me. Ehm, that would be a ‘No’. So I explained my situation and got on the spot new x-rays, but will still have to get the referral from the dentist for insurance issues.

I then had a ‘nice’ conversation with the surgeon; first, she told me they could only do one side, which (while logical) means I’ll have to go through this whole thing a second time in February. Then, she explained that they’ll also have to do the top two wisdom teeth (which I was expecting), but that they would have to wait for them to come out some more. However, even if they lowered, the place was very near my nasal passages (ugh, I hope I’m explaining this right) and they could create a passage between my mouth and my nasal passages. Eventually this can heal, but it means you can’t blow your nose for about half a year. Right, great! Finally, on my x-rays it seemed that the wisdom teeth went straight through a nerve. The problem though was that because it was a 2D image they couldn’t be actually sure it was actually like that or just layered over each other in photo (over projection). They wouldn’t know until they pulled the roots out and exposed a nerve (or not). She explained that if that happened, by pulling out the tooth you can damage the nerve, which leaves your lip and cheek senseless for about a year (eventually it will heal). Ah, okay, nice to know, but you can’t do anything about that and the teeth have to go out, right? Right.

So I sat back in the dentist chair with a great view of the peaceful trees outside, which quickly got obscured by the big blue sheet of paper with a nice big hole for where my mouth would stick out. I got 2 big needles of anesthetic, which numbed my cheek pretty much up, but left me reasonably wide awake and conscious of everything that happened. The dentist was considerate enough to tell me exactly what they were doing. “First, we’re going to pull back the gum to expose the wisdom tooth.” I decided to keep my eyes shut, cause I really didn’t want to see what type of tools they were going to apply to my poor jaw. Good decision, because shortly after that I heard this ghastly saw like sound. The dentist explained that they would first saw a bit and then drill through the tooth, until they could crack the top part off. The ‘cracking’ was actually the scariest part, because it didn’t go in one go; they decided they had to saw and drill some more. The actual pulling of the tooth (well, the roots in my case) didn’t really seem that bad. Plus no nerves were exposed so I’m not paralyzed. I got a couple of stitches and I was ready to go. Great! It didn’t hurt at all and I was done in half an hour!

And now Stupid Mel comes into action. Instead of realising the anesthetic is pretty strong and that my jaw had just been through a serious ordeal, I began chatting and talking away, as if everything was fine. Of course, by the time I got home, the anesthetic had worn off and the agony commenced. I can seriously say I’ve never been in that much pain before in my life. The quarter of an hour it took for the painkillers to kick in, were the most excruciating, unbearable minutes I had ever been through. With the painkillers though, it wasn’t too bad. Although I did look like an asymmetrical chipmunk.

The next couple of days I just spent on the couch: reading books (managed to finish 4 in 4 days 😀 ), sleeping and slurping soup (I could only open my mouth 7-8 mms, so any other food was out of the question). Then on Wednesday night, one of the stitches came out and this weird combo of blood and yellow ickiness (pus) came out. Stress time! “It’s infected!”, “I won’t be able to eat during Christmas”, and all other thoughts down this line of reasoning kept spinning through my mind. So Thursday morning I phoned the dental surgery and was told that if the pain hadn’t increased and if the cheek hadn’t swollen up more, I should continue rinsing with salt and all should be fine.

24 Hours later nothing had changed, but I decided to phone the dental surgery again. Remember this was the 21st of December, only 4 days before Christmas and I still couldn’t open my mouth more than a centimeter (yes, there at least was some progress). Plus I would be leaving for London again on the 28th, so I really wanted to make sure it was all better before I left. Anyhow, I phoned again and they managed to squeeze me in during lunch that day. So exactly one week after the “surgery”, I made my way to the hospital again. This time I got another doctor; my previous one wasn’t working there anymore (“yeah, we fired her, she wasn’t that good”, the doctor joked).

Luckily I’m as paranoid as I am, because there was some light infection. The surgeon gave me another anesthetic; this one tasted horrible, but worked much faster. Only a couple seconds after giving it, he made a small incision into the inside of my cheek. The remaining stitches were taken out and the hole/gap/whatever was thoroughly rinsed. he then inserted this thin piece of gauze (I think that’s what it’s called at least in English) into the small incision. Ouch! I would have to come back that Monday (24th of December, the day before Christmas) to have the gauze removed. He reassured me though that I would be perfectly able to enjoy Christmas dinner.

After the pain from the incision wore off, it actually didn’t hurt as much as before and the swelling had lessened somewhat. That night I could even eat again and by Sunday I was even singing! The return visit on Monday was very short. The surgeon removed the gauze (very icky) and rinsed the wound by spraying a stream of water into it with a syringe. I then got my very own syringe to keep it clean until the wound closed itself. This is a whole lot trickier than when the dentist does it. I’m hoping I did it right, but a part of me thinks I wasn’t doing it properly.

Christmas and Boxing Day everything went okay; no increased pain, no ickiness, no swelling. I still wasn’t using the right side of my mouth during chewing, but at least I could eat, right? Then Friday 2 hours before we’re leaving for London, disaster strikes. No, I’m exaggerating, but it was enough to get me into stress mode again. As before yellow ickiness was coming out the wound. I phoned the surgery again and actually talked to my doctor (instead of a secretary like the time before). All I could do was to remain rinsing and eventually it would close and heal itself.

It’s now 2 days later and there’s still ickiness coming out of the wound. I think it’s lessened (I’m hoping it’s lessened) and I hate it that all I can do is just sit and wait for it to heal. The worst part of this story is that in February I’ll have to go through this whole ordeal again for the bottom left wisdom tooth!

Last week it was confirmed that McG is officially signed on to direct the fourth Terminator, horribly named Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins. I honestly don’t think McG is a good choice for this movie. Although I’ve only seen his Charlies Angels movies, I’m not sure his style would fit with this type of action movie (the last thing the Terminator franchise needs is more cheesiness).

I’m trying to figure out how this movie will fit in the storyline of the previous Terminator films and more importantly the Sarah Connor Chronicles (SCC) tv-series. SCC will already have trouble with the whole time travel conundrum, but <SPOILER ALERT> they’re kind of resetting it by jumping into the future </SPOILER ALERT>. So how will T4 deal with this? FirstShowing reports that the movie will be about this:

The story will focus on John Connor organizing the surviving humans to resist Skynet’s army of robots. It will take place after the apocalypse (the end of Terminator 3) and likely feature the “origin” story of terminators – “the first time a human looking robot is used to infiltrate the ranks of people.”

I love the premise of the movie; finally a future was ravaged Terminator world! But it still doesn’t clarify exactly how SCC will relate to this.

What’s really got me psyched about T4 (I should actually call it TS:TFB, but I adamantly refuse, it’s a horrid, horrid name) is the following news/rumour from Ain’t It Cool News:

Hey folk Harry here. Just got off the phone with an extremely trusted source who has never been wrong before. he revealed exclusively to AICN that in the upcoming McG reboot, TERMINATOR SALVATION: The Future Begins, that they have cast CHRISTIAN BALE as none other than JOHN CONNER. you folks know what that means…THIS IS GOING TO KICK ASS!!!

Wow! Christian Bale as John Connor? That could actually work! If this is true, then somehow in my mind this movie has no possibility of failing. The writing can be sucky, the directing can be crap, but as long as it’s got Christian Bale in it…swoon. I’m hoping though that it will be more than just a Christian Bale swoonfest; with all the right ingredients and preperation this could be a deliciously enjoyable movie.

Looking at the plot, I’m also wondering which other characters will be in the movie. Reese, perhaps? You know, the best friend of John Connor, who was sent back in time to protect Sarah Connor and ended up being his father? And, oh yeah, dies? That would give some great emotional conflict to the movie: “He’s my father! But he doesn’t know it yet! I have to send him back into time, otherwise I won’t exist! But I’m sending him to his doom! What to do! What to do!”

Here’s fingers crossed that McG won’t screw it up completely and that Christian Bale really has been cast in this!

I just love Threadless T-Shirts. After getting two of them a couple of months ago, I’ve been waiting for a good excuse to get some more. Well, now Threadless has a Holiday sale with all T-Shirts for $10! The girl tees cost normally $17, so it’s quite a nice discount. I ordered two cute tees: Ambition Killed The Cat and Three Plus…One.

Threadless also has a great way to give discounts to members: StreetTeam points. The idea is that every StreetTeam point is worth $1.50 store credit. You can earn 1 point by submitting a photo of yourself wearing a Threadless T-Shirt and if that photo is chosen for the product page, you can win 10 points. Another way to get points is to link to Threadless with your unique StreetTeam URL, and if that referral results in a sale, you get 2 points. Meaning if you click here, I’ll get $3.00 discount!

I’m still looking for someone else who also collects StreetTeam points, cause I’m now “wasting” points. I’ve already ordered T-Shirts twice, meaning I could have “given” someone a couple of points. So anyone out there who wants the points of my next order? It seems to me if you coordinate it right, you can end up with a nice discount.

When I was in highschool, Dragonball Z was immensely popular, especially under the “cool” non-geeky kids. In part, that is one of the reasons I never got into it; why bother myself with something everybody was already a fan of? It’s way geekier to like and know things about the things nobody else likes, right? Besides I’ve never really gotten the whole shifting hair colour thing anyway.

Skip forward to the present day where rumours about a Dragonball Z live action movie are slowly spreading. So what’s the scoop? Apparently Stephen Chow from Kung Fu Hustle and Shaolin Soccer fame is producing the DBZ movie and James Wong (Final Destination) is directing it based on a script he wrote. Meaning cool writer/director/actor guy is this time only providing the money (=no real creative input) and the “genius” (please don’t overlook my sarcasm here) behind a teen horror movie with Death as the slice&dicer has all the reins of control.

Add to that mix, Justin Chatwin as Goku and James Marsters as the villain Piccolo and I’m not sure what to expect. To be honest, I’ve only seen Chatwin as Tom Cruise’s son in War of the Worlds and that entire movie was quite forgettable. Judging on looks only, he could pass for a Goku, I guess. James Marsters as Piccolo though worries me. Are they going to keep the white turban? As much as I love Spike, I’m not really sure how they are going to pull this off. Hell, I’m not even sure how they’re going to pull this entire movie off!

(Side note: Wouldn’t James Marsters and David Anders (Sark in Alias, Takeshi Kitano in Heroes) just be perfect as brothers? They both have that same bad-guy-you-hate-to-love-love-to-hate-have-to-have attitude.)

I haven’t seen much of the tv show, so I can’t really determine the wowness/bleghness of it all. To me though, Dragonball Z just doesn’t seem one of those cartoons that would be easily translated to the big screen. Any old fans out there?

Before moving to London I used to be a boring student hanging out with student friends at student events (not that there’s anything wrong with that, mind you). Once in London I discovered a whole different world with engaging Dinners and Camps to go to. For me, it started when a couple of months ago Cristiano went to Barcamp London, came back completely enthusiastic about it and dragged me to a London Girl Geek Dinner (LGGD). I really liked the LGGD, but wasn’t really that sure about the Barcamp from what I heard about it. At the time I just thought that it wouldn’t be something for me. Then Cristiano dragged me to Barcamp Brighton (the dragging isn’t as bad as it sounds like) and I really loved it. The atmosphere and dynamics of the event were just so inspiring and interesting, I even held a last-minute presentation myself on emotion recognition (which to be honest wasn’t that good).

When Cristiano suggested we should go to Berlin for the Barcamp and the Web 2.0 Expo, I was initially not too sure about it. I mean, it’s in a different country with a different language. I know, I know, I’m Dutch and should be able to speak German, because we get it at school, but I only know how to read German. Listening and speaking? Nope, not my forte at all. Anyhow, in the end we did decide to go and so last Saturday I found myself at the Cimdata Medienakademie for Barcamp Berlin.

Overall Impressions

Compared to previous Barcamps, the Berlin one had a very different feel to it. I may have only been to the Brighton one, but other more experienced BarCampers also claimed the atmosphere was slightly off. It wasn’t that it was a bad event, but it didn’t have that feeling of a BarCamp to it. In part, I think this came through various circumstances.

For starters, the event wasn’t overnight, forcing you to go back to your hotel, which created the option of sleeping in. The second day I got up at 11:00 and arrived at BarCamp only at 13:00, missing the first 2 sessions. Yes, that is my own fault, but with an overnight it definitely wouldn’t have happened. Further, the overnight generates a more relaxed and informal environment, creating a great atmosphere for burgeoning friendships, hack sessions, last minute presentation mashups and a string of Werewolf games.

Next to that, the food organization was a bit weird; there was bread and toppings available for lunch on both days, but no dinner at all. I did hear though that with previous German BarCamps they did provide more food, but because of no-show-ers they had to throw a lot of it away.

Day 1

The first session I went to was about how game mechanics could be applied in the design of web community sites. They gave a list of 10 principles that were used within games and showed how they could be used for web communities. My problem with this presentation though was that most examples weren’t that convincing. With some the connection to game design seemed forced, as if the presenter was seeing a game design that wasn’t there. With others, they didn’t use the strongest examples available; I don’t remember it all exactly (unfortunately), but I came up with a couple more powerful examples.

After that I went to a presentation of Kathrin Grannemann about procrastination. Most of the techniques she showed I had heard about already and it would have helped a lot if she had used slides. What I found most interesting was that most people there had never or only just recently heard of the term “procrastination” before. Some wanted to know who made up the term and when it first appeared, as if someone just recently invented it. It’s a fracking normal English word!

I then went to see a presentation about OAuth, a web-based protocol for API authentication. The idea is that most APIs (Flickr, Facebook, Upcoming) all use different authentication methods, while there should be an open standard used by all parties. I had heard about OAuth already before at the Future of Web Apps, so I was interested to know some more about it.

Cristiano then held a session about how he created a lifstream with Yahoo Pipes. Most people though didn’t know what Yahoo Pipes was, so it would have been more interesting to do just the presentation about Pipes. FYI, Yahoo Pipes is an online service that let’s you combine, filter and edit different feed types, creating personalized feeds. I haven’t tried it out myself yet, but I have some RSS-feed problems that could be solved with this.

After all the sessions were over it was announced that an hour later the games evening would begin, including the BarCamp favourite Werewolf. So together with Cristiano, Reinier, Alper and Eelke, I quickly went in search of some easy dinner; I couldn’t risk missing Werewolf, especially because we wouldn’t be able to play whole night (like normal BarCamps). We ended up getting Doner Kebab at a cute little snackbar, where the sweet guy behind the counter gave us free tea (cool and weird at the same time, right?). After that we hurried back to the BarCamp where Ian was organising and explaining the rules to all the newbies of Werewolf. We had a couple of fun games (3 if I remember), one of which was the weirdest game of Werewolf I ever played.

Although there wasn’t any official food, some people had the idea to order pizzas. Great idea, only it took more than an hour for it to arrive. Slightly before 12:00 when we were supposed to be kicked out, the pizzas finally arrived and everybody quickly wolfed them down.

Day 2

The second day didn’t start out that well, waking up at 11:00. Add to that the difficulty of finding a coffee place open in the morning on Sunday and the general hassle of getting up, dressing up, getting ready and getting there, we only arrived at the BarCamp venue at 13:00, missing the first two morning sessions. I was actually planning on holding a presentation, but to my surprise (and a lot of other people’s surprise) the whole day was booked! Every single session slot was taken! Anyhow, I’m definitely going to have a session at BarCamp London 3, you can count on that.

That day I first went to a discussion session about which Mac Apps you use and recommend to others. I had a lot to say, because I was one of the few which knew which apps worked under Leopard and I have a lot of obscure little apps. I like this type of session, but only once the “usual” stuff has been handled; they always mention the obvious apps, like Quicksilver, Twitterrific and TextMate. I’m thinking of doing a similar talk at BarCamp London 3, but adding some kind of twist to avoid all those boring apps.

I then attended the discussion session about fostering Barcamps over Europe, led by Nicole Simon. She explained the problems they had with organizing the Berlin BarCamp and the reasons why it couldn’t be like a “normal” BarCamp. Some people mentioned future BarCamps they were planning and I am glad to see the BarCamp wildfire is raging everywhere.

As my final session of BarCamp Berlin, I went to the Librarian session by Patricia Hanrahan. I didn’t really know what to expect; I mean, librarians, they’re those stuffy old people with books, right? Who uses books nowadays anyway? (Just kidding, if you know me, you know my obsession with books. I’m the type of person who loves the smell of old crumbling books) Patricia explained though that librarians use a lot of digital techniques; heck, they’re the ones who invented tagging! There’s a problem though with the mindset of the younger librarians versus the older (stuffier) librarians, with the older ones not fully embracing the digital era.

We ended BarCamp with a great party at St. Oberholz, meeting a lot of great people (*waves at Patricia, Nicole, Frode and Nav). I’m really looking forward to BarCamp London 3 now; so many people I know are coming, it’s sure to be great!

It’s exactly a week ago that I arrived in Berlin and I am now just so exhausted. So much has happened in these last seven days, that I haven’t even had time to blog about any of it yet. To make sure I actually will blog about it and not let it go completely to waste in the obscure labyrinth that is my memory, I’m making a promise now of the posts you’ll see from me in the next couple of days:

1. Barcamp Berlin + After Party
2. Web 2.0 Expo Berlin + Web2Open
3. Girl Geek Dinner Berlin

Not sure yet when I’ll post them, cause I’m just so tired now, but you should expect them to roll out the next couple of days. If not, feel free to kick me :D.

The last week has brought a flurry of reports and rumours over the new JJ Abrams Star Trek remake, exciting and disgusting Trekkies everywhere. Although I’m not very confident this film will actually work, the amount of info leaking out of the set is worth reporting. You’d almost think it was deliberately orchestrated this way and knowing Abrams, it most probably is.

Firstly, there’s a casting call for extras, which will get the most enthusiastic Trekkies reaching for their costumes. They’re looking for:

Thin, regal talent who have BROWN or BLACK hair AND are OK with their eyebrows being shaved from the arch outward to portray a “Vulcan type” eyebrow shape.

Then, next to that, they’re looking for this:

Especially seeking talent with interesting and unique facial features, such as: long necks, small heads, extremely large heads, wide-set eyes, bug eyes, close-set eyes, large forehead, short upper lip, pronounced cheekbones, over or under sized ears and/or nose, facial deformities, ultra plain looking people, ultra perfect looking people, pure wholesome looks, twins, triplets, emaciated talent in addition to regally poised and postured talent.

Eh, so you have to look weird or completely perfect? By the way, I’ve never heard a casting call before looking for “emaciated talent”; they want people that are freakishly skinny? Or does “emaciated talent” mean “not that much talent”?

Next up, is the report that the role of Captain Pike has gone to Bruce Greenwood, an actor that has been in a LOT of movies, but in normal unmemorable roles. You know what I mean, right? It’s one of those guys that always plays the father figure or the senator/president or the husband, those roles that are needed in the movie, but won’t really impress anyone. This only strengthens my idea that Captain Pike will have a very limited part in the movie.

Now the rest of the news is at the moment still a bit fuzzy. For starters, Rachel Nichols, former Alias wannabe, has reported that she’s been cast in the remake, but doesn’t even know who her character is.

Rumours are that she’ll play Janice Rand, the other Star Trek girl, but there’s also some “evidence” that another actress has been cast in that role. /Film says that:

IESB received photos from the set (mostly extras outside of a warehouse studio covered up in parkas, nothing all too interesting), and one of the photos shows an actress who looks a lot like House star Jennifer Morrison. Is this Morrison (see IESB’s photo above), and if so, is she the new Janice Rand? We’re waiting on a confirmation.

Hmm, the photo does look a lot like her and we know that she now has blond hair in House.

Last but not least, comes the report that Winona Ryder will play Amanda Grayson, Spock’s human mother. But exactly what does this mean for the plot? i can’t believe that they would cast an actress for the mother almost just as old as the son. It somehow seems to me that there will be even more time travel in it then we originally thought, what with Leonard Nimoy also being cast Spock. My idea is that Spock travels at least twice back into the past, once when he’s a kid and once when he’s just graduated from the Academy. Or will it just be boring flashbacks? Either way, wanna bet they’re going to cast a young Spock now?

One of the traditions at BarCamp is to play Werewolf during the overnight. Although there wasn’t any overnight with this Berlin BarCamp (and we were kicked out at 12), we get the chance to play Werewolf. Now this is not going to be a post on how to play it, so if you’re not familiar with it, check out the rules here or here (or just skip this post entirely). What is this post about? The weirdest probability-wise most unlikely game of Werewolf I ever played.

Okay, some facts before I start: there were 13 people with 3 Werewolves, 1 Seer and 1 Healer. We played with 4, maybe 5 experts and the rest were all newbies, which may be reason it went so weird. I was a Villager, so I’ll be describing everything first from my viewpoint.

Night1
randomperson13 dies

Day1
The seer declares himself during the introduction “I’m not A Werewolf” round and says he has important information. Turns out the “important” information is that MrA (who is sitting next to him) is a Villager. Worst newbie mistake ever! There’s a whole discussion that maybe the “Seer” is a Werewolf and he’s just pretending to be the Seer, but probabilistically that’s very, very unlikely. In the end, we lynch randomperson12, who was asking too many questions.

Night2
MrA (person11) dies. Logical right? The Seer told us MrA’s a Villager, so the Werewolves take him out, leaving less information for the rest of the group.

Day2
The Seer identifies MrB as a Werewolf. After some discussion, we lynch MrB (person10).

Night3
The Seer dies (person9). Hmm, interesting. This meant that or a) the Healer didn’t believe him or b) the Healer was dead.

Day3
The Healer reveals himself, saying he didn’t believe the Seer, so kept healing healing himself. I realise that he could just as well be a Werewolf, cause either way he’s not going to die next round. After some discussion I do believe he’s the Healer and we lynch the guy (person8) who to quickly wanted to kill the Healer.

Night4
Nobody dies! The Villagers win! With 7 Villagers over!

Now look back at the structure of the game: 3 Nights and 3 Days. You’d think the Villagers lynched one werewolf during every day round, right? Wrong. Here’s what really happened:

Night1
randomperson13 dies. The Seer picks MrA next to him: MrA IS a Werewolf, but the Seer misinterprets it and thinks he’s a Villager.

Day1
The Seer declares himself and says he has important information. The “important” information is that MrA is a Villager, while he IS in fact a Werewolf. What’s the chance of first finding a Werewolf, reading it wrong and then give it out as important information?! We lynch randomperson12, who was in fact a Villager.

Night2
MrA (person11) dies. Wait a minute…that was a Werewolf, right? He dies, because the Game master misinterprets the finger pointing. They were actually pointing at the Seer!

Day2
The Seer identifies MrB as a Werewolf. After some discussion, we lynch MrB (person10), who really IS a Werewolf.

Night3
The Seer dies (person9), because the Healer didn’t believe him.

Day3
The Healer reveals himself and we lynch the guy (who IS a werewolf) who to quickly wanted to kill the Healer.

Night4
Nobody dies! The Villagers win! With 7 Villagers over!

Phew! Bit of a different perspective, right? There were 2 mistakes that caused this strange (the misinterpreting of the Werewolf signal by the Seer and the misinterpreting of the finger pointing by the game master), but somehow the second mistake did cause to correct the first mistake. I love probabilities and the chance of this happening is mind-boggling small. Freakishly small! Anyhow, it just seemed like a very surreal game to me and I’m still amazed at it all.

So who’s in for more Werewolf this week?

It’s been a bit quiet on my blog the last couple of days, but with a good reason. After a few days travel (it’s not as dramatic as it sounds), I finally spent my very first day in Berlin (Germany). The trip didn’t go as smoothly as we expected though:

Wednesday

All the last times I went to Holland I took the Eurolines bus; it’s a whole lot cheaper than plane, train or any other means of transportation between the UK and the “Continent”. This time though Cristiano wanted to take a RyanAir plane, because it didn’t matter that much in price and (of course) is a whole lot quicker. I find it ridiculous though that you now have to pay an extra fee for every piece of cargo luggage you’re taking with you and that you have to pay extra for being able to check-in online, but that you also have to pay extra if you want to check-in at the airport (either way you have to pay extra!).

Anyhow, we took the Terravision bus from Liverpool Street Station to Stanstead Airport and neatly arrived at the airport 15:35, 1.5 hour before the plane left. We checked in straight-away and after zipping all our 100 ml bottles of liquid in bags we still had 1 hour and 10 minutes left. The boarding time was 16:25, meaning we still had half an hour left. Now comes our stupidity: we didn’t realise that the gates that we saw weren’t the final boarding gates, but the security check. So we first had something to eat, arriving neatly “at time” on 16:25 at the “boarding gates”, only to discover we were in a very long row for the security check. Oops! It took us 30 minutes just to get through there, which left us desperately running for the plane. And of course, it would have to be one of the furthest gates! In the end we did make it, but it was a very, very close call. After landing in Eindhoven, my parents picked us and drove us to Arnhem.

Thursday

This day we didn’t do that much traveling; we spent the day shopping in Arnhem getting the last couple of items we needed for Germany.

Friday

Originally the plan was that Reinier and Alper would pick us up at IKEA Duiven at 13:00. However, Reinier had spent the previous day driving back and forth from London and only arrived back in Holland at 5 in the morning. The 13:00 became 15:00 so that he could get at least some sleep. Now normally it takes only 20-30 minutes to get to Duiven from my parent’s place; we left at 13:30 to keep some time over for lunch. Today almost every possible route was blocked; it took us 1.5 hour to get there! This meant that we were right on time, but that didn’t help that much. Not only was almost every road around Arnhem blocked, every major highway towards our meeting point was congested (apparently some truck driver drove himself off a bridge). Reinier phoned us to tell that they would have an hour delay! Brilliant, now we had time for lunch anyway! Finally at around 16:00 they picked us up and we made our way over the border into Germany.

Once in Germany we found out that the navigation cd for Germany that we had with us had to be unlocked first, making them completely useless. And of course we also didn’t have a “normal” map. Heck, we didn’t even have the address or the telephone number of Eelke, with whom we would be staying in Berlin. Luckily we could phone in the help of several people, who gave sufficient information to lead us safely into Berlin. Next time, I’m definitely going to plan all this stuff ahead and create some contingency plans in case the “digital” maps aren’t available.

So Friday night at 23:00 we finally arrived in Berlin! Phew, not the smoothest journey, right? Anyhow, yesterday was the first day of BarCamp Berlin, so keep an eye on this blog; I’ll (hopefully) post about it soon!

I was really gutted after Veronica Mars was canceled last year. I understand why though: the second and third season both failed to live up to the quality of that first season. Although the one liners and smart ass remarks from Veronica were always right on target, the storyline seemed to getter weaker per episode.

In a final attempt to convince the network of giving VM a new season, series creator Rob Thomas tried a complete different angle. The new season would skip a couple of years into the future, focusing on Veronica Mars as FBI agent. It sounded like it could work and after seeing the videos below, I’m really disappointed they didn’t give it a go. So take a look at Agent Mars: