Happy Halloween!!!

For fun, here are some Halloween comics that were sent to me by the master forwarder, Arla:

For President...

I found it interesting that the local library here in the Netherlands highlighted Americas major presidental candidates as seen in the picture below. It always surprises me when I start to talk politics with my co-workers. I am the only American in my team but still we can discuss politics as if we were in the middle of a neighborhood caucus. You would all be amazed by the average European knowledge of the U.S. political system. Click on the picture to see it bigger

Isaac is 10!!!

Isaacs dinner-of-choice was spaghetti which is definatley a family favorite. Since he got his main present the same time as Abby (the mice with cage) he only had a couple smaller presents. The hat is a very dutch thing. On birthdays, a special hat is made and worn so all know who the special person is.

Abby is 8!!!

Last night we had Abby's dinner-of-choice, pizza, and also had some cupcakes and ice cream. Of course, she also got a few presents. This is not her main party, she will be having that in a couple of weeks and it will be a Halloween themed party with friends

Alex made this, with the help of his teacher, in school.


The main gift was something Isaac and Abby have wanted for some time, pets! Abby and Isaac both both their own pet mouse. Isaacs birthday in on the 22nd so the cage was a shared gift.

My trip to Sweden

Last Wednesday evening I was asked to go to Sweden first thing Thursday morning to work with a customer for a couple of days. Thursday morning I flew into Copenhagen, Denmark and then took a train to Malmo, Sweden and finally an taxi to Staffanstorp which is a small town of about 13,000 residents.

I did not have any time to see anything because I was in and out before I realized I was actually in a completely different country. I did take a few random pictures with my phone so they are not the best quality, but, oh well here they are:

The money used in Sweden is the Swedish Kroner or Crown. Before leaving I forgot to check on what type of currency is used and how it compares to the Euro. To be safe, I pulled 3,000 kroners out of an ATM which I later found was about 400 Euros. To compare to the dollar, the 500 Swedish Kroner pictured below is equal to $69.61

Here is the building I worked in. It is the area elementary school.

In Malmo, Sweden, there are not too many tall buildings but this one stood out because of the very interesting architecture. It is called the Turning Torso.

OK, not a picture of Sweden or Denmark but I figured I would show my little collection of Coke bottles. Why a collection? Each one of these bottles come from a different country that I have been to the last 11 months.
Netherlands
Scotland
Belgium
England
France
Denmark
Sweden

DVD Copying

I just have to go off on this and express my opinion. Monday, the six major studios filed a lawsuit against RealNetworks to stop the sell of a new DVD copying software called RealDVD. Hollywood claims that this bypasses built-in anti-copying security which is against the law. Real has stated that the security is not touched and it will only play in their software player and has a key that will not allow it to be copied on endless computers.

Hollywood is a joke...

So much time has been spent on the fight between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray and fighting digital copying but does no one see the path that entertainment is heading (or should be)??? Why would I actually go to the store and flip through the DVDs to hopefully find the one I want then spend an hour taking off the wrapping and those stupid stickers? Why not just go online and download it directly to my Home Entertainment PC (HTPC)? With the speed of internet increasing always, it will get faster and faster. I think they should concentrate on the security of a completely digital file format because already millions of people have created and are using daily their HTPC like I am. The problem is there since Hollywood has their head so far up there we have to resort to illegally (supposedly) copying the DVD I just bought to the HTPC. If you bought and own a copy of the movie, who cares how it is watched?

If you are not familiar with the concept of HTPC, I will upload a video of mine later but basically you turn on your TV and you see menu options like Music, Videos, Pictures etc... If you select Videos it takes you to more options depending on how it is setup. On mine I have a category for TV Shows that have been recorded then my movies collection, kids movie collection, church movies and then misc... Once you selct a category, you lists of movies that are available seen by a thumbnail of the DVD cover. Find the one you want, press OK on the remote and it plays. Think of it as Tivo but better because space is unlimited. I currently have 3.5 terabytes (3500 GB) of hard drive space and with the 1.5 TB hard drives coming out now I can easily increase the system to a total of 6 - 7.5 TB if needed.

I love my HTPC!!!