Gadget | A Zestful Quest

I think I’m addicted… to games and coffee… You see, I have this new game and I have to play it each and every day for an hour or more. It’s relaxing in a way although I still need to use my brain and think hard *hehe*. It’s Sudoku, well actually it’s Sudoku Master and it’s for my Nintendo DS. I just had my New Super Mario Bros. phase but I gave up on it because I can’t get to the next level. I’m stuck each time at the first four worlds and keep jumping into an abyss, so for the moment I can’t be bothered to eat mushrooms, kick Koopa shells or climb into clouds and jump through hoops. I’d rather use some brain power and logical thinking, it’s challenging and relaxing. I’ve finished 80 easy ones and 10 of the normal ones… I must say, the normal ones are hectic and at times it takes me 25 minutes to solve one. So if you ever need a mental challenge and you own a Nintendo DS I would say: go for it! 😎

So I ended up playing games because I really needed to relax a bit over the last week: I have been busy contacting recruitment agencies, writing emails and adjusting my CV. I also designed and built a separate online portfolio in Flash that I could show when needed. And in between jobs, I’m trying to help out Farfallina from ‘A Roam to Rome’ with some problems she ran into. Today I was called by one of the agencies and I have an appointment with them next Wednesday. They sound like a nice bunch of people so I’m happy that I can go there for a chat and register with them. I hope things will be picking up soon now and I have to admit it’s not as easy as I thought it was but I’m getting there. I guess my patience is tested once again but it feels good so I trust the process to work out just fine.

I also received a really cool gift from Christiaan and it’s sitting on my desk right next to me within reach. It’s another amazing gadget: an awesome USB cup warmer slash USB hub. I don’t know what made him think of this but I remember when I was still working at the Rietveld academy we had rules and one of them was that the students weren’t allowed to bring any kind of food or drink in. This was to avoid having to clean up the mess after them and to protect the IT facilities that we were managing. It also meant that we had to set an example so often I would have to leave my coffee at my desk, help out a student and by the time I was finished my coffee would be cold.

I have the same problem here because I just tend to forget that it’s there when I’m busy. I guess Christiaan knows me too well… 😛

Finally I can have hot coffee all day! *yay*

I finally finished uploading all the pictures for the gallery, that’s why I didn’t publish this post earlier, so here it is… [the link to see the gallery is all the way at the bottom of this post]
We met up with S. and M. and their girls last Sunday at the Science Museum. We went sailing with them in Croatia last summer and ended up fighting serious gales, hail of 3 cm and we went aground one night because of another serious storm and a dodgy buoy, they had to come back after finding their own safe spot to pull us out. We had some hectic nights like that but it was an absolutely cool and fantastic experience. The girls never woke up during these events, they slept through everything while we were shouting and running around to save our boats… Kids… [See old post and pix here –>]
Anyway they came over from Hampshire [New Forest, to London to go to the Science Museum and invited us to come along. We met up at 10.30 had a coffee at the restaurant and had a look around. I saw the very first Apple Mac and the very first computer, “Pegasus” which used punched-tape to read data. I saw really cool fifties stuff, I just love the design. There was the old Vespa scooter [used to be the proud owner of a blue Vespa Si 1980] and the 1957 BMW Isetta 300. Old dentist equipment and a MRI scanner or CAT scan [think it’s the latter actually]. It’s such a cool museum I wouldn’t mind going back again some day!

I think this picture is so funny