my life is one big pop quiz

but unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a price to win.

Some examples:

at work:

"Goodday, belgacom helpcenter, this is Karen speaking, how may I help you?"
- "can you tell me if I dialed the right number?"
"euhm, it depends..."
- "what is the right number then?"
"that depends, which department are you trying to contact?"
- "the one that can help me"
"and what is the problem"
- "you tell me, because I don't know"

"Goodday, belgacom helpcenter, this is Karen speaking, how may I help you?"
- "my tv is not working"
"I see, but you do not have a contract with Belgacom for your tv"
- "no, I don't"
"then you'd better contact the company who owns your contract"
- "who is that?"
"we do not have that kind of information"
- "but why is it not working?"
"we can only check our contracts, I am sorry, you'd better call your provider and they will be able to help you"
- "what's their number?"
"I don't know, who is your provider?"
- "I don't know, why can't you tell me?"

It's been like that the entire day today...
I've spoken twice to the TV-lady and she has spoken to three other operators today, all telling her we cannot solve her problem

But in my private life it's not different...
"mum, who is that?"
-"euhm, sorry boy, I don't know all the people in the world"
"why is she wearing a green coat?"
-"euhm, I don't know"

"what's that?"
- "what?"
"that"
- "what? where?"
"the thing on the thing"

e-cards

Don't you just love e-cards?? they are a cheap way of telling people you care! I quite enjoy cards overall, maybe I prefer the handwritten ones since I like to see people's handwriting, since these days you hardly get to read something handwritten.

But e-cards are amusing, mostly the ones on this website.

However, I have not yet had the guts to send someone a card from this site... ;) But will do, once I find the appropiate card for the right person, I'll care enough to hit send...

suggestion of the day...

not sure what to eat today? we face that issue on a daily basis...
Like today, we are both at work and had no clue what we to get for lunch, then I had the bright idea of going to the market and get some vietnamese loempias, man, were they good!!

So, should you be wondering what to eat, I suggest you have vietnamese loempias today! :D
Enjoy your meal

Grace Kelly

I am addicted to the song "Grace Kelly" by Mika, really, it's one of the absolute best songs I've heard in the past few years. Mostly because it is something new, because lately I have the feeling I have heard most of it.

But hats off for Mika!

should you like to see the clip and hear the song, click here. I listen to it a few times a day, mostly because I downloaded it on my mobile's mp3-player.

Japan

One of our colleagues is on a trip in Japan, where she ran into this picture, apparantly those pictures are all over the place, to make sure the telephone lines won't get cut. Which would make our job a lot easier if they'd put these signs up in Belgium as well... however, it might be interesting if they'd print the text in a comprehensional language for us though ;) I quite like this pic. If you'd like to see some more pics of Maaike's trip to Japan, you can click here.

what can ruin my good mood

Don't you just hate the people who nearly kill you to make sure they can wait a bit longer in front of the red traffic light!? Or the ones who nearly drive you off your socks, so that they can block the pedestrians crossing, whilst waiting in the autoqueue?
Fun, isn't it, when they speed up in a 30kmh zone, whilst you are walking on the sidewalk and they suddenly realise they've passed the point they needed to be and just drive onto the sidewalk and park in front of you, not even caring the fact that you have to walk on the street with your three children since they are fully blocking the sidewalk....

No wonder agression in trafic is growing on a daily basis...

Yoghurt overload

It's probably the same all over the world, so you'll probably all have noticed yet, but nowadays you can solve every physical problem you have, just by eating a yoghurt!?

So, one Activia a day helps your congestion,
one Actimel a day helps strengthen your natural defences,
one Yakult a day for your instetinal health,
one Essensis a day for the health of your skin,
one Danone Nutri Day for the nutritions of the day,
one Benecol for your cholestorol
and one whatsitcalled (something with a CA and PO in the name) to strengthen your bones, should make your physical health a lot better overall, however, I doubt anyone could hang on to eating that much yoghurt on a daily basis without getting sick of it. Furthermore, those bloody things are rather expensive, we usually stick to the normal ones, which are less pricy, ok, they probably won't do our health any good, but still, they do the trick (when one feels like eating a yoghurt)

Flickr

I really enjoy Lars' photoset on Flickr, and have been doubting to create my own for a while, but today I decided it was a good day to make my own...

So I signed up, but needed a yahoo login, however, I have not used my yahoo login for years, I think the last time I used it was when I was still at IBM and it was before the roof went off. So I needed to create a new one, which means another e-mail account to add to my collection, because I am starting to collect quite a few... my work e-mail, my e-mail at home, hotmail, magictaxi mail, so I chose for an Australian account, since I do not yet own an Australian e-mail account! :D
This account brought me to the Australian Yahoo site (where else!?) where I noticed something on All Saints, now I have to admit that I am quite an All Saints addict, and I could take a sneak preview on next episode of this season (in Australia, so I considered it good news that there was still a season going on over there), but it was not what I expected to see :'( some of the actors whom are in the series I am watching now aren't in the new season anymore... bummer... but still, I might have grown out of my All Saints addiction by the time the current season in Australia will be on in Belgium...
Good thing about it all is that I discovered we are on the same level in Prison Break and next week we get to see the final episode of Heroes here in Belgium and in Australia they are only watching the 17th episode...
(so, we Belgians aren't doing as bad when it comes down to television series as I thought, that's a relief)

After that I started to look for pictures to upload on my photoset, because what's the use of being a proud owner of an online photoset if it does not contain any pictures!? So I found a CD full of pics of the period around Ilyas' birth, what has he grown the past year!? meanwhile he was throwing stuff at me, laughing at me when I shouted "AAAAAAAAAAA" after he tried if I was still human enough to feel pain when he bites me (and yes, it still hurts, so none of you needs to try that one out ;) ), Yaesseen has lost his babyface in the past year and Soufyan has become more of a boy than the toddler he then was... aaaah, love nostalgia! :D

However, most of the pictures I have are of our children... so I urgently need to get out and photograph the world :D Which reminds me of the pictures I still have to take to the photographer to develop, I'll do that when Ilyas wakes up, so maybe I can upload some pictures taken on our trip to London (which was before Christmas, shame on me for not having them developped yet) over the weekend...

So, well, if you'd like to take a look at them, you can do that here, but I'll upload many more pics in the time to come... so, be warned!

Bonny

as a reaction to Dave's comment on the Turtle's post, here's a pic of Bonny, when we got him, we were told it was a dwarf rabbit, well, let me tell you: he isn't, he's larger than a cat, he's perfectly house trained, when he's playing in the garden he'll run inside to go to his toilet, he chases cats, birds, whatever that comes into his garden and should not be there. He only goes into his cage to have a bite to eat, he sleeps on a mat in front of a heater, or outside, whatever he pleases, he has a life filled with luxury, and some chocolate, because I spoil him to bits everytime I see him ;)

His favourite food: plants, flowers, witloof, cucumber, doritos, cookies, chocolate, potatoes, salade, basically anything that does not contain meat ;)

He has been nutered though, because he was jumping on the leg of every woman he ran into, mostly my mum or me, which was quite annoying, it's like a dog, but since he's been nutered, he has not done that anymore, which is absolutely brilliant.

Downside is that he looses a lot of hair, more than a cat or dog, which is not good for people with allergies, but besides that... rabbits make the perfect pets! :D

the trick with the flying toilet paper

everywhere he goes, Soufyan wants to bring a visit to the restrooms, we have no idea why he wants to see them, but he does. So he wanted to see every toilet of every restaurant, bar, pub, whatever we went to in Paris. Same thing on the Thalys, and unfortunately those toilets are rather amusing for a four-year-old boy, because you need to step on this button to flush the shiny silvery toilet and it flushes with dark blue water... so you can imagine he wanted to go there a lot. Until he did the trick with the toilet paper. On the thalys they have these pink toilet paper readily cut in nice squares, and they are in a box next to the hand dryer. First he pulled the papers loose and then he tried out the button on the hand dryer which made the papers fly around the really small toilet box. I thought it was hilarious, good thing it scared Soufyan though... he didn't want to go to the toilet for the rest of the trip...

I still find it rather amusing, it was like we were caught in a snow globe, but then with toilet paper flying around :D

Yaesseen and Ilyas in the playground

Some pics from our citytrip to Paris

Father and son