Bertg Blogs

I’ve seen quite some homeless in my short life. Most in big cities like London, Amsterdam or Brussels. I even got desensitised during my stay in Bucharest where people live in burned out cars on the street, elderly people sleeping in the tiny portals at the front of houses and your everywhere guy sleeping in a box in the Metro.

But today I got hit again with the uncomfortable feeling of seeing homeless people. This time it was in the small (Only 68000 inhabitant) coastal city of Ostend.

Is the crisis hitting so hard?

Last week I decided I needed some rest. Three extra day, starting Wednesday. Well, I failed, failed miserably.

Wednesday trough Saturday where some of the more exiting days this year. It was packed with lack of sleep, lots of miles travelled, sharing beds with 2 guys, meeting new people, new stuff, drugs and Rock and Roll euh… TripHop and 90’s music.

Wednesday started out quite calm, buying new shoes, towels and a trip to Krakow. The night however shifted into an entire different gear when Ruben - who can’t seem to handle any temperatures below 30ºC - joined me for a night on the town. After getting wasted on cocktails and beer we went partying and spilling more beer with music from our younger years the 90ºC. Somehow we ended up in the same bed, but I didn’t get lucky, luckily :p

Next day, arrival of my new macbook. 

Migrating Macs

The daytime was occupied with chatting, migrating and preparing the old Macbook for my parents as a gift. 

At night there was music again, this time of better quality. After some hors d’oeuvres Koala got on stage (facebook album). The lead singer - a high-school friend - was quite glad to see me, the feeling was mutual. I even got a place to sleep offered to me, which lead to the second night in a row with a guy in bed. Again, not getting lucky, luckily.

Islasoul singing

Friday starts at a crack of dawn. Travelling back from Antwerp to Leuven, to parent place and finally some rest.

Several hours later I find myself in Ghent trying to find a parking spot. I agreed to meet this girl I met online, which was by far the most pleasant Internet based meeting so far. About 10 hours later, around 9 o’clock in the morning I was back on my way to Den Haan. 

Oh, you want more details? Well, I want to thank the managers of the parking that locked my car inside. Ohm and this time no sharing of a bed, not getting lucky either, unluckily :p

After some large amounts of sleep I find myself back in Leuven. More energised and ready to take on the world again. What idiot ever said I need any rest?

In the last few days I saw a great deal of love coming form Twitter. With love I mean the love of one friend for an other, not the kind of decapitating, cannibalistic love of a praying mantis.

Last Wednesday I let this message lose on the internets via Twitter

It’s quit anoying to see anus leave right in front of you, only to realise you’ll have to wait for 30min »

Immediattely followed by @robinwouters

@bertgoethals say what?? »

@houbi got it right

@robinwauters methinks @bertgoehals ’s “anus” = “a bus”. If not, I’m as puzzled as you are. »

See, this is the way I make myself noticed But it got even better today!

I’m sick of being single… Anyone wanna set me up for a date? »

Now that got a lot of feedback! Within seconds I got a reply from @ikkekietje via IM, a private message from @kleintje (also read her comic if you read dutch) and got a comment on my Facebook profile. But Twitter gave me even more love.

@bertgoethals Tip: blog posts like “No drinking for quite some time” are not helping. You should pose with babies, for example »

@bnox’s tweet was soon followed by @rrradiogirrrl

LOL @bnox’s comment on @bertgoethals ’sick of being single tweet’ Someone get this guy a girlfriend please (and a beer;) »

@Jannemans even had som sympathy pain.

@bertgoethals I agree, sometimes being single really sucks »

Followed by an other tweet by @rrradiogirrrl

@Jannemans @bertgoethals get some lesbian friends, excellent for partying and discussing women and easier than finding a girlfriend ;) »

I soon needed to correct myself saying I wanted to get to know more girls, and that I won’t settle for just “a” girl. That was well received by a new contact @boskabout who had some insightful remarks

@bertgoethals that’s the spirit (not really wanting _a_ girlfriend)!!! »

@rrradiogirrrl ’t voordeel van lesbische vriendinnen is dat die elkander ook af en toe eens binnendraaien *rrr* :-] »

That last remark, roughly translated, points out one major advantage of lesbian friends: you get to see them kiss. I must agree with that.

I’m gonna round this exposé of a “Twitter moment” (I coin that phrase) with a final thought.

WIth tweets like this, who needs a girlfriend? 

Well, I do

So I didn’t get in an 2 month alcohol related coma and I did stay sober. However I did have a beer, two to be more correct.

Honestly I was doing fine without a any alcohol. I was moving to the rhythm, with the same deadly uncontrolled spastic dance routines as when I’m tipsy. I even went peeing as much as I do when I’m drinking. So, yeah, I was doing fine. But then shit hit the fan, in other words: A girl talked to me.

I was offered a beer by that girl. Because it is impolite to deny an offer, I accepted the beer and hoped I could strike a conversation that way. But soon my enthusiasm was tempered as the beer seemed to be one her boyfriend wasn’t supposed to have. So I decided that was a good reason to buy a second one (don’t try to find any logic in that).

All and all, I had a good night / morning without any significant amount of alcohol. But I already knew I could do that anyways.

Also, do you think I should wear a tie or not?

Sometimes I have great ideas and sometimes I have stupid ideas. And sometimes I have ideas like this:

A while ago I changed moved this blog from WordPress to Mephisto. I had several reasons to do so.

I wanted my site to be built in Ruby, my preferred programming language, And I wanted to be able to easily maintain multiple blogs in one application. Then again, I like ease of use, and that’s in the end probably more important than t my love for Ruby.

WordPress is (as you know) one of the most mature and feature rich applications. With it’s easy to use plugin-system and plethora of themes it’s also the most feature rich one. So in the next few days I’ll be finishing up the migration. This includes fixing all pictures in all posts and applying my old/a new theme.

Just for the record: I also considered using Typo, but it’s still not as mature as this system and it doesn’t have iPhone integration

I got fired yesterday. Really, no kidding!

However, by Monday I’ll have my job back with better pay (notice the understating tone) and maybe some bonuses. Hurray for me, but that’s not what I want to write about today.

I’m unemployed today because of some administrative thingy that has to happen. My employer is based in Walloon part of Belgium (that the French speaking part). Today I had to go to - what I presume to be - the city hall of the city where the main seat of my company is to fill in some paperwork.

And then thé most surprising - eye-opening - thing happened.

For you non Belgians read this first:

In Belgium (or at least the part I’m from) it generally believed that the Dutch part can and will speak French when needed, but the French won’t speak Dutch even if they could.

This is especial true around the language borders and in politics.

The two ladies that needed to print me some papers saw me struggling with the French language and promptly switched to Dutch. I was stunned, perplexed and stunned again!

I was in the French speaking part of Belgium and they adapted to my needs, not the other way around. Besides feeling inadequate, I felt joy and hope.

This might not seem amazing to you, but for me it is.

To me this proves that there is hope for this puny little country I was born in. Is we leave the political bull shit and prejudices behind, Belgium has a future!

Oh yeah.. I also got my iPhone

One of my weaknesses is Candy. I Love it, and I could eat an entire bag fitted for a family in a mater of minutes. Recently I bought a box of “Poepkes”. Translated it would be “Tushes” (or Buts).

Basically it is small, hard, gummy like, cherry flavored candy.

But when I opened my box I immediately noticed there was something wrong. Well, not wrong - I don’t want to be called a racist - but black!

This must be the rarest find in the world of mass produced candy! Yeah… Maybe I should put it on Ebay?

Before ranting on how I might need to wait 3 to 9 weeks for my iPhone 3G, let’s first give some tips on how you can acquire an iPhone fast.

As Mobistar is the sole retailer of iPhones in Belgium, it handles the distribution of the devices. Apple premium resellers in Belgium get their iPhones not via Apple Belgium but via Mobistar. If you need to order a iPhone 3G, do it in a Mobistar shop

Also the white iPhones seem to be less popular, so you might want to get a white one.

Also, try multiple shops, don’t believe you have to pre-order!

Now for my rant.

This morning I woke up quite early and get to hear that getting the most popular mobile phone won’t be possible for quite a long while. Easyware - an Apple premium reseller - has all it’s devices dedicated to pre orders and has hundreds more waiting.

Moving to the closest Mobistar shop, if find that this shop also has a pre order list 2 (TWO) months old. There are 5 guys, 4 of them have been called 1 is on the list but somewhere at the bottom.

Entering the shop I get to talk to a reporter of the Standaard newspaper who explain the distribution system in Belgium and hear there are only 19 devices in the shop for sale.

When I notice that the guy who’s at the bottom of the list gets a device, my hopes seem to be coming true. But as soon as my hopes were raised they where buried as well.

Arguing that the order of the list has no influence on who gets a device, and if I order one now they should sell one to me on the spot. Backed by some other clients I’m still talking to a wall. While making the Argument I see the reporter buying a white iPhone, knowing he is not in the top 19 spots of the pre order list!

Finally I fold and order a 16GB black version.

But there is an other shop 100 meters away, so I go there as well. To my horror I see someone (who didn’t pre order) buying the last 16GB (white) phone in the shop. But there are still 8GB versions available! I want to by one, but my pre order is fixed, and can’t be undone!!!!!

So, NO IPHONE FOR ME!!!!

After fucking up the PR campaign, Mobistar has now also fucked up their sales channels. Is it so hard to make some sales rules, or notify customers that pre order lists exist?

UPDATE

It seems some of Mobistar’s shops are forcing their customers to buy the data plan, something that is explicitly forbidden under Belgian legislation. Via @ LadyElena

For those that don’t know: I know a lot about you. I know how you came to this site, what kind of computer you are using, where you come from and I even know your name! Ok, not the name, but still…

I keep track of all this data and today I want to confront you with your disturbing behaviour. Let us have a look at what you typed in search engines to get to this site.

At number three: “aid oud”

This refers to an article i wrote back in autumn 2006 about a brand of clothing not having any PR luck. Funny thing is other keywords like ‘Lonsdale’ and ‘consdaple’ also get you at my site.

Nr two: baywatch

Ok, I don’t get this. I don’t get this at all. In the - same - autumn of 2006 I wrote an article trying to link sexual preferences to preferred sports.

For some odd reason several people ended up on that article. The only thing I know is, if I try to find some Baywatch related stuff, I won’t end up on my site!

And for the big numero uno: bucharest;threesome;clubs

What the f*ck? This is a decent blog. Do you really think you’ll find a “guide” or a map to public threesomes in bucharest? Seriously… if you want that: give me a call, we’ll talk

And here a list of other “remarkable” search queries:

• “swollen lip” after giving a blowjob,
• crash fly tarom,
• george clooney hair,
• how do horny fetile girls act, and
• imaginary place equivalent of hell.

Hmm. Maybe this tells more about me than you.