..to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; from this day forward until death do us part.

All in all there’s nothing wrong with these, but it seems that these promises have lost their value. Because despite this spoken commitment to each other, many marriages end in divorce. So how much value has a ceremony with promises that are so easily broken?

I can understand the fiscal reasoning behind a marriage (although, when you live in my knack of the woods there are other arrangements that can be made) or when children are involved.

But the biggest gripe I have with this whole marriage thing is this: why should you need a piece of paper or huge ceremony to show someone you love them? Shouldn’t that be something they should know from your actions and how you share your life with them?

Don’t get me wrong: if people want to get married they should. By all means. I’m all for people doing the things they want to do. It’s just not something I would do, because of the above reasoning. I’ve been called unromantic, a chauvinistic male and cynic because of my stands. But the thing is that I do believe in commitment in a relationship. I believe that when you’re in a relationship with someone you love you should do your utmost to show them that. I just think you don’t need elaborate weddings to prove that.

And it won’t stop me from enjoying the wedding (and party afterwards) between two good friends of mine which I’ll attend today.

Take Chris Brogan. He’s a guy I started following on Twitter some time ago and subscribed to his blog soon after that. He’s one of those guys that writes great content on a daily basis (sometimes multiple times as day) and he has no trouble finding inspiration to write. The opposite it seems. So how does he do that? Is he just more perceptive towards possible subjects? Does the fact that he thinks he has to write all the time force him to come up with them?

Maybe when there’s a need to write all the time you’re more open to subjects to write about.

It’s been a while since I did some experimenting (although results of the experiments are still going on) so maybe I should do a writing experiment. I don’t know how I’ll set it up exactly, but I think it could be a nice challenge. Let me get back to you on that one.

Just to give you another example, last night I met up with a few friends in Eindhoven for dinner and a movie (Salt really isn’t good btw). As is custom in many city centers there’s paid parking. So after finding a space I trotted towards the ticket machine to find that I couldn’t use coins (there went my preparation of having enough spare change in my wallet) but only our debet card system called ChipKnip (Dutch link). Well, no worries there because mine is usually loaded up with some money. So I took out the card and got a ticket. But here’s the rub: there’s a maximum charge of 6,30 euros a day. This works when using coins, but not with using the ChipKnip. This meant for me that I only had to pay 40 cents more to cover my parking time, but imagine having to park there the entire day. I quickly calculated that would set you back an extra 18 euros (Disclaimer: I haven’t checked if it’s possible to claim back your money) if you had to use a ChipKnip.

You would think that a system that is used in so many cities and is mandatory for so many people to use would have things like this covered.

It’s problems like these that makes me dread the day that our Milage Tax is introduced where a system registers the amount of kilometers you drive in your car and then taxes you accordingly. The system isn’t even build yet but is planned for implementation in 2012. Let’s just hope they have it all figured out before they start with it, because otherwise you will have some 8 million angry drivers.

I know that Nokia isn’t perceived as the leader in mobile phones any more and that their phones are a little behind when it comes to technology. But frankly: I don’t care. Their OS is stable, their build quality is excellent and it does what I want my phone to do: crisp and clear calls, messaging, occasional web browsing and tweeting, take a picture now and then, use it as an alarm and watch and navigate from A to B. And all that without a fuss. Simple. I like what they offer and although I felt a need for change every now and then (I switched to a Sony Ericsson a couple of years back and the HTC Hero last year) I always came back.

This got me thinking about other brands I’m loyal too. And it seems there are a couple. I only buy for need these days, but still there’s Geox when it comes to my shoes because of my…erhm…warm feet. Canon when it comes to my digital camera. Samsung when it comes to PC monitors. HP when it comes to printers/scanners. Bol when it comes to books. Pathe when it comes to seeing movies.

The reason for this is simple: these brands make products/create services that fill my needs. That doesn’t mean that I won’t buy any other brand when the need arises or when a better alternative comes along. But as long as that isn’t the case, these are preferred.

I try to do as much as I need to do in the morning hours (when the heat is still manageable) and relax in the afternoons during these weekends. So it’s domestic chores (vacuuming, buying groceries etc) as early as possible (without waking up the neighbors) and just do some relaxing stuff like reading a book in the park in the afternoon. That’s in the shade of course. I also tend to eat less (maybe one meal a day) during the day, but drink a lot more.

I’m one of those people who enjoys good weather, but not extreme heat (I think there’s some Scandinavian bloodline somewhere although my parents keep denying that) so for me it’s just getting through the days and try to enjoy it as best as I can.

Hope you have a great summer.

Of course the main outline was to go completely vegetarian during the week and having the opportunity to eat meat (which I have stated before I love to eat) during the weekends. I added a provision though: if I would find myself in a social setting where eating was involved (say eating out with friends or anything work-related) I would choose at the time. During the month I found myself to be in one of those situations about once each week. And I have to say that I chose the meat option on every one of those occasions (did I mention that I love meat). So all in all I was completely vegetarian for about 4 out of 5 weekdays (with 2 out of 3 meals on the other days being vegetarian as well).

So what did I eat? Well, same as in my first experiment with being a vegetarian I would eat soy based replacements. I also started to eat fruit in stead of bread in the morning. As for dinner I just experimented with vegetarian dishes (some came out better than others). I think this has helped to improve my eating habits towards an even healthier diet and I even lost a fair bit of weight (although, to be honest, that could also have to do with my increased exercise regime).

I have to admit that changing from just a Meatless Monday to weekday vegetarianism was an easy step. As stated before, I will never give up meat entirely (with this lifestyle though, it seems I enjoy eating meat even more) but with the apparent advantages it has I will keep on living the weekday vegetarian lifestyle for the foreseeable future.

I first heard about the Pirate Party movement just before last years European elections where they won a seat with almost 10% of the votes in Sweden. When I heard there’s also a Dutch wing of this party running in our election I had to find out what they were all about.

As it turns out they’re focusing on privacy and copyright law in a technologically driven society as their main (and pretty much only) agenda. In my opinion their views are the type of legislation we need in todays digital life (reason why this blog is copyrighted under a Creative Commons license). However they also state that when they get elected and they have to vote on an issue that’s not part of their main agenda they’ll either consult with their member or don’t vote on it at all.

That’s the main reason why I would never vote for a single-issue party. Main stream political parties have specialists on all types of issues and make their intentions clear on all of them. With single issue parties you may find the party you’ve voted for votes different or not at all on issues you feel strongly about. And I like to have full disclosure as much as possible before I vote for someone. However, with Dutch coalition politics as it is, many main stream parties don’t exactly vote or act as stated in their positions before the elections as well after they’re voted into power, but that’s another story.

The Dutch Pirate Party has a few things going for it. I’ve voted on the left of the political spectrum ever since I’ve had a right to vote and am not persuaded to do anything else this year. But I wouldn’t be surprised if they get a few votes (mainly by the geek crowd, although I don’t think they’ll get a seat) and get some momentum going on their issues. Since their views on copyright and privacy are viable, I certainly hope that their views will get a look at by the established parties.

In this TED video he explains how got the idea and what he thinks are the advantages.

I really think he’s on to something here. There is the obvious advantage of reducing my carbon footprint while still enjoying meat. I’m seriously considering trying it for a month or so to see if it sticks.

Original post on Treehugger

In no particular order these are: Robin Hood, Prince of Persia: The sands of time, The ghost writer, The A-Team, Toy Story 3, Splice, Get him to greek, Knight & Day, Inception, Predators, The last airbender, Salt, Hot tub time machine, Cold souls, The Expendables, The Losers, Jonah Hex, Machete, The American and Scott Pilgrim vs. the world (and yes, Sex and the City 2 was left out for a reason).

This means I’ll be spending quite some time in the theaters this summer and a few of the movies mentioned will be disappointing. But that won’t keep me from enjoying the experience of meeting up with friends and let ourselves be entertained.

I also realized that I’ve become interested in the company itself. I read blogs that talk about the company and try to keep up with where it’s heading. Maybe the fact that the valuation of the company is so high, without them really having a source of monetization, is part of that lure too. People seem to be trusting that Twitter is the biggest thing on the web. They do they have a point with their 100 million plus users but Facebook (which I don’t use) is even bigger and some are talking about about a Twitter vs. Facebook showdown (on a side note: the tech industry seems to love these showdowns: Microsoft vs. Linux, Apple vs. Microsoft, Google vs. Yahoo, Google vs. Apple, Facebook vs. Myspace to name just a few from recent history). How it all plays out and what the future brings is still anybodies guess, fact is though that Twitter is a very interesting company and its management has a different outlook on business than many others. Maybe that’s why it’s so interesting to me because I love people/things that are somewhat different than usual.

I still believe that I don’t “get” Twitter like some others seem to do and am pretty sure there are many ways to get more out of it that I don’t know of. But I don’t care about that to be honest since I seem to be getting out of it what I want and enjoy it without it taking too much of my time. I’m guessing there will be many Twitter anniversaries in my future.