Category: Life
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…Bullshit Walks
Last Wednesday was apparently National Walking Day (in America). At my work they’ve been championing personal health and wellness for a while now (having apparently all but eradicated accidents (save the idiot who tripped over a marginally raised flagstone a couple of weeks ago, resetting the “586 days without an accident” counter back to zero…)) so they were all over this. Participation was entirely ‘optional’, but you’d never know it by the seemingly endless stream of emails, calendar invites, and reminders that were sent out in the weeks leading up to National Walking Day. It also doesn’t help that my… Read more
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The Continued Americanization of Dirk
Call me a nationalist, but I’ve long held the belief that if you set up residence in a country, you should do your best to assimilate yourself into that country’s culture. Last time I lived in Belgium, even though I knew it probably wasn’t forever, I went to night school to study Flemish (Nog nu kann ik een beetje Vlaams spreken.); when I lived in Singapore I ate nothing but local food for three years and adopted Buddhism. So it only seems right that now I have given up all notion of ever returning to England and have officially settled… Read more
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They’re (not) planting stories in the press
Regular readers of Interrobang (‽) (OK, indulge me – pretend that there are some) will know that I am a dedicated (and unashamed) BlackBerry user. This used to be out of pure practicality – I communicate a lot via email, and my first BlackBerry, the pre-iPhone Bold, was the first ‘global’ smartphone to offer multiple email account integration, a hardware keyboard, and Wi-Fi, all of which made it perfect for my needs – but now it’s out of sheer bloody-mindedness. The more iPhones and Android devices take over the mainstream, the more I want to cling to BlackBerry. I’m now… Read more
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I can only receive; I can listen to you
So I finally bought myself a new car. And a new, new car at that; it had exactly 2 miles on the clock when I bought it. This is the first car (out of 9) that I’ve bought that wasn’t pre-owned. It will probably also be the only new car I buy, as I intend on driving this one into the ground. Much as I did to my last car – although that’s not completely driven into the ground (yet), as my eldest has claimed it as his own (despite not being able to get a full license for another… Read more
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Big Daddy is Glympsing
It’s no secret that I’m a fan of BlackBerry. Yes, I know that BlackBerry are currently unfashionable and it’s apparently (judging by the media) the ‘in thing’ to bash BlackBerry at the moment, but I’ve been using their phones for the last 5 or 6 years, and I’ve always been happy with them. That said, one of the big selling points of BlackBerry has traditionally been BBM (BlackBerry Messenger), which I’ve never been a particularly big user of – not least because I didn’t really know that many people who were also using BlackBerry devices (and the number has been… Read more