Right. I think that after I finish this post I'll probably have enough material to publish a small book on the things I don't like about the other people using the same public roads I do. Maybe I'll need to reserve a ISBN number, just in case ... As it happens I've been emailing to a good friend in The States about how sad our winters are nowadays. We hardly ever see any real snow around here anymore. So when it's finally there it's looking like that cozy looking white blanket for no more than fifteen minutes or so before melting to a grey mush and causing all kinds of problems. You can imagine my surprise when I woke up this morning to see that very same white blanket covering the whole of my town. (Not actually my town of course, just the town I live in. I've got enough problems of my own so I don't need the burden of owning a whole town myself ;-) Because I could go and get my IFO back from the repair service I didn't need to get up that early. They open at eight so my alarm clock started making weird noises at around seven, which was more than early enough. But this meant that loads of people had messed up that white blanket before I saw it so I couldn't take that 'Happy Xmas, whish you were here' kind of photo out of my window. Better luck next time I guess. What I could do was dig out the replacement IFO because that thing was snowed in like you wouldn't believe. I think that it had a good two and a half inches of snow on it which for our standards is about half the stock for the entire winter ;-) And then, right after I cleaned the IFO and started it's engine, the misery started good. What is it with people, their cars and slowing down like crazy as soon as anything other than rays of sunlight fall from the sky. I mean come on, it's (usually) only water in whatever form and most people I encounter on my way to work (as in the ones before me of course) have major problems driving normally when they don't have dry asphalt under their tires. Even when it's 'just' raining people tend to slow down for reasons I can't understand. And I'm not minding people actually keeping to the speed limits because to each his own and just because I seem to be in a permanent state of hurrying it doesn't mean that other people need to move over and let me through. Would be nice if they did, but that's a different story. However what does get me pretty irritated is people driving seventy three kilometers an hour where there the speed limit is eighty. Or forty six where it's fifty. Things like that. Why do just these extra couple of kilometers an hour mean so much to these people that makes them impossible to maintain normal speed? Do their cars become highly unstable or uncontrollable? Are they afraid they can't brake in time anymore? What is it? For the love of me I can't figure out what could possibly the reason for not keeping to the speed limit. You know why there are so many road accidents when it's raining a bit more than usually or, like today, when it has just snowed a bit and the roads are wet? It's because people slow down, that's why. People must realize that when they slow down other people behind them need to slow down more. The one behind that one even more, and so on. I believe that we've now come to a time where during rush hour the roads are too crowded to have room for all this slowing down. When one part of the drivers just doesn't care it's raining and wants to keep on driving like they normally do and another part wants to play it extra safe and slow down a bit the result is a mess. Not necessarily accidents but there will be at least a longer traffic jam and yes, in worst case scenario, accidents will happen.

Even though in my humble opinion Identity, starring John Cusack among others, is a pretty good movie, the topic and this post is (again) all about cars :-) While I was driving to work this morning in that 'new and improved' IFO I now have temporarily, while the repair service is getting the flowers from the hood of mine, I couldn't help realizing that more and more cars are looking alike these days. In the past when you saw two huge rectangular light units with two little in the top corners ones besides them you knew that you were being chased around (sure, sure *grin*) by a Volvo two-forty model car. Just about each and every car had it's own distinctive look and 'smile' if you will. When I look in the mirror now I more often see two small round lights that could have come from the new VW Golf, or Mazda series, or Toyota, or ... etc. And it's not just the lights of course, cars themselves are loosing their identity's on a number of points. Of course I understand that this has (a lot) to do with safety and efficiency issues and stuff but I think it's sad that all manufacturers seem to have the same 'make new car wizard' running on their expensive design computers and that way are loosing their unique face a bit. And I think that’s a shame really. I remember that during holidays I sat in the back seat of the car, keeping note of all cars and models passing by. I could do that for hours on end. When my little niece Eva is old enough to play such a game all she'll be able to do is note their colors ... You know, somehow that just doesn't sound like that much fun.

It's a good thing I talked about the IFO when I was visiting my mom last night because there might have been a slight chance of me forgetting all about bringing it for repairs this morning. At some point during our conversation the IFO's repair date came up, the twenty second, at which point my mom said 'oh, that's tomorrow' leaving me pretty surprised to say the least. Yeah thinking it over I'm pretty sure that the only thing that could have made me remember would have been the reminder in my pocket PC but that's by no means a guarantee that things actually do work out. So this morning I was nicely on time at the repair service and in return I got a same model IFO only in the newest model available. Nice car, very nice even. The handling is quite a lot better than my own IFO and that one isn't behaving like some lorry at all. So I was happy to find out that this one is steering even sharper than my usual one when I put it through it's paces a bit. Note to myself: do not try this stuff with your own IFO when it's finished ;-)

I wouldn't have mind if the weekend had started a couple of days earlier this week but I'm glad it did just now anyway of course. This was a long week and all I'm going to do right now is relax. One thing that that I want to do is the finish the GPRT ADVAN Viper GTS-R Bas and I need for our own Thursday competition evenings so that's high on the priority list this weekend. Besides this I think that I'm not going to be doing much else. Just the normal average weekend stuff :-)

'If Michael Schumacher had groove-less slicks like these under his Ferrari the past season that Spaniard wouldn't have had a chance'. That's what the mechanic at the garage told me when I brought the IFO over for tire replacement this morning. And though a bit cynical, he is right of course, I've been pushing this forward a bit too long. When the IFO was there for the routine servicing it had about thirty eight thousand kilometers on the counter and then the mechanic told me the front tires were still okay, but needed to be changed within about six to seven thousand kilometers. When I finally brought the IFO in it said fifty four thousand or so kilometers so one could say that it was about bl*** time I got the new tires on. And fair is fair, the IFO does drive nicer now. It's no longer pulling a bit to the right anymore and the little wobbly thing it does when passing a hundred and fifty (which I of course never, ever, do ;-) is gone too. And my acceleration when exiting corners has improved quite a lot, specially with these wet and today even a little frosty circumstances. The tires now hug the road like they used to so I can drive it the way I like to again.

Yesterday evening the three of us were going on a road trip again for a snooker competition game. As is often the case when we are the visiting team I pick up Bas, then we drive to Jaap en he and his navigation system get us where we need to go. This works like a charm ... usually. I normally look up the address of the snooker center we need to go to, Bas enters it into the navigation system while Jaap drives to the nearest highway because that's where the journey starts. Last night however didn't go all that smooth since Jaap his system didn't recognize the address we needed to go to. It just wasn't on the map. Bas didn't want to give up and tried to find it in there while Jaap drove along. Then I spotted a message in the bottom of the LCD screen that got my attention: 'save current location' it said, or something similar and I couldn't help thinking that the last time we visited this snooker center we must have been facing the same problem finding the address too. So I asked Jaap if it was possible that we already stored the location in his system the last time and if we could use that now. Jaap cheered up, 'good one', and with a couple of well spend button presses we were back on track and headed for the right direction. We lost the match with five frames to four which, considering my own input of only one frame, was not too bad. What is always good with this particular team is the fun we have and this time wasn't any different. So yeah, sadly we lost but we still had a good time doing so. I'm looking forward to having them over to our place again some time in the future of this competition. However what I'm not looking forward to is tomorrow as right now I'm feeling not to great, to say the least. I'll have to get up anyway because my car is getting new rubber from the garage but right now I'm thinking about calling in sick and going back to bed right after. No matter, I'm going to get some sleep now. See you tomorrow.

Cool is the current description that fits Bas' PC best. And should there be the need for answering questions with a polite two words it would probably be 'pretty cool'. The past weekend we've been just about rebuilding his entire PC because the thing was running hot. And we mean really hot. Even while we were staring at the PC Health menu in his PC's bios the temperature was rising to a whopping eighty five degrees centigrade which is much too hot for a CPU. After placing a extra fan in the back of his case the temperature dropped to a (still too hot) sixty degrees when doing nothing, but quickly climbed when starting a game. So we needed more drastic measures to get the temps under control. So on Saturday we went shopping and got him a nice new PC case with a couple of fans built in standard, a new CPU cooler (model: hurricane :-) and a bigger power supply because he actually needed that one even before the heat came on. Then it was time to strip the old case and nicely build everything back into the new one and that looks hot ... erhm .. cool ... Well, pretty darn fantastic any way. Now the CPU temp stay at a nice fifty degrees when idle and doesn't seem to climb that much more when in use so it now runs nice and cool again. Which of course over time will cause everything to last longer.

'Oh boy, here we go again, that Biek has found himself yet another racing sim.' Not to worry, I knew this one ever since it came out in (I think) the year two thousand. And yes I've been racing it quite a lot until I got pulled into the GT's and the old 1967 Formula One racers from GPL. The title however sums up in one word what the IFO looks like right now: a quickly put back together NASCAR, ready to race. True, racing is not exactly what that Polo does very well but still it's the thought that counts. A guy can dream. Yesterday afternoon I drove to the car repair service to let them have a look at the poor little car and they decided that it was not a very good idea to keep on driving around like this until they could fix the car. So they took it inside and got rid of some tension while bashing out the hood of the car. After it had been roughly (literally) put back into shape they did the final touches with a couple of straps of good old duct tape. And that's why now the IFO looks a bit like a NASCAR with that duct tape on the nose and round the right headlight. Kind of like it has a black eye or something. Sad sight. But it will be fine again after I get it back from the repair service. They did a fine job the last time so this one probably won't be any different.

Do you know those big baskets with plants and stuff they put on parking lots and roads to prevent people from going to fast or cutting corners and things like that? The ones that are three feet by three feet by two feet high. Huge wooden things. Well those are pretty sturdy, to say the least, if not completely unmovable. I know this because I did the most stupid thing last night. Traffic had been a bit slow so I was home a bit later that usual. Normally this isn't a problem but last night I had GTR competition so I wanted to be home early. But I also had to do a little bit of shopping first so I drove onto the parking lot, parked the Identified Flying Object (my Polo) in front of one of those plant baskets and then did the most unbelievable things ever: I let go of the clutch. You know, this has been some sort of routine for me ever since I drive cars. You come to the destination, park the car, kill the engine and get out, leaving the car in first gear rather than pulling it on handbrake. Helps with frosted handbrakes in winter time, or so I heard. And last night, (even when I'm writing this I still can't believe I did that) for some odd reason, I forgot a tiny bit ... So I got the lot, parked the car, messed around a bit and let go of the clutch ... Only this time I did so with the engine still running ... For a little car like that it has quite a bit of torque folks, because that Polo just jumped forward like it does so all the time. It jumped about two to three feet, only that basket was no more than half a feet from the car ... The result? The hood, grill and bumper are damaged, the right headlight shines to the ground now and the license plate is busted. Sigh ... it must be one of those days/weeks/months I guess. And when I got home things didn't get any better. While I drove my GTR competition race I was run off the track no less than six time too so the combination of yesterday and cars didn't go too well for me. Let's hope today is any better shall we?

Last night Bas, Jaap and I had planned on doing a couple of frames of snooker instead of our usual Tuesday training night. This was because tonight Bas and I have GPL competition and we obviously can't play snooker at the same time. Problem is that when we arrived at the snooker center we were told that Monday nights are usually darts nights. 'But you said snooker center' I hear you think. Correct, and that's exactly what this is about. Over the years we have gone through quite a couple of adventures in our snooker center. We went from 4 full size snooker tables and one nine foot table to now 3 full size tables and (I think) 5 dart courts. In between we've had a couple standard billiard tables and almost a pool table in there too. A part of me understands this constant changing behavior of the center because after all when looked at it from a commercial point of view the owner is having that place for one purpose: to make money. And looking at myself I can only agree on him saying that darts players simply bring in a lot more money than us snooker players. But having said that I still think that when you call or advertise yourself as a snooker center your main goal should be to allow the people that come in there to have a chance at a nice, quiet and easy frame of snooker. And don't get this wrong, I'm not saying the darters don't have the right to practice their sport but I just don't think that the average darter mixes very well with the average snooker playing person. It's just two completely different styles of spending an evening. And the center owner should know and respect that. When he decided that he wanted to be a dart center as well he should have expanded the place (which he should have done many years ago already) and give them the opportunity to play their sport in their own part of the hall. And not in between the snooker players. It's tough I guess, to stick with a certain business. Specially when times are a bit slow but I think that a slower period is the exact time when you can show all the snooker centers and snooker players in town (and outside of it too) why people come or should come to your place. From my simple point of view it's just that simple. Give the people something they can't get anywhere else and they'll be lining up to get in. There are more than enough snooker players around to fill that place up night after night. Just not like it is now. And that's a shame really, because the table quality is very good and when we have a standard snooker evening it's a fine accommodation to be in. But every now and then there is this little glitch here and there. And lately they are starting to add up and get on my nerves.

Well after having finished my own PC just a couple of day ago it was now Bas' turn to have some troubles. For some odd reason his machine ran hot. And by hot we mean his CPU ran about eighty to eighty five degrees centigrade hot. No need to explain of course that this was way too hot. So we started out with cleaning a bunch of fans inside his machine. CPU fan, bios fan and the one on his video card were taken apart and cleaned out completely. We put a little oil on the bearings as well so everything would run as smooth as possible. This helped a little, but not that much unfortunately. Even when his machine wasn't doing anything, like showing the bios software for example, the temps kept climbing to unsafe values. Even the bios itself started giving us ambulance sounds so we really needed to do something about the PC getting so hot. So I took the 'spare' fan I have in the door of my case and we put it in the back of Bas' case so we could get the warm air out of there. That did the trick in such a way that he could again do some racing without his CPU reaching these critical numbers again. Obviously this is just a temporarily solution (if any) but that was all we could do yesterday. There are going to be hardware changes needed in forms of a case, bigger CPU fan and a good power supply unit as well. We scheduled that for the next weekend so hopefully by then all is well again. In the end all we raced this weekend were a couple of laps with GT Legends but most of the time had got into getting Bas' PC to work normally again, which in the end was a successful project.

Well, as a matter of fact I got back just about every single file, only a small part of the Games partition was unrecoverable but that contained some old Need for Speed 5 files so that doesn't really matter. I have to say that this little program I've been using for the recovery, GetDataBack, is nothing short of being brilliant. It has helped both me and people close to me out a couple of times when for as far as other programs were considered all hope was lost. It's costs about one hundred and fourty Euro's which I guess is not too bad considered what it has saved us over time. It beats the price of being awake at night over your lost data, that's for sure. Sure it takes time to get the job done but when it's a job this fine done I don't really mind. After all what I wanted was my documents back and now I've got them. Actually I got them back Sunday morning already but due to a slight misunderstanding between me and the RAID configuration tool I lost everything again, meaning I had to do a new recovery from scrap. The fact that I knew I'd get it all back was a slight comfort at that point but still I was pretty mad at things. It just threw my complete Saturday out of the window and for what? One option that the manual did actually warn about but neglected to tell me when or where to look out for it. The message was simple: make sure you determine which drive is the source and which is the target, because if you would mix them up you'll overwrite the data disk with ... nothing! Fair enough, so I proceeded with caution. And just when I was expecting the imminent 'which drive is the source' question that little bugger of a configuration tool told me 'RAID volume successfully created' and I knew that was bad. Still of course even though you know better you check and double check but in the end, just like when dropping a sandwich with butter it always falls top down on the floor, all data had gone in a split second and I was just about back where I started.