Back in November I was feeling sorry for myself. Stuck with physical therapy twice a week [more on this, in Dutch, in this post], I needed to make plans for the new year that would clear my dark mood.

Along came a message.

A concert in London, the O2 Arena, in May.

For me, a once in a lifetime concert.

So, I bought the ticket (at 9:30AM, patiently refreshing the ticket website), without realizing the exact date: that would not be a problem (and, luckily, it wasn't!).

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First: If you've been tagged, you must write your answers in your own LJ and replace any question that you dislike with a new, original question.
Second: Tag eight people. Don't refuse to do that. Don't tag who tagged you.
I was tagged by Katie.

No eight people from me .. feel free to grab this meme list, though!

Lots of pillows or just one?
One feather roll pillow from Ikea (GOSA MÅBÄR), two large feather pillows and one square soft polyester pillow.

What kind of books do you read?
Various, mostly romance, detectives and sci-fi.

What are your most awesome skills?
Difficult question .. quick to answer questions, without thinking? (not always accurate though!)

What's your occupation?
Project Manager Digital Publications at an international academic publishing house.

What's really creepy?
Underwater scenes on tv (or in books) where someone is stuck and cannot get out.

What's your current fandom/obsession/addiction?
I guess Jane Austen Pride&Prejudice fanfiction, though I would not want to call it an obsession/addiction.

What flavor ice cream would you choose right now?
Lemon sorbet.

What websites do you always visit when you go online?
Google Reader, BBC News Online

What was the last thing you bought?
Black flat shoes for my grandmother's funeral.

What was the cutest thing you've seen today?
A bee stuck in my lavender bush.

Do you get cravings? If so, what do you crave?
When I have not bought them, I can crave my favorite cigarillos.

What do you do to change your mood?
It all depends on the current mood and the mood I want to change to!

What is your zodiac sign?
Pisces, according to most magazines.

Do you want to learn another language?
Of course, who wouldn't! Would love to improve my french language skills, but also work on increasing my spoken german. Also, I want to work on the XQuery and XPath programming languages.

Five things you can't live without.
Family & friends, music, books, my laptop and work.

What's something you'd like to say to someone right now?
To my parents: I love you!

What are you looking forward to?
In about a month I will be able to start physical therapy on my left knee again (currently stuck with braces and crutches, as I'm not allowed to walk using my left knee).

Say something to the person who tagged you:
No LJ meme post, Katie!
On a different note, I admire your scientific tenacity enourmously!

Ongeveer een maand geleden, tijdens een hockeywedstrijd, heb ik een compleet verkeerde draai met mijn linkerknie gemaakt. Waarschijnlijk is mijn voorste kruisband gescheurd (geheel of gedeeltelijk, dat is nog niet duidelijk), en ik volg nu drie keer per week instense fysiotherapie, met een steeds langer wordende oefeningenlijst voor thuis.

Zwaar klote, maar dit is nu even mijn realiteit.

Kan wel huilen, maar ja, wat schiet ik daar mee op: niets!

Dus blijven lachen!

Dat lachen lukt wel. Ik heb inmiddels een nieuwe 'nickname': LeoKnieke (of Knieke, al naar gelang de vorige namen).
Ook heb ik inmiddels ontdekt dat je het woord 'knie' maar al te vaak kan inzetten.

Op zijn engels, naar aanleiding van de uitdrukking "She's one sandwich short of a picnic": I'm one ligament away from a knee.

Gisteravond bij mijn ouders gegeten, en mijn moeder kan er ook wat van!
Onderstaande uit een email (nadat we bijna de hele avond al een paar goeie uitdrukkingen hadden verzonnen):

• als je maar een wit knietje kunt halen
• tot op zekere kniehoogte
• houdt me op de (knie)hoogte
• een knielengte voorliggen
• een knietje valt niet ver van het been
• als er één knie over de dam is volgen er meer
• één knietje brengt nog geen lengte
• circus Knie (bestaat echt!)
• ik kan je niet bij-knieeën (bijbenen)
• Wasa Kniekebröt

Gebruik vooral de comments als je er nog meer kan verzinnen!

UPDATE

en nog een paar:
"Een knieval doen", "Waar de blanke top der knieën", of "Een, twee, knie ..." of "Weeknie" ....Tot knies!

UPDATE 2

via collega:
"Zullen we straks even een potje kniekeren?"

February 14 2009 a cute little puppy was born: Hocks (or as she's known to her kennel: Isis).
April 10 2009 she moved in with my sister and my brother-in-law.

She's adorable and playful and she still has to learn quite a few things!

Today I spent some time with her as my sister was visiting our grandmother (no dogs allowed!). She obviously was a bit confused, missing my sister, but we got along well. A few scrapes and bruises on my arms (war wounds?), but no harm done. I'll be Hocks-sitting again this Saturday, hopefully I'll be able to take some more photos!.

For now, enjoy the whole Hocks Set @ flickr.

This past weekend I spent in Frankfurt, visiting Katie and joining Judy&Stan for a brief weekend of fun and touristic outings.

As I was lucky to have a Canon 300D with me (and about 6GB of memory cards), I took loads of photos. Tonight (and last night) I downloaded and uploaded the photos to my flickr account, and you can find the best of the approximately 600 photos I took right here: Frankfurt@flickr.

Enjoy!

(and thanks to Katie and Frank for showing us Frankfurt and the Rhine!)

The Loreley (Rhine river)

The Liebfrauenkirche in Oberwesel

Schloß Schönburg

Hildegard von Bingen

A character from 'Der Struwwelpeter'

The Bull at the Exchange

Seems to have the beginning of a running theme here:

http://twitpic.com/1q2uo

and

http://flickr.com/photos/mokblog/3325647813/

[totally forgot to make links clickable]

Created by Train Horn

How many total songs?
5554 songs, 16.7 days, 35.29 GB

Sort by song title - first and last
'Aan de Oevers van de Tijd' by Spinvis [Dagen van Gras, Dagen van Stro]- '3005' by 4Hero [Two Pages]

Sort by time - shortest and longest
00:00:02 'Bright Moments (Excerpt)' by Rahsaan Roland Kirk [Does Your House Have Lions: The Rahsaan Roland Kirk Anthology] - 01:25:53 'Symfonie no. 8' of Anton Bruckner by Koninklijk Concertgebrouw Orkest conducted by Bernard Haitink [120 Jaar Koninklijk Concertgebrouw Orkest]

Sort by Album - first and last
'ABBA' by ABBA - '120 Jaar Koninklijk Concertgebrouw Orkest' by Koninklijk Concertgebrouw Orkest

Sort by Artist - first and last
a-ha - 10,000 Maniacs

Top five played songs
Not counted

Find the following words. How many songs show up?
Sex: 7
Death: 20
Love: 332
You: 514
Home: 89
Boy: 33
Girl: 59

First five songs that come up on Party Shuffle
Not counted

(I still do not have the standard playlists Top Five Played Songs and Party Shuffle)

Where previously I had help cleaning my room in Leiden [read: With a little help], this short vacation (I'm off from work for a week) will be spent partly to clean out areas of my house. After two years of living here, I seem to have collected (again!) things I can only describe as STUFF ...

Follow my progress here at flickr: Cleaning 2009 Photo Set.