Rafael van der Vaart

It's official, Rafael van der Vaart is leaving Ajax and going to Hamburg SV in Germany. It's a weird club to go (only 8th in the German Bundesliga) but it looks like he's happy so all the best of luck for him.

Raffie played at Ajax since he was 10 years old. Seven years later, in 2000, he debuted in the senior team. A year later he made his first international appearance and he quickly became one of the most influential players at Ajax. He attracted lots of interest from other clubs but he was reserving himself for Barcelona. When he made his debut, he was still living in a trailer with his parents. But now he's one of the best paid players of Ajax.

Only last year he started having problems. He was suffering a form-crisis, he had problems with the then trainer, Ronald Koeman. And him and his girlfriend became the Dutch equivalent of Posh & Becks. After one particular game Koeman stripped him from his captaincy and at that moment I was sure that Raffie is about to leave.

Koeman left and Blind came in, but even under Blind Raffie didn't play much. And when he did play he lost some of his magic. I remember seeing Ajax play at the Arena against RKC in 2003. He made a superb backheel pass to play Mitea free, the kind of pass that only a handful of players in the world could do.

I just want to wish him the best of luck with his career. Hopefully we'll see him in Ajax colours again one day. Good luck Raffie!

Carlsberg

Probably NOT the best beer in the world!

Six pints and it gave me a huge hangover...

The UEFA Champions League final was an amazing match. First goal in the first minute, 3-0 for Milan at half-time and Liverpool came back with 3 goals in 6 minutes. Milan could have bagged it but Liverpool chose to fight and took the game to them. It was definitely one of the best finals in recent years - although 1995 is still the best final for me. Ever.

My Dear iPod

As written in a previous post, two weekends ago I broke my iPod while DJing. Not sure what happened (I was under the influence of absinthe at the moment) but I couldn't turn it on. I tried everything, from following the steps on the support page to banging the thing. It still didn't work.

Frustrated I was contemplating buying a new iPod. Then I remembered the warranty and was thinking of going back to the store where I bought it from and asking for a replacement. But that involves a lot of hassle and swiss bureaucracy. Then I remembered the Apple support website. I went there and there was an option for repair. So I filled in a repair request form and in a couple of days a prepaid UPS package came to my door.

I put in my iPod, dropped it off at the UPS office and this morning I received a brand new iPod. Woohoo!!! How's that for after sale service? I don't need to pay anything, not even shipping charge. So tonight I will charge my iPod again with all my songs, I can buy music from iTunes again and from tomorrow I will be fully functional again.

It's true, but it's really hard living without an iPod.

Oh, and if you ever want to buy scuba diving equipment go buy it at scubastore.com. It's almost half price from retail price and I ordered some stuff on Sunday and got it on Tuesday. Totally recommended.

Tonight, AC Milan vs Liverpool in the UEFA Champions League final!

Treasure hunt

Friday morning my girlfriend called me up asking where the clue for the treasure hunt was. I told her where it was and later during the day it was on. At 17.47 she found out we have to go to Boudry so I got an oxygen bottle and we went there. Kit up and jumped into the water before the sun sets. We searched for about half an hour but to no avail. At times the visibility was so bad I could barely see my buddy. So we got out and had some fondue afterwards. That night we were dead tired.

Woke up on Saturday and got a call again. 4pm at Boudry. We got there, kit up and jumped into the water again. This time we found what we were looking for. Got out and went to another diver's home to have some raclette. It was very nice.

Watched the Monaco GP on Sunday which turned out to be an eventful race.

Watched Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. Again. Man, Hayden Christensen definitely needs some acting classes. He's more wooden than Pinochio.

Absinthe

Talampaya was a great weekend although it rained on Saturday and Monday morning. But the vibes were great and it was a wonderful tournament.

Saturday night I DJ-ed. Before I played I downed some absinthe, something I don't think I'll ever do again. Even though I played well afterwards I was sick. It's not a nice sensation being drunk on absinthe. No wonder Vincent van Gogh cut his ear off while high/drunk on absinthe. At least it did magic to my DJing as everyone was bouncing up and down.

Sunday night costume party was awesome with cool costumes from all over the place. A castle, a dragon, hobbits, orks, you name it and if it has something to do with medieval, it was there.

As for the playing itself, the team didn't do bad at all. Finishing 18th out of 32 is much better than 32nd out of 32 (what we did last year). The team is getting ready.

Unfortunately something happened to my iPod while I was DJing so now I am iPod-less. It's hard. In exchange I have a bike now. Although I'd rather have an iPod.

And I saw Star Wars III: The Revenge of The Sith last night...

"I'm feeling hella good so I'm gonna keep on dancing" (mixed with Lola's Theme)

Talampaya 2005

It's on. This weekend!!!

Thunersee and St. Prex

Last weekend was a long weekend. Thursday was a bank holiday and only fools went to work on Friday. At first we wanted to go to the South of France and do some diving / sightseeing there but it turned out that on Friday we had to stay here.

So Thursday we went to Lac Thun instead, a two hour drive from here. There we dived in the lake. It was a nice dive, a bit cold. Also a bit deep as well. Hitting darkness is still uncomfortable for me. I guess diving in nice tropical seas is a different planet from diving the lakes around here.

And then on Sunday we dived in St. Prex. Just me and my girlfriend. It was a nice dive. The visibility was great, it was an easy dive and it was just great. The nice weather helped as well as it wasn't cold when we came out of the lake. A nice pint was the reward after coming out.

Oh, and Team America: World Police is hilarious!!!

Long weekends

Last weekend felt like a vacation for me. The weather was uncharacteristically nice. Usually it's shit weather during the weekend,but last weekend was an exception. It was close to boiling, it was that hot.

I took Friday afternoon off from work to enjoy the sun. I also had to sort out some diving stuff and there was a football match which I almost scored in. Unfortunately the ball hit the bar. We did win 6-2.

Saturday I went diving in the lake here for the first time. Although visibility was bad (about 1m) I enjoyed it immensely. I didn't go deep or anything, just testing out the water and environment in the lake. There was actually nothing to see. After that had a barbeque at a friend's place, resulting in me being drunk. It was nice though.

Sunday was invited to a birthday bash of the children of my friend. Nice food and nice weather. Sat on the beach afterwards.

Monday was a day off as well for me and I went to Lausanne for lunch. Passed by a diving shop to get a nice BCD and also passed by IKEA to get some nice looking useless crap that you can only get there.

Because of the weather it did feel like I was on vacation.

And now I'm getting ready for another one because I have Thursday and Friday off.

Ah, the benefits of a socialistic society...

"It was an honest mistake"