Attractive fridge

What made me happy today? Making my fridge more attractive!
And you can take that quite literally.
A while ago, I stumbled across a post in one of my nerdfighter groups. It said something about the Hunger Games magnets for your fridge. So I took a look and decided to order them. My fridge is a rather boring white, so it could use some accessories :-)
My magnets were in the mail today. This is what they look like:

I can't wait to put them all on my fridge! Plus I might get a few different sets in the future, there's a Star Wars one on there too :-) If you never hear from me again, I got stuck against my fridge ;-)

Record speed!

What made me happy today? Working at record speed!
Work's very busy again these days. I've been crossing half the country the past weeks. Add to that the fact that I had a few days off here and there (London! http://project365-oneyearofhappy.blogspot.be/2013/08/london-pictures.html) and that one of the systems we use is having some severe issues and you get one very busy me.
But I managed to do some work at record speed today :-) I had to write a report. Normally, this takes me about 4 - 5 hours from start to finish. Add to that a few days for it to be reviewed, revised and signed off, and one report can take up to 15 days to be completed. Well, today I wrote the report, had it reviewed, revised and signed within three hours. Yes, I'm a lean (stop laughing) mean report writing machine!
Let's hope this streak continues :-)

Radio!

What made me happy today? I was on the radio!
It' Robert Plant's birthday and Studio Brussel said they'd play one of three Led Zeppelin songs after having a vote. As I was early for work I sent them a message, saying that I'd love it if they played 'Immigrant song'. They called me and asked if they could do a brief live interview with me! There was no way I could say no to that!
Studio Brussel and Led Zeppelin made my day! If you'd like to hear what I had to say (in Dutch) go to this page, click 'herbeluister' and skip to about 1h38. I'm on just after the traffic report.

Home

What made me happy today? Coming home.
Some days everything seems to go wrong. It all started this morning. First off, I had a nightmare. Which isn't nice at all.
For some reason my phone decided to change the sound my alarm wakes. Instead of waking up to my usual sound (which sounds somewhat like this), I woke up to the intro of Batman 'the dark knight rises'. I couldn't find a decent example, but the one on my phone starts with a woman who is screaming is pure horror. There are nicer ways to wake up, especially if you've already had a nightmare. Don't worry, this will not happen again, as I've deleted 'the dark knight rises' from my phone.
Work wasn't much better. There were issues with one of the systems I use. The issues just don't seem to get solved with that system, even though IT is working on them. And I discovered some errors that just wanted to make me slam my head onto my desk. Plus, the nightmare I had just kept running around in my mind. I couldn't seem to shake it.
I did find some things that cheered me up temporarily during the day, but it was going home that made me feel a lot better. Home is where I can do whatever I need to do to cope with myself. Like indulge in some guilty pleasures. So I'll be having a nice supper, watch some crappy tv and go to bed early.
Tomorrow is a new day, and it'll all be better by that time :-)

Geek out

What made me happy today? It's time to geek out!
It's Sunday and that means: Vampire role-play! My (almost) weekly escape from this world into the world of darkness :-)
It all started about 6 years ago. One of my friends came up with the idea of doing a tabletop role-play game. He was looking for people who were interested. My curiosity was piqued, and I decided to give it a go. I was hooked after the first session. And I actually continued to play this game until it ended, well over 2 years later. I still miss playing Elizabeth, my Malkavian character. Since then, we've done a lot of different things: Vampire, Star Trek, Shadowrun, Highlander, random horror and scifi stories.
I love how this can be an outlet for my creative side. Creating a character can be heard, but it's also loads of fun. And although I could play a Malkavian every time (way to let out the crazy!), I have since played a Lasombra, which was a blast as well!
Currently we're playing as a coterie of four Ravnos. Let the good times roll! And you can take that quite literal, as the game uses D20s ;-)

The (un)usual

What made me happy today? Getting a side of unusual with my usual!
It's Saturday. For me, that's another word for grocery shopping, chores and a trip into Leuven city. So I made my usual stop at koffie Onan first. By now, they know what I want. Latte of the week, to go. There was one other customer waiting for her drinks. Suddenly she says 'Invader Zim!'. Took me a second to figure out what she meant (didn't have my coffee yet). She was referring to the t-shirt I was wearing. The culprit is below, although mine has a black background.

So we talked about how great Gir and Invader Zim are for a bit. I don't know who she was, but she kind of made my day!
Then it was on to the Metalzone. Scored three new cd's: Sonata Arctica - for the sake of revenge, Queensrÿche - Queensrÿche (the new one) and Queensrÿche - operation: mindcrime. That made my day even more!
Yup, my Saturday was great! How was yours?

Bye battlecruiser!

What made me happy today? Soon I'll be saying goodbye to the battlecruiser!
Yup, a new car is coming my way. And it was totally unexpected! As you may remember, I got my driver's license recently. When I went to drop off a copy at out human resources department, my colleague informed me that I still had to pick a car.
Wait. Pick a car? But I already have a car... Well, as it turns out, that was not my permanent car. I got to pick a definitive one. Sjeesj, do they spoil me or what? So I had a hard choice to make. I like the battlecruiser a lot. It's a Ford C-max grand, and has a ton of trunk-space. But once you hit 70 kph, it starts to get sluggish. It has a 1.6 diesel engine with 95 hp, but I feel like it's just not enough for a car this size. My battlecruiser can fit up to 7 people, or a ton of luggage. The way it handles in sharper turns isn't that great either. I'm also not convinced of the way the pedals are arranged, for some reason the gas pedal is a lot further away than the breaks... Again, it's a great car but it's also not very eco-friendly. It uses 6.4 l per 100 km, and has a Co2 exhaust of 120 g / km.
So keeping in mind my two most important rules for picking a car (being comfort and trunk space) I got to it. I took a look at the list, immediately eliminated several cars for being to small. And in the end I chose the Volvo V40. Fuel consumption is rated at 3.4 l per 100 km, and the Co2 exhaust is 88 g / km. It has a ton of safety options, which all come standard as Volvo is very engaged towards safety. Like it says on their website 'By 2020, nobody shall be seriously injured or killed in a new Volvo.' And if you see the array of safety features and safety options that are available for the V40 I think they might even manage that. The trunk space is about 100 l less than the battlecruiser, but the Volvo should be a lot more comfortable. So the choice was made.
And then they told me I had to pick a color. Oh dear me. It took me a long time to decide on the car, and I didn't think about that! My first impulse was 'black', as my clothes always are. But then I got to thinking. Black does get warm in the summer, it shows dirt really well and is hard to see when it's dark. Most of the other colors in the range didn't really appeal to me. Several shades of grey and silver weren't for me, I don't really like those. The copper one was a big no, definitely not my thing. That left me with blue and red. I didn't like the shades of blue, and red is a very noticeable color, so red it was!
Now I have to wait a week until I get my new car. But I don't doubt that my battlecruiser will continue to serve me well :-)