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# Buying Happiness    04'08'07 15:53    link

An article making the blogs: How not to buy happiness, by Robert H. Frank in Daedalus magazine.
In short, you can buy happiness with money, as long as you're careful what you spend it on. Makes sense, doesn't it? It seems to be a new idea for many.
By pure chance, I decided a while ago to negotiate a 32-hour week instead of 40 - I bought one day of freedom every week for one-seventh of my income. What a sweet deal. Tough negotiations with my bosses, but I got it done and yesterday was my first real Free Friday. Yay!
(and what did I spend it on? working all day in my house... and next week, friday's booked for one of my private clients... and the week after that, moving my girlfriend in... I have the nagging feeling that it's going to be difficult to actually take these days off.)

# Back from Italy #2    04'08'05 12:46

Three days back from Italy and I still don't know what to do with lunch.
The bakery near my house closed down a couple of months ago. So, no nice bread at home, since I forget to take the spare out of the freezer before I go to bed.
So, buying lunch. The canteen is lousy, but I work in the heart of Amsterdam. Shouldn't be too hard then should it? Well, it is.
The coffee is ok at the Coffee Company, but hardly acceptable by Caffe standards. I mean, even along the Autostrada the coffee is invariable excellent and half of what they dare to ask here for a badly done espresso. Or a cappuccino where the cocoa is spread liberally, to camouflage the quickly fading foam. Right, that's why they push the sirups.
And the food... it is so crappy here. Or ridiculously expensive, and then still. The Dutch care more for the appearance of their food than for the content; strange, since their taste in clothing is the opposite.
Italy reminded me of Ireland in that respect: a lot of food for sale, expensive or cheap, but never dead-cheap and crappy. Actually, never crappy. Bad food is simply not on offer.

I settled for a bagle with hüttenkäse and cherry tomatoes in the end. Was doable, and it was on a terrace in the sun, with a friend. Not too bad, not too bad. I guess I'll get used to it. Grudgingly though, and if I don't, it's time to move southwards. Even to Belgium would help!

# Back from Italy #1    04'08'04 08:25

Back home, after almost three weeks in Italy, where everything was mightily different... but the strangest thing is to see the Dutch yellow licenseplates around all the time.
We counted them as a game to keep awake during long treks on the Autostrada. And now I find my head programmed thoroughly to notice yellow, six-character plates. They're big, bulky and not quite gracious, and they're screaming at me: you're not in Italy anymore.