My Digital Pet

Nabaztag is a digital bunny which you connects to the internet and reads out e-mail messages, weather forecasts, RSS-feeds and can serve as alarm. Nabaztag can move his ears, has various LEDs which light up if a new message arrives and speaks English and French. You just have to connect Nabaztag to your modem and....

AAAAAHHHH! I've been trying to connect Nabaztag to my modem for the past three months - and it doesn't work! Probably because I'm a computer nerd, but it's so frustrating. I even managed to stop my whole internet connection from working last week. My livebox (stupid modem!) doesn't allow the connection to be made. The helpdesk person yesterday was kindly enough to help me reconnect to the internet. So far so good. When I told about my bunny she said she wanted one too. And she advised me to look on wizzkid fora on the internet to find instructions. But they don't exist.

My Nabaztag will remain a very silent pet, I fear.

Back to work

Today I started to work again, after a couple of weeks of nice holidays! I spent my free days different from what I was used to during the past years, basically enjoying the summer (for what it was) in Amsterdam. It's good to be back at work - there's many things that need to be done - but to most of the things I'm looking much forward. A couple of weeks ago COC obtained consultative status with the United Nations, which means that we will now start to engage with various UN mechanisms. Amongst other activities I aim to facilitate access for colleage activists to relevant Human Rights fora - something which is much needed.





Uniquely, I've manage to spent over three weeks of my holidays in Amsterdam. As I enjoy being in the city this was a good experience. Have explored some sides of the city I didn't manage to see before (amongst which in particular culturally less responsible sites like a Shopping mall, the House of Horror and one of the biggest Cinemas in town to see Batman). Also I finished reading the autobiography of Bill Clinton - an interesting (but long) perspective into the life of an American president. Currently I'm reading 'Murder in Amsterdam' from the Dutch/Brittish author Ian Buruma, giving an interesting perspective on 'tolerance' in the Netherlands.




And of course there was Gay Pride in Amsterdam...which I watched from the side this year. My parents however were in the parade, on the 'Proud Parents' boat. My sister and I waved proudly back to them!