Wassenaar Expat Times

Blogger has been acting up on me so I decided to move the blog to WordPress. (I'm teaching a class on blogging in a month and a half and I don't want to fool around with problems that are beyond my control.)

So, the new address is wassenaarexpat.wordpress.com

for a little while I'll have a redirect here to the new site.

Last night we were watching Xena while folding clothes. Just for kicks I thought that I would do a little time & money analysis for watching something on DVD or on broadcast television. We did not see the last season of Xena when it was on TV so I was a little curious.

Title	Cost	Minutes	Cost Per Minute
Xena: Warrior Princess - Season Six	$29.99	1040	$0.029
Jeeves and Wooster - The Complete Collection	$39.98	1200	$0.033
Lonesome Dove	$11.84	360	$0.033
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest	$24.21	150	$0.161
Little Miss Sunshine	$14.99	101	$0.148
Napoleon Dynamite	$11.49	89	$0.129
Lost - The Complete First Season	$45.74	1068	$0.043

I'll only do the next for a couple since I can verify these numbers.

Title	Minutes of Content per Episode	Regular Broadcast Duration	Content Ratio	Time Savings per Episode	Episodes per Season	Total Minutes of Advertising Avoided
Xena: Warrior Princess - Season Six	42	60	70%	18	22	396 (6.6 hours)
Lonesome Dove	240	360	66.6%	30	4	120(2 hours)

Last night we got to see a total lunar eclipse; the first one in three years. Three years ago we were in Texas and saw the eclipse through LittleE’s Viewmaster binoculars. Not the best looking through little plastic lenses! There was quite good viewing despite intermittent clouds. (Cloud cover is omnipresent here on the coast of the North Sea. A few days ago we had several hours of bright sunshine and LittleN was quite put out about it. She told me that I should take the sun away because it was too bright outside!) LittleE got to say up late and watch the thing. He had his own little pair of binoculars and quite enjoyed himself. We did a little star and planet watching while waiting: the two o’clock position from the moon was Saturn, then over to Rigel and Betelgeuse in Orion, then the Big Dipper in Ursa Major, then back to the moon. The partial eclipse began at 10:30 our time (GMT+1) with the total beginning about 11:43. About ten minutes before total, the clouds rolled in, the sky turned to erwten soup and began to rain - typical Dutch weather drat it! Moon watching was over. August 28th 2007 is the next total lunar eclipse and if you live in California or New Zealand you can see it. LittleE likes to look at the stars. Sometime I'll have to see if the binoculars that I have are powerful enough for a little star-splitting. Buying a scope here is almost a waste because it is normally so cloudy, and then during the summer it doesn't get dark in the evening until after eleven with full darkness until way past midnight.

This time of the year is what the Dutch call the "Krokusvakantie" or the Crocus Vacation. Crocuses are usually the first flowers of late winter and are found everywhere right now. Our backyard has quite a few of them growing amongst the grass; along with that dratted moss(!). Schools are out for the week or so of it - the dates are a little fuzzy as to when it actually begins. It is also Carnival (Crocus colors are Marti Gras/Carnival colors- gold, purple and green) time in the south of Holland, Belgium, Southern Germany, etc. Yesterday, LittleN and I were watching the German ARD TV channel "Das Erste". On it was a Carnival parade in one of the big southern German cities. They had big floats, including one from a local Lutheran church, and the people were all in historical costume. There were kings and queens, all kinds of 18th Century soldiers, kids as princes and princesses and so on. There were no beads being tossed but plenty of flowers and candy. LittleN wanted to know what this one little girl on a float was throwing. I said candy. LittleN then wanted to know if Zwarte Piet was in the parade. Well, I said, it's the wrong time of the year. The Pieten (plural of Piet) are all in Spain waiting for the beginning of December to come around.

LittleN rode her bike today. In passing, I mentioned to LittleE about getting the bike out but LittleN was the one who got excited. She ran upstairs to get some socks, she put them on all herself, got her shoes boots and jacket on and was waiting buy the front door before I could even find my shoes. So we went out back and got the bike out of our little cobwebby shed. As soon as the door was open she went inside looking for her helmet. First she wanted to wear her helmet over her coat's hood. It took a little persuading but the hood came down and the helmet went on. LittleE was just looking out of the window at us. All he wanted to do was just to play inside with Legos all day long. (Tomorrow though, will be different for him - it's his turn on the bike.) Anyway, I lifted LittleN onto the bike and she got very excited about being on it. She couldn't see where she was going or steer the bike because all she wanted to do was look at her feet pedaling the bike. As we were going down the block she was saying things like, "Look at me, I'm pedaling!" , or, "Is this LittleE's Bike?", or, "I'm a bike rider!", or, "I want to show LittleI (who lives down the street) my bike." She was so proud herself when we got home she wanted me to call Mommy so she could tell her what she did. I was proud of her too!

On my recient trip to London I had a couple of grilled Marmite and cheese toasties for breakfast. My brother, having never tried the stuff, wanted to know what is is and how it is made, and how it tastes. I had no idea - just what's on the label: "yeast extract", no idea, salty and can be quite strong if not spread thinly- the first time I tried it I spread it quite liberally on toast, like jam - the folly of ignorance! I had to look a little online to find out that it is spent brewer's yeast from Britain's Bass brewers plus a few other added ingredients. So just a couple of days ago I decided to pull my little pot out of the fridge and have a go at it again. (I did not realize that you can keep it a room temperature and an open jar will stay fresh and potent for more than three years on the shelf!) My first thought when I opened the jar and took a sniff was, "Wow, a bouillon cube." A hopeful and propitious beginning?

Labels: marmite

LittleE brought a book home from class today to read to us called "Dinosaur Party." When we got home from after-school playground time I took the book out of his bag and asked "What's this?" He then took it and started to read, "We like to dance. We like to sing...." A little while later the book made it upstairs to his room where he was teaching LittleN how to read it. She then took the book and read it Sharla. When I came up there to see what is going on LittleN said,"Go away Daddy, I'm reading this book to Mommy it's not for you."