Real Life™

A Guide to Solving Rubik’s Cube

Blast from the past: my not-quite-eight-year-old son suddenly wanted to own a Rubik’s Cube. A couple of his classmates had one, and he was fascinated with the colorful 3D puzzle. I used to own a bunch myself, and had a method of solving the thing memorized from a convenient little booklet. Unfortunately, we had recently […]

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A password for my password

De Nederlandstalige versie van dit bericht is te vinden op mijn Nederlandstalige site. Underwear? Check! Toothbrush? Check! Dutch cheeses and beers? Check! Microsoft Surface for the required writing and critiquing? Check! This morning at nine, my checklist was already complete for the tenth anniversary edition of the Villa Diodati Expat Writers Workshop. My suitcase waited by […]

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Customer Service Done Properly

Attempted Logistics – The Continuing Ineptness of I-Parcel – How I-Parcel Managed To See The Future (Or Lie) – The End Of the I-Parcel Affair – The Saga of UPS and i-Parcel Continues – Customer Service Done Properly After half a year of atrocious customer service from UPC i-Parcel, I finally got around to notifying Amazon […]

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Fixing WiFi Internet Speed Issues

This is far from comprehensive, but probably useful for others than myself. This post details the troubleshooting steps I went through after my internet speed dropped dramatically at home, from a normal 50-100 Mbps or more to 3 or (much) less, with intermittent dropouts, much fluctuation, and the accompanying slow or absent loading of web […]

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The Saga of UPS and I-Parcel Continues

Attempted Logistics – The Continuing Ineptness of I-Parcel – How I-Parcel Managed To See The Future (Or Lie) – The End Of the I-Parcel Affair – The Saga of UPS and i-Parcel Continues – Customer Service Done Properly And then, five months later, a Twitter user who suffered through the same frustrating ineptness from UPS I-Parcel […]

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On Perseverance, Running, and Writing a Novel

A year ago, I didn’t think I was capable of a sustained 5-minute run. Today, I ran my second uninterrupted 5km. This september, I’ll run my first 5 mile meet. A few years ago, I felt a sense of accomplishment if I managed to write a mere two short stories in any given year. Last […]

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War for the Planet of the Apes: A Technically Perfect Monstrosity

I can count on the fingers of one hand the times I’ve walked out of a movie theater halfway through a movie. My attempt at watching “War for the Planet of the Apes” is the third such occasion. And to think I had such high hopes! I can only conclude that everyone who rated the […]

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The End Of The I-Parcel Affair

Attempted Logistics – The Continuing Ineptness of I-Parcel – How I-Parcel Managed To See The Future (Or Lie) – The End Of the I-Parcel Affair – The Saga of UPS and i-Parcel Continues – Customer Service Done Properly Sadly, the Case of the Misplaced Parcel has petered out without a satisfying conclusion one way or the […]

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EverNote Rules

I tried. I really did. When Evernote decided last year to limit their free accounts to what amounts to trial use only, I abandoned the best note-taking tool on the planet, and out of sheer spite moved to Microsoft OneNote. I even ranted about Evernote’s evil corporate greed on Facebook. Evernote, I apologize from the […]

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How I-Parcel Managed To See The Future (Or Lie)

Attempted Logistics – The Continuing Ineptness of I-Parcel – How I-Parcel Managed To See The Future (Or Lie) – The End Of the I-Parcel Affair – The Saga of UPS and i-Parcel Continues – Customer Service Done Properly This is just too easy. With some suppliers, I actually need to put in an effort to blog […]

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