Risky business

Mic, Gerrit, Eva and Nantko came over tonight to have dinner and play a game of Risk. We ordered Indian take-away at 19:30 which was delivered at 21:15.

After wolfing down the food we finally managed to start at 22:00.

Basically the game went like this:
- I managed to get hold of South America early on.
- Eva tried to get hold of North America, which I kept preventing.
- The others were getting stronger because I was focussing on not letting Eva get away with North America.
- I got my first 10 extra armies and took Australia away from Nantko and Gerrit.
- I got tired of keeping Eva under control. Now that I was getting 4 armies every turn for 2 continents, I offered Eva a non-attack deal so that we could both focus on our assignment. She agreed. Very much disliked by Mic (fair enough)
- The deal worked out nice and allowed me to conquer Africa as well.
- Just before I was about to conquer 24 territories for my assignment, Eva completed her assignment for which she needed 3 continents.

Eva manages to win at least 1 game of Risk or settlers of Catan every single time we play. Maybe it's the little bit of German blood in her ;-)

Weeds, be gone!

They managed after all. Nice job!

I recently blogged about this patch with shrubs. it was totally covered in weeds. You can see what it looked like in this blog post.

The glasses

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Three of these strange contraptions are mounted along the canal. I wonder what for...

And then I spotted an Audi R8. Nice!

In the evening I took the metro to the South. It was rush hour. Can you tell?

In the South is a biiiig cinema. Mic and I went to see "Prometheus". It was a bit of a waste of time to be honest. I got to wear awesome 3D glasses though. Ain't I the coolest?

Afterwards we went to the pub and saw Ireland getting smacked by Spain.

The legs

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While waiting for the tram I saw this seagull working away a large chunk of bread. Two ducks wanted a piece as well. In the end the gull flew off with it...

The new buildings are being finished and I have to say that I like them a lot. Together they look like a block that somebody carved in to with a knife.

When legs like these stop in front of you and stay there for 10 minutes, you cannot not-look. And if you keep a photo blog, you cannot not take a picture...

Remember yesterday's grebe family? They are 1 down... Now there's only three :-(

I met Ruud after work. We had a quick meal at James' gate and then...

... we watched the incredibly bad Dutch soccer game.

Blurry...

When i came home I found a wedding invitation from my colleague Tanja. Very nice and I'm looking forward to it already :-)

Cat fight!

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The grebe family has 4 new members. Very cute :-)

The Holland-America line.

In the evening I went to Mic for dinner and squash. There were two cats fighting. Wasn't pretty. Hair hanging off of whiskers and such. I chased one away. I think he/she was glad to leave anyway.

Buildings and people

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My colleague Sylvester celebrated his 10th anniversary with the company today. He bought face-cake!

While I was upstairs for some face-cake I took the opportunity to take a boat picture from my old room. I do kinda miss this view....

On my way home I took snapshots from the tram.

There are bits of orange in town.

For the european championships.

The Nieuwezijds voorburgwal is a very wide and busy street with lots of tourists and cheap hotels. It looks a bit scummy here and there but when you take a close look at some of the houses, you discover really nice old buildings sometimes.

This house is so easy to overlook, but it's a little gem!

This house was on the list of national monuments...

... until it burned down yesterday morning. Two people tragically died.

Decorated window on the side of the Magna Plaza building.

Pedestrians.

The tower of the Westerkerk through a dirty, stained tram window.

Cyclist.

Bird (I was actually aiming for the terrace behind her...)

Marnixstraat.

Flower kiosk.

Moped.

I went to my shed at the back and as I unlocked it I heard "Quack" above me. I looked up and saw this duck sitting on the edge of the house to my left. I started quacking back and took my camera. It flew away as i was taking the shot. Funny :-)

My dinner

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Dinner. It was OK.