Tuesday 03 Jul 2001 - 14:26Time

Manic depressive Jules Sans Scrupules has an announcement to make: Sorry, too busy.
No, but seriously, how people today manage to have families, children and friends next to having jobs and dinners outdoors and internet and weblogs and ipods and spamfilters and TV-cable, manage a video-collection, frequent sportschools, play musical instruments and buy new clothes each week and go out to show them off, beats me.
Some annoying things I ran into the last days:

- Those dumb idiots walking in the middle of the streets of Amsterdam pretending they don't know they are in the way, pretending they don't know there are people living and working there that need to get through! If I'd be ringing the bell on my bike for everytime I should warn people that there happens to be a sidewalk where they should be on instead, the sound just woulnd't stop! Without exception they jump away from my lane and pretend to be sorry "whoops, sorry, ehehe" Really, if you think it's so funny you can't watch your stupid careless asses in traffic, I hope you get run over by some biker that does not have my level of tolerance, let's see how sorry you are then.

- The Dutch tax-system. If you're expecting to get paid in this country, don't get your hopes up too high: bruto 16765 amounts to netto 9753 guilders. Something like 58%, talk about royal tax-deductions for employers, truly insane! Then there's the ever growing level of "Onroerende Zaakbelastingen" and rent, how do these fools come up with this mafia shit anyway? And if you want to buy yourself a (new) laptop, it now is cheaper to buy a ticket to Germany, Ireland or the US, buy your toughbook over there and take a plane back to NL! Something seems wrong in how they're running this country financially, and surprise surprise: those who 'make' the least suffer the most.

- Then there's banks: Before you know it you have like 5 different accounts on just your own little name. One for a credit-card (visa etc), one for savings, one to simply pay and get some cash out of the wall and one to replace cash with. They all have their own so-called secure website and password and PIN, so to have enough money to pay with, you need to constantly bounce money from one to the other account. Wouldn't it be smarter for banks (and easier for us) to just let people have only 1 bankaccount with all their money on it, plus their savings, with only one card? I mean, this is getting sick; To be able to pay stuff on the internet I need to have that paypal thing working. Phew, like I had time left to watch out for one more debet-credit level, to read yet another Latest Money News e-mail, oh please: Fuck You!