There are two names of beers that foreign people, mainly english & american, can't pronounce.

Westvleteren & Weihenstephan.

So I correct them.

That's something I inherited of my father.
My brothers have that same problem.

They ask for Westfilters - I say Westvleteren.

They ask for Weissenstan - I say Weihenstephan.

I'm especially good in pronouncing dutch names, I sometimes explain to them, while I, for a short moment, secretly think about my late father.

Once we changed a name of our beers on tap from Paas-IJ (Easter Egg) in Mij-bock (May-bock).

We had some kegs left over of it, had already passed the Easter & were coming in the direction of the month of May.

So we thought it was funny to change its name in May-bock.

That gave some consternation with some regular customers.

They said they didn't like the May-bock & wanted to have back the Paas-IJ.

We didn't tell them anything about the true nature of this beer, but they still believe they drank something else.

This shirt is a 1-made-only. My colleagues gave it to me as a birthday gift, years ago.

Something went wrong yesterday.
& Here is part of the reason.

I bought a new mediaplayer. It's the big one.

It has wifi. So I was trying to connect it to my network.

Long story, but there it went wrong. No internet for 1 night. & Next morning I had to adjust some options on both my computer and my new toy in the right way.

No time was left for placing a shirt online.

So now everything is back to normal it's time for 2 of them.

It works quite well, wearing afwull T's underneath my longsleeves.
Nobody, except for the people looking online, can see I have disgusting beer on my body.

But now I'm in trouble.

I've been telling here before that I can't stand clothing that itches.

This T-shirt looks like it's gonna itch.

I can recognize it.

So today it'll be longsleeve, shortsleeve, longsleeve, longsleeve and longsleeve. That'll be it.

Oh, & off course a sweater & a coat. Nearly forgot that it's freezing again.

Yesterday somebody asked me whether it was a Singha-shirt I wore that day.

I said yes, but pleasepleasepleasedon'ttellanybody.

Today is the same.
Once again I'm gonna put 4 shirts on top of it.

It's a Caffrey's.

A Caffrey's?

Yes, a Caffrey's.

Frontside: Q. What's the difference about Caffrey's?

Backside: A. It will be all clear in the morning. Easier drinking Caffrey's. Now 4.2% ABV.

& They're proud of it.

I've been hiding the logo behind some plants here.

So please don't ask me what I was wearing today. I don't want to be aware of it.

Now you know what my kitchen looks like.

It's a mess.

Although not extremely dirty. I just don't put the things at the right place after using it.

My living room is the same. But then filled up with books. & Bags where those books have been transported in.

The positive thing about these grease stains is that their colour goes well with the sign of this awful beer.

My colleague did lose last week. Thanks to my cycling jersey.

1st We did bad both. We couldn't hit the bin with our pellets.

Then I threw my 1st point. & My 2nd.

It went from 2 - 0, via 2 - 1 to 3 - 2.

We closed, chased the customers away & decided to do 1 more hit. Just for fun.

I made it 4 - 2. He made 4 - 3.

So today the same scenario. I'm a champion in these kind of jerseys.

I visited Haarlem this week. To see an exposition.

I watched all the paintings, took my time.

& Then I suddenly was out on the streets again.

I decided to walk around a bit. I might even go into a pub, I thought.

But no pubs were open. Not the ones I wanted to drink a beer in.

So I've seen all the streets of the city centre.

While I was hoping people didn't see I was just walking around, having no goal, reappearing time & time again.

When I didn't dare anymore I took the road to the Central Station again.

I better drink a beer in Amsterdam, I thought.

I've visited the brewery once. When I accomponied one importer of beer on her journey to some wholesales & breweries in Belgium.

It was freezing. In the brewery too. So we kept our coats on.

I knew what breweries were looking like. I work in one myself. I was still happy to get a small tour.

The brewery equipment was not that exciting, except for a plate heat exchanger they had taken over from Chimay, but the building itself was.

They should put all those new breweries in old buildings. One way to keep old treasures saved for mankind.

I visited a friend of mine.

Although she's living in another city I used to visit her at least once a week.

Now it was for the 1st time in months.

It was part of my space, my Zijperspace, so I took some shirts with me & tried to grab.

Grab, yeah, grab. Grab something. I don't know what. Grab what's me, parts of me, picturewise.

It's a shirt for students.

I thought it was funny then.

At the backside: Willing, but with a lively character... Who can withstand that?

Frontside (this one here): Raise him!

I gave the man some beer.

& Later I regretted it.

It's not a very good print. The bottom of the illustration is gone.

But yeah, I was just starting to collect shirts. Although I didn't want to admit that yet.

I was not too critical. I wanted to have more shirts. So people would say: Hey, you're having a new shirt on!

Yep, I'm doing that for 218 days now.

Although they're not all new.

I'm wearing this one already for some hours.

I nearly fell asleep again, this morning, so I decided to go out & do some shopping.

Man wakes up biking around in the rain for 2 hours.

After that man gets tired again.

So I didn't feel like publishing the next photograph. I preferred doing nothing.

& Now nothing starts to get boring & is reinviting me for a short nap I decided it's time for beer.

Today once again we're gonna try to throw pellets in the bin.

In dutch: propjes in de prullenbak.

Nice alliteration that is.

Nothing special with that. Just throwing inbetween tapping beer.

We have plenty of other things to do, but we throw those pellets anyway.

Who's gonna hit the bin is getting a point. Quite logical.

But now I do have a special jersey. So I will come prepared.

My colleague will be amazed. And lose.

I haven't been counting them, all the breweries that are on this T.

Or no, I have been counting them, but I forgot the result.

& Now I don't feel eager enough to stand up & count again.

All the breweries from the Netherlands. As it was a few years ago.

Probably there are more.

But still there's not enough quality.
There is, but not enough.

I didn't realize it until I saw the photograph on my computer.

It is as if the bottle is actually standing there.

Well, I think so.

So I thought I succeeded although it was not what I intended to do.

That's good too, isn't it?

I fell asleep.
Again.

I was up already for a few hours. But then I started listening to a radio play, meanwhile laying on the couch.

That was fatal.

A friend of mine keeps on saying that I can place all those pictures on Flickr instantly. I just have to keep them for myself, so other people can't see them yet.

& When I display them for everybody I have to antedate them, she says.

But I need the pressure of the last moment, I think.

& I'm too stubborn.

Now you all know.

I don't want to walk around in the same clothes as other people.

Especially when they say you have to.

Well, it wasn't obliged to wear this T, but they rather had that you did.

So, I didn't.

It's an awful T-shirt also.
With the logo of Coop on the front side.
Free advertising done by 100's of staff at a beerfestival.

& Now I'm gonna do that to. Just for 1 afternoon.

But I have to. I just have to.
They didn't.

Before you start to wonder what the title 'Lips' is about: at the backside it says 'Lips of Faith'.

& I really don't know what that's supposed to mean.

Even Bob & Mary, who gave me this T, didn't know what the brewery was trying to tell us with these 3 words. While they are native americans.

So I thought it might be better to show you the logo at the frontside.
Carefully placed at the worn-out counter at my job.

We do have new lagering tanks. It'll be possible soon to do 3 batches a week.

I don't have time to write about that. I've been wasting my time here.
Have to catch a train. But I also want to smell nice.

So away for a shower.

& Gone.

I build this thing behind the shirt with bricks my neighbours couldn't use anymore.

It's a sort of the front of a boat. That's what it reminds me of.

There is probably a name for it, but I really don't know about that.

Although I just finished reading Moby Dick.

Each year some bricks fall down. That's because of the cats that think my garden is their domain.
I don't agree with them.

& Each spring I trie to put those bricks back.
But repairing my 'boat' is waking up toads, sleeping underneath them during the winter.

That's always the time of the year I decide not to dare to enter my garden again for the rest of the year.

I've been walking the Southdowns.
I even arrived in Brighton, but didn't go much further.

It kept on raining. & 1 Of the soles of my shoes got loose.

I stayed in a youth hostel in a tiny village & walked my way to Lewes, to get my shoe repaired.

I felt lost.

Especially thanks to the old major in retirement who ran the hostel at that moment.

He treated me as if I was 1 of his soldiers. Which I was not.
The only thing I ever did was going to the boy scouts.

That's what I think about when somebody reminds me of the Southdowns.

My 2 bikes are both looking as solid as this 1 on the shirt, but mine are both green.

The oldest 1 is hanging, attached with ropes, to the ceiling. It's a Kronan.

I thought, when I bought my new bike 1½ year ago, that I would gonna use it regularly.
So with some pulleys it would be easy to get the bike down.

It's hanging there, my bike.
The only thing it's doing there is hitting my head when I don't pay attention.

Most of the time when that happens I'm glad I'm wearing my hat. Coming from the same brewery as this T here.

Something else: I think that for a Pro-account on Flickr, for which you have to pay a certain amount of money, one gets a miserable statcounter. The worst statistics I know of within the whole social media- & Blogosphere.

I did shake hands with the brewer, it's only a few months ago, although he didn't bring me a new shirt.

I didn't tell him though that I badly needed a new 1. This 1 here has some white spots.
Probably bleach.

I shouldn't wear this T anymore, but on a calm day like this, well, I can. For 1 time.

Say goodbye to the T & hope some day Garrett Oliver has been reading this text & will return to Amsterdam to hand me over...

I got this with Christmas, together with another one, from an english guy who is visiting our brewery for at least once a year.

He's always sitting there, hardly saying anything.

I told him I had the same shirt he was wearing. I also told him beershirts were the only beerthings I was collecting.

Then he promised to come back a day later. To bring me a shirt.

So 2nd Christmas Day I was happy.

But don´t make it a habit, since I don´t like Christmas.
I don´t want to change that, just for some shirts I got.

When I showed the green version of this T-shirt I didn't tell the story behind it.

Not that it's very special, but it was so very kind of the man.

I gave a tour once to the guy who brewed at Magnolia. Just for him.

He was grateful & we swopped T-shirts.

But I accidently told him that green was my favourite colour.
I didn't do that on purpose.

The guy was so kind to send me a green one when he got home.

That's why this one still looks pretty decent.

Well, that chili beer is also for a certain type of people.
Maybe we can't call them wimps, but I doubt whether they're better off than those limeloving beerdrinkers.

The backside says: A real winner, seeks long term relationship.

Now I don't know why they've been using the comma , but more annoying is the text itself.

I'm glad it's on the backside.

I have to work behind the counter. With my face towards the customers.

I hope I won't show them my back.

I'm not seeking a long term relationship, let that be clear.

I'm sorry, ladies.

I don't have much to say, this day that is the day after yesterday.

I'm trying to revive a bit. I'm busy with that the whole morning already.

So nothing new here. Except for the fact that tomorrow it'll be the 200th T-shirt I'm gonna place here.

I'm coming close to the end.
In a few weeks it'll be over.

Then I'm gonna start trying to write stories again.

In Dutch.

We don't know what it's gonna be. It could go either way.

The only thing we have to do is start with it.

Well, it'll start with us. We won't be able to stop it starting.

Actually, it's already busy starting. We are just not aware of it yet.

& When it's over, we try to find out what had happened.

It can be tiring, New Year's Day. One shouldn't think about it before it began.