Game Day: Sunday, Super Bowl Sunday

By all accounts, Sunday couldn’t have been a much better day for a New Orleans Saints fan such as myself. Granted, a few things could have shaped out a bit better, but what’s a boy to do? I kicked off the day by doing something I hardly ever get to do anymore, namely sleeping in, which, I found out, does the body good.. I then slowly got up and about, wandered over to the supermarket, bought a 12 pack of Heineken (mainly on account of it being the cheapest option, really) and made my way down to Godset, a local venue which doubles as rehearsal space for local bands. The plan was to spend the major part of the afternoon checking out Dunkel’s band project and see how they were getting along, and it turned out to be a pretty good plan.

I started out by sharing my first six pack with the band who has now grown to become a fully functional five piece band with a vocalist, bass player and all.. And they’re getting pretty good, too! And loud! Especially if you’re stuck in a small room between the five of them with two guitar amps and a bass amp going full blast, vocal amps blasting and the drummer beating the crap out of his setup some two feet to the left of you.. My professional ear plugs have really come in handy, thank you very much!

I got to see the band play through their set twice and I quite liked what I heard (and I’m not just saying that because the lead guitarist happens to be one of my best friends). Their sound is very punk rock like but with a much deeper, heavier metal-like feel to it.. With a heavy dose of energy, some screaming, break downs, solos and other goodies thrown in for good measure.. It’s hard to define, really, but I hear Dunkel is afraid people will classify it as pop punk which I highly doubt is gonna happen.. To me it sounds much more like metalcore but without the constant double bass drum/screaming combo.. Which I guess makes it less metalcore and more post-hardcore or alternative metal/punk.. Fuck it, I don’t know.. Fact of the matter, it’s good stuff and I’m working on having some demo material to post soon.

Anyways, after listening to the boys play and pondering silently by myself about what exact genre to shove them into, I made my goodbyes with the band as they went for a break, then headed down to meet up with the rest of my Super Bowl party at a local downtown restaurant called Joe’s Diner.. The idea was to meet up a few hours (or six) before the game and pig out on some greasy spoon food before tumbling back to Michael Kristjansen’s place to watch the big game on the big screen. The idea seemed pretty good, and for the most part it was, it would actually had been the perfect plan had the dinner not been an absolute disaster.. But, well, at least the company was good. Our little party included myself, Penny, Michael, Thomas Holm, and a couple of their friends, Søren and his brother whatshisface.

Together we enjoyed a memorable dinner which included such highlights as waiting almost 30 minutes for appetizers, of which they forgot one, waiting 10 minutes for a refill on a pitcher of beer after having waited a good minute or two to even grab the attention of the totally non-present waiting staff behind the bar, and, finally, waiting another 30 odd minutes for our entrees along with the tables around us and the people waiting for takeout who all were growing equally weary.. When the food finally did arrive, I was treated to one of the least memorable burger meals of all time. I know I shouldn’t expect the world from a DKK 120 entree, but I’d expect a little more than a batch of the cheapest flash frozen potatoes chugged into the deep fryer and served without any salt what-so-ever, an overly cooked burger with tasteless greens, no hint of the garlic dressing I ordered and a rather characterless whiskey sauce.. Thumbs up for the bacon and the home-made brioche style bun, though.. I know I’m slamming them pretty hard here, but guys.. Really.. Not cool! I ended up feeling like I had been better off going to Burger King, waiting a fraction of the time and getting tastier food for half the price.. And I feel sad even writing this, but really.. That’s how I feel, and it shouldn’t be that way! Oh well, at the very least we got a bit of a buzz out if sitting around, waiting with nothing better to do than to drink some beer.. And we got large amounts of junk food at a reasonable price.. And we had fun bitching.

After dinner, we headed back to Michael Kristjansens place and had a bit of fun trying to cram six guys in front of his TV screen in his littleish living room. We then half-assedly watched Any Given Sunday while drinking a few energy drinks and waiting for game start to roll along. We were even joined by some female company as Caroline who lives downstairs from Michael and is a well-known Uboat regular showed up to join in the fun of trying to understand the game and getting hit on by Thomas Holm.. An effort she pretty quickly gave up on.

A lot could be said about the game itself and a lot probably already has been said.. Suffice to say here is we had fun. We were predominantly a room full of Saints fans, so naturally we didn’t enjoy ourselves too much during the first quarter or so.. But after the surprise onside kick (which several of us had actually called – as a joke – before it happened) things picked up, as did the noise level. The half time show was enjoyed to the full extend by the four classic rock fans in the house – to the full extend that a horribly out of synch telecast can be enjoyed anyways.. And got some kudos from yours truly for opening with Pinball Wizard and playing all of Baba O’Riley..

The second half of the game featured more celebrations, a two point conversion, an interception and even more yelling, jumping about, high fiving and what have you.. Culminating, of course, in a well-deserved victory for the Saints and much lively clapping and cheering in the little living room, despite the fact that the clock had now passed 4 AM and everyone present but Johan was used to snoozing happily at this hour. We finally disbanded at around 4:30 AM, and Penny and I took the long, hard walk home together, talking about tall tales from previous drunken stints together and what have you.. All in all, a pretty good Super Bowl Sunday.. More of those, please, but better food next year, okay?

So, what’d you all do today?

.. Christian asked me while the two of us were in the kitchen on Saturday evening, trying to cook dinner and do dishes while the girls (Tina and Emelie) were lounging around in the living room talking about girly stuff (or so I assume).. “Oh, you know,” I replied, “the usual stuff.. We talked a bit, watched some DVD’s, Tina and I got in a fight over the couch, I slapped her and pulled her off the couch kicking and screaming, she then proceeded to yell at me and sat on me trying to block my view until I poked her in the side and we got into a shouting match about proper behavior.. Your usual Saturday afternoon, really..”

“I see..,” came the reply, “yeah.. that does sound like your standard Saturday afternoon behavior..” the events that led to this standard Saturday afternoon, however, were pretty complicated and involved both Emelie breaking her leg in several places, and Tina and I having a bit of a Bonnie and Clyde moment and  nearly ending our lives together by driving into the harbor. But I guess I’d better start at the beginning..

Which, sadly, involves Emelie crashing hard on a patch of ice during a walkabout and breaking her leg.. In quite a complicated manner, apparently, earning her two fractures, a bag full of pills and many days of near immobility. Tina and I, along with our other friends, were absolutely horrified to hear this and in order to at least offer the poor girl a few laughs and some entertainment opted to drive on over on Saturday and spend the day and evening with her (and Christian who was at work but would show up later). Well, okay, when I say we opted, I mean that Tina pretty much set up the whole thing and I went along with her planning without questions.. But really, that’s just how we roll, and I’m strangely fine with my girls planning and making agreements on my behalf as long as I’m told what to do in the end.. Makes for less decisions, I guess

So either way, Tina set up somewhat of an open agreement with Emelie that we’d show up once I’d gotten my ass out of bed on Saturday and her little car had carried us to Esbjerg. This, incidentally is one of the reasons why I don’t mind Tina making agreements on our/my behalf.. She’ll be sweet and considerate about it and factor in such things as my weird, late sleeping habits. I in return will be inconsiderate and get up an hour earlier than both of us would have rightfully expected me to do on a Saturday and throw off Tina’s planning. But I meant well, so forgiveness, please.. (Side question: Do we know each other too fucking well when without prior communication, she gets up and gets ready based on when I would be expected to get up on a Saturday based on my previous sleeping patterns?)

The end result was a bit of a confusing Saturday morning with both of us trying to get ready as quickly as possible, then meet up and get on our way.. Which we eventually succeeded at at around 12:3o where we rendez-vouzed at my friendly neighborhood supermarket, jumped in the car, turned up the rock ‘n’ roll music and tore off towards Esbjerg. Things actually go well for most of the trip until we arrive in Esbjerg, a city conveniently located at the very western shore of Denmark, and get near the harbor where strange and/or bad ideas ensue. Now, I’ll probably have to assume responsibility as instigator of the bad ideas as things started going wrong when I noticed signs for various ferry routes to such exciting places as Iceland and the Faroe Islands and immediately started trying to talk Tina into making a snap decision and going on a spur of the moment trip to said islands with me. This, initially, prompted little response from her other than the usual semi-confused look, soft smile and gentle head shaking which, after many years of friendship, I’ve deciphered to mean something along the lines of “Sweetie.. You’re being really weird again.. Just.. Stop?”

Eventually, however, my constant talking of, and pointing at, the sea spawned a reaction of “Oh, look, ice! Let’s go investigate!” – I should point out that ice winters in Denmark are extremely rare. Last time we saw ice in Danish seas was exactly 23 years ago, an event I barely remember and Tina obviously doesn’t remember, on account of being about three years old at the time.. Both of us being curious, and spontaneous souls by heart, this uncommon sight naturally warranted further investigation, so Tina turned the car off the beaten path and headed straight for the outer pier which, much like the water we were so keen to investigate, was covered with ice.

“This is spectacular,” I remember thinking out loud before we reached the end of the pier, Tina applied the breaks and our mutual sighs of fascination turned to a mutual feeling of “Uh-oh” as the reality of the situation we were in dawned to us.. We were on a ice covered pier, heading towards an ice covered ocean in a heavy metal box on summer tires.. And breaking wasn’t really doing us much good. The realization must’ve hit us both at pretty much the same time as we jus turned in a synchronized manner to look at each other and let out a reaction of “Aaah!”  .. Well, if we were to go down, at least we’d go down together, but thankfully the car skidded to a halt a few feet before the drop-off into the icy coldness of the water below and Tina’s expression immediately and professionally changed to a semi-confident “Right.. I meant to do that!” kind of impression.. We then got out, skidded around somewhat confidently on the ice covered pier and snapped a few pics of the spectacle before unanimously deciding to get back in the car and head on to see Emelie before anybody broke a leg or got killed in our effort to get there.

After our little adventure, we arrived at Emelie’s and Christian’s place no more than five minutes later and felt almost sorry for having to ring the buzzer to have Emelie get up and let us in. Regardless, we couldn’t get in on our own, so we had to rely on Emelie to get up and buzz us in which she did with some effort and we hurried up to greet her and get her back to lying down on the couch as quickly as possible. We spend the next odd hour or so catching up on Emelie’s unfortunate accident and her current condition, doing whatever we could to offer sympathy and compassion. We then went on to spend a few hours watching some Eddie Izzard DVD which is kinda when things flared up between Tina and I.. See, the layout of Christian’s and Emelie’s living room is such that they have two couches, one three-person couch and one two-person couch. The three person couch was naturally taken up by Emelie who had to lie down, meaning that Tina and I would share a two person couch.. This, really, should prompt no problems, but seeing as the TV screen was only entirely visible from half of the couch, the half that Tina had conveniently taken up. Meaning, of course, that in order to pay attention to the screen, I had to impose on her half of the couch and that, of course immediately prompted some problems. Because Tina, being the giant person that she is, of course demanded to have full sovereignty of her part of the couch. I played the not being able to see card and the her being small enough for both of us to share the space on her side of the couch.. Which was immediately countered with the “You’re always teasing me saying that I have a large ass.. And now you’re not leaving room on the couch for my large ass?” card. Something I couldn’t really counter, because using something you’ve said in the past against you in the present is a very unfair and girly thing to do.. So my solution to the problem was to pretty much ignore her and just stay seated.. Which, again, went reasonably well for long periods of time, until I had to get up and do something in the kitchen.

When I returned to the living room I found Tina on the couch, on her stomach, fully stretched out, feet up, taking up the length of the damn thing with a beaming smile of “Hah.. Screw you!” on her face. Fine, whatever, I thought and went to sit down on the couch, on top of Tina and all. Which prompted screams and mutterings from the little one followed by an annoyed grunt of “Well, then move” from myself. Something that was apparently out of the question.. So, the solution to the problem became to give the misbehaving girl a well-deserved slap, prompting her to spin around, then grab her by both legs and pull her kicking and screaming off the couch and onto the floor, then jumping into her place as she gathered herself with a cry of fuck you right back. Which prompted retaliation attacks of Tina trying to sit on me, then block my vision and my poking Tina causing more screams, insults and shouting.. Much to the confusion of Emelie who was on the other couch, not really knowing whether she should get lost trying to follow Eddie Izzard’s trail of thought or get even more lost trying to figure out what the fuck Tina and I were up to this time around.. Again, we apparently confuse people with our behavior, but that’s just how we roll and after everybody had had a chance to bitch and whine a little and abuse the other a little, things eventually settled down on their own.. Just in time for Christian to show up..

Pretty much rendering the entire fight pointless as I now had to get up and help him, leaving Tina to sprawl all over the couch once again.. Oh well.. So Christian and I got the dinner underway as well as doing the dishes while the girls chatted, a simple chicken and coconut cream thing which we then served up with a good French red wine to go along.. Good times!

After dinner, we leaned back and caught a movie.. Much wiser from the conflicts earlier in the day and with the prospect of sharing the couch with Christian who is considerably physically stronger than Tina, I figured I’d just watch the movie from the floor.. Which actually went pretty well as long as I had my red wine and a nice snifter of Scotch single malt to keep me company.. The movie choice of the evening was Quentin Tarrantino’s Inglourious Basterds (as I believe it’s correctly mangled) which was chosen by Tina and much to everybody’s amazement didn’t set well with me at all.. I’m really sorry, but no.. I think the others liked it, though, as they seemed pleased, but tired, when the movie ended after two and a half hours at around 11:30.

At this time everybody seemed really tired and Tina and I decided that we’d better move on and let the kids get some rest, so we made our goodbyes and thanked each other for a wonderful evening. We then headed out and into Tina’s car where we briefly pondered swooping by Dunkel’s briefly to see what was up with him, yet decided against it and just went home instead – both of us really being too tired and worn out to feel up for the challenge.

We ended up parting ways as Tina dropped me off at my place at around 0:30 AM after a long awesome day of only a few minor fights and a single near death experience.. Good times!

I has a bedroom!!

Some time ago, Tina asked me why I didn’t spend more time blogging at work in the periods where we didn’t have much to do. I guess back in those times, I didn’t update my blog too frequently and that may have been why she asked. Things have changed a bit since then, but I don’t see that as a reason not to follow her advice and spend some time blogging from work.. Hey, it’s better than them paying me to do absolutely nothing in the dead periods, right? I should think so..

So, what is up in Johan-land? Well, it’s been another long working week.. It’s been pretty tiring.. But it’s now 2:35 AM Friday morning so I guess I’ve once again almost made it through. It’s also been another week of renovations and people stumbling around my apartment at all sorts of weird hours.. But with a little twist this time around.. You see, after a few accidents, much cussing, a bit of redoing, deconstruction, more cussing and a few renegade decisions by yours truly and my landlord.. We’ve managed to complete a project!!

And not just any project.. No.. The bedroom project.. The very same project that I’ve spent post after post, day after day, hours, probably even days and months complaining about by now. Wallpapering was finished earlier this week, everything was painted yesterday, and I spent today trying to scrub clean the wooden floor to the best extend of my abilities.. A task I didn’t quite succeed at.. But I’d like to think I gave it my best shot considering that both glue, plaster and cement had been spilled all over the damn thing by various more or less skilled hired hands. After three washings, a lot of scrubbing and some sanding, I gave up and left whatever spots remained as they were.. Hopefully I’ll be able to cover them up with my bed and the new closet I’ve managed to steal from Tina during her move.

Speaking of bed, I got that in place as well.. Managed to move it from our wash room, all the way through my apartment and into my bedroom all by myself.. Which was a bit of a task to say the least.. But hey, I’m an ex warehouse worker and stubborn to boot, so I somehow managed.. And only dropped it on my feet twice during the process, I might add.. And with that, the process was pretty much complete. There are a few minor things that still needs to be taken care of, but those should be fixed on Saturday and it’s nothing more than I couldn’t move in..

And that’s it.. Tonight, I have a bed to sleep in! Tonight will be my first time in all of 2010 sleeping in an actual bed! That’s both kinda awesome and kinda sad at the same time.. And I’m wondering what it’ll feel like.. Goodbye couch, I’ll miss you.. But I promise I’ll come visit every day!

So.. That’s one big thing that happened this week outside of work. There are other things I could relate.. But I’ll guess those stories will have to wait.. I might actually want to try to act like I’m at work, as it seem I actually have some work to do..

Hardcore Fuckin’ Rooster!

Of all the viral videos currently circulating the web, this tickled my laughing sense the most.. It’s so delightfully pointless, yet so very f’ing metal:

\m/

I survived the blizzard of 2010 and all I got were these lousy ranting rights

I’ll admit it, I was more than a little surprised and confused when I saw a blizzard warning in the weather forecasts on Monday night.. Coz.. Blizzards? In Denmark? Really? .. And no, Steffen, just to clear things up once and for all and save you a few expenses, we’re not talking legendary game developer Blizzard here, or a new installment of Warcraft, we’re talking the snow + sleet + wind kinda Blizzard here.

But I digress, the fact of the matter is that for the first time in.. 33 years, I believe.. Danish weather services were issuing a blizzard warning.. Which left a lot of people in a state of panic.. And a lot of us in a state of “Pffft.. Right!” – because as far as blizzards in Denmark go, seeing is believing and while I’ve seen some pretty fucked up things in my life, a Danish blizzard isn’t one of them.. But still, as so many other people I went to bed on Monday night, well, Tuesday morning technically, with no uncertain air of excitement about me.. Partially because there was a good chance that the Rock Am Ring festival would announce new bands on the next morning – which didn’t happen, and partially because there was a chance of witnessing a potentially historic weather phenomenon on that same morning.. Were we going to go two for two on the didn’t happen front?

I woke very late Tuesday morning, reached for my laptop – as I do, go ahead and call me a geek – and checked my various news feeds, social networks and what have you.. I was surprised to see Facebook carry a surprising amount of “FUCK SNOW!!” comments which made me go huh? And eventually had me rolling up the blinds and inspecting the world outside.. And what did I see? SNOW!! … All two inches of it would be my best guesstimate, and a steady stream of it pouring down slowly but steadily and vertically from the sky. “Huh?” I thought again and flicked on the TV and caught an in-field reporter in the middle of an update from somewhere near by. I happened to catch him in mid sentence, but the essence was something along the lines of “.. really starting to come down now and things are absolutely chaotic, roads are closing, snow is blowing and it’s still just pouring down. It’s safe to say that the blizzard now has its steady grip on the western and southern parts of the country. Back to you whatsyourface!”

What’s pretty funny about the incident was that while watching it, you could see the snow coming down in the background of the shot in much the same steady yet unimpressive and vertical way that it did outside my window.. Which kinda has you wondering what constitutes a blizzard in Denmark and just went things can be considered chaotic? You really get the feeling that everything had been rolled out for massive coverage of a historic weather event and when nothing happened, well, come hell or high water they wanted their massive coverage, even if it meant having to overplay things.. Because, guys, really, let’s face it, a couple of inches of snow and a few gusts of wind doesn’t constitute a blizzard.. That’s like, Oh I don’t know, a quiet afternoon for most countries used to real winters.. But for it’s apparently “a major snow storm sweeping across the country and wrecking havoc in its trail” - Note to the media: There are a lot to be learned from America. Some lessons good, some bad. Sensationalism and an inherent ability to overplay everything isn’t on the side of good, really!

I spent some time sitting around waiting for things to get bette, and by better I guess I actually mean worse.. I guess you could say I was waiting for things to live up to the hype.. Which, surprise surprise, they never did.. Which I guess was good because I hate snow, really, in any quantity, so while the rest of the country were playing the snow hysteria game, I sat around all warm and comfy-like and thanked my lucky stars that this is all we got.. Because like most Danes, I have to pay for snow days if they keep me from going to work. And since I’m actually struggling to make enough money to pay off the debt on my student loans, I’d have to find some way of getting to work, regardless of the amount of snow. The fact that we didn’t get a fuckload of snow made this quest a lot easier, even if most of the public transportation grid shut down over the day along with many schools and some work places.. (Oh yes, we’re every bit as stupid as you’d expect us to be, we believe the media hype.. It’s a disturbing developing trend).

Luckily, the bus line that I was to take to work wasn’t one of those that shut down, so come 7:30 PM, I set off like I always do.. And that’s when things finally got at least a bit interesting in the weather department.

While we may have been cheated of the blizzard madness, we did get a fair amount of snow which was followed by a merciful but short spell of thawing, some sleet, rain and then a sudden plunge of temperatures back below freezing.. Add to this the fact that we’re starting to run out of road salt nationwide, and you can imagine what the roads must have been like.. An interesting, slippery and icy mess! Now, getting too work wasn’t too difficult, I was on a bus.. That’s not to say that scooting down hills and through bends in a 20 ton metal box was much fun.. But it wasn’t too difficult.. And I got delivered almost to the door at work.

Work itself was, well, a little more difficult, because in the shipping/logistics industry you kinda rely on things arriving on time.. And with everything outside a slippery, frozen  mess.. Well, nothing arrived on time.. At all.. Meaning that we spent most of the night just sitting around, waiting, yawning, drinking coffee, doing a little bit of work every now and then, looking at the odd web page and doing whatever we could to stay awake. For me this entailed amongst other things looking at the composition, properties and molecular gastronomic uses of nori in the hope that I might be able to use it to solve a problem with a dish I’m working on.. But that’s just how I roll. My colleague Torben looks at cars, I look at algae, that’s one of the few aspects in which we differ from one another.

Eventually, at around 2 AM, after some work, much stalling, two pots of coffee and a lot of incoherent blabbering, we decided to give up waiting for our last miniscule shipment to arrive and stop talking the talk and instead walking the walk.. Because with the mess outside, that seemed the only reasonable thing to do. Torben hadn’t dared taking his car out for a spin that evening and with no one else around to drive us home.. Walking time it was.. Or more like skating time, really. Because once we got about 500 meters into the white, slippery icy mess I found myself wishing I’d donned skates rather than shoes because skating around was more or less what we did for most of the trek home. Well, we did have a good talk and a few laughs as well.. And hotdogs.. As we ended up feeling really sorry for ourselves and stopping at an all night service station to buy ourself some good, porky comfort.

Eventually we did part ways as Torben headed off the main road and towards his home and I trekked on a while as well down another not so beaten path.. And that’s where the zombie accident mentioned yesterday happened.. Or maybe it wasn’t a zombie accident.. I don’t know.. But it was freaky as fuck all, that’s for damn sure. What happened was this: I’m walking down this abandoned quiet residential neighborhood at like 3:15 in the morning, all is quiet and everything is completely whited out other than this little narrow stretch of sidewalk that’s been wiped clean. At some point I notice this shadow moving slowly towards me in a rather wobbly manner, but go like oh, well, whatever. It’s strangely common for me to bump into people who are on their way to work on foot at all sorts of weird hours in the morning. So I just press on until I get up close to this guy and it becomes evident that he’s just gonna press on and not take any notice of me, let alone move slightly to the right so both of us may use the sidewalk.. Eventually, I’m made to step out into the fresh dunes of snow in order to let the guy pass and as he does, I turn to him with an “ey, what the fuck?” which he responds to by groaning slowly, turning his head and staring at me with a look right out of a horror movie. I swear to God, this guy not only moved in a slow unresponsive kinda manner, he also looked EXACTLY like someone out of Dawn Of The Dead, right down to the glazed over eyes, weathered face and greasy unkempt hair..

Now, I know that there’s really no such thing as zombies outside of Haiti. We were obviously dealing with a mentally challenged and possibly visibly impaired human being.. But still, that look and that response was enough to make me go “Hell no, fuck this!” and forget all about my demand for an explanation and just move on.. Quickly.. Which wasn’t the best of ideas seeing as most of  the rest of my way home was downhill.. And down a very slippery hill at that.. But I’m happy to report that despite straining something in my lower back and striking some, at times,very involuntary and awkward poses in an effort to stop me from slipping and falling on my ass, busting up my laptop and dropping my valuable hotdog load, I made it home rather safely and soundly not too long after.. Having survived not only a blizzard, but also a freeze-over and a possible zombie attack.. All in a day’s work! Whew.. Now I can’t help but wonder what today will bring.

The Nuclear Winter Zombie Holocaust is nigh!

Dear diary,

Today I twisted my back while striking weird poses to stay upright and standing on slippery bits of black ice but at least I didn’t fall on my bottom or drop my hotdog. I also may have bumped heads with a real live (dead?) zombie and lived to tell the tale. I am, however, entirely too tired and wrecked to relate those stories and the rest of my day of hard labor, insults and stumbling around purposelessly in the snow.. But bear with me, I’ll try to do so tomorrow instead!

Yours sleepily,

Johan

Insomnia Please Release Me

I seem to be completely incapable of falling asleep at night these days.. Which, I guess, is not really that surprising seeing as I work nights and falling asleep during my working hours would be considered pretty bad behavior on my part I’m sure.. However, the not being able to sleep at night part seems to have carried over into the mornings now as well meaning that when I get home at 3-something-ish AM, I’m awake for a few more hours before deciding to go to bed at around 5.. Then, usually, I’ll just lay there, looking to get some shut eye but not really getting anywhere with my efforts. Usually the clock will strike 7, even 8 before I finally doze off and catch a lovely four hours of sleep or so before starting the day anew at noon which is the time that I usually prefer (or am demanded) to get up.

For once, I’m really not sure what causes this weird behavior on my part, but I’m really not digging it.. It makes for some really long, confusing days.. Or alternatively some really short hazy ones on days where my body just gives up and I end up sleeping in for hours until I’m either rudely woken by Tina calling at 2 PM, thinking that she can’t possibly ruin my beauty sleep at this hour, or fall out of bed myself at 3 PM, wondering what the fuck happened, who and where I am, what day of the week it is and whether my favorite color is really blue or if it was but a dream.. Yup, sleep deprivation will make you lose track of a lot of things..

But hey, maybe tonight will be better, maybe tonight I’ll sleep, and consequently tomorrow will be better as well.. Yeah, that’d be swell.. Oh, if I could just get some sleep..

.. Till then I guess I’ll keep scouring Youtube, Wikipedia and other Web 2.0 sites for mindless entertainment, interesting multimedia and random facts.. Speaking of which, did anyone else realize that the above posted song by Faithless is 15 years old by now? Holy crud.. Still awesome, though!

Our 30th anniversary is coming up, gifts are accepted!

“For the love of God!! You sound like you’ve been married for almost thirty years!!” came the despairing groan from Tina’s father. His reaction came in response to Tina and I launching into a rather innocent shouting match about whose wines belonged on which side of her wine cellar and which were hers or mine to begin with. And whether or not there had been an agreement about wine placement to begin with and/or whether or not the parties involved had adhered to this agreement.. Really just pretty standard stuff for Tina and I who like to discuss, bicker or argue about everything from the weather to, well, whatever pops to mind, really.. It’s disagreement for the sake of disagreeing.. Something that’s apparently new to Tina’s father who is happily married on the 27th year, and still doesn’t fight nearly as much with Tina’s mother as I do with his daughter to whom I’m not even married on account of her constantly turning down my proposals.. But that’s another story..

The fact of the matter is that Tina’s father’s reaction echoed one of many of our other peers, a general feeling that we’ve been married for too damn long and/or may be in need of professional counseling. A general feeling to which I’ve but one thing to say: “Bah! Humbug!”

Alright, okay, granted: we argue a lot, we tease each other constantly, and we have been known to get into heated discussions about mostly everything; real issues, not so real issues and ridiculously imaginary things.. But that’s just how we roll!  I think you’d be hard pressed to find two people who deep down agree on most matters in the way that Tina and I do, but that doesn’t mean we have to admit to one another that we agree – and we won’t.. We’d rather take the fight about it. I’m not sure entirely how this trend started, but some time along the line it became cliche and now we’re at a point where we’ll look at each other weirdly if we don’t question each other’s way.. Consequently, others look at us weirdly and, at times, with no uncertain amount of annoyance when for the umpteenth time in a day we start questioning each other’s ways. So maybe, in a way, I could see that people would be of the impression that we argue a lot, or disagree a lot.. But really, we don’t..

Maybe it’s a defense mechanism of sort, a way of blowing off steam.. I don’t know.. At any rate, the number of times that Tina and I have genuinely argued about something or had real disagreements can probably be counted on the fingers of a single hand, something that can’t be said for the number of years we’ve know each other by now.. Which, incidentally, is another reason why people think there’s a sort of marital connection going on.. The fact that we just plain get along together.. And that we hang out together.. A lot.. And that we’ll take crap from one another.. A lot.. Without getting pissed off or offended. Apparently that’s not to be either, though I really see no reason why I shouldn’t be able to make inappropriate comments about Tina’s ass and she in turn calling me old and balding without everybody flying into a hissy fit about it.

Right, okay, so maybe making comments about your best friend’s ass is a little weird, but I still think it’s better than that one time where we were browsing some clothing store and I told her she couldn’t have a certain blouse because it didn’t do her cleave justice and the clerk nearly fainted in shock and horror while Tina merely shrugged and went “meh, you’re right..” My point here being that it’s all about knowing each other and knowing your boundaries.. That and being able to cook! See, everybody has feelings and everybody has certain boundaries, and I think you owe it to yourself and your best friends to know about these feelings and  boundaries and to stick within those. Luckily for me, Tina is pretty lax with these and cuts me a lot of slack on account of me playing the best friend part and her being well aware of the fact that I’m an idiot and that I say and do stupid shit from time to time.. Cause that’s how I roll and that’s why I’m lucky to be blessed with good cooking skills. Because, well, once in every, say, three years, I’ll say or do something that genuinely hurts or offends the poor girl. Involuntarily, of course, but it’ll still make me feel like crap, and take me about two seconds to break out the pots, pans, knives and chopping boards, and be like “I’m so sorry, baby, look I made you lasagna!” .. Or something to that extend.. Which has, so far, seem to done the trick, because hidden within her small frame lies not only a big heart, but also a love for good food to match the size of said heart.. It’s somewhat of another cheap trick, I know, but when my luck with word fails, there’s always the luck with food to fall back on.

Speaking of food, that’s apparently another indication of a happy marriage.. I mean the fact that we eat together upwards of three times a week. Well, I hate to break it to the self-proclaimed geniuses out there, but if we were married, we probably would eat together more than three times a week? I’m reasonably sure that our eating together is merely yet another indication of the appreciation of each other’s company, an excuse for me to try out new things and get a few pads on the back in the process.. And a part of my master plan to turn Tina’s ass into something worthy of it’s own Sir Mix-A-Lot song.. Oops, right, I was supposed to stop those references as to not give people that wrong idea.. Sorry.. Can’t do it!

And, and, and.. I could go on and on.. But, oh well, no matter what I say, people are still gonna have their own little ideas of the what’s going on and there will constantly be new people who show up and get the wrong ideas and it’s partially probably our own fault in the way we act, so why bother and not just have a laugh?

So here’s to another 3o years, babe, let’s make the best of them!

Fear Of The Dark: On the consequences of working late

I’ve been working a lot of overtime lately. In the area of 1-3 hours a day.. Which, admittedly, sound like a lot more than it actually is considering that I’m only supposed to be working four hours a day, so really I’m only really working upwards of a normal full-time position hour wise.

But, really, add the fact that my usual hours are 9 PM – 1 AM, and that sleeping in is getting exceedingly difficult as the world around me is, for some reason, still running on normal time.. Well, you’ll probably understand why the extra hours are starting to take a bit of a toll on me.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining too much. I chose to do these extra hours myself; partially to show good spirits, partially to make some extra money for a grand plan I’ve got brewing, and partially because I really don’t want to spend my time walking home from work in snow, sleep, ice, freezing rain and a wind chill factor of -25C. That’s right, I’ve gotten old enough that I’d rather spend my time working and waiting for a ride rather than fight my way through the worst winter weather in 23 years for the sake of making it home 25 minutes earlier.. It’s not very like my usual do or die attitude, I’ll give you that, but it sure is more comfortable.

Now, where was I? Right.. Working late.. Working late poses some interesting challenges. First and foremost, you (if you’re me) will have to deal with getting a maximum of six hours of sleep per night, you gotta be able to put up with not being home before 3-4 in the AM, you’ve got to find enough tasks to justify spending the extra time at work.. And you gotta be able to deal with the consequences of working late and not getting enough sleep.

Dealing with all these things at once can be a little complicated especially if, like me, you’re a little complicated yourself, but I make do.. Somehow! You see, like I’ve mentioned before, I do really stupid shit when I’m tired, and I’m tired a lot lately, and I have to find things to do at work.. So what better things to do than to do really stupid shit at work? Huh? No?

Well, okay, it’s not like I do inherently stupid things at work.. As with most other things in life, I mean well, I just usually end up either screwing up or getting in way over my head. Like, take a couple of nights ago when after noticing a decrease in my normal tasks, I thought I’d do everybody a favor and take a stroll on down to the archives and have a stab at updating the, ahem, pretty random filing system we’d been using lately for filing our export documents.

Long story short, we file at least one binder full of export documents, receipts and what have you per night. We’ve got a shelf in the office holding the most recent binders and every night as we add a new one, we’ll take the old one for permanent storage in the archives. Some time ago, we ran out of shelf space in the archives and while we’re waiting for some papers to get relocated, Torben and I have employed the ever so popular “stack everything as neatly as possible in the back corner and hope nothing bad happens” filing principle – which served us well for a few weeks but is now getting a little out of hand. Consequently, I decided to spent some time one evening.. night.. morning.. whatever.. to see if I couldn’t relocate things a little and create some temporary sense of order until we got a proper system in place. A noble though, which of course spawned chaos and confusion. But how was I to know as I entered the archives at 3 AM on that fateful Friday morning?

The archive is a pretty God-forsaken place, a large, rectangular, windowless, brick walled room with an intricate maze of shelves and only a motion sensor-activated line of fluorescent light tubes to keep you company. Nevertheless, I set off on my quest, humming to myself as I walked to through the maze of shelves to the very back corner of the room to inspect the pile of mess we’d created and try to make some sort of system out of it. After some pondering and scratching of the head, I located some free shelf space and set about creating a temporary home for our export documents. I spent some 2o minutes sorting the binders by date and lifting them onto their proper place on the new-found shelf.. Then I heard a loud clicking noise and everything around me went black.. Pitch black!

What followed were quite a few minutes of utter confusion until I realized that the whole concept of motion sensor-activated lights is that they turn off if there’s no motion sensed for a while. I gathered I must’ve moved outside the reach of the motion sensor and as such would just have to roam around a little to be rewarded with a light to shine my way. After a couple of minutes of pretty loud roaming about and bumping into things in search of light, I came to a pretty sad realization: The only motion sensor I’d ever spotted in the archive room was located right at the door, a door that was now some 40 meters away, in a straight line, not to mention the distance that would have to be traversed through the maze of shelves, boxes, old fax machines and other interesting stuff .. Oh bother!

My first reaction to this fact was one of pure resignation as I just sat down on the floor, waiting for a few minutes to see if my eyes would adjust all while sending friendly little thoughts to those dear female friends of mine who happen to be afraid of the dark. It eventually dawned on me that the room was too fucking dark for my eyes ever to adjust, and my next reaction became a soft cry of “Umm.. Torben?? Heelp??” which also turned out fruitless. Plan C was to reach into my pocket for my cell phone and call for help, only to realize that my pocket was empty and that my cell phone was still laying on my desk.. Oh bother x 2!

Eventually, I went with the only possible solution to the predicament I was in, fighting my way out by relying on my sense of touch and a sincere prayer that for once in my life, I wouldn’t be my own clumsy self and suffer some kind of horrible injury in the process. Amazingly, and after only about fifteen minutes, I actually made it to the archive door without hurting myself or breaking anything along the way. When I did, I was rewarded with another loud clicking noise and an almost painful explosion of light which stabbed right into my blinded eyes in a very, very uncomfortable way and left me about as blinded as before, only now in a whiteout kinda way. “GAH!,” I yelled as I fumbled for the door handle, caught it and tore the door open, slipping on the doorstep as I did and crashing blinded and confused into the main office space with a very manly cry of “AAAH!”

This, of course, led to quite a few laughs from my colleague Torben who demanded to know what on earth I was doing and then nearly fell to the floor in a laughing fit when I relayed the rest of the story behind my suddenly thrashing about the office like a blinded mole.. What can I say? I live to entertain.. And I get things done, even if getting things done involve stumbling around blinded for twenty minutes before returning, cell phone in hand and emergency exit open to shine a little extra light on things, to finish the job..

So, there you go.. That’s one way to make a little extra money on a Friday morning. It’s not one I really recommend.. And it’s not one, might I add, that’s gonna earn you a lot of sympathy from your go to source for comfort and compassion.. Tina, when faced with the account of my hardships, had but two reactions: One was to laugh her ass off on my behalf, the other was a simple statement of “Sweety, this is what you get for laughing at a blind girl using the expression ’see you later’, karma’s a bitch, isn’t it?” – bah, I think she might be right.. Again.

Emo Vampires Must Die!

Okay, so here’s the deal.. I love women! I think they’re fascinating, beautiful and compassionate creatures. I hold them to be highly intelligent, both in terms of standard intelligence, emotional intelligence and the kind of intelligence that makes you not say or do all the stupid shit that I usually say or do. In fact, many of my best friends in this world are women and as such, I’d like to think that I’ve got a little more understanding of the female mindset than most of my male peers. Yet, I’ve been forced to realize, that despite my best efforts, there are inner workings within the female brain I’ll never be able to figure out!

One such thing is the enduring and borderline unhealthy obsession with the emotional vampire image.. Why is is that at the mere mention of The Twilight Saga, 0r Edward Cullen/Robert Patrick Pattinson in particular, every single well-functioning, highly intelligent and otherwise rational woman between the ages of 16 and 33 within earshot is reduced to a giddy, giggly, need-driven, rambling teenager with nothing better to say that “Aww.. Wow!” or “*swoooooooon*” . I know I’m on shaky grounds here because most of my readers are in fact female, but I’m not asking to offend, I’m asking to understand. I really am confused here. So why, pray tell, ladies.. Why?

I get that the vampire image is inherently sexy. It’s build into the whole vampire character and excellently portrayed on the big screen by many Hollywood actors. It’s that whole Victorian thing, the control issues, the power, the danger element.. Heck, it’s probably even the feeding.. I mean.. The neck is an erogenous zone for most females.. I can see how a tall, dark, handsome, mysterious stranger nibbling on your neck might seem like a pretty good deal..

And then you’ve got Edward Cullen.. Really, where does this boy who looks like he’s been suffering from the swine flu for the last 300-odd years fit into this picture of the tall, dark stranger? He’s mysterious, sure, but that’s only owing to him carrying more emotional issues than your average teenage girl.. And where does this whole love story between human and vampire fit into the picture? In other words, where exactly did things go wrong? Where exactly did the vampire mythos go so askew? And why is it creating such a fuss?

Good old Bela Lugosi must be turning in his grave right now.. As would Gary Oldman and Wesley Snipes if they happened to be dead. I mean, Blade had his doubts and emotional issues.. But he kinda fucked everybody up, badly, so I forgive him.. But these emotionally torn, whiny, conflicted, goth teenage vampires of today? I don’t get it.. But women do, and they find it the sexiest thing since chocolate dipped strawberries..

And I’m sorta fine with that.. I mean, I’m fine with the fact that they find the image sexy and appealing, what I’m struggling with understanding is the extend to which they find it sexy and appealing.. I mean, I know several fully grown women with lengthy university degrees behind them who actually want to marry Edward Cullen! .. And you get to wondering if they’re actually aware that he’s not even a real person.. And that vampires don’t exist.. And if they did, they’d eventually fuck us all over and take on the world.. It’s an unnatural, unhealthy and most of all unfair obsession! Because how are we regular 100% human being nice guys ever supposed to compete with something like that? Really? I mean, the whole Johnny Depp obsession was bad enough.. Back then we had to compete with a man who was sexy and desirable in everything he did despite being in his 40’s who was happily married, far away and totally unobtainable.. But at least he was a real, live man. Now we’re pinned up against a sickly looking boy who’s not even technically alive, let alone a real person yet still has every female in the free world (and possibly parts of the not-so-free world) reduced to a salivating, incoherent mess at the mere mention of his name or a flash of his photo in the media.

Really, what the hell are we to do? It’s not natural, it’s not right and emos aren’t even real vampires! Which is why, ladies and gentlemen, I’ve concluded that, for the sake of all mankind, emo vampires must die! It would be better for we men because we wouldn’t have to compete against fictional characters and spent hours upon hours trying to even get some small grasp of understanding of what the fuss is even all about. And I rather think it would would be good for you women as well because you could regain some sort of control over yourselves and your emotions ..

This is my proposition and I’m sticking by it until someone can justify for me the existence of such creatures.. Or at least explain to me the hype and infatuation that is so hopelessly lost on me.. Bring back Lugosi! Thank you, that is all.