Bring on the Night

Anyone know what happened to The 88s?

Looks like some Russians hackers took over his site.

Tags: the 88s

As I promised yesterday, here’s what I wrote:

Here in Aalborg things should be great, but something is amiss.

Considering everything I should be upbeat. I’ve had the first days off from work since July (very important to maintain my mental health). X-mas and New Years Eve were great. I have a loving wife and a great family. I like my work and colleagues. I am hardly in position to complain, am I? Then why am I glum? Something is missing, but what is it?

I gave it a lot of reflection, but couldn’t put a finger on it. A few days ago it finally hit me: What Aalborg need is snow!

So far we’ve had none here. Maybe I’m insane for wanting snow. It does make the ground slippery. Old ladies fall and break their hips. Traffic do transform into a multitude of accidents waiting to happen. Snow is the weather’s way to tell us that temperature is dropping and that bear-like clothing is soon obligatory. What’s to like about it really? Continue Reading »

Tags: column, germany, writing

Just before Christmas I was asked if I could do yet another column for RENDSBURGerLEBEN and said “Well – sure”.

This summer, as I was in China, I was asked as well. I told the editor that even though I wanted to do the column, it would be difficult to write much about what happened in Aalborg at the moment. I offered to do a China inspired column, but that didn’t fit well into the magazine. So I was put on hold and haven’t done any since April. The whole deal with writing for RENDSBURGerLEBEN is that the city Rendsburg is a sister/friendship city to Aalborg.

It was pretty tough this time. I had an idea, but found it hard to put down in writing. Also keeping the letter count down to 1500 was a brain-squeezer. I managed to hit about 1800 in the end (just like my first entry). The whole experience taught me a lot. For example that if I want it brief and to the point, I should: Continue Reading »

Tags: column, german, writing

Find the flaw:

An ad from a Danish newspaper:

The same girl in a video on Fitnessworld’s homepage (screenshot):

The full picture/video from Fitnessworld’s homepage:

See – I don’t mind when you use Photoshop. I do it myself. But I resent when you do it this bad and with hidden agendas. I better explain:

Check out the first picture and notice how this pretty girl – the only one in the world without anorexia who – can show a completely straight stomach even though she is bent over her legs. Then check picture number two. Same girl, but this time a screenshot from a video playing on Fitnessworld’s homepage. More difficult to manipulate and therefore a more normal looking stomach, wouldn’t you say? Continue Reading »

Tags: fitnessworld, manipulation, photoshop, picture

….is worth a read:

Yale Professor Criticizes Wide Spread Plagiarism at Peking University

Tags: China, plagiarism

So besides giving me a reason to shamelessly promote myself, this entry is an ode to my wife’s cooking.

The self-promoting first:

Yes – today it’s my birthday and I have now reached level 36. Thank you for asking. I’m sure this brand new information will make room for an endless stream of well-wishings and teary-eyed sorry-I-forgots in the comment section.

At least there must be put some from the scary amount (about 99% these days) of visitors who show up here using keywords like this:

• *insert naughty keywords about a Chinese female actor showing some skin* (real keywords removed due to too many visits using that as search words)

Oddly enough, I’m not sure how people got here from that search in the first place, since I didn’t know who Tang Wei was before someone ended up here. Reminds that I’d better check out that movie one of the next days.

So my dirty little googlings: Have some decency and try to make up for your naughty searches by putting a “happy birthday” in the comments to yours truly – ok? Continue Reading »

Tags: birthday, chinese, food, presents

So now that the Christmas vacation has hit you, what are you doing with your time Peter?

Well, gee, nothing special. Just relaxing and cooking up a variant of some kransekage (a special cake rich on marzipan).

Jup, sounds boring, but actually pretty relaxing and just what the doctor ordered for a worn worker like me. I badly need the vacation and I definately need to do non-ordinary stuff like this.

Got the recipe from a colleague (tnx!) and had a lucky punch or perhaps cooking hands of a lesser god. You decide. Oh well strike that. You haven’t tasted the goods, so your opinion means nada to me. Let’s just say that I am somewhat godly in a kitchen, ok?

In my humble opinion they taste – if I have to stay in the blasfemic corner – heavenly. I’d definitely do it again. Buying these at the baker is pretty expensive, and I have never tasted any close to these. So all in all – better taste and more resonable pricing. Continue Reading »

Tags: baking, christmas, cooking, kransekage

Not sure how it happened, but seems that I finally pulled myself up by the hair and sorted and uploaded the last pictures from our vacation in China.

Don’t have much energy to make captions, and not sure I ever will, but guess I will make a follow-up about some of the stories behind the pictures later.

You can find the new pictures here (warning, my fat hairy naked back can be spotted along with other horror shots):

Tags: 2007, China, pictures

Today I discussed with 2 colleagues how you could post pictures in Google Earth.

I told them how another colleague had found some pictures named “Joecool200” and wondered if that were me? Sure was. It made one of my colleagues try to make a picture search on Google for “Joe Cool”.

This is the result:

Ring’a’ding’ding sir! I’m now the eight most famous pictured Joe Cool in the world! Only overdone by the real deal. Gotta make you think, right?

No need to mention how and why that picture was ever made though.

Tags: famous, joe cool, picture

… this Sunday my missus and I have our 2nd year wedding anniversary.

Last year I bought C some jewellery and some luxury underwear. After opening the presents she was extremely happy. She also told me to not buy her anything next year, but if I had to, it shouldn’t be expensive. If I wanted to give her something, it should be a bag of healthy candy like nuts, dried figs or similar.

Next year is now this year and my supernatural powers sense that C’s mind has changed. You know the “little” things like looking in jewellery magazines, pointing and saying: “That’s beautiful” and so on.

The good soldier as I am, I have of course decided to be loyal to last year’s wishes, and will present her with a bag of nuts. That’s just the slamming-my-heels-together kind of hubby I am. This morning she also asked me what gift I got her and my answer was: “Gift? You said you didn’t want any?. Ok, then Nuts. A big bag of nuts for about 20kr (4US$). That’s what you wanted right?” No need saying that she weren’t satisfied and jumped up and down like a little schoolgirl as she told me I was a liar. I just kept cool and said: “Nope, not a liar. Just following last years orders”. Continue Reading »

Tags: anniversary, gift, restaurant, wedding

So that was about enough of that Christmas theme.

Tags: christmas, theme, wordpress

My wife is already brilliant with plants, but my dad gave her yet another secret weapon: Concentrated cow shit in pill form.

You put a pill or two in the soil and wait for the result. The first time C used them, she proved how she never listens to what I say, and decided that 5 pills a pot was what the doctor ordered. One would think that it would kill all our potted plants, but it worked the complete opposite. Almost like the time Homer Simpson grew Tomacco with the aid of plutonium.

The pills reek like real cow leftovers and opening the jar, that C keeps them in, make a whole room smell funky. A few days ago, C decided it was time to redo the deed, and I caught her in the working process.

The scarf is not a joke! And it’s mine of course. C would never dirty up one of her own. Sigh.

Tags: manure, plants, shit

I think the picture below speaks for itself, but maybe I should mention that this pool of joy is done by 2 rabbits in about 1 week. They have a wooden board that allow the nasty little creatures to do their dirty deed without soiling themselves, but it is removed when C clean the cage. Unfortunately moving it also reveals that they have well-working stomachs.

Continue Reading »

Tags: pee, rabbits

Avid readers of Bring on the Night (me I guess) may recall that my missus is somewhat of a tomato plant genius. The same folks may also remember that I’m not.

This summer I brought 2 tomato plants to my work in hope that they would get a less crowded and sunnier home and maybe even produce some tomatoes. I’m that naive – yes.

Both were named by C and was given the catchy names: “Homer” and of course “Marge”. Have a look at the lovely couple in their prime (before I killed them).

Marge was given some semi-hot leftover water, which she didn’t take to. Homer just slowly became more and more limb until I got C’s permission to give him the coup de grace and bring him home again. Should be the end of that story, right?

Nope Even though I cut Homer’s dangling “body” close to the soil, C somehow managed to bring him back from the death. 1 month after I massacred him, I found him hidden behind a monitor in the window. Still in his original pot. Seems this plant is like a lizards who can re-grow a limb. From the side of the tiny hollow stem a pretty new branch appeared. It has now taken a shine to the sun, and is grown to about 20 cm. I wouldn’t be surprised if he finally spawned some tomatoes after all. Continue Reading »

Tags: plant, respawned, Tomato

Despite my lacking Christmas spirit, I’d better change the theme to a more fitting. Lets see how many days I can stand it. :-)

Here we go:

Vermilion Christmas 1.0 by Christmas WordPress Themes

Vermilion Christmas is a holiday theme with a vivid red and green color scheme. The header graphic depicts a wintertime forest of white Christmas trees with a subtle image of Santa Claus and his reindeer flying over the snowy treetops in the distance on Christmas Eve. You can even make out the faint glow of Rudolf’s nose! The design is SE-friendly with clean title tags and content put before navigation. Visit the Vermilion Christmas blog for support. Provided by Amazing Christmas Ideas.

Tags: christmas, theme, wordpress

1) Food processor
2) Hand vacuum cleaner
3) New office chair
4) New printer
5) No more talk about Christmas until 24th of December

Yes – I’m the Grinch incarnated!

Tags: christmas, gifts

If you’re into Sci-Fi supernatural stuff, then I recommend the series “Heroes“.

I’m not much into series unless it spells comedy in episodes that end each time, but this one is pretty cool.

In short it s about a bunch of people who slowly find out (or already know), that they have special powers and how they deal with it. It starts of as many smaller stories which along the way gets weaved into each other.

C and I have now watched about half of season 1, and the story is still evolving. Also the next step is not too easy to guess, which is a big plus. Not a bad thing that actresses Ali Larter and Hayden Panettiere are a bit hot either (the lather would be too young for me to find hot though, so I’d better go with “pretty”. Sigh, I’m soooo old). Continue Reading »

Tags: heroes, series

So my trusty D-Link 524UP router died. Well, trusty and trusty. It performed flawlessly except a minor issue with one particular game, but yesterday it died abruptly. No warning signs what so ever.

So now we can’t get all computers at home on the net, and almost as worse, can’t share our printer.

Just when I got used to having wireless control of the world with my laptop on my belly in the livingroom. Sigh.

I ordered this one instead. Looks like an ugly phone answering machine, but I had it recommended, ok? Looks can be decieving, so let’s hope it’s not crap.

In the attempt to send some links with possible new routers to another email, I continued my roll of luck and had my regular email-address added to the global spam filter. “Wooohoo??”.

This is actually the second time I have to call my host and explain that I am not a worldwide spam-king. Both times I used Mozilla Thunderbird, so not so sure I like that mail client any more. Could be a coincidence though. One of my friends tried the same, so don’t you eye me suspiciously, ok? Continue Reading »

Tags: D-Link 524UP, edimax, internet, router

Last Friday C went shopping with her friend. The day before, she asked me to prepare dinner which I gladly do. I rarely have a chance to keep my cooking skills up since “Danish dishes are too expensive, too fattening and has too much meat” (Quote my wife). So normally the missus cooks, while I help out washing up later.

The same morning I asked C when she expected to be home. Round 18.00 she said.

So after a really stressful day and a way too long day at the office I rushed to a supermarket to buy the needed groceries. Then back home to start preparing. Marinated some pork chops, whipped up some salad, and finally made some oven potatoes plus roots ready for the oven. Knowing C, I decided to send her a sms just to make sure before I started heating up the goods at 17.15 o’clock. The answer was still 18.00. So I tossed the pork chops on the pan and started warming the potatoes.

Half way through the deal, C called and told me they would be late. Not sure why, but my guess was that too many shops were still not explored. The busses run all the time, so that’s not it. Sloppiness and not a care in the world. Continue Reading »

Tags: appointment, chinese, dinner

Peter: I’m hungry
Wife: I’m not hungry
Peter: But it’s soon 17.00, what did you eat before I came home?
Wife: Nothing But I drank a big glass of juice.
Peter (looking at the empty glass with blood red traces): Juice? Looks more like red wine to me.
Wife: No it was juice. I mixed some apple juice with the cherry juice.
Peter: We don’t have cherry juice. I never heard of such thing. You mixed the cherry sauce (normally served warm for Ris ala mande which is a cold Danish rice pudding).
Wife: It was Juice.
Peter: No, it’s sauce.

Lather, rinse, repeat……

Tags: China, juice, misunderstandings, vs denmark