Vision
This friday I will go to the hospital and have a laser fired into my eye. Five days later I will have the same thing done to the other eye. The idea is that I will be able to see without the help from glasses or contacts afterwards.
I have always had rather poor eyesight. Today going outside without glasses or contacts is just not an option for me. I would not be able to function in traffic and would probably walk into things. The world is a blur to my naked eye and if I gaze more than 20 m or so into the distance everything just melts together into this white/grey fog. It’s like walking around in a giant bubble. On top of that I have a tendency to generate double images, an effect even contacts have a hard time negating, because my eyes have a pronounced difference in lens strength (I believe it’s called). My brain can’t make the two images mesh as “normal” people do. Especially when I am tired or distracted it’s hard for me to avoid seeing two of everything.
I wonder how long my eyes have been like that. How strange the world must have seemed to me as a kid. I have this faint memory of using a disposable camera to take a picture of a playground and then being surprised at how clear and focused everything looked on the photograph. I wonder if my disadvantage when it comes to discerning fast moving objects kept me from playing sports or if my tendency to be introverted was because it was easier to deal with my own images than the blurry ones the world offered me. Or perhaps having perfect eyesight would not have made any difference at all.
This operation is not guaranteed to cure my double vision as this can be caused by a malfunction in the brain just as well as the state of my eyes. There’s just no way to know until we’re done. The operation will, however, be able to give me not only “normal” but “excellent” eyesight. I am lucky enough that my handicap is rather simple (as such things goes). I am told it will be a simple matter for them to adjust my eyes. The technology is rather impressive.
Besides the obvious advantages of having good eyes and not having to rely on contacts and glasses this operation will ensure that I can wake up in the morning and see the world. For the first time in my life.
Studievilkår II
Som sagt så kan Sofie sætte debatten i kog. Den mest gennemgående respons jeg syntes hendes indlæg har fået er meget lig den Maria og Sille kommer med og det syntes jeg er trist.
Studievilkår
Den her indlæg kan virkelig få debatten i kog. Eller den kan i hvert fald trække nogen linjer op ret hurtigt. Jeg syntes det er utroligt ucharmerende at nogle ser på den her beskrivelse af et liv (som jeg tvivler på at de ville finde sig i at leve selv) og kalde det klynkeri. Men samtidig er jeg langt fra tilhænger af ideen om at de studerende skal betales for at studere. Hvad er løsningen så?
Soundtrack
I have a bit of a crush on Jamie Woon. If there’s a soundtrack to the Insomniac Nation this would be it.
Barfday
I’m never comfortable around birthdays. In my early 20′ies I learned to enjoy them by throwing grand theme parties thus entertaining my friends and myself (and hopefully distrac everyone enough as to not start SINGING). I don’t like being the center of attention when I don’t feel like I’m earning it (being born does not constitute earning it). After venturing into the late 20′ies I’ve taken to just spending time with family and friends. The birthday becoming an excuse to take time for a cosy one-on-one. This year I will be spending the evening with Lasse and Adrian. I will play Puzzle Quest II on their console, relax and enjoy their company. (more…)
Return of The Randi
I was contemplating naming this “The Randi Strikes Back” but does The Randi even use the Force? Does she care about Dark Side/Light Side matters? I think she’s mainly just unimpressed. Mystical energy field: not effective.
I have been missing The Randi since she’s been traveling and then staying with her parents for most of the summer. Now that she is back I find I miss my phone since I cannot take proper pictures of all the stuff she gets up to. I can, however, stalk her Facebook profile and find things like this… amazing projects of deliciousness:
Welcome back Randi. The kitchen is all yours!
Conan – The Barbarian
Not Conan – The Pastry Chef (although I can see why you would confuse the two).
Lasse and Adrian are responsible for 46% of my trips out of the house. Trips that usually takes me straight to their place and some times to cinemas. This time we were in for Conan the Barbarian. The movie is not really a remake of the old classic from 1982 although they share a name. Rather the new movie tells yet another story about the lovable brute and this is in man y ways very much in keeping with the whole Conan “tradition”. Conan is a universe in itself (his pecs contain one universe each actually). There’s movies, comic books, games and now even an MMO set in the Conan mythology.
Melancholia
I finally got around to seeing Melancholia. While I have deliberately avioded Antichrist I was looking forward to seeing what Trier had come up with this time. I never really considered myself a fan but I guess I do stay updated on what he’s doing and that I have seen most of his movies and projects. I still love to be creeped out by The Kingdom and to cringe at the unbeareable awkwardness in The Idiots.
Crüsli
There are things in this world that are inherently suspicious. Not that I keep a list. One of these things are Crüsli. As we all know Crüsli contains small pieces of chocolate (if you’re not eating the chocolate variant you’re doing it wrong) and these pieces slowly dissolve into the milk making a delicious chocolate milk happen as you go through your cereal.
Super 8
Lasse and Adrian took me to Empire Bio to see Super 8 this Friday. Empire is in my optics the best cinema we have in Copenhagen. The place has atmosphere, the lights are dimmed slightly… it’s a place where you don’t feel like its inconvenient to pick up your tickets half an hour before. It’s a place where I could easily spend a few hours with my book and thanks to their very cosy lounge that would not be a problem at all.
Empire bio has, in my behinds opinion, the best seats which easily makes up for the rather small screens. Also: after the movie I like going to Skt. Hans Torv which is just around the corner with it’s nice bars and places to eat.
As for the movie itself I was very pleased. Spielberg fans will feel a strange tingeling in the place that’s normally reserved for love towards the classic E.T.
Easily the best movie I’ve seen this year though I might revise when I finally manage to pull myself together and get Melancholia over with.
Insomnia/Shikari
Some times I don’t want my neighbours to like me.
Also fondly rememberig my rave kid days… which I kept a complete secret… my greatest fear was the geeks and the rave kids becoming aware of each other. As though the colission of two friend circles would somehow prove fatal?
Bird Attack/Pants Distress
Today, as I was biking to my friends place, a flock of birds suddenly passed over me. As they did they decided to poop. Simultaneously. Here’s the uncensored reaction list:
1: Look at pants. Thought: “NOT DELICIOUS!”
2: Shit. I’m on a bike… why am I looking at my pants?!
3: Look around, did anyone see me getting peltered with birdshit? (no, thank god)
4: SHIT. I’m still on a bike… why am I not looking at the road?!
5: Pretend it’s not there or hide? (Hide)
I pulled over and managed to clean myself to the point of felling ok with walking in public areas. Using leaves from a nearby bush.
What do you do when you suddenly stand in the street, covered in shit? It takes so little to peel away the “normal person” skin we all don when leaving our secluded private spaces. Some times the border between private and public feels like a papercut. There’s no transition. It’s like the 0 and 1 of binary.
Also: this is a hattrick of pants-related incidents since doing laundry last week. I might have to face the posibility that I need more pants.
The + Thing
The + has been launched. It is here. Now it’s being processed. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a new internet service getting into melee with an established internet service like that and I’m enjoying the fact that it’s a real clash of the titans this time. Google vs Facebook. It’s on? I think…
…I imagine a lot of people will feel this way:
But then again… even though it’s popular to state ones dislike of Facebook we all spend time there and we do that because it’s established and feeding us the things we want to see. The newcomer will have to make people post content for each other really fast and this is not something the site itself can do. No matter how advanced it is. People might end up just having some fun with the new stuff, then returning to the old and comfortable.
The illusion that the new thing is “different” might draw people there too. Until they find out that it’s not. But at least the + is still in development and as such you can get the feeling that this could be anything you ever dreamed of. Like a pick-n-mix Facebook.
I do, however, often think that the very inflexibility of the ‘Face is what keeps people there. Minimum effort and those few times it bothers you that you can’t du just the thing you want to do you can always whine about it a bit before it becomes unimportant (31 seconds later). Do we want to have more options, choices and, as such, make more effort? And will we, in the end, just use it to be less social altogether?
PS: How do I make WordPress post this to my g+?
Skybrud
“Skybrud” is the Danish definition of 15 mm of rain in 30 minutes or less. This dreary term fails to convey the almost poetic meaning of the word itself: “the sky breaks”.
Today I was going over to my friends place for some food and creative brainstorming. As I was leaving the house, however, the thunder that had been rolling omniously in the distance for the better part of two hours decided to mobilise. Shit just got real.
When I got to my bike the rain was not too bad so I thought I’d sprint the 25 minutes or so it takes me to get to the other side of the city center. Ten minutes later I was driving past a building when a bolt of lightning struck the roof. As I recovered from the shock and tried to regain control of my bike I noticed that my shirt was soaked. The shirt I was wearing under my leather jacket that is. In fact everything was soaked. While I waited for the ringing in my ears to subside I pulled over under a bridge and texted my friend, asking him to have a couple of towels ready. By then it was raining old testament style.
I decided to keep going. The rain was, despite it’s obvious drive to scour all life from the world, a warm summer rain and even though I had to cover my eyes with one hand to avoid getting blinded I didn’t feel like I was in any danger. About two minutes down the road I almost got hit by a metal grid that was dislogded forcefully as water burst from the overloaded drain system.
I was biking downhill at that point and all of a sudden I noticed that I was going the same way as the water and that most of the waters friends was already at the party. As I approached the bottom of the slope it suddenly became impossible to see the ground I was biking on and every time I stepped down in the pedals my feet was under water. At this point my shoes were already soaked so it didn’t seem like a big deal. I emerged from the improvised ocean unharmed but I had to double my efforts to move forward as I was now, quite literally, moving against the current.
Passing the Copenhagen main train station rewarded me with a great view of two asian tourists who emerged from one of the platforms looking utterly confused. Clearly they had just arrived from the airport and as they dragged their luggage through the downpour I greeted them with a heartfelt “welcome to Copenhagen!” and a big grin. I hope their hotel takes good care of them.
Passing through the inner city I once again found myself biking through a spontaneous sea that seemed to think of itself as both motorized driver, cyclist and pedestrian. It’s actually not that hard to bike even when there’s water covering more than half your wheels. However as a big van speeded past me it raised such a wave that I was thrown off my bike and landed, quite comfy, in the body of water covering the sidewalk. A guy pulling his drenched suitcase through the carnage offered me a hand. We exchanged no words. We were just laughing. I actually considered trying to swim but I was trying to keep the drawings in my bag at least somewhat intact.
Finally I was nearing my destination but I had to get off the bike because I simply couldn’t see what I was biking on. Street sign and lamp posts provided hints as to where the roads might be placed but I decided to play it safe and walk as close to the buildings as possible. Shoes and socks were soaked through long ago and the water still had a pleasant temperature. It felt like a good walk at the beach… except that the water had a pleasant temperature. The last thing I passed by on my drizzling adventure was a restaurant with an entry a fair bit below street level. Inside a couple of girls were sitting with their legs folded under them on bar chairs while a distrought waiter watched a cascade of water rushing down the stairs. From the looks of it the water was aiming for at least waist level.
Next door a girl was enjoying a cigarette in a conveniently elevated doorway.
She told me: “you are grinning like a lunatic”
So was she.
Camelot
I often spend evenings on the couch belonging to two of my very good friends. On this couch I will be reading comics, playing games, watching movies and… series. I dabble in the art of watching series. The only thing I’ve ever watched from end to end on my own was Buffy (I stand by my actions) and recently I’ve been guided through the newest installment of Star Trek: Enterprise.
Recently we’ve spent three days in a row going through the latest retelling of the legend of Arthur, his knights and all those well loved characters. It’s called Camelot and I like it. A lot.
MU – In The Classroom
I’ve been reading a web based story called Tales of MU for a long time now. It started back in the days when I was googling around for bad Harry Potter rip offs (of which there are many) and was conducting a search on “magical university”.
MU features some of my favorite elements: nerdy jokes, shameless fantasy, great world building and the opportunity to follow a writer who just keeps upping the standard.
Recently the author ended the chapter with:
“How about you tell me? YOU are in the class… vote between the two topics in the comments!”
…which inspired me to write what must be my first piece of FAN FICTION!
Bone and Bell
While I was in Chicago I had the pleasure of seeing Joan As Police Woman perform. I’ve been a fan ever since she played at Roskilde Festival in 2008.
As a bonus treat Chicago resident Bone and Bell was kind enough to treat us to some of her delightful songs about beheadings, apocalypse(s) and vegetables.
You can listen to her songs, download her music and buy the CD on her webpage.
Dead Man Writing
This is the last post from a man named Derek who died of cancer. Words I think he could only write because of where he were and where he knew he was heading. It’s austere, solemn, yet brimming with hope, love and I think I sense a smile and a wink in there too. And it’s properly tagged and categorized.
After reading through this a thought struck me: I can never let this man know that his post moved me.
Instead I pass this on through the same channel that brought it to me: the internet. Hoping it will spread like a wildfire. May it dwarf Badger Badger.
4th of May
Today, ok this is technically tomorrow, we put a candle in our windows in rememberence of the liberation of Denmark from Germany in 1945.
Green = Cool
We have been proclaimed the happiest people in the world and now we are also the coolest green city in Europe!
Mostly Danish people react to this with a great big “HUH?!”". Our ways does not allow for thinking we might be… cool. In fact it’s kindof a national sport to ridicule the hipsters in Kødbyen.
Nor do we place much pride in our green initiatives. In fact we think eco-food and products are far too expensive. As for our nations windmill parks… we tolerate them. Barely.
Resting on the laurels of having had the best public schools more than twenty years ago… no problem though. Even though we are pratically making students sitting on top of each other in the classrooms, even though we do badly at any test you hurl at us and in spite of students and teachers loudly complaining about the abominable conditions… we still consider ourselves top of the heap.
Odd nation indeed.
(did I get political there?)
USA
I just returned from a trip to the US. Chicago, Illinois to be precise. It’s really hard to grasp how big that place is. Saying that I was just in the US makes as much sense as saying that I placed an electron in my wallet. I’m not much for writing detailed accounts of my travels but I’m sure things will pop up. It was great to explore a different city, a different culture and finding out that jetlag is actually real. I know this because for the first week there I went to bed in the evening and got up in the morning. It’s good to be back home.
Millenium Park
Androids Already!
Robotics never cease to amaze me. Which is amazing considering how much effort still goes into making machines do trivial tasks.
I notice how this robot interacts with the swinging fridge door. Seemingly there’s still some way to go in the fields of robot reactions and sensing their environments. Or maybe it’s just a matter of enough processing power? Perhaps the quantum computer will be the next breakthrough?
Do I sound impatient? Well I’d hate to have read this book for nothing. 
The Randi
Have you guys met my new roomie? She’s a nice girl. With a little bit of batshit crazy on the side.
