There’s a Seinfeld episode where George dates a woman, who’s in prison, and he considers this the perfect relationship. Not only does he always know where she is, but the biggest advantage is that she’ll never be able to drop by on a whim. Apparently, the drop-in is something to be feared, but not by me. I love the drop-in! That’s the coolest thing about living downtown. Like today a friend of mine stopped by just to hang and we decide to go out for ice cream. I guess he’s a big ice cream guy, because this is the third time I’ve gone for ice cream with him and I never eat ice cream, when I’m by myself. Unless I have a hangover and then I only eat sundaes from McDonald’s. Unfortunately, the Italian place down the street was closed, so we went to this place, which apparently was highly recommended. But we’re never going back there again, because the strawberry flavour was so blah it wasn’t even funny. It turns out that their schtick is that they’ve got some low-fat scam going, which will sucks the flavour out of anything. We didn’t notice the sign with the fancy no fat, no flavour slogan (or whatever it said), so it wasn’t until we left the place with huge cones we realized they were crap.

There’s a horrible Ben Affleck movie on TV right now. It really sucks and Ben has the worst hair (no, it’s not 200 Cigarettes), Matt Damon is in it (it isn’t Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back), the music is horrendous (nope, not Armageddon), and the story is beyond lame (and it ain’t Forces of Nature). Nope, this is a waste of celluloid called Glory Daze about a group of guys graduating college. The movie is packed with people, who either were famous from or later became famous on TV (and there’s a couple of movie stars in there as well), but the number of recognizable faces doesn’t prevent it from sucking like a Hoover. The worst part is when Affleck (who is, get this, a misunderstood artist) does his pensive voiceover where he quotes Salinger and Camus, which sounds about as believable as hearing Jerry Falwell talk about a woman’s right to choose.

So I finally changed to the channel, so I could watch The West Wing, which means I won’t see the ending, but if you’ve seen Glory Daze and it has some brilliant and surprising ending please let me know.

I was checking out some stuff on Google and I stumbled on this website. It's a weblog dedicated to other bloggers' first posting on their weblogs. Isn't that the weirdest idea? You can find mine here.

Man, I feel like I was rode hard and put away wet. I worked seven hours today, which isn’t that bad, but I was on my toes all day and I walked home, which perhaps wasn’t the best idea. It was my first day, so I did my best to make a good impression and did whatever I was told right away instead of chillin’ and stretching the work out over the entire day. Some of it was easy (like sorting mail and calling the postage machine repairman), but I did my fair share of schlepping tables, chairs, crates of soda, and running back and forth between offices. The thing that makes this job hard is that the different offices and meeting rooms are spread out over three buildings and five floors. So you’re running around all over the place, and because there is a lot of hi-tech stuff in the buildings you have to use a key card everywhere. Normally, I wouldn’t care about that, but when you have to serve lunch for a meeting and you have to carry coffee, food, sodas, utensils, and what not from a second floor cafeteria in one building to a second floor meeting room in another building having to get your key card out all the time is a pain in the ass. So genius that I am I stick a couple of crates in to block one of the doors, while running to get the rest of the stuff. Within 30 seconds my little stunt sets of the alarm and has people running to the door from different offices. So that didn’t work, which meant I was back to square one.

But other than that it’s a pretty great job. People are nice and for a large part of the day you just walk around by yourself making sure everything is five by five. And if something comes up they page you and have to come round the office for some emergency Xeroxing or something like that. They're planning the summer work schedule this week and I told them that I’m doing Jack this summer, so I’d be willing to work whenever, which might actually lead to some extra work. Because who else would volunteer to work during exams, the World Cup, festival season, and all those days of nice weather, where normal people go to the beach?

I’m pretty tired, but since there’s nothing on telly I think I’ll crank some tunes and get started on the packing. The plan is to pack all my stuff this week. A friend of mine comes over Friday, so I’ll take him out for a drink Friday night and then Saturday morning I’m inviting people over for breakfast to watch the Denmark – Uruguay game and whoever shows up get to help me move. I’m pretty good at packing, so it shouldn’t take that long and if we win the game people probably won’t mind spending a day dragging my gear across town.

I just came back from the Superheroes concert, so my ears are ringing a bit. This is the fifth time I've seen them and although this wasn't their best show it was still pretty good. My shirt is completely soaked, which indicates a good show, and I was happy to hear them play covers of Kiss Kiss Kiss by Yoko Ono and the crowd pleaser Girl U Want by Devo. In case you haven't heard of Superheroes I should probably mention that they play music inspired by Devo, Human League, Depeche Mode and so on. They are a very energetic live act and the singer usually ends up without his shirt on, drenched in water with long strands of hair covering his face making him look like a young Iggy Pop.

For some reason they didn't play anything of the first record, but they did sneak in a couple of favourites from the second album and the new stuff mostly worked very well. Especially the song Cool Girl, which they were already playing at shows last year, is a winner, and songs like Someone Else and Turn Me On are pretty great as well. If you haven't heard them yet they're definitely worth checking out.

While I was at the concert the rest of the country watched the Danish entry to the Eurovision Song Contest get stomped like a narc at a biker rally. She finished dead last, which means Denmark won't be allowed to enter next year. I have absolutely no interest in this one way of the other, so I'm not even going to make snide remarks or anything.

And now it's time to turn of the Big Thing CD and head to bed. Denmark are played Tunesia tomorrow in the final warm up match before the World Cup and the game begins at 900 hours. So I really should get a couple of hours worth of sleep before I have to get up, make coffee, and drag my duvet over to the couch, so I can watch the game all tucked in.

It's my sister's birthday today, so she'll be stopping by with my brother in about an hour for a drink. And then later we'll be going to see Superheroes at Voxhall, which should be fun. I've seen Superheroes a bunch of times already and I think they're on of the best live acts around. Their albums aren't perfect, but live they have an incredible amount of energy and especially the singer, Thomas Troelsen, is incredible to watch. So I'm quite looking forward to seeing them and hearing their new material.

I actually saw a couple of the band members earlier today at a benefit for the Danish Multiple Sclerosis Society. A friend of a friend played a couple of songs, so we went to hear him and we also saw a couple of the other bands, who played there. And finally we had a drink at this really old bar called Vinstuen I've never been to before. It's one of those places I've walked by a hundred times, but never been to, so I was very surprised by how nice it was. It looks a bit rough from the outside, but surprisingly there was a really nice backyard with tables and chairs, so we sat around there and talked for a while.

I'm currently working on adding a real comments feature to the site, so it will be possible to comment on individual postings. But I'll keep the Tagboard in the Me section on your left for general messages and thoughts. Hopefully, I'll get it tweaked, so it looks just right soon, but right now I'm having some problems, so please be patient.

I met up with six other bloggers from Aarhus yesterday and had a grand ol’ time. It’s always weird when you first meet a group of people you don’t know, when there isn’t someone to introduce you and smooth over the initial awkwardness. But it actually went quite well and we got to discuss not only blogging and different blogs, but also different aspects of internet culture, music, movies, and books. Turns out that three of the people who came go to my school (I’d actually taken a class with one of them) and one goes to school, where my new job is. So suddenly everybody had a lot of acquaintances in common, which is always an icebreaker.

One of the topics, which came up more than once was choosing a language to blog in. Personally, I’ve never thought of blogging in Danish, although you’d think that would be the most natural thing for me. But I’ve always written in English, whenever I’ve written anything online (except for the articles I’ve written over the last couple of years). I set up my Warhol site in 1996 and because I wanted to share whatever Warhol-related information I have with as many people as possible, I found it quite natural to write in English. I’ve been active on newsgroups and mailing lists, where everyone wrote in English, since I first got online in 1995 and I guess I’ve always considered English the unofficial language of the net, because it just seems to be the language that the largest number of people online understand. And since my mother is Irish I’ve spoken English my entire life, so I don’t actually consider it a foreign language.

But people mentioned they felt it was constraining writing in English about Danish issues and linking to articles in Danish, which makes sense. But since I mainly write about music, television, and whatever is going on outside my window I hardly feel constrained by the language barrier. So an option seemed to be running a blog in each language, but people weren’t too hip to that idea, because of the time you’d have to put into a project like that. We ended the evening with a decision to call our little group the Aarhus Bloggers’ Coffee & Beer Consortium (or ABCBC for short). The people attending were: Ingrid, Peter, Thomas, Jens, Lasse, John, and yours truly. I’m sure we’ll meet again during the summer, so if you live here or perhaps vacation here you should let us know, so you can join us.

I’ve met up with online friends a couple of times before, but the first time I met a group of people was in March of 2000 for a Douglas Coupland book signing. A friend of mine runs a Coupland website and mailing list and a bunch of the members decided to meet in London before a book signing. People came from Denmark, Portugal, America, and England and we hung out for a couple of days. It was a lot of fun, but also a bit strange, because we came together because of a fondness for an author, which somehow meant we were also connected on other levels. Obviously, we spent a lot of time debating Miss Wyoming (his latest book at the time) and the older books, but because everyone was very culturally interested we also talked about movies, theatre, music, and other authors. But the thing which really made everyone’s trip was Coupland’s very positive reaction to us arriving at the signing as a group. One of the people, who attended the Coup-Meet created a website with pictures and Coupland’s diary entry about the signing, which is very cool. And I’m actually still a member of the mailing list even though I’ve become disenchanted with Coupland’s books to the point where I actually enjoy being part of the community more than actually reading the books.

I forgot to mention this yesterday, so I'll just quickly sneak it in today. Swedish TV began showing reruns of The West Wing yesterday and will run reruns every Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday night for the rest of the summer. I've seen most of the episodes before, but it's still pretty good news. I'm not a big fan of American politics (or American Presidents), but apart from Martin Sheen being able to solve some problems a little too easily I think it's a pretty great show. The writing is excellent, there are some really good actors on the show, and the camera work kicks it big time. I was watching the pilot last night (it's the third time I've seen it) and the steady cam work in the beginning following Leo McGarry is awesome. Also, the dialogue during the first couple of minutes works excellent at setting the tone and pace of the show (on top of being pretty hilarious as well). So if you live in Scandinavia and haven't seen the show already, you should definitely check it out.

I read an article this morning about how a demo by the Rage Against the Machine/Chris Cornell band Civilian had been leaked to the internet and because of that I’ve been listening to tracks from that demo all day. I’m not usually one to download a lot of music, because I already have plenty of music on CD and I’m a big supporter of actually purchasing a CD instead of having MP3s on your computer. And I rarely download demos, because I prefer listening to the finished versions, because that’s how the artist intended them to be heard. And listening to music on your computer means having to crank the volume on the computer speakers, which means you almost have a heart attack, when ever you encounter websites and banner ads with sound (which just happened to me two seconds ago).

However, having said that I will say that I’ve been very curious about this project for a while, and I just had to hear what this new band sounded like. I’ve been a big fan of both Soundgarden and RATM for years and I was fortunate enough to spend a day with Tom Morello from RATM at Roskilde in 1995. I think they were the most exciting live band ever and it was disappointing to me, when Zach decided to leave the band. And when Soundgarden broke up I was very disappointed, so when I heard Chris Cornell was releasing a solo album my hopes became very high. Especially because he had been working on it with Alain and Natasha from Eleven, which is one of my favourite bands. But the album isn’t the masterpiece I had hoped it would be. Don’t get me wrong; there are some great songs on the album and he still has an amazing voice, but it just lacked something.

My first reaction when I heard Cornell would be working with the guys from RATM was surprise. He is such an incredible singer and RATM was so defined by their aggressive rapper and political views I couldn’t quite see how the collaboration would work. But I was still very curious about this project and was disappointed when I recently heard they’d broken up again and wouldn’t be touring. But apparently they’ve finished recording their album and parts of it are now available online.

And not surprisingly it’s a weird mix of the funky rock style of RATM and the very melodic and Led Zep inspired stylings of Chris Cornell. Sometimes it works and other times it’s pretty weird. A song like Turns to Gold begins like People of the Sun, then turns into a Cornell ballade for the verse and then turns back into People… for the chorus. Although the verse and chorus are cool, together they sound very schizophrenic. My favourite track so far is Save Yourself, which sounds like a Zeppelin song. It has a very powerful verse and a cool vocal thing happening in the chorus, which means I’m bouncing around in my chair right now, while listening to it. Actually, the songs which sound the most like RATM tracks are the ones I like the best. Better Bomb does have a regular verse, where Morello plays actual chords, but it’s the chorus that kicks it. It’s pretty infectious, when Cornell snarls: “We’ve got the web, we’ve got a better bomb” (it might be “got the whip”, but I’m not sure) over a groove guitar riff. A song like I’ll Wait For You There, which doesn’t have a riff makes no real impression and Lay Your Burden Down (which might actually be called Shadow on the Sun) sounds like a weak Soundgarden track.

So in conclusion I’d say this is an interesting collaboration and some of these tracks are pretty cool. I would have loved to see them performed live, but unfortunately that’s not going to happen. It’ll be interesting to hear the final product once it’s released, which will hopefully include a couple of tracks I haven’t heard yet, but based on what I’ve heard so far it’s not going to be a master piece.

I’m going to the blogging thing tonight, which ought to be interesting. I suggested a name change to ABCBC (Aarhus Bloggers’ Coffee and Beer Consortium), but I don’t know if it’ll stick. And since the bloggers in Copenhagen are called The Bloggerista, I suggest we be called The Bloggerati.

David Blaine is standing on a pole in New York and Catchdubs has the pictures to prove it. I'm not a big fan of magic tricks, so I've always thought Blaine was a bit of a wussy. But lately with the huge block of ice and now this demented polesitting thing I just think he's stupid.

But I've always thought David Copperfield was even more annoying. He is a sequined shirt away from stealing Roy's job and the disappearing jet and the walk through the Chinese Wall didn't exactly impress me. But that was until I saw him on Conan O'Brien, where he told a story about how a guy had protested in front of a show calling Copperfield The Devil. One of Copperfield's people took a polaroid of the guy and showed it to Copperfield. Then at another show the same guy was outside protesting again and Copperfield went down to talk to him. They talked and someone took a polaroid of Copperfield standing with his arm around the guy. But when they went to show the guy the photo, they had exchanged it with the other picture, where the guy was standing alone. So the guy is expecting a picture of him and Copperfield and when he saw that Copperfield wasn't visible in the picture he freaked out. I thought that was pretty funny. Oh, on the show he also did a creepy thing where he put his hand on the floor and turned around 360 degrees, which looked cool.

According to this article the show Greg the Bunny has been cancelled. That totally sucks! That '80s Show has been cancelled as well (which I can understand) and Andy Richter Controls the Universe will be on again in the fall as a midseason replacement. But there is still no word on the fate of Undeclared. So hopefully it'll be back at some point although it doesn't look good.

[Update] I just received a letter from Gallup saying that they want to call me about my television viewing habits. Expect American show to make a dramatic ratings increase and nature shows to plunge into oblivion.

I promised I’d write about the Spot 08 Festival and as I pride myself on being a man of my word I have now finally written down my thoughts on the festival. However, since so much time has passed since the festival took place, I’ll keep it a bit briefer than originally intended. My overall impression of the festival was very positive. I heard a lot of great music, met a lot of friends from both inside and outside the music industry, and I got to meet David Fricke. I saw about fifteen bands in two days, so I won’t mention them all, but among the most interesting were Teitur, The Crash, Saybia, Carpark North, Sondre Lerche, and The Teenage Idols.

Teitur is a singer/songwriter from the Faeroe Islands, who has had songs on the soundtrack to the show Jack & Jill. I saw him open for Ron Sexsmith once and he’s your average moody, white guy with guitar, but he’s also very charming and he has some really good songs. He’s written songs with Jeff Cohen, who co-wrote Crazy for this Girl with Evan & Jaron and whose band, Pancho’s Lament, wrote the theme for Jack & Jill, and since he's currently working on his debut album I think Teitur is a name you might want to remember.

The Crash already have an hit here with Lauren Caught My Eye and they were a lot better live than I thought they would be. I’ve only listened to their CD briefly and I didn’t really like it, but my sister wanted to see them, so we went to check them out. And they were surprisingly good. They are a very upbeat and happy pop band and they actually have a bunch of very catchy songs, so that was a pleasant surprise. They had a lot of energy on stage and people really seemed to enjoy their show.

Saybia are old friends of mine, but this was the first time I saw them live after they’ve gotten popular. They’re probably the most popular Danish band right now and it was fun seeing them again (I briefly spoke to them before the show, which was cool, because I haven’t seen them since July last year). The have some great songs and I was very pleased to hear them play an amazing cover version of Duran Duran’s Ordinary World. So that was a cool concert.

Carpark North is a new, Danish band, who I know mainly because the drummer is an acquaintance of my brother’s. I have their demo, which I didn’t really like and I was very surprised, when they started getting airplay on national radio. But they put on a great live show, where they showcased their technical skills and played with a lot of power. I was pleasantly surprised and it’ll be interesting to see if they’re able to capture that energy on a record at some point. And if not they'll still be a live act worth checking out.

I went to see Sondre Lerche, because I couldn’t get in to see Kent. There were about 1600 guests trying to get in to see Kent perform in a room that fit about 700 people. So people were queuing like crazy, but I couldn’t be bothered, so I went to see Sondre. And I’m glad I did. You know how most singer/songwriters are old, moody, and depressed bastards? Well, this kid is 19 and he’s just about the happiest son-of-a-bitch I’ve seen in a long time. He played these weird and happy love songs with a guy on pedal steel, which gave them a Hawaiian feel. He spoke Norwegian to the crowd and most of the things he said were pretty odd, but I only remember that he said that he’d never played for this many Danes before, but it was obvious that we all had nice parents, who’d raised us well. His excellent mood and great pop songs were really infectious, so everyone there instantly started laughing and smiling, which was great.

The last band I saw was the last band to play at the festival. They were called The Teenage Idols and could very well be the new The Hives. They played with an incredible energy and had some very catchy songs. I don’t know if their material holds up on a record, but live they were pretty amazing.

After the concert with The Teenage Idols I got to talk to David Fricke. Earlier that day I had heard him speak about Scandinavian music, where he had praised two Danish bands: The Raveonettes and Under Byen. He was familiar with a number of Danish bands from the sixties and he talked about how Scandinavian bands could become popular in the US. His main point seemed to be that he got fascinated by bands, who could offer him something, which he wouldn’t be able to find back home (like Under Byen, who mixes Danish folk music with elements from rock and electronica with a vocalist, who sounds like Björk in Danish). And several times he said of The Raveonettes and The Hives: “They rock! That’s all you need to know”.

I had enjoyed his very entertaining speech about Scandinavian music and I’m a big fan of Rolling Stone Magazine, so I walked up to him and talked to him a bit about the festival. He was amused by the fact that Danish band Sterling did Sheena is a Punk Rocker as an encore, but with Danish lyrics and he seemed to really be enjoying himself at the festival. I mentioned that my brother and I had been annoyed by seeing Destiny’s Child on the cover of RS instead of Joey Ramone, but he said he understood that choice and didn’t get bothered by stuff like that anymore (it also means we won’t be seeing Layne Staley on the cover anytime soon). We talked about Layne, Wilco, the new garage bands (he recommended the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs), and the disappearance of clubs like Max’s Kansas City. I was wearing a CBGB’s shirt, so we also talked about the club and its history quite a bit. I mentioned I’d read Richard Hell’s Go Now and he recommended the book Please Kill Me, which chronicles the rise and fall of the New York punk scene. It sounds really good, so I’ll definitely have to check it out some time.

I think that was pretty much it for our conversation and for what I wanted to say about the festival. I wrote three reviews afterwards, so not only did I get in for free I also got to plug some of the bands I like. And you can’t really ask for more can you?

On a completely unrelated note I’m kinda looking forward to getting the hell out of this neighbourhood. As previously mentioned I have drunks, drug dealers, and junkies sitting on my doorstep every day and now since the weather has gotten nice it’s gotten even worse. But it culminated yesterday, when I heard yelling out in the street. A guy was sort of pushing this other guy, who looked very timid. A woman was yelling at the timid guy, and so were the people on my doorstep. The aggressive guy started punching the other guy in the face, but I guess because he was drunk and/or stoned, the punches he threw were pretty awkward and didn’t seem to do much harm. The timid guy just walked around in circles and didn’t try to fight back, but for some reason he didn’t try to get away, either. It was pretty brutal seeing this guy getting punched, but I didn’t particularly feel like getting involved and if the guy didn’t have enough brains to run away then it wasn’t really my fault if he took a beating.

I then go out to the kitchen and when I came back to the living room I heard some screaming, so I look out the window again. The timid guy is now lying on the ground, bleeding and I’m just in time to see the other one kick him in the face. Have you ever seen somebody getting kicked in the face? It’s beyond brutal. At this point there were a lot of people looking at this spectacle and I could see people reaching for their cell phones to call the police. The yelling woman grabbed the aggressive guy and they scuttled off together. A couple of young men tried to talk to the bleeding guy, while another one was on the phone and a couple of minutes later two police cars arrived. I don't know what happened then, but there were a lot of witnesses and people hanging around plus all the drunks on my doorstep, so I’m sure they'll have no problem identifying the attacker and hopefully he’ll spend some time in jail this summer.

After I've moved to my new apartment I might miss living so close to the cafés, shops, and clubs, but I definitely won’t miss the drunks.

I’ve been in a real slump lately (or down-cycle as they phrase it in She’s the One), but I’m going to shake it off today. I got really annoying and pathetic Saturday night and I just can’t bear to be around me, when I’m all whiny and bitchy, so from today on I’m going back to my usual Devil-may-care attitude. My motto has always been “Everything’s going to turn out alright, because it always does” and I’m going to remember that and smile at the world in my usual I don’t give a fuck way.

So far today has been just fine. I got up early and went to work. It was my first day at my new job and we did the introductory thing for a couple of hours and then from next Monday I’m on my own. The job is very basic and easy and it’ll suit me fine. I just have to do chores and make sure that the conference rooms have been cleaned out and people have gotten their mail, so it couldn’t be easier. I sent out another couple of applications, so hopefully I’ll be able to supplement the office job with something else soon.

When I got home I had received a package from Amazon, which surprised me quite a bit, because I knew I hadn’t ordered anything. But as it turns out someone had checked out my Amazon Wish list and bought me the Lambchop album Nixon, so that was not only extremely kind, but also just the thing I needed to get me in a better mood. So thank you very much!

I had applied for a job at the university and I went to the interview this afternoon. The job is to one day a week help out around the office and make coffee, Xerox stuff, clean up after meetings and run errands. In other words: Be the secretaries’ bitch. The actual interview lasted about five minutes and within seconds it was obvious that the job was mine if I wanted it. I must have been the only one who applied, because the only question she asked me was when I thought I’d be finished at university (I won’t be able to work there after I finish) and the rest of the time she just told me about what the job entailed. So I’m supposed to drop by the office on Tuesday and get an introduction to the work by one of the other assistants and then I’m good to go.

Obviously, this is great. I get to work in an environment with intelligent people doing fairly easy chores. The only problem is that it’s so few hours a week that I won’t be making enough money and at the same time it means that I won’t be 100% flexible if I should be lucky enough to get another part-time job. For instance I now won’t be able to apply for the job I walked several miles to get an application for yesterday, because they require that you can work Mondays. But I wasn’t going to turn down a job on the off-chance that I’ll get another better paying job at some point, so I accepted the university job without giving it a second thought.

But the cool thing about only working once a week is that if the PR job I got (in theory) suddenly starts happening I’ll be free to pursue that. And since I found out that I’m going to be working at this years Midtfyns Festival my new job doesn’t require me to juggle my schedule, because I’ll only be working one day a week.

The last three years I’ve been part of team of writers and journalists, who’ve covered the three largest Danish rock festivals for opasia.dk. I didn’t think we’re going to be working this year, but it turns out we were especially invited by the management to come back to Midtfyns this year. That means I’ll be going there with a group of my friends to write articles, do interviews, and see concerts with the likes of Muse, Doves, Coldplay, Gomez, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Kent, No Doubt, and Isaac Hayes. The last two years it’s been great working down there. The atmosphere is a lot less stressful than Roskilde, because there are a lot fewer bands playing, the management have been great to us when it comes to setting up our camp and getting us online, and the people in the backstage area are a lot less snobby and wannabe-trendy. So if the weather is nice it ought to be a great four days with lots of fun, music, and beer.

I realize I still haven’t gotten around to writing about my adventures on the second day of the Spot 08 festival, but I’m planning on getting that done this weekend. So hang in there.

This is the weirdest thing I've seen in a while.

I had a very productive day today. I called the phone company and got them to move my phone number and internet connection. I walked to one office to fill out a moving form, then to a company to pick up a job application, then to another office to renew my driver's license and finally to a third office to get a document signed (all of this took about three hours, because the offices were spread all over town and I stood in line everywhere). I did some chores, some shopping, and I filled out the application, so that was very productive. Tomorrow I'll most likely send out a couple of job applications and I probably have a job interview as well. And later the Danish national soccer team will play against Cameroun, which ought to be ace.

Just noticed that I had posted something in Danish here, which was supposed to go here. Sorry about that.

I've applied to a bunch of jobs today, but nothing was as disheartening as my chat with the woman at the temp agency. After briefly telling her about some of the work I did at a streaming media company, she cuts me short and tells me they won’t be able to get me work like that. I tell her I’m aware of that and that I’ll take any office job doing anything. She hands me a four page form I have to fill out and return and then asks: “And how do you feel about working in a warehouse?” to which I meekly reply that any kind of job is of interest. And if that wasn’t enough of a humbling experience I nearly snapped while trying to fill out the forms. There were a bunch of boxes, which had to be filled out with numbers and it didn’t make sense at all. So if they call me in for an interview I’ll suggest they give me a job making new forms, because the ones they have are rubbish. So the entire day I’ve waled around feeling like poor Conrad from A Man in Full.

But as Astadan over at somethingoutofnothing puts it “Blogs about medical conditions just plain suck”, and since the same probably goes for blogs about poverty, I’ll quickly move on to something else.

I’ve been getting cool Warhol-related emails these days. First, I got an email from Factory photographer Billy Name, who I’ve since stayed in touch with. Then I got an email from a woman, who appeared in a Warhol movie and still does some Warhol related work (but wishes to remain anonymous), and today I received an email from Billy Name saying that I should write Ultra Violet, because she wanted to get in touch with me. This might not mean anything to you, but to me it’s wicked cool. So now I'm hoping she'll get back to me.

Oh, I got back to Ingrid today and I've agreed to meet up with all the other local bloggers next week, so that ought to be interesting.

Apparently, bloggers all over the country are uniting in an effort to drink coffee and presumably chat about life, death, and blogging. It seems to have started in Copenhagen, where self-proclaimed members of the Bloggerista started getting together at cafées and now it's spreading to Århus. I read about the Bloggerista on Tinka's blog (obviously, because they wouldn't be good bloggers if they met and didn't write about it) and now Ingrid has set up a franchise here, which already has seven members (a couple I think attend my school). So I should probably sign up as well, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. However, the last time I did something like that it was a blast, so that installs confidence.

And now if you'll excuse me I have to go out into the rain and find a McJob, so I can get my life back on track.

I've been reading a lot of articles on blogging, but Use the blog, Luke by Steven Johnson is by far the most interesting I've read. It's nice to read about something other than Warblogging and all the pseudo-political pundits, who are mentioned in all the other articles. As a non-American it is exhausting to read all these articles written by people, who assume every member of the blogging community around the world checks Andrew Sullivan’s website every day to see if they agree or disagree with him on some random issue.

So what’s cool about this article is that instead of warblogs and the classic "they talk about what they had for breakfast" angle it actually sets up the possibility for blogs to become an information filter if one could create a sort of “blog analyzer”. In this scenario you’d have to appoint some of the blogs you follow a certain status and if you enter a site, which has been commented upon by one of the bloggers you follow, you’d be pointed towards their comments. That would create connections between articles and relevant comments, which would mean you wouldn’t have to search for more information after reading the article. It would be right there waiting for you.

This theory is similar to some of the thoughts Steven Johnson touched upon in his analysis of the search engine WebBrain in his book Interface Culture. The idea behind WebBrain is that a search will not only bring forth the needed websites, but also websites relating to your search (so a search for George Washington shows you links to sites about the president, but also links to sites about the American Revolution and other presidents). The site doesn’t really work, but I think the idea behind it is very appealing.

Thinking about money brings me down. Or rather thinking about not having any money brings me down. I just had a talk with my financial advisor at the bank today and her financial advice was to get a job. So I sent an application to an internet company, so I can be a part of their business support staff.

I really hadn't planned on working this summer, because I know getting a job means that I won't have time to write, but I've kinda gotten used to eating and stuff, so I need to make some money really fast. And I can't seem to get any paying writing gigs, so I'll have to start looking for something else. Or maybe I'll look into those online casinos I see so many pop-up ads for. Every time you mention those someone always knows someone, who has made a fortune on them, so maybe some day that someone could be me. And with my luck I'll bet the millions will start rolling in right away.

I just found out that The Dandy Warhols are going to collaborate with Duran Duran's Nick Rhodes on their next album. Apparently, they've been been hanging out and now they're working together in London. This is going to be huge! I'm a big fan of both bands, so I'm really looking forward to hear the result of this collaboration.

I've just seen The Phantom Menace on TV and I can't believe how bad it was. I saw it, when it first came out and back then I thought it was better than the reviews had said, but I didn't think it was great. So I wanted to see it again since it was on TV, but I just lost interest incredibly quickly. The acting is pretty bad all-round and I've heard more believable dialogue in shampoo commercials. Obviously all the computer stuff looks great, but Jar Jar is so annoying it distracts from all the cool stuff (his catch phrase "How rude!" wasn't funny fifteen years earlier, when it belonged to Stephanie Tanner on Full House, so it sure sure wasn't funny in this movie either). But since Natalie Portman pretty much is the greatest actress since sliced bread (Ah, Sliced Bread...a wonderful Lady Macbeth), I stuck it out through most of the movie.

Now I have to finish up the reviews from the Spot 08 festival before I can get to bed, so I'll have to postpone blogging about the concerts and my talk with David Fricke until tomorrow.

I went to the pub to see the Arsenal – ManU game Wednesday night and it was pretty awesome. Not only was the pub packed with supporters from both teams, but there was a really good atmosphere and there were no problems even after Wiltord scored the winning goal in the second half. Obviously, Arsenal winning the championship called for celebrations, so we had quite a few drinks that night.

Apparently, during the drinking I promised to play basketball with a couple of friends the next day, which is something I should know by now is a bad idea. But I actually got my shit together enough for me to meet up with them and it was okay. It’s been a couple of years since I played last, but everyone seemed to be as out of shape as me, so we played in a tempo fitting for senior citizens. I barely ran during those two hours, but I got a couple of good shots in there, so if we keep playing once a week I think I’ll be able to hold my own against these guys.

I was at the Spot 08 all day yesterday and it was great. I saw Marcus Winther-John, Under Byen, Ida Kristin, The Crash, Teitur, Briskeby, and Saybia. I’m a bit pressed for time, so I’ll go into more details about yesterday’s and today’s acts later. I also got to hang out with a lot of my friends and people I know in bands and the music business, who I rarely get to talk to. I met the guys from the band Fillip, who come from the same area as me and we were talking, while in line together waiting to get backstage passes. I got an armband and an ID card and I asked if they’d gotten ID cards as well.

John: Did you guys get one of these? [pointing to the ID card]
Guys: No. What does it say on it?
John: It has my name and where I’m from?
Guys: Where you’re from?
John: Yeah, it says John Fogde – Søften.
Guys: Ha ha ha

Obviously, it said John Fogde – Musik.dk, which is the zine I’m writing for, but they thought it was funny, because Søften is the shitty little town I’m from.

I have to get moving, but there’ll be more on the festivities later.

Are you familiar with the term “Writing through the pain”? I think it’s mainly used about people, who’ve lost a family member or loved one or just in a general way experienced something terrible, and the only way they can get over it is by writing a letter to their father’s killer or a short story about being assaulted. But in this case, though, I’m talking about a lot more specific pain. As I’m writing this my neck and back are as stiff as planks of wood and every time I look down to locate a letter on the keyboard a sharp pain goes through my back and shoulder blades. My neck is killing me and I’m feeling very stiff and uncomfortable. So I'm writing and I'm in pain hence the aforementioned phrase.

I used to play basketball every Saturday morning a couple of years ago and once in awhile I’d be so beat afterwards I’d rush home so I could sit on the couch and watch TV the rest of the day. As some of you might know it’s very wise to stretch after doing any kind of athletic activity, because if you don’t you’re muscles harden up, which can be very painful. So while some of those Saturdays were spent in front of the TV the following Sundays were often spent limping about cursing myself and everyone around me.

And right now my back feels like I swam the English Channel Thursday and then went straight to bed, which in turn led to me waking up Friday morning unable to move the upper right side of my body. I noticed something was wrong, when I wanted to reach over with my right arm to turn off my alarm clock Friday morning, but was unable to. The rest of the day (actually right up until right now) has been spent in pain trying to stretch and warm up the muscles, so I would feel a bit better, but with no real luck. My guess is the reason I’m in pain is that these days I spend 12-14 hours in front of my computer on a shitty chair hunched over the keyboard like an invertebrate. So what happens when the right side of your body is almost paralyzed? You start using the left side of your body more, which led to me waking up Tuesday morning with an excruciating pain in the left side of my body. So now my right side is feeling better, but my left side is worse than the right side ever was. And since I don’t have a Jacuzzi installed there really isn’t anything to do but suck it up and deal (oh, and whine which is what I’m doing now).

But enough about my scrawny body already. Tonight we’re going to see the Arsenal – ManU game, which will hopefully result in Arsenal winning this year’s championship. And it looks like there’ll be quite a few of us attending. My brother and I are going with the usual group, but a guy I know and another group of friends will be joining us at the pub, so it should be a fun night out even if the Red Devils win tonight.

But until then I’ll head back to my desk and try to get through a bunch of articles I've printed out. I’ve tried reading them on the computer, but I end up clicking on the links or answering emails instead, so in order to keep distractions to a minimum I’ve gone back to the old paper vs. yellow marker style of reading. So much for the paperless office and computers making your life more efficient.

I’ve been trying to write a little today, but my energy level is at zero and I get distracted by the smallest thing. This means that I’ve actually spent more time playing Bejeweled than writing today. I found a link to the game on Kottke’s blog, and I also saw an even more interesting link there. Apparently, I’m not the only one, who is sick of seeing perfectly good websites disappear, so someone has built something called the Wayback Machine. Just yesterday I was talking with a friend about how much we miss the old Mr Showbiz site (the old address redirects to this site now), but now at least you can go back and catch a glimpse of what it used to be like (unfortunately, a lot of the graphics are missing, so it’s not exactly like it used to be). So I have to say, “Kudos big guy!” to whoever has created this site.

I received an email today saying that I was on the guest list for Spot 08 and that one doesn’t need reservations for the lectures. So unless something goes terribly wrong I’ll be seeing about 20 up-and-coming bands and solo performers and David Fricke this weekend. It should be awesome.

Oh, is it a sign that you’ve been playing too much NHL 2002 if you’re bleeding under your right thumbnail?

As the day went on it turned out that hooligans from Copenhagen, England, and Germany had turned up for today’s game, but thankfully the police were well prepared and seemed to have the situation under control. 12 people were arrested, but I haven’t heard of any serious fighting going on, so I think everything pretty much went according to plan.

I’ve finished the first half of Me Talk Pretty One Day and it’s really funny. I didn’t realize the entire book consists of stories from his real life, but that doesn’t make it any less entertaining. One of stories is a bit pointless (it’s about poop, but maybe it’ll be explained later) and a couple are slightly smug (he makes fun of hayseeds coming to New York and posh New York cuisine), but generally they’re highly amusing and several times they're just laugh out loud funny.

The Young Ones is on right now, which reminds me of a discussion we had on a mailing list recently. Someone mentioned a quote that she only remembered a part off and while searching for the quote I found a page with the entire script for the Bambi episode. That’s my absolute favourite episode, so I’ve taken the liberty of picking out my favourite quote for you:

[SCENE: Lobby of a television studio. A Security Guard stands at the desk. The guys walk in.]
Mike: See, told you so! [They start walking past the guard]
Evening Officer. University Challenge, Scumbag College.
Guard: Hang on... [He checks his clipboard] You were supposed to be here two weeks ago.
Neil: Well, we had to walk the last 200 miles.
Mike: Didn't you get our message? Neil, why didn't you phone our message?
Guard: [checking his clipboard] We did get a message, yes... "Beep beep beep, oh no heavy, the coins keep coming out, beep beep beep, even the telephone hates me, beep beep beep, I wish there were no machines, and everyone led a pastoral existence, trees and flowers don't deliberately cool you out and go beep in your ear."
Neil: Yeah, that's the message, didn't you get it?

I personally think The Young Ones and Blackadder are the best British shows ever. I've seen ever single episode of both shows several times and with the exception of the first season of Blackadder every episode is pure genius.

And speaking of comedy I’ve been watching Greg the Bunny today, and it’s just a hilarious show. So far my favourite is the third episode, where Seth Green dates a girl, who has a dog. This leads to a series of very funny comments, but my favourite was when Warren the Ape said he didn’t understand why people had dogs. “If I wanted someone to lick my face and poop on my lawn I’d get back together with Farrah Fawcett”. If you haven’t seen it already you should definitely check it out.

Remember I told you about two groups of people chasing down the street yesterday? Well, turns out that eight people got arrested after shots were fired and two people had gotten stabbed. Six of the eight people arrested were hooligans (two of the British) and the last two were of Middle Eastern descent, so the police are assuming the fights had to do with racism. So apparently the guys in the pub, who were watching the game and throwing beer and a glass at us, then went out to kick some ass. And in the time it took me to get chinese food they managed to get in a fight and get chased by my apartment. I have all this info from an article in our local Danish newspaper. So it would seem that my wish for them to get looked up did come true.

Actually, he wasn’t. He was a loud, racist, hooligan son-of-a-bitch and I wish someone had smacked him upside the head or had locked him up for ruining our game and making everyone very uncomfortable.

I met my brother this afternoon at our regular football bar for the FA Cup final between Arsenal and Chelsea. We’d arranged to be there early, but it was already fairly full, when I arrived. I immediately noticed a group of British men by the bar, who were very loud and drunk and some of them wore Chelsea jerseys. But we were seated in front of the screen surrounded by people in Arsenal jerseys, so I didn’t really think about it. And they didn’t bother me until Lauren was harshly tackled by Le Saux and one of them shouted out “Get up you f**kin’ n***er!” (you’d think supporters of a team, which features Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink and several other high profile black players would be a bit more open minded about black people, but apparently not). From then on their behaviour just got more and more offensive and it was especially disturbing to see one of them raising his right arm at either the Arsenal fans or the TV and scream out “Si€g H€il” several times. But since it was still 0-0 at halftime they kept it to the yelling.

But when Ray Parlour scored a fantastic goal in the middle of the second half it was our turn to yell. We cheered like crazy, but were quieted when we were splashed with beer thrown by the guys at the bar. Now, I’ve been hit with beer, water, and probably a couple of other liquids at concerts and real football games, but this is the first time it’s happened inside a pub, so I was a little annoyed. And at this point I saw the neo-n@zi guy spit at people in Arsenal jerseys, who were buying drinks, so there was definitely some tension in the pub.

But that’s nothing compared to what happened when the amazing Freddy Ljungberg scored the second goal. Before we could even jump out of our seats someone threw a beer glass at the projector in the ceiling over our heads, which meant the glass splintered all over the place and the largest bits fell right next to my feet less than a foot from where one of my friends was sitting on the floor. I had glass on my hands, legs, and there were large pieces lying on the back of my chair. So with only ten minutes of the game remaining we decided to pack up our gear and go to the back of the pub, so we could get the hell out, when the game was finished. We stood at the back for less than five minutes, when two guys in Arsenal jerseys came down and joined us. And the second the game ended they bolted out of the pub. We quickly did the same, because the whole thing was beginning to remind me of Awaydays, and I really didn’t want any part of that. So I don’t know if there was any trouble, but I’m thinking of going down there to check next week, because I’m not going down there to see the game against Man United if something like that is likely to happen again.

So after the game I went to get Chinese food and went home and watched Smallville. I’d been home less than an hour, when I hear people yelling out in the street and when I look out I see a group of guys, who look like skinheads, being chased by a group of guys of Middle Eastern descent. I don’t know what was going on, but since long hair is peace my guess is the skinheads were up to no good. I guess I’ll have to check the local news tomorrow to see if anything really bad happened.

Since the only kind of censorship I believe in is self-censorship I’ve chosen to alter the spelling of certain words. It’s not so much because I don’t want to offend people, because I actually think that sometimes it can be healthy to be exposed to words like that, so you don’t forget what they mean. It’s simply because I’d prefer it if people using a search engine to search for words like that didn’t come visit my site. I hope that makes sense.

I just finished reading Derek M. Powazek’s Design for Community and while I found it entertaining and informative it was also a bit disappointing. The reason I bought it was that I had hoped it had an academic approach to the blogging phenomenon, but unfortunately that wasn’t the case. The book is basically a guide for people trying to build an internet community or improve on the one they’ve already built. And while it is interesting to read about all kinds of communities from email lists to the ones at Amazon or Salon I was looking for information about blogging.

After all there is a chapter excerpt called Weblogs as Community at the website dedicated to the book, but unfortunately that chapter doesn’t exist in the book. The featured excerpt is taken from a chapter called What’s Next? and although the chapter is a lot longer in the book than just the excerpt the rest of the chapter doesn’t deal with blogging at all. It deals with a Sony photo sharing community, more about Amazon, and some graphic communities based around different games. So in other words I could’ve gotten Powazek’s insights on blogging by reading his site instead of buying his book.

To be fair he also mentions Metafilter, Killoggs and a couple of other blogs that have multiple users submitting entries in the book, but there wasn’t really anything on blogging as journalism, the decentralized blogging community, or blogs working not so much as journals, but information filters. I’ve read a bunch of articles on these subjects, but it would have been nice with a different point of view than the journalistic or technological one you usually get on the web. But then Powazek is a web designer and not a college professor, so I guess it makes sense that his point of view would be from a design stand point.

My problem is that I want to write an academic paper on blogging and frankly I could use a little help. I have some stuff lined up and have read enough to know about some of the criticism blogging has received from journalists and professional writers. And I’ve also read a lot of the praise, which is circulating between certain members of the blogging A-list. But it doesn’t seem like anyone has done any work to examine the fascination people have with following these blogs, the benefits of having news filters, the joy of having an outlet for creative writing, and the community bond there seems to be between a large number of people, who in a strange way are connected by their use of a blogging tool and their need for self expression. This is what I’m going to look into, but as I said some help would be nice.

I’d been reading Design for Community since Monday and it felt good to finish a book for once. Lately I’ve been reading A Man in Full by Tom Wolfe and while I think it’s a smashing book it has taken me months just to read the first 450 pages, which means I’m only about halfway through it. I read so much stuff online that when I want to read something else it usually ends up being a Rolling Stone magazine. But I’ve decided to take a break from Mr. Wolfe and read Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris this weekend. The book was a Christmas present and I’ve wanted to read it for ages, so I’m going to give it a shot this weekend. I hope I can get a couple of long stretches in and I hope to have read it by early next week, so I don’t have another half-read book lying about.

As an alternative to the 50 Coolest Records of All Time list Rolling Stone Magazine made last month, they've made a list of the 50 Uncoolest Records (That We Love). Unless you have a truly bizarre taste in music you won't know half these records, but I ploughed through the list all the same (would it have killed them to make a list of all the records on one page?) and saw some utterly weird choices.

Choices like The Carpenters and Burt Bacharach are rather obvious, because they have for a long time been seen as guilty pleasures, but even after the indie Carpenters tribute album and Bacharach's collaboration with Elvis Costello, people still don't seem willing to give them any respect. But I find it very surprising that a list of guilty pleasures would include the first Weezer album and Actually by The Pet Shop Boys. Had it been Pinkerton and Very it might have made more sense, but both mentioned albums are the best by both artists, so I find it very odd that they made the list. And then there are the downright god-awful albums like Bat Out Of Hell by Meat Loaf. Actually, there's a lot of crappy 70s rock on the list. I just hate the Loafer the most, so he's the one I'll mention.

If I had to make a list of guilty pleasures I'd include a lot of 80s hair bands and 80s New Romantics. It would definitely include Duran Duran (whose records I still buy and yes I'm totally psyched by the reunion) and Mötley Crüe and a long list of bands, who'd remind you of both bands. Other than that I can't really think of any bands I'd add, but I'm sure others would be able to glance at my record collection and pick out a huge stack of albums they think are abysmal.

In related news TV Guide has published their 50 Greatest Shows of All Time list and since I've only seen about 25 of them it's hard for me to say if they're being fair or not. However, I was surprised to not see a single David E. Kelley show on the list. And where the hell is Moonlightning? I would have picked a bunch of newer shows over the old ones and added a couple that aren't as mainstream as The Cosby Show and Oprah, but then I'm just a European kid. What do I know from TV?

I like The Get Up Kids a lot and I have since I heard Something To Write Home About for the first time. Four Minute Mile has its moments, but I think the production leaves a lot to be desired, so I don’t listen to it that much. So I was very excited, when I found out that Matthew Pryor had founded a band called The New Amsterdams as an outlet for his quieter, acoustic material. Their album Never You Mind is absolutely brilliant and therefore I’ve decided to buy their follow up, Para Toda Vida, when the new Get Up album is released on the 14th of May. I want to buy them straight from Vagrant Records’ website, because I know they probably won’t be released here and frankly buying them directly from the record company is cheaper than buying them through the online record stores. But here’s my problem: After perusing Vagrant’s website I found out that shipping charge to Europe is $18.25 (which is more than a CD costs), so to get my money's worth I’ll have to buy more than two CDs. And here’s where I need some help.

I’m looking for recommendations from the Vagrant back catalogue, because while I'm familiar with a bunch of their bands I haven’t actually heard an entire album with other bands than the ones I mentioned before. I have a Vagrant compilation and I downloaded a bunch of songs from their site, but I must say I think the quality of the material varies not just overall, but also concerning the individual band. Right now I’m leaning towards Dashboard Confessionals (because I like the acoustic sounding Screaming Infidelities), Koufax (because of the upbeat Going to Happen and the singer sounds a bit like the guy from Nada Surf) and Saves the Day, because they sound a bit like Get Up and they seem to be getting good reviews and nice press a lot of places. I also thought about The Anniversary, because D in Detroit and All Things Ordinary remind me of That Dog and The Rentals (but I’m really not too crazy about the rest of the songs I’ve heard by them). But I should probably keep it to only one or two CDs, other than the Get Up and Amsterdams ones, so I would very much appreciate comments or suggestions. So if you know any of the bands mentioned or some I’ve missed please let me know.

I was actually listening to Seven More Minutes by The Rentals today, and while it’s by no means a great album there are some good songs on there. Favourites include Man with Two Brains, Barcelona, and Overlee, which brings me to a fun little titbit. I suck at remembering song titles, because I usually don’t look at the cover after I’ve examined it the day I’ve bought the CD. So it wasn’t until today I realized the song wasn’t called Albany but Overlee, which makes the lyrics “I wanna take you to Overlee/Floating around endlessly/No language and no country” make a lot more sense. And speaking of misheard lyrics a friend of mine as a joke tried to convince his friend that Destiny’s Child sing “I don’t think you’re ready… for New Delhi” on Bootylicious. Which, when you think about it, makes a hell of a lot more sense than “… for this jelly”. What does that even mean? They have the dumbest lyrics and they're so annoying that they're not even hot (okay, Beyonce is kinda hot despite being very annoying and having a horrible name).

But my all time favourite misheard lyric is “I wanna rock and roll all night/And part of every day”, which Greg sings in an episode of Dharma & Greg. Dharma points out his mistake, but Greg doesn’t get it, because as he puts it “Then when do they have time to sleep?”. When indeed.

There was a blog I wanted to link to, but then I forgot which one it was, and now I just remembered, so I thought I'd link to it right away. It's called "laura Holder not com" and the main reason I'm linking to it is that she asked if one could possible need anything else than the 2-disc anthology Sacred Hearts and Fallen Angels, which features a wide variety of songs by Gram Parsons. I'm not a big fan of Best Of records, so a couple of albums come to mind, but the one that I wanted to mention is the Gram Parsons tribute album called Return of the Grievous Angel. It's an amazing record with a pretty amazing line up. My favourites are Wilco's version of One Hundred Years From Now and Ooh Las Vegas performed by Cowboy Junkies, but the real treat is the Evan Dando and Juliana Hatfield duet on $1.000 Wedding. I've heard that song a hundred times and it still gets to me every time. It's a good song, but their version is just incredible.

I think most critics agreed that this is a fantastic album, but at the same time I think it can serve as a great way of getting to know the Parsons songbook for people, who aren’t necessarily into country music. Personally, I think his work both with The Byrds, the other bands, and his solo work is amazing, but a lot of people (especially Europeans) get turned off by the pedal steel, the violins, and the rest of it. So hearing Beck or Chrissie Hynde taking on a Parsons song in a new context might make the songs seem more accessible. And then you just might be ready to pick up the reissue of Sweetheart of the Rodeo or the GP/Grievous Angel CD and get with the real thing. I’ll bet you won’t be sorry that you did.

There are a lot of ways of going about writing a blog entry. If I want to tell a story or make a point in some way I tend to write a few sentences down on a pad, so I won’t forget anything. Then I type it into a Word document and try to structure it, so it’ll make sense for whoever might be interested in reading the entry. If there’s something I just quickly want to mention I just type in at Blogger to get it out there as fast as possible.

But this entry is done in a third way. I just opened a blank page and started writing. I know what I want to write about, but I don’t have any anecdotes or quotes ready, so if any should appear in this entry it’ll be because they came to me while writing. This is probably the most fun way of writing, because it tends to be a fast and instinctive way of writing. I prefer listening to fast music, while writing like this (I’m currently listening to Vagrant Records: Another Year on the Streets, which is a punk compilation), because the tempo of the music encourages typing quickly. But other than that there are no rules or anything like that. Just sit down and start punching those keys.

As promised I’m going to tell you about my Friday night out with the boys. Originally, the plan was for six of us to go out to dinner and then go to a club, but two of the guys cancelled on the dinner, but said they might meet up with us later (which they never did, which meant we felt obligated to leave a bunch of rude and offensive messages on their answering machines). So it was just the four of us, but it still turned out to be a pretty great evening. But before I get to the details I think a bit of a back story is in order.

I began at university in 1995 with these three guys and because our year would split into three large study groups for certain classes and these three guys were in my group, we started hanging out almost immediately. One of them is now a really close friend of mine, whom I travelled with several times and he’s also the one, who got me my new apartment. For several years I played basketball with him and one of the others every Saturday morning (which meant we’d always have massive hangovers, but always show up anyway). And for a couple of years the four of us worked together in the university bar, which was open every Friday. So I’ve spent a lot of time with these people, but since we stopped going to the same classes and later started working on our theses I don’t really see them on a regular basis (without really giving it a lot of thought I've just sort of decided not to use the names of my friends and family here. I don't think they'd mind me mentioning them by name, but I guess out of respect I've just decided not to use their names. Hope this doesn't bring on too much confusion).

So it was great to see my friends again and right away it was like nothing had changed. Obviously, we did the catching up thing, where you talk about jobs and stuff, but quickly we started talking about girls (or “chicks” as one of the guys kept saying although we were speaking Danish) and reminiscing about all the benders we’d been on. We had drinks for an hour and then we went to a Tunisian restaurant, which I’d never been to before. It came highly recommended and I can see why. It’s one of those places, where you can bring your own wine, which means you save a few bucks, but that doesn’t mean that it’s dive. The food was incredible (I had a steak with pepper sauce, salad, and potatoes, and the others had different kinds of kebab) and the service was impeccable. During dinner we talked about everything from the red light districts of the world to my friends’ upcoming wedding and generally we just had a great time.

This continued at a nearby café, where I finally got to put a few questions to my friend about the plans for his summer wedding (this is the wedding I’m going to that means I won’t be going to the Roskilde Festival this year). It was funny to hear him talk about proposing, preparing for the wedding, the invitations and so on. I asked about which kind of presents they’d be hoping for, but he really hadn’t given it any thought. It honestly seemed like he didn’t care as long as we came and had a good time. He even invited us to come a day early and just hang out, so I think we’ll do that. The wedding will be held on a small island called Samsø, so it’ll be nice to go out there a day early and do nothing and see whatever there might be to see on an island like that.

After the café I had hoped that we’d go to one of the new clubs in town, but somehow it was decided that we should go to the club we always used to go to a few years ago. And just to set the mood for the rest of the evening an ambulance left the club just as we arrived and two cops pushed by us, while we were standing in line to get in. Turns out a bartender had been stabbed with a glass, so the cops were there the rest of the night questioning people. Things sort of fizzed out at the club, because we were kinda drunk and spent most of the time just standing around looking a dancing girls, who were eight to ten years younger than us.

But it was still an amazing night. One of the guys had come over from Copenhagen, so he crashed at my place. And even though we came home after 4 a.m. we still talked for an hour about how great is was to hang out again. I’m afraid evenings like this won’t happen often in the future, because people are already moving on with their lives (as opposed to me, who’s still knee deep in the student lifestyle), so I’m very grateful and happy that it was such a success. And now I’m totally psyched about going to that wedding, so that was a really cool added bonus.