The Quiet Fights

C is for cookie

2006-12-09T16:45:00.000+01:00

As you might have noticed, I've switched back to my old Blogger-template. Yeah, a gazillion other people have the same and, sure, it's not really very cool at all, but at the end of the day, the new template-editor just didn't come up with so many new possibilities that it was worth losing my comments for. In any case, I'm considering moving to a domain of my own, move to WordPress and get a proper template of my own. It's just that I'm so lazy. So don't get your hopes up.

Anyway, it's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas 'round here. First sign was when I ran amok in a slightly snazzy interior design shop in inner Copenhagen*. I don't exactly what the f*ck happened, but I shopped for an advent wreath that, if someone with actual skillz had done it, could've been in ALT for Damerne right between a diet promising you to lose 5 kilogrammes before the office Christmas party so you can squeeze down into the dress you can't afford on page 32 and an article on how to make the best chocolatecake ever for your night with the girls. Sorry, got sidetracked there, women's magazines are a pet hate of mine.
Anyway, as Kristian so nicely pointed out, it looks like I turned an angel into an angelic eunuk while snatching a couple of feathers - and because of the feathers, not only is it embarassing, it's also a f*cking fire hazard. Oh well...

Later last week, my mother and sister came over. It would've been nice, had my mother not fallen ill. But still, though, I got some quality time with the sis and we went to see Santa turn on the lights on the tree of the Town Hall Square, drank chai tea and ate pizza. Then we tried to make a gingerbread house. Sigh. Not only did I manage to get hothothot, caramelized sugar on my thumb while putting the thing together, it also fell apart the morning after. After turning stale, of course. Again, oh well...

But still, Christmas is way more fun if you mess it up and no one remembers the years where nothing went wrong. It's nice enough to have something turn out right. though. and without wanting to toot my own horn, what you see on the sides turned out pretty darn well indeed. On the left, we have cinnamon-almond biscotti, courtesy of Liselotte and on the right, ginger-hazelnut-cookies, a recipe from Ysolda's page. And kudos to both of them, 'cause those are some mean cookies, kids.
Mmm, Christmas!

Ooh, and the new Knitty is up! Keeping in with the cookie theme, I want to knit the new Cookie socks (and may I just say, my f-ing God, do I want those Kurt Geiger shoes!) and, not in Knitty, but I still want to knit them, Eunny's Anemoi Mittens. Whoa!

And C is for cookie , you know... Or "KEKSE!" if, like me, you always saw Sesam Straße, the German version of Sesame Street, and the Cookie Monster wasn't the Cookie Monster, but der Krümmelmonster. Oh well...

*as a little sidenote here, could people please understand that inner Copenhagen is never, ever called midtbyen? Centrum, København K, Indre By, City, whatever, just not midtby. Århus has a midtby, Randers probably does, too, but Copenhagen just doesn't. If you move here from other parts of Denmark, it's just one of those things you have to deal with. Now.

This is a minor interruption, please remain seated

2007-01-08T00:04:00.000+01:00

Ack, happy New Year everyone. I'm still right here and I actually had some posts lined up, but then it was Christmas and I didn't post my pictures of the squirrels in my dad's backyard and then my pictures of the Anemoi Mittens I knitted didn't turn out well and then I still couldn't get the new Blogger to work with Haloscan and then New Year's and sushi and I've gained something like a hundred pounds during Christmas (I have a gut! I am actually considering dieting, something I've never done. Dieting, that is) and eurgh, then I turned all mopey which is so strange because I'm normally the picture of joie de vivre. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that I'll be back soon. Probably. And here is my sister with those mittens.

Warsaw

2007-01-16T12:09:00.000+01:00

This is what I woke up to this morning. Odd. A bit like looking into the house of East German Barbie (and, yes, I know that Warsaw isn't in former GDR).

Stupid girl

2007-02-05T10:38:00.000+01:00

Ah yes, the blog. I would like to say that I've been busy, but I am afraid I'd be lying, I'm not really doing anything these days apart from sleeping and playing Bejeweled 2, sad bastard that I am.
I did however find the time to knit these Cablenet socks from the Fall 2006 Knitty. Now, besides the fact that they're not blocked and I chose a really bad combination of pattern and yarn, obscuring both how nice a yarn Black Purl actually is and the tiny cables that are actually a pain in the arse to knit, do you see what's wrong here? That's right, I forgot a pattern repeat in the sock on the right! In the cuff, no less. Sigh. Do reckon it would be possible to rip down the left sock from the top and then do a new rib? Because, honestly, there is no f***ing way that I am ripping the whole foot back on number 2.
More FO's coming shortly. Possibly.

They want our way of life. Well, they can have mine any time they like...

2007-02-09T17:25:00.000+01:00

Right, kids. Either this experiment is going to turn out horribly bad or really well, I think. The smell of wet wool and vinegar is spreading around the apartment because, lo and behold, I'm dying self-striping sock yarn (using Eunny's method). And besides being worried that my flat will smell vinaigrette sheep permanently, I can't really figure out whether I chose the right colours for this project. What I'm going for is this. Chocolate and violet goodiness. But I have nasty feeling that what I'll end up with is That Seventies Yarn. Oh well.

Confuzzled

2007-02-11T15:22:00.000+01:00

Hmm. Not exactly That Seventies Yarn. Not exactly bad. Not exactly was I was going for, either! I dunno. I have some colour remover, maybe I could use that to lighten it a tad? What do you think?

Once you go black...

2007-02-16T11:22:00.000+01:00

In a winter like this, which Politiken, I think it was, described fittingly as "not really winter as much as a constant shower with your clothes on", I don't really think that being Scandinavian is as much fun as it usually is. It might be the eskimo blood in my veins, or, in lack thereof, the eighth of Polish blood (I'm afraid that my greatgrandmother, Pelargia, is the most exotic branch in a family tree made up by almost exclusively southern Danes - not very exciting!) longing for a continental climate and subzero temperatures.
Anyway, right now I find that the best thing about being Scandinavian is the salty liquorice - mmmm, ammonium chloride for breakfast!
I think that Super Piratos are the only thing currently on the market with exactly the legal percentage of ammonium chloride (too much of the stuff can cause high blood pressure and, in children still growing, damage to the bones), but when I was a kid, my mother was crazy for a particular kind called Vampires that (at least in our town) you could only get at Wohlenberg, a local shop selling wine, spirits, tobacco and, of course, sweets. I could really do with a trip to that shop right now - it still smells like it did when I was five!
But I digress - at some point Vampires became illegal under some EU directive or other, because they contained too much ammonium chloride, but right now I could really, really do with one! I've seen you can get sets to make your own salty liquorice - maybe that's an option if I feel a bit like gambling with my health? Hmm...
Byt the way, can you tell in what the salty fish is blobbing around?

2007-02-16T11:33:00.000+01:00

Hey, I forgot about these. Eunny Jang's Endpaper Mitts. Purdy, no?

Angst in my pants

2007-02-27T11:16:00.001+01:00

I'm not really sure how you can not like snow. Here we have last week's (and apparently, if you are to believe the media, this century's worst) Danish blizzard. Come on, it's not like I have a mighty interesting view from the living room window, but still, it's sooooo pweeetty!
However, now the thaw is coming on and that's one thing I really don't enjoy. Lots of weather types can be annoying to be sure, but thaw is the only one that really strikes me as gross. It just makes everything look like a soggy, filthy rag. Yuk, I say.

Another yuk was when I spent some indoor time (apparently, not many of my friends could see the appeal of throwing themselves down a snow-clad hill on something like this. Seriously, I want that one!) dying 500 grammes of silk. Goddamn, have you got any idea how bad that stuff smells when you soak it?! Anyway, I don't have any pictures of the finished product juuust yet, only soggy yarn in a colander (why is that such a funny word? Colandercolandercolander), but as of now, I'm in the midst of knitting it into a Clapotis.
Right, I'm off. I need to get my bike to a check-up. Tonight is Gilmore Girls-night, ever so by the way. Last week saw Lorelai pouring coffee over a wedding dress to the sound of what immediately after became my favourite song of the week, Angst in my Pants by Sparks. I love that show.

She got the clap so many times, it amounted to applause

2007-03-11T13:27:00.000+01:00

Or, actually, I just finished my first Clapotis (this here being and unblocked version), so no standing ovations just yet. But I had to do it sometime, no? All the other kids are doing it n all...
The yarn is my own handpainted single-ply silk, knitted up on 5mm needles.
I really liked the pattern, there really is something strangely satisfying about dropping stitches on purpose. However, I don't really know about the yarn. Especially the colour. I don't know... it's just very colour-y and I'm not sure I'm a colour-y person! Also, it sheds all over the goddamn place and with the amount of black I wear that's just not a good thing.
But anyway, my mother says she wants it, so it's not the end of the world.

By the way, don't you just looove easily satisfied urges? Like today, when I woke up and all I wanted was buttered toast. I mean, that's ace! When is buttered toast not easily available? Excellent, I say.

Just a few things...

2007-03-15T00:41:00.000+01:00

On working in a yarn shop: Pretty good stuff, so far at least. Free yarn for 2 work sweaters every year, plus damn nifty discounts. Nice people, both staff and customers. Good coffee from a weird machine. Yarn! Mmmm!

On the Nørrebro-riots: This has to be the coolest picture taken during the demolition.

On dying your own yarn: Addictive! Smelly, but addictive.

On how life is... Not bad, I think! Did I mention the yarn?!

Oh, and ever so by the way...

2007-03-16T11:55:00.001+01:00

This is what came out of the wet and smelly mess below. Looks good, no? It's a birthday present for a friend (I reckon that if home-dyed, self-striping cashmere sock yarn isn't enough to turn someone into a wool-head, nothing is), but I almost don't have the heart to give it away. It reminds me of late august, blackberries and raspberries giving colour to the whipped cream by which they could be surrounded - I almost want to eat it! Fortunately, I can just dye some more...

And here is what a huge relief looks like. Last time I went to Angola to visit my dad, there was nothing but trouble with the tickets and we (me and my two travelmates whom I hardly knew) had to catch a later flight because of it and yadayada-f*cking-yada! So when I saw these babies in the mailbox a stone just fell from my heart. Good stuff - Luanda, here I come!

Do you remember this fella? That was a picture of me getting Lucky. Lucky from Stitch 'n Bitch Nation that is. Not bad, is it? Only trouble is that is has a nasty habit of falling from my shoulder, but I think I can fix that with some hooks and eyelets in the inner side seam. I made it with 9 balls of Blend Bamboo from Hjertegarn. It's dead nice and soft now that it's knitted up, but jebus, is it a pain to knit with! It splits like absolutely crazy to the point where I wondered if it was actually yarn or just a random collection of threads.
Next sweater project? A green Rosa from Rowan Magazine #35 made with free work-yarn. Oooh, the joy of threading 4,000 tiny beads onto string!

Oh, and a last thing. By now, it's hardly news that DR2 has started sending The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, but can I just express my joy anyway? I'm beginning to think that I have a thing for that guy, so much that when I saw this YouTube-clip with him talking about his kids, it made me think "Mmm... procreation is hott!"

Angola revisited

2007-04-30T14:01:00.000+02:00

Right, it's been nearly three weeks since I came home from Angola - it's pretty damn feeble that I haven't been able to get my shit together until now. Anyway, it was a great trip. Unlike last time, where my dad had to work like normal and we, consequently, couldn't go very far from Luanda, we wen't on a small African roadtrip this time and it was pretty good stuff.
Also unlike last time, it was (late) summer and thus really, really f***ing hot! As soon as we got off the plane, the greenhouse-like heat just smacked me hard in the face and I honestly think that I got more of a tan last time 'round - this time I spent most of the time sitting indoors shouting for the air-con to be turned on and/or up.

But actually, the fact that I haven't written anything about the trip until now look even worse when I tell you that I have in fact already written most of this post while I was still in Angola, but as I didn't bring my laptop with me on the road, I had to type it and I just couldn't be arsed. Anyway, here goes:

Friday, 30th of March
Arriving in Luanda. It's warm! Or hot, rather, the heat is absolutely stifling and very, very humid. If I'm outside or in a room without aircon, I break a sweat in 2 minutes. Ick.
But it's good to see Angola again, there's just something about it that makes me... happy. I already get my camera out on the way from the airport, dunno why, last time I was pretty wary to take pictures with people in them, but when lack of sleep has done something to my brain and seeing a children's guitar in a tree makes me giggle, so I decide to snap a shot. Bad idea! The guy in the picture gets really, and I mean really, royally, pissed off and no matter how much I try to mouth "I'm sorry!" or "Desculpe!", he just proceeds to make rather obscene gestures at me. When he picks up a rock and comes closer, Maiamona from my dad's company goes over to try and calm him down, but still, I'm pretty happy when the traffic unclogs and we can get the hell out of there!
My dad's house is pretty much the same as last time. I shower, play Bop-It and sleep. Then we go out to a restaurant called Baia at the harbour. The place is really cool, very cosmopolitan, but without losing its roots. We have lovely food, while downstairs they're having a poetry slam.
When we get back home, I ponder what to bring on an African road trip apart from your malaria medicine. It's tricky, but I go for my knitting, my iPod and my deodorant.

Saturday, 31st of March
Day one of our road trip. We leave rather late as the guy with whom my dad needs a meeting before we can go is stuck in the airport. This means we arrive after dark in Kambala, an old military base protecting the dam that supplies Luanda with electricity. Our rooms look a bit like there's no cleaner and we practically have to beg to get pillows, but we sleep ok despite incessant frogs and some birds nesting on the outside frame of our door.

Sunday, 1st of April
Day two: We leave from Kambala after an early breakfast and after seeing the church in what is left of the fortress of Kambambe. Apparently, the place has had some military value since 1604 and it's also one of Angola's nominations for UNESCO World Heritage. Now that it's light, it's also pretty cool to discover that the architecture of the base is very Bauhaus-ish, not really what you'd expect from Africa. Today's trip, however, is far from cool, in fact, it's positively awful.
I guess that I've never really stopped to consider the difference proper infrastructure makes, but it's definitely one of those things you miss when it's not there. To be sure, the road has seen asphalt at some point, but it just has so many holes and bumps and... argh! Sure, going somewhere far can be a bit of a pain, but traveling like this is actually hard work! The shitty roads make you bounce and bump up and down and combined with the fact that you have to reach your destination before nightfall, there's hardly any time for breaks, let alone rests. At one point, I'm just so worn out and sick of being unable to take even the tiniest of naps that I just start crying.
We drive for about 9 or 10 hours to get to Malanje, the capital of the Kwanza Norte province. It's 230 kilometres away.
We'd booked rooms at Hotel Gigante, but it just can't be found and when we drive by Hotel Palanca Negra, no-one feels the need to keep looking. Air-con, swimming pool, clean sheets and Italian furniture - again, it just feels odd to reach this in the middle of this vast area of disarray. But I don't dwell on it, instead I fall asleep straight after dinner, I'm just that tired.

Monday, 2nd of April
Day three: Our bathroom smells pretty damn foul - imagine a sewer stuffed with cheese. We ask for another room before we're on our way to see the Kalandula falls. Proves easier said than done. We drive to the top of a hill where we can see this, which, if you can't tell, are the falls in the distance.
But the road seems to turn in the opposite direction so we go back and turn down another road which seems slightly overgrown.
Some women are making tapioca flour by grinding the cassava on the asphalt and they seem rather surprised to see us, but we just drive on until we meet a particularly grassy patch. At first we just want to drive on, but suddenly Elisabeth, my dad's girlfriend yells for us to stop - a pretty good call 'cause behind the pretty tall grass is this:

Hm, seems that we can't get to the waterfalls this way either although from here, we can hear them.
We go back again and turn down what is basically a slightly oversized goat path leading to a a village where some kids with machetes stare at us as if we're from another planet. This obviously isn't the right way either. Eventually, we end up going up the first road again - evidently it turns back towards the falls and leads to this miradura. It's just wauw.

We spend what seems like half an hour, but is in fact more than two at the falls. They're just so pretty. I take Rosa out to show her the falls as well. Neat, eh?

When we get back to the hotel, they've changed our room. Instead of a stink we now have:

Ta-daa, a shittily installed electric showerhead! To me, it just screams hairdryer dropped in bathtub, so I go for cold showers...

Tuesday, 3rd of April
Day four. We can't figure out how to get to Gambele as was initially planned, so we go back the same shitty road to Kambambe although, to be fair, it doesn't feel entirely as bad the second time around.
We eat at the local greasy spoon for people who work at the dam (and again makes me think about the fact that I told my doctor that I'd be in Angola for two weeks under good conditions. I'm not entirely sure that sitting outside at twilight - mosquito peak hour - eating food from a country kitchen I haven't seen, constitutes what she'd define as "good conditions") - it's pretty great, even though I see the biggest spider ever and nearly manage to make a local boy cry.

Wednesday, 4th of April
Day five. At first we want to take the shorter road from Kambambe, south-east of Luanda, to Cabo Ledo at the Atlantic, south-west of Luanda, across the country that is, but when Elisabeth asks the hotel manager about this, he nearly wets himself laughing while spluttering "não possível!", so we go over Luanda instead.
We stop by the hous to have lunch, but are quickly shooed back into the car when we can't get a hold of the hotel in Cabo Ledo and have to be in the national park of Kissama within two hours. It's probably not more than 70 kilometres away, but with Angolan roads and Luanda traffic combined, making the trip within 2 hours is actually pretty hard. The last 30 kilometres into Kissama consists of a dirt road and contrary to last year, it has rained this time so this part of the trip is a 4 wheel drive mud fest. Good stuff.
At the hotel, I ponder how weird it is to see Orion when the temperature isn't sub-zero and then we drink G&T's and caipirinhas (and I remind myself to bring som cachaça home) to celebrate Elisabeth's birthday.

Thursday, 5th of April
First day of just chilling out we've had since I got here. I knit in the sun and at 5PM, we go for a guided tour around the park, but in my dad's car instead of the park's this time. The guy seems like a nice guy, although I'm not too happy sitting with his AK-47 between my feet. I see a gnu and some antilopes, but overall, the trip we had last year in the park's Unimog was a bit more exciting.

Friday, 6th of April
We've planned to go on a river safari and hopefully see some crocodiles, but the diesel for the boat hasn't come in from Luanda yet, so instead we go to Cabo Ledo to swim, say hi to to the monkey and eat some seafood.
When we get back to Luanda, we go to Bob's for burgers, slightly lame-o-tourists of us, but hey, sometimes you just need a freakin' burger. Also, if you ever get past a Bob's (apparently they're big in Brazil and there's one in Lisbon as well), try their Ovomaltine milkshake, it's pretty damn yummy!

Saturday, 7th of April
Ahh, proper bed, no shaky car, lots of aircon - it's good to be home. We go to a supermarket called Fresco to shop for our barbecue night. It's pretty weird, somehow you don't expect all sorts of special vegetarian food or the remedies for sushi to be found in Africa, but they're they are and really, why the hell shouldn't they be?

Sunday, 8th of April
Today is the day Kathrine and I are going home, so nothing big is planned. We get lunch at a restaurant at the beach called Caribe - if you ever get to Luanda, their mojitos are worth a shot!
The airport is a breeze, we don't even have bribe anyone this time and we're there early enough to get a Death by Chocolate Magnum before we leave. Yay Africa!

2007-05-27T14:03:00.000+02:00

Ack, I'm really not a good blogger these days, huh? Today, all I can manage is comments, sorry.

Rosa has been finished for quite some time actually. But I'm afraid I just can't be bothered to model her, let alone wash her before I took this picture. She's a pretty girl, tho'.

SPECS
Pattern: Rosa from Rowan magazine no. 35
Yarn: 5 balls of Gepard Cotton Baby in colour 187
Beads: Gütermann washable seed beads in colour 8061. Dunno how many. Lots!
My mother's getting married (for the first time) in August. This is my bridesmaid's dress. Pretty, isn't it? Fingers crossed that it doesn't mean bad luck for anyone to see that one.
There's a lighthouse outside my living room window. A crane came Thursday and put it into place. I'm still confuzzled, but hey, it should make drunkely finding my way home a lot easier!
A Milky moved into my house. Unfortunately, no Graham Coxon came along with him, but maybe I'll make him a Miss Milky, so he won't feel so alone. Light yellow polymer clay might be trickier to find, though? I dunno. Templates at Milky Fan, if you want your own.
I was watching 24 Hour Party People the other day (or actually, just the first half, it's just not entirely as good after Shaun Ryder's killed those pigeons, is it? That scene, however, is one of the funniest, ever) and today I just saw the trailer for Anton Corbijn's Joy Division-movie Control (it looks fantastic, by the way) and I was just thinking; which Joy Division-single do you prefer? I say Transmission, it's one of the few songs that just keeps getting to me every time.

She's not dead

2007-04-17T00:15:00.000+02:00

Neither is the blog, is' jus' restin', while I knit on on Rosa and try to pull myself together to write an Angolan post. Pretty pictures, I swear it.

Let's start! Let's start a riot!

2007-03-02T11:19:00.001+01:00

Right, if you've been living under a rock (or got hit by one), you might not have noticed that the users of Ungdomshuset was evicted by the police yesterday. I've written about this before and rest assured, bricks or no bricks, I'm still on the side of the squatters. I'm generally pretty damn sick of listening to people droning on and on about how the squatters don't respect the laws of our society - what part of "revolutionary" is it that you c***s don't understand? It's absurd to expect people recognise the rules of the society they want to throw over, to expect them to play by these rules to change the society they don't respect. And the worst is when I hear the argument "But these rules are the base of our society! If everyone did like you, society would crumble!" - that's sort of the entire point, see?
Essentially, the argument comes down to that you want people to act according to your rules because you say so - and you have the police backing you up wielding guns, batons and Mace. That's fine by me, if only you'd admit it; it not about justice, it's about power.
Also, I'm looking forward to see what the police means when they say they found a flamethrower in the house. If this time is anything like their usual way of handling the truth, when you see flamethrower, you should read "we found a lighter next to a bottle of hairspray".

On a lighter and more bourgeois note, I just got a job in a yarn shop! Yay!

Ooh, scary!

2007-01-11T14:33:00.000+01:00

Favourite scary movies right now:

A shark movie made by a bunch of 12-year-olds in 1978 - I wish I'd had friends like that when I was twelve! Also, a lot damn scarier than Jaw s , if you ask me...

Next damn scary thingy; a Tickle Me Elmo on fire - those things look bad enough as they are, but when they practically turn into zombies, that's where I put my foot down (to turn around and run away screaming).

And before I leave: I'm applying for a job in a yarn shop - keep your fingers crossed!

Riots, not diets, part II

2006-12-18T11:40:00.001+01:00

Another thing I just want to add to the post below. It's not like I generally support riots as a way of expressing yourself - I just think that all these people coming out to say that the people in Ungdomshuset should "express themselves peacefully" and in accordance with democratic principles - well, I'm sorry but they've tried that, haven't they, and it didn't get them very far.
And these people are actually just the tip of the iceberg, I've seen a lot of blogposts, these last couple of days, calling the police "soft" and not understanding why the people arrested had to be released after just 24 hours (when they should obviously have been put to jail for life/shot in the kneecaps/what have you). Well, f*cking newsflash, they had to be released because it says so in the Danish constitution! You know, the constitution that also details the private property you're referring to every single time you want the kids to hand over the house to Ruth Evensen and her cronies?
Also, I've just about had it with news programmes interviewing the neighbours on Nørrebro. Of course I have no doubt that a lot of those people are sick to death of Ungdomshuset and no doubt it's a total bummer seeing burning barricades all over your neighbourhood, but the TV puts it out like it's all the neighbours who have lost their sympathies for Ungdomshuset, which I know for a fact is just not true!
A lot of people get on just fine with the activists and if you try and notice, nearly all the neighbours interviewed as opposed to Ungdomshuset look like newcomers. Now, every neighbourhood needs newcomers, but what pisses me off is when newcomers get angry at the customs of the neighbourhood they moved into. It can hardly be a surprise to you that if you move to Nørrebro, you have to deal with Ungdomshuset and as for the riots, have you newcomers not seen any news the last 20 years?! It's not like it's the first time Nørrebro has been the site of a riot, you had 18. maj (the 18th of May) 1993 after the second referendum on the Maastricht treaty, you had the squatting movement of the 80's - actually, you could argue that riots on Nørrebro is a tradition going back at least to the People's Strike of 1943! So don't come here saying that you didn't know what you went into!
This particular way of moving somewhere is a nasty trend that has come to Copenhagen maybe the last 10 or 15 years. How crazy is it that the bar owners in Nyhavn actually have to point out that if you move there, you can't exactly expect quiet nights? That place has been full of sailor joints since the 17th century!
Likewise for the neighbours on Vesterbro wanting to close down Mariatjenesten, a service connected to one of the local churches which has been helping the resident drug addicts since 1974 and also likewise for the absolutely insane people moving into apartments next to the harbour and then complaining about the noise the ships make - do you people even know why Copenhagen is here in the goddamn first place?!
Ah, rant over...

Riots, not diets

2006-12-17T03:44:00.000+01:00

Right. I'm a wee bit drunk, having just been to a Christmas party. But before I go to bed, I just want to say, with regards to the riots in Copenhagen today.

Please remember that a country with no riots ever is most likely a totalitarian one.
Don't believe everything you see on TV. I have a friend living right next to what was supposedly the epicentre of the riots and despite the police being "bombarded with bricks, fireworks and molotov cocktails", she didn't notice the riots until she read about them on the net. Just sayin'...
Try to understand that the police are people and thus, not always good guys. Sometimes they lie and sometimes they smack people around just because they know they can get away with it.
And seriously, stop giving me that BS argument that the police are "just doing their job". That might be so, but what would you usually call someone who fights for a cause they don't believe in, just for the money? Mercenaries?

And to all those people being shocked and outraged and what-f***ing-ever by these riots, well, I'm sorry, but what did you expect?! Hasn't the people in Ungdomshuset and their neighbours said all along that this what would happen? Stop being so goddamn surprised when people stand up for themselves, just because you're too sissy to do so.

This is a public service announcement

2006-12-01T08:44:00.000+01:00

Hey you drrty kids.
I've disabled comments for now. Yes, you know why! Because deep down in my tar-covered heart, I think you're all morons, not worthy of my attention... Or, wait, that excuse was for another occasion... I've disabled comments, because I am a conservative little bitch, who's afraid of change, and I refuse to ignore all the delightful things you have told me in my previous, Haloscan, comments. And until I find a fix to make Blogger Beta and Haloscan work together (which is proving tricky, I can tell you!) or, alternatively, convince myself that it can't be f*cking done (tricky, as I have seen it), there's just no commentting for you. Or soup.

(Let's start a) rock'n'roll riot

2006-11-28T14:16:00.001+01:00

I wrote a rather long post yesterday about the up-coming cloure of Ungdomshuset in Copenhagen, but then I deleted it, because well, it was crap.
For those of you who didn't know or hadn't guessed, I think the closure is a f*cking rubbish idea, even if it has been a while since I actually went there. I don't support the vandalism, but I wonder what the politicians and Faderhuset had thought would happen, when they put 500-1000 young people in a situation where they feel that they have absolutely nothing to lose.
Anyway, for those of you who don't know the story you can read some of it in English here and sign the petition here - it's close to 10,000 now, it just needs you.
Also, try to spread the word; have no doubt, I love Copenhagen, but it is becoming more and more homogenic these days - what it really doesn't need is to shut down one of the most progressive cultural institutions within city lines.
There's a bundle of cool events coming up towards the supposed closing date, the 14th of December, and not just for people who are into punk and HC.
I'm thinking that I'll go and see Michael Simpson and Sølvstorm, who are playing on the 5th of November, maybe Baby Woodrose and Savage Rose on the 13th and maybe the marathon reading with several Danish authors (Bo hr. Hansen, Jan Sonnergaard and TS Høegh among (many) others) on the 6th. Full calendar is here.

Show up, Ungdomshuset needs you! [insert poster of snotty, vegan punk pointing his/her finger at you here].

If the cold doesn't kill her, money will

2006-11-22T11:56:00.001+01:00

I think that last year I mentioned the Danish poet who says that the year has 14 months; January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, November, November and December. This year, however, I can't really say that he's right, because, seriously, November is just going by for me all... whoosh! I'm not really spending my time doing anything major, except spending too much money, but still... Anyway, to the right you have my current works in progress. Another mitten (this time a cross between a squirrel and a pirate mitten), a sleeve for a self-designed shirt that has been under way for quite some time, a second Peacock Feathers Shawl (I gave the first one to my favourite aunt for her 40th birthday) and a Cablenet sock in Black Purl from Lorna's Laces. Apart from all of that, I should be studying, but I find myself in a perpetual state of "I can't be arsed", so excuse me if I'm a bad, bad blogger these days.
In the mean time, ch-ch-check out this version of The Fear, it's evil and gorgeous at the same time!

You're the miles left to go

2006-11-08T23:21:00.000+01:00

After going home with the f***ing rain in my face and mascara, and before I go to my warm bed, which is looking preeetty good right now, I just have a couple of things to show you.

First:

Pirate mittens! Ooo-er! Nice, no? I used this pattern from Hello Yarn and two skeins of Dale's teflon-coated yarn, Hauk. Strange stuff, teflon-coated yarn, oh well.

Second:

Lookie! I made a convert! This is my friend Camilla, whom I've known since I was seventeen. Where I'm afraid that I've chosen a road of paper pushing, Camilla is a really good photographer and make-up artist who, among other things, has done some work for Suicide Girls (as a photographer, that is). She's my first convert and she's already been knitting on the train (as you can tell, I'm rather proud). What you see, is her knitting her first sweater, a cardigan for this little girl, her daughter Kornelia (who, as you can tell, ended up looking very un-Exorcist-y).

Waiting 'round the bend

2006-10-31T01:44:00.000+01:00

So, it's nearly 2 A.M. and I can't sleep. My rest-deprived brain is starting to see a pattern. First some guys from the Danish Paranormal Institute came by in the hearse on the right while I was at work. Then I went to see The Science of Sleep (why is it called The Science of Sleep in English when it's called La Science des Rêves, the science of dreams, in French? Huh?) And now I've just seen this Mickey Mouse-cartoon which is about... something paranormal. Runaway brains. That's bad, yeah?
So you see, there's a pattern, because the guys in the hearse, mixed with sleepy science and brain-switching... uh, I give up, there's no pattern, but it's still the most excited I've been over a Mickey Mouse-cartoon since I was about 10. And I always preferred Donald Duck anyway. But you should see it, okay?

Sunday? But it can't be, it's too gruesome

2006-10-29T19:52:00.000+01:00

I don't know how you feel, but I never was able to get The Bangles when they sang Manic Monday. Sure, Mondays are rather tedious, but "I wish it was Sunday, that's my fun day"? Hardly. If you ask me, Sundays are the worst kind of days there are. I always find myself being mopey, sleeping so long that I get a headache and then just hanging around the flat, boring the crap out of myself, on Sunday and today is no exception. Sigh sigh sigh.
Anyway... last week, my mother and sister came over to visit and it was quite nice. One day, we were out walking and I took this picture of a stencil on one of those metal plates that are used to cover holes in the street - nice, no?