Tonight on the way home, I saw...

A drunk guy in a track suit trying to run on the running path and only managing a half stumble.

An Arabic man who I think might have Turret's Syndrome who yelled at me that I was a whore and he spits on me and some other not very nice stuff.

Apparently cycling by in jeans, hiking boots, a leather coat, scarf, mittens and hat is the height of sultry temptation these days. I feel so naughty.

Denmark can sometimes be a very odd place.

Print your own fabric

How cool is that?

http://www.spoonflower.com/welcome

interesting use of youtube video

Video almost as website with interlinking stories. Cool stuff.

Coolness

Some very cool paper cutting work done in England.

In other news, yeah, I know. Not many posts lately. Been at work 24/7 and haven't had much time to play. That is, however, about to change so expect some real posts soon.

Proving you are never too old for sport

totally sick

Adam Kimmel presents: Claremont HD from adam kimmel on Vimeo.

Holy crap

My bank just failed:

http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/basics/2008-09-28-wamu-jpmorgan-chase_N.htm

It's weird living in Europe - you get kind of out of touch. I also thought that I could hide out in happy Copenhagen, untouched by the recession. Looks like I was wrong.

second shooting in Norrebro

http://politiken.dk/newsinenglish/article567508.ece

This is literally a couple blocks from my house. The mean streets of Copenhagen indeed.

Interestingly enough, the first one was a drive-by on a scooter. Yeah, you heard right. Drive-by on scooter. Hard to take that one seriously.

A trip to the Viking market

Last weekend we went to the Viking market.

There were singing vikings.


And angry vikings.


There were mini vikings.


And victorious vikings.


There was a spice merchant.


And somewhere a company that was missing its entire IT department.

It's true - everything is better with more cowbell.

OK, for some reason the picture doesn't want to be a link today, so go here if you are curious:

http://www.morecowbell.dj/

Early senility and a motorcycle trip to Sweden

So I spent a long weekend touring the Swedish coast on the back of Brian's Aprilla (Italian sport bike). Picture lots of rolling fields, amazing sea views, a glass of port in the library of a castle, pine forests... It was as lovely as it probably sounds except for two small problems: 

1.) I spaced packing my camera and the scenery truly was amazing, so I was kicking myself all weekend - although we did take some bad camera phone pics that I will try to post at some point. 

2.) Italian racing bikes have no place for baggage, meaning our entire long weekend's worth of clothes and gear ended up on the back of yours truly. (I am really going to be hating myself for buying 10 bottles of hair products tomorrow.)

In other news, I really like Sweden. It's got forest, it's got coast, it's super pretty and the people don't suck. Plus, on the coast, you can actually buy seafood. Good seafood. From real fishermen. (Take that, Fyn.) And everyone has cool singsong accents, so it actually sounds like you are in another country. (Unlike Denmark where everyone just sounds like they are from the States.) Although the Swedish chef accent that most Americans remember from childhood actually sounds more like Norwegians, who definitely win hands down in the cool Scandinavian accent contest. 

Even more surprising, after a year in Scandinavia, Nordic food is growing on me. I sometimes kind of like pickled herring, and I absolutely love smoked eel. Don't get me wrong. The choice between French and either Swedish or Danish food will never be much of a contest. And our really nice little hotel had something they labeled caviar that tasted something like bile favored with honey that almost made a bulimic out of me. However, for the most part, Danish and Swedish food doesn't make me run screaming in abject terror anymore. And I think that is progress.

All great things come to an end

Goodbye 

Today is my last day at Hello. Well, actually last Friday was my last day, but I've been finishing up some projects this week so I've been back in the office quite a bit. I know a lot of people come across this blog who are looking for a job at Hello, so let me just say that my leaving has nothing to do with the agency. It's a great agency, and it was really hard to leave. I was just ready to do something else.

In any case, have spent the last few weeks tying up loose ends, so not had a chance to check in. One good consequence of my leaving is that this blog can go back into stealth mode. It got a bit sanitized once I realized clients were checking it - it's hard not to self-edit when that happens.

I think I will keep my new workplace to myself for that reason for a while. Suffice it to say, few writers are lucky enough to work on a client they are truly passionate about. Now, I am one of them.

A-kayaking we did go

I've been wanting to get into longer kayaking trips for a while. I think sea kayaking gets kind of a bad rap, but like most things, you can do it easy, or you can do it intensely. A couple years ago, I went to Belize for about 5 days kayaking island-to-island off the coast. While fun, I realized I was definitely ready for a bigger challenge.

I found it in Greece. Nine days of 4-6 hours of intense kayaking a day through ridiculously beautiful scenery. Amazing.

I lucked out in a kayak partner as well. One of the guys from work is also very into kayaking and came along for the ride. I found a company that rented us all the equipment we needed so all we had to bring was a sleeping bag. They also gave us printed maps to work with, and we were off.

To be honest, I've always prided myself on my athletic ability - particularly when it comes to water sports. However, this trip definitely taught me some humility. While I've sea kayaked with guys before, they were never as good as me technically and usually not in as good of shape. Søren was the first time I'd sea kayaked with someone who was as good technically (if not better) and better than me athletically.

As we were on our own, we had the freedom to set our own pace. For us, this meant all out. We beat the estimated times by about 2 hours a day, and he was barely breaking a sweat. To some people, this would probably be a total nightmare. For me, it was heaven. We got to visit almost every island in the Greek isles, saw a lot of things most people don't get to see and actually ended up in better shape after our vacation than we were when starting it.

If you're me, it doesn't get any better than that.

Doing the Roskilde thing (delayed post)

Oh dear. It has been a while, and a whole lot has happened.

Hello Roskilde:

What can I say? Four days of mayhem. I've posted the pics to my facebook account, so I won't bother to repost them here. We were spoiled with VIP status (thanks to Hello), so we had showers and could escape to the press area when the general scene got to be too much. Our protected campsite meant that I did not experience anyone peeing on my tent - which is apparently a common occurrence in the regular camping. Plus, it meant that none of us got too smelly, which is always good.

Didn't drink as much as I feared - afraid my system doesn't really do the hardcore partying thing anymore, but saw some amazing bands. Cocorosie was my personal favorite.

Also, one final note about peeing - I have never seen so many people peeing in public in one place. I am serious. Women squatting down barely on the edge or sometimes even in the middle of the crowd, men against every wall and every tree. Have to admit I was super thankful that it didn't rain like last year, which made it easy to avoid all the wet spots.

Diesel ran this human car wash, where dirty people could get hosed down by hot women in bikinis. (As showers were few and far between in general camping - it's a pretty good draw). I thought that was an interesting bit of marketing. They even had a window where you could watch as it happened. As you can see, this was often as crowded as the wash itself.

All work and all play means no blogging

I had intended to post some shots of Roskilde, but then got sidetracked by going away parties and drinks and the family in town, and it all went downhill from there. The days have been a blur of good wine and even better food. In a few days, I leave for two weeks kayaking in Greece.

It's a tough existence, mine.

Updates, photos and various other things when I return in August.

And a cheer went up from all Americans living abroad

There are a few things you'll hear time and again while living abroad. Our president is evil, our foreign policy sucks and Americans are first in fleshiness.

Well, our president is still evil and our foreign policy may still suck, but in a move that will warm the cockles of every expat heart, the U.S. just went down a point in the fattest nation in the world contest. Or Australia went up. No matter.

Now when someone says to you in a bar that Americans are all fat, you can reply, whatever, Australians are worse.

Proof that you don't need to be original to win a gold at Cannes

Some of you will remember Brian Dettmer's book autopsies from an earlier post. Looks like FHM channeled his work for their Cannes winning campaign. I hope they had the decency to throw him some cash for it.

Hello brings you a poker tournament - a story told in pictures

So I've heard over the past few months that quite a few people who come across this blog do so because they want to learn more about Hello (the agency where I work). Last Friday was the Hello poker tournament, which seems a perfect way to introduce the curious to the odd universe that is Hello.


When we do things, we don't really go for half measures. So for this poker night, we brought in professional dealers and regulation tables. To kick us off, Event Poker talked us through the rules of Texas Hold 'Em.




There were prizes.


And suspense.



And, of course, the key ingredient for any successful Hello night.


There was laughter.


And tattoos.


And did I mention?


There were winners.


And those that were not so fortunate.


In the end, it all came down to one table.


One by one they went down.


And then there were two.


The pressure was on.


But in the end, there can be only one.


Guess who that was?

(You'll notice I didn't choose to post about Hello Race Day a few weeks ago where I came in 24th out of 28. Hey, it's my blog. I'll sugar-coat if I feel like it.)

ah, the golden days of advertising

When you could dress a guy up in a ridiculous costume, have him shout some inane catch-phrase and call it a day.

OK, I admit it. I am developing a serious kool-aid fetish. This was getting passed around the agency this morning, and I felt I had to share.

Jutland street fashion?

One of the things I love abut Copenhagen is the street fashion. Most people seem pretty put together here. However it seems that this keen sense of style has yet to penetrate to the rest of the country.

file under "yep, that's my country"

"Clinton is not seeking the vice presidency, and no one speaks for her but her,'' spokesman Howard Wolfson said...

the most honest country in the world

So about a month ago, I got a new camera from my family as a delayed birthday present. (The one is used to take the pictures in the last post.) Today, my roommate was biking into work with it when it dropped out of his pocket. In the case was also my Danish bank card.

After a small heart attack, I headed over to the bank to order a new card. This was all of an hour after he told me. So there I am, sitting in the chair, waiting for a teller when my phone rings. It's my branch of Danske bank. Turns out, someone put my new camera with the bank card through the overnight slot. Camera, card, everything.

Needless to say, if this had happened in the States, that camera would have been long gone. It's days like these that make me really love this country.

So whoever you are anonymous camera returner, thanks for making my day.

a couple random pictures

These didn't really fit into the post below, but they seem worth sharing.

Fyn, Jutland and the start of Danish classes. Oh what a few weeks it's been.

Summer has come and life has gotten busy. You know how it goes. Over the recent months I have visited the Danish island of Fyn, went to a 40th birthday party in Jutland where almost no one spoke English, tromped around ruins, trespassed in an abandoned factory and managed to not get thrown off the back of an Italian racing bike. Not to mention the start of Danish classes, the typical summer Friday bars and other agency booze-ups and the general time demands of a career in advertising.

In short, I've been a tad busy.


Things I have noticed in this time:

The Danes do not seem to have any clams. Mussels, yes. Lobster, yes. Clams, no.
(Of course, this means that I have been having clam cravings something fierce.)

The closer you get to the sea in Denmark, the less seafood you seem to be able to order.

No matter how insistent people are about speaking Danish to you and how intensely you try to listen, you are not going to understand them.

You are never too old to get a chuckle out of a sign that says "fart kontrol"

French ice cream is way better than Danish ice cream.

Sweet advertising idea

love the way this was shot

Home again, home again. Jiggety Jig.

So it only took me 48 hours to get back to Denmark and another airline on my sh*tlist. American, you charged me extra to strand me in New York overnight on the way back and didn't even pick up the hotel.

I'd go into more detail, but it's a beautiful day, and I can't be bothered devoting more blog space to them. Suffice it to say, second worst airline experience ever. (The first was American as well. Much despised baggage-losing SAS only rates a distant third, to give you some idea.)

In brighter news, it's a seriously glorious day here in lovely Copenhagen. The sun is shining, the birds are singing and tonight is Friday bar at the agency. If it stays like this, I may never leave Copenhagen again.

As I hate being too negative about anything, here is a list of airlines that have always been a pleasure to fly on:

British Airways
United
Air France
Lufthansa

Live from a New York hotel room

Jet lag has a texture. It's soft and fuzzy and remote as a spring peach in the dead of winter. But jet lag or not, it's good to be home. I didn't fully appreciate how homesick I've been lately until I saw the skyscrapers out the cab window. I can't ever seem to stay put here, but I do miss it like heck when I am gone. Crazy mad beautiful home.

I'd say more, but sleep is calling.

Pig urine plastic utensils

Another to file under "those crazy Danes":

http://gizmodo.com/382734/pig-urine-plasticware-could-add-some-flavor-to-your-meals-cigarettes

When Wednesday feels like a Monday

OK, at some point I will have some time to tell you about the fabulously life I am leading here in lovely Copenhagen. Until then...

what many Europeans think of when they think of Americans

music for a Thursday

The Chinatown that really isn't

I have something of a fetish for cooking with odd ingredients. One of the side effects of this is a fascination with ethnic markets of any stripe, but I have a particular soft spot for Asian food stores. While I've found a few small Asian markets scattered around the city, I'd yet to find some of the more unusual foods that I'd been able to easily source elsewhere. Sunday I decided to do something about this. I'd been hearing rumors of a Copenhagen Chinatown somewhere near the train station, but had yet to come across anything like this in the few times I'd been there.

On a beautiful sunny day, we pulled up behind the train station. Shouldn't be so hard to find. So we parked the bikes and walked. And walked. And walked. Hmm. How could a large Asian neighborhood just disappear? After a quick phone call to Brian, my own incredibly patient human google map, we saw our first Asian store. Then a second and third. And then... nothing. Apparently Chinatown in Copenhagen consists of exactly three small markets, one of which is named, conveniently, Chinatown.

We did see some guys playing boules in a road median and got saluted by a random drunk, plus it was a beautiful sunny day, so one could hardly complain. Although if anyone out there knows some hidden massive asian market, complete with live geoducks and turtles and weird racks of hanging meat, please let me know.

work conversation topic of the day

Masturbating stoned koalas.

Apparently when koalas eat eucalyptus leaves, they get high. When this happens, they like to go for a bit of self-help. The way they do this is by rubbing up against trees. So all those cute toys of koalas gripping trees? They're apparently showcasing drugged up creatures in the middle of giving themselves a little happy ending.

from the mean streets of Norway

the verdict?

I woke up this morning with a slight hangover, but otherwise feeling quite good.

Psychological?

OK, probably, but I'll take it. :)

Crazy Danish flu remedy: 1
Flu: 0

on entering the arena of the unwell and interesting Danish flu remedies

Most people have the good sense to get sick when it's cold and miserable out. Not me. Today I biked home from work feeling flu-ridden through a picture-perfect sunny day. The birds are chirping, the sun is shining, and all I want to do is close the curtains on the world, curl up in bed and sleep until tomorrow morning.

The flu has been going around for a while here. Not sure if that's what I have, but to steal another Bruce Robinson quote, I feel strange and unusual. (The savvy will recognize the title of this post as well as the second quote from one of my all-time favorite movies - Withnail & I)

Interestingly enough, our CEO stopped by my desk before sending me home with flu remedy in hand - one bottle of wine, one bottle of rum, some lemon and an orange. Apparently you get the wine close to boiling, add in the rum, squeeze in some orange juice and add as much lemon as you can stand. He swears by this. Well, it can't really hurt, can it? (I know I mention this a lot, but I really do work with some of the best people on the planet.)


Remedy results tomorrow.

brilliant

We've been spending a lot of time lately talking about the old kool-aid commercials at work. This is the best description of them ever.

this is becoming a habit

So rather a lot has happened in recent weeks. Went skiing in Norway with my agency. We had a massive cabin up at Trysil. Fires were built, food made, songs sung, toasts drank and a whole lot of laughing and joking around. The snow was perfect, the weather was amazing and the company, as always, ideal. We really do have some of the nicest, most fun and generally coolest people I've met in the industry. And no one throws a better party than we do. There are blackmail pics about somewhere of me playing singstar. I can only hope they stay buried forever.

In other news, I got back into a flurry of work. Hence the lack of updates. It's now Easter here in Copenhagen and everything is shut (as usual). My camera is out of battery, so no pics for a while.

More as soon as I get my brain back.

sigh

Sadly, I've had to turn on comment moderation as I've been getting some comment spam. Although if anyone needs any "party tools" from some dodgy place in Delhi, I can now tell you where to go.

the riot party that wasn't

Last Saturday was the year anniversary of the storming of the anarchist house. We were warned that there were going to be major riots, complete with molotov cocktails, ripping up pavements and burning cars everywhere.

As these usually end up happening outside the window of my apartment, and, as I was moving the next day, we decided to do what any self-respecting people would do in a similar situation. Throw a riot watching party, of course.

T-shirts and logos were designed. Signature drinks created and food laid in against a possible forced overnighter. With the theme being rum riot and Ben, my art director partner, chipping in a top-of-the-line rum left over from his stint at an agency in Puerto Rico, we were as prepared as we could be.

Dinner was lovely, the variation on mojitos were tasty and the company was excellent. In the end, there was only one catch. No riots. Not even the normal Saturday night drunks randomly singing in the street. (My guess was this was due the particularly nasty gale-force winds that night.)

In fact, the closest thing to a ruckus was when a few of the guys took a bunch of broken up door frames left for the rubbish collectors and broke them up to feed the fireplace. The one time I was actually looking forward to the anarchists coming through and they completely failed to show. Ah well.

In other news, I have now moved into the new place. Sadly, everything I own is still haphazardly strewn about due to a rather crazy work schedule last week, but I've already gotten used to the blissful quiet. No demonstrators or drunks here on the unfashionable side of Norrebro.

I'm off to Norway skiing this weekend. L.A. already seems a lifetime ago. So many missed stories, but work has been hogging all my words lately and there's been precious little time for much else. Hopefully that is changing now, and I'll be able to resume my aimless rambling for those of you that actually enjoy that sort of thing.

Sunning in L.A., getting rescued by the bomb squad in Vegas and sex shops in the airport

Ah yes, another trip to the homeland. But I don't have time to write anything about any of that at the moment. So here's a random video instead.

when guerilla marketing goes wrong

So I've got this great idea that will help us afford new uniforms...



The article about it on creative match is even funnier.

Hello brings you a party, breakfast with the Americans and not watching the superbowl

Yeah, it's been another lovely weekend. (OK, I'm a little behind.) Friday night was the Hello party. Grand total: 2 police visits, 80 bottles of hard liquor consumed and rivers of beer, standing room only with many, many drunken people, surprisingly no scandals and a good time had by all.

Honestly, It was absolutely lovely. Met some new amazing people, got to hang out with people I don't normally and fell in love with my agency all over again.

Saturday I pretty much chilled - watched some movies, detoxed. Sunday I went to an expat brunch. I'm usually not a big fan of traveling to another country and hanging out primarily with your own countrymen, but here sometimes it is absolutely necessary.

Denmark has a few things that drive pretty much every American I know (and many English) completely bonkers, and if you don't get it out by talking to another American, you find yourself ranting to some poor bewildered Dane about the lack of a return policy or the non-existent customer service, and no one wants that.

music for a Thursday

Ravens and Chimes

Brooklyn band. Kind of reminds me of Conor Oberst. Good stuff.

January

Archways

This is where we are

found on Battle of the Midwestern Housewives

I know, I know. I'll get back to posting real entries soon.

stuck in my head all day

And I can't seem to find a video that isn't a complete bandwith hog and stutters unmercifully. That also is about how my day has gone.

hmm

All work and no play means no posts.

file under gross but fascinating

OK, if this was with cute bunny rabbits, it would be cruel and horrifying. However, I hate bugs. Particularly spiders.

In this instance, I am ok with my own hypocrisy.

I've got a bright idea

I think I am going to leave the frozen tundra that is Chicago.

Where oh where shall I go?

Tahiti? The south of France? Mallorca, perhaps?

No, I think I will move to the tropical climate of Denmark. Yeah, that's it. That's a brilliant idea.

New Year's? It was amazing. The Danes are seriously unsane when it comes to flammable or ignitable materials. Every single person in the entire country outside lighting off fireworks as big as their houses with a blatant disregard for safety, sanity or the basic laws of gravity.

In fact, they are so addicted to them that they make special ones that you light at the dinner table, which hurl hard projectiles like whistles and noisemakers at unsuspecting guests while spewing metallic confetti into every nearby food dish and beverage glass. For some reason, Danish people find this highly amusing.

After enough drinks, you kind of have to agree with them.