nickchanger's blog - Archive: February 2010

It has been quite a week. I were supposed to just go home to my parents for a family party, but ended up staying for a whole week and doing a lot more.
I were also supposed to do a lot of writing on our school project but I only used a few hours on that.
Instead I did the following:

Friday:
Went to school.
Drove home to my parents with my uncle.
Went to Ste and AC's engagement party. Ste announced that I would probably become his best man. The wedding is set around summer next year!
Got a little drunk and got "hit on" (if you can call it that) by some crazy chick.
Came home around 4-5 at night.

Saturday:
Visited the grave of my grandparents around 12 with my family.
Went home and attended the family party with 25 of my uncles and cousins, their wives and children, etc. ... and lots of food!
Done around 11 at night.

Sunday:
Ate left-overs from the party (to much).
Went to Ste and played Risk (the board game!). I won a couple of times, even though it were my first time ever! :P
Went home around 3 at night.

Monday:
Went to my brothers and played League of Legends most of the evening.
Went home around 2 at night.

Tuesday:
Visited my sister at her friends parents house.
Played a board game, ate cake and watched Up. Nice film.
Got home around 10 at night.

Wednesday:
Picked up my bro and A.
Crashed my parents car.
Went to a gaming/drinking party at Ste.
Got "hit" even more on, including getting licked several times in the face, by the same crazy chick.
Got home around 6 in the morning.

Thursday:
Woke up already at around 10 (after only around 3 hours of sleep :/ ).
Did nothing the whole day.

Friday:
Played games with my parents and brother.
Went to Ste and played poker and Munchkin.
Got home around 4 at night.

Saturday:
Went to a drinking party at Jar.
Moved on to the bowling alley for two hours of night bowling.
Got home around 2 at night.

Sunday:
Drove home to Aalborg with my uncle during the morning.
Wrote this.

I know exactly what day you find the most interesting and want to know more about! It's Tuesday, right, where I did nothing at all? Yeah, I really did not do anything. Saw a couple of old Danish films, watched some Olympic stuff, fell a sleep, ate dinner, watched a third old Danish film and fell a sleep again. Now do not come and say I do not share everything with the web :P .

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Today, the 14th of February, has its name from an almost completely unknown person who is believed to have lived during the third century. During the 18th century some fake stories came up using Saint Valentine as the patron for lovers and Valentine's Day where born. Today it is mostly "celebrated" in America but flower shops, greeting card companies and restaurants are doing all they can to introduce this tradition in Europe too ... for obvious reasons (no not love dumb ass :P ).

Now for the news. I got three, two of which coincidently involves love. Let's start with the third...

As expected Steam had a sale on Trine (75% off), so I bought it and completed it this morning. It is not very long but it is damn cool, with only a few extremely annoying puzzles ;) . J0k3 have asked if people could beat his finishing score, and I tried too. But of course I could not do it, but I was not that far behind IMO :P .

Now for the first "love" subject. Two days ago my good childhood friend Ste finally proposed to his girlfriend through the last 2½ years, AC, and she said yes! Congratulations to both of you!

Second "love" subject. Today Angels and Airwaves (AVA) released their third album called... LOVE. (far fetched but still :P ). Tom DeLonge (Blink-182, Box Car Racer and AVA) have expressed that this album is the best thing he have ever done. That is aiming quite high as almost all of Blink and the two first AVA albums are just awesome. LOVE where released as a download for free and through wikipedia I found a way to download it yesterday (through something called fuel.tv). Maybe I had expected more because of Tom's statement or I have just been to excited about it cause I were just a bit disappointed when I heard it. However, I do believe that the songs just have to grow on me and eventually I will probably love them as much as the previous AVA songs. The album is still quite good and I can only recommend it to basically everyone. Now I am just waiting for the release of their movie, also called LOVE, that is "coming soon".

*UPDATE*
As expected the songs just had to grow on me. Check out a screenshot from my WinAmp media library showing my ratings and a possibly scary play count? (done within around 48 hours)

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I know the title for this blog entry is the literal translation of the title for one of the best Danish films ever made, but it is about something completely different: Bicycle lights (or headlamps).

First my background: I have used my bike to get around to football practice and other stuff since second grade or something like that. Later I would use it both for school, Billiards and Volleyball practice - all of which would sometimes require me to ride in the dark. That required some sort of artificial light source. The first I had where the big headlamps from Basta (asfaik a danish company manufacturing all kinds of accessories for the bike). They were huge - used two C batteries and a small light bulb. Even though the batteries were big they would become dry quite fast. Once I were even stopped by a policeman in front of my school for driving without lights because it had run dry during my trip (I use that as a proof that I had a long way to school :P). Now I have some much smaller headlamps which uses LED instead of a normal light bulb.

Now some definitions: There are two headlamps on a bike, one in the front (white) and one at the back (red).

The primary purpose of the front headlamps is to light up the area in front of you so you can see the road and avoid holes, dogs and whatever. The secondary purpose is to alert incoming traffic of your existence, thereby allowing them to switch to the low beam instead of the high beam. This however is in general only annoying and not vital.

The primary (and only) purpose of the back light is to alert traffic behind you of your existence so they can avoid you. Quite important IMO.

Back to the LED headlamps. Today these headlamps are quite fancy. They usually comes with a small chip that can make the light flash on several different ways. My headlamps switch between: All on, steady flash, fast flash, and rolling flash. This goes for both front and back headlamps.

So why is this possible? Some say that a flashing light is more noticeable than a steady one, thereby making it safer to use the bike. I believe the developers thought "because we can", as I do not see any point in it at all.

When I drive a car I find it easier to determine the distance to a light if it is steady. A flashing bicycle light is just annoying. Of course, flashing lights are used to make air plane pilots aware of high masts so there might be something about it. But then again that only explains the back light...

The front light is for you to see what the fork is going on, and not for someone else. Have you ever been in a discotheque when they turned on the strobe light - it is a cool effect but not good when you try to move from one point to another (which is basically the only thing I do in such a place - going from the chair to the toilet and back).

Most of the bicycle riders I meet when I am taking a walk in the dark uses flashing lights, and at least half of them also have a flashing front lights... and here is my point: That is just stupid!

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