Archive for May, 2007

I hate all your moron freecyclers who request a whole bunch of crap and then at the last minute tell me you’re not coming, after I’ve turned away a billion other people who were interested, and now I don’t have any time to be around for someone else to pick it up until Saturday and you can just stuff it! ARRRRRGH!!!!!!

I’m not moving the site to .mac, I’m keeping it at alteredsky.net…. 
I decided to move to a paid webhost with my cool domain, and use .mac just for iDisk and syncing stuff. I’ll post this on both sites in case anyone is subscribed or whatever, but in the future, I won’t be updating the .mac one. So move your bookmarks again. Yeah, I know, you just moved them, right? I’m a horrible person. 
I also acquired another domain, but there’s nothing cool there yet. More on that later.

Look at the chart accompanying this article, and ask yourself, “where is Lorrymoving?” Maybe this will help people answer theoft-posed (to me, anyway) question of “what’sdifferent in Denmark?”

OK, so that’s only part of the answer. Actually, the biggest adjustment seems to be something that only other people who have moved great distances can identify with: animals. Most people don’t seem to put much thought into animals in their daily life, with the exception of pets. Popular pets in Denmark and the US aren’t too different. I’m referring to all the other animals. The birds, rodentia, insects, and other animals you encounter 1000 times a day and either don’t think about, or try to kill.

When I moved from Florida to Minnesota, there were some noteworthy differences in the animals. There are no three-inch cockroaches in Minnesota; at least, none have crossed my path while being here. But there are wild rabbits. In Florida, I’d only seen rabbits as pets. Now take that move and multiply it by 10.  They have squirrels in Denmark, but they’re red squirrels with ear tufts. All the birds sing differently. All the insects are different. It’s almost like a parallel universe. Not that it’s a problem, or that I have to change my lifestyle, but it’s just weird. It’s hard to get used to.

Let’s see, what else is different? Shops aren’t open 24 hours, and tend to be closed altogether on Sundays, as well as having short hours on Saturday.  Cars are smaller, and gas is a lot more expensive.  Public transportation is useful and convenient.  Spanking your children is illegal. Abortion is not hotly debated by religious crazies, and is free during the first trimester. Adoption of Danish children is also free. Gay civil unions are legal, and no one marches in the streets against it. The political excitement all seems to revolve around immigration and foreign people, or how much we should hate the Danish People’s Party and Morten Messerschmidt. Declawing one’s cat is illegal, as it is in most civilized countries. New Year’s Eve is a ridiculously huge deal in Denmark, and at Christmas, it’s customary to get drunk on snaps and dance around the tree while singing until it’s impossible to dance and sing any faster, at which time you collapse into a large, laughing pile of the rest of your family. Most Danes don’t celebrate Halloween, but they do celebrate Fastelavn, which appears to be basically the same thing but at a completely different time of year, and involving a piñata-like barrel-hitting game. Though there is no separation of church and state, Danes don’t seem to give a crap about religion except that it provides a number of excuses to not go to work throughout the year. The church has to approve the names Danes give their children, so that no one is named Candy Cane or Windsor Castle. It’s also free to get married at the rådhus as long as one party is Danish. They even give you free wine (white or red, your choice). Also, contrary to popular belief, Danes do not speak Dutch or Swedish, but their very own language, conveniently called Danish.

Otherwise, Denmark is pretty much like the US.

Not even a week after my stroller rant, Gizmodo posts a picture that summarizes how I feel about people who use strollers. Convenience trumps safety and common sense.

I’ve decided to try out NewsFire for RSS instead of Opera. No real reason except that I own it, so why not. I’ve been happy with Opera as an RSS reader. NewsFire is very different. I’m not sure what I think yet. I’ve grown accustomed to thinking of RSS like email, so when I didn’t see a way to delete boring feeds in NewsFire, I got a little confused. We’ll see.

I got my new social security card last week, and I just received my new passport. I really have a new, married name now!
I tried to get a new credit card too, but it came bearing the name “Sach-Pedersen” so I had to call and try again. Oh well.

I hate strollers. I hate that people push their kids around without even looking at where they’re going. I almost get run over by stupid people pushing strollers, and I bet if they DID hit me, they’d act like I was trying to hurt their kid instead of admitting they’re recklessly pushing their supposedly precious cargo with wild abandon. I hate that parents outfit strollers with cup holders and baskets, so that they’re more about convenient storage than about getting around with your offspring. I hate that no matter how many signs on the bus say to fold up your stroller, no one does, and then the parents act like their entitled to the same special treatment as a disabled person. I hate all the parents pushing a stroller back and forth hoping it would shut up the baby they can’t even see because they’re too busy yapping on their cell phones or conducting business transactions. I hate strollers. 

I had a customer today wearing his baby in a BabyBjörn. He was aware of what his kid was doing, and responsive to it, and still able to conduct himself as a normal adult the whole time. Why is this such a novel concept? I don’t hate BabyBjörns.

Comments from old blog

• Baby Björn rules! I used to Jess in mine while vacuuming…Don’t forget to put that on your wish list!
  Andrea (in NH) | 2008-01-29 12:17
• I sooooo feel you here. I’m not alone!!
  bookladyjenn | 2008-02-25 17:41
• sheesh Lorry. I’m sure there are some rude stroller pushers but being on the other side, there are a LOT of people that do not look where they are going, run into you, and then blame your stroller. 

  what are you supposed to do? yea, bjorns are great but when you run errands and have a purse, diaper bag, groceries, etc, it doesn’t work. OR you have more than one baby?? when I had baby and toddler, I needed stroller.

  why not a little courtesy and not letting doors shut in my face? we dont’ have public transport here, so that’s not an issue.

  why begrudge someone their coffee or water???

  BTW-miss you on the boards
  Cristine | 2008-06-21 19:31

• Followed your link from MWL Lorry – hope you don’t mind me chipping in.
  I do hate Baby Bjorns!
  Baby wearing ROCKS but don’t get a Bjorn. There are so many alternatives that are better for your baby and better for your back. Look at ring slings, wraps, mei teis and so on. They are better and will last you much longer, honestly!
  Fiona 
  (First time I’ve ever commented on anybody’s blog btw!)
  Fiona | 2008-08-17 18:53
• Welcome to the wonderful world of blog commenting. I’m not planning to get a Björn, but I don’t hate them. Mom is making me a few wraps for free. ^_^
  Lorry | 2008-08-17 19:10
• I hate Bjorns not because I think they are inherently evil or anything. But I don’t think they are very well designed, and they’ve put more people I know off baby wearing than just about anything else I can think of. So many times I’ve suggested a sling to someone and got the reply “Yeah, I already tried that but it crippled my back/my baby hated it.” Almost ineviatably the “it” in question turns out to have been a Bjorn or something similar. I suppose there must be people out there who get on with them, but pretty much every mum I know has a rejected one gathering dust in a drawer somewhere!
  My MIL tried to give me one when I had DS2, telling me that it would be “better than that primitive thing you have” lol!!
  Enjoy your wraps.
  Fiona | 2008-08-18 20:14 

I just made a major update to my sale page. Please check it out and look for things to buy or take for free! I’m leaving in about a month so I need it to go quickly. Thank you!

So, I realize that I’m not yet in Europe, and that Eurovision was never really intended for my audience, but why do they have to hate on Mac users? I had some hope when I saw that, even though they’re using some weird plug-in I’ve never heard of for the live streaming, there are instructions for Mac and Linux users. I’m even willing to admit that it may be VLC’s issue that I couldn’t get the video to work and was stuck with audio only for the semi-finals. But the hating on is there.
 
They have an album of all the entries, as well as individual songs, available for purchase and download on the Eurovision site, but in addition to theconstant warning that I should be using a browserthat is wholly non-existant on my platform (and suckstotal monkey nuts on Windows anyway), the DRM theyuse is “incompatible with Apple products.”
 
But they apologize for any inconvenience this “may” cause me.
 
I could probably get some stats on which European countries have the most Mac users, and show how thelow-Mac countries are moving on into the finals, andthough it would probably be true, I’m not that muchof a conspiracy theorist. Yet.

I’m moving my website to .Mac andusing RapidWeaver instead of our home-grown blogging
solution. I am not importing all the old blogentries. Hope you don’t mind.

edited 29 May!