The Engineered Boulderer

Having given up the iPhone again (it wasn’t mine to start with), I really miss the iPod functionality off it. Of course that can mean only one thing, I really hope I get an iPod touch (16 or 32 GB of course, have to have room for all my music) for my birthday.

Reading my comics today sluggy freelance had a filler comic by Erica Henderson. Browsing around on her blog I noticed she had taken several nerd tests. Of course I couldn’t help taking them also.

As much as I love Le Tour this year has become a farce more than anything else. Top rider Vinokourov was tested positive for blood doping. The so-called A test showed that he had received a transfusion from a compatible donor before the individual time trial last week.

The Astana team wisely suspended Vino and withdrew from Le Tour.

Then a Cofidis rider was found to have used artificial testoteron, the same type of doping Floyd Landis used last year. Again, Cofidis suspended the rider and withdrew from Le Tour.

However, the farce began last night when it was revealed that Rabobank fired Michael Rasmussen and withdrew him from Le Tour. Rasmussen was the rider in the Yellow Jersey leading the race with over 3 minutes down to Alberto Contador.

I am an avid viewer of the most fabulous TV show Top Gear. I am also familiar with the American Born Again Christians, and that almost half the population voted for George W. Bush. However, my first hand experiences with America have been quite liberal areas like New England and California, so I was left completely speechless when I saw Top Gear Sunday night.

Let me count the ways I hate being sick. On second thought, let me not, it would take too long.

I recently got a cold, as always it’s uncertain who gave it to me. I mean, colds have been making their rounds both at work and in my family. In any case I started feeling a bit under the weather at the end of last week, and Sunday I felt like my whole head was full of mucus.

I stayed home from work Monday, and slept all day. Tuesday I had a teleconference at 5 pm, so I went to work. Big mistake… I could barely sit straight in my chair. Fortunately, I made it through the meeting, and they were overjoyed at my presentation.

Needless to say I stayed home again today.

Hopefully I’ll feel better tomorrow. I am tired of all my muscles aching, of my eyes itching, of my nose running, and of my head feeling like it’s too small for its contents.

The Eurovision Song Contest is a fine European tradition in which countries from all over Europe send a performer, usually selected by a popular vote, to sing (and dance). The country that wins gets to host the contest next year.

Since the inclusion of the former Eastern Bloc (and the former Yugoslav countries) into the EBU, there has been dissent within the ranks of traditional Eurovision competitors, that these countries vote not on what is the best song, but based on politics and favors to friends.

Nike has just added Map It functionality to the the Nike+ website.

This functionality allows you to draw routes and assign them to your runs.

I have drawn my first route: Rundt om Jægersborg which is one of my “regular” routes. I must admit I get very bored running the same route too often (more than twice in a month), so talking about regular for me is a bit of a stretch. However, I feel this makes me qualified to rate the ease of the mapping tool since I’ll be using it a lot, and I’ve tried many tools already.

This morning I feel like Toby looks in this picture.

This isn’t per se a rant about beer, but simply a rant in which beer figures (and which is fueled by beer).

The Danish association of beer enthusiasts arrange an annual beer festival. As it happens it’s this weekend. I went with a few friends last year, and knew I had to go again this year. I’m not much of a beer drinker, but I like to experiment and try new flavours to see if there’s something I like.

After work I met up with a couple of friends at the venue, and spend an evening walking around tasting harmless and not-so-harmless beer. For example, whatever you do, do not taste skibsøl (lit. ship beer) from Refsvindinge. I’ve heard the taste described as a mixture of tar and rope, and that’s pretty accurate. It tastes pretty much like I’d imagine drinking from an ashtray would taste.

Other than that I tasted a few different ales, none that were really good, and a few white/wheat beers.

When I came home the apartment was empty, at least Susan wasn’t there, Toby was which was good. So I plonked down on the couch and turned on the TV. I stumbled onto a program on Danish dance music in the ’90s. It showed to progression of dance music in Denmark from Whigfield over Aqua to DJ Alligator. It was loads of fun to hear those songs again.

I ended up dusting off my old CDs with all kinds of different electronica/dance. It’s funny the nostalgia that can be triggered by music, even if it has no message apart from “be happy”.

On the subject of music, the Eurovision song contest is in full swing. The semifinal was yesterday, and tomorrow is the final itself. This year has some extreme entries, for one Lordi the Finnish band. Hard rock in costumes taken out of dungeons and dragons. Not to metion the Icelandic contribution. Of these, the Finnish entry made it to the final, the Icelandic did not. Both videos have made their rounds at work today. Isn’t escapism grand?

When we were in Boston we rented a car for the duration. The choice of class was pretty much mine. We both agreed that we didn’t want a compact. We had thought about a SUV, but they were all quite expensive. In the end I chose the standard class. It’s described as a sort of sporty class of car between the mid-size and full-size classes. Both on the hertz website and when I called and made my reservation they mentioned the Pontiac Grand Am (sorry, there’s no 2006 model, and therefore no link) and Chevy Malibu as examples within the class. Imagine our surprise when we got this:

It was the V6 version, but with no experience with the larger GT model, I thought it was fun and powerful enough (although I’ll never say no to more power). I must admit I don’t think I would buy one if we moved to the states, the gas milage is horrendous (maybe not compared to other US cars, but from what I’m used to) and it’s a beast, but this car has served to show me why I love muscle cars.