D A L I F . C O M - Real Life

Execuz me, Miiister. What means diz

nospam@example.com (Dalif) — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 00:39:00 +0200

You get asked all kinds of questions from all kinds of people working in the hotelling business. 90% of the questions have obvious answers that people could figure out in less time than it took them to ask it in the first place. If only they actually realized that just because you pay for a hotel room, doesn't mean you automatically have people doing ALL your thinking. 9% of the questions are the same as each other, and are what you can expect from people staying at a hotel. Tell me how to find my way to this and that, how much is your currency exchange rates and can I exchange here, is it possible, can I, would you etc. etc. It's standard, and you just set your brain on standby and let the conversation unfold by itself when these bright stars roll around.

But once in a blue moon you get that rare breed of guests. That diamond in the ro... no not really a diamond. Just.. a rock in the rough. A guest that takes you by surprise by asking a question you hadn't anticipated in a million years. Today, one such guest visited my hotel, and I just so happened to be the lucky guy she asked. The question? Steady on now, friend. Let me give you some more back story first. Do read on!

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Sorting the past

nospam@example.com (Dalif) — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 16:13:51 +0200

Back to work and normal life after a week of unabridged relaxation and gaming. Yep yep. Found out the painter, who's going to paint most of my apartment won't be able to make it here til October. At first I was a little miffed, but then I figured, what the hell. I mean, besides one or two walls where it looks a little scruffy due to shelves and stuff being taken down, everything is pretty much as it has been for years. So no skin off my nose for waiting another 6-8 weeks. Only real problem is, I don't have a lot of space to put stuff yet. Still have about 5 boxes of stuff just idling on the floor. Today, however, I decided to finish some of them off. I figured, if I could boil the contents down to like.. one or two boxes, I could stowe them in a different room, and they wouldn't take up space in my living room. So that's what I decided to do. And boy, all kinds of stuff turned up.

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Hogan?

nospam@example.com (Dalif) — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 20:07:24 +0200

With LAN over, all we had left to do was drive home, deliver our belgian friend to the authorities at the airport, then turn back the car to the rental folks. Had an interesting time renting the car, being quoted lots of different prices. We ended up on a semi-ok price, with included 700km roadtime. We were glad to find that we could make it all the way there and back again on 3/4 of a tank. Economic car for sure. But we did exceed the km amount with about 30 due to the airport run. But what the hell. It was like 2 kroner per extra anyway, and I wanted to give the foreigner a ride out there.

Anyway, having turned in the car, and no LAN to attend, Bense and I were standing outside the rental place, eyes glaring at the busy street life we had been removed from, for a full week. 'Now what', was the question that presented itself most urgently. And the reply: why the hell not just catch a movie. We're in town anyway. It's sunday and neither one of us have anything to do. It was 10:45 in the am, and most movie theaters had their matinees about to start. We went in, and after a bit decided upon Hulk. I've heard decent things about it, and while the 2004 version by Ang Lee absolutely sucked, I had confidence that not only would Edward Norton to a better job than Eric Bana, but the makers of the new one would have learned from the disaster run of the older version. Before the movie we had a good 45 minutes to kill, and since it was early, and neither one of us had had breakfast, we decided we'd grab a bite. McD is usually the only choice in town unless you wanna go to a sit down restaurant and order from a menu. So McD it was.

And then, the movie. And it didn't suck. I was well impressed with it actually. While the first movie spent a lot of time with how the hell Bruce Banner got himself into the Hulk predicament, this new movie got that whole deal over with before the beginning credits had finished rolling. At first I was a little bewildered. "Is this it for the pre-story" I found myself wondering. But when the next 5-10 minutes didn't present itself with further explanation, I figured it was. And I was pleased. Because, to be honest, it's pretty boring. Bruce Banner isn't an interesting enough character to carry a lot of movietime without Hulk backing him up. Not like Peter Parker or Bruce Wayne can anyway. But here, it did get interesting. Even though it took a fair amount of time before we got a look at the Hulk himself, the movie had a good drive and a fair amount of suspense.

I guess you could say that this movie, as opposed to the 2004 one, does require the viewer to have a certain knowledge of the story. As I mentioned, the whole prelude explaining how Bruce Banner got himself into trouble, is dealt with in images only, during credits. Granted, some more explanation can be gathered during the movie itself, from dialogue, but even so. Didn't bother me tho, and as I had expected, Edward Norton was pretty friggin good. Also, I enjoyed how they dealt with the inevitable lovescene between him and Liv Tyler (who is as stunning as ever). William Hurt lived up to his usual standard as the war mongering general, and of course... the Stark cameo in the final moment of the movie. Gives you the feeling that something big is being cooked up for us down at Marvel Studios.

All in all, I enjoyed the movie a whole lot, and I doubt I'm alone on that front. I never understood why they'd want Ang Lee to make a Hulk movie (he did the 2004). I mean, if you look at his resume, he is well out of his usual genre. For that matter, I dunno why he'd even wanna do it. I guess he wanted to try something different. He does good movies usually, so I don't doubt his abilities as a director. I'm just saying, sometimes it's best to stick with what you know. But of course, if everybody did that, where would we be. Kudos for trying, Ang. You did get bested though.

@ LAN

nospam@example.com (Dalif) — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 04:20:49 +0200

What can be more fitting for a guy at his wits end, than a week of non-stop gaming and geeking? I don't know either. So that's what I'm going. Tearing a week out of my not really busy schedule to play some Quake and some CS and some whatever other game I can get my hands on with a bunch of friends.

A friend flew in from Belgium, to drive with me and Bense. We rented a car from Hertz, and on Monday we drove the 300 odd kilometers from Copenhagen to the house of our friend. It's small time, but what the hell. We only need computers and stuff. And of course we brought our own anyway.

So, lots of soda, and frozen food, the warmth of the comps and a few hours of sleep. That's what this week is all about. It's 4:30 in the am, and my eyes are starting to fog up a bit, so I think I'll head out, but just wanted to drop a few words. Trying to keep myself at the bat with this website thing. I did enjoy writing, but just had a lot of crap going on, what with medication and doctors and psychiatrists and stuff. Oh, and work. Anyway, sleepytime, and I'll be back shortly.

Couch Sleepers

nospam@example.com (Dalif) — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 07:59:31 +0200

Right... I've just about had it. It seems to me that just about every other shift I'm working at that hotel, I find some moron sleeping on a couch in the bar or some other place. What the hell is it with me and that hotel. Are we random people magnets? Does the hotel scream: it's ok... you can sleep in a couch in here without getting disturbed, as long as you don't mind cleaning staff about you.

So this morning, it's a swedish 50 or so year old guy with plenty tattoos on hos hands and arms. The guy has even taken off his shoes for more comfort. It's about 6 in the am, and the cleaning fuckers are just loafing about. It's the second time I've experienced them not telling me when somebody's sleeping in the bar. I try to explain to them that it's important they let me know. But for some reason, they don't. Anyway, I wake him up with a shake of his leg. Not much for touching these weirdos tbh, but I gotta get him up. He's come to life, and I tell him it's go-time. He's looks a little bewildered, but acknowledges the request. My colleague tells him it's now. Not in 5 minutes. He gets up and starts putting on his shoes, while I walk towards the reception area.

I start messing around with a computer, when my colleague approaches me with the guy's credit card in hand. "Do we have any rooms.. He'd like a room", he asks me. I'm momentarily baffled. Does the guy actually have the nerve to ask for a room? I grab the card, and tell my colleague, that no, amazingly enough, we don't have any rooms for this guy. I walk over to the couch sleeper, and ask him if he understands me (seeing as I speak danish, and he speaks drunken swedish). He nods. So I tell him, either you get out of here now, or I will charge the hours you've slept on our couch, to your card. He accepts his card, and starts to walk towards the entrance. Half way there, he turns and mumbles that he's sorry. I disregard him and walk away.

So... go to a hotel and sleep on a couch for free. When you are thrown out, you ask if you can rent a room. Is it just me, or does that sound like a thief stealing a car, and when stopped by police, he says: Oh, I wanted to buy this car.. did I not mention that to the salesman? I know I was being a bit rough with this guy, but seriously. It's disrespectful to a degree where I don't understand how the hell they even think of doing it. And how do they get in? Do they have a masters degree in sneaking about? And it's all kinds of people. Had a bum sleeping in the conference rooms the other day... an elderly chap with a backpack sleeping on the couches.. two chinese girls, no more than 25-26 sleeping on a couch one night. Where do they come from? Does this happen to all hotels?

I shake my head in disbelief... it's amazing really.

Open windows

nospam@example.com (Dalif) — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 21:22:35 +0100

It's weird really.. Have had this admin section open in a tab in FF for a few days now, been meaning to write in it a few times, but just never got around to it. Now I'm just thinking what the hey... got a few odd stories I can share, I guess.

All the moving of my stuff is now completed, and I've left Ranc's place for good. Leaving the premise itself didn't bring out any tears of sadness, but I must admit some fun times have been had in that place. And of course, despite his everannoying meowing around mealtimes, catdaddy was a cool little furball, that will be missed... just a bit. But as I said, I won't miss the room that much. Afterall, I'm in my own place now, and despite the fact that things are a tad complicated around here, and too personal to be related here (not for me, but for my family), I'm sort of in limbo between feeling at home, and still sort of feeling like this is my mom's place. But I'm guessing that will be sorted within a few weeks. Most of my stuff is still in boxes on the living room floor. I'll unpack it all, when I'm all by myself, with shelves to put it all in. I've got my clothes in huge closets now, which is just a joy.

Besides living in a new place and feeling absolutely splendid about it, work is as work usually is. One bad thing tho, is, we will lose our room service privilege come April first, meaning a huge chunk of cash will be yoinked from my poor innocent hands. The hotel wants to go legit, for some reason, even tho it will cost them a fuckload of money. But that's as is, I guess. Unfortunately, this means I'll lose some income, and I'm getting the feeling I will be able to notice. Perhaps I'll have to rent out a room for some time anyway. We'll see. This also means that a person will be hired to do the cooking and room servicing at night, at the hotel. That, in turn, means somebody else will be there all night long, very likely wasting my precious alone time chatting away nineteen to the dozen about random pointless topics. I don't know what I'll do. I guess I'll have to pull out the old Mr. Arrogant Prick routine, so people will eventually think I'm an asshole, and just leave me the fuck alone. There's a good chance I'll have to make use of my alter ego to scare people off. Of course, with a bit of luck, they'll hire somebody extremely interesting and funny, so my nights will be cut out for me. But they almost never hire people of that sort. Just me. But then, I'm me... nobody else can claim that. Or... hmm... Nevermind. It'll suck, I know it. I'll type out the story of the night cleaners now, and put it in a new post.

"I need black magic"

nospam@example.com (Dalif) — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 05:12:58 +0100

Besides me and m'colleague at the hotel here at night, a night cleaning team also occupies the premises. That team consists of some 4-5 different guys, with usually 4 of them working at the same time, throughout the hotel. They vacuum and buff the lobby floor, wipe surfaces down, cleans the basement and the restaurant on the 20th floor.

Most of them speak little or no danish. Some speak a little english, some speak spanish, some speak lord knows what language. Common for them is, they loaf about at night, and are, involuntarily the cause of much amusement for me. The best is then they get into an argument over something, and both are annoyed with the other, but neither can communicate it in any language the other can understand. It takes a lot of self control to not just laugh out loud at them. But be that as it may. One of them, a chinese looking bloke, does speak danish failry decently. He's a skinny little fella, and when he's here, he cleans the restaurant kitchen and floors. Now, I'm not usually the go-to guy when it comes to small talk during shifts. And as such, the cleaning staff and I don't communicate a lot. But this guy is pretty funny. He's on about a variety of different topics, most of which I find somewhat dull. But that's just me.

So anyway, yesterday he walked through the reception back office area at 07 am, where most of the morning staff had arrived. They consisted solely of girls yesterday, and while it's not bad during the nights, the fresh scent of girl perfume does lend a certain ambience to the offices. So he's walking through, taking it all in. Especially this one girl, Carina. He smiles knowingly at me, and then disappears.

Tonight, however, he's back. Asking about the hotel room availability, claiming he'd like to sleep on the 20th floor, you know, for the view. Fair enough. Then he lurks about for a while, then asks me if I wasn't impressed with the way the office smelled yesterday. I know where this is going, but figure wtf... won't hurt. I tell him the girls usually leave a certain nice and fresh smell around. "Yeah" goes the cleaner, "especially that blond girl". Sure, her as well. "Yeah, her husband is probably happy". I tell him she's not married. He looks surprised. I dunno if he had figured all nice girls would or should be married. Now, this is where he turn the tables and gets the better of me. Apparently blatantly selfaware of his own situation, he philosophises on how she'd probably wouldn't ever go for a guy like him, smelling things up from cleaning chemicals, working the night shift. "No, I'd probably need black magic to get a girl like her" he said. It startled me a bit, and I sort of felt sorry for him. I dunno why. I mean, he seems happy enough, and I doubt he was really serious about her, but still. Working the night shift as a service manager, as I do, might not be the fanciest job in the world. But the pay is decent, and I have a responsibility and I get to wear a suit and what have we. Superficial, for sure, but it does maintain a decent facade. He's a cleaner. Now, it's as honorable job as any, if you ask me. But it's inheritingly one that people think less of. And that's sad in a way. I felt a pang of guilt for some reason, and also a bit of respect for this guy. He's doing his best, and I hope it will help him get where ever he's going in life.

Well hey

nospam@example.com (Dalif) — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 03:15:08 +0100

My god, has it been 7 days already? Well, stuff has been keeping me occupied what with moving and being sick and such. Yeah, I spent all my 5 days off from being in a varying degree of illness. Wasn't ever really sick, but not quite healthy either. Gotta love that.

But I managed to move my stuff... or most of it, with the help of mom. We took it fairly easy, and since I didn't have a lot of stuff really, at my little room, the whole deal was over with in no time at all. Only missing one box of wires, two chairs and the tv now. Will get that tomorrow after I've slept.

Different problems arose, of course, during the day of the moving, and these problems will have an effect on how fast I'll be living by myself. Technically I live in the apartment now, but my stepdad will stay there every other week as well, since he works two fulltime jobs every alternate week. But since he might have to move to a place of his own, I dunno if he'll depart the premises in a matter of weeks or, if he doesn't have to find his own place, matter of months. It's a little messy atm, but I guess it'll be ok. Just a matter of getting used to it, I suppose.

I'm settling in to my new, and so far, permanent abode now. It's good to be home, although I'll have to shake the feeling of being a visitor at mom's place. It's my place now, and I'll need to make the visitor feeling go away, and replace it with the "this is my home" feeling. It'll come around, eventually. I guess I just haven't really realized it yet. You know how you get something you've wanted for years, and then when you have it, the feeling you've imagined in your head for so long doesn't magically appear until after a few weeks. I think that's how I feel now. In the not too distant future, I'll start realizing it's my new home, and I'll start feeling it more. Also, most of the interior isn't mine. I'll customize the place forthwith. But I'm happy with a fully furnished apartment, as I can't afford all new stuff in one go. But it'll be nice to fix that in the coming years.

It's a roomy place, and I like having elbowroom around me. Been living in small quarters for ages now, and I'm enjoying the space. High ceilings, large rooms. And a view. Also, I can open windows now, without people being able to just climb in. And I don't HAVE to have the curtains drawn. This is the second floor. Many things are improved from where I lived before. I'll be alone, which is good and bad. But it'll be ok. I'll be just dandy.

I'm at work now, and it's boring as hell. Haven't managed to install much on this new laptop yet. I did get WinXP on there, and while it's nice to have something I'm familiar with, I do occassionally get the feeling that this box'd rather have vista installed. But I don't care. I'm off for the weekend, and I'll try to get stuff installed properly on here. 3Dsmax and photoshop and such. I'm liking the keyboard tho, which is nice. It's got some decent keys. Ok, right.. best be off. I'll catch you lot on the flippy side.

Complete switcharoo

nospam@example.com (Dalif) — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 11:02:46 +0100

Well, I'm glad I didn't make aforementioned call. I had me some cups of tea at the hotel. Tried 5 different flavors (the vanilla one was my least favorite), and that, combined with a good meal, turned my situation upside down. I stopped feeling like cack, and started being in a better mood. By the time I left, I was feeling possitively spry. Also, I managed to make quite a bit of dough during the night, and who'd want to give up on that? I know I wouldn't.

Now I'm at home, feeling a bit tired. I couldn't sleep when I got home, but of course now I'm exhausted. And I'm waiting to be picked up by mom. Gotta go help her, and myself, sort of the new phones. And I think I'll bring my new laptop as well, and see if I can kickstart it. I need to install XP on it asap, instead of that time and resource waster, Vista. And then Ubuntu. They are doing some fine things, the ubuntu crowd. I hope I'll be able to get a good install going, with wireless and what have we. We'll see.

Anyway, just feeling better and being possitive about it.

Why didn't I just make the call

nospam@example.com (Dalif) — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 00:13:00 +0100

I went to bed thinking I could shake this illness. My sleep was weird, as it usually is when I'm feeling a bit under the weather. Disturbed and jumpy. I don't know if I was sleeping or awake half the time. Perhaps both. But when I woke up, I didn 't feel better at all. Quite the contrary as it happens.

Now, I'm not the kind of guy who will be all macho about this illness stuff, going: no way, I can shake it. But working the night shift means that getting somebody to substitute for you is hard on the people working, and might mean one of them has to stay the night. And I know that I should really be concerned about myself first and foremost, but it's hard not to think: no, I'll be ok. Just this one shift, and I'm off and can recover. And it may be so. But I'm feeling like shit right now. Cold and hot at the same time. A mean ass headache, and a slight cough, that is slowly muddling up my throat, as far as I can feel. Starting to hurt a bit. Also, I'm feeling hungry to the point where I could throw up just from my stomach gruelling. Dunno if you've ever tried that. Nauseous just from being hungry. Quite amusing and unamusing all at once.

So I'll go fetch a cup of tea or two, and eat some grub. I bought a few pills going into work, and I'll be popping those bad boys during the course of this shift. THankfully things are fairly quiet at the hotel. I can't bare facing problems tonight. With my luck, there'll be a fire or something, and I'll be passed out in the office. Yay.

On a slightly related note, we had a bit of snow here in Copenhagen today. First rain, then the temp dropped below freezing, and the water on the ground turned into ice. Whoop de doo. Slippery as fuck. I bet a few old ladies or enthusiastic bikers are getting the asphalt treatment today. I hope they manage. Oh well... I best get food. Catch you on the flipside.