The art of selling real estate

Pheeew. Time is flying, and I have eighty balls in the air.

As some of you might know, in between writing a dissertation, I'm also on the hunt for a new place to live. Lena and I have decided that we want to try to find a house in Vanløse - like all the other boring academics in our segment.

The housemarket in the Copenhagen area is plummeting at the moment, which means that it is not a bad time to be on hunt - if you plan not to sell within the next few years. It also means that there are a huge amount of houses for sale, which in turn means that Lena and I spend nearly every Sunday on seeing houses.

After having seen the first 30 houses, I'm quite amazed that there are so few sellers who makes the extra effort in trying to present their house in the best way possible - spending perhaps just a few thousand kr on this. For example, always paint walls and ceilings white! You can never go wrong with white - everything else can look silly to some people. And it makes rooms look larger, and more clean. And always clean up and consider stoving away a few tons of your stuff in some cellar. I've been to more than one home, where it smelled just plain bad. Given other choices in the same category - this is not something I'm likely to buy.

I, like most people, I guess, am also susceptible to be impressed if the seller has really good or expensive style. I'm getting better at seeing past this - but it's still something I have to consciously think past. And, I believe it still colours my impression of the place. My best example of this are shown in the pictures on the right. They are from a place we recently saw - I'm a sucker for the rapier in the first picture; and note the title of one of the books in the second picture. (You can click on it, to enlarge it.) "Happiness" - coincidence? I think not.

It's the name, stupid!

Surfing. I have a cold, so I'm not worth much today.

I just tripped over this:New Alliance considers name-change (in Danish only sadly). Apparently the youngest political party in Denmark, New Alliance, who are roughly the political party-equivalent of a Marx Brothers-movie, are contemplating a name change. Though an applaudable effort in trying to right what is arguable an impressively disastrous first year, it somehow feels like trying to sell cans of spam, by saying "Hey! It might be spam; but now we call it 'SUPER-EXTRA PRIME-CUT ANGUS BEEF', so please buy it!"

This follow-up news Numerologist: New Alliance should change their name, sets a perfect context, I think (also Danish). The numerologist Mauren Pihl (note the splendid name), finally gives us an explanation of the hardships of the toddler party: Both words (in Danish) "Ny" and "Alliance" yield weak energies - apparently the double ll and the single c is an amateurish mistake. Taken together the two words yield a "fateful" and "unlucky" name, indicating that the party needs to "restart again and again". I'm in awe by the supreme explanatory power of the superior numerologic science.

Not content to critizise, she contributes with more expert advice: Apparently, the current favourite candidate new name is "Liberal Alliance". Though, the word "liberal" apparently contains ridiculous amounts of energy (I could have told you that, just read Newsbusters.org - Exposing liberal media bias for a while; check out their take on CBS: U.S. should be more like Denmark), but it does not "work together well" with the weak word "Alliance".

May I suggest, that instead of a precarious name-change, they should invite the guru, Mauren Pihl, to join the party? In my mind, somehow the madness of numerology and New Alliance fit each other perfectly.

Down the drain?

Having just my heard my blog referred to as "already going down the toilet", I haste to note that this is not the case - yet.

I have simply spent a little time reinforcing my touch with the so-called real world. Yes. I have a life when not surfing. I have, among other things, been cruising the Danish countryside in a Toyota Yaris, and spent a few days playing gardener at my in-laws. Very zen, very enjoyable, and very off-the-grid.

Oh, but such moments of innocent joy are fickle, of course. When I returned, Russia had invaded Georgia; Denmarks football squad had their trousers pulled down by Spain; and the world may be destroyed in September, when a few (mad?) scientists pull the switch and fire up an experiment in the Large Hadron Collider producing the universe's first man-made black hole - right before sucking Earth plus a goodly 6 billion humans into it. They say, the black holes which may be created are microscopic; they say there's only a one in 50 million chance of something going wrong; but when could we ever trust white-coated shifty-eyed men like these:



Technically speaking, this particular mad scientist is, of course, wearing a green coat. The tricks they invent to confuse us.

Singularity divides?

A few years ago, I read a tech-report from Microsoft research about the Singularity project (a name with sooo much nerd-appeal). It was fairly interesting reading - a micro-kernel system building on managed code, from kernel drivers and up; strong typing; specification of invariants allowing static analysis, etc. (Notably, they also had a fair amount of high-profile people attached to the project, Aiken, Fähndrich, Abadi,... )

Now it seems the grapevine is flowing over with talk about a higher-profile succesor to the Singularity project: Midori; which apparently means "green" in Japanese (everything - I mean everything is on Wikipedia).

The SDTimes article: "Microsoft's plans for post-Windows OS revealed" gives a good overview. (And here is a brief summary in danish on Version 2.)

Confessions of a habitual pop-addict

What is this? Pop on my Last.fm channel - Maroon 5?! What in the !#¤!"¤!" is going on? I thought, I had spent ages telling Last.fm about nigh-all aspects of my life; thus they should bloody well know that my tastes are far more sophisticated than stale radiopop such as some tune "Not Coming Home" by Maroon 5. Their claim to be called innovative, alternative, and daring is about as brittle as Britney's (or, to take a wild swing in another direction, Apple's for that sake; I've about had it up to here hearing the mindless fanboiz cheering ...)

I share with you this clonework (for some reason the video only starts at 0:17):



Wait a minute...

...

What's this? That break was not half bad...

Hmmm, and the rhytm section is actually swinging. I wonder, if they're funk-musicians turned rock/pop? And, though a bit over-the-top, that howling guitar is really not too bad. His voice is kind of funny, though; but in a ... kind-of-nice way, I must admit...

Am I turning soft?

Heatwave

It's midnight, and it's scorching - according to my internal thermometer, at least. I'm sitting in the window sill - in my shorts - trying to catch the frail gusts of wind, that manage to find it's way from the harbour. As usual, I should just go to bed - and read something to still my thoughts. Quell my mind.

The black-greenish bug that has been circling the lamp on my table just found the lightbulb. It's now limping sideways on the table. I'm somewhat puzzled by the lifeforce of the creature.

It's quiet. It's quieter here at Østerbro than at Christianshavn; or Nørrebro, where I lived years ago. I look down at the guy that just arrived on his bike. He finishes typing something on his cellphone. He parks his bike, and proceeds to unlock the front door to no. 14 across the street. I follow his figure up the stairs to the second floor.

I decide to try to end the suffering of the bug. I manage to hit it with the base of my hand. A drop of blood is smeared on my hand where I hit it. Apparently a mosquito - I wonder if it was me, that it got to. I wipe the blood off, and try forcibly to think of something else.

I can hear the S-train leaving Nordhavn in the distance. The guy upstairs starts his late-night exercises. I take that as my cue to go to bed.

Three seconds in the life of the modern family

The radio is on, playing some random pop; the TV is on (loudspeakers down, though); two laptops are running - mine playing a live tune by VETO, while I'm surfing in four tabs at the same time and writing this; the Chumby on my left is flipping between Google News and the weather forecast (brought to you by the "Weather Channel"^TM); and Lena is trying to tell me something from the kitchen.

I wonder, whether my head is going to split into pieces?

...

Oh. The VETO song, you ask? It's the one below. Feel the live power - feel the raw strength of the voice of Troels Abrahamsen aka SuperTroels - around the age of 21 in this recording. A fan? Yes, I am.