It's been awhile...

I've been busy and internet-less at home, so I haven't had time or resources to blog recently. But now I'm back... hooray. There have been a lot of things over the past few weeks that, as they have flitted through my consciousness, I have considered blogworthy, but they have unfortunately since faded away. Oh well. A few things on my mind this morning:

Danish Weather

In recent years, Denmark has been placed first on a number of subjective "Happiness Scales." See here, here, and here. But, I wondered on my way to work this morning, how can a country where the weather can so often only be described as utter and absolute crap be so happy?

I've heard a number of people cite the Dane's overall lack of expectations as the primary reason for this seemingly overabundance of happiness. Danes wake up, go about their lives, and at the end of the day think to themselves "Gee, I didn't die today! Chalk another one up on the ol' survival calendar! Wow, this really was a great one, eh Bjorn?!"

I have another theory. My theory is that all animosity, bitterness, and overall ill-will in Denmark (otherwise known as anything falling into the general hypothetical category of classification that would be best titled 'uhyggelig') manifests itself as a Danish weather phenomenon I like to call "The Mist."

The Mist, to put it bluntly, SUCKS. The Mist generally appears every morning and lasts until around 10. It is best described as misting rain, bone chilling dampness, and grey skies of misery. The Mist is not enough to get you soaking wet, but will mist on your clothes enough during even the shortest of morning commutes (mine is less than 10 minutes) to leave you damp and miserable until lunch. The Mist also leaves the streets just slippery enough to make morning runs around the lakes miserable and bike commutes dangerous if the need to stop short arises.

The Mist is kinda like a dementor in Harry Potter. It sucks all the joy out of everything and makes you feel miserable. I can't even write about The Mist without feeling miserable. I hate the damn Mist and can't wait until Spring hits (probably not until April-ish). I miss my flip-flops. They aren't, unfortunately, Mist friendly footwear.

Weird Danish Habit

Putting burned out, used matches back in the match box. WHY do Danes do this?! It's not only weird and seemingly purposeless, but also annoying! The match heads generally crumble and fall off the old matches, so when you have to root through the box to find a usable match your fingers get all sooty and shit. Stupid.