Thursday, January 31, 2008

Bento


I learnt a new word today: Bento. It is japanese for a boxed lunch. I came across it when reading a mailinglist where somebody mentioned lunchinabox as a great site for lunch ideas. It is all about fitting delicious portions of this and that into the box to make it both healthy, tasty and appetizing. If you are really into Bento boxes, you can browse some original japanese Bento box sets at j-list.

Photo courtesy: Lunchinabox.net (interactive photo on Flickr)

Labels: , , ,

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Fastelavnsboller


Thanks to Eeehmsen, we kept our blood sugar high at IMADA this afternoon. He treated the Semi-Academic Cake Club with home-made fastelavnsboller. The sort of traditional sweet cakes that Danes eat around start February when celebrating Fastelavn.

Image courtesy: Wiki commons

Labels: , , ,

Monday, January 28, 2008

Visiting Odense

After a weekend of eating lots of cake (yes, I mean lots, but I also went running 10km yesterday to make up for (some of) it), I am now in Odense, visiting Lene for a few days. Quite a homely feeling to greet everyone at the Department of Mathematics and Computer science again, but rather strange to sit in the office of Edmund. They only just removed the last books from the shelves last Friday, and the dust is still firmly settled on the shelves ... and Wednesday there will be cake in the semi-academic cake club as usual.

Labels: , , , ,

Saturday, January 26, 2008

International and... local


I was sort of surprised to see a Starbucks had opened in Copenhagen Airport at the shopping centre in the international terminal. Maybe I connect Starbucks too much with New York, and that cold January in London some years ago. I was also very surprised when they opened a Starbucks in Schiphol not so long ago, thinking "Wow, now they really go international". So now I can say the same about Copenhagen Airport. And then.. when I left the baggage collection hall, straight ahead of me I saw "Nørrebro Bryghus" had also opened a cafe, since I last visited the airport. Impressing, an airport with both international and very very local attitude.

Illustration courtesy: web.mit.edu

Labels: , , ,

Monday, January 21, 2008

Skivlaai vs Sportskage

Today is Karins birthday (congratulations!) an as it is custom in our department, she brought cake to share with her colleagues at tea time. I must say the delicious skivlaai, though worlds apart in filling and shape, made me think of the fantastic Sportskage from Konditori La Glace in Copenhagen. The only resemblance is the name that makes you think of sport rather than of the very unsporty, heavy, non-diet, and extremely delicious filling in the cake.

Photo courtesy: La Glace

Labels: , , ,

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Tough guy marathon


Joanna mentioned the Tough Guy marathon as one of the races that are a level more difficult than just walking 50km a day for four days in a row (in case you do not know it, I am referring to the Vierdaagse in Nijmegen). From the video on this website, I see her point. It is an extreme form of obstacle race, where you see the participants fighting to help themselves and eachother through mud, fire and ice cold water. Indeed if you complete this race you can call yourself a 'tough guy' and maybe even more so if you managed with no injuries...

Labels: , , ,

Friday, January 18, 2008

What's up?

I dunno. I am not even blogging. My head is filled with work related subjects: this paper, that paper, collaborations, writing, programming, supervising, being supervised, international travels, visiting other labs, demonstrating and explaining my work for my colleagues. Not too bad actually. Busy in the good way I would say.

Labels: , , ,

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Conference scam

A student from Radboud University got an invitation to an interesting conference by email. After signing up and paying the fee, it turned out that the whole conference was a scam. The Dutch police are now investigating the case. There seems to be no limit to the possibilities of internet fraud attempts - so beware!

One of the emails looked like this

Labels: , , , ,

Monday, January 07, 2008

Back to work


Back at work, everybody is greeting eachother with a "Happy New Year" and "Best Wishes" (actually "Beste Wensen" cause this is still Holland). Though the spirits seem high enough, most of the people by the coffee table seemed drowsy and quite a few had glassy or bloodshot eyes. Either they all went out this weekend for a final party before starting the new years work, or what I see is just the start of another cold taking its round.

Illustration courtesy: Dennis Mitchell

Labels: , , ,