Almost holiday

And I was kind of joking when I said in a comment that I'd post photos in April, then it turned out to be almost true! But - now I have corrected a load of essays, I have written the lecture I'm having in an hour, and I have started thinking about the next lecture. So no work this weekend! Just play and fun, and hopefully, as much sunshine as we've had during the week (when I've been stuck inside the office). And maybe it will be almost warm enough to sit outside, and look at people, and drink coffee?

"Bakklandet", a popular area in Trondheim. Not mine, stole it from this person.

Blogoversary!

Today this blog is two years old! I kind of forgot about it last year, probably because I was trying to finish a chapter for my master's thesis. So, what's happened in two years?

- I've made 92 posts (which is what other people write in three weeks)

- I've found some really cool people online! I wish I could invite you all for cake and whisky:-)

- I finished my master's thesis! Yay!

- I haven't got a proper job yet. Right now I'm part time lecturing at uni, but after June, who knows.

- I've gone swimming in winter! I meant to do it this year, too, but I've kind of kept postponing it... It's probably too late now, as it's technically spring. I mean, now it's sunny and a balmy + 3 degrees Celsius outside (37 degrees Fahrenheit)! So to go for a dip now is not proper winter swimming, the tough old ladies (who swim every week all year) would scoff.

- I've been to London, Croatia, and around Norway. This year we're thinking about Greece for the summer holidays, but we haven't decided yet. Any recommendations?

- I'm still with the lovely, lovely girlfriend! :-D She's been mentioned, or had the star role, in quite a few posts.

- I've learned to like whisky. I started out with Irish, but right now I'm drinking Scottish whisky most. Though I still really like Irish. Hmm, the bottom line is that I drink more whisky, I think.

- I still love poetry! And today is World Poetry Day! I'm proud to have my blogoversary on the same day.


Have you heard? Cold in Norway is two years old today!



Woo hoo! That's wonderful! Although I think HB should have posted a bit more often...



...and spent less time gazing at strange sculptures in Tromsø kulturhus.

O Tell Me The Truth About Love

Some say that love's a little boy,
And some say it's a bird,
Some say it makes the world go round,
And some say that's absurd,
And when I asked the man next-door,
Who looked as if he knew,
His wife got very cross indeed,
And said it wouldn't do.

Does it look like a pair of pajamas,
Or the ham in a temperance hotel?
Does it's odour remind one of llamas,
Or has it a comforting smell?
Is it prickly to touch as a hedge is,
Or soft as eiderdown fluff?
Is it sharp or quite smooth at the edges?
O tell me the truth about love.

Our history books refer to it
In cryptic little notes,
It's quite a common topic on
The Transatlantic boats;
I've found the subject mentioned in
Accounts of suicides,
And even seen it scribbled on
The backs of railway-guides.

Does it howl like a hungry Alsatian,
Or boom like a military band?
Could one give a first-rate imitation
On a saw or a Steinway Grand?
Is its singing at parties a riot?
Does it only like Classical stuff?
Will it stop when one wants to be quiet?
O tell me the truth about love.

I looked inside the summer-house;
it wasn't ever there:
I tried the Thames at Maidenhead,
And Brighton's bracing air.
I don't know what the blackbird sang,
Or what the tulip said;
But it wasn't in the chicken-run,
Or underneath the bed.

Can it pull extraordinary faces?
Is it usually sick on a swing?
Does it spend all it's time at the races,
Or fiddling with pieces of string?
Has it views of it's own about money?
Does it think Patriotism enough?
Are its stories vulgar but funny?
O tell me the truth about love.

When it comes, will it come without warning
Just as I'm picking my nose?
Will it knock on my door in the morning,
Or tread in the bus on my shoes?
Will it come like a change in the weather?
Will its greeting be courteous or rough?
Will it alter my life altogether?
O tell me the truth about love.

- - W.H. Auden

VisualDNA

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

Got the idea/thingy from Gaymo. I have to say this is me today - tomorrow it would probably look different. I wish it was possible to pick several choices on these things. That would be more accurate, but I guess too complicated for an internet personality test.

Shower with a twist

The other day I was standing under the shower, enjoying the warm spray. My face was turned upwards, my eyes were closed, and the water was streaming down over my ears. So: I didn't hear that the bathroom door was opened. I didn't feel a cold draft as the glass doors to the shower carefully slid apart. In fact, I didn't sense a thing until I suddenly felt a hand grab one of my breasts.

I jumped and yelled like a boy. (Because I don't scream like a girl.) Then I lunged after my laughing girlfriend, who already was way beyond reach, of course.

HB: Jesus! Are you trying to give me a heart attack??
Girlfriend: Sorry! I thought you heard that I opened the door?
HB (gritted teeth): Seriously - do you want me do die?!?
Girlfriend: Sorry, sweetie, I was sure that you heard me coming in. Sorry!

In MY opinion, true remorse isn't expressed while you are barely able to breath because you're laughing so hard. Somehow, those "sorrys" weren't very believable.

She loves to scare the shit out of me like that. Nine out of ten times I'm able to sense that she's up to something, so I turn suddenly, and there she is: lurking around the corner or creaping up behind me. With a HUGE grin on her face, anticipating all the fun she'll have in just a few seconds. It's kind of sweet. And when my heart rate is back to normal, I usually laugh about it, too. While pondering revenge.

Bloodrayne

I've seen Bloodrayne, so now you don't have to. You know how some movies are SO bad, that they're almost good? The stilted conversation in Bloodrayne made me think it had potential to be in that category, but in the end: this movie is just bad.

EVEN with Kristanna Loken and Michelle Rodriguez fighting underwater.

I'm blaming the director, Uwe Boll. This movie could have been a lot better, because there are some really good actors here. I hope they at least had fun while shooting it.

Rob Vaux has more to say:

"Boll, to put it mildly, doesn't know how to make films. And when I say that, I don't mean in a subjective, debatable way where the vagaries of opinion can be argued and discussed. I mean it's a quantifiable fact. Boll can't make films the same way cats can't drive and elephants can't fly. His efforts are exercises in abject incompetence, littering the screen with meaningless drivel filled by only the barest whiff of cohesion.
[...]
Into this mess steps Kristanna Loken, who plays the title character and who really deserves better. Loken has a genuine cinematic presence (she was last seen pounding the governor of California to snot in Terminator 3) and while she won't unseat Meryl Streep anytime soon, she could make a decent action heroine on par with her co-star Rodriguez. Her character is a dhampir, a half-human, half-vampire, all-inappropriately-tanned being who begins the film in a circus sideshow, but soon escapes and -- with the help of the vampire-hunting society Brimstone -- launches a quest for revenge against the evil Kagan (Ben Kingsley, who I really hope enjoys his check). It sounds simple, but the inexplicable convolutions and unnecessary character development render it formless mush. It's exacerbated by the mindless fight scenes, which demonstrate no understanding of pacing or choreography and are rendered with all the energy and gusto of a 50-year-old stripper grinding it out on the pole. Watching Loken struggle to assert herself in such dreck is actively painful."