Thursday, June 30, 2011

Books I've read in 2011 - June

Folkelesnad by Agnes Ravatn
The Nazi Doctors by Robert Jay Lifton
Tårnvekteren by Johan Falkberget - AUDIO
Rundlurt by Hege Storhaug
Menn som hater kvinner by Stieg Larsson - AUDIO
Telling Tales by Melissa Katsoulis
40 piskrapp för ett par byxor
by Lubna Ahmad al-Hussein and Djénane Kareh Tager
Anger by Arnaldur Indridasson - AUDIO
Never Bite A Boy On the First Date by Tamara Summers
Ridderen fra Mauleon, volume one by Alexandre Dumas
What Would Mr Darcy Do? by Abigail Reynolds
Danny Wallace and the Centre of the Universe by Danny Wallace
Bibelen II by Are Kalvø - AUDIO
Våre venner kinesarane by Are Kalvø - AUDIO
Brannen by Valentin Rasputin

I'm planning to update this at some point ... but let's not hold our breath. ;-)

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Very funny Postcrossing card

I got five Postcrossing cards yesterday - from Lithuania, Ukraine, the US, Poland and Thailand. Fantastic. The one from Poland was my favorite, hands down. I can't tell you why exactly, but it totally cracks me up. I burst out laughing the first time I looked at it. I love that third frog from the left. La la la la ... !! :-D

Sto lat is a Polish expression that AFAIK means something along the lines of 'to your health'. They use it when an Englishman would say 'cheers'. I think. The literal meaning is 'a hundred years'. So, may you live for a hundred years, is the subtext. How do I know this? I learned it from reading Discworld novels! :-D There is a town on the Discworld that is called Sto Lat - Susan Death is from there, for those in the know - and I once read an interview with Pterry where he explained how he'd come to pick that name. Yes, reading really expands your mind. ;-)

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Nobody likes the dentist

I have to go to the dentist in about a week and a half, I have a cavity. Brr. Not looking forward to that. But hey, nobody likes the dentist. Not even ocelots ... !!



It's really true that you learn something new every day. Up until I read this entry at ZooBorns, I had no idea that ocelots are native to the US as well. I'd always thought that they were only found in South America. So yeah, keep your eyes open. Especially when your conjunctivitis is well on its way to clearing up. :-)

Monday, June 27, 2011

Delay

I did get to see Henry's Crime on Saturday, and I was going to write about it today, but I'll have to put that off. The antibiotics seem to be working - I look quite a lot better, which is good, and my tear ducts have definitely opened. I had a layer of ... something ... over half my face this morning. And I look like I've been crying all day. But I do look much better.

I don't feel a lot better yet, though. My eyes are still full of sand. So basically I am all about lying quietly in a dark room right now ... ideally with a wet cloth on my face. The light, it hurts me. :-(

Sunday, June 26, 2011

OUCH!

So, today was supposed to be a wonderful sunny day, and I had planned to spend it on fun and enjoyable activities - a hike in the woods, taking the turtles out in the sun, etc. Well, it was wonderful and sunny (supposedly the last sunny day for a while, which is just my luck) but I didn't get to go hiking. I had to go to the ER and then to the pharmacy on Railway Square to pick up my antibiotics. o_O

Because, guess what, I have acute conjunctivitis. It started up yesterday, but was more awkward than painful then, and I was hoping to sleep it off. But this morning I wasn't any better, I was much much worse. I'm not too great now either - it feels like my eyes are full of sand - but at least I'm taking the meds and can hope for an improvement relatively soon. And I look a little better now ... because I also have closed tear ducts, so my face has swelled up. This morning I looked deformed, it was awful.

It made me regret prying my eyes open with my fingers so that I could see a little.

Ouch. :-(

Friday, June 24, 2011

Thursday, June 23, 2011

An interesting quote

[Her] novels . . . seem to me vulgar in tone, sterile in artistic invention, imprisoned in the wretched conventions of English society, without genius, wit, or knowledge of the world. Never was life so pinched and narrow. The one problem in the mind of the writer . . . is marriageableness.
Ralph Waldo Emerson on Jane Austen

Isn't that so interesting that Emerson said that? He is supposed to have been so intelligent, so very astute and insightful ... and yet he could say such a thing. The human mind is a strange place indeed. I can't help but think that someone who would genuinely hold the quoted opinion either hasn't understood one whit of what Austen was trying to communicate, or, in fact, has never read her at all.

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Norges beste journalist?

Det er nødt til å være Bernt Jakob Oksnes. Han er rett og slett helt fantastisk. Delvis hvordan han skriver, og delvis de tingene han velger å skrive om. Jeg regner med at alle som leser dette og som kan norsk har lest artikkelen hans Den usynlige. Hvis ikke, så gjør det nå, umiddelbart!! Det var den han fikk Den store journalistprisen for, og det kunne ikke vært mer velfortjent.

Nå har han gjort det igjen ... eller rettere sagt gjorde han det for et par uker siden, men artikkelen har ikke blitt publisert på nett før nå. Denne artikkelen om en ung jente i Bergen som har en progeriarelatert tilstand. 17 år, men allerede gammel. Hun er den eneste i Norge med progeria. Ikke eneste nordmann, for hun er innvandrer, foreldrene er tyskere. Progeria er så sjeldent at det ikke finnes noen nordmenn som har det - det er for få av oss. Kan ikke tenke meg at det er så veldig mange tyskere som har det heller. Hun fikk heldigvis reist til USA for noen år siden og truffet noen andre progeriabarn. Artikkelen handler om ... livet hennes, tankene hennes, familien hennes. Så velskrevet og rørende og tankevekkende og i det hele tatt. Les! :-)

Tittelen på artikkelen er ganske lang, det er et sitat, noe Henriette som artikkelen handler om har sagt. Det er så godt sagt, og så sant.

Meningen med livet er å gjøre det beste ut av den levetida du har fått.

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

A personal annoyance

I really shouldn't be complaining about my working conditions, considering how many people are suffering as practically slaves or indentured labor in horrific conditions around the world. But what are you gonna do, everybody's got their own problems. Alle tenker på sitt, as we say in Norwegian.

I've been under the weather for quite a while now ... I had a really bad cold and although I've mostly recovered, I've got a cough that just won't quit. Well, it is fading, but extremely slowly. It was a really nasty cough for weeks and weeks, now it's not so much a cough anymore as a ... growl. It's like I've got something stuck in my throat that I just can't get rid of, and I can't stop clearing my throat, it's incredibly annoying. Although I'm sure it's not half as annoying to keep doing it as it is having to listen to it.

Apologies to everyone I'm annoying with this, but I really can't help it. In the words of the great Jane, I don't cough for my own amusement.

Anyway ... I am improving, but very slowly. I do still get coughing fits, but at least now it's not that dry coughing that is just the absolute worst. I hate that. Now at least there's something to cough up, if you'll pardon the image. And I am getting better. But.

This is what's annoying me and it's been really noticeable over the past few days. This weekend, especially on Sunday, I actually did get quite a lot better. On Sunday night I felt almost fine. I was dreading going in to work, because for some reason it is SO COLD in the store ... ! In the warehouse it's nice and warm, in the open plan office area the temperature's good too, but in two places it's really annoyingly cold: the store and the cafeteria. The two places where I spend any time worth mentioning. The latter is just cool, but the former is actually chilly. The others are bothered by it too ... when I got to work last Wednesday it was really awful, and I said to S. that sheesh, it's really cold here today. He showed me his arms, he had goosebumps all over them. Sure, other people have bigger problems, but it really isn't very pleasant to have to work all day in a space that is uncomfortably chilly.

And it's bad for me ... my throat got worse after just a few hours at work yesterday. Now I'm back to how I was last week. I also think the temperature in that place is part of why I've been having headaches the last few months, because I keep tensing the muscles in my shoulders and neck, and that's seriously not a good idea. But I can't help it. Cold is bad. :-(

Sure, our inclement climate is responsible for our wonderful culture and great society, so I shouldn't knock it. But this is indoors, and it's June ... ! Should we really have to wear woolen jackets to keep warm indoors in a working environment in June?

Good thing we have those woolen jackets in stock, at least. >:-(

Monday, June 20, 2011

Yay ... !!!

I HAZ IT ... !! :-D

Got it in the mail today. Yay! And boo. I haven't watched it, believe it or not ... I've promised Anne Ida that we'll watch it together, and I really do want to watch it at her place, because her TV's bigger than mine. ;-) We were going to do that on Saturday, but alas, no such luck. Now I guess I'll have to wait till this Saturday before I get to see it.

AUGH!

Sunday, June 19, 2011

This is a test.

And this photo is taken by me. :-)

Børge the happy balalaika. Unmissable at any Katzenjammer concert. :-)

Saturday, June 18, 2011

Cutest thing ever

Alas, photo not taken by me! :-)

Pathi Harn, the miracle baby from the documentary I blogged about a couple of days ago. I think he's only a few days old in this picture. Is he beyond adorable or what. :-)

I love baby elephants with all their fur on their little heads ... !! :-D

Friday, June 17, 2011

Oslo from the water

Some pictures from last weekend. Not very good ones. What can I say, Oslo isn't all that pretty. And the weather wasn't all that good. What are you gonna do. :-)





Thursday, June 16, 2011

Quote of the Week

I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
Albert Einstein

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

A glimpse of the past

I'm sure everybody reading this has had some thoughts at some point about what makes some people turn out well in life and some end up having nothing but trouble. A lot of it will often be of their own making, of course, I'm not denying that. Some people are habitual criminals, constantly in trouble ... but how do they become like that, while others never have any problems with the law at all and just surf through life? That's a question that I think everyone's asked themselves. And of course a lot of research has been done on that issue. I've read some really interesting work by a psychologist ... I think he's French ... who's done research on murderers and serial rapists in prison, he's compared their brains to 'normal' brains and gotten some fascinating results. But that's kind of beside the point. This post is about something more personal.

I was at the library yesterday - I use the main library downtown - and on my way back to the subway I stopped by to check out the newspaper pages displayed outside the VG building. Completely by accident I caught sight of an article that was about this very issue. They ran it, obviously, in response to a research report that was published here last week about how children of divorce or who lose their mothers at a young age are statistically much more likely to end up as troubled adults. The article is about a 34 year old man who lost not only his mother, but both parents when very young, grew up in various orphanages and foster homes and ended up leading a life of crime for years and years and spending altogether 7 years in prison. It says in the article that he's been convicted on altogether 350 different counts. :-o

What makes this personal is that I went to school with this guy. His name is Geir Strid Moe and he was a classmate of mine for three years, at our junior high equivalent. And this is interesting, because my memories of him just really reflect what these researchers feel that their results show ... that the situation a child finds itself in will shape its future to such a significant extent. Geir was a real troublemaker, the biggest of our year, hands down. He was the kind of kid that absolutely everybody had heard about, someone parents warned their kids to stay away from. You'd always be hearing some new crazy story about what he'd done. And it'd usually be true. :-) He was constantly in trouble, and it was usually trouble of his own making. In other words, he was always doing something to get himself into trouble.

But what I first and foremost remember about him is what an incredibly kind person he was. He always struck me as having, if you'll excuse the metaphor, a profoundly kind and good heart. Whenever there were young children or animals around, he was so protective of them and didn't know how to be kind enough to them. He would never let anyone do anything that might be even conceivably mean to them. It was strange to me back then that he was always in so much trouble, and did so many crazy things, because he clearly was, in his heart, a good boy. He wasn't mean. I remember having that impression so strongly. And I also remember thinking that it was probably because he lived in an orphanage - which was very strange and almost exotic to the rest of us - that he was like that. Because he didn't have anyone to steer him right, so to speak. I really felt that he was 'supposed to' be a really good kid. He had it in him, but he clearly didn't have anyone there to show him how.

I have to think that that must have been really, really obvious. Because, I'll be honest with you, I wasn't that perceptive as a 14-15 year old. :-)

Now he's broken away from his life of crime and works for a very worthwhile organization, WayBack. They do really important work helping habitual criminals start their lives over. I am so glad to hear that he's turned over a new leaf. He really deserves it. He was a good guy, despite appearances. :-)

You can read the article in VG online here.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Do you love elephants?

Then you've got to see this. Sorry if it's old news to everyone - this happened in the spring of 2010 - but I hadn't heard about this till I saw the documentary on Norwegian TV just a couple days ago. You can still see it on nrk.no, here, through this coming Sunday. That version has Norwegian commentary, though. The whole thing is on Youtube with the original comments in English, just look at the bottom of this post and click through. If you love elephants and you haven't seen this documentary, you just absolutely have to. :-)

It's called Miracle at the Zoo and it's the story of one of the Thai elephants kept at Taronga Zoo in Sydney, Porntip. She is their herd's matriarch and last year, at the age of 18, she was due to give birth for the first time. But like many first time mothers experience, she had a very difficult delivery. Just watch the documentary, it's beyond fantastic.

And it really makes me think about what kind of thoughts and feelings these very intelligent animals have towards their human carers. Keep your eye on Porntip when the keepers intervene during her labor and afterwards ... it's really moving. As I've mentioned before, I believe in protected contact for zoo elephants, for several reasons, but ... yeah, this is very moving.


Fullscreen here. The documentary's in five parts, the other four will come up as suggestions when you click through to this first one. Enjoy. :-)

Monday, June 13, 2011

Tomorrow's the day

Fingers crossed ... ! Keanu's latest, Henry's Crime, seems to be going straight to video here in Norway - alas!! - so I pre-ordered the DVD on Play.com. The UK release date was June 6th, and I got an email on the 5th saying it was in the mail. It kind of should have arrived already, but obviously it's been delayed by the holiday. But I am seriously hoping that it'll be in my mailbox when I get home tomorrow afternoon.

Not that I'll have time to actually watch it tomorrow, because I have to go out again, but at least I'll know that I have it. My precioussss ... !! ;-)

Sunday, June 12, 2011

23 hours to Denmark

And back.

I forgot to blog yesterday, because I went to Denmark. :-) There and back again in less than a day. I was going to post some pictures from the trip tonight, but I think I'll put that off, I don't feel quite well. For some reason the floor seems to be moving somehow ...

Friday, June 10, 2011

Quote of the Week

Bladet Jakt har heile to fengjande slagord på framsida: "Bladet for deg som tar jakt på alvor!" og "VI tester DER ANDRE tror!". I dette siste slagordet ville eg nok ha nytta store og små bokstavar heilt motsett, men det er greitt. I artikkelen om albinodyr har dei berre greidd å finne tre ulike dyr å illustrere teksten med: ei albinoelgku som liknar på Eyvind Hellstrøm, ein albinomink og eit tredje, ukjent albinoeksemplar som berre er karakterisert som "albino dyr" i biletteksten. Eg skulle gjerne sett fleire. Ein albinojerv eller ei albinokråke, til dømes. "Husk at isbjørn ikke er albino," står det i teksten. Å ja! Tusen takk for opplysninga. Setninga

Hvis det ved ren tilfeldighet var noen av grevlingene som kom til Trøndelag som var bærer av genene for albinisme så vil det når bestanden har sitt opphav i noen få dyr bli slik at denne egenskapen opptrer hyppigere enn ellers.

er eit døme på skrivekunst som ved rein tilfeldigheit eller ikkje i jakt- og villmarksblad hyppig opptrer, og som er ein eigenskap som gjer lesinga av nemnde blad noko meir tungvint enn hva ein elles kunne
ønskt seg, og gjerne der ein kunne ha fått fram same bodskap på langt enklare vis. Så det er ikkje berre i offentleg sektor ein slit med å få bukt med kansellistilen.

Agnes Ravatn, Folkelesnad.
Kapittel 10: Når villdyret sovnar. Friluftsblad

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Crazy story

This is a crazy story from real life that I haven't thought about for a really long time, but I just remembered it today because of all fuss about Arne Treholt. Again. It's probably mean, but I gotta say it ... I am seriously sick of that guy. To the point where I don't really care whether he did it or not, I just want him to go the hell away. Anyway.

This happened on the airport express bus from Torp one time I was coming home from England. About ten years ago. I think it was the summer of 2000. I'd been traveling for hours and was getting pretty tired, and when I got on the bus I remember thinking that I hoped no one would sit next to me, and if someone did, hopefully not a talker. I just really wanted to sit quietly and relax and stare out the window, basically. But no such luck. The bus ended up being chock full and of course the person who ended up in the seat next to mine wasn't only the chattiest guy on board, but the craziest too.

He started out seeming kind of normal, but he quickly veered off into serious bizarroland. I don't remember all of it now - nowhere near all of it, and maybe that's just as well - because there was a lot of it. All kinds of crazy conspiracy shit. Of course the government is out to get us all and Norwegian society is rotten to the core, it's unbelievable. I was really fascinated, because he really was incredibly normal, you never would have guessed what a nutcase he was from looking at him, or, in fact, even from talking with him, if he didn't start saying all these crazy things. He really gave the impression of having a firm grip on reality. It was really interesting.

What I do remember that he told me, though, was about the Orderud case. (Now those people I am even more sick of than I am of Treholt. Lock 'em up and throw away the keys, I don't care, just keep them out of the media at absolutely any cost.) He knew something SO serious about that case, and he knew so much more, all these things that when they came out they would just blow the establishment sky high. It was him and this one other guy, they had been collaborating for year and had collected so much information. Our entire society, according to my temporary friend, is completely corrupt, and it reaches up into the highest level, you'd never believe it, but the info he was sitting on was enough to topple the government. Which it totally would. And soon.

Now I'm starting to think that this happened in 2001 ... ? Because I remember him saying that all of this info would be presented in the media before the next election, and that was specifically in reference to the parliamentary election of 2001. So this may have been early summer 2001. OK, not that important, but he did say that they had had so much trouble trying to get this out into the media, everything that they knew, they had worked with any number of journalists but they had all chickened out in the end. Of course that was the reason, totally. Now though they had found this really brave guy who would put his neck on the line, and it would all come out, and it would totally rock our collective world. It would change everything about our political life and the election, boy, that'd be anybody's guess.

Not sure I remember anything enormously different about that election. Or the time before it, or the time after. But that's probably just because the government's putting something in my water.

Anyway, back to the Orderud case. Of course the police were barking up the totally wrong tree with this inheritance shit and it was all a coverup, and you wouldn't believe how far up it went. (He didn't tell me how far, just that it was really really far.) What really happened was this. The real target of the murders was Per Paust. But he'd already died on his own, right? But he had known something - which was what he was supposed to have been killed for - and before he died he told his wife. So she had to be eliminated. And she might have told her parents, or maybe she definitely had, I don't remember, so they had to go too. That was the reason. But what was it that he knew?

OK, so, this was not that long after the documents had been released in the Treholt case. And of course my bus buddy had copies of every single document. Of course. BUT. He had somehow gotten to see these papers before they were released, and had copied them then too, AND GET THIS - three pages that had been in the original files were now different, with different information. Someone had swapped them with other papers. He had them at home, blown up onto oversized plastic sheets for an overhead projector. It was really really important that they were oversized, for some reason. I'm not entirely clear on that. But the point is that there was info in these three pages that SOMEONE doesn't want people to know, and Paust knew what that info was and that was why he had to die. It's all because of Treholt. Paust apparently worked with him at some point. Or so my informer told me ... I actually haven't looked into it, crazy as that sounds.

This guy is to me the epitome of the crazy conspiracy theorist. It was fun talking to him, but thinking back I see him as a very sad character. It was just so obvious to me that he had an enormous need to feel important and special, his life was pretty empty and he was clinging on to this worldview he had constructed for himself as a way of forcing meaning into life. That really is sad. And it makes me think that there really is absolutely no way you can talk sense to a conspiracy nut. They are just way too emotionally invested in it. They can't let go of what they believe, because that would leave only reality behind, and for some reason they can't face that, they have to self-protect with their conspiracy of choice.

Kind of makes me think of Arne Treholt, actually. o_O

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

'The Boy Next Door'

I'm sure nobody remembers this, but a few months ago I had a book on one of my Books I've Read lists that was a debut novel by a Zimbabwean author. The Boy Next Door by Irene Sabatini. This book was really impressive considering it was by a debuting author. I would never have guessed that if I hadn't known it. It's a really wonderful literary work. I came across it accidentally when I read a special on new African literature in a newspaper this winter. I immediately wanted to read it and reserved it at the library the first chance I got. Yeah, that one too. :-) I love the library website. :-)

Anyway ... it's a great book and I really recommend it. It even inspired me to write to the author - she has a contact form on her website, which is here. I just sent a short email telling her that I had just read her book and I'd enjoyed it tremendously. She wrote me back, which was really nice of her. I didn't write anything that needed a response, but she still took the time to write and say thank you; I appreciate that. She genuinely deserved every word of praise I wrote. :-)

Some more of my thoughts on the book are in this video. I really recommend it. The book, obviously. ;-)



Widescreen here.

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Fantastisk bok!!

Jeg begynte å lese en helt genial bok i dag. Hentet den på biblioteket i ettermiddag og har allerede lest nesten halve. Den er temmelig lettlest. :-) Jeg leste om denne boka i en avis eller noe og bestemte meg med en gang for å lese den. Reserverte den på biblioteket og har gledet meg skikkelig til å få tak i den. I dag var altså dagen.

Boka er Folkelesnad av Agnes Ravatn. Den handler om ukeblader. Ravatn har lest en masse ukeblader og skrevet en bok om dem. Det høres kanskje kjedelig ut, men det er det overhodet ikke, det er kjempemorsomt. Fy pokker så mange iddioter det finnes rundt i landet her. Ikke bare her, selvfølgelig, overalt, men denne boka handler altså om norske ukeblader og tullingene som leser dem. En veldig velskrevet og veldig morsom bok. Les og le!

Med utgangspunkt i bokas femte kapittel, Sex, sjølvmord og juleøl. Mannfolkblad har jeg også googlet litt i kveld og lest en dårlig og en god anmeldelse av en skikkelig møkkabok. Dårlig her - verdt å lese for kommentarfeltets skyld - og god her. Verdt å lese. :-)

Monday, June 6, 2011

Keanupic of the month

The other day I was googling some pictures because of an ATC that I was making ... the letter P in the Movies A-Z ATC series on Swap-Bot, for which I of course chose The Private Lives of Pippa Lee. I came across this picture, from a press conference in Berlin. What a wonderful shot. I'd never seen this before. I love it. :-)

Oh, and congratulations to any Swedes reading this! Hope you all had a great day! :-)

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Wedding photos

So, the wedding went off without a hitch yesterday in the most perfect summer weather you can imagine. Everything went perfectly, it really couldn't have been better. A wonderful day. Of course I took umpteen pictures. Crazy but true: My parents got back this morning from their trip to Africa. I was still at their house (had actually only just woken up ;-) so I got to see the various souvenirs they'd bought, and a bunch of presents for me too, and all the pictures they'd taken. Of course there were quite a lot of them ... and some were really great, I may post some of them later ... but still, in my world, astonishingly few. My father bought a new camera especially for this trip, with a 16gb memory card. They were in Africa for two whole weeks, they went to three national parks and the island of Zanzibar. And he has taken about 470 pictures. :-o

I took 522 pictures yesterday. o_O

But of course I had to take as many as I possibly could because this was a once in a lifetime chance ... ! I mean, who can argue with that. And whatever the occasion, I like to take a lot of pictures, because you never can tell which shots will be good, so it's best to take lots and lots and be sure to end up with some that are really good. That's my policy. It's rarely steered me wrong. And it worked out very well this time too. ;-)

Some glimpses of this very special day ...

Tanumine was so busy that she hardly had time to be nervous. Look how beautiful she was!

And how happy ... ! :-D

As well she should be, of course. :-)

The photo session was at Asker Museum. I'd never been there before (shocking, I know! I'm appalled at myself!) but it's soo beautiful there. And especially in this amazing weather.


The dinner was absolutely delicious. Maybe especially the dessert. ;-) It tasted yummy, but it also looked so fantastic. Strawberry soup ... ! :-D

I was totally happy too of course. Just to see them get married and celebrate it with them was wonderful, but also that everything went so perfectly that it really couldn't have been better.

All in all a perfect day. Everyone agreed. :-)

Congratulations!!!

Saturday, June 4, 2011

CONGRATULATIONS!!!

Umpteen congratulations to Tanumine and B. on their wedding day today!! I hope you'll have a wonderful day and a fantastic life together. And an amazing honeymoon in the Dominican Republic ... !! :-D

Send me a turtle postcard, pretty please ... !! ;-)

Friday, June 3, 2011

Wedding tomorrow!!

Not mine, but Tanumine's. Whee! How fantastic is that. I'm so happy for her. I'm at my parents' house tonight, it's so much more convenient since the wedding is in the local church out here and Tanumine is at her parents' house, which is what, a fifteen minutes' walk from our house? Since I'm the maid of honor I will be following her around all day tomorrow, starting at the hairdresser's at 9am, so it's just so much easier to be here already and not have to get out here from the wrong side of Oslo early tomorrow. So much less stressful. It's really weird to be here all alone though. My parents aren't here, they're in Africa. I want to say Zanzibar right now? So I have the house all to myself, which I haven't had for I don't know how many years. It's kind of fun actually. I've only been here a couple of hours, and already I've managed to create a very noticeable mess in the living room, kitchen and bathroom. Yay me! :-D

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Lilacs in bloom

A couple more pictures from my new camera. These are some closeups of one of the lilacs that grow outside my building. I love lilacs ... they smell so wonderful and they are such a beautiful sign of summer. The dark purple ones are my favorites, but sadly they are by far the rarest around here. I'm lucky enough to have one pretty close though. :-)



Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Pointless flashback

I'm not a fan of remakes, and I am so seriously an anti-fan of this particular remake, but of course I will have to see it. Partly because it is what it is (and partly because I won't be able to bitch about it properly if I haven't seen it) and partly, of course, because of who's in it. Christopher Plummer is in it. I LOVE Christopher Plummer. I cannot miss Christopher Plummer.

And I'm sure he'll be wonderful, he's always wonderful, but generally speaking I'm pretty sure The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo will be a pointless flashback. The team behind it are saying that they haven't tried to create an English-language remake of the original movie, they've tried to stick to the book. Like the original movie did. o_O Which of course to a large extent explains why, as far as the trailer goes, the only difference worth mentioning seems to be the actors. Who in any case can hardly be seen since the entire trailer consists of extremely brief images spliced together to create the impression of an extremely fast paced action thriller.

However, if the movie really is anything like the book, it'll be a slightly overlong and rather slow moving psychological thriller where you really need to pay attention to every spoken line, of which there will be a great many. Some moviegoers may find themselves disappointed. >:-)

The trailer is relatively intriguing, but I really wonder how I would perceive it if I knew nothing of the Millennium trilogy. It doesn't really indicate that there's much of a plot to this. There's an extreme amount of action, but what the hell is going on? I sure can't tell you based on this trailer.

I also really don't like the ending with the GIANT BLOCK LETTERS telling us all HOW TOTALLY AWESOME this is going to be. So typically Hollywood ... forcefeeding us what we're supposed to think, and just making it so glaringly obvious what they're trying to get at. How about letting the audience make up its own mind? Nope, that's not the American way.

But hey, I'm not like that, I'm going to let you guys make up your own minds. ;-) This is the first official trailer for the first American Millennium movie. What's the point?



Widescreen here.