Recommended reading

If you read Norwegian, anyway. You should read this. Kari Jaquesson's blog post where she basically says that it's wrong to perform gastric bypass surgery on children. It's just fascinating to read the comments. She is spot on about how the media gives us such a one-sided view of ... everything. That may well be a big part of why so many people can apparently read a simple blog post and not actually manage to understand anything of what it says. It's fascinating. Jaquesson writes it's really difficult and commenters respond how can you say it's so easy!. What?

If you're nine years old and significantly overweight, then yeah, your parents are doing something wrong. At that age you don't decide what you eat. It's probably difficult for parents to accept that they are the ones who gave their child bad habits, but with little kids, where else does it come from? And it doesn't have to be about obesity. I myself am skinny, which is supposedly always a good thing - you can't be too rich or too thin, right? Well, if you get an extremely aggressive form of leukemia and then double sided pneumonia almost immediately after beginning your treatment, and as a result you drop 25 kilos in three weeks ... that's a situation where it's really not good to be ten kilos underweight. This actually happened to my second cousin, except fortunately she was in really good shape and not underweight, so she made it.

But I really was too thin, and I could never manage to put on weight, even though I ate normal healthy food and there was never any focusing on dieting and weight control at our house when I was growing up. I finally did put on the missing weight - when I moved out and starting eating most of my meals alone. I was very picky as a child - very picky - and there was a lot of focus on this during mealtimes and also partly when food was discussed. I was scolded sometimes for being such a finicky eater and I was always urged to sample new foods, to not be so difficult, etc. My father took this to an extreme by sometimes claiming that when I said I didn't like whatever it was (after tasting it and usually eating the full meal even though I didn't like it) this was something I was just saying to make myself interesting, and in fact I did like the food. IMO that's pretty disrespectful. Sorry, dad, if you read this. But that's just not right.

And I don't think it was too smart either, because as I say, while I was living with my parents and eating with them, I never managed to make the weight gain that I needed. But it didn't take long after I started living alone before I started putting on weight ... AND also started to be more experimental in both my cooking and my eating. So yeah, I totally agree that parents are an essential key to this problem. No matter how well-meaning they are.

Fantastisk bloggpost

Av og til må man bare skryte litt av vennene sine. :-)

For enhver norsktalende som er interessert i kritisk tenkning og skeptisisme (som forøvrig er et temmelig heslig ord) er selvfølgelig unfiltered perception et absolutt must. Dagens bloggpost, om homeopati og de såkalte argumentene for det, er helt fantastisk. Enda en strålende innsats i fornuftens tjeneste.

Gunnar, takk for jobben du gjør!! :-)

Best blog ever?

Time for a slightly overdue shoutout ... I've been meaning to do this ever since I discovered this blog (thanks to Gunnar) but better late than never. :-)

So, I have a blog recommendation, and this is just pretty much the best blog ever. I LOVE it. It's just beyond fantastic. I can't even describe it; I know that if I tried I could never do justice to it. This absolutely brilliant blogger, HelseHarry, writes about his alternative journey to health. You cannot miss this.

Yeah, sorry, it's all in Norwegian. The blog is a comment on the alt.med. debate we're currently having in Norway. And an amazingly brilliant one, I may add. Go here. You're going to love it.

Hvordan er det mulig ...

... å begripe så ekstremt lite av hvordan verden er skrudd sammen, og allikevel fungere i samfunnet? Jeg fatter det ikke. Og jeg synes det er skremmende å tenke på at mennesker som tilsynelatende meget mulig virker normalt oppegående kanskje går rundt med hodet fullt av den tetteste tåke og de mest latterlige meningsløsheter. Mange bare avfeier problemstillingen vi har i Norge i dag med økende interesse for det alternative og alt som følger med - det er ikke så farlig, la nå folk holde på, de skader da ingen. Eventuelt er logikken at de bare skader seg selv, så la dem drive på. Men faktum er at det er skadelig for samfunnet vårt som helhet at det blir stadig flere og flere og flere idioter blant oss. Stadig flere tomsinger som rett og slett ikke forstår hvordan verden fungerer. Før eller senere kommer vi til et tipping point hvor samfunnet rett og slett ikke klarer å fungere heller. Det hjelper ikke å ha ti tusen biler hvis det ikke eksisterer en bilmekaniker. o_O

Et lite hjertesukk, inspirert, eller hva man skal si, av en kommentar på Trine Grungs blogg ... fra kommentarfeltet på den såkalte HelseHildes mest forskrudde innlegg hittil. Og det sier jo ikke så rent lite. Kommentaren er en nærmest total kollaps av forståelse og innsikt. Det er nesten fascinerende. Read it and weep.

Du store min. Det er tydelig at mange føler seg tråkket på tærne her, i forhold til sine "sannheter" og hva de selv har lært og tror på. Slik er det når noen kommer med noe nytt, vi føler oss angrepet og må gå i forsvar. Og tydeligvis treffer Hilde spikeren på hodet, og det er supert. Det er begynnelsen på en stor forandring. Det er slik det alltid er før store forandringer skjer, først kommer noen med en helt ny måte å se tingene på, så blir det rabalder, og så kommer forandringen i hele samfunnet. Så dette går etter boka. Supert.
Vitenskap er ikke alt. Selv vitenskapen har tatt feil, mange ganger, og mye som er såkalt vitenskapelig er vridd og vendt på for å få ønsket resultat. Finnes mye grums i vitenskapen. Det finnes også fenomener som ikke kan måles vitenskapelig. Det betyr ikke at det ikke er sant eller at de ikke eksisterer. Jeg synes synd på mennesker som er så trangsynte at de ikke er åpen for annet enn vitenskap.
Vi mennesker har alle våre "sannheter", og mange av dem begrenser oss. Vi kan ikke lære noe nytt hvis vi stenger ører og øyne. For å bevirke et annet resultat, må man forsøke en annen metode! Å være lege eller å ha jobbet med reumatikere i 20 år betyr ikke at dere sitter på sannheten. Det betyr bare at dere har prøvd de samme metodene om og om igjen, uten å få noe godt resultat. Hvis bare ETT menneske greier å bli frisk ved andre måter enn de skolemedisinske, så er det verdt å sette fokus på, for å se om flere kan dra nytte av det.
La de som har erfaring på området få uttale seg, for det er nemlig de som vet hva de snakker om.

It's funny because it's true

Ahahahahaha!!!!

From this blog, which is brilliant. Text, who needs it.

Do you want to see ...

... the Dunning-Kruger effect in action before your very eyes? Well, the wingnut in question has been blocked from commenting now, so it's not exactly happening any more, but you can read the discussion as far as it went, here. I'm sorry, 'discussion'. It's amazing. I don't understand how someone with such a poorly functioning brain can manage on their own in society. It's scary how religion damages the mind. Not that this guy would ever have been much good, but seriously ... he's completely ruined. Sad. But hey, at least he can comfort himself with the fact that he is an 'apostle'. :-D

Interesting blog

Another short blog post ... I'm really lazy these days, not sure why. This will be really short, but I hope you'll find it interesting. I discovered a new blog the other day while surfing ... that is, it's new to me, but it was started in October last year. The writer was raised as a Mormon, but in her early twenties woke up to the absurdity of her religion ... or cult, whatever ... and managed to get out of it. Now she is a happy atheist. :-) She writes really well and at least to me it's very interesting to get a former insider's view on this issue. Mormonism isn't very big in Norway, to put it mildly. ;-) Check out the blog if you're interested in this type of thing, I really recommend it. The title may sound a little off-putting, but it's from a quote from the Book of Mormon. The Whore of All the Earth, here. Happy reading. :-)

Two years and counting ... !!

Yes, believe it or not, today it's actually been two years since I started this blog. That is a slightly scary thought ... time goes really quickly. Maybe best not to think about it. ;-)

In these two years I've written, let me see ... 1,074 posts. This will be the 1,075th. Really best not to think about that ... !!

I'm sure no one else had any earthly idea that this anniversary was coming up ... I'd actually forgotten it myself up until the day before yesterday. (Hey, it's progress - the first anniversary I totally forgot until almost a week after it had been and gone. ;-) But even so I got a fantastic present today. The absolutely wonderful BookCrosser Travelina gave me wings on BookCrossing.com - doesn't that sound like total nonsense?? :-D OK, what it is is that there are two kinds of membership over on BC - regular membership, which is free, and 'members plus' which you have to pay a little money for ... only $5 for a month, but still, it adds up ... this is called 'wings' by almost all the members over there because that's what it was originally called, and management hasn't been able to make us stop using that term. ;-)

Anyway ... this afternoon I suddenly discovered that I had wings again. Go over there and look at my name, you'll see little dragonfly wings around it. I went to my profile to check the dates (you can see when your wings will expire, if you're logged in) and was confused at first ... Members Plus expires on May 15th, but that's today? How can I have wings for one day? o_O Then I noticed the year ... 2011! :-o Wings for a whole year, that's $30 ... I think that is incredibly kind of her to do that for me. Totally made my day. :-)

Thank you so much, Travelina!!! :-)

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming. Next up, Romania!!

I wants it ...

So, it's been a year since I installed that visitor counter stats thing on the blog. It's on the sidebar, really far down. It was a year ago yesterday that I figured out how to install those. :-) I don't remember what time it was, except it was pretty late at night, so the stats will be off by a couple dozen, I guess. I've had 33,865 page hits in one year. I don't know if that's really good or bad or what :-) but I have to say I'm pretty happy with it. I've had hits from so many places all over the world - again, scroll down to see the current visitors thingummy - I've actually been meaning to do a blog post on that one of these days. It's pretty amazing where people are coming from sometimes. :-) If you're one of them, thank you!! :-)

In other news, I went to my parents' house for dinner tonight, and my mother's new mp3 player had arrived, so of course I had to explain to her how to use it. She is like on a different planet when it comes to gizmos like that. I was kind of jealous though, because even though I already have one mp3 player that works perfectly well, and one that's sort of broken but still works, I really want one like she has too. Argh ... o_O

Dey has it ... I wants it ...

It's hard work being a skeptic

If you don't believe me, take a look at this. So ... much ... STUPID ... !!! o_O But extreme kudos to the blogger for taking it on. I mean, seriously. Wow.

And for those of you who read Norwegian, here's another one (scroll down to the comments posted in the last few days). Kudos again, and I second the offer of sending some very very tiny spoons.

Got mail?

Quite possibly the answer is no, not much. I mean, bills and random ads, sure. But that's not real mail. Real mail is a letter or a card or a package that puts a smile on your face ... and although many of us, thanks to the internet, are now in regular contact with far more people around the world than we were, say, ten years ago, we still get real physical mail much more rarely than we did back then. I know that's true for me. And as much as I love teh intarwebs with all the multitudinous opportunities for experiences that follow, I also like mail. I love mail. :-) It's like I said, it puts a smile on my face. :-)

So, these things considered, I don't understand why I haven't gotten involved with the topic of today's post sooner. I'd heard about it several times, but for some reason I'd never gotten around to really looking into it until the beginning of October this year. It's been going on for over four years, though. And it really works. I can so vouch for that now. :-)

What is Postcrossing?

It's a website set up to let people send and receive postcards to and from randomly selected strangers. :-)

The site was set up by Paulo Magalhães in the summer of 2005, based on his opinion, or one might say feeling, that it's nice to get mail. :-) It's grown very quickly and there are now more than 130,000 users, and more than 3 million cards have been sent.

The system is very simple. First of all you must register as a user - this is quick and easy and completely free of charge. (The site is free to use, although you must of course buy your own postcards and pay for postage. You can make donations to the site if you want, but there is no requirement whatsoever to do so.) You get a profile - mine is here - where you can share some info about yourself and what kind of cards you would like to be sent. You then request an address to send a card to. This will be selected randomly - the list of recipient addresses changes constantly. The address may be anywhere in the world. You also get a unique ID code - eg, NO-26893 - which you must write clearly on the card. You then write a few words - whatever you want to write - on the postcard and send it off.

When it is received by the recipient, that person will use the ID code to register the card as received. Your address will then be added to the list of people due to receive a postcard, and someone else will be sent your address when they ask to send a card. This person, again, may be anywhere in the world, and they will not be the same person that you sent your card to.

At any given time you can have up to five cards travelling; as soon as one of these is registered as received, you will be allowed to send another. This number increases in increments with the number of cards you send. You will receive the same number of cards as you send out, from various countries all over the world. You send a card, it's received, you get a card ... And around and around we go ... :-)

But seriously, it really works. So far I've had 26 cards registered as received, and I've gotten 24 cards. The latter number will obviously usually be a little bit behind the former. I've got six cards on the road right now, travelling to Russia, Scotland, Canada, the US, China and Germany. The two cards I'm due to receive may come from almost literally anywhere on the planet. So far I've gotten cards from Finland, Iceland, Japan, Brazil, Tahiti, China and Germany ... among others. :-) I love it. :-) You never know what will arrive, or when. :-)

Apart from the official Postcrossing cards, there's also a lot of swapping going on. You can check a box on your profile to let other members know whether or not you're interested in that. A great way to get even more mail. :-D

The point of this post is to encourage all of you reading this to join Postcrossing and share in the fun. What's stopping you?? :-) You don't have to send five cards at once, you don't have to swap, you can make it as complicated or as simple as you want. But if your constantly empty mailbox is boring you to tears, I'm here to tell you that there is a solution. :-)

Two of my friends - KAS and C. - have already joined, and I've signed my mother up too. If you decide to join, dear reader, I'd love to hear about your experiences. It's a great hobby, and - I'll say it again - it really works. :-)

As usual, I've gotten a bit carried away with this whole thing, so I've set up a Postcrossing blog to chronicle my PX adventures. It's here if you want to take a look at cards I've sent and received, and other Postcrossing-related info.

Got mail? No? Then become a Postcrosser - you and your mailbox will never look back! :-)

My message to the world

Norwegian blogger Thomas Moen has issued a challenge to the blogosphere ... or at least to the Norwegian part of it, I guess. Write a post [on your blog] with a picture of your hand, on which you have written a message you want to share with the world, and encourage other bloggers to do the same. So here's my message. Anyone else wants to join, well, the more the merrier. :-)

I found out about the challenge over at unfiltered perception. Thanks for the tip. :-)

Excellent blog post

Not this one, no. ;-) This is a shoutout to a blog I read, The Atheist Experience (thanks to Margo and OTD for tipping me off about it :-) which is a great blog in every possible way and so worth reading for any sceptic. So many great posts there, and fantastic discussions in the comments. Today's post is the best post I think I've ever read there. Kudos to tracieh, so much. Go read the post, you won't be sorry. An excellent blog post. :-)

Picture tag!!

I've been tagged again! This time it's photo-related, and I am of course happy to participate. :-) Sorry it took a little while. :-) My relatively new (as far as I know ;-) reader Sunder tagged me with this photo challenge:

Tag, you're it! Open your FIRST photo folder. Now find the TENTH picture. Post that picture on your blog and then tell us the story of the picture! Then tag FIVE friends and have them do the same!

So, this is my picture:

It's from last year, the day in ... November, it must have been, that my mp3 player arrived in the mail. I was so excited to get it. For some bizarre reason I had never had one of these before. I had thought very vaguely about getting one, but never done anything about it. Then I came across one of these in a store while looking for something else entirely ... but I didn't buy it there, although I was quite charmed by it ... I felt like I ought to be sensible and do some research first. Ie, if it wasn't a total piece of trash I would buy it. It seemed pretty good, and I found it online cheaper than in that store (where they didn't even have the DVD recorder that I came there to buy) so I ordered it. When it arrived, it turned out to be even better than I'd thought it'd be. It has a loudspeaker, so I can use it even without headphones. I didn't know that before I got it. Check out my careful research ... !! :-D

I've been using the player pretty much every day since I got it. It goes everywhere with me. I've listened to 20 audiobooks so far this year. Boring chores at work have gotten soo much less boring ... !! :-D I totally love this little piece of plastic and circuitry and I don't know how I ever managed without it. The best thing I bought all last year, or, in fact, since I can remember. :-)

That's the story of my 10th picture. Now I'm going to tag, let's see ...

Paz over at Pictures of Ireland

Quiltoholic

Writativity

The Anéa Journal

A Death in the Ballroom

Shoutout: Opplysningskontoret

Do you read Norwegian and want to get a good laugh? Do you follow current events? Take an interest in politics? Do you like Hallo i uken? Then the site I'm going to direct you to now may be right up your alley. If you always believe what you read and take everything literally, though, you should probably go somewhere else.

Go here to check it out.

This site is all in Norwegian, alas, but to give those of you who don't understand the language some idea, it's basically the Norwegian answer to The Onion. And it's totally hilarious. Their name, Opplysningskontoret, means 'the information office', but they're more in the business of disinformation. ;-) There are seven contributors and they all write well and are really funny. IMHO. :-) They have a way with words about them. But the funniest part is the comments sections, whenever someone stumbles on the place and thinks it's all for real. :-D

Some sample articles (my translation of the headlines):

* Cancer patient pulls himself together and goes to work
* Bankrupt Europe tricks Norway into hosting expensive nonsense festival
* Norway buys more overpriced crappy weapons, US still sulks
* Man marries fetus
* Dead people sick and tired of being quoted to support all kinds of bullshit
* More than 100 Norwegians will die every day
* Radical Islam considers position seriously after storm of criticism

Have fun! :-)

Quote of the Week

The fact that a believer is happier than a sceptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality.
George Bernard Shaw

This week's quote chosen because of an interesting series on religion started over on Shiva's blog, here.

Shoutout: unfiltered perception

Finally getting around to doing something I've been planning to do since forever ... ie, post a shoutout to a blog that I enjoy tremendously, one of my favorite blogs anywhere ever. I wish I remembered when I discovered it, but, alas, I'd be lying if I said I did. A year and a half ago maybe. I've been reading it regularly since then and have continually been impressed with the quality of this blog. See, this guy does serious research, and he writes well-balanced and informative posts about important issues. It kinda makes me a little embarrassed sometimes, cause his blog is so impressive, and here I am posting bad music and turtle videos and pictures of flowers and so on. But it takes all kinds, right? ;-)

Anyway, yesterday this wonderful blogger posted actually asking for a shoutout ... so of course I'm more than willing to give him one. Especially since I've come to consider him a friend, too, over the time that we've known each other. (He even asked me to marry him once. Aw. ;-) The internet is a wonderful place. :-) So, Gunnar, consider it done!! I would urge anyone & everyone who enjoys my blog to take a gander at Gunnar's as well - it's seriously impressive and has lots of food for thought. He writes about religion & atheism, science, consumer affairs (as in: debunking fraudulent advertising :-), superstition, alternative medicine, music, skepticism, politics, current affairs ... lots. Unfortunately for the foreigners among my readership *cough*, he writes mostly in Norwegian. But he posts some stuff in English too ... especially some great YouTube finds every so often. Like this.

Those of you who do read Norwegian, though, please check it out. unfiltered perception. Enjoy. :-)

My blog's first anniversary!!

And I forgot it!! Dagnabbit!! This is soo typically me. I was going to write a celebratory post, and, I don't know, mark the occasion somehow. I was at least going to mention it. At the beginning of May I checked the blog archive to see when I'd made my first post and then made a mental note to remember that date and post something relevant on, yes, May 15th. And then I totally forgot until today, May 21st. Duh. That is SO me ... !!

May 15th has been and gone, so, alas, nothing I can do. Just try harder to remember it next year. :-) I wanted to do something special on the anniversary, but, well, it seems a little pointless now, since I missed it. Sheesh. I never learn. :-) I always do this.

I've had the day off today, since it's Ascencion Day (yeah, Norway is the most secularized society in western Europe, but we still have a shitload of religious holidays - anything to get a day off work ;-) and I've basically been lazing around doing almost nothing all day. I'm reading a rather interesting book about the Knutby murders, so I've been reading a lot. And I've been fiddling around with my computer, sorting through pictures and what not. And I made a count of something, get this:

I've been blogging for one year and six days, and I've written 675 blog posts. This is the 676th. That's kind of crazy. But what's done is done. I'm in too deep to quit now. Also, 2,303 comments have been left on the blog. (A bunch of those are my own, of course. I do tend to talk back a bit. I'm nowhere near crazy enough to go through all of that to find out the percentage. Unless there is some Blogger feature I'm unaware of that lets you do that easily??) I have no idea whether that is pretty good or pathetic or whatever it is, but it's a number, anyway. I've been really good today about avoiding doing anything useful. ;-)

Anyway ... I was going to write a serious post today, but I guess that's out the window. I'll just celebrate belatedly instead by getting a movie rating on my blog. It's rated R cause I said fuck. Oops. Congratulations to me!! :-D

My first blog award!

I won an award! :-)

A while back I was tagged with my very first blog award by Lemmy Caution - thank you!!! - but because of this, that and the other ;-) I'm only getting around to acknowledging the honor now. Thank you, I appreciate it. :-)

I'm supposed to pass it on to seven others, so let's see if I can come up with that many. :-) I very often forget everything when I'm put on the spot like that. But let's see. (Not necessarily in order.)

1. A Death in the Ballroom (open by invitation only, so no link, sorry)

2. liFe and bUbbles

3. Writativity

4. Quiltoholic

5. The Darkest Star/May Contain Traces of Bolts

(they're a couple so they'll have to share!! ;-)

6. The Anéa Journal

7. Pictures of Ireland

And then here are the award rules:

The instructions for the 'chosen ones' :

1. You must brag about the award

2. You must include the name of the blogger who bestowed the award on you and link back to the blogger

3. You must choose a minimum of seven (7) blogs that you find brilliant in content or design.

4. Show their names and links and leave a comment informing them that they were prized with Honest Weblog.

5. List at least ten (10) honest things about yourself. Then pass it on with the instructions!

Ten honest things?

1. I think what whoever wrote this actually meant was 'truthful'.

2. I am really, really lazy.

3. I think housework is incredibly boring ... when I'm not actually doing any.

4. I don't have a driver's license, even though I have taken the tests.

5. I watch The Bold and the Beautiful. Every episode. It's on at around noon, but I record it and watch it when I get home. If I miss an episode, I go online and read the synopsis.

6. I can't stand children.

7. I would love to have a garden. But I don't want to do any gardening.

8. I think capitalism is an incredibly bad idea.

9. I hope I've died before Norway ever becomes a republic.

10. I was once stuck in an elevator with Terry Pratchett. Only for a couple of minutes. But still.

The comments with info I will leave tonight. Thanks again, Lemmy!! :-)

I met Karstein Volle!

woot!! :-D

Remember a few days ago, um, let's see - the week before last, when I posted about an online comic whose creator had asked for a shoutout, so I gave him one? And I posted some samples of his work (click here to see that post). The artist, Mr Volle of this post's title, was grateful for the shoutout and not at all miffed that I'd posted his artwork without asking permission. I know, shame on me, in principle. I was pretty sure he wouldn't mind. ;-) Anyway ...

He lives in Helsinki, for some mysterious reason, but right now he's in the old country for a few days, couple of weeks, or whatever it is. This weekend he's in Oslo and, get this, he wanted to meet up with me. :-o He's going to some major comics fair in Angouleme at the end of this month, and he's translated some of his comics into English so he can present the strip to anyone & everyone he'll come across there. :-) And he wanted me to look at his translations and 'give him some pointers'. :-o It would be 'enormously cool' if I'd be willing to do that. o_O Willing!! He must be nuts. Of course I emailed him back and said that it would be an honor for me to help. I mean, seriously. Wow. :-)

So this afternoon we met at the Library Bar at Hotel Bristol downtown for some hot chocolate (mmm, chocolate ...) and looked at his translated pieces on his MacBook (I think it was a MacBook, but maybe it wasn't, I don't really know about these things) and just basically had a really nice and fun conversation. At least I thought it was. :-) We were there for almost five and a half hours. I had a really good time. And before we parted ways he asked me to - get this, again! - maybe, if I wanted to and I had the time, if I'd be willing, etc - to help translate the 57 In the Future strips that don't have translations yet. o_O Yeah, OK, I'll glance through them, whatever. 'If I'd be willing'. Yeah, he's gotta be nuts.

But apart from that he was - as far as I could tell in five hours ;-) - a really nice guy. Funny and smart. Pretty hungover, but not that slow on the uptake, even so. ;-) And he was even polite to the Coat Nazi. (But then again he'd never been to Bristol before, this was his first time, so I guess that explains it.) And - as expected - he was just happy to indulge me when I, before we left, went all fangirl on him and brought out my copies of his three books for him to sign. Thanks, the value just went up on those babies, I think. ;-)

A good time was hopefully had by all. :-)

Signing one of my books ... writing cryptic messages ...

I met Karstein Volle! woot! :-D