Stop forwarding that crap to me

I'm sure everyone who reads this has at some point or another - overwhelmingly likely more than once - received forwarded emails that are nothing but worthless crap. 'Warnings' about viruses supposedly going around or scams being worked, that anyone would know was bogus after three minutes on Snopes. Really badly done 'illustrated poetry'. Chain mail. Just BS that takes up space in your inbox and wastes your time. We've all been there. So of course, Weird Al has made a song about it.

Please note that I am not particularly bothered by such emails myself ... I have mostly sensible friends, the few people that forward crap to me don't read this blog AFAIK. So don't be upset, this is probably not directed at you. ;-) But the song is soo cool and the video so well made that I just have to post it. You'll like it. And if you like Jim Steinman, you'll love it. :-)



Widescreen here.

I like Jim Steinman.

Movie star exploited by conspiracy nuts

True story: Today at work my little colleague, S., opened an article at Nettavisen about the Illuminati. I'm a little anxious about him and this kind of thing because he is a little naive and he has a friend who really is a conspiracy nut, and I don't want him to be influenced by any crazy ideas, because he's a really good guy. So as he glanced through the article I did the same over his shoulder, just to keep an eye on things. :-)

Now, if you look at the article, you'll see a couple of highly recognizable names that pop up. Dan Brown, for one ... so you know it'll be about something BS-y right there. ;-) But don't get me wrong, it's a good article ... in the sense that it makes it clear that this is BS. But anyway. Another name that's mentioned is that of world renowned wacko David Icke. Of course I jumped at the chance to explain to S. that ANYTHING in which Icke is even remotely involved is guaranteed to be complete and utter bullcrap. I did a quick google search to find a few obvious things to back this up. And lookee what I found:

LOL! Guess where I found it? Nyhetsspeilet! For the non-Norwegians among us: Nyhetsspeilet - 'the news mirror' - is a Norwegian website maintained and frequented by conspiracy nuts and other crazies and weirdos. They have no critical standards and will publish anything so long as it fits with their madcap world view. Even, on one memorable occasion, a story that was obviously false and specifically designed to see if they would do even the most basic fact-checking or whether they would just buy it at first glance just cause it sounded like what they wanted to hear. Guess which happened. :-D Anyway ... this is an illustration they've come up with to go with a story on Icke and his fascinating theories about a reptilian superspecies that secretly dominates the world. (I'm not linking to it for obvious reasons, but it's very easy to find.) I'm sure they came up with this because Icke wrote a book some years ago called Children of the Matrix. Published in 2001, but I'm sure the title is just a coincidence. And the front cover too. Weird how that happens sometimes.

Anyway, I thought this was kind of funny. If you just keep your eyes peeled, Keanu's everywhere. I just read Knut Nærum's latest book today - Sit Down and Shut Up - and he's even mentioned in that. Kind of funny. :-)

O.M.F.G.

There is something so seriously wrong with Americans. o_O

I don't know if it's their culture or what it is. But they are so messed up. That's like something I know for a fact, but it's at the back of my mind most of the time, I don't normally think about it. But then sometimes something happens, I see or hear something that just makes me go ... O.M.F.G.

Check this out. I landed on this site from a post on the Atheist Experience blog ... it's about how Martin, one of the contributors over there, got to be on TV this week. He was interviewed about a billboard that an organization he's also a member of - or so I assume - called the Coalition of Reason has put up alongside a highway somewhere in Texas. There's a photo in the article I linked to.

In his AE blog post about the interview, Martin says that he'd be happy for people to participate in the discussion of the article at the website of whatever media outlet this was that interviewed him. So I went ... not to discuss, I don't want to waste my time on it (sorry, but not my country, not my problem). Just to see what was being said. The usual mix of Xian windbags foaming at the mouth and skeptics talking to brick walls. But it's an automatic function in the discussion arrangement on the site that has me so flabbergasted. Do you see it? WTF is up with that??

Just in case you don't see it ... or you can't be bothered to read through six pages of comments to find it (the first example is on page 5 of the comments currently) ... I'll tell you what it is. OMFG. The comment function automatically censors some word combinations, apparently. Something which I have never ever ever seen in any online discussion in this part of the world. But look closely. I could maybe, possibly, understand it if they blanked out fuck and a few other words like that. But look. In those comments, the noun form of the verb to document comes out like this:

do[censored]entation

Because it has the word cum in it. o_O

OMFG. The land of the free my shiny metal ass.

Any Americans reading this: I don't know what it is exactly, but something is seriously fucked up over where you're at, people.

Cheer Up Keanu Reeves Day?

Is that necessary? Seriously, is that really necessary? I'm sure even a lot of the non-Keanufans out there, and even a bunch of the anti-Keanu crowd, have caught on to the new craze out there ... and maybe even to the fact that June 15th has been designated Cheer Up Keanu Reeves Day. o_O

Apparently, the man himself doesn't get it - and whoever thought he would doesn't know the first thing about him - and while it is so nice to see him finally getting some respect and appreciation, I don't entirely get it myself either. Sure, he's had a lot of crap happen in his life. I mean, a lot. (Which is all now being dragged up again too ... how much will that cheer him up, I wonder.) But right now I really think he needs cheering up less than he has basically ever needed it. At least professionally speaking he is doing so good now, better than ever ... Henry's Crime is looking great, Passengers is definitely going to happen, probably Jekyll too, and most importantly he's moving into the production side of movie making which IMO is the most natural step he could take. As for his private life, who can say, but Kim seems to be doing OK, and that's absolutely the most important thing. He looks pretty happy to me ... traveling around, doing his usual thing. So to pick now as the time to send letters, emails, gifts and any other niceties and kind words to a real bro, Keanu Reeves ... No, I don't really get it either.

For those who have discovered what a great guy Keanu is and are starting to really appreciate him as an actor and as a person, that's fantastic ... but seriously, don't send him anything. He doesn't want it. Keep your life to yourself and he'll do you the same courtesy. That's part of what's so great.

Maybe he isn't sad at all, maybe he's just ever so slightly pissed off that he can't even eat a simple lunch without the paparazzi stalking him wherever he goes.

Although that's not really true, he does spend a lot of his time under their radar, so to speak. But it's still a good point.

Well, happy thoughts to Keanu, anyway, although I don't believe in that shit and I'm not at all convinced he needs it. :-) Thank You, Keanu!! If you want to be like Keanu Reeves, do the most important thing of all - donate to cancer research.

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.

Ooh, hungry fake turtles

Feed the turtles, they are cute and hungry ...



Get your own virtual critters here.

This is a test

I found this online somewhere. I think. It works in Word ... now I just want to see if it works in a blog post too. I know, totally meaningless post. I'm just exhausted today for some reason. No energy to think up anything to write. So I want to test this.

It's supposed to be a ship on the water. :-) Boat.

°°°°°°°°°°°°\ *
°°°°°°°°°°°°_\°°°° °°
°°°°°°°°°°°°__\°°°° °°
°°°°°°°°°°°°___\°°° °°°
°°°°°°°°°°°°____\°° °°°°°°
°°°°°°°°°°°°_____\° °°°°°
°°°°°°°°°°°°______\ °°°°°
°°°°°°_____________ ________
~~~~\_______________ _____/~~~~(*_*)~~~~( *_*)
,.-~*´¨¯¨`*•~-.¸,.-~ *´¨¯¨`*•~-.¸,.-~*´¨¯ ¨`*•~-.¸,.-~* ¯

I love books. :-)

Yes, I love books. :-) And I love the things books inspire people to. I mean, look at this ... !!

This is Arma de Instruccion Masiva, a 'weapon of mass instruction'. :-D It's the creation of the Argentinian artist Raul Lemesoff, and these days it can be seen on the streets of Buenos Aires. He's actually a BookCrosser although he may not really know it - he both gives away books from the sculpture as well as accepting donations of books. I think this is so fantastic. Just look at that thing. Brilliant. I'm not really into cars, but I think I'd want one like this. ;-)

A few of Lemesoff's photos can be seen on his photostream on Flickr, here - some pretty good shots IMO. More pictures of the Arma, if anyone's interested. Three days ago I'd never heard about this guy, but I like him already. :-)

I'll be cross-posting this to my book blog, Leisha Reads ... a second blog that I set up in January as a place to post book reviews etc. Mostly for my own enjoyment. :-) Feel free to stop by though. :-)

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

This and that

One show-less day to get through before the big one. I hardly know what to write now. ;-) Random snippets on various topics, I suspect ...

Anne Ida and I are going to a screening of Mamma Mia at the Ekeberg Restaurant tonight ... at least if the weather stays this good. It's a singalong screening and entry is free; it starts at 9:30, but it's probably smart to be there an hour early. At least. Come along, my local friends, why don't you. :-) Just the view from that place is worth going up there.

I stopped by the Chit-Chat forum on BookCrossing on Wednesday ... just surfing randomly to alleviate the boredom caused by yet another interminable episode of Lost. I'm grateful that I did go by there. It reminded me of what I'm not missing. I used to be very active on CC for a while, then got into a fight with one of the regulars ... and when I say regular, whew, that's an understatement. This guy seems to have no life outside that forum ... he posts almost constantly (and when not posting seems to mostly spend his time trawling teh intarwebs for dirty jokes) and yet he's registered & released hardly any books. Makes the BookCrossing concept seem kind of pointless. But anyway. We got into a fight where this guy scared the shit out of me and I took off. At first I really missed the place ... I kind of had withdrawal. But I was too nervous to go there ... who'd be the next to turn out to be a borderline sociopath and pull the metaphorical knives out? And after a while I totally lost interest in it anyway. Now I remember most of my time there with a vague fondness that doesn't really highlight anything specific about what I actually used to hang around there for. o_O Anyway. Stopping by this week was a great reminder of exactly why I lost interest in the place.

What a fucking kindergarten. There's nothing but bickering and arguing and bitchiness ... and sure, some members I expect that from - there are some BookCrossers who I swear I don't understand what kind of issues they're dealing with, but you can tell it's gotta be something - but now it's like pretty much everyone is just letting their most childish & immature side run wild. If you want to take a look at what I mean (though I'd advise against it ;-) click here or here.

A weird question overheard on the bus on my way to work yesterday: The bus is scheduled to leave two minutes after the subway arrives, so that people can change over if they want to. A couple of passengers did yesterday. But one guy just got on board and asked the driver, Does this bus go by Helsfyr? The driver said Sorry, no, and the guy got off again. WTF? If he wanted to get to Helsfyr, why did he get off the subway? Helsfyr is the third stop from where he was. o_O My advice: Read the map of the train lines posted in every carriage, it'll help you.

I'm 'reading' a seriously cool & very unusual audiobook right now: Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. It's on the 1001 list, that's why I picked it up. But it's so weird and I'm totally loving it. I really recommend it. A very strange and very engrossing book.

I've got so many cool things to blog about now, when I can find the time. This past weekend I went field herping with my herpetology group. I took soo many cool pictures. I can't wait to post them. As soon as the ESC is over, then ... !! ;-)

Have a great weekend!!

Best spam email EVAR

So, I got the best spam mail ever yesterday. It tricked Yahoo, it landed in my inbox instead of the spam file. And it confused me at first, because it took a couple of seconds before I recognized the name of the sender. Like, I knew I knew that name, but from where ... ? And then it clicked. And I thought to myself, I will treasure this email forever.

OK, now, here's the text of the message, but with the name of the sender crossed out, because that's the punchline. So bear with me. All will be revealed. :-) The subject of the message was Business Management and Financial Consultant. Oh, the irony ... !! It's enough to make you doubt whether this really is spam, even, and not actually some kind of meta-joke sent out by someone who watches way too much TV. Adapted spam ... ?

The body of the message read:

Dear Friend,
I want to introduce myself to you My name is Dr. xxx xxx, i am a Business Management and Financial Consultant, I have been instructed by my client an 80years old Mr. Roy Agrawal an India who worked with an Oil Company in U.S.A to Seek for a Business minded, matured, honest and God fearing partner.If you are interested, please do contact me (
dbrent38@inMail24.com) immediately for more details.
Regards.
Dr. xxx xxx.

I know, right? Sounds so tempting!! >:-) This is just the same shit as always, but here's the clincher. The name. The supposed person who supposedly sent this email.

David Brent.

Business Management and Financial Consultant ... !!! :-D

zomg rofl lolz!!!!!

Click here if you didn't get it ... and then here. :-)

Ask not what you can do for Flickr ...

... ask what Flickr can do for you, apparently. o_O

So, I'm on Flickr now, as I posted about a while ago ... my photostream is here, if you want to take a look. 83 items and counting. I post my best pictures there ... the ones I think are best, anyway. :-) Obviously a lot of them are from Oslo. You gotta work with what you have. :-) One day a couple of weeks ago I got an email from someone on Flickr who wanted me - get this - to let them use one of my pictures in a theater programme in Leicester. I know, WTF, right? But apparently it was legit. It's some place called The Little Theatre, which was doing a production of Ibsen's Little Eyolf. This is the picture they wanted to use:

I do agree that it's pretty nice. :-) But I don't think it's all that ... I mean, honestly. I don't know that I'd include it in a theatrical programme. But to each their own, of course. I said that it was perfectly fine by me if they wanted to use it, as long as they credited me appropriately ... and if possible, it'd be great if they could send me a copy of the programme. I'm sorry, but I'm just a naturally suspicious person. Seeing is believing. The woman who was sending the emails was thrilled at my agreement and promised to send me a copy as soon as. I kind of forgot about the whole thing until I got home yesterday afternoon and checked my mailbox. Lookee!

That's the cover, and here's the inside page with my photo on it. They actually seriously used it. Weirdness!! o_O Click to enlarge if you want to take a closer look at it. My photo's the middle one on the left ... as you see. :-)

Oh, and I hit 1,000 views on my photostream yesterday. Yay. :-)

I've been discovered!! :-o

OK, so you're just an innocent blogger, minding your business, posting your random thoughts of silly and serious things ... you got your politics, you got your turtles, you got your vacation pictures and you got your wrongly attributed quotes. Pretty much the usual. You go to bed at night expecting things to rattle along as they normally do in your absence. Then the next day you get to work, check your email, and ... what?? You've got more than eighty new comments on your blog! Which has like eleven readers. I mean ... woot??

Right, so then you read some comments and follow some links and basically figure out what's happened. Pretty crazy. I guess I'm glad all these comments and stuff didn't start pouring in until after I'd gone to bed, cause if it had I don't think I would have gotten any sleep last night. ;-) I have no specific idea as to how, but I did post the url for the VG story on a couple of blogs, and on the BookCrossing forum, so who may have seen it I really don't know. And there are what seems to be ... two? other people who have done their bit to get it across the pond too (although I will not accept that this is a better translation than mine ;-). Someone's obviously run with it. There's a link on The Daily Kos and the story has almost 500 comments ... it has 7238 recommendations on Digg.com and more than 800 comments. :-o And lots of people are saying that they're going to email the story to others. I hope they do, it's a good story. :-) But what total weirdness for this to happen, from where I'm standing. I will never underestimate the power of the internet again.

I normally respond specifically to almost every comment I get here - because I hardly get any, so it's easy ;-) - but obviously I won't be able to do that now. Sorry, guys. :-) I so appreciate everyone who's taken the time to visit and comment - thank you everyone - and special thanks to those of you who posted links and info about how you got here. I would have been kind of confused otherwise, I think. ;-) Keep sending the story out if you want. :-)

I do want to make a few further comments, though, in relation to what I've seen people saying here and elsewhere. Just so I can consider it said. :-) Let's see, where to start. Well, some have been questioning the trustworthiness of VG. My opinion - I don't like that paper, I hardly ever read it, and I'm a little embarrassed now that so many people know that I actually bought it on Saturday. I pride myself on never buying VG. (Except this one time last summer they had an interview with Keanu ;-) ... and then they ran a review of the new Which Witch production recently too ... but ... almost never.) I think VG is a piece of shit, because I don't like gossipy tabloids, the VG style of writing doesn't appeal to me, and I think that being a nation's largest newspaper carries with it a certain responsibility when it comes to educating that nation, rather than dumbing it down. But. VG is a reputable newspaper, their circulation covers over one fifth of the entire population of this country, and I am convinced that they would not run a story like this without thoroughly checking it first. They would be SO INTENSELY MOCKED if they printed this and it was fake. It's not a big enough story to warrant that risk.

Do I think it matters? Yes, I think it does - just not in a big way. I don't think anyone should be voting for a person - be it Barack Obama or John McCain, or Jens Stoltenberg or Siv Jensen. All of us who live in democracies and have the right to vote should have enough appreciation for our own ability to think rationally to disregard the person behind the political platform, and focus on the actual politics being put forward. So ... I really hope no one will vote for Obama because he's such a nice guy. :-) Vote for the political standpoints that you agree with the most. However, these things are intertwined. I think everyone should also try to educate ourselves a bit about the politicans we are considering voting for. Not pry into every detail of their lives. But some things cast an interesting light. In small ways, they may enlighten us as to what we think and believe. What I would wish for in a leader is someone who will practice what they preach.

Beggars In Spain is not my #1 favorite book, but it's pretty high on the list. :-) I'm a big fan of Nancy Kress.

As for this particular story, I know nothing about it more than any of you who have read my blog post. No point in questioning me, I just read it in the paper. I am not Mary Menth Andersen, nor do I have any connection with her in any way. I believe that the story's true - I see no reason not to - and you can read about my reasoning in one of the top comments under that post. Does it make sense 100%? No. I thought the address in Kansas thing was a little weird too. But I honestly don't know who everyone in Obama's family is and where they live ... and I doubt that those who have commented to that effect know either. ;-) Plus, it's been twenty years, maybe she's remembering it wrong and it was Hawaii and not Kansas. I don't think it's a big deal. Was this woman the sharpest knife in the drawer 20 years ago - um, no, probably not. To be honest, if it had been me, I would have checked ahead to see how much luggage I could bring, and no way in hell would I have gone on a trip across the Atlantic carrying absolutely no money. But on the other hand, what do I know, maybe she had no money to bring. And in any case, no matter what she'd done to land herself in that position, this was an awful awful situation to be in. I'm kind of a pack rat myself so I would have been falling apart. :-) So that's one side of it. And another side is that this is not something that just anyone would do. Look at yourself in the mirror. Are you totally sure that in that situation, standing in a crowd and witnessing a stranger in distress, that you would have been certain to step forward and help, with absolutely no guarantee you'd get your money back or anything in return? Or even with such a guarantee? I think that almost everyone reading this - and me included - are kidding ourselves if we think that we would. It's kind of sad, but it's a pretty safe bet that almost all of us would just have stood there and pretended like we didn't notice.

So. Barack Obama is a pretty special person. I really think he is. I would never have voted for him if he was running for anything in this country, with the political views he has now. Because let's face it, from a Scandinavian perspective, the guy's a right wing nutcase just like every other American politician. (<-- Not a joke.) But for his own country, he could do great things. I hope he gets the chance. I wish him all the best. :-)

What I really want to know is, does this mean that my blog has some actual readers? Who aren't just my RL friends (Paz, I haven't forgotten you, you're a special case ;-)? And does that mean that I'll have to write about serious things and do research and post relevant ... stuff ... instead of just turtle stories and pictures of Keanu and ... random thoughts and ponderings.

Does it?? :-o

Naah ... !! :-D