Off again

I'm off to Scotland on Saturday (and you're not, nananananana) so don't expect any posts for over a week. I promise to bring ya'll some haggis.

I've told you once

The Red Cross is asking for more donations. So give, you cheap bastards, GIVE!

Terror Alert

Got this in my inbox today, and since I'm such a generous person I thought I'd share it with ya'll.

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Londoners are feeling the pinch in relation to recent bombings, and in consequence the Alert State has been raised from 'Miffed' to 'Peeved'. Soon though, the levels may need to be raised to 'Irritated' or even 'A bit cross!'

Londoners have not been 'A bit cross!' since the blitz in 1940 when tea supplies all but ran out. Terrorists have been re-categorised from 'Tiresome' to 'A bloody nuisance'; the last time 'A bloody nuisance' warning level was issued prior to that was during the Great Fire in 1666.

Be aware that the French government announced yesterday that it has raised its terror alert level from 'Run' to 'Hide'. The only two higher levels in France are 'Surrender' and 'Collaborate'. The rise was precipitated by a recent fire that destroyed France's white flag factory, effectively paralysing their military capability.

It is not only the French who are on a heightened level of alert: the Italians have increased their alert level from 'Shout loudly and excitedly' to 'Elaborate military posturing'. Two more levels remain, 'Ineffective combat operations' and 'Change sides'.

The Germans also increased their alert state from 'Disdainful arrogance' to 'Dress in uniform and sing marching songs'. They have two higher levels, 'Invade a neighbour' and 'Lose'.

Seeing this reaction in continental Europe, the Americans have gone from 'Isolationism' to 'Find another oil-rich nation in the Middle East ripe for regime change'. Their remaining higher alert states are 'Attack the world' and 'Beg the British for help'.

Finally GB as a whole has gone from 'Pretend nothing's happening' to 'Make another cup of tea'. Our higher levels are 'Remain resolutely cheerful' and 'Win'.

Globetrotting Ghost

*rubbing hands* Ahhhhh... travel plans for the rest of the year are forming... I'm off to the UK in early October. I'll fly in to Glasgow Saturday Oct 1, then spend a few nights there and in Edinburgh before driving down to Whitby, a very historical town in northern Yorkshire. After two nights there it's off to York city for two nights, then on to see friends in Barnsley before flying out from Liverpool Sunday Oct. 9.

And just this evening I've booked a fairly cheap return flight (ca €200/$250) to Rome for xmas. Flying out Wed 21, back Wed 28. Not sure if I'm going to spend the whole week in Rome, but it should be a great trip anyway. Much warmer than in bloody Norway, that's for sure.

Spam, spam, spam - wonderful spaaaaaaam

As ya'll know, I absolutely hate spammers and would like to see them all put to death in a wide variety of gruesome and extremely painful ways. Lately, the fuckers have even started invading my comments section! But now I have discovered that blogspot offers a comment verification function, which you should all activate. It is very simple, you just go to the comments section of your edit panel and click it. From then on, anyone wishing to leave a comment must type in a word generated by blogspot. This requires a human and excludes all those effin' spambots. Problem solved!

Jingle Bells

As some of you know (and mercilessly taunt me for), I sometimes move off my fat ass and partake in physical exercise. To be more precise, I sometimes play floorball with colleagues. I do it as much for the social aspect as for the exercise, and the worst thing that happens is usually that I get a little stiff in the morning the day after a game.

Todays game, however, almost ended in tragedy. Yours truly is no athlete - I tend to start wheezing after running five yards - but I'm fairly decent at filling up the space between the goalposts and today was no exception. Now, one of the players on the opposing team is a huge, bulky guy, infamous for his hard drives. When he fires off a shot, people tend to scatter in all directions. And this particular afternoon he fired of a shot of epic force about ten feet away from me, hitting me square in the holiest of holies. Needless to say, I went down like a sack o' taters and stayed down for a while.

Yet, even in my hour of excruciating pain I managed to keep my calm and fire off a remark. As the others gathered around me, inquiring about my status (dead or alive?) I managed to whisper hoarsely: "I'm fine guys... I'm fine... but I've got this sudden urge to go out and buy shoes..."

Now THAT'S calm under fire.

Fuck-fuckety-fuck

The Norwegian Parliamentary elections yesterday ended in a victory for the opposition, which consists of three parties: Labor (Social Democrats), The Center Party (protectionist peasants) and the Socialist Left Party (name says it all). Labor is twice as big as the two other put together, so I'm hoping they'll run the show, and a fairly tight ship too.

However, if they start fuckin up the economy so the interest rates go up, or if they increase the already ludicrous price of gas (7,5USD per US gallon, thank you very much) I just might go postal on their asses. Hmmm. Wonder if I should aim to be the world's greatest prison blogger?

On a side note, the sitting center-right govt and their allies gained 0,9% more votes than the "winners", yet only captured 82 seats to the reds' 87. Gore captured 0,5% more votes than Bush in '00. Think the Norwegian press will start questioning the new govt's popular mandate? Me neither.

Judenrein

Kristallnacht, November 9, 1938:




9/11, 2005 - four years after you-know-what:




Yup. They're burning synagogues again. Are we going to do something about it this time?

Decisions, decisions

Monday is election night here in Norway, and after much wailing & gnashing of teeth I've finally decided to participate. I absolutely hate and despise the current government and most of the individual members in it, but the opposition is even worse. So I'll go for the "Conservative" Party again, even though they're only fractionally to the right of Karl Marx.

Norwegian politics. Bah, humbug!

GIVE, you miserly bastards!

Hurricane Katrina:
Go here to find a worthy recipient of your dollars, then go here to tell the world about it.

Also: Please put these links on your blog or homepage, if you have one.

I love my satellite dish

As some of you will remember, I waxed lyrical about Slovenian TV back in May, when I watched my beloved Liverpool FC beat Milan for the European Championship on one of their free channels. Today, I watched the Norwegian national team commit highway robbery by beating Slovenia 3-2 away, and since the match ran on a Norwegian paychannel I don't have, I watched it on a free Slovenian channel.

I first tried to watch it without Slovenian comments while listening to Norwegian radio, but soon found that the tv picture was about 5 seconds delayed. This made the eerie impression of listening to slightly psychic commentators, so I soon turned it off. Besides, it adds a bit of spice to hear foreign commentators shout and wail in their largely incomprehensible tongue, and hearing them pronunciate Norwegian names is especially fun.

The match itself was a real nailbiter. Norway led 2-1 and had played quite well at half time, but then we commited the usual error of trying to play it safe and just control our way through the 2nd half. What followed was a continous barrage against our goal and just a few minutes before full time the Slovenians managed to make 2-2. On overtime we got lucky and scored, which was pure highway robbery, but then again life ain't always fair, especially in sports...

It's good to be the king

For those uncertain about the wisdom of an absolute monarchy, I present to you his royal highness, King Mswati III of Swaziland. This 37 year old ruler has been in the news before, chiefly in connection with expensive purchases of luxury cars, private jets and the likes. (Swaziland has an average PPP/GDP of about $5,100 - 126th in the world - and an average life expectancy of just 33 years - dead last, pardon my pun.)

This time the King is making headlines with his annual Reed Dance Ceremony, in which "more than 50,000 bare-breasted virgins vied to become the King of Swaziland's 13th wife". The age limit for participation? 13. The percentage of Swazis with HIV? 40 - the highest in the world. Sensitive guy, this.

One might think his highness had received a sufficient degree of punishment for his sins by having twelve wives (and presumably a few mother-in-laws), and an undisclosed number of children. However, he seems to have ways of preserving the family peace, as he apparently had his daughter (and several others) whipped for playing loud music (I am not wholly unsympathetic to the idea) at a party in connection with the Reed Dance. And they wonder why this continent is so fucked?

We'll have nun of that dancing, thank you very much!

This is yet another example of news you can't make up... CNN reports that a Belgian nun was reprimanded by her Mother Superior last week after engaging in "acrobatic and indecorous dancing with a missionary during the Catholic World Youth Day in Germany."

A local newspaper had printed pictures of the nun, Johanne Vertommen "being held up in the air by the missionary, and then clinging to him with her legs wrapped around his body."
I wonder if they were doing the Vatican rag?

Stories about nuns always make me think of Mother Mary Stigmata, the terrifying penguin from Blues Brothers - a classic movie turning 25 this year. Anyways, I'll end this post with a great quote from Frank Zappa (and a link to his song "Catholic Girls" - because I can):

"They tried to make me go to Catholic school, too. I lasted a very short time. When the penguin came after me with a ruler, I was out of there."

How planes mate

I apologize to Boeing and Lockheed and all the other companies for disclosing their secrets, but now I know how we get new aeroplanes. Who woulda' thunk it?

Woe is me

Started work again Monday... three full days of seminars, courses and meetings before the little fuckers come in tomorrow and all hell breaks loose again.

I've spent these three days in the back rows, fists clenched, praying for death, but to no avail. I seriously need to win the lottery, so I can quit teaching before I stab myself (or the pupils) to death with a pencil.

I am my bike's bitch

In a desperate attempt to become healthier I've started using my ancient ergobike. Hauled the big old machine up from the basement today and did a 30 minute stint. Sweat was pouring and there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth, but I made it, though at the end my ass was sorer than any straight man's ass has the right to be. We'll see what comes first - health or a heart attack.

Quick movie reviews

Yes, I need a life. Badly.

Saw two movies Thursday and four yesterday. Quick take:

A lot like love - thirteen-to-the-dozen "romantic comedy" starring eternal teenagey moron Ashton Kutcher and Amanda Peet of the devil's-spawn-eyebrows. No surprises what-so-fuckin-ever in this movie about two people who put themselves through seven years of idiotic misery before finally understanding they were meant for each other. Yawn.

Batman begins - Really, really liked this one. Ok plot, well told, good effects, right combination of humor and darkness... and very, very good acting. I don't normally like Christian Bale, but he's ok here. We see blissfully little of that ugly, stupid cow Katie Holmes (I hated her even before she shacked up with über-idiot Tom Cruise), but are treated to some great acting by the likes of Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman and Tom Wilkinson. Class acts, all.

Fantastic Four - They've made some changes from the original comics story here. For example, they have turned these virulently anti-communist, all-American heroes of the 60s into partially altruistic wimps or brainless poseurs. Of course they're fighting a mean industrial entrepreneur. Sign of the times I guess, Hollywood being one of few remaining communist regimes in the world. Not a great movie, but fair entertainment. Also, there's Jessica Alba in her underwear.

The hithchiker's guide to the galaxy - Argh. Arrrrgh. Aaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrgggghhhh. A highly mediocre movie version of the legendary books. It's probably a bit better for those who haven't read them (What the fuck are you waiting for? Run out and buy them! Now! I'll still be here when you come back!). Still no great movie. The jokes are far between and often fall flat. There are moments and jokes that make little sense if you don't already know the full story from before, and so many scenes seem truncated and pointless without the full context. Fuck. Fuckety-fuck-FUCK, I had been looking forward to this one.

The Island - Good plot, good acting. Difficult to describe without giving away the story, so just take my word for it, will you. Scarlett Johansson is not sufficiently undressed though.

Land of the dead - Zombie movie from the hand of George Romer, who also made the original Dawn of the dead and Night of the living dead. Sufficiently unpretentious to be good, gory fun. Dennis Hopper is the only actor here you're likely to have heard of.

Inflation

Seems inflation is reaching outrageous levels in Africa. How else to explain why a Kenyan guy was willing to give 20 cows and 40 goats to marry Chelsea Clinton?

(Note: I could make up some unusually tasteless jokes about CC's physical appearance and various livestock, but I'm just too polite. You're welcome to have at it in the comments though.)

Pre-historic porn

Go here and see for yourselves, you dirty buggers.

Good news

Ambrose Bierce once wrote:
"There are four kinds of Homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy."

I think bashing in the skull of a spammer falls into the last category, don't you?