Sauerkraut, here I come

Off to Berlin Thursday-Sunday, together with about 20 colleagues. We'll be visiting a German school Friday morning (hoping to pick up some tips on how to maintain order in the class room... the Germans have a reputation for discipline... let's not go into details...) but the rest of the weekend is purely social.

Saturday a handful of us are booked to drive an old Russian T-55 armored tank, which to me sounds like pure therapy. Maybe we'll just hijack the thing and head for the Polish border and surprise the fuck outta those guys... woo hoo!

Not giving up my daytime job

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Best documentary

THIS should be the natural winner of an Oscar for best documentary. Unlike the so-called documentaries by previous winners Al Gore and Michael Moore, this one at least doesn't contain outright lies. Also, the threat it presents is vastly more dangerous and immediate.




UPDATE: The cowardly bastards at LiveLeak have pulled the video, but it's still available at google.

Yet another conspiracy

'tis happening again... just as I am getting ready for my Easter holiday and my trip to London, I'm hit with a cold. As usual I blame the universe, which has always had it in for me. Ugh!

Still in need of a life

How much do I neeed a life? Well, last Friday I bought all 3 Jurassic Park movies, and proceeded to watch them in a row during the afternoon/evening. If that doesn't qualify as desperate, I don't know what would.

Saturday I started watching the X-files, since I'd bought the full 9-season dvd box, and I'm midway throught the 3rd season now... my excuse is that I'm on some heavy antibiotics, so I don't really feel like leaving the house 'cept for work. Though I strongly suspect I'd be sitting on my lard ass in front of the screen anyway...

Tut

In the mailbox today: My ticket to the Tut-Ankh-Amun exhibition in London in March. Oh, how I would love to place my grubby, little hands on those golden treasures... it's good to be the king.

No surprise there

My "deadly sin" is sloth. What's yours?

I wish me a merry Christmas...

I've made many brilliant decisions in my life, but I do believe the shmartest of them all was when I stopped celebrating Christmas, back in '92. I've had stress free Decembers for 15 years now, and I ain't goin' back. On the other hand, every day is pamper myself day, so this morning I bought the complete Seinfeld DVD box and the Twin Peaks Gold Box Edition AND Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl to top it off. Earlier this month I got me a signed copy of Absolute Sandman, volume two plus new books by Stephen Donaldson and Terry Pratchett. Life is good, people. Life is good.

Mea culpa

Okokokok... I know I've been tardy with my posts lately... I've actually been busy with work and shit, so there. Anyways, I know for a fact that most of you guys, especially the Norwegians who read this blog, are supportive of the US armed forces. So AGAIN, I'm pimping this webpage: anysoldier.com, where you can donate money or send care packages to US troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. If you support what they're doing, put your money where your mouth is. With the dollar being so cheap, your Norwegian krone will buy a whole lotta love for the guys and gals in uniform. 'tis the giving season, so spend your cash on something meaningful this year!

How to spend Halloween

1. Buy a small mountain of chocolate.

2. Dim the lights, bolt the door and draw the curtains.

3. Put on a DVD from the 3rd season of The Simpsons.

4. Shove said mountain of chocolate in your face until ready to puke.

5. Crank up the volume on the DVD as much as necessary to drown out the noise from the weeping, sugar-deprived neighborhood children on your doorstep.

Office party

I've said it before - the main reason I'm still teaching is my colleagues. They're a thoroughly fun bunch of people, and it seems the newcomers this year are great too. Friday we had our annual faculty party - ostensibly a "getting to know you" gig for the newly hireds, it is now the social highlight of the fall season. We were almost 30 people this year, and we ate & drank & laughed for hours.

There was also the annual raffle, in which the possibly most clinically insane of us (no, that honor is not mine...yet) raffles out not only the bought and given prizes, but also personal effects he's stolen from our work desks earlier in the day, together with every piece of furniture the host hasn't nailed down or hidden.

Later, as the sissies and the drunkards started to melt away, we turned on some music and in the end there was just half a dozen of us left. Around 2:30 yours truly started to sing... a little Simon & Garfunkel, a little Italian... I'm tellin' ya, I had the newbies swooning... it was 4:30 before I finally got home; tired but happy.

Mooooovies

It's been way too long since I've bored ya'll with my highly subjective and loudly voiced movie reviews. So here goes.

Stardust. Ah. Hmm. Uhm. *sigh* Absofuckinlutely great movie... IF - and only if - you haven't already read and fallen completely in love with the book. Good acting, plenty of fun, humor, action and adventure, all wrapped in the customary romantic light. Which is part of the problem. The book has lots of romance, indeed it depends on it. But not the kind of soppy happy-ever-after commercial blockbuster romance that the movie revels in. There are some pretty fundamental pieces missing in this film version, and it takes away most of the sense of mystery that added so much to the adventure and the melancholy that added so much to the romance in the book. (You'll be horrified at what they've done to the ending, which is possibly one of the saddest but also most beautiful texts ever put to paper.)

Gaiman's work of genius is more complex, more subtle, more sad and infinitely more poetic. By all means, if you don't know the book, go watch the movie; it deserves a fair, unbiased viewing. You'll likely love it, for it is still a good story well told, indeed it is one of the best movies I've seen in ages. But please, please, please go read the book afterwards and allow yourself to fall in love with the masterpiece of the planet's greatest living author - Neil Gaiman.


Planet Terror - Robert Rodriguez' half of the two-piece Grindhouse project he did together with Quentin Tarantino is a true joyride. It's got all the insane, hilarious gore one expects from a good zombie flick and it'll keep you laughing throughout. Good, unpretentious fun for the kids (meaning me)!


The Bourne Ultimatum - I've never cared much for Robert Ludlum (a stuffy Jack Higgins), nor Matt Daemon (a slightly retarded Leonardo DeCaprio), but this movie will rock you. The Bourne franchise has already given James Bond much needed competition and this is so far the best in the series, I think. High paced, full of action and excitement. Also, a journalist with The Guardian gets a bullet in the head, which is always a good thing.


Rush hour 3 - You've seen it all before, but it's still ever so slightly amusing (yes, I'm easy). The personal chemistry between Chan and Tucker creates a good atmosphere, and though the script is ridiculous and the punchlines are worn it still provided for 90 minutes of escape from reality.

Finally

Stardust finally premieres here in Norway Friday 21st! Woo hoo! The book is my absolute all time favorite work of fiction, and I can only hope that the movie is able to convey the humor, warmth, excitement and adventure that is Neil Gaiman's fairyland. If you haven't already read the book, buy it asap. If there's a smidgeon of poetry in your soul you'll love it!

I'll get healthy or die trying

Met with the diabetes nurse at the local hospital last week. It turns out my cholesterol and triglyzerid levels, which were at "nuclear levels" before the summer were now within normal parameters, which came as a huge, but very nice surprise to yours truly. I thought I'd more or less slobbed the summer away, but I must have done something right after all.

Inspired by the good results I've decided to try and become a wee bit more healthy (I can already hear certain people howling with laughter). So I went for hourlong walks in the woods Friday and Monday and today I played floorball again for the first time in a couple of years. 90 minutes of that stuff is the best workout I can imagine, and it's fun too! I had a somewhat difficult start, as I threw myself on the floor (I can hear you laughing again!) to block the first shot that came my way and banged my head hard against the wall. Five minutes on the sidelines with a bag of ice pressed against my empty skull... but after that I was a virtual wall.

I'll keep ya'll updated on my progress... or regress... knowing myself it's a 50-50 at best whether I actually succeed in this (you can stop laughing now, you bastards).

I don't get no respect

By unanimous consent of the teachers assembled I was appointed "office bitch" today and sent out to recycle four full bags of plastic soda bottles. One teacher even tried to kick me as I walked out. And these people are my friends.

We interrupt our scheduled programming...

... of foreign travel stories to bring you some pictures from Norway. These pics were taken on board the Skibladner, the oldest operating paddle steamer in the world. It was built in the mid 1850s and is still going strong. It's a handsome ship with a very stylish interior. As with pretty much everything else in this country it's a bit on the pricey side, but at around NOK 200 ($33) one way it's still worth a trip I think.


Some pictures of the interior (there are several lounges and a restaurant that seats around 70):










Views from the ship:






As you may have gathered from my Whitby photos, I like dramatic pics of the sky:

London

Monday morning I caught a cab to my hotel, the increasingly misnamed "Royal" Bayswater Hotel (on second thought, considering the state of the British Monarchy, maybe they're onto something after all). There was zilch, zero, nada and no flexibility or understanding for my pleadings of just maybe, possibly, please, for fuck's sake let me check in BEFORE noon IFFIN you have a bloody room ready. I glared at them through bloodshot eyes, but to no avail - their vacant stare was permanent and so beat mine. I lifted an arm and waved the smell in their direction, but their own garlic stench was permanent, so I lost that battle too. Fuckers.

Still, despite the cramped rooms and the noise in the hallways, the place is quite cheap, and it's central enough. Besides, I've taken a liking to the Queensway area. It's got two underground stations, so transportation is easy and cheap and there's lots of decent, but reasonably priced dining places in the area. There's even a multicinema complex to while away rainy days (who'd have thought that I'd become a mall rat in my 30s...?)

Another brilliant thing I discovered was that the shopping center with the theaters also sported a massage salon. Some of you may have heard about my time in Prague, where I got some "Thai massage" and afterwards felt like I'd paid good money to get beaten up by a five feet tall girl. This time it was a muscular six feet tall Eastern European guy, but the massage was a traditional back & shoulders kinda thing and really pleasant. Highly recommended!

Queensway also has tons of souvenir shops where you can buy all manner of useless crap. I bought the traditional "My brother went to London and all I got was this lousy t-shirt" and for his aussie girlfriend I bought one with a slightly less traditional "Some idiot went to London..." legend.

Random, useless and uninteresting pics:

Buckingham Palace:




The Victoria Monument outside the palace:




A monument to the Royal Marines:




Trafalgar Square, with the Nelson column:




A close up of the philandering bastard:




Charles 1st, of whom John Cleese said "The most interesting thing about King Charles I is that he was 5'10 at the beginning of his reign and only 4'9” at the end of it":




The controversial "Alison Lapper Pregnant" statue. My own caption: "When they told me rapid weight loss would cost me an arm and a leg, I didn't think they meant it literally".




Outside the National Gallery there's a statue of good ole George Washington:




I even was so artsy fartsy as to buy a ticket to their exhibition of Dutch portraits, and it was quite interesting. It's open until September 16, so if you're in London before then, go see it!

York

After Eden Camp I drove on to York, the ancient walled city. The (mostly Danish) Vikings made this their main city, and knew it as Jorvik. Due to rains and general fatigue (yes, I am a lazy bastard) I never made it to the Viking centre, but I did spend a few happy hours at the York Castle Museum on Saturday. They had some interesting exhibits devoted to life in and around York in centuries past, the most famous being Kirkgate, a recreated Victorian street. Highly recommended!

The hotel I staid at wasn't much, but joy of joys, I was able to find an unprotected wi-fi somewhere in the area, so I could finally keep up with emails and news again. Sunday I had lunch with an old friend from Huddersfield (she comments here under the name of Stef sometimes... we've been hurling abuse at each other online for a good five years now...) before spending most of the day in the railway station waiting for my night bus to London.

Ever the moneygrubbing little capitalist pig, I thought I'd be smart and save on a night's hotel costs by taking the overnight coach from Leeds to London. Oy vey, what a schmuck I was! Saving a few pounds was NOT worth having to spend the night in a crowded, stuffy bus where the garlic odors of the numerous Asian passengers competed for my attention with the garlic odors from the English drunk snoring in the seat next to me. A background sniff of stale sweat prevailed throughout. To top it off, the coach developed technical problems somewhere around 2:30am, so we had to wait for a replacement vehicle which was much older and had no suspension worth mentioning. It was a grouchy, sleepy, cursing Ghost that reached Victoria Station in the wee hours of Monday morning...

The Museum parking lot was full of birds and birdshit:


British cattle pre-growth hormones:


"Another bone? Thanks, but I'm stuffed!"


Some of the Victorian houses had real shops, I think this one sold old toys:


A Victorian class room... oh, to be able to cane the little bastards!


I think this is from the Edwardian "Half Moon Court", which is a follow-up to Kirkgate:


The famous York Cathedral:


The place where we had lunch on Sunday, a cozy place called "Hole in the Wall":


At least they had a cool bus shelter... the actual buses, on the other hand...

Eden Camp

After Robin Hood's bay I drove on to Scarborough, which I found to be quite dreary and dull looking. Just spent a night there and then drove on towards York on Friday.

On the way I stopped and spent three wonderful hours at Eden Camp, a former WWII prisoner camp that is now a museum. The 20+ huts cover several subjects relating to warfare in the 20th century, but the main emphasis is on WWII. It's a great place if you're into history, the exhibitions are both informative and entertaining. The only minus was an overpriced canteen that served rather tratidional English food (meaning barely digestible for humans).

Some pics:

Luckily for someone, this never exploded...




Nope, no phallos symbolism here. No sirree!




It was all I could do not to run around with my arms outstretched and make engine noises...




This sign was put up at a pub where a bomb had blown out all the windows... "More open than usual"... English humor at its finest!




I quite liked this one too:

Robin Hood's Bay

Thursday, I drove on to Robin Hood's Bay. The origin of the name is unknown, it's quite some distance from Robin of Locksley's supposed haunts in the Sherwood forest, down Nottingham way. It's a tiny fishing village (actually, it was best known as a center for smuggling) very, very quaint and cozy. You need a special permit to drive in it, the tourist traffic has to stop at a parking lot on the top of the steep hill that rises over the town. Again, narrow cobblestone streets and lots of little inns and pubs. Tourism probably makes up 90% of the economic activity there these days. Some nice pics:

View from the top of the hill:








Some local history:


Ish nice:



When I win the lottery, I'm going to buy this house, which sits right on the docks:



In a tiny, tiny tourist shop the old lady who owned it was having a closing down sale, so I got some loot at half price. I bought this keybox, which I am going to bribe my boss with tomorrow: