Helge's Music!

Helge has made the extraordinary discovery of so many classic hits. One of my personal favourites include, of course, "Beautiful Ovenmitts" and "I am Not a Roadblock" .

The song "I'm in a House Made of Bacon" actually inspired my game "House of Bacon" back in spring.

What can I say? I am just so glad he's in my life!

Ironically you were of course not allowed to eat the bacon. Only shrimp, lollipops, sushi and icecream. Oh the torment!

I tell you about your Lifestyle

I got this in the mail from my sister. I like it.

 This woman is 51.

She is a TV "health guru" advocating a holistic approach to nutrition and health, promoting exercise, a pescetarian diet high in organic fruits and vegetables. She recommends detox diets, colonic irrigation and supplements, also making statements that yeast is harmful, that the color of food is nutritionally significant, and about the utility of lingual and facial examination. 

  
This woman is 50.
She is a TV cook, who eats nothing but meat, butter and desserts.

Games for Wii - and stalking

As you all know I bought a Wii! And I finally got to give it a spin last night - I do have a lot of experience with Wii previously - but not with the games that I've dutifully played the last few days!

I tried "Eledees" first, which had me at hello with its adorable packaging and delicious colours. The game in itself however lacks charm in every way. The Eledees are electric creatures that you search for, find and collect using a "gun" of sorts - pointing at the screen with the Wii-remote. You can use the power (in Watts) from the Eledees to turn on lights and electrical appliances. And this is about as interesting as it gets. The house has zero personality, like the characters - and it has about as much depth as the vague, slapped-on story that is so extremely lame I wont even bother retell it.

I did find pleasure in wrecking the place completely in my desperate search for more Eledees. This meagre pleasure was ruined though - when the game then for no reason required me to be quiet and handle anything breakable with care. If I exceeded the noise limit or broke six things - the game ended. Thanks a lot. How to make a slightly fun game, a completely lame one. The wonderfullness of the packaging was clearly outsourced as the game reflected only some kind of nine-to-five teal-coloured retirement home.

But then I played "De Blob" and I was excited beyond reason. As the lead of a colourful revolution against the reign of the black and white, evil "INKT" - De Blob (a blob taking on any colour) bounces around the pale world and brings colour, charm and happiness with him by colouring everything -- buildings, trees and citizens. His likewise oppressive crew "Color Underground" helps him along and gives plenty of challenges along the way.

This is easy, straightforward, nothing amazing - with excellent little clips in-between levels that convey a simple story in a slapstick-charming way. This is a wonderful game for children, needless to say - a perfect game for me too! This totally sucked me in and I'm enjoying it a lot. Progress is clearly visible and you get special achievements for having coloured all the trees, all the landmarks or completing all the challenges etc. The controls in combination with the occaisonally straying camera can be a little disheartening and unprecise at times, but that usually is the fate of most Wii games - and when something doesn't work as intended - it's usually my own fault.

I kept waiting for the Achievement screen to pop up, but then I remembered I wasn't playing on the Xbox! Silly me.

So yes, there you go - one definite "stay away!" and one "warmly recommended!"

And when it comes to stalking, I was only going to say that I find myself stalking Helge almost every day. I put his clothes on so I smell like him and then I feel all warm and fuzzy walking around the apartment. Pretty scary you think? I'd be scared of me, too. Trust me. I actually am, a little bit.

My phone!

I never did see the point in having a phone I was afraid to lose because it had cost me a crazy amount of money. It's not because I can't take care of my stuff (at least if I know where to find it!) but sometimes faith is out there to get my stuff. And I ain't got no spider-sense to tell me when, and that means I have to take certain precautions.

This, ladies and gentleladies - is my work of art in progress-- and for my own technology's protection:

Padding.

Oooh yes! Look it has diamonds on it and teeth and eyes and pearls and duck-chickens and stars and candy and a crazy monkey and a hedgehog and a bear in a parachute. You know what? We should make a TV-show with that cast. Because our special guest-stars -- the fantastic bling dangling from it, consists of two rabbits, an Asian couple, a dog, a chicken, a mushroom, a parrot, a cow and gingerbreadman!

Ginger Bread Man! He could be my superhero! A ginger man made of bread! His kryptonite could be soup! In which case he would bloat up and dissolve like wet bread, because you see, he is made of bread which means when it touches soup - that's what happens. You ever had soup with bread? I'm pretty sure you know how this goes. AAaaanyway I just wanted to show the world my delicious talking-machine. And I will show you again when I've finished the other side!

Oslo Expansion Pack

"Barcode" in Bjørvika, a series of new buildings, both office space and apartments in Oslo.

"Nordenga" bridge, crossing the railway from Bjørvika to Grønland.

"Tjuvholmen" at the very tip of Aker Brygge.

"Kværnerbyen" apartments (that's the creek with stepping stones! I'll have to take a picture myself it seems).

Oslo is halfway in many aspects. We have half a good public transport system, we have half of a good shopping centre, we have a half a green city with parks in it, half of it is dead ends and half is shabby. At one intersection down the street - the road is lined with four different kinds of fences. It never seem to have occurred to anybody to build this city consistently, new bits are just being slapped on without much thought to what was there before, or what surrounds it.

Just like those new blocks that are across our street. They're all modern and square, painted in a communal barn-colour - with as much charisma as a car crash. There are lots of ugly blocks here, including ours, so to say, and they're surrounded by all those delicious wooden houses that are traditional of this area. Some blocks are really nice, and have been done up really well, but most are no. It's all over "old-town", and it's weird that they haven't been able to find some kind of middle-way between unflattering modernism and impractical nostalgia. It just looks weird and half-assed.

Major parts are under construction, and the bits that are not are often quite messy or unfinished as it is. Helge and I took a walk down to Kværnerbyen the other night (literally, night. We were home at 4 in the morning) just to look at the apartments down there. Kværnerbyen is literally a ditch, seriously, it's down in some dent, surrounded by hills, and filled with lots of concrete and roads and trains. It hasn't got a lot of appeal in other words.

The apartments are just blocks of brick, set in concrete - hardly very charming. But then it's not finished yet - and the renderings online look as usual very promising. How they are going to turn the place into what they are imaging I don't really understand. But that's the way with these sexy architectural illustrations, they always contain about twice the amount of trees and happy children to what will eventually exist. There was, however, one nice thing about the area, a constructed creek of water with square stepping stones that went along the east side of the buildings. This sizzled magically, especially at night, when it was so quiet elsewhere. So I really fell in love with that, but the rest still needs a spark of allure - it's hardly very homely there at the moment.

Oslo is really changing though, the buildings along Bjørvika are all really futuristic, so are those on Tjuvholmen. The massive bridge ending in Schweigaardsgate, "Nordenga" is anything but Norwegian, and the new Nationalmuseum at Vestbanehallen will be very modern too. It's called the "Forum Artis", I would tell you what I think of it, but it's really hard to tell from those crappy renders they have released, it does as far as I can tell - look square and angular, so I guess that's why we're going for it. As usual.

But I will stop whining now, sorry. I really hope Oslo will be more whole one day, as it is oddly unfinished right now. We are lucky to have some visionaries who are at least trying to create something better out of what we already have, especially in Bjørvika.

Our house!

In the middle of the street!

Our apartment!

It's fantastic!

It's just such a weird feeling to suddenly have your own place just filled with your stuff (well, almost just your own stuff). And there is so much to do and you have to order electricity and things that you rarely consider when living a sheltered life in an attic across town. Don't you think?

I will post pictures if it turns out nice. So far it is only us, a bunch of carboard boxes, our deliciously huge bed, the wardrobe and the kitchen. We don't even have any chairs. However if we can't afford a sofa yet, I'll probably post pictures of someone else's place, just so you wont think we're having it rough.

Even though it couldn't be further from the truth. Maybe we'll go hungry some days, and maybe we'll be a little cold - but it doesn't matter, at least I'm having the flippin time of my life - even though this hasn't sunk in properly yet! Can't wait for the days to come, we've only been here a few days, but it'll be wonderful. Whiiii!

The Things I Do Like

I don't want this blog to be this immensely fueled by negativity, so to balance out my outbursts, here is some positive feedback for the world to become tranquil once more. Besides, I really like to make lists, they're nice I think.

I might have skipped some obvious ones, just because I think it is more appropriate to put on the "Things I LOVE" list. Right. I mean, I am pretty sure that I love food, but I also like food a lot, and not having it on the like list will be an insult to my own taste. I am sure there are things or concepts that I just like too much, so they overqualify and don't make it.

You will find that is the reason why you're not on it.

1. Food (especially eating or preparing it)

2. Music

2. Glitter

3. Things that glitter

4. Sleep

5. Toffee, like Thornton's

6. Liqorice (the salty variety)

7. Colours, bright ones

8. Laughter, especially others

9. Snowboarding

10. Reading books

11. Drawing

12. Soft things, like beds, or dough

13. Walking

14. The ocean (actually water in general)

15. Really amazing games, like Zelda, or Pikmin

16. Sunlight

17. Bubbles

18. Lists

19. Talking to strangers (making new friends!)

20. Dancing

21. Doing absolutely nothing

22. Fishing

23. To be inspired

24. The Mighty Boosh

25. Writing

26. Rain, the sound of rain, the feel of rain, the smell of rain

27. Changes

28. Thinking about things that make me happy

29. Otters

I took this picture in a beautiful garden in Lisbon, Portugal last year. I played around with it for a bit so it looks a little more dramatic.

Hungrrhyyyy

I am at work. It has been a sunny day today, still is. The mall is light and quiet, not too cold - it's nice. I've been reading the papers, taken a few work-related calls, tidied up a bit and thought about stuff with an empty expression on my face. Though more importantly, I'm hungry.

Hunger, I think - leaves one with a pressing, gnawing feeling of restlessness. Nothing - or at least few things - can stop the creeping sensation that something is missing. My mind wanders, my eyesight goes unfocused, my brain is even more distant than usual - and I'd be satisfied eating just about anything. Candlewax, tea leaves, glue, paper - bits of wood, or maybe napkins. That's what my diet would consist of if I got locked in here. That's what I'm considering to eat right now.

The two most satisfying and delicious meals I've ever had have been those random late-night occurances when food have suddenly been presented to me unexpectedly and when I have not been able to fully realize exactly how hungry I was before I saw food. And actually both times it's been pizza. The first time was years ago when out partying with my sister in Bergen and someone behind the bar made frozen-pizzas and I was given a slice. It was a kind of sensation i have later been troubled to recollect at all. All I know is that it was wonderful. The second time was two weeks ago in a hostel bed in Germany when around midnight I split the best pizza I've ever had, with twice as much cheese as necessary - but with twice the delight.

In the end I often suspect that the media can make us want to remember less perfect moments though with more romantic credibility and forget the ones that truly leave an impression. Like in books and in movies the clichéed situations, the expensive ones gets highlighted, while the quirky situations are left unnoticed and without memory. What truly beats the romance in sharing a double mozzarella pizza on a beer infused double bed in a cold, smelly boys room late at night on a schooltrip to Germany? Watching the boats in the cold and dark at Aker Brygge during the autumn? Lying on a green sofa in the basement, listening to the same Mark Foster song over and over? Eating too much sweets - until our tummies ache and watch ridiculous machinima till late at night?

To me, I think... Nothing.

Curiosity

Oh please, I know I am always told that I defend my own laziness when criticizing something. But I was just standing around, looking at people passing me when I realized why I in real life find skinny women to be uninteresting. Let me allow myself to semi base this on the song "Me and My Imagination" by Sophie Ellis Baxtor. Because even though it is not the same point she is confronting - I am going to write about something down the same alley at least.

Skinny, thin women - longlegged, wide-eyed - with high, sharp cheekbones; they look great. They look great in photographs, in expensive dresses, they look great in a film or in a music video - light and fragile like starved birds. I have always found beauty in the human skeleton, I have, really - it is fascinating and wondeful like a cathedral, a praise to God in its architechtural genius.

But in reality. In reality there is nothing unsolved or mysterious in skin and bones, nothing to be curious about. There are few curves to explore but the dents in between the ribs, few areas that would feel soft or comfortable to the touch. Obviously there is no use in having a wonderful build, when you have no weight to compliment it. This has become an obsession, especially in showbusiness - our ideal for beauty is inconveivable to most, and has grown forth by photo manipulation and CGI. What can I say? I am not saying that you have to be a berg of intergalactic scale, or even close, to be attractive or alluring. But focus is sliding from "Being able to give birth to healthy children" and "Being able to survive the winter and lift heavy loads" to "weighing as little as possible".

In the UK, nearly 2 in every 100 secondary school girls suffer from anorexia nervosa,
bulimia nervosa or binge eating disorder.

Weight loss and getting healthier are often misconcepted for being the same thing. Becoming healthier doesn't necessarily mean that losing weight will get you there. Having a healthy varied diet, living a good life, moving your body and being in general at peace with your own body - does not concede with our beauty ideals.

An estimated 10 per cent of female college students suffer from a clinical or sub-clinical (borderline) eating disorder, of which over half suffer from bulimia nervosa.

Needless to explain, this does not account when being overweight, but obviously there is a difference in being fat and feeling fat. What defines being fat? Every body is different, no body grows or develops the same way - therefore, not every human body can be 175 cm and still weigh 45 kiloes. And whatever happened to having fun? When the ideal of being thin completely dominates our ability to enjoy ourselves - then what is the point in living? "She looked great in everything she wore, but she never let go. She was a killjoy."

An estimated 1 in 3 of all dieters develop compulsive dieting attitudes and behaviors. Of these, one quarter will develop full or partial eating disorders.

Don't change who you are and what you are for the sake of fitting into something that society is telling you to fit into. Because I love you, and I will always appreciate you no matter what you look like. I'm not telling you to ignore the common concept of beauty, I am telling you to sacrifice it for the sake of your health, your human body.

I'm only saying you should "... Leave something/For me and my imagination..."

By the way, this is my post #800!

Psychonauts

Have you ever played Psychonauts? It is an incredibly awesome game. If you liked Curse of Monkey Island and Grim Fandago or perhaps even more active adventuregames like Banjo Kazooie - you'll love this. It is based on an idea by Tim Schafer (yes, the same brainface that did both Grim Fandango and the Monkey Island Curse game). The atmosphere and humour of this wonderful ditty is captivating. It's dark and gloomy, but at the same time brilliantly colourful and witty. Gogo! Go buy it now.

You play the ex-circus boy, now Psychonaut named Razputin (Raz). It all takes place at the Psychic Summer Camp for kids, but this is no ordinary summer camp, and it also turns out quite eventful when all the other psychic kids gets their brains taken from them. The plot may sound crazy (and it is!) - because it's up to you to retrieve them. So the game mostly happens inside people's minds, where you have to tag emotional luggage (crying suitcases), figments of their imagination and use your many abilities, like clairvoyance, telekinesis and levitation to solve complex puzzles and destroy freaky enemies. Like the mutated lungfish, the crazy bull El Odio, or the milkman.

I love this game, it is such a delight. Like a rainbow toffee in a bowl of pebbles. By that I mean that it is an intruiging game among all these mass-produced first player shooting, war, football, sing-a-long, or movieplot based games. Thumbs up!

Now:

Listen to: Keane - Something In Me Was Dying

Play: Psychonauts

Eat: Chocolate chunk muffins

Tomorrow!

Tomorrow, all I want to do is to drink tea, write, draw and listen to the Marie Antoinette Soundtrack.

Maybe listen to the rain as well.

The Dark Knight

WOW. To keep it short and simple. Go see it again! Got to love Batman, it was better than the newest Hulk film, which was brilliant as well! GO! FILM! Also I watched Kronks New Groove (that is The Emperors New Groove 2) yesterday - and it was brilliant! It was a birthday present from Audun. Thank you so much Audun! W00t!

I found a draft for an e-mail in my Gmail draft box, it was saved some time in April - and the title is Bompitequila.

Explain please?

The Age of The Understatement

I finally pulled myself together and bought the album from "The Last Shadow Puppets" (from which we already know lead vocals Alex Turner (Arctic Monkeys)). So yay!
Haven't listened quite enough to it yet, but I love it and everyone should get it - it's great. Lots of energy, wonderful lyrics - all in all a worthy and impressive production. Great stuffs!

It somehow has the air of a James Bond soundtrack, or maybe even a little hollywood-tex-mex -ish, funky really. it can stay beatles'ish slow paced for a bit, then it rocks out like it was 1989!

The track highlights are "The Age of The Understatement", "My Mistakes Were Made For You", "Time Has Come Again" and "The Meeting Place". At Least so far <3.

Tryvann part II

Good lord, before and after shots. A little blurry it appears. Ooooh, but I'm still alive! Yay! Now here's what happened!

Okay, so seeing I was a little reduced, Elin and I didn't join our bus Drikkepress until around eight-ish. We drove around town, danced, bought some blue sweets, met a couple of other buses, Work It and Berserk, to name two. We then picked up some of the other Drikkepress girls and headed for Tryvann.

It was insane fog and lots of rain so it took a long time to get the bus up there safely. Whoever decided to throw a party up THERE? Of all places. We were stopped by the police when nearly there and had to fill our bus to the brim with other russ whos buses had broken down and such. Hmm. Well and then we got in to Tryvann and Elin bought popcorn and I bought a colourful twirly thing and we ran around to collect glowsticks. I think it rained all along, so we were probably soaked to bits, but nobody really cared.

In the end we were covered in glowsticks and assorted glowing bling-bling and we danced around and jumped up and down and it was wild. Awesome music. My legs hurt so much I thought I was going to split open, but I didn't. Luckily! We did meet Hugo and Martin and Ulrik and Hans Jørgen and Niclas I think and other people and at some point I was dancing around with a Saami flag. When one of the DJs were playing at the main stage the crowd kind of pushed me to the front and this guy picked me up and held me up above the crowd. Don't know if anyone noticed, it was wet and glowsticky and everyone were jumping superhigh. But it was ace anyway!

Around 2 AM-ish we headed to The Red Lion (which is another bus) and we listened to Hugo's ubercool song. Clicky clicky! And other stuffs, and I drew King Crab with sparkly markers on Hans Jørgen and raved for a bit. While raving I ended up in another bus called Prestige, where I met some lads from my school, but their music was really bad so I decided to get off - but they wouldn't let me! They closed the doors and blocked them and were getting ready to roll! EEP! I did yell at the guy until he let me off though.

Safely back at The Red Lion we danced around some more, played some more good music and then started to leave for the drop-off route. Like the different stops we had to make to let everyone off not too far away from home. The lights were off in the bus, so Elin and I kind of lit up the place with all the glowsticks, t'was funky. Ulrik then launched the idea of an afterparty, which was gratefully accepted, and we were dropped off by his place and danced some more! We had Cocoa Pops and did "The beetle that has rolled over on its back and is unable to get up again"-dance. Which kind of looked more like a "don't do drugs, kids" advert.

I think I danced the most really, even though I was in a lot of pain. Martin wrote "badger" on my arm, and then we drew shrimps on our russebukser to see who could do the best ones. Everybody danced tons though, and it was a most successful afterparty. Around 7:30 in the morning Thomas(?) and I were the only two still awake and still dancing(!), but we woke everyone else up and thanked for a lovely night and we all walked to the bus station.

Quite crudely I rung my stepmums doorbell and gave her my russecard and we said hello and we had Thomas in a shopping cart. While waiting for the bus we tried to get the cars passing by to honk their horns, but they didn't :( Some waved though! I then arrived safely home and died. Thank you, and good night.

Spring!

It's nice and sunny and kind of wonderful outside, and since I just happen to have absolutely nothing better to do - I decided to fall for someone.

This for several reasons - well one, it's spring, so it's all in the spirit of the season, and it's a nice thing to have on ones mind to make the time pass! Secondly, everyone else are already drooling excessively over the hunk working in the record store (just recently today I saw two of the girls from the supermarket blushing so darkly I could see it when just passing the record shop). And third.. er.. I have got nothing else to do. Obviously I have schoolwork, but none of it is due until next week - so I'm not even trying to get something done before the last minute. It just isn't my style.

Also, it was all coincidental so it was kind of sweet yet unexpected and that made it ever more delightful, right? And if you ever find out who it is (which I doubt, to be honest) you're probably going to make some sarcastic remark about him being tall and dark and slightly anemic. So to limit the entertainment you could get out of that - I have already told you what he looks like. Clever!

Well if you don't mind, I am not going to post anything interesting, I am just going to sit here and swoon about him and listen to that Sugababes song (which really isn't that good, but still catchy and I like it).

Dead Mans Shoes

This is simply one insanely good film. This coming from me- spoiled to a point of ridicule after seeing so many films over the past few years. Almodovar and Ang Lee should be ashamed of themselves, they get knocked off their feet by Dead Mans Shoes director Shane Meadows (This is England) - from Staffordshire!

Right now I'm still blown away by Dead Mans Shoes (I don't think you should read about it) I think you should see it, you should see it, and then thank me - because this might be the best film you're going to see this year.

Looking for an "out-of-hollywood" original script experience? May I recommend these?
Snowcake
The elementary particles
Primer
Stay
The Other Side

But I still think you should see
Horton Hears a Who
Snakes on a Plane
Superbad

Because you should!

Top Ten Fabulous Tellybox Shows

1. Black Books


2. Green Wing


3. Mighty Boosh


4. Red Dwarf


5. South Park


6. Coupling


7. That 70’s Show


8. Nigella’s Kitchen


9. James Martin Sweet


10. Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares

Ut i Vår Hage 2

And so the second season of the Norwegian comedy series (from which we already know the tragic story of Danish language) has begun. Ut i Vår Hage 2. (Out in Our Garden - which actually doesn't really apply to anything the shows about).

They actually manage to take the piss of gays, muslims, the theater, China, Swedes, the church, adoption, terrorism and Norwegian film industry in one single episode. It's comedy genius, and I wish everyone could love it.

And it's absolutely excellent! First episode was absurd beyond reason! Perfect!
Seems like Atle Antonsen, Harald Eia and Bård Tufte Johansen has done it again. Fo sho!

"I amerika klarer terroristene å velte to av verdens høyeste tårn, ikke sant. I mens her i Norge klarer vi ikke en gang å velte tjuebussen!"

"In America the terrorists manage to tip over two of the worlds highest towers, you know. But here in Norway we can't even tip over bus number twenty!"

Gingerbread Project Day 2

The end result!! Sorry it's late!
(and if you missed it, here is day 1.)

Gingerbread Project day 1

The moment we've all been waiting for - is now finally here! As usual I have been busy in the kitchen, it was my stepdads suggestion that I this year made a gingerbread lighthouse! And, and I did. Of course. And I tell you what, and I shit you not - but working with melted sugar as glue hurts real bad. I want you to know I've been through much pain for this strange (though 100% edible) nautical piece of architecture. Hmm. Right.

Without any further ado, (only a quick reminder of the prestigious Viking Ship back in 2005), I now present to you:

The Shazmazing Christmas Gingerbread Lighthouse of 2007!

I will be back later with some more images, and of course - the finished result!
Above: Lighthouse paper model and Lighthouse gingerbread creation with gingerbread shed and gingerbread trees at display on a tray.

whoop!

Doesn't that make you feel all christmasy?