Engines by Snow Patrol

Have you really appreciated the abnormal wondrousness of "Engines" by Snow Patrol (Spotify) / (YouTube) ? Have you?

Have you?! I mean, I didn't *love* it at first, but it's really grown on me, and now it means the world.

3:20 in to the song, it gets so beautiful. It just makes me want to laugh and cry at once.

I have listened so much to this album (A Hundred Million Suns) that I know I have to buy it now. Snow Patrol will always remind me of Foss and all the fun we had together, especially "Chasing Cars"(Spotify) / (YouTube). That's a beautiful tune, too.

Thank you Foss, for showing me! And now, I am showing the rest of you!

(Probably for the hundred millionth time - when will I ever shut up about Snow Patrol you say? Hmmmmmmmmmmm. Leeet me think about that. uuumm.. Tchjaaaa... I'd say --- Hmmm... --Probably never). Maybe I should just create a seperate tag, "music" doesn't really cover it.

I know I love you like the silvered gold of dying days
I know I love you like an ancient history brought to life
I know I love you like the sunlit water on your skin
I know I love you like the million times I never said

Tree, Lisbon

Review: Doc' Stærk Cayenne - Liqorice

Hi! How are you? How have you been? Anything interesing on the agenda? I have never written a review on troches (throat drops) before, but I tried this one today and it was, I must say, quite interesting.

Now all that fusion, new-exciting-flavours, "strawberries and balsamic vinegar", let's-explore-the-flavour-of-umami is old news. Everywhere people are trying to come up with new, trendy combinations of familiar things (or unfamiliar things too for that matter) to broaden the market and the potential of dull items. Crisps now have to taste of mozzarella and chorizo, or you need to reconsider what you really value in life. Parma ham mashed potato with a parsnip foam?
Like pretending to appreciate the sensation of unleashing the full, brute force of a sleek sirloin braised in a simmer of kurrat and tsampa (beef fried with leek and yak butter). You know "feel the delight of local grown food, while exploring asian cuisine". Easier said than done.

Though here, just a simple liqorice throat lozenge, slightly reinvented. Through easy steps, enhancing it with a bit of mint and pepper - and it's like a small step for lozenges, quite an interesting step for lozenge-kind. I wouldn't usually buy anything like this under the pretence of expecting it to taste good, it was all because the black coloured Stærk is delicious, but I was in need of variation.

The Cayenne stærk is in addition a blushing red, and in fact one of those cases where all the food-hype might have worked. I say might because, this has been such a long and boring day, and the Stærk seemed to have been my only highlight since I was left here alone to rot.

I would say they clear the throat, infuse your tastebuds with a not too peppery sensation, yet still feel very refreshing. It might not be worth it's price of 14,- for a whopping 25g, but then again everything sugarfree is usually overpriced. I have nothing else to say today. Maybe you would like it too?

Regular, black Stærk.

Make-up

I don't know why we spend so much of our lives trying to improve the way we look. It is probably the biggest and most common obsession of all humans (perhaps except from among Lapps and Eskimos, generally - the people in the snow have given up).

I don't know, I think I spend about twenty minutes - half an hour a day (at least) trying to fudge on my mask of sanity before leaving the house, not to mention trying to shape my birdly head-nest into something that would at least look like hair. But then I do wear a lot of make-up, more than anyone I know who's not a goth, anyway. And so I guess this time-consuming process is more dominating in my world than in others.

Not only do I spend (probably at an average) three and a half hours a week just trying to look sane, but I am always left at a loss on the "nightwear" rule. Because the basic rule when you go out bar-hopping, clubbing or to a party somewhere - is that you do this wearing about 30% more make-up than you do in the daytime. This means I have to spend about an hour wedging my face on with an ironing board, two buckets of cement, a sledgehammer and a fondue fork (whilst curling my head-nest with a bunch of heavy-duty bolsters*). -- And I regularly come out looking as a clown anyway, absolutely nada like Megan Fox. Nada.

So, if you like me, sometimes feel like beauty-treatment and cosmetics is taking over your life (Audun); save time on grooming by skipping showers. You can simply simulate that you're showering while on the bus to school. Apparently this method is

A. Entertaining

B. Fun to do

C. Relatively dry (unless someone spit on you)

D. Cheap - saves the hot water, and the shampoo!

So, as I can't seem to rid myself of the habit on wearing face-paint before entering every day warfare, for now I am simply going to infuse my invigoriting cassoulet of smells with a splurt of sweat and a knob of pollution that's been allowed to yeast in my pores for a little while longer!

Now that's pretty disgusting! Smudge some pus on the bus!

*For you curious types - yes, apparently the make-up ritual is quizzically similar to construction work

Spice up your biscuits

Mh! Hello you.

Now, how do you feel about storing your biscuits together with the spices?
I think it's just such a lovely way to bring a bit of extra multi-cultural excitement into your home on a daily basis.

Really. When I brew myself a warm, soothing pot of green tea with lemon, there is nothing better to me than the surprise of finding my packet of Bixit Oat biscuits to taste like enchiladas. This might not seem fair to you, because, as an unenlightened, you have not yet been introduced to the astounding world of post-flavouring an already flavoured biscuit. But in truth it couldn't be more obvious.

It only takes an already violated packet of your favourite biscuit to be unconventionally stored in the same drawer or shelf as say your barbecue seasoning or all the rosemary, cumin, thyme, garlic and taco spice you could possibly get your hands on. The more the merrier!

And the best of all is that it will only take one night. Just a casual one night stand with less-casual consequences. And the result, well - what can I say... ? You have never tasted anything quite like it. Forgive me for sounding so bitter, I probably shouldn't be eating those biscuits in the first place, but that couldn't be further from the point.

Obviously, unless you really are as weird as I would assume - there is nothing worse on the planet (perhaps, in a surreal way, apart from burnt raisins) than dipping your gjende-kjeks into an ice-cold glass of milk and to find it tasting like the Mattancherry Cochin spice market in Kochi.
What is your problem? Why can't you just put the poor, innocent biscuits in a different place, say, like up where we store the peanut butter and the syrup?

Why, I guess we'll just never know.

olives, food and a slightly fruity flavour

I just ate one piece of Wrigley's Extra Sweet Mint Chewing gum, 4 Herbal Sugar Free One Second Mini Mints and one Wrigley's Extra Drops Pro Redberry Lemon.

Contrary to what one may think, this did not result in my immediate death (yet), or a delightful burst of sweet-berry-lemoned-mintiness, but - sadly - it was like a concotion of toothpaste and bitter vegetables. I think all the sweeteners and artificial flavours cooperated to create a crisp, sweet-pea-like flavour. I wouldn't usually mind, but the texture was all wrong.

Just like with Jelly Belly buttered popcorn flavoured jelly beans. It does taste like popcorn, really, it is the exact correct buttery-salt flavour - and you know it! It just feels wrong in your mouth.

And I swear we are losing touch with ourselves here, because as texture and flavour are equally important when it comes to food satisfaction, we are being bombarded daily with misinformation on how things are supposed to taste and feel, or what qualities certain foodtypes are supposed to have.

Like that shower milk (shower milk? What?) made with olive milk. Hilarious. Last time I checked olives were these hard, weird fruits that are so inedible and useless that we have to pickle them to be able to stand the flavour. I wont even question the logic of trying to massage the nipples of a fruit. So just let me skip right past that to when you're "milking" an olive, if it was technically possible. Yeah? Because the only thing you'll achieve with any luck is Amurca, which, I looked up on wikipedia: Amurca is the bitter tasting, dark watery liquid which flows from pressed olives under light pressure, prior to the olive oil which only drains under greater pressure. Historically, amurca was used for numerous purposes, including as a building material, pesticide, herbicide, and even as an astringent, which was called by the same name. Firewood treated with amurca burns smokelessly. So say if you milk it harder, you'll get olive oil - which we use in cooking for it's subtle, versatile flavour. Raw olives do contain vitamin e, but I don't see exactly how that helps or that that in coalition with a dairy product will create the ultimate shower experience.

And don't even get me started on the almond milk.

Rainaway

All this rain is really dreadful. The summer's practically rained away when it hasn't been scorching. Yeah, I know, never satisf---

Oh.

I just found something weird stuck on the F9 key on my keyboard. So I ate it.

Turns out, luckily - it was chocolate.

Either way - I really feel like I could let some sunlight in through the windows right now. It just seems so dark and eugh. Even though I know so well that I have all these excellent, wondrous things to look forward to right now. It is like an endless, hopeful list. When I wake up I turn over and I smile to myself, snuggled into the pillows. That's how happy I am. Waking up isn't fun really, it's awful. It is the idea of having a new day - even though it might not go as you wish, a few twists and turns will get you down, I can't help myself.

I am as usual when I don't really have the time for it - riding a creative wave that is out of my control. So I've decided to funnel it into something slightly constructive. And I will, as soon as I have the time. This post turned out awfully pompous.

It is thrilling to have all this energy, and I know that even though I can only see the bright spots from here, there's someone here to pull me through the dark. I am finally going to do something about it.

This guy here is Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, that means "BearStar Bearsson" Pretty amazing to have a name like that I think. He wrote the Norwegian national anthem you know, among other things. I just like his attitude, very steady, purposeful. And the snow kind of framed his chest in an interesting, star-trek way.