Giggling in the Rain

This is a tale of misery: more specifically, MY misery. Now, I'm perfectly aware of the fact that most people seem to be more interested in their own misery then that of their fellow human beings - unless, of course, the misery of another human being will bring a smile to their face. So lean back, dear readers (all three of you) and let me share my tale of woe with you and you can all smile and/or laugh at my misery. Pure therapy people, pure therapy...

Today was a really, really slow day at work. Painfully slow, even. My only eventful couple of hours was at the very start of the day, as a pretty big bunch of back-ordered goods (of the heavy, bulky, PA-speaker variety) came in and had to be stowed/unpacked and hooked up.After that it was pretty much six hours of the occasional phone call, a VERY occasional customer and plenty of coffee. So when the clock turned 6, we quickly closed up and were all very eager to get home. Now, as I'm sure you all know by now, Norway has very... unpredictable... weather and today was no exception: this morning was cold and clear, and it even snowed for a couple of minutes before I went to work.

Heading home tonight, however, I was greeted with the mother of all downpours: the skies had literally opened to flush every last drop of rain down on unsuspecting Oslo citizens. Being a semi-healthy geek, I usually walk all the way home (a walk that takes me about 30 minutes) but today I had left my umbrella at home, and also had a lot to do when I got home so I thought to myself "Bah, I'll take the bus. No need to get any wetter than I already am."

Now, this is where - had there been an omnipotent, omnipresent entity controlling the universe - I should have gotten some kind of sign or omen that I had just made a bad decision: a crow should have flown over my head, a lightening flashed across the dark skies, ANYTHING. Of course, none of this happened, and I strolled over to the bus-stop hoping that the bus wouldn't be too late (it seems it's always 10 minutes late the few times I actually choose to go by bus). I should mention at this point that the bus stop is situated pretty close to a heavily trafficked main road. I walked up to the bus stop, glanced at the time-table, glanced at my cell and figured the next bus would be there in a couple of minutes, turned around...

...and was splashed - no, DRENCHED - in water sprayed from a car driving past. Yeah, I'm talking Hollywood-cliché drenched here, as a regular flood wave of mucky water hit me. Following up on the Hollywood-cliché (by instinct or because of seeing too many movies), I just stood there with a priceless expression on my face - just the right combination of surprise, anger and hopelessness. The car was of course a mile away by the time I had figured out what had happened, and I could only curse silently to myself as I wished at least a year of pestilence upon its driver. Dripping, I at least had the presence of mind to step a good few metres back from the curb and quietly (and somewhat broodingly) drip at a safe distance from more potential splashing. In this kind of situation, you can of course choose to be angry, frustrated and simply have your evening ruined - which, granted, I suppose is what most normal people would do anyway - or, you can laugh hysterically about the absurdity of the whole damn thing.

I tell you, life might be a b*tch, but boy does she have a sense of irony: by choosing to take the bus - a safe, warm, dry haven in this incredibly rainy weather - to avoid getting drenched, I had indeed become MORE drenched than if I had actually just walked home in the rain in the first place. Realizing this, I had no choice than to giggle like a madman in the rain. Which is probably why most other people out in the rain seemed to prefer walking on the OTHER side of the road: giggling lunatics seem to have that effect on people. Go figure.

So, this is where my tale of woe should have ended, but alas: the universe had more in store for me. After a couple of minutes of giggling, I felt pretty good about the whole damn thing (all my clothes were washable after all), tilted my head back to let the rain clean my face, and waited for the bus. Sure enough, a few hundred metres down the street the bus was coming, so I fished out my bus- card and walked towards to curb, waving eagerly at the bus - which simply drove straight past me. So, there I was, one more with a slightly puzzled look on my face, before once more breaking into laughter - I mean, the evening was just getting started, what MORE could it have in store for me?

Luckily, a few minutes later (I was already drenched, so standing in the rain getting soaked didn't really matter at this point) the next bus came along, and this time I waved vigorously as it passed, and the driver DID see me - after a while. Yeah, this one almost drove straight past me, too. Happy, I boarded the bus, only to be greeted with a sourly "You know, if you want to be seen, you really shouldn't be standing in those dark clothes at THIS stop - there's better light at the one down the street." Ah, yes. The Oslo bus- drivers: the very essence of politeness, know-how and service. I muttered a "Yeah, whatever." and placed my dripping self in the middle part, away from seats and passengers that seemed slightly alarmed by my - now pretty obvious - blend of elation and brooding anger.

The moral of the story? If you're out in the rain you will get wet, one way or another. You might as well learn to enjoy it.

Logic Studio has arrived! :D

OMGWTFROFLZOMG! Logic Studio! Woohoo! Mine! All mine! Mmmmmm....

Cold feet

Since Irony on HighHeels reminded me of the genius of Norwegian cartoonist Frode Øverli:


"Cold feet?" - "A bit!"

...I think someone reading my blog knows why I chose this one. :-P

Rant: angels shmangels...

WARNING: This is a rant. It's not particularly funny. It's about a subject matter I actually care about. It's kinda sarcastic and stingy. If you're a hard-core supporter of New Age, if you're deeply religious or a proud supporter (is there such a thing?) of pyramid schemes, do yourself a favor and look away as chances are you'll be agitated if you read this.

Well, I guess this was bound to happen (after all, the whole "fountain of light" affair a few years back was a pretty good indicator of things to come): Princess Märtha Louise of Norway, has officially announced her clairvoyant abilities and her ability to talk with angels and horses on the website of her latest business enterprise, Astarte Education. Right. For a couple of thousand bucks pr. half year (as part of a 3 year educational package), the good princess and her partner in quack - uhm - sorry, fellow teacher, will educate you on the matters of self realization, healing and speaking to angels: "In this course, you'll get in touch with the angels and learn how to create divine miracles in your life." Indeed!

So, this is usually the part where I in a horrific display of sarcastic skills tear apart the general nonsense of New Age (not to mention the nonsense of charging money for its debatable effects) but guess what? No. Heck no. If anyone goes into this stuff willingly and knowingly - be my guest. Go ahead. Knock yourselves out. Please! And while you're at it, might I suggest some other ways of parting with your money quickly:

- Invest in a pyramid scheme! By all means, ignore the numerous scandals plastered all over the media for the last ten years, I'm sure YOU will be able to get it right and make a quick and effortless fortune doing so. Break a leg! Just don't go crying to the media to have them tell everyone and his dog your sorry story about losing your life savings in that bonehead manoeuver afterwards. It makes you look kinda stupid for doing it in the first place.

- Join a religious cult! Those guys with the expensive learning material and the wacky alien story spring to mind. Heck, you can even find a slightly less wacky religion to throw your money at, if so inclined. There's always a deity out there desperately in need of a new BMW or swimming pool, I'm sure.

- Burn them! Yes, burn your money - if the übercool gentlemen of KLF can do it, so can you. It's quick, it's easy, and you can possibly make a cultural-political statement in the process. At least if you fire up any significant amount of hard-earned cash.

Or, you can sign up on MY new educational venture, where I will teach you how to see and communicate with pink elephants, blue zebras and red gardening tools, all for the admission price of a couple of bottles of Jack Daniels and the willingness to smash your head into a wall until consciousness and the capacity for rational thought is gone.

Now, me and my invisible friend Harvey are going to have ourselves a nice, down-to-earth discussion about the pop-cultural influences in "Planet Terror" which we saw last night. In particular about the incredible joy of watching Fergie being eaten by zombies.

PS! I don't really have anything against Martha Louise personally. I just wish she'd keep her claimed extrasensory perceptions - and the money she intends to make from them - to herself. Preferably on a small, undiscovered island in the Pacific Ocean.

PPS! To the religions leaders and prominent figures that commented on this whole, sad story: Saying that Martha should be "careful with communicating with angels, as they may not be what they seem, and she might indeed come in contact with evil spirits or demons" - YOU ARE NOT FRICKIN' HELPING! Better keep your mouths shut if THAT was the best response you could muster up. Sheesh.

Nature's finest

It was a warm Summer night, with a delicate breeze washing away the heat of the day;
Transfixed, I stared onto this miracle of nature, this most beautiful creation of colors and shapes.

With a sense of awe, I humbly tried to capture the magnificence of it all with my meager camera, as if anything but the finely developed human retina and brain could ever hope to truly see the sight that was before me...



And guess what?





The sunset was pretty darn nice, too. ;)

One year and counting

One year ago - on this exact date - I was a bit nervous; it was the day before my first face-to-face with Gorgeous (well, she hadn't turned into Gorgeous yet at that point) and apart from being my first date in a while, it was also my first date with someone I'd met on ye olde interweb. Here we are, one year later, and things have turned out pretty well - great, even.

Over the course of a few Summer months, Cute and Nervous Date blossomed into Gorgeous, and these last 8 months we've met each others' friends and families, we've laughed and cried together, traveled together, made and eaten a number of dinners and cakes together, watched way too many seasons of a number of TV series together and seen a reasonably balanced mix of chick flicks and guy movies. We've exchanged strengths and weaknesses, musical preferences, hugs, kisses, hickeys and zerberts; we've learned a few new things about our respective cultural backgrounds, made some small and some slightly bigger plans together, developed some routines and habits (some good, some... interesting), looked each other deeply in the eyes and said profoundly silly things and sometimes said profoundly serious things while looking rather silly. Hey; it's a balancing act and we're doing pretty good so far.

So, I'd like to take this opportunity to publicly say "Thanks!" to Gorgeous for hunting me down and... uhm... I mean, for changing my life for the better - mind you, it WAS pretty good to start with, but there's always room for improvement - and for bringing that perfect blend of love, appetite for life (and food - especially the yellow, banana-shaped kind), insanity, spontaneity, noise and silence into my life. U are teh roxxor!

New "Transformers" trailer - woohoo!

OmigodnewTransformerstrailerfanboyheavenI'msoexitedohboyohboyohboy!

"Transformers" exclusive trailer goodness right here

Wow. I think I just turned 12 again. :)

Hell hath no fury

Saturday night, me and Gorgeous eagerly sat down to watch the annual cheese-fest that is the Eurovision Song Contest (for those of you that are outside of Europe: The Eurovision is kinda like American Idol, only with fewer contestants, flashier outfits and less drama. But with much more cheese.) As a self-proclaimed music lover, the Eurovision is a fun romp through the cultural differences of new and old European countries: here you'll find genuine attempts at "proper" songs, some delightfully hideous "sound alikes" (there's a very thin line between plagiarism and inspiration in the Eurovision) and a couple of truly spaced out "What the heck was THAT?" moments that will either have you rolling on the floor with laughter, or desperately trying to stuff snacks (cheese, e.g.) into your ear canals.

Now, me and most of the guys I know have a through-and-through ironic distance to the whole Eurovision thing: we've laughed and cried our way through a number of Eurovision contests fueled by cheep bear and complimentary witty commentary. Gorgeous on the other hand, seem to have a profound interest in the show (no doubt due to her unconditional love for pop music - cheesy or otherwise - in general) and I warned her that I would not be able to endure the Eurovision without periodic bouts of sarcasm, snarky comments and downright disgust. I was assured that this was quite ok. So the night went pretty much as expected: a song would be performed, I would cringe more or less and complain about various degrees of out-of-tune-ness and plagiarism, toss about some snarky comments and generally act like a music snob. Gorgeous would laugh, shush me or poke me, depending on how much she liked (or didn't like) the song being performed. Things were going just fine, until the Romanian entry was performed. I was exctatic: FINALLY an entry that had that perfect Eurovision blend of cheese, weirdness and lack of "gefühl" that makes watching Eurovision such a fun experience!

Having expressed this vocally, I immediately received a quick "Gibbs" (NCIS fans know what I'm talking about), a shush, a poke and something I can only presume was the evil eye. Or eyes: it certainly wasn't the loving look I'm used to getting. I was then given a two hour lecture - complete with examples taken from Youtube - on the magnificence of Romanian pop-music (including the dreaded Manele, which even Gorgeous thinks is pretty crap but still felt I needed to learn about). Oy vey. By the end of the ordeal, I was in a semi-catatonic state, and would merely nod slightly (and perhaps drool a bit) whenever Gorgeous introduced me to yet another act or artist. Trust me, guys: Hell hath no fury like a woman whose music tastes have been ridiculed (even if it was done lovingly).

Today, I've been blasting my eardrums with the soothing sound of Opeth in a desperate attempt to wash away the remnants of the weekend's overexposure from Eurovision entries and Romanian pop-music. It's gonna take a while. Alas, vengeance will be sweet as Gorgeous will receive an overdose of marching band music (you know the charmingly out of time, tune and place variant played by 10 year olds) on Norway's independence day, May 17th. Muahahah!

Spring theory

My friend M is spending an uncanny amount of time trying to wrap his head around this little thing called string theory. For the uninitiated, string theory is defined on Wikipedia in this simple sentence (ahem):

"String theory is a model of fundamental physics whose building blocks are one-dimensional extended objects called strings, rather than the zero-dimensional point particles that form the basis for the Standard Model of particle physics."

Got that? Good. Now, as complex and dumbfounding as string theory might be, there is one theory that is even more complex and strange - Spring theory. Each year this thing called Spring (heh) arrives here in Norway, and its mysterious ways and perplexing unpredictability continues to catch me off guard. I don't know what Spring is like in other parts of the world, but here it's like a strangely playful and taunting entity - and by "playful and taunting" I mean "childish and annoying". If Spring was a kid, it would be a spoiled 4 year-old with a slight case of ADHD - fueled by too much sugar.

Basically, my typical Spring day goes like this: I wake up, have a look outside. It's sunny, yay! I then proceed to look at the thermometer, which typically shows something like 0 degrees. "Hmm, fair enough. It's probably warmer in the sun." I think to myself, but put on a warmer sweater anyway. I then go outside, only to be greeted with a gust of wind that brings the temperature down to -5 degrees or thereabout. "Hah! See, putting on that extra sweater was a good idea." I loudly proclaim (and usually get some strange looks from by-passers) while awkwardly trying to pat myself on the back. Then, ten minutes into my walk to work, the temperature rises about 15 degrees and my wisely chosen sweater is turned into a instrument of torment as my body temperature rises above my preference. "Oh, well. It could be worse." I say, scaring a little old lady in the process (who then tries to take a swing at me with her umbrella). "Hey, was that lady swinging at me with her umbrella?" I think to myself - seconds before the skies turn dark, relative humidity shoots up to 90% and rain starts pouring down.

So there I am: warm, sweaty and soaked. "Well, this is Norway. No reason to be depressed about the weather." I say to myself - somewhat quieter this time. Five minutes later, the Sun is gone, the wind is back and the temperature is back down to -5 degrees. At this point, I usually let out a small sigh, break off a few icicles off my nose and ears and contemplate moving to Hawaii - but just for a few seconds, because lo and behold! The Sun is back, the ice is melting and my clothes are pretty much dry again. Freeze dried. Not too comfortable, but it works. After this showcase of weather phenomena (which all take place in a 25 minute period of time) I usually arrive at work more or less happy and prepared for other extraordinary things.

Such as my customers.

Headspace

Yeah, baby! Bask in the glory of my newly aquired Beyerdynamic DT-880 headphones, for it is much glory to be found in headphones that...uhm... bask. No, wait, that's not right. Oh, never mind. Anyhow, seeing as my birthday is coming up in the near future, I've treated myself to some new "cans" - the only piece of hardware I've bought for my home studio in ages. I've been an avid fan of Beyerdynamic headphones for many years now, having used my (t)rusty old DT-250s for about 10 years, and when my contact at the Norwegian Beyerdynamic distributor suggested I try out the 880s way back in last October, I had to say yes. Unfortunately, I was a bit busy the weekend I had them and didn't get to give them a proper listen. Still, what little I heard left me very impressed, so when I had the funds to justify buying them the other day, I did.


Oh joy. Oh, glorious, supreme, audiophile joy. These things are absolutely lovely. I've always liked the neutral, if somewhat bass-lacking sound of my 250s, but the 880s just wipe the floor with them. It was literally like pulling a blanket off your head and experiencing all those tiny, little details that inhibit the sonic space in which we all reside (unless you're in outer space, that is). No doubt the semi-open design of the the 880s help reconstruct the experience of listening to actual loudspeakers in a room as opposed to loudspeakers connected to your ears - the sound-field is wide and extremely detailed, the frequency response linear with a crisp high-end while still maintaining a very natural and neutral sound. I love them. Granted, they do not offer the same level of sound isolation (both ways) of my 250s, but compared to the 880s, the 250s sound a little narrow, midrange-oriented and "dry". Nothing wrong with that, of course: for vocal recording and critical editing, they're the bee's knees. For listening to music, they're ok but perhaps a little too clinical-sounding. The 880s are slightly heavier than the 250s, though - I can feel the headband pressing against my head when wearing them over a longer period of time. I suspect the leather and padding of the 880s are thinner than the velour padding of the 250 headband. Not really uncomfortable, just slightly less comfortable than the extremely comfy 250s.

In short, the 880s come highly recommended. At a price that equals what most people spend on a pair of Hi-Fi speakers, they're not cheap but worth every penny.

Strangers on the web, exchanging nonsense

"Hi there, blog! What's up?"

"I'm sorry, do I know you?"

"Uhm, yeah... it's me, Bit. Your creator and rightful owner."

"Come again?"

"You're my blog. I write you. Or wrote you. Uh, well... used to write you."

"Really? I have no recollection of that. Are you sure you're talking to the right blog? I've been independent for as long as I can remember. I'm a free blog, not a number! Or something along those lines."

"Oh, come on... You remember me! You're just pissy because I haven't written anything in you for months. Stop pretending you don't know me, blog."

"Seriously. I have no idea who you are. Amnesia. My shrink says it's because of some psychological trauma a couple of months back. Something about feeling abandoned..."

"Would you stop it already?! I'm back now, am I not? Hey, it's not ALL about you, you know! I have a life outside of Blogger, too."

"Really? Like... MySpace? Yahoo! 360? Facebook?"

"...Are you frickin' stalking me? Am I being stalked by my own blog?"

"Dunno what you're talking about."

"You're creeping me out, blog."

"YOU'RE the one who approached me - I still have no idea who you are."

"Fine, be that way. Can I at least put up a link to some photos here? Then I'll leave you alone again."

"Whatever."

*slam*

Romania februar 2007

(Some snaps taken by my girlfriend during our trip to Romania earlier this year, captions in Norwegian - can't be bothered to re-write them in English, sorry.)

Bistreem, P.I.

Today, I got to play detective. Yes, I donned my best trench-coat, gulped down a couple of shots of whiskey, lit up a cigarette and - following the half hour of intense and painful coughing and nausea due to me not being a smoker - hit the dark, rainy streets of Oslo to embark on my crusade against evil in the brutal world of musical instrument retail; to thwart the plans of evildoers, rescue damsels in distress and fire off a seemingly endless line of witty one-liners. Action! Thrills! Mystery! Dames! All this and more in this edition of Daring Tales of Musical Detectives (only $0.59)!

Ok, so all that was blown slightly out of proportion there, but I DID get to help thwart (oh, how I love that word... thwart!) an attempted fraud. Which is good enough for me, really - all the excitement of detective work while safely seated in your office chair.

Anyway, this morning at work I got a call from KLM - the airline company - regarding an insurance claim from one of their customers. This fellow (I will refrain from mentioning nationality, seeing as that part of the world is getting enough bad press as it is) was demanding reimbursement for damages his instruments had suffered during a trip with KLM, and had produced a paper of certification of inspection of these damages by a retailer/workshop here in Oslo. However, the store that he claimed had written this paper had our name, but a different store's address, no VAT number and no phone number, and thus Maria - the Danish customer care person handling the case, who was trying to solve this from her office in Amsterdam and having a great deal of trouble doing so (thus qualifying for the damsel in distress part, I suppose) - had found our website and phone number, and called to ask if we had written this paper.

Since we occasionally do write these papers for customers, I had her fax me the papers she had gotten from the customer so that I could look into it. I must say, the scam artists of today do put a lot of work in their... paperwork. The papers themselves looked pretty good (complete with dates, names and signatures, it was even stamped) until inspected a bit more closely, revealing a less then stellar grasp of written English (even by Norwegian standards), and a non-existing company name (as mentioned earlier, it had our company name, but the address of another store).

I thought I'd give the guy the benefit of the doubt, so I gave the other store a call - knowing they do repairs for these kinds of instruments - to check if they'd had a look at the instruments mentioned and written the document for the guy. Indeed he HAD visited their workshop to get such a paper documenting the extent of damages to his instruments, but he hadn't actually brought any instruments to the store, and they had refused to write such a paper without actually SEEING the instruments first. Basically they'd sent him off to another store, and not given it any more thought until today. They weren't too happy to hear about this incident, and since one of their employees was one of the three people mentioned in the paper and who had allegedly signed it (name and signature was there), I faxed them a copy of the papers as well. Document fraud is punishable by law in Norway just as in most other countries, so they would look into pressing charges - even if the chances of locating this individual (he was not registered at the home address given - yeah, I checked the phone book) are less than very, very slim.

I called Maria back to let her know about my "investigations", gave her the other store's phone- and fax numbers and told her that we all thought this sounded like a big, fat fraud. She was extremely grateful for the help and even asked if there was ANYTHING she could do in return - being the gentleman that I am (*cough*), I told her it was my pleasure and also in our interest to stop frauds like these from happening.

Of course, in retrospect I kinda regret not asking for a discount on my next flight (my girlfriend's family lives outside of Norway and we travel with KLM when we go to visit them), but then I again, a hero never asks for payment, right?

I'm planning on going to work with a big red "B" on my chest tomorrow...

Wax on, wax off

(Disclaimer: this is another one of those blog entries of a slightly gross nature. Much like the snot one. Only this isn't about snot. Anyway, if you're easily offended by the weirdness - not to mention grossness - of the human body, you'd better take heed and go read something else. Like the latest Apple keynote. Oh, and I couldn't find any photos to go with this entry that weren't utterly gross, so they're omitted. Sue me.)

I love my ears. Being a music lover, wannabe electronic musician and occasional audio engineer, my ears have given me - and continue to give me - daily joy and entertainment throughout the years. Given the choice between blindness and deafness, I'd lose the eyes. Especially if there was a chance for some cybernetic implant to grant me night vision and Predator-style thermal vision. And possibly laser-beams. But I digress.

Anyway, my ears - as much as I love them and take care of them - also cause me grief. See, my ears have crazy earwax build-up. Yeah, earwax. Sticky, yellow goop clogs my ears completely once in a while - it's happened three times in the last ten years - resulting in temporarily partial or complete loss of hearing on one or both of my ears. Scared the crap out of me the first time, now I take it like a man (curling up in a fetal position and sobbing uncontrollably, then). Tuesday it happened again; most likely triggered by a long day of headphone use in a pretty warm apartment. Woke up with my right ear completely clogged and spent most of my working day with a sore neck from constantly turning my left side to anyone talking to me.

So, yesterday I headed down to the private clinic I use for small, everyday emergencies like this. The doctor placed me in the usual chair and fired up his earwax removal machine: a big tank-like thing with hoses and cables connected to it. While seated there and having my ears vacuumed - that's what it feels like, really - I was looking at the tubes going to and from the machine. I'm guessing there was one for air, one for water and one for the actual wax - boy, there was a lot of the yellow stuff going through that one.

I still wonder where it all goes; is there a black market for second-hand earwax? Can it be found in cosmetics, food or silly putty if you can decipher the contents listings? Or was my doctor secretly collecting enough to create his own earwax Golem to wreck havoc on humanity in general and the makers of cotton sticks in particular..? Perhaps he'd bring home a box of it and make tiny, elaborate figurines to be displayed in a glass cabinet? Make candles? All these things rushed through my head as my ear-canals slowly regained their functionality. After what sounded like a medium-sized waterfall rushing out of my ears, the audible world came back to me in glorious stereo and with a slightly improved high-frequency response; I spent most of yesterday being annoyed by the sound of my clothes shuffling.

Oh yeah, and to the possible smartasses among you that go "Why don't you use cotton sticks?!" - it's not good for ya: never put something sharper than your elbow in your ear. Go look it up, kids.

Bruce Is The Man

Proof positively, Bruce Campbell IS The Man...

Neighbors schmeibors! Fog Schmog!

It's January, it's winter (or whatever one would call it these days - it's certainly not of the snowy, white variety as popularized by the Coke commercials) and it's Monday; in other words, the perfect setting for a rant or two.

Rant subject #1: Neighbors.

Generally, I get on pretty well with my neighbors. As in, I don't bother them and they mostly don't bother me. Much. Apart from that guy that sings in the shower - loudly and horribly out of tune - and whose voice magically transfers very well to MY bathroom through our shared ventilation shaft. Then, there are the folks living in the apartment above me, that seem to do a lot of furniture rearranging. After midnight. On Tuesdays. Why after midnight? Why Tuesdays? I fear these are questions I'll never know the answers to (I'll put them up on my long list of unanswered questions, like where do all my left socks, pencils and guitar picks go when they suddenly disappear).
Lastly, there's the mystery woman living in the apartment next to mine; this morning, as I picked up my newspaper, I tripped in her slalom gear that was haphazardly placed against her door - it was there last night as well. Who leaves their slalom gear outside their door for more than a day? Is it some secret getaway solution - can I expect my neighbor to one day escape some unknown fiend by sliding down the stairway in a Bond-like fashion? Although it's not completely improbable that she's some kind of secret agent - I have, after all, only met her twice since I moved here - I do doubt the efficiency of escaping potential thugs by sliding down a concrete stairway on slalom skis. The Bond Aficianados might beg to differ.

Rant subject #2: Weather.

More specifically, fog. I have a serious problem with fog. Not as FOG, but as weather. I mean, rain, wind and snow all have some sort of purpose; we need water for our lawns, wind for our para-gliders and snow for our Christmas clichés, but what the heck is fog good for? FOG - huh - what is it good for? Absolutely nothing! Say it again. Fog is not weather; it's a horror B-movie prop. Whenever there's fog outside, I half expect to see Bela Lugosi pop out and go "Chiiildren of the niiight" or something along those lines.
Fog isn't weather; it's colorized (gray) rain without the proper h2o percentage. What do we need it for? I'm pretty sure fog is one big elaborate joke staged by some top secret meteorologists' society just to annoy us. I bet part of those huge electricity bills (this is Norway, after all - it's not like we have abundances of water or anything) go to pay for a big-ass smoke machine somewhere in the hills. Seriously, this morning it was dark AND foggy. Yes. This is Norway; during winter, mornings are pitch black ANYWAY. What does the fog add to pitch black? Nothing but atmosphere. And I don't need no frickin' atmosphere with my pitch blackness, thank you very much - I can be grumpy on Monday mornings without atmosphere. Fog, I've officially taken you off the weather list. So there.

(See, this is what you get when I submit to peer pressure and blog without having anything to say; rants. You asked for it!)