Little Corner of Ania

I just have to admit it -- I simply love e!online & their awesome gossip columns! TabFab & Ask the AnswerB!tch especially - so spunky, sassy & simply fab! It's not really the gossips, but rather the way they're writing kinda...<3! :)

Ps! My wishes for the new year? GET VICTORIAS SECRET TO NORWAY GDAMMIT!!!!! *cry* 30$ shipping!?!? *sighs*

My little cutiepie!!! (and my hubby alright :p)
Notice the matching little shoes! =)

Now, I'd love a grownup version of this dress, preferrably one which's short (above the knees :P) and got long splits at the sides kinda. I'm told it's called...hm...dao sai or something like that....*me & my teflon brain* *rolls eyes* ...anyways...I've found a couple on the net, but they're like, 80-100$ or more.... I need a cheaper version, cause...it's just a fun clothing experiment since I'm asian looking and all that, thought it'd be fun & cool having such a dress then kinda :)

If anyone find one, lemme know please :p

...and I think we're done with all the presents and greetingcards - yay! I've also been a good housewife (haha) & made six different cakes, cookies and candies for Christmas. When it comes to food, I really am a good housewife - but that's also pretty much the only housewifeish area that I excel at - I really really suck at cleaning up and that kinda stuff. Give me five minutes in a clean, tidy kitchen and you honestly won't recognize it after - but it doesn't matter that much, cause hopefully my food will make you forget that (alright, that doesn't really work on my husband, but...).

Now, off to make an attempt at cleaning up a tad ....

One of the things that I personally consider "grownupish", is the tradition of sending Christmas greetings around Christmastime (well duh). I *think* I may have tried it once before, but well.... coming from someone who's always way delayed when it comes to sending out thank-you cards, expecting me to be able to send out Christmas Greetings in time every year......well....*boggle*

Anyways...this year we were like, hmm, we should, but do we really wanna bother?
Then two days ago I got so inspired by looking at other peoples Christmas pictures that I just decided aw screw it lets go :P

And here's the results :)


Just hope that people I sent the greetings to get it in time :p

And while I'm in the Christmassy mood - Have a Joyful Christmas all of you!! :)

I'm currently in Oslo, staying at my moms place (which I still keep calling "home", and to which the kiddo keeps correcting me "No, it's not our home, it's grandma and Trygves home!"). Anyways, just wanted to share this picture of me, my sister Pia and our steph-sister Beata and all our children :p

From left to right; Beata, her son Isaac, daughter Zara, my sister Pia, her two girls Rebecca and Tuva, my kid Adrian, myself and my Amalie :)

Gonna stay here until Saturday, then we'll jet back home to Bergen. :) (and boy how I do look forward to taking a plane all by myself with a buggy kid, a whiny baby and loads of luggage....yey!)

Sure thing, I'd love to pay 21 360 NOK instead of 12 990 NOK for a plasmascreen. No worries, I'll dish out 3300 instead of 1990 for that camera. And hell yeah, I'll pay 33 960 instead of 20 675 for the complete Christmas offer of various electronic stuff!! WHAT A FREAKIN BARGAIN!

So, lemme just ask; are people outta their minds?!?

*boggle*

Last time I checked, 21 360 is a way lot more than 12 990. Same thing with 33 960 instead of 20 675. And if I'm not too mistaken, it's still possible to get smaller loans in the bank for a reasonable fee rather than borrowing money from the store just to get some funky showoffthing - and pay like double- 1/3rd more its worth (And oh, don't forget the initial fee of 395 to establish the loan itself. But hey, it's cheap, it really is, according to their webpages).

God, I'm not sure why it annoys me, but it sure does -- the commercials on TV and in the papers and stuff -- get loans for free TODAY. Don't have money? Don't worry, we'll THROW the money after you without checking your financial status - just send an SMS or email us and it'll be fixed in no time! And then there is all these "thank you Thorn" and "weee the Deal man is here with our way too expensive stuff" commercials...I guess they're directed at people who didn't bother learning math at school. *scoff* And since they keep affording and doing these expensive commercials, it sure means they do get an income, which means there's actually people going for these stuff....?

Maybe they bother me because I consider these to be organized scams for people of lower class or eh, weaker mind? And it's annoying that it seem to be so accepted today....*roll eyes again for the n'th time*
I really shouldn't bother, I'm not even affected by this, but still it annoys me!!

Jeez....Merry Christmas btw, in case I forget this later on :P

Where did the days go!?!? We're already at December, the last month of the year...I've turned a year older/wiser (okay, the latter's maybe a tad dubious :p), became a mother of two and been married for a year already - and I really don't know how everything's happened so fast..

I guess what they say about life is true, the older you get the faster time flies....and it's already too fast for me :(

God I really am gettin old rambling like this :p

Alright, I suppose I gotta admit it - I'm totally hooked on scrapping! It's so much fun, and totally addictive and uhm, sorta dangerous for the wallet -- but hey, who cares, I get to scrap a lot of wonderful memories and keep them safe in a funny environment kinda ;)

I also got my sister hooked it seems, and now she's got some more friends hooked -- it's dangerous! :P It's also nice, cause this makes us stay in touch a little more than we used to aswell ;) Right now we're kinda fighting over who gets to scrap what pictures -- I love the
pictures I got of Rebecca, her oldest daughter, and every time I show her a layout I've made of Becca she's all like "Stop that! I don't have that picture, gimme!!" :p And I'm all like, "oops, did I forget to send you that picture too? =)" *snicker*

Here's a layout I'm extremely happy about -- this is my little one, Amalie ;) It's simple and clean -- I have so much more to learn about this profession, and in the meantime I'm having so much fun capturing the moments that'll mean a lot in the future :)

Oh, I'm also done watching "The Shield" season 1 through 3. And I still believe it's great -- check out season three for some..eh... indepths scenes regarding Capt. Aceveda :P And I'm not talking about the incident only (where he's forced to give a ganster a blowjob to save his life), but about what follows it - the psychological changes that it makes in him. And things like, him admitting the whole thing to his wife and she just walks on him?? Hellooo....?!? Anyways...season four features Glenn Close as a series regular -- can't wait till it hits the DVD :)

Alright, old news for most I suppose (since it's actually three years old), but check out The Shield if you haven't already. In Norway it's been on Canal + earlier, and although my first thought was "ooh, another great series from the HBO network" it's actually from FX (don't ask me :p). Anyways, it's totally mindboggling and awesome -- I know the phrase might be overused, but it's really a groundbreaking series in its true meaning. Anyways, just got to borrow Season One on DVD from a friend, and woah it's just SO good. Forget everything you thought you've seen about cop series on TV. Watch this one instead - you won't regret. Seriously.

NB: Not for those faint of heart. I guess.

as a single mom just started this morning, after saying goodbye to Simen in front of a bus counting what, thirty, fourty, an even larger number ?? of twelve year old kids anxious to go on school camp. It's "only" for a week, but right now I seem to be in it for a looong week with a five month old baby crawling everywhere (and I mean everywhere!) and a four year old who's having a tendency to be pretty whiny too fast. *lets out a deep breath* It'll be okay...I'll survive...I *think* I might be better off than Simen, who's got like, loads of kids to look forward to 24/7.....I mean, some of the best things that I recall from these expeditions from my own childhood were to stay awake at night visiting each others and hiding when the poor, sleepless teachers tried to put us back to bed....:P And the noise level at the bus must be quite fun right now, with all those excited kids :P At least I only got two to look after right now :P And besides......there's like, loads of women (and some men) being this, alone with children, like, every day. I'll be ok......I really will.......... I think...

Yeah! I got a new fave song right now -- The Pussycat Dolls "Don't cha" -- it's such a great concept, that "band" ---- <3 !! (I miss Carmen though, I thought she was a regular in that group, apparantly not :/)

Dont cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me
Dont cha wish your girlfriend was a freak like me

(No, I'm NOT talking about myself (jeez I'm not that conceited), I just think the lyric's fun & a bit hilarious.....and they sorta do redeem themselves in the lyrics heh)

Sooo, as I was gonna take on this skirt I haven't worn since like, way before I got preggers, I was like, hmm, is this a little too early? Maybe this one will be a tad too tight? :/ But!! It wasn't!! ;) And it was actually a bit too loose & all that, which I take as a good sign that things are going into the right direction, even though I'm not too sure about that one when I watch myself in the mirror (which, truth to be told, can be a tad dishearting...:/) ...anyways, yay, clebrating that one by eating Mövenpick chocolate ice cream to breakfast =) (best ice cream I know of next to homemade & Häagen Dazs cookie ice cream) ~cheers! :)

Ahoy Avast! Let's not forget the very important upcoming International Talk Like A Pirate Day - September 19th! :)

I'm not quite sure how to put this, but...I recently started to read the Childrens Bible that Adrian got when he was baptised, like, years ago....personally I have all but good memories from when I was little and was reading in my own Bible (also adapted for children I guess, since I was reading in it all by myself when I was sick and home from school)....I really enjoyed reading it, there were so may fascinating and nice stories in it and stuff.... I also have a faint memory of going to the Sunday School, drawing nice drawings from stories from the Bible & stuff....quite...harmonic memories, sorta..

Anyways, I digress...so, I wanted my son to have the same fond memories like I did, and I was like, okay, four and half years old and hardly knows who this God or Jesus is...might as well learn about them the good way and later face the harsh reality about religions, no? So, instead of fairytales at bedtime (which, by the way, can be quite harsh aswell - I mean, Hansel & Gretel??? Their parents abanodon them on and on again in the huge, dangerous forest, yet they keep wanting to return, they long to go home and do so every single time until next time they put them back into the forest to die??? Hellooo stupid children....wake up! duh..) I put up this project reading stuff from his own Bible...fine.....he loves the stories, okay. Me? I keep getting disillusioned. And I actually do regret putting up this project, but well, it's too late, he's into the stories now and doesn't wanna stop until the book is finished. *sigh*

I knew the Bible was kinda...eh... sided? Partial? One-dimensional? I mean...Gods own people, blah blah blah, oh noes, Gods own people left their own country, now other people took it....what to do? Take it back ofc, cause the stupid people who stayed/took over the country when they left doesn't wanna go away, don't they know it's Gods people who's supposed to have this country....? But hey, who left the country voluntarily in the first place, according to the very same book? And when someone needs a wife they're like, ok, go fetch a woman, who's like "yes take me miles away to some guy I haven't even seen!" (or well, their fathers).

Hm. Maybe it's this particular book. It's very....simple. It's like, "Rut married Naomis son. But he was dead. Naomis husband was also dead. Naomi wanted to go back to Judea." Lots of short, boring, cut down setences. Maybe that's the problem. Maybe I should try find my own, old books, maybe the Bible would eh...sound more fun in there...or something like that..cause even though I'm still sceptical to this whole Bible/religion thing (and even more so when reading it for my kid), I still do believe that a childs faith is a nice thing, to give him a nice, rosey& safe foundament....when he grows up I hope he can read for himself and question why and how can this and that be right, can this really be justified... or something like that...

About yesterday, I forgot to mention how it ended! (no you dirty little minds *roll eyes*)
Anyways, when Simen told our kid that "hey, it's mom's birthday today", he prouldy proclaimed that we needed to get me icecream because that's what they did in the kindergarden -- whenever it's someones birthday they all get to eat icecream. Soo, by the end of the evening he reminded us about the icecream, so Simen had to drive to the videostore to get some, and he also rented a DVD aswell - "Closer". I must say it's simply one of the best movies I've seen in a long time -- it's so smart and intelligent and so raw, so brutally honest... and quite an unusual film sorta, about relationships and cheating and life......love like it is.... with such strong performances (no I still don't really fancy Jude Law for some reason...and it was kinda surreal to watch him in that movie while thinking of all the stuff that's happened to him and Sienna Miller lately (and his ex-wife before that), heh), especially Clive Owen and Nathalie Porter (love her always! Even in Star Wars :p). Hm. I can't recall having seen thit one on the cinemas here, hm. Anyways.....such a great movie, sharp and all that stuff -- it's kinda noticeable that it's adapted from a play, it's conversation is it's strength....and it forces you to use your mind aswell, since the time-line is quite funny in this movie....like, all the unnecessary stuff is cut away....and the introduction of Owens character, the cybersex part -- it was both hilarious and..I don't know...raw? Realistic? And the stripclub scene with Portman & Owen...wow, Portman's damn sexy in there (love the wigs!!) and she really shines as the flirty yet vulnerable temptress... ohwell..watch this movie, it's really great.

Oh, about my new hobby, I just have to share this layout that I made after inspiration from a contest on a board; the text reads "(my) adorable little babygirl". I'm really getting the hang of this new hobby, it's so fun and challenging and best of all, I had no idea that I could be a tiny tad little creative aswell. And I get to save and conserve my pictures for the future in a beautiful setting, or layout, as it's called. I just got a packet from stickers-planet with georgeous papers and cool alphabetstickers - but one thing I've noticed is that scrapping is really full of..hm....big words sorta. I dunno...it feels like....Mary Poppins....especially the layouts about babies and children, it's a lot of 'cherish preserve adore love tell-the-whole-world-a-lot-of-pinksweetish-huge-wonderful-larger-than-life words' :p Ohwell...in a few weeks I'll be thinking of this as natural myself I guess, assimilated into this kind of mentality.....I can feel it creeping up on me already ....am....trying....to...resist......! :p

But really, it's such a cool hobby! 8)

Because yes, it was a wonderful day! :)

Normally, birthdays are like, well.....it used to be exciting when you were five, or six, or even ten or twelve.....then, as you grow up, it becomes kinda...I dunno....another year, yay...?

But today I had the most wonderful day, thanks to my dearest sweetie -- actually having him walk around in clothingstores and paying attention was.....great!!! :) And it was like, well, he did that for me....! Am so happy!! So we managed to find me a cool dress, a sweet sweater and even some ribbons and stuff for my new hobby, scrapping! And then we went and had sushi, or well, I had sushi (which tasted absolutely delicately) while Simen had noodles....and I even managed to get me some dessert too, chocolate fondant......yumm.....!!!

And when we went home I even tried the weight at my mother in law (who was babysitting our children while we were gone....and we don't have one at our home cause I refuse to have one or else I'd be stuck on it every day and I don't wanna so that's why we're not allowed to buy one because I say so! =) ) and found out that I only have two kilos left to my original weight before the pregancy!! *even more happy* :D

me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday dear Ania, happy birthday to me!!

I got the worlds best boyfriend. He's so cute. So adorable. As a part of my birthdaypresent he's going to take me to the clothing stores, promise to show that he's got more words than just "fine" in his vocabulary, not complain even though we might spend hours, and buy me some clothes. And he's doing that all voluntarily!! No wonder I love him so!!! :)

Sooo, I just read an article at VG Nett that a woman from South Africa have invented a penis trap. The reason for this was to give women an effective tool to prevent getting raped (50 000 women gets raped a year in South Africa).

The penis trap is carried (or do you say worn?) in the womans vagina, and got tags that "bites" into the penis and even makes it way worse if the owner tries to remove it -- the only way to remove it would be to go to a hospital/doctor and get an operation (!).

Sooo, while the intention is really good - to save women from being raped -- I sorta have my doubts cause....well, imagine a scorned woman wanting to get back at a(n ex)lover.....or a drunk woman not remembering that she's wearing the penis trap and hits on some random guy..... *boggle* Or just simply, a whacko wearing it for fun and hitting men (men are so easy :p).

The plan is that this penis trap will hit the market next year...... how'd you prevent such kind of abuse? But then again, raping someone is a terrible abuse of power aswell....so....hmmm....womens way to get back on men?

Ohwell...gives a whole new meaning to the norwegian expression "luremus" I guess :p

Funny how things seem to be way more interesting than they maybe are, when you're supposed to be focused on serious work? I don't know, but I've bee spending waaay too much time on checking up scrapping stuff -- and well, tbh it does look very interesting & promising (to me anyways ;) ), and before I've even scrapped a single picture at all (or LO as it's called - LayOut) I've already spend a good deal of shinies on this newfound hobby....

I sure hope I got some talent for this, so that the money and time spent until now haven't been too wasted *roll eyes* =)

Now, wish my scrappingstuff would arrive in the mail soon so I can start trying this out for real =) In the meantime I guess I'll keep working some on my actual assigned projects :p

Note to self: Make a new timetable =)

My little cute one, aged 3 1/2 months, just got - not one - but two teeth. So what you may think, who cares - there are even babies that's born with teeth (or so I'm told), but hey, I care.... and because I care, I'm making you care aswell :p

*sighs*

And yes, I'm breastfeeding her still......question is, for how much longer ........?

I survived walking around a whole day in those shoes =)
I think I deserve something. Like, a medal or something like that =)

Hmm...so what's the big deal with karaoke? I can see that it can be somewhat fun at home with friends, preferrably after a couple of beers or whatever, and somewhat painfully fun when exposing (mostly lesser) talents at some old pub or the dreaded Danish boat, but.... what makes the Norwegian public broacast channel actually make their own TV show based on karaoke, where you can watch a bunch of random more or less known people sit, look uncomfortably into the cameras and sing along to whatever song they chose to sing....and they actually allow random people to make phonecalls and sing through the phone for whole Norway (who choses to watch anyways) to hear... whee! And yes, this is karaoke in it's purest form, non adjusted, non enchanted and whatever they do with the sound at the television...(no, it's not pretty either). And it's been going on for ten weeks.

1. I'm amazed that I've actually watched this show for more than five minutes once
2. I'm maybe more amazed that the NRK, the public broadcast channel in Norway, actually spends *our* money (we're forced to fund this channel, no expectations..well maybe the King of Norway, what do I know about it) on this.....eh...piece of entertainment which should only be watched if you have had enough to drink yourself.

I might have expected this from TV2. More likely TVN. But NRK? *boggle*


Ofcourse. I may be wrong. I might have tuned in at a bad moment. This show might actually have been great. This might be fun for more people than those attending. Maybe it's really nice to show that the love of the song is more important than someones actual ability of singing. On TV. (We got Idol too, so shrug).

Maybe.

-.-

I'm glad this Karaoke-TV season is over now.

Lookie, I found the most cutest little thing the other day that I just *had* to have...isn't he cute?? :) He's now accompanying my chellphone, dressed like a little blue elephant...

I tried to convince Simen to take the other one (Winnie teh Dolphin), but he simply refused to :(

<3 cute things!

By the way, have I ever mentioned how I love Monty Pythons songs? Their texts are always splendid, and they have a way to make the sound/theme/arrangements really fit.....they're simply really small masterpieces....."Eric the half-a-bee", "Every sperm is sacred" (love how they mix the boychoir in and let them sing parts solo and stuff), "Lumberjack", the theme to the Brian movie (never really fancied the "Always look on the bright side" one though), "Sit on my face" (*blush*), "I like chinese" & so on....

You really gotta hand it to the participants - when you attend a competition that goes on for days, knowing that you'll have to look forward to at least two accidents involving scraping up your bare skin in up to 60-70 km/hour (if you're lucky)...and yet, when the accidents occur, you know that you have to keep going, (almost) no matter what....

It kinda puts things into perspective doesn't, comparing them to the wussy (yet sassy) footballers who seem to be more and more occupied with how they look these days. These cute, little footballers really seem to like to roll around on the grass crouching and yelling when they just stumble over each others. And they keep lying on the ground until they got the judges attention at least.

You don't really see the same behaviour from the tourers when they fall off and slide across the road do you? Naa, they clench their fists, bit their teeth and hurries to their bicycles trying to get on it as fast as possible.

Now that's sorta admirable in a sadistic way.

Although I fancy J.K. Rowlings world, I've been annoyed about the main protagonist, Harry Potter, for quite a while now. He's such a "woe me" spoiled, childish brat, who's good at whining and feeling sorry for himself too often. Sure, he's got his reasons, but he does seriously bug me too often. And I'm like, get over it, stop acting like a child....(which he actually is, something I guess I tend to overlook). And have Dumbledore ever failed him, not earning his total trust?

Ohwell...I guess that having a flawed protagonist is good and actually to prefer to godlike heroes, but jeez, a little less annoying Potter woudln't hurt imo :p

Oh, she's getting better and better at writing methinks, didn't really fancy her two first books but she's gettin' there =) And the intro to "the half-blood prince" was very clever, loved the twist on introducing us to what's happened since last book. And the death makes sense.... it really does :)

I must admit it. Whenever someone notices that "Hey, you're from Oslo aren't you?" because of my dialect (yes I've still kept it thankyouverymuch!), they're so making my day. It makes me beam, feel more happier & kinda radiate (I think :p). I've lived at these parts of the country (Bergen that is) for close to seven years now, and although some evil people (you know who you are!!) claims that I've been.....assimilated into a Bergenser (or worse, Askøyværing), I simply refuse to believe that. I don't wanna! And just even saying something like that to me is so mean!

I'm also really totally devastated that my oldest kid seem to not notice my dialect at all but rather go for the local one.....poor kid :( So the baby is my only hope left I guess....hrm...now I'm sad again...grr..

Norwegian journalists are becoming more and more lazy. VG Nett have the last few weeks started to headhunt their own, custom-made interview objects, with headlines like "Were your baby made at a music festival?" "Are you between 25-30, single and going aboard to Asia this summer with friends?" "Have you experienced trouble complaining at storebought stuff?" --- all ending with "We want to get in touch with you!", linking to the emailadress of whoevers on the case.

Actually, headhunt is a wrong word here, it's rather -- they want their objects to come to them. Personally I find this interesting - it sorta allows the journalists to picture a specific case then by simply just view through the replies they get until they get the right person(s) that corresponds with what they were picturing. I'm sure this isn't new at all, I mean, big companies and stuff usually send the media a couple of people with this and that kind of experience, and give them a pretty much custommade story - like, if the government got a paper or new rule or whatever they're about to publish, they tend to do this - find a couple people with a nice story that's interfering with whatever they want publicity about, and send them to the journalists. Or the jorunalists are searching various interest-newsgroup or board, to look for specific objects and ideas, and/or maybe even advertise at the respective newsgroup/board for their case/story. The new thing here however is the openess about this customthing. They're totally openly searching for this and that specific kind of story, sittin down waiting for people to come to them. And anybody can read this as long as they drop by their webpaper, and think, "oh, but I got the story they want", or "oh, I know someone who's...."

*shrug* This isn't really a big deal, I'm just noticing a(nother) new trend which I find sorta amusing.....soh :p And because they've been advertising like, four times a week or so it seems to me and it's simply not anything I've seen before =)

Daytime television. Just thinking of that word makes me shudder. What's on the TV at daytime? Nothing! Oh, apart from the daytime soaps, if you consider that television at all - which really, really bugs me.

It's however quite somewhat amusing to watch these shows if you do so with a little distance. Take "The bold and the beauty" or whatever it's called. My grandma used to be an avid follower of this show, telling me things like "Oh, that guy is so mean!" and "You better watch out for that woman, she's dangerous!" with a serious and often very indignant face on behalf of the poor victims on the screen. It was almost so I wondered if she was aware that it was just a television show. And a not too good one either, imho.

So, what's going on in a daytime soap? Well.

• There's always secrets and underlying alliances going on. (well duh!)

• When two people talk about a secret, you can be damn sure that there will be someone overhearing that conversation, and this person will either be a) the person the secret is about and who's not supposed to know about it right yet, or b) an evil person who's so gonna use this newfound knowledge to his or her own adventage. (cue: closeup montage of either a teary, bigeyed, shocked woman or an evil smirk that just tells you 'uhoh trouble incoming')

• If someone becomes pregnant, you can never be sure who actually fathered the baby - usually it's not the one the woman officially is dating.

• Everybody is dating everyone. Even doubledating. Or trippledating. A lot of recycling going on :p

• The innocent victim is always helpless, got huge puppy eyes and always crying (think Krystle from Dynasty). Don't forget oh so innocent.

• The evil antagonist is never trustworthy. If for some reason this person should happen to speak the truth for once, noone will ever believe or help him/her until it's too late.

• There's a lot of crossediting. A lot. It's like, hey, let's dwell five seconds at this situation, then show five seconds of another then go back and show another five seconds of the first situation and allow one setence to be uttered before going back to the second situation and so on and so on. Personally I think it's because they doesn't want to spend too much on too many scenes, so they try to milk the few scenes they got for whatever it's worth. And they think the viewers really loves to see the actors breathe only. Or watch the cute, little tear slowly emerge from the corner of the actress eyes before rolling down her cheeks. Suff like that.

• There's a lot of monologues uttered by people completely alone. It's as if the writers either thinks that people actually do speak out loud for themselves or they doesn't bother finding actors able to communicate such things silently.

• It's not rare that these monologues happen while the actors are holding a picture or a letter or something in their hands. Like, "Oh why oh why did I ever let you go.....I promise, by God, that I'll never ever do the same mistake again!"

Anyways, I'm aware that these are like, well used concepts (or rather, clichés) in any show on television, but somehow it just seems so.....well....easier to catch in daytme shows...it's so...obvious and not as subtle...than in other sorta.

And no, this still doesn't mean that I'm actually watching these shows...I'm just sayin cause it bugs me how easy it is to find such clichés in these :p

I briefly watched this danish documentary on TV the other day, called "Modern addiction" - about two gamers who were addicted to the net. Lots of blah blah blah which I've heard or read several times before, so I was swapping back and forth a lot. One quote catched my interest though - there was this guy saying how he wasn't sure who or how the real "him" was - the persona that surfaced on the internet, or the real life persona. On the internet he was easygoing, upfront, chatty and bold. In the real life - well, he was and felt shy and preferred to stay home 24/7 so he could continue his social life on the net. He hated to be forced out to shop groceries, and wished he could just order food and get it delivered at his door all the time. So, which side showed the real him? The shy one? The social one? He looked kinda sad when he asked about that I think..

Now that's an interesting issue, in which Sherry Turkle, a professor (I think, she must be that by now at least :p) who's been into people and computergames also have touched several times in her researchs throughout the years (ever since the late seventies!). In her book, "Life on the Screen - Identity in the Age of the Internet", she tells about several people with similar experiences - they're a completely another person on the net - some claims that this net-personae is their real self, others aren't sure and struggles with the same doubts and identity-crisis as this guy. Others again claims that the net-personae is just a (staged) play, they're pretending they are someone else just for fun, but know very well who they really are themselves. There was this girl who was shy in the real life, but when she was on IRC she was bold, outgoing, she said things she would never have dared to say in the real life, etc etc etc... she said that she hoped that the real her was the one she was on the net, but she didn't really think so - the real her was the personae she was in real life.

I've also written a paper on a similar issue myself, where I was looking at some EverQuest players and how they chose to pick their own personalities ingame, and well, although I limited myself to the game and their game-character, you can draw similar lines into any other activity that's done on the net where you meet other people - boards, chatting stuff like IRC or MSN and well, stuff..

What I think about all this? Well, I guess this is a well known cliché - we all carry situational masks - the person we are at home with our parents usually differ from the person we are at work, at school, with friends... how can you say that the person you are when you're with your mom is the same as the person you are when you're with your best friend, or the person you are when you're with several friends? We usually adapt without thinking, and I believe that the person that's you on the net also is a part of the real you - or maybe more correct - just another part of you. Hm. Which makes me think of that Nicky Yee dude and his facets. Anyways. A very interesting issue methinks :)

Sleepytime now :)

Haha, this just made me laugh - Million Dollar Question;

A young boy went up to his father and asked him, "Dad, what is the difference between potentially and realistically?"

The father thought for a moment, then answered, "Go ask your mother if she would sleep with Brad Pitt for a million dollars. Then ask your sister if she would sleep with Brad Pitt for a million dollars, and then, ask your brother if he'd sleep with Brad Pitt for a million dollars. Come back and tell me what you learn from that."

So the boy went to his mother and asked, "Would you sleep with Brad Pitt for a million dollars?" The mother replied, "Of course I would! We could really use that money to fix up the house and send you kids to a great University!"

The boy then went to his sister and asked, "Would you sleep with Brad Pitt for a million dollars?" The girl replied, "Oh my God! I LOVE Brad Pitt I would sleep with him in a heartbeat, are you nuts?!?!?!"

The boy then went to his brother and asked, "Would you sleep with Brad Pitt for a million dollars?" "Of course," the brother replied. "Do you know how much a million bucks would buy?"

The boy pondered the answers for a few days, then went back to his dad.

His father asked him, "Did you find out the difference between potentially and realistically?"

The boy replied, "Yes... potentially, you and I are sitting on three million dollars... but realistically, we're living with two sluts and a queer."

Sooo, I was talking with an old friend on MSN the other day who's gonna get married and was overjoyous about all this stuff and had to share... and then we both realized that we've known each others for like, nine years or so, ever since he ambushed me at the Crossroads in this little MUD called Final Realms when I was a wee little battlepriest (who never hurt anybody) & he was one of the biggest, meaniest assassins around (well, he was pretty mean but he was also quite neutral considering he didn't seem to care who or what side he assassinated). Being quite new in that game and only knowing a handful, I just couldn't fanthom why anybody would be so mean and kill me just for fun...I was just running from one place to another, minding my own business....and I couldn't understand why my boyfriend back then kept chatting with him like they were friends, cause....he was mean & killed me!!

Anyways, we eventually got to know each other, and actually met once too at the MUDparty in Texas like, way back then (although at that time I still didn't know him that well), and he's the reason why me and my hubby started to play EverQuest.... and we've stayed in touch ever since & now he's gonna marry and it's all really wonderful .....and at the same time a tad funny.... cause when we realized how long we've actually known each others, I also realized I'm....like, old..... not that I really am, but.... it feels weird when you realize you've known someone over the net for close to ten years and it's....just weird! :p I started fooling around at this MUD when I was seventeen (hm..or well, maybe 16 I guess) and now I'm soon 26.....and that's like, more than 1/3rd of my life so far.......weird...=)



Speaking of EQ, here's some seriously hilarious stuff - I just *love* episode one and episode two is *the* best, while number three is okay but can't compare to one or two :p I'm not sure how funny they are to non EQ players, or non-players at all, but trust me, they really are hilarious...

Episode one
Episode two
Episode three

It's funny how you get used to only getting four hours of sleep at a time....





NOT.



*yawn*

Can't wait til this period is over :p

Yes, praise my genious brain (& self :p)! =) I joined this "become a candy tester" thing in winter (for Malaco Leaf), and I've gotten the first mail full of free candies that I'm gonna test...or...was gonna test (hey, I had to do my duty :P) It's something childish amusingly about recieving lotsa candies in the mail for free...hell yeah, me like =)

Oh yeah, I've popped out the baby now by the way...a little girl named Amalie Kristine :)

*sigh* it's now 12 more days until the baby is due, and (s)he still have not shown any signs as to wheter s(he) wanna leave my tummy or not... yeah, I know I've pointed out how utterly *boring* it is to be this big before (allow me to repeat: you can't get into or outta the bed without a lot of groans making you feel like a pig sorta, taking on socks or shoes makes you go *ouch you're in the way tummy*, it's so much easier to collide with walls and doors and stuff with your tummy, your kid loves to run straight at you and collide with your tummy...and so on and so on - you name it), but I really cannot do that often enough. Like this afternoon, I was gonna wake up Simen from his nap with a little nuzzle & stuff, and halfway over the bed I found out that I needed to crawl a little more closer to him. Alright, so I did so and he started to laugh - telling me how I looked like a seal trying to squeeze my way towards him...:p *sniff* I just wanted to be nice &amp;amp;amp;amp; nuzzle & smooch a bit, not being teased (although friendly) and called a seal :p And oh, my back have started to hurt more and more, especially when I have been standing or walking around for a while..bleh! So yeah, it's *so* about time this little one popped out..chop chop!

Oh by the way....it's spring and as usual in the spring I keep recieving a *lotta* Victoria's Secret catalogues, like, twice or thrice a month or so.....VS - STOP TORTURING ME!!!!! *grr*

Boring, boring, boring! This is prob old news, but still hilarious enough so I thought I'd put up this link for rainy days like this....the Star Wars trailer with 1337 close captions :p

Whats 1337 (alternatively; 1337, l33t, 133t, any combo of 1 3 7 and t....and l i guess ..derived from lewt, which is derived from loot...aka phat lewt..which alternatively have become the symbol of the jargon, or "1337 speech" :p)? *shrug* the jargon that's supposed to be oh, so cool & smartass & actually just used by kids (who think they're so cool) or ironic/sacrastic adults (or adults pretending to be sarcastic)..or something like that =) Check out this cute little dr00d & his language :p

(imagine the SMS vocabulary..this is like, the game vocabulary :p)

Anyways...hilarious if you understand it :p

Jeg har forresten presentert bloggen min på Bloggurat.

According to China Daily, a 41 year old Chineese guy killed another guy in real life after disagreements about a weapon in the onlinegame "Legend of Mir III".

Apparantly these two men was together in the game when they found a really, really good weapon, which one of them then proceed to sell for like 870 USD. The seller promised to share the money, but the other guy lost patience. After being rejected by the police (saying that theft of virtual items really wasn't their field), he decided to go on and stab the other guy to death.

Now he risks being setenced to death himself, all this because of a virtual weapon....

Now, this is really an interesting (although tragic) case. Players who spend hours in a virtual world - working their butts off to obtain better and better items - no wonder they feel helpless and angry when they lose their hard obtained things in unfair ways, like being scammed or hacked. What can one do? In most cases, it's just like, shit happens, suck it up and move on ("it's just a game"). The online game companies in Shanghai however, are currently planning to set up "cyber courts", "dispute system where aggrieved players can find recourse" according to ChinaDaily. It'd be interesting to see how it'd work out, if they ever manage to create one...I mean, we already have people paying for virtual items with real, hard cash, people paying real money for services in the game, people paying real money for virtual areas and so on.... when people actually are willing to pay real money for virtual things, things excisting in games only, should we also proceed to try and protect their virtual items then? Is it possible to compare the "pain" from say, having your begonias intentionally ruined by drunk kids if you're a gardener, to being scammed and losing a really good item you own in a game? Hm... the feelings might be true and comparable, but hrm...this sure requires more thinking :p

Jeje..

Hum...alright, some food commoditiers (is this the right word to use btw?) have funny names in the UK & US, like "oh my god i can't believe it's butter" or whatever that butter is called and other funny stuff, but I think this one beats them all..."Bible bars"!

How about a "Jacobs Ladder" or a "Bar of Judah" ? Sure, the nutrion/diet market is big business, so I guess this sure is a hit with all those Christian women looking to loose some weight the easy way - the bible way :p


So, stay healthy & Christian! :p

Heh, the kiddo has his own character in WoW, playing a (currently) level 13 mage...anyways, one of his favourite things to do in WoW is to walk up to random people & challenge them to duel. Funny thing is that he happened to want to duel with one of our friends, who accepted, not knowing who the person challenging him was. Simen happened to catch it & hurried to log on to explain him that "uhm, you're actually duelling our four year old kid right now" :p *grin*

(yes I thought that was somewhat amusing :p)

Alright, I really couldn't help myself. After months of being a tiiny tad larger than usual (*cough*), I got sick and bored of not being able to buy myself something neat & stuff because well...sure, you can look smashing & dazzling as preggers, it's kinda (to me at least) ok to be big then, but I just can't afford that, buying neat clothings that's just gonna be used for a few weeks (hopefully :p) then it's over.... so I've been dressing quite dull for a few months now, the same two pair of pants, swapping between four just as dull sweaters sorta (alright, sometimes - no comments! - I do dress quite dull like, normally, but at least it'd be by choice then sorta ;) )...

So... there I was, in the clothing store & *extremely* tempted to buy a pair of really cool, neat duo string/hipster panties with the fancy name stripster. I dunno, maybe it's the lack of actually being able to purchase cool, neat things to myself at impulse for a looong time that made me do this. I don't even know if this fabric is comfortable at all, but all I can say.... I sure hope that I'm not too fat after the pregancy to actually *wear* this too....like, sometime in the future :p

So, according to this study, kids who pledge abstinence from sex have a higher chance to get involved in...hum, what to call it..."non traditional" styles of sex.... What else to expect from kids in a country whose ex president have claimed that *recieving* oral-sex & toying with cigs doesn't really count as actually having sex :p

So, after being exposed for Everquest and Warcraft ever since he was a toodler, our now four year old son is quite an experienced gamer. Since he was two and a half, he's been insisting on playing these games himself, and loves to run around in Plane of Knowledge and taking the lift inside the library, and loves to play Warcraft 3, especially the custom made stuff on battle.net.

Right now he's quite into World of Warcraft, playing a various number of noobs leveling them up to four or five before getting bored & playing new chars. His highest char is currently level ten (he had a level thirteen in beta though), whom he's been playing up on his own & all. He loves to stalk people he meets, duelling them or inviting them to groups & playing along before getting bored & just leaves the pc or walks away on his own and stuff.... (so yeah, if you meet a very silent but somehow rude stalker, it might be my kid you're playing with :p).

As a mom I gotta admit that I'm quite amused and sure, a tad proud of his skills and ability to "get" the game.... when we were starting all over in retail (after the beta), he was quite eager to give us advices on where to go and how to solve the quests even before we actually ran our chars to the questgivers. And yeah, it was all correct :p He loves to point out to me what to do - "hit the seven button now", "heal daddy", "hide" (which means to hit the fade spell, I'm playing a priest), and so on.... and he loves to play "me" when I need to cook dinner or take a break, playing "me" with daddy is one of his favourite things - at least for another ten minutes or so :p. I guess people would think we're a tad funny in a weird way, but I think it's kinda nice that we actually spend some time doing stuff together even though it's sorta through a computer screen.

It's also cute when he walks up to me and then falls down on the ground with a groan, telling me "mommy I need a res" or "I need a heal!" (whereas I gotta make sounds & moves & pretend I'm doing whatever he needs to get up :p). I guess you gotta be a gamer yourself to think it's cute hm... our newphew was around visiting us today too, he's eight and he plays WoW aswell... so they were playing around, and our kid suddenly yelled "You gotta run! I'm red to you!" (in WoW, if you meet a monster that cons red to you it's most likely a mob that you cannot handle on your own, so your best bet might be to just leg it...at least if you're a kid playing :p).

Okay,

thought that linking stuff might tell a little more about me, or at least my interests :)

So, we got celeb gossip (need to stay updated on important stuff you know ;) ), realityshow stuff (you don't even have to watch the shows, just read the recaps! :p), various webcomics (just check the links to the right) that's maybe a tad more or less funnier or understandable if you're a gamer yourself (I dunno, you tell me?), and MMORPG research stuff which I personally find really interesting...and ofcourse, Victoria's Secret- a store/clothing brand which I really, really adore [insert mucho gushing here] & *so* wish they'd open a store location in Norway or at least in Europe *sigh* :(

& with that, time to hit the bed I guess :p

Right, been playing with the thought of having my very own blog for a good while now, but never really had the excuse to actually create one...until like, now... it's sorta quite easy to create your own blog here so ...well... jeje :p

I suppose I should write some thoughtful and/or wise words here, but it's kinda really too late here to pretend that I'm the above, so I'll just play around with the settings some more and stuff and save the really wise stuff for later.....=)

So, laters :)