The Potboiler

Wow, time flies!

2010-02-27T14:24:00.003+01:00

So, this blog has been down for almost a year now - should we try to get it started again?

I'll try and get something written the next few days :-)

Norske advokater inne i en dødperiode?

2009-04-21T17:50:00.004+02:00

En artikkel på vg.no melder at et knippe norske statsadvokater nå har anmeldt Israel for angrepet på Gaza i vinter og krever flere navngitte personer arrestert dersom de kommer til Norge. Listen over kriminelle handlinger som Israel har gjort seg skyldig i er følgende:

Drap på sivile
Massiv ødeleggelse av eiendom
Målrettede angrep på helseinstitusjoner
Massive angrep rettet mot befolkningen
Ulovlig bruk av stridsmidler mot sivile mål

Man kan lure på om finanskrisen har ført til så kraftige nedgangstider for advokatbestanden i Norge at våre kjære statsadvokater har mistet gangsynet. Hvorfor har de ikke også saksøkt lederne for de Hamas-gruppene som har sendt raketter fra Gaza i lange tider, kun med ett mål for øyet: drepe israelske sivile? Samtlige av punktene ovenfor har vært Hamas sin ideologi i en årrekke uten at disse advokatene engang har løftet et øyebryn. Har staten Norge stilt seg så til de grader på Kåre Willoch med likesinnede sin side at de tillater en så hårreisende anmeldelse?

Nye BMM og Bible Verse Search

2009-04-21T15:03:00.002+02:00

Alt som er nytt og fint må opplyses om på minst to regulære møter, ett ungdomsmøte, via webben og DKM-sms, og gjerne gjennom verbal kommunikasjon til hvert enkelt lem, for at folk i det hele tatt skal få med seg at det er nytt og fint. Eller så kan man blogge om det ...

Nye BMM kom ut etter Påskestevnet, og alle har nok fått med seg det stilige designet og den økte brukervennligheten, men hvem har fått med seg knappen "Bible Verse Search" og forstått hva den egentlig er til?

Jo, du kan der finne et hvilket som helst bibelvers i Bibelen og høre alle lydklipp (hovedsakelig taler) relatert til det bibelverset ... altså taler der taleren refererer til og leser opp akkurat det bibelverset du har funnet frem. Jada, de har ikke rukket å høre igjennom alle taler tilbake til 2001 for å få de inn i systemet, men det er uansett så mange registrerte taler at det begynner å bli et veldig nyttig verktøy.

Jeg må si vi utvikler oss :D

Den store testen – igjen

2009-04-17T10:31:00.002+02:00

Hm, siden serveren testen tidligere har ligget på, har vært under angrep av tyrkiske hackere og annet trivsel, er den stengt ...

... nå ligger den på: http://www.demosite.no/test/denstoretesten.html

Seriøst, null problem ... helt trygt.

Eivinds store test

2009-04-09T16:02:00.002+02:00

De siste dagene har jeg satt meg fore å lære PHP, et ganske spennende programmeringsspråk. Resultatet har blitt min første applikasjon ... som kan testes på http://www.joomlakurs.no/test/denstoretesten.html.

Testen er helt ufarlig og informasjonen du oppgir blir ikke lagret (eller på noen annen måte brukt imot deg ved noen anledning)! Testens innhold er av humoristisk art, dog etter Eivinds form for humor (ergo er det ikke sagt at dere anser det som humoristisk). Kos dere (:

Og ja, takknemlig for tilbakemeldinger ... seff.

Elsker, elsker, elsker tannleger ... og god drikke.

2009-04-06T12:30:00.003+02:00

Jeg var hos tannlegen i dag tidlig for å fikse noen mindre munnskavanker jeg visstnok hadde (dem om det). Uansett, jeg har aldri vært noen tilhenger av tannleger, og selv om jeg mannet meg virkelig opp denne gangen, merket jeg en ørliten antydning til skjelving i høyrebenet da jeg entret det tannlegeluktende kontoret. Stedet har ikke forandret seg det spor siden jeg var en liten søt pjokk på åtte år med melketenner og lang pannelugg – heller ikke magefølelsen du får av å se på skremselspropaganden i gangen hvor de viser frem ulykkelig, tannløse små barn med råtne tanngarder, hadde forandret seg nevneverdig. Jeg visste hva jeg gikk til.

Vel, tannlegetimen gikk greit. Uten bedøvelse før eller plastikkleke etter, overlevde jeg fint borringa og de påfølgende operasjonene de utførte. Lettet kunne jeg reise meg fra stolen med en plombert tann og et smil om munnen, og kunne gjøre meg beredt til å svare på standardspørsmålene om jeg virkelig var flink nok til å bruke tanntråd og fluormiddel og om jeg satte ut grøt til tannfeen. Stor ble dog overraskelsen etter at jeg hadde forklart at jeg nå og da unnet meg et glass brus: "Drikk mer øl!". Jeg gnidde meg i ørene ... "Ja, drikk mer øl!". Oh ... ok.

Joda, øl er visstnok bra for tennene det nå. Drikk så mye du vil, men med måte. Så blir du både glad og hullfri :)

Livets små gleder

2009-04-05T13:22:00.004+02:00

Søndag

Blå, skyfri himmel

Sol

Vår

Venner og familie

En god bok

En varm kopp te

Fin musikk på iPod'en

Livet er herlig!

:-)

Jeg har fått!

2009-04-02T11:01:00.008+02:00

de beste venner

verden har sett og

det beste stedet i verden i dag og

de største muligheter

som kan gis et menneske.

Et byggefond er altfor

lite egentlig

Norsk reklame

2009-03-26T19:45:00.004+01:00

Nordmenn er vanligvis kjipe, gråe, trauste folk, men akkurat når det kommer til reklame så eier vi hardt! Jeg har aldri vært i noe land hvor de har så humoristiske, fascinerende, selvironiske og gjennomtenkte reklamer som i Norge.

Vi kan begynne med 40–60-reklamen fra Tine, som er en av slagerne nå til dags. Det er noe utrolig fascinerende med de menneskene der ... de er så menneskelige, på en måte. Det er virkelig mennesker man kan kjenne seg igjen med, samtidig som sangen fenger som bare rakkern og teksten er jo mildt sagt et mesterverk: «Kan drikkes uansett sesong. I termodress eller sarong. Du vil føle deg så fjong» ... skjønner du hvor jeg vil hen elle?

Går vi lengre tilbake i tiden har vi jo flere geniale lotto-reklamer ... blant en hvor de spiller på Norges hat mot selvgode svensker.

Og som Robert tidligere har tatt opp: hvem markedsfører seg vel som Grandiosa? Ja, de lager reklamer vi alle elsker å hate.

Dessuten har denne også kommet på finsk, noe som tyder på at vi gjør noe rett.

Også reklamefilmer som hjernevasker liker vi:

Når kommer slike reklamer for sigaretter? «Det som gjør deg glad kan ikke skade»

Også har vi de reklamene som gjør at én enkelt setning plutselig blir alment kjent og brukt av en nasjon.

For øvrig står ICA høyt på listen over bra reklamefilmer ... trenger jeg si hvem jeg føler meg som i denne filmen?

Ja, vi er sannelig velsignet med reklamefilmer som ikke inneholder perfekte mennesker, med perfekte liv, perfekte smil, boende i et perfekt hus med en perfekt bikkje som leker med de perfekte barna – alt bare fordi de bruker et eller annet vidunder-produkt eller handler i en vidunder-butikk.

Noen ganger liker jeg Norge litt likevel.

Skal – skal ikke

2009-03-20T13:14:00.002+01:00

Ok, alle liker Google Mail, sant? Gmail, og alt annet Google kommer med, slik som Google Chrome, slår alltid an – og det med god grunn. Google vet hva de gjør når det kommer til web. De vet hvordan man skal gjøre det genialt og enkelt, og da er det ikke rart folk gladelig tar tjenestene i bruk.

Googles viktigste våpen er nyvinnende tankegang. De finner ut hva folk vil ha, og så lager de det. At ingen andre har gjort det før, eller i det hele tatt har tenkt tanken, later ikke til å bry dem en smule. Så flottagitt!

Vel, rekk opp hånda alle som har sendt en e-post og sekundet etter ønsket at det var mulig å angre, enten fordi du glemte vedlegget, glemte å nevne noe eller simpelthen sendte til feil person? Google har opplevd dette, visstnok, og det var nok til at de nå lanserer angrefunksjon for e-post. Ja, du leste riktig ... du kan nå angre på e-post du akkurat har sendt :) Sjekk bloggen deres for mer detaljer! Riktignok får du kun 5 sekunder på deg til å angre, men det er nok i mange tilfeller nok. Derimot, hvis det er slik at du ofte sender e-post du først angrer på dagen etter, har Google sitt svar på det også ... oppfinsomt på sin måte.

Den ultimate ordbok

2009-03-16T22:39:00.003+01:00

Det finnes mange fine, flotte og fjonge ordbøker der ute. Spesielt om man er ute etter å lære engelsk, kan man boltre seg i ordbøker, den ene mer grunnleggende og omfattende enn den andre. Likeledes har vi gode ordbøker for det norske språket ... og alle er vi vel enige: ordbøker er kjedelige!

Men hvordan ville den ultimate ordbok være? Den ultimate ordbok må vel være den hvor man kan finne definisjonen på et hvilket som helst ord i et hvilket som helst språk, skrevet med et hvilket som helst alfabet. Altså, med andre ord, en ordbok som inneholder alle ord på alle språk. Litt av en tanke, hva? Vel, noen er i ferd med å gjøre det til mer enn en tanke. Wiktionary (fra wiki + dictionary) er nettopp en slik ordbok skrevet på engelsk. Den inneholder nå ca. 1,2 millioner ord, noe som på en måte er imponerende, men når man tenker på visjonen om alle ord på alle språk, ser vi at også denne har en vei å gå. Vel, likevel ... godt igang er de. Hva engelske ord angår, har den nesten alle. Videre er den godt dekt på de fleste europeiske språk, slik som spansk, tysk, fransk etc., men her kan man fort støte på ord som mangler.

Det mest interessante med denne ordboken er at man fort kan finne ganske morsom informasjon om helt vanlige norske ord. F.eks., hvis man slår opp ordet «ja» ser vi at det betyr noe på hele 31 forskjellige språk. På en rekke språk, slik som bosnisk, kroatisk, lav-sorbisk, polsk, serbisk og slovakisk, betyr det rett og slett «jeg». Videre betyr det blant annet «å spise» på tswana, «å komme» på swahili, «og» på finsk, nordsamisk og estisk;«farvel» på japansk, «allerede» på katalansk og «tung» på amuzgo. Du får også fort vekk vite at de på spansk noen ganger skriver «jaja» for «haha», når de skriver latteren sin. Jajajajaja lol@spanjoler!

Eller visste du at «telefon» betyr det samme på albansk, bosnisk, kroatisk, tsjekkisk, dansk, færøysk, ungarsk, polsk, rumensk, serbisk, tysk, svensk og tyrkisk, som det gjør på norsk? Og at de på ungarsk sier «far» til bakenden sin? Og man kan si så mye man vil om at folk er rasister, men de som snakker bambara bruker i hvert fall ordet «fin» i betydningen «svart». Det er også verdt å nevne feministenes favorittspråk, nemlig tetum, hvor «hun» betyr «begynnelsen/opprinnelsen». Og jeg trenger vel ikke nevne at de på svensk bruker «rar» for noe som er søtt? Vad gulligt!

"Grændis"

2009-03-14T14:33:00.008+01:00

En lærer i Markedsføring sa en gang til oss elevene at "Grandiosa er et av de beste eksempler på genial markedsføring i Norge. Her har du et produkt som til de grader er tilpasset den norske ganen, men når du ser på det så er det ikke noe mer enn en avansert brødskive! Men med treffsikker markedsføring kan du nå nesten kalle Grandiosa for den norske nasjonalretten."

Grandiosa har for meg alltid vært et mysterium. Den er grei nok hvis du trenger en rask snack, men å kalle det mat er vel å tøye grensene ganske langt. Når man så i tillegg begynner å fylle markedet med variasjoner som gjør at man nesten kun sitter igjen med bunnen og litt tomatsaus og ost, så begynner hysteriet rundt vår mest berømte/beryktede pizza å miste litt av det som gjorde den fascinerende.

Når jeg var gutt så var et av høydepunktene i uken nettopp pizzaen på lørdagskvelden, men hadde mamma kommet inn og satt to Grandiosa (da helst forholdsvis brune på kantene og med en eller annen mistenkelig væske liggende og flyte i midten) på bordet så hadde det blitt bruduljer av en annen verden. Jeg vil påstå at det ikke er noe som helst ferdigprodukt som kan måle seg med mammas hjemmelagede, uansett hva slags rett du skulle finne på å nevne, men å røre ved hjemmelaget pizza er virkelig en helligbrøde!

Nei, forkast pizza Grandiosa en gang for alle, og få alle de som vet hva skikkelig pizza er ut på kjøkkenet så vi omsider kan kjenne den fantastiske duften av "The Real Deal" igjen!

Norsk er bortkastet på nordmenn

2009-03-11T18:51:00.003+01:00

Påstand: «Engelsk er et større, rikere og bedre språk enn norsk»

Uff, når det gjelder språk er det mange som mener mye om mangt, selv om alle er enige om at det nesten ikke finnes noe tørrere å snakke om. Vel, dem om det.

De fleste lingvistisk svekkede kommer som regel frem til ovenstående påstand, og bruker det som en god unnskyldning for å bruke engelske lånord i tide og utide, for å dekke over sin svakerestilte norsk. Jeg skal hverken skrive eller si hva jeg føler for sånt visvas, men jeg vil gjerne ta et aldri så lite oppgjør med påstanden de kommer med.

På sett og vis er påstanden rett, men det er ikke fordi engelsk egentlig har flere ord, eller fordi deres ordbøker er så mye større. Engelskens fordel er dens store brukermasse, og brukermassens generelle holdning til språket. Det finnes ingen myndighet som standardiserer, og derfor tror jeg også de engelsktalende har et mer løssluppent forhold til språket.

Etter min oppfatning er språket bygd opp av to typer ord, helt uavhengig av ordklasser, nemlig kvantitative og kvalitative ord. Jeg skiller mellom disse ved bruken av prefiks, suffiks og infiks, som er alle ting man kladder på ordene i den ene eller andre enden. Sannheten er at nesten alle prefiks, suffiks og infiks i engelsk har sitt norske likeord.

For det heter vel calmness og stillhet, kindness og vennlighet, payable og betalbar, nonsmoker og ikke-røyker, encompass og omslutte, entwine og omslynge?

For meg er altså disse ordene – som enten begynner med et prefiks, inneholder et infiks eller slutter med et prefiks – kvantitative ord av den typen man kan masseprodusere bare ved å legge til akkurat disse -fiksene. Det er vel ikke noe problem å lage ordene «pengelenshet», «blingsbar» eller «ikke-tannlege» selv om ingen av dem står i ordboka? Nei, sier folk ... «pengelenshet» er ikke noe ord! Derimot er det svært få engelskmenn som nekter for ordet «pennilessness'» eksistens. I virkeligheten er begge ordene like beskrivende og de har begge sin fulle rett til å eksistere, siden de beskriver noe man vanskelig kan beskrive med andre ord like presist.

Oppfordringen min går derfor til dere nordmenn: hvorfor være så låst i tankegangen for hva som er norsk og ikke? Språk handler om kommunikasjon, og å bruke talegaven på en slik måte at vi blir forstått. Suffiksene og prefiksene er der for å hjelpe oss, men noen ganger må vi bare tørre å være førstemann til å bruke dem.

PS: For de av dere som ikke ennå har konkludert med det, så er altså «kvalitative ord» – slik jeg ser det– ord uten affiksig krimskrams ... grunnordene som vi så kladder affikser på («affiks» er en samlebetegnelse for alle -fiksene). Jeg tror – hvis man bare ser på de kvalitative ordene minus lånord– så kommer norsk og engelsk ganske så likt ut ... sånn bortsett fra at engelsk ikke kan oversette ord som «å døgne» og «dere» (:

Ords opphav – «Malaria»

2009-03-11T13:04:00.002+01:00

Malaria – substantiv – alvorlig tropisk og subtropisk infeksjonssykdom, karakterisert ved kuldegysninger og feber, hvis utbrudd kommer av malariamyggbitt

Ordet «malaria» kommer fra middelalderitaliensk mal («dårlig») og aria («luft»), og beskrev i utgangspunktet smittestoffer fra sumpene rundt storbyen Roma. De trodde denne «dårlige luften» var årsaken til feberen som utviklet seg hos folk som tilbragte mye tid rundt disse sumpene. Lite visste de den gangen at sykdommen de led av – nå kjent som malaria – var på grunn av visse protozoer som fantes i myggene som ynglet i sumpene, og som førte til tilbakevendende feberaktige symptomer hos de som var så uheldig å bli bitt.

Hadde folk vært smartere på den tiden, og faktisk forstått årsaken til sykdommen, hadde vi idag heller fryktet for «plasmodia» hver gang vi drar til Afrika … etter plasmodium, parasitten som faktisk er selve årsaken til sykdommen. Jaja, vi sier bare det mor og far har sagt, vi; de lærte det jo av bestemor og bestefar.

Alternative ord...

2009-03-09T23:30:00.004+01:00

Jeg har lenge lurt på om det hadde gått an å finne et alternativt ord til 'trivelig', det er liksom så utbrukt. Du har jo 'koselig' og 'hyggelig', men de er jammen meg ganske utbrukte de også. Er mitt ordforråd blitt veldig begrenset, eller finnes det noen skikkelige alternative ord der ute et sted? Det hadde vært litt trivelig, koselig og hyggelig om noen kunne hjulpet meg med å få utvidet vokabularet lite grann. Visste du forresten at 'trivelig' også betyr 'rund og velfødd'?

Hjelp! Vi er på dugnad ...

2009-03-09T22:32:00.003+01:00

Halv seks ringer telefonen … Vegar i andre enden. Hvorfor har ikke unge Johnsen meldt seg til måketjeneste? O, vel, jeg hadde vel tusen gode grunner – hvorav ingen er verdt å nevne – så etter en rask tur hjemom for å gafle i meg noen av mors kjøttboller, var jeg iført klær for alt slags vær, og trasket min vei mot de snøfylte takene.

Det er sånn med dugnad: alle snakker pent om det, alle liker vi det, og alle skulle vi gjerne jobbet mer, men det er virkelig noe i det å få fart på legemet sitt og faktisk komme seg dit. For det er sånn – og det er sikkert – at man aldri angrer i ettertid. Aldri! Og denne dugnaden var intet unntak ... den ga ordet «trivsel» en helt ny dimensjon!

Men det hører med til historien at jeg brukte muskler jeg ikke en gang visste at jeg hadde, og nå er jeg så støl og utslitt at signalene fra hjernen så vidt orker å ta den lange veien ned til fingerspissene, for å be dem skrive det de skal ...

Kommende års spørsmål …

2009-03-09T15:22:00.003+01:00

Nå har Drammens gave, Bolstad, også fått sin egen sang ... og en del av den går slik:

«Det byggverket som Gud har satt oss fore, det skrider frem så uforsagt. Og spørsmålet til deg det neste året: om du skrider frem i takt?»

Bolstad blir bygd med eller uten meg, men jeg får muligheten til å være med. Så utrolig!

Tenk, om ikke lenge har vi vårt sted og feirer vår innvielsesfest. Da er det kun ett sted på jord jeg skal befinne meg – nemlig i Sande!

Vi gitarister ha’kke no’ brøstkasse

2009-03-09T00:44:00.006+01:00

Vel, jeg hadde vært vel fornøyd hvis jeg bare hadde vært en gitarist, men for min del har visst både posa og sekken forsvunnet med postverket.

Hvordan kom jeg til slik en sannhetserkjennelse? Anledningen var Barnas Bolstadfest på Fredheim, og i den forbindelse hadde Henrik, min bror av en annen mor, stelt i stand at noen unge og ikke fullt så unge ungdomer skulle holde en militærmarsj til sangen «Jeg er en Jesu soldat». Dette måtte selvfølgelig øves på, og midtveis i oppstillingen kommer sjefen med følgende ordre: Tropp! Kassa frem! ... og jeg ble sendt i kakebu for ordrenekt.

Vel, hvor ble den kassa jeg fikk utdelt fra livets begynnelse av? Mistet jeg den på veien? Litt dritt når jeg en gang banker på St. Peters dør, spør så pent om å få komme inn – noe jeg forhåpentlig får – og så blir sendt i køen for å motta herlighetslegemet mitt. Jeg regner med at jeg da må levere inn mitt nuværende legeme, som jeg har lånt nå allerede i 19, snart 20, år. Og som med alle utleiere, regner jeg også med at de Himmelen gjør de nødvendige kontrolleringer av det utleide utstyret. Sjekkliste:

V = 1 stk. hode

V = 2 stk. armer

V = 2 stk. ben

X = 1 stk. brystkasse

... Holder det å si at jeg bare glemte den igjen et sted? Er man erstatningspliktig?

Og hvordan kommer Petter til å føle seg når englene tar vareopptelling og skjemaet leser følgende

144 000 neser
144 000 høyre kneskåler
144 000 + 144 000 pekefingre
144 000 + 143 999.5 lillefingre

Han vil nok ha et forklaringsproblem når det kommer over det himmelske høytaleranlegg: «Er Petter Ruhe i Himmelen? Kan han vennligst melde seg i legemeboden. Han har en utestående lillefinger.».

Dessuten er jeg overbevist om at nitidig slanking en dag kan koste en dyrt.

En natt på medi(e/a)rommet

2009-03-07T01:52:00.003+01:00

Så, André og jeg befant oss på mediarommet og klokken tikket og takk sakte men sikkert, til klokka rett og slett var for sen til at det var mulig å busse hjem (ja, og nattbuss går ikke) ... og da var alternativene enkle:

Ta taxi – for dyrt, dessuten var det kollekt denne fredagen
Apostlenes hester – men det vil ta sine timer, og vi vil ikke være hjemme før grålysningen. Spesielt ikke André, som bor mildt sagt ubeilelig til.
Sove i kaffebaren.

Vi går for å traske vi.

The meaning of life?

2009-03-06T18:04:00.004+01:00

It's simple really:

Finding new ways to go through your daily routines...

Blogging – en kuvøse for nyavvente facebookere

2009-03-05T16:29:00.001+01:00

Verdensveven og dens lesere opplever stadig nye bølger som skyller over dem, og som river med seg store folkemasser, uten at noen vet hvorfor. Facebook var, og er, en slik bølge. Jeg husker når den var en liten løfte-bena-fra-sanda-bølge, og jeg ble løftet med, men nå har den slått inn som en tsunami over norskekysten, og land og strand ligger øde tilbake. Det er da jeg hopper av, trasker tilbake til stranda og kjenner litt på de andre småbølgene som kommer skyllende inn i kjølevannet av Facebook.

Blogging var kanskje ikke en tsunami, men for godt fire år siden, i hvert fall for min del, kom den som en aldri så liten, men dog koselig, hundreårsbølge, og feide meg – med flere – et stykke inn på land. Der dannet den en liten pytt hvor flere og flere plasker – noen av dem har nylig kommet, fortsatt dryppende våte etter facebook-bølgens harselerende komme.

Blogging er – i mine øyne – en flott greie. Vel, for det første slipper man å bivåne alle førpubertetskommentarer fra overhormonelle tenåringer, og man slipper mildt sagt frelsesbringende e-postnotiser om gruppeinvitasjoner, pokes og requests av ulike slag, den ene mer banal enn den andre.

Blogging er derimot en bevissthetsutvidende greie, på godt og vondt. Det man skriver om er noe man har blitt bevisst på, og når mån skriver om det, blir man enda mer bevisst på akkurat det man allerede er dels bevisst på. En sirkel, med andre ord. Man setter ord på tanker, og tankene blir derfor omgjort til ord, som igjen er langt mer håndgripelig både for en selv og for andre.Dette står i sterk kontrast til Facebook, hvor man setter nyvinnende smiletegn til klisjéer – skriver ting så mange tidligere både har sagt og skrevet, men som ingen virkelig har ment. På samme tid som bloggosfæren så beleilig har personifisert nettilværelsen, har Facebook på sin måte forringet menneskelig sosialisering til noe som selv latterliggjør menneskets iboende flokkdyrinstinkt ... og som da langt mer virker spottende på oss, som tror at vi mennesker er kalt til å være noe langt mer enn dyr som lever etter instinkt.

Verden vil bedras, heter det.

Spaß!

2009-03-05T09:31:00.016+01:00

Jeg pleide å blogge ... tidvis av vane, tidvis av entusiasme, og tidvis av mangel på annet å bedrive tiden med. Vel, nå har jeg hverken vane for det eller mangel på ting å fylle tiden med. Livet går videre, og ting man tidligere gjorde så mye av, slik som blogging, dabber sakte men sikkert av. Vel, blogging er trivsel og/eller glede, så ingen grunn til å stoppe med det. Noen ganger har man mye å skrive om lite, andre ganger lite å skrive om mye. Denne gangen er av sistnevnte karakter, for mange ting har skjedd, og på en måte er fortiden nesten som svunnen for meg. Derfor, la meg ta det som ligger friskest i minne: der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Groussherzogdem Lëtzebuerg og République française! – Tyskland, Luxembourg og Frankrike – tre land jeg fikk den glede av å betrede under mitt varetellingsopphold i det germanske folkets rike.

Ok, jeg hadde fordommer, og ok, jeg fryktet Ordnung og Achtung, men, når sant skal sies – og det skal det jo når man blogger – var det lite som motbeviste noe som helst av hva jeg hadde tenkt, trodd og påstått – tyskere er strukturerte, småbyråkratiske, militære ordensmennesker som har sin glede i Ordnung og som fryder seg ved linjer rette som en militærleiroppstilling.

Én hylle, tre aksjoner, tre innleveringsblanketter, én kontrolleringsblekke signert og kontrollert og én småredd Norveger totalt usikker på om tellinga i det hele tatt har vært i nærheten av godt nok for det tyske systemet. For det er stor forskjell på påtatt systematisk arbeid, og det som kommer naturlig … sistnevnte har jeg ikke.

Det hendte et par ganger at jeg kommer over noe som lignet eller minnet om rot, på min ferd i Tyskland. Vel, det som for det norske øyet ser ut som «rot», er i virkeligheten bare et system vi ennå ikke har forstått. Alt har sitt system, sin plass og sitt nummer, og jeg sverger, ser du nøye nok etter finner du sikker både EAN-nummer, personnummer og spiller-ID på landslagsdraktene til det tyske herrelandslaget i fotball. Det er Tyskland vi snakker om, for svarte svingende!

Og Luxembourg og Frankrike var topp – men på en helt annet og langt mindre strukturert, rigid og fastsatt måte. Lenge leve!

En bakgate i Rüdesheim, vårt tyske hjem og tilholdssted.

Statuen i Luxembourg by, som vi nesten felte som avgud.

Luxemburgernes katolske kyrkje.
(I mange på eget kamera, er bildene hentet fra Wikimedia Commons, utgitt under GNU fri dokumentasjonslisens.)

Back on track?

2009-01-19T23:39:00.002+01:00

This blog has been down for way too long, so I'm gonna try and jump-start it. This was once a living, thriving blog, with a multitude of good pieces. It has now been about 3/4 of a year since the last entrance and with this I declare The Potboiler reopened!

I'll be back...

...soon...

...seriously...

Tata

About English exams and calendars

2008-05-27T15:31:00.003+02:00

Time is now 15:24, one hour and six minutes until I am having my English exam. Perfect time to blog a little ;)

Well, first of all, I am in no way prepared. It is an oral examination, and I will be questioned in things I have never read about. I think my topic will be British English, but I am not sure. Why not prepared? Well, I just totally forgot that i had this exam. Or – I always knew about it – but I did not think it would come so soon. Now it is suddenly here and I am just thankful to God that I remembered it at all.

Luckily I have figured out what most of my syllabus is, but unfortunately I have not read any of it. Of course, I can always fake some facts, use som weasel words and talk nonsense, but how long can that last?

Gosh!

Amazing

2008-04-25T18:19:00.004+02:00

I don't really read Norwegian newspapers, due to their extremely left-winged political affiliation, but now and then, nolens volens, some of their twaddle reach me. And sometimes, even more seldom than how often I read them, they amaze me. Today one of the headlines in the Liberal party affiliated tabloid newspaper Dagbladet (literally "The day magazine"), Norway's third largest newspaper, was "Look, a celeb with four kids". It instantly caught my interest, but I immediately thought there was something missing in the headliner. So i pressed "read more" to see what was up with these four kids. Did they all weigh more than 150 kg? They all had three legs? Did all four of them grow a moustache at the age of eight? What could it be, resulting in such a headliner?

... I was quite disappointed when I saw the result: She simply had four kids at the same time as she was a glitterati.

Then I went upstairs to count my own siblings, and luckily I had ten fingers.

A fabulous pre-Christmas trip to England

2008-04-13T11:55:00.004+02:00

Part IV: London (continued)

After walking around for awhile Mike texted me and asked me where I was and told me we could meet at the Apple-store on Oxford Street. I finally got an IPod Classic 80 GB! I probably didn’t save more than a couple of hundred NOK, but anyways… So finally back with Mike, John, Edvard and Vegard we went back to Trafalgar Square where we were supposed to meet with the others. But of course after we got on the tube we noticed that Edvard was not longer with us. The obtuse dunce hadn’t kept up so he got lost in the crowd and never got on the tube with us! We just had to hope that he had figured out the tube-system good enough to get himself back to Trafalgar Square. His cell-phone didn’t work, so we had absolutely no way of getting in touch with him. What a mess! On returning to the Square and meeting the rest of the gang, we first had a good laugh, and then started waiting. The minutes went slowly by, but no Edvard in sight. Finally, about 40 minutes after the agreed meeting time, he came strolling down the street, chewing on something he’d bought somewhere.

All finally back together we took the tube to Covent Garden. One cannot go to London without seeing at least one of its markets, and Covent Garden is absolutely beautiful just before Christmas. We got some food and beverages and just walked aimlessly around looking at all the knickknacks and trinkets people buy each other for Christmas. I really got into a Christmas mood just walking around that place!

At that time we needed to get ready for the trip home so we got back on the tube, returning to Paddington to get on a train back to Didcot. Of course we missed the train by a couple of minutes and had to sit and wait for the next one for about half an hour or so. With all the stores pretty much closed, there wasn’t much to do but get into all sorts of silly conversations. A few minutes before the train was set to leave, one of the guys needed to go to the men’s room, so he just upped and left. No one knew which of the men’s room he went to, so again we had a case of running around, trying to find a person who seemingly refused to use his noggin for something usable, like thinking. At last we were all on the train heading for Didcot.

When we got back, Mike called his father, Peter, who would stop at nothing to help us out, and the three of us went to the store to buy some real English breakfast for the next morning. It’s great to be able to drive for a few minutes and you get to a store that’s open 24 hours a day and you can get anything you want, even wine. But anyway, we got back and could finally go to bed after a perfect day in London.

Part V will be about our trip to Oxford so stay tuned for more!

Tootles

Last Day's Paint

2008-03-19T10:56:00.003+01:00

I like Paint, regardless of what anyone else thinks (:

If you don't agree ... behold this video :P

Today's Paint

2008-03-14T15:30:00.000+01:00

Very early in the morning post ...

2008-03-13T12:52:00.004+01:00

… about the dark, depressive nights in Hamar.

Ok, let’s go 12 hours back in time, to about 10 o’clock Wednesday evening. Everyone else has left the office a long time ago, of course, so the place’s totally deserted. I’m still there, and by all means lonely. Partly due to the depressively affectionate dark, and partly due to earthly, natural desire to eat because of the descending glycogen level of my liver, I set off to the immediate producer of varieties of barbecued or grilled meat dishes from Middle Eastern cuisines … colloquially called kebab.

Well, so I started to walk those joyful 250 meters to this kebab shop. On the way I passed by the city banner, newly raised in Hamar, with the following words printed on “Welcome to the CITY Hamar” … to me that sounds like someone is feeling inferior, and is having a hard time with it, but, but, it isn’t only, only (wops, I’m still Norwegian).

Well, anyway, they forgot to mention the opening hours of this so-called city. All the shops were closed, and the time was barely past ten! They should change the text to “Welcome to the CITY Hamar. Our opening hours is from 8 AM to 10 PM, please leave a message after the beep”.

So I went back to the office, crestfallen and slightly irritated, loudly blaming myself for being so stupid that I expected this place to be better. Luckily, not far away from where I was, there was a Statoil petrol station, saving my day (read night). The meal therefore became a sandwich consisting of cooked beef patty of ground meat that was fried, grilled, broiled, barbequed, seared, microwaved or deep fried (I can’t say for sure) instead. Typically American! It was served with different garnish and condiments such as ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles and cheese, and was gently placed in a sliced bun, most likely baked specially for this purpose and this purpose alone. Unfortunately I’ve never been a big fan of hamburgers. But, despite the plastic-tasting hamburger, beholding sleepy truck drivers and a couple of canned boneheads crashing into, and thereby baring, the shelves, made it all joyful and certainly worth it!

Then I went back to the office, not sure why I was there at all, but utterly sure that I shouldn’t have been there. Outside it was dark and cold, but it was all quite a mesmerizing site from my window, watching while the darkness slowly got an upper hand on the “city”, forcing it into sleep.

So why awake all night? I’ve reached two conclusions:

Measured against how much I hate getting up in the morning I reckon not going to sleep at all will reduce that pain considerably
To walk the one hour trip home when it’s raining cats, dogs and worse, is not desirable

You’ve just read a whole page of nonsense. The content can be recapped into two sentences. “I went for kebab, but the shop was closed. I therefore chose to eat at a petrol station, and it was ok.”

Language is weird stuff.

I’m sorry for wasting your time, but you chose to read it yourself (:

A fabulous pre-Christmas trip to England

2008-03-11T18:23:00.018+01:00

Part III: London (continued)

We had agreed to meet at Oxford Circus at 2 pm, so after the meal at Garfunkel’s we just went back and waited for a couple of minutes for the others. We then started walking towards St. James Park and Buckingham Palace. At the north end of the park there's a small coffee-shop and we each bought a cup of warm beverage (it was getting quite cold at this point). One of the guys had bought a mini American football, and as the sports nuts they are they started running all over the park like wild animals, making all sorts of screams and noises.
At last we got to the big roundabout in front of Buckingham Palace. A couple of the others had of course taken another route to get there and ended up on the other side of the fence around the park. Some hilarious situations occurred as Magnar tried to pull John through the bars or something... After a bit of silliness we got to the gates where a couple of police-officers stood with their MP5's. Of course we couldn't let a chance like this pass us by, so we asked if we could take a picture in front of them and they replied "of course" and more silliness ensued.
From Buckingham Palace we went back through St. James Park and took the tube back to Oxford Circle, because some of the others wanted to go shopping (again). The reason for this was really that Magnar and Sam didn't find a snowboard-shop during our first shopping spree... So after another round of shopping (they still couldn’t find a snowboard-shop...) we all went to Trafalgar Square. Around Christmas time they always have a Norwegian Spruce there lit up with lights and a choir singing Christmas carols. Quite heart-warming for a Norwegian to see, actually!

Mike, John, Vegard, Edvard and I now wanted to do some shopping so we split up again, and after walking a couple of blocks I saw a book-store and couldn't help myself... Mike, John and Vegard went across the street to a coffee shop for some donuts and coffee and I would join them in a few minutes. 15 minutes (!) later I emerged from the store with a couple of books in a bag, and went to find the others. Of course they had gotten tired of waiting and had left, so I was on my own. Finally I could go on a real adventure so I found the nearest tube station and went back to Oxford Circle. After walking a bit up and down Oxford Street, on a whim I suddenly walked into a side street. Now this is how you get some nice experiences in a city like London! This narrow, cobblestoned street was full of small, cozy stores and restaurants and I just couldn't stop exploring!

The last part about the visit to London will be here soon, so keep checking back for more!

A fabulous pre-Christmas trip to England

2008-03-04T21:24:00.017+01:00

Part II: London

Monday December 17th. We were actually up pretty early, considering. Of course that was partly due to the fact that we had to be out of the meeting hall by 9 AM, but anyway... We all got dressed in something warm, and left for "downtown Didcot" for a quick breakfast. After a few donuts and sodas we went to the train station, ready for London.
Some of us had been there before, but I hadn't, so I was thrilled. I went to New York in 2005 and heard that the subway-system was pretty similar, so I couldn't wait to find out. (I know that sounds a little geeky...) With all of us seated together (more or less) in the same cabin, we tried to make time pass as quick as possible. I didn't bring my book, so the 50 minute train ride was a bit of a drag. I took some pictures though.
We arrived at Paddington Station a little after 10 AM, local time. From there we took the tube (which was very easy to understand, and looked exactly like the NY subway) to Charing Cross, and when we got out of the tube station we walked onto the Jubilee Bridge and saw London Eye bathed in the morning sun. We had finally arrived!
After we got off the bridge on the other side, we walked past the Eye towards the bridge going over to Big Ben and the Parliament Building. From there we went by Westminster Abbey and then back towards the big roundabout in front of the Parliament Building. At this point some of the guys saw one of those old, red telephone booths and we couldn't resist trying to get all of us inside. Ridiculous, but fun!
At this point most of the guys wanted to do some shopping, so we went down into the tube system at Westminster station and took the tube to Oxford Circus and split up there. My group, which consisted of Michael Damnjanovic, Vegard Olsen, Edvard Vedvik, Egil Vedvik and John Kennedy, were getting quite hungry at this point and decided to duck into Garfunkel's for a meal. Later I discovered that some girls from the A-team who were also visiting London that day, went there to eat a couple of hours after us and took a picture at the table next to us. The two pictures are so similar it's almost scary...
This is just the first half of the day, but I'll post the rest in a short while (I promise!).

Tata, for now...

Eivind loves paint (:

2008-03-04T19:24:00.006+01:00

Gosh, long time, no updates … sheer madness!

2008-03-01T05:31:00.011+01:00

Things are happening, and they are happening fast! Well, as long as I am here in Hamar life is as monotonous as before, but I can clearly behold the future taking shape in front of my eyes. So, here’s a quick update on what has happened in my life since last time I cared enuff to tell:

• A woman crashed into our office … felt like an earthquake (Don’t ask me why I’m mentioning “women”. I don’t have a driver license!)
• The last thirty days I’ve been awake through the night seven times in total :S
• I’m elected to be an administrator on Norwegian Wikipedia
• Philip is history … the new thing is the Brothers Choir. Four forum-brothers rambling through Hamar’s main street while singing three-voiced songs. Among many, may I mention, “Look at the Bright Side of Life”, “Don’t Worry, be Happy”, “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hand” and diverse Norwegian children songs, like “I Would Like a Blue Balloon”, “Who Can Sail Without Wind”, “I want a Little Dog”, “Three Small Chinamen” and “The Bear is Sleeping”.
• New job: lexicographer for Clue AS, writing dictionaries, Norwegian–English … start-up after Easter Conference.

And – as if all that above wasn’t sufficient – I’ve just booked tickets for my flight to South Africa; what a glorious feeling!

There is something special about watching while fourteen thousand kroner (approximately 1200 pounds and twice as many dollars) disappears from your bank account … I’m addicted!
And no, I haven’t become a shopaholic, rather addicted to globetrotting! The fourteen thousand kroner went to British Airways and was tour/retour tickets to South Africa … and not just tickets for a couple of weeks or a pitiful month, but three entire months with the possibility to postpone as much as we want! In other words … I’m moving!

… And with me I’m bringing my jolly old friend, Erik Johansen

Well, that isn’t before August 11, and all of you will have plenty of time to hear from me before I’m leaving, so don’t panic (oh, delightfully smug). And before that I will have plenty to do. I now have three weeks left on A-team (holy cow), and then life seriously starts for real … time to work for money, cash, bucks, mazumas, moolahs, pesos, also called capital, resources and funds … I’m going to be rich! Rich while doing something I love!

And to something else: Tonight the Brothers Choir was active … oh my. We – that is Gjermund (the dugands-song singer), Robin, Arve and the writer of this text – went gaily out in the streets with pre-rehearsed songs and sang for stochastic passers-by, whereof the lion’s share was loaded.

I do have pictures of myself in a very feminine dress while being proposed to in front of two churches of my own brother, and I was thinking about posting them for the humour. I chose not to.

Friends travelling alone

2008-01-30T02:55:00.000+01:00

More true stories … it’s all I have!

First, I was about to take that tragic train trip that takes you the trip from Tønsberg to Hamar. That’s a trip I normally do alone, but this time I was honored with Philip’s presence … and not Philip Slabbert this time, but Philip Harmse (Brother to the other Harmse you know). So together we were going to travel this gelid country and stare at the sturdy vegetation passing by.
Philip – who had read about my previous pranks regarding train and languages and nationalities and other peoples and stuff – was dying to try this out himself (even though he actually is South African). Well, so we decided to at least give it a try, and both pretend like we were from South Africa.

So we entered the train – after 15 min of juggling with three mandarins on the platform, which at the end was crushed by the train since I lost them all on the track – and went on our quest for a perfect victim (around 30 years) … we found a ten year old boy!

Yes, its low moral to fool little boys, and yes, it’s evil to force young lads to speak English, but I had no choice. I had sworn on doing it, so I had to.

We started nicely, asking if he could speak English, what his name was etc., and the boy did good. He was abnormally good in English, extraordinarily delighted and talkative, and we had no suspicions that he was one of the lucky ones among billions. We – just as he was – were full of energy and used our time to whistle on the conductor, crack into laugh, asking weird questions to passersby, but most of all, cross-examining this little boy … until we got to the question: “Have you ever heard of Smiths venner?” … which lead to complete silence. We repeated the question … … “I am from Smiths venner”, he suddenly said, silent but clear, and now it was our turn to be silent. Very silent.

So as you understood, this boy was one of us, one of the Smithies’, one of the brothers … and ten … and from Eiker, son of someone I know. We became perplex.
Well, we couldn’t hold ourselves and told the truth at once, that we also were from the church etc., and this time in Norwegian … and the little boy couldn’t believe us … well, well, poor boy, he got some memories at least!

After this Philip and I tried to find another victim, but without any luck, so the rest of the trip we sat and counted from one to twenty in Afrikaans, for our gain and to other’s great irritation.

Gosh, look at the time! And I’m still at the office, nolens volens, I need to work :S

What do I believe in?

2008-01-15T14:37:00.000+01:00

There is nothing as pathetic as a guy that doesn’t believe in anything. “No, we don’t need any God, we have science”, they proclaim, thinking they’ve found the answer to all their problems. Kind of sad, really, that someone think they can know everything after they’ve spent 18 years on a planet that’s millions of years old, and through those 18 years they’ve maybe travelled about 0,5% of the world. There is no logical reason to why you should know it all … still miserably many people walk around quite content and think they got the answer to the meaning of life, the universe and everything. They ignore what they really want: freedom!

I believe that there is a greater power available for those who believe and longs for freedom from their self, their flesh and bad habits. And that power I know you can get by a personal relationship with your savior and by that power you can become free! When you decide to do the opposite of your own will you get what you truly want, freedom, divine nature and a life in eternity. That is my testimony! Simple, but I believe it’s the most powerful testimony a man can have!

So why this post? Well, today’s the day our new webpage was launched; that is http://www.brunstad.org/. It was about time we gave people an opportunity to read about what we believe in, and here it is … so far in Norwegian, but within short time it’ll be published in all the major languages.

I challenge everyone who has their own blog, and believe in the same as me, to post the link together with their personal testimony on their blog!

Happy reading!

Saved by the ... Philip Slabbert?

2008-01-13T16:56:00.000+01:00

This is a new story about Philip Slabbert. All quotations of him is The Potboiler's exclusive right to publish. This right is given to The Potboiler, in written form. The permission says: "Yeah, what the heck, do as you want Eivind".

Here the other day, like all other days, I was late and alone at the office. For some reason the whole A-team Hamar has been more or less moved to Denmark, except for me and a few others ... but am I in a bad mood because of that? No, absolutely not! It's all about having fellowship with those whom one is situated, whether that's few or many!

Well, back to the story I want to tell: I was alone at the office, and since I was busy doing everything and nothing, I missed the last bus going from Hamar to get home. But fear not, I was in no despair, 'cause Philip Slabbert, my South African personality, was with me!

So I started to trudge north, determined to do it all with a smile ... until I saw this chap again. A silent chap, sitting alone in his car; styled but ugly. I thought I would go past, but didn't. Instead I took off to the left and headed towards him.

Eivind aka Philip: Hello! English?
Chap: eh, well, not much
Eivind aka Philip: Good, excellent!
Chap: ?
Eivind aka Philip: You see, I think I mistook Hamar for being a big city, and therefore thought the busses would go later than 10 o'clock on a friday night ... but I was sadly mistaken.
Chap: Oh.
Eivind aka Philip:So here I am, standing lonely in the dark, wet Hamar night, wondering if there is any good Samaritan anywhere to offer his help.
Chap: What do you want, exactly?
Eivind aka Philip: Oh, where are you, my helper? How can I, a poor little foreigner, survive under this ... this ... black sky of cruelness?
Chap: Are you sick? Should I drive you to the hospital?
Eivind aka Philip *halfway into the car*: Thanks, home should be sufficient!

*Driving home for Chris... kveldsmat*

Chap: So here we are, is this the right house?
Eivind aka Philip: Maybe, maybe not
Chap: Whatever!

*Eivind waving and thanking loudly*
*Chap escaping*

And I was saved by the South African again (:

Philip is so maar soos 'n riet!

And a merry Christmas to you all!

2007-12-24T21:34:00.000+01:00

Just this small post to send you all my best wishes for the holidays and the days to come, and a happy new year!

Robert

A fabulous pre-Christmas trip to England

2007-12-23T23:59:00.001+01:00

Part I: The trip

Eleven guys from the A-team (or ten and and a guy from Grenland) decided to go to England on a pre-Christmas trip. You know, sightseeing and shopping (it ended up being mostly sightseeing, but more of that later). Imagine ten guys from 17 to 23, and me at 31, running around London, wreaking havoc everywhere we went. Well, it wasn't as bad as that, but let me tell you - it's tough enough to keep track of your own stuff, but with ten guys in tow... I bet you can imagine that without me going into details.

So, back to the beginning:

Sunday December 16th. A little foggy around Brunstad, but it wasn't bad enough to cause delays or anything. All of us were actually ready more or less at the prearranged time (a feat in itself if you ask me) and off we went to Torp to check in. No problems so far. Everyone had packed their bags within the regulations of Ryanair and some of us were soon crashing in the lounge outside the "fabulous" tax-free shop just outside the gate, while the rest played cards or watched TV (there was some hockey game on or something). We got to the airport almost two and a half hours before take-off, and since the check-in went so quickly we had some time on our hands. Edvard, poor guy, had to get an emergency passport since he had found out that his passport had expired a few weeks before the trip, so he was a little behind us at that time. Therefore we really thought he had gotten into some trouble when some woman said over the P.A.: "Can Marius Vedvik (that's Edvards little brother) come to the information desk immediately!" Marius had just ordered some warm food at the only resturaunt at Torp, and had to leave that on the table with us (the temptation to do something with it was immense, but we managed to resist). About 20 minutes later he got back, telling us that he had forgotten his VISA-card at the check-in. Scatterbrained as he is, we would pick on him for this incident for the duration of the trip.

Finally the time came for us to board the plane, and we all got to the gate. The line to get on the plane was long and we were almost last in line, but we finally got there and found our seats. Of course we had to get through the security-routine, just sitting there looking at the poor flightattendants going through the motions. But finally we were ready to go! You probably all know that terrific feeling when the plane takes off. First the little tug as the plane starts to speed up, then beeing pushed back in your seat as it's going faster and faster along the runway. Finally the nose lifts up, the wheels let go of the ground and your whole body just gets pushed down into your seat. That moment ranks among the best feelings in the world if you ask me (but then I'm a travel buff, so...).

On the plane there is not much to do but listen to music, read or just talk. I didn't have an MP3-player at the time, so I settled with reading a book that has quickly become one of my favourites, "The Book Thief".

About two hours later we touched down at London-Stanstead. The clock had now passed 3 in the afternoon, and we were getting on a bus leaving the airport at 4.30. This meant we had a little time to relax and Mike Damnjanovic (who had already done a terrific job as a travel guide) found a Krispy Kream donut shop, much to the delight of especially John Kennedy, but certainly to the rest of us as well.

We then went to the bus that had now arrived just outside the terminal. The bus would leave at 4.30 sharp and at this point we ran into a bit of trouble, again related to Marius. It's enough to say that he barely made it on time and we had another thing we could pick on him for.

This bus trip lasted 3 hours and 50 minutes, and when we arrived at the bus depot in Oxford we started to get a bit exhausted. But after we had streched our legs and gotten our luggage we walked a few minutes to the trainstation. All the ticketbooths were closed at this time, but Mike quickly found a guy that could help us. He even tried to get us a discount, being a big group and all, but he didn't succeed but. It was worth a try though. We finally got on the train and started our final part of the trip. It lasted only about 20 minutes, maybe less, and we arrived in Didcot a little after 8 in the evening. We quickly got our things and walked to the meeting hall where we would stay.Finally there we dropped our bags and went off to a kebab place to get something to eat.

When we got back there was a whole lot of activity at the meeting hall. The youth in Didcot were now at work cleaning up after a Christmas feast they had had at another place (their meeting hall is not that big) and we got to say hello to Abby O'Dell, Steph Taylor and Lydia Pope whom we knew from the A-team. Laura, Mike's sister (and also a contributor on this blog), was there of course and we were introduced to their little brother, Andrew, and quite a few of the other young people of Didcot.

When the last of the youth from Didcot had left we started to get ready for bed. I tell you, this is not easy for 11 guys to do in peace! A couple of hours (!) later I finally fell asleep after an exhausting day of travel. Thank goodness for earplugs c",)

To be continued...

Ta-ta

The Coke Santa?

2007-12-23T23:29:00.000+01:00

– Look mama, I look like Coke Santa!

*Glass shattering as it hits the ground*

Eivind: What did you say! Coke Santa?
Youngest sister: Yes, can’t you see?
Eivind: I can see you’re wearing a Father Christmas costume ....
Youngest sister: Yes, as I said, I look like Coke Santa ...
Eivind: Ehm, eh, Coke santa ... right ... eh, and by that you mean?
Youngest sister: Gosh, don’t you know anything!?! Like why we celebrate Christmas and stuff like that? Like the Coke Santa’s birthday and things ...
Eivind: Now, if you'd excuse me little fledgling, I think I have some unbreakable glass to break elsewhere.

*Eivind running, screaming, crying and pulling his own hair over such tormenting tarradiddle*

Youngest sister: Ma! Hasn’t Eivind heard of Coke Santa? And was he really crying when he ran away?
Mum: So, so, my girl. Eivind’s just going to need some time for himself now ... don’t you think about it

It is more truth in this story than any of you'd like to hear :(

Oh, what a beautiful morning! Oh, what a beautiful day!

2007-12-16T15:14:00.000+01:00

Well, well, well, everyone’s going their way … Brunstad’s probably deserted; Hamar’s people is on Christmas vacation; The Potboiler seems to be forsaken; everyone is somewhere else; the Christmas spirit got lost somewhere in the nearby forests; and it looks like Father Christmas spilt coffee on the whole north-part of his map. Daily life just doesn’t seem to stop here in the Siberian Hamar, even though Christmas is only eight days away, and all of us should’ve been storming the malls for Christmas presents. Yet, if we head down to the town, all we do is eating kebab; but the most of the time we’re situated in front of our computers, looking forward to 21st, when we’ll listen to “Driving Home for Christmas”, heading for family and friends …

With an average temperature of minus thirteen degrees Celsius, and with the constant fear for an unexpected polar bear ambuscade, we continue to live our lives continuously, non-stop, always heading for the same goal, either home or away from home … but it’s the great spectacles we get to behold along the way to the office – as I like to call a scenic tour – that is our encouragement! The shimmering rime, like old Gandalf’s beard, covering the treetops; the white fields glacially stretching into the horizon, in harmony with the frosty, powder blue, endless firmament; the frozen squirrel, in frigid attention saluting our passing Caravelle Racing, it is all mind-expanding. Old men on bikes, students waiting for the bus; small, snotty children from the local kindergarten; it’s all so beautiful when it’s swathed in sparkling ice and glittery snow.

I’m in no way – no way whatsoever – jealous of anyone being anywhere else – wherever they are. Hamar isn't hellish, it's all good. At least that's what I tell myself every morning.

And here's the self-made quote for today:

"Excel saves too, but I prefer Jesus"

Gingerbread Eirik and Eivind

2007-12-14T09:22:00.001+01:00

Eirik and I decided to make gingerbread cookies here the other day, a cold, snowy, breezy winter day in Hamar. And with the mind-set that all mums and baking dads could go elsewhere and eat their self-made buns, we started off with the gingerbread cookie dough:

In Norway we have something called premade dough (can you believe?), and with a kilo price barely exceeding a couple of sterling, we found ourselves more fond of purchasing a few ready-for-use products, rather than many products in need of several hours of stirring. So the beginning was fixed, and with three kilos premade dough we jolted home in Eirik’s legend, my deceased grandpa’s old car, while we played music I’m utterly sure my late grandpa wouldn’t even had recognized as music.

Well home, and with both us and the dough safely across the glassy entrance, we gathered our equipment to make proper gingerbread men and women. It all starts with two jejune boys, flour, a rolling-pin, some open space and one kilo dough, tasteless but eatable …

… to be honest I don’t think this evening can be described with words, but pics would be great, so here they are:

So here we've started, and as you can see we're sharpening our technique (:

First step

Second step

Third step

To the left you may see Eirik's hand

This Gingerbread woman was besotted in my hand

A "holy" sister

Three in a row! O=E og X=E … if that makes any sense

We call this master piece "Two men driven over by car"

The nice thing about Eirik is that he becomes less and less selective about where to sleep when he's really tired

Gingerbreads are Christmas decoration, you better not disagree!

The US of A

And here's all the poor gingerbread men and women who didn't make it the whole way to the oven ):

An abstruse combination of letters

2007-12-13T09:20:00.000+01:00

If you can read, comprehend and pronounce the following sentence correctly, English is most likely your mother tongue.

"A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful plough man strode through the streets of scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed."

Now and then I ask myself, "how should pronounce the combination ough" … and to be honest I don’t think I'm the only one. Just think about it, the words tough, though, throug and thorough are all made by adding one letter at the time, and still none of them rhymes with another :(

Ough arose in Middle English where it most likely was pronounced with a back rounded vowel and a velar fricative, for example the [oʊx] or [uːx] sound. But, as if that wasn’t hard enough (enuff), the whole thing developed by the decades, and today these four letters are by far the combination with the most unpredictable pronunciation, and a pain in the ass for us with English as a second language.

In fact, ough may be pronounced in six different ways in American English and ten – I repeat – ten different ways in British English, the English spoken in the most of the countries in the Commonwealth.

Here's the ten of them:

Pronunciation	Example	Comment
[ʌf]	tough, enough, Hough, slough	Compare "wuff"
[ɒf] or [ɔf]	cough, trough, Gough	Trough is pronounced like 'troth' by some speakers of American English
[aʊ]	bough, plough
[əʊ] or [oʊ]	though, dough
[ɔː] or [ɒː]	thought, bought
[uː]	through, slough	Slough is pronounced as 'slew' or to rhyme with "bough" or to rhyme with "tough" by some American English speakers, in British English it rhymes with "bough" (esp. the town) or "tough"
[ə]	thorough, borough	Both pronounced as 'OH' [oʊ] in American English
[ɒx]	lough	A lake; Irish analogue of Scots"loch"
[ʌp]	hiccough	Variant spelling of "hiccup", though the latter form is recommended in both British and US
[ʌk] or [ɒk]	hough	More commonly spelled "hock" from the 20th Century onwards

Ough is a clear winner when it comes to lingustic complexity, and there is quite a long way down to next on the list, which is the -omb combination, with at least three different ways to be pronounced ... just look at bomb, comb and tomb

And still, even as confused as I am, I'm not sure if thru, tho, draft, plow and sluff should be allowed to wipe out the spelling forms through, though, draught, plough and slough … or maybe it's all just as well?

Sorry, I've always been on the barricades for the languages, and you should too ... but you don't need to be just as much on the barricades as I am, but you can stand a little behind, down to the left and mumble "Yeah, what he said" while you look a bit angry.

(:

To the calf!

2007-12-12T09:23:00.000+01:00

According to the Bible,”Outdo one another in showing honor”, and also true to an exhortation someone gave me, “do not just write bullshit”, I want to write a few words about a good (and big (in my eyes)) friend of mine, and also a wannabe contributor to the potboiler, Eirik (:

“Why?” you ask. Well, ladies and gentlemen, today’s Eirik’s birthday, and today there’s twenty years since that little lad came to earth, crying. Then he was small and adorable, now he’s twenty.

A good man he is (but not better than this being the shortest blog entry ever), and he is a guy you know where you have. Regardless of others’ thoughts and opinions he’s found his personal way, and I wish him the very best of luck doing that.

Happy birthday, and may God bless you (:

(Hehe, now I don’t need to write you an SMS, write on your facebook wall, talk to you at MSN/Skype, call you, write you a letter or pay for plane with banner. (Even though I might do, especially the last one))

Moving in the rain

2007-12-04T21:26:00.000+01:00

I've just moved from Grenland to Stokke. And I think I chose the worst possible day to do it.

On saturday evening there was a Christmas-concert at Brunstad, and I got into bed really late (I think it was 3 o'clock in the morning when I finally turned in). I had already made an appointment I guess you could call it, with my friend who'd been kind enough to let me store my furniture and all the rest of my belongings in his basement. I was supposed to be at his place in Grenland at 0930 on Sunday morning, but because of the aforementioned concert and following late-night-activities I didn't wake up till 0900.

Fast forward to one and a half hour later, and I arrive at my Mom's house. I don't have a towbar on my car, so I had to borrow my brother's car. Then I drove to a gas station where I knew they rented out big trailers (I figured if I could get one big enough I could move everything on one trip). Of course this gas station had just sold all their trailers so on I went, looking desperately for someone having a big enough trailer on a Sunday morning.

An hour later I had finally found one, but not as big as I'd hoped. But off I went to my friends house and backed into the driveway in front of his house.

The weather had gradually worsened through the morning, and at the moment I backed into the driveway, the clouds just seemed to let it rip and the rain poured down. The expression "raining cats and dogs" suddenly took on a new meaning for a poor Norwegian. I just couldn't believe my luck...

With a temperature at about 0 degrees Celcius the rain felt like tiny icicles pricking my face, and the moving of my refrigerator and bookshelves and all the other furniture became a real ordeal. But we managed to get everything compressed into the trailer and off I went. My brother's car had a little trouble with the weight of the trailer, so I had to go pretty slow and the usually 5o minute drive became a 1 hour 15 minutes drive. The rain continued steadily through the whole trip, and when I arrived at my new apartment I just couldn't get my head around the fact that I had to go through the whole thing in reverse.

But I got through it, with good help from two of my best friends, and we left the apartment at about 7 o'clock in the evening, the furniture neatly tucked into a corner, and all my other nick-nacks stacked in a big, dripping heap in the middle of the living room.

Tata for now ;-)

The last warmth

2007-12-04T21:07:00.000+01:00

Rumors say the last piece of warmth just left Hamar … and I painfully experienced that this morning when my roommate inconveniently had to stand with a very feminine hair dryer for about 60 minutes to defrost my pillow. It wouldn’t let go of my head otherwise.

I felt slightly cold this morning – core drilling cold – and slid down to the house’s first floor from my room upstairs (I tried to make my bed, but I couldn’t bend the duvet).
Down at first floor I met my housemates; so cold they stood gathered around the refrigerator to get warmth.

Eivind: Good Morning!
Human icicles: —

Incidentally surprising as it might seem, icicle was also the word I used to describe the feeling of cold that day: “cold as in ‘icicles are penetrating my bones’ cold”.

Well, it was time for work, so we knit our skates and skated off to work, and in fear of bragging I will mention that we managed to keep decently good speed, except for some minor problems when stopping for traffic lights, where old NHL skills luckily came to good use.

After defrosting the entrance to our office with active use of passing smokers and volunteer incendiaries and arsonists, we were at last capable of entering our offices, still skating. Now the next quest was about to begin: log on MSN, which showed out to be kind of demanding with both the blue and the green MSN man being frozen and not capable of revolving around the undefined centre.

And so the day went on, and I barely got to do anything except for surfing the net, reading about Arctic Equestrian Games, the poles, ice’s abilities and strength, different types of snow (including yellow snow), freezing temperature for different elements and ice fishing, all on wiki.

Well, as always – when the clock hasn’t frozen – we go (skate) for dinner about 16:30, and this day – despite more or less anything – was no exception to any rule, so we went to eat. For dinner we had cold tartar and ice water with lemon, but no greater despair has ever been revealed here in Hamar than when the dessert was brought to the table – Ice cream.

And by the way, frozen people have funny facial expressions, especially those frozen outside my window.

I hope reading this made you cold :)

When words slip out of your mouth

2007-12-03T17:59:00.000+01:00

I would say that most young people too often say things without first thinking them through…or thinking of their effect. We could save ourselves some embarrassment if we just used 5 or 10 seconds to think a little.

I’ll get to the real story later, but first my introduction reminded me of this one time my parents, a few sisters and I went to meet my great-aunt for the first time. She was nearly blind so her sense of hearing was hightened…which worked out to be inconvenient for me. We were having a nice little visit as she was a feisty 90 year-old and we thought she was fun for an old lady. Of course, someone had to bring the comfortably uneventful visit to a screeching halt and that someone is me. How embarrassing…. You see, I notice details…especially on people (now don’t anyone feel self-conscious…it’s not criticism – just awareness) and I said quietly ”Hey Mom! Now I know where you got your perfect teeth!”.

Why, Amy? Why??

My great aunt did not crack a smile, but said in a matter of fact way ”oh these? These are fake.” and my mom kinda sat there smiling and killing me with her eyes.

Great first impression.

The real story, though, happened here at Brunstad not so long ago. Someone from western Norway had to make a couple of announcements one night for the A-Team. Afterwards someone stopped him and said ”Hey….I couldn’t understand any of your announcements”. She spoke norwegian with an accent (the kind that sounds like their mouth is too far open when they talk) so he wasn’t sure he understood so she repeated herself and added ”You should speak normal norwegian so people can understand you”.

It was either thoughtless words or perfect timing that made him turn around and say ”and so should you”.

Eivind's 100th blog entry

2007-12-03T11:27:00.000+01:00

Two years of active and not-so-active blogging are now history, and I am to write my 100th blog entry, so therefore I ought to dedicate this post to someone … no, you're wrong, not to the language, and no, not to you; yes, correct, to confidence!

Yes, yes, of course, there is nothing as unpleasant as a young, noisy chap with ten times the confidence he ought to have. But yet, dear reader, it's oh so important!

One, you're creative! Throughout the entire world there's six billion genius individuals, and the lion's share of them actually do not think that they are what they really are: geniuses. They do not believe that we're all born creative, instead they reckon imagination is something just a few people get – they're sadly deceived! We're all born with the same opportunities, the only difference is that some give their thoughts wings, and therefore develop better imagination.

You're in possession of a human brain that's capable of producing more ideas than there are atoms in the universe (not far away from facts). You are a piece of imagination on two feet, you just have to decide to let go of yourself! Dig into that gold mine of yours called The brain. "How?” you might ask – let's take a look at how to stimulate your creative intelligence:

• Think of at least five impossible things before breakfast
• Draw nonsense
• Daydream
• Use your imagination and write down how many different ways there is to use a paper clip (I did a hundred).

Remember, differ from normal thoughts! A paper clip is still a paper clip even though it's 90 meters tall and made of titanium!

Two, – our language – a colloquial thing we all relate to. Even the dumbest of all boneheads know how to speak, and language comes easy to us; yes, some of us are even capable of speaking two or more languages, though, if you speak too many you're regarded as a freak – a misunderstood freak …

You shouldn't take language for granted; just think about all those animals that hasn't got the gift of language. That you know how to speak, you can thank your extraordinarily bright brain for, because the human brain is special! It has the ability to put letters into words and words into sentences, and those who're good even put the sentences into chapters, the chapters into potboilers, and the potboilers into blogs.

There is no computer so smart it can converse like we can. No computer can learn a language, even though a child can. Ergo, there is nothing like a stupid child either … Gosh, conclusions are coming like rain from blue sky now.

Many years ago a couple of scholars started a competition where they hunted nerds who were capable of building a computer with the ability to answer random questions just as well as humans. They had three rooms, in two of them they placed scientists, and in the third room a computer. They were all hidden, and a third scientist gave them a question they had to answer, and they have never failed in pointing out the computer's answer (Because computers have a terrible hand writing?). This competition is still around, in case you want to give it a try. The conclusion is that humans are at least smarter than computers … if that's any comfort.

And by the way, you use about one percent of your brain capacity, you're a light-year smarter than you thought!

I hope you will all bed tonight with a confident smile, thinking of how perfectly you fit into your own body, not a number too big for it, and not a number to small for it, filling yourself from the tip of your little toe to the nail of your little finger :)

Gosh, I'm good at this …

Not so busy actually.

2007-11-28T14:52:00.000+01:00

HA! ... I realised after Roberts last post that I'm not actually as busy as most of you other writers, as the largest part of my day is taken up with putting on a scrupulously polite voice and inquiring "Excuse me, are there any jobs going here at the moment?" *ingratiating smile*.

Even if a somewhat degrading pastime, it pays of, as it's come to the point when I have to decide between a job with good hours and average pay, or a more hectic job with extremely good pay.
Hmph, I just don't know, which is why I'm writing about it, cause to get my thoughts down in writing always makes the choice seem somewhat simpler.
Maybe Ill just become a hermit, and escape the pressures of social life, banking and all those interminably boring things that go together with finance, and hey, Id be environmentally friendly!

On a better note, I am watching with amazement as my short story slowly travels up and up that line of popularity, on redbulltallstory.co.uk (sorry Robert for the blatant advertising scheme.)
It is now rated 63 out of 750. Good news I think, and if you haven't voted me 5 stars yet, you bally well ought to! Sorry, I mean, I would hugely appreciate it.

Ahh, and one more thing you might find interesting. The most intense Turkish experience I had!

My sister, Phoebe, Estella and I were walking to a local shop which is directly beneath a huge Mosque. To get there we had to cross a very busy road, and unlike many civilised countries ,where when the lights go red the traffic stops to let pedestrians cross, Turkish drivers just keep right on driving! We managed to get across said road unscathed, but two seconds afterward with the loudest squealing of brakes ever a van catapults across the width of the road, with a loud bang as one of its tires burst, and a scream from a lady who had escaped being run into by seconds!! As if this wasn't enough of a shock, the daily call for prayer begins wailing away, at a crazily loud volume, as it is being projected over the whole city, (we are walking right underneath the Mosque now, its towers lit up with a green light) and suddenly at least five, no wait, maybe six army helicopters started circling the mosque! My sister Jo carried on as if nothing was happening, whilst I gazed on in amazement, and slight terror I have to confess. I guess this is a standard spectacle in Istanbul as nobody else around me batted an eyelid!

I'm back – finally

2007-11-27T22:53:00.000+01:00

I've noticed that it's 5 days since the last post on our blog. I don't have anything to write about, but at least I'm back...

I've also noticed that the activity in general has been a little slow lately, not counting Eivind, who's been quite busy writing. The fact that we are so many people being able to write in this blog, and still so few of us actually get around to write something is quite interesting. I guess it's saying something about the level of activity in all our lives at the moment, and not the willingness or ability to write.

Right now I'm just too tired to write anything sensible, so I guess I'll just let this be it for now... I'll try to write something with a bit more meaning and substance as soon as I can.

Tata, see y'all soon!

c",)

Philip's haircut

2007-11-22T21:17:00.000+01:00

There is one heck of a funny guy who keeps on bringing me joy, something I can need in this wet and grey wannabe city called Hamar. Yes, I'm talking about Philip Slabbert, a young African lad who lives in Hamar and can't speak a word Norwegian … until today.

Philip, being a brother among brothers, have hair on his head, just as all other boys who aren't suffering from premature baldness. And, of course, as a brother among brothers, Philip have to cut his hair now and then, approximately every second month. And, as a brother among brothers, Philip do cut his hair every second month, no reluctance.

Two months had passed today, and Philip's hair was getting shabbier by the second. So, as he should, he went back to the barber: a good fellow cutting hair for only 180 NOK (and that's hair wash included. Also a tiny bit of massage, but that is something you don't mention.). Since he went to the barber today you can guess what he did for exactly two months ago … yes, he went to the barber then too, and as the foreigner he was he spoke and laughed and screamed, all in English. In fact, that was one of Philip's first performances in Hamar, showing off as an African.

Back to the point: He went to the barber for a hair cut, but unfortunately this good fellow – who do cut hair for 180 plus wash plus massage – could of course not speak a word – not a word I assure you – English, being an Iranian and all. That caused of course immediate trouble, mostly since Philip could not tell him how he wanted his hair. Anyways, he pulled it through the whole way, with active use of body language, and succeeded in not letting Philip transform into Eivind, whatsoever.

Now, two months later, Philip is heading for the barber again, mostly because his wallet denies him to visit any of the other fashionable hairdressers in Hamar, and because he still haven't found one to trust the hair cutting job to amongst the brothers he's amongst.
He enters the barber shop, firmly decided to speak English even though the barber won't understand a word, and sets off with an opening line so abstruse even the linguist in the cutting queue was paralysed.

"Hei…lo god kv…ening. Æ. Æ. Æææøøooouuuhha… god kveld" (in an extraordinarily perfect – yes, may I say beautiful – Drammen dialect).

The Iranian turns away from the already perplex customers and faces him, instantly x-raying him with his well-trained hairdresser's eyes. "Gosh", was all Philip got time to think. "That's på norsk!".
So there Philip stood, watched by all these mean strangers, all with the Norwegian look upon their faces, just waiting for him to reveal his secret.

"Jeg … Jeg … har lært norsk" *Giant smile*
"…"
"…"
"Å, ok, sett deg ned, ventetiden er cirka tretti minutter." (Oh, ok, sit down, you'll have to wait 30 min.)

*Relief * – Philip sits down, smiling nervously to the others who're already seated – *Relief*

And so the whole thing went on, surprisingly uneventful, and Philip got back to the office with less hair and a giant laugh.

Quote Philip starts: "That must have been the most intense 60 minutes in my short, sad life, struggling with imitating broken Norwegian, pretending like I was looking for words, and pronounce the words I found as if the words gave me a brackish aftertaste.". Quote Philip stops.

Left, right?

2007-11-21T14:46:00.000+01:00

This is how I reckon my first conversation in English must've been like. I'm six, my sister Linda's eight:

Linda: Eivind, should we take to the left or to the right here? It's left, right?
Eivind: Right

*Linda turns left*

Eivind: Blimey! You're going the wrong way! We're supposed to take to the right
Linda: Gosh! But you said left!
Eivind: No, that's not right!
Linda: Of course not, don't you tell me something I already know. Right is right and left is left
Eivind: So where did everything else go?
Linda: ?
Eivind: You just said all that's left is left
Linda: Yes, right
Eivind: ?
Linda: No, no! I meant left.
Eivind: What's left?
Linda: Not right?
Eivind: That's right down right!

*Deafening silence*

Linda: Ok, back to "where to go". I think right might not be right.
Eivind: Hm, if right isn't right then it would be rightly to say that left isn't left either, right?
Linda: Yes, right, I forgot.
Eivind: How can you forget "right" when that's all we've been talking 'bout the last five minutes!
Linda: Eivind, you're just not right!
Eivind: Oh, you wanna get left?
Linda: Don't be so unrighteous.
Eivind: I dunno what that means, you're probably making that word up.

*More discussing, biting and fighting*

Linda: Ok, lets take to the right then.
Eivind: All right!
Linda: No, not all right, just this one.
Eivind: Whatever, lets go right on.

So we went right off and got home in time for cold left-overs.

That was a few words from Hamar ... I hope you're all having a nice time, wherever you are or whoever you're with :)

Sharing Sleeping Quarters

2007-11-21T10:55:00.000+01:00

Depending on the night – and the roommate – sharing a room with someone could be a blessing or a curse. All of us on the A-Team have experienced some of it and I will just tell about a few experiences i had while I stayed in House 33.

My first few nights were uneventful but then one night I was the last one in bed, so I got a real treat. I walked in the room and heard one of the girls say something but the sound was muffled. Then as I was getting into bed, she turned over and said very clearly and loud ”SHIT!”.

Okay….whatever it was, I’m sorry.

My roommate enjoyed making fun of the Bergen accent while she was awake and a few nights later I learned that awake or asleep doesn’t make a difference. I don’t remember what she said, but it was definitely a Bergen dialect and then she burst out laughing afterwards as if she found herself so funny.

Another night she kinda sat up and said ”Hva var det? ROSA????? Haha!”

One night she rolled over and said ”You’re a jerk” Well, thank you. I thought I’d have some fun with it and asked ”Why am I a jerk?” and she looked confused and said ”ugh…..I don’t remember anymore…”

Oh, and one time I shared a room with a girl who I could swear was eating a full course meal every night. You know that smacking sound some people make when they sleep? Yeah….she did that with all the enthusiasm she could muster and it always went on for at least 10 seconds every time. Whatever she had must have been delicious.

Ok, so as not to always pick on other people I will tell you one about myself. A few girls went to stay at Jane and Andrew’s for a night and we had a very nice and cozy time. I shared a room with someone who has been wearing earplugs for years to block out any noise. She informed me in the morning that despite her earplugs, she woke up in the night to me laughing hysterically….loud guffawing. She looked at me and giggled as I laughed my head off and slapped my bed over and over (which I don’t even do when I’m awake). I don’t remember what was so funny, but for someone who sees the funny side of everything it’s not surprising.

I’ll just say it is one of many times I have done that (although I usually wake myself up) and let’s leave it at that. Heh heh…

I look forward to hearing more sleeping quarters stories.

Feeling Nostalgic

2007-11-19T21:20:00.000+01:00

I'm sitting in my sisters house in Istanbul, Turkey to write my first post on this, The Potboiler. I have to admit its taken me awhile to get round to writing something, cause the standard of English is pretty high here, and seeing as I actually am English to make any mistakes would be mortifying! But what the heck, I'm feeling creative!

I'm in the study now and down the hall the sitting room is filled with Turks and my sister who are "planning the Christmas Feast". More like talking about it for two or three minutes, whilst laughing very loudly at their own jokes and continuing with another subject as quickly as possible. Or at least I think that's what they're doing, my Turkish is a little rusty. Its a great language though, extremely expressive!
Anyway, I had to leave. Christmas is something very close to my heart and to hear it talked of so flippantly was eye watering. I had to escape and listen to "The Greatest Christmas Carol Album" very loudly and obnoxiously. This made me start remembering childhood Christmas's and get teary, hence the title.

I think we western countries have it very easy when it comes to Christmas. Its not hard to get into the Christmas spirit when shops bombard you with Christmas decorations, songs and gift ideas from July! People decorate the outside of their houses with lights, and there are millions of other things which we all kinda take for granted.
Turkey being a Muslim country, there is nothing of the kind! No Christmas trees, no Christmas lights, certainly no Christmas crackers, and that why here you really need to be patient whilst trying to get them into a festive spirit. A job too big for me, which is why I wrote this post instead;-) Its great fun here though, lots of tempo and exiting scenery. Its a country very easy to love.

Gosh, this has taken quite awhile to write because the keyboard I am using is somewhat muddled, with Turkish and English letters overlapping in a most alarming manner. Also, the space key is stiff, meaning that between each word I type I must thump said keyboard, and believe me, this kinda puts you out of your groove! So I hope you all have read and appreciated.

Amusement in Division Meetings

2007-11-18T23:46:00.000+01:00

Everyone knows Division meetings are somewhat less than enjoyable. Sure, if the chairman can control the direction of the conversation and keep things rolling there's a good chance something will be accomplished, but that doesn't mean they aren't dead boring.

I'll just tell you a little story that I find amusing. Last week, we had our regular meeting like we do every Wednesday morning. For some reason the "ideal time" for the meeting was from 11 to 12, when people's heads just got full of things they need to do that day, and their stomachs start reminding them that they haven't eaten since 7:15. In any case, I'm not convinced that's the most productive time of day for a meeting.

But back to the story... Several of the participants bring laptops to the meetings (I would guess for no good reason....or at least I haven't found reason to bring mine) and I see them Skyping each other occasionally. Last week was no different. There were a couple of outburst of giggling and a few funny looks shot across the table, but nothing particularily disruptive. The meeting was winding down and at exactly 12:00, one of the participants wrote to another in big letters "PAUSE"...as if to tell him he was ready to get outta there. Well, as I find other people's unfortunate mistakes funny, I cracked up when I saw the message pop up on the boss's screen - which was projected to the front of the room for everyone to see. The intended recipient shares the same first letter of their name and the writer made a tiiiiiiny mistake.

That pretty much ended things right there because we were trying to stifle our laughs as the boss wrapped up the meeting. I will think about it often and smile, remembering the look on the senders face and the only words he said, in his thick accent... "oh shit...beKLAGER....."

I scream truck!

2007-11-15T19:19:00.001+01:00

A venerating ode to the ice cream.

Ice cream is un-doubtfully one of the kitchen's most glorious inventions! Not just does it give me indescribably good feelings deep inside when being consumed, but I can upon my honour proclaim ice cream as the outright cause of, and solution to all life's problems (to quote John's comment). If you have it you're happy, if you haven't you aren't.

Ice creams come in varicoloured and tasteful editions, with different consistencies, something for each taste. You can get frozen ice, not so soft ice, soft ice, melted ice, liquid ice, yes the opportunities are unimaginable!

While many have a turbulent relationship to ice cream due to being raised on carrots, I personally loved it from early childhood, being raised on love. Many a memory has been created out of this, for example asking my black school mate if he wanted some colour-refill ice cream, handing over a chocolate deluxe super edition ice, hence his rejoinder: sending me a vanilla super duper exclusive with 20% less sugar in a pink envelope followed by a right upper hook. The latter from the post man. He didn't like enveloped ice creams in the mail.

Other childhood dramas and tragedies are also to be remembered in this ode. From my first soft ice, with all the three different toppings, falling abruptly to the ground a warm summer day, wasting my long-saved 10 kroner, to the sticky, yet sere Yes Ice cream being stolen by the Danish hectors on Odden. Ice cream was indeed the reason for many of my problems then, and it still is today, because ...

... for not such a long time ago I ate a soft ice again, and it was strange to think of that as my former childhood. Either something has happened with the production or my taste have changed, because that was a dolorous ice cream! Holy cow, I can't believe they sell that under the same name! Childhood 1995 vs. childhood 2007, I know which would have won!

But still, despite the abovementioned drama, I love ice cream. I scream trucks too.

This is a simple response to Robert's challenge, "Write about ice cream".

Drunks and punks, part 3 (I'll get to the punks later, don't worry)

2007-11-14T22:03:00.001+01:00

A few months ago, I was working as headwaiter at a banquet. I was trying to keep things in order with the waiters doing their thing. The doors to the main hall were open, and the waiters were walking fast in and out with their trays, glasses, plates, cutlery and bottles.

A man at about 50 exits with a longdrink-glass firmly in hand. He's got a serious look on his face and walks straight by me, heading for the lobby (and probably the bathroom). I'm so busy with what I'm doing, and don't react to the fact that a guest has just walked through the serving-area, until the man is a couple of hundred feet away. I run after him to alert the guards that someone has just left the bar area with a glass of alcohol (which is actually forbidden in Norway). Before I can reach him he stumbles over nothing (as drunks often do) and falls on the tile floor. The glass shatters, of course. This man, not forgetting how expensive the drink was I guess, sits up looking sadly at the floor and the poor remains of his drink. Then he does this incredible thing: He starts wiping the floor with his hand, slurping what's left of his drink off his fingers. This sad sight has of course not gone unnoticed with the guards and they take care of him. They pick him up and gets him some coffee, while I return to my duties.

This is just one more of my stories... There will be more, I promise :-) Human nature will not deny itself!

Tata for now!

c",)

Let me put "Being nothing like normal" into perspective

2007-11-13T20:39:00.000+01:00

People, extraordinarily boring as they might look, fascinates me quite a lot. People together, unfriendly as they might be, seem to fascinate me even more. People's way of acting when together, structured as it might seem, though surprisingly random, fascinates me more than anything.

I like to gaze at these people. I like to guess their life, penetrate their dreams and reveal their secrets:

He is 54.
And normal.

Or at least his wife, his children, and sometimes even he thinks so. He has a job, working his butt off every day to put bread on the table. He do not know why he cares, why he wakes up morning after every morning just to feed the hungry mouths that scream for more. More food, more vacation, more money, more spare time, more house, more life. He is smart enough to give them what they ask for though, anything else would be suicide.

Two seats in front of him on the train this morning a normal-looking lad is seated, ticket in his hand. He is from South Africa and speaks English. 'What an idiot', the man thinks. "Why does all these foreigners come and invade my private life, my Norway, my peace?"

He pays no more attention to the young South African lad, who has given himself totally into a conversation with a chap on the other side of the wagon. He wonders why this day couldn't be like all other days, with Norwegians and Norwegian surrounding him; that is how he wants it. He curse his own life then starts staring at the lake passing outside; the lake that he stares at every day, but today for the last time. He can not take it anymore. Live to work, not work to live. In his staring eyes you can see a reflection of the lake's bottom.

In Stokke the South-African lad gets off. At the next station the 54 year old man follow his example, two stations earlier than he was supposed to. There he waits for the next train, the 18.30 train. He knows the train won't stop on that station; still he waits. He is going to catch that train anyway, he knows that. When the train passes by he jumps. He doesn't get to see the shock and despair that flashes in the eyes of the train staff as his body violently gets crushed by the train's metal front. All he has time for is regret.

It happens. Not just inside my head. In real life too. That is scary.

Short post | Who'd write a potboiler?

2007-11-12T12:32:00.000+01:00

Potboiler vs. linguistic elasticity.

To speak and write are two different things. You may be an author, capable of writing complex and intricate novels and other literal works, or you may be a speaker, capable of mesmerizing and spellbind huge masses of people by your charismatic representation and speech.

Both authors and speakers use the whole language and all the language's flexibility en masse when fascinating their audience. They use the same material, but in two different ways.

Language is like chess; writing is like a game of chess.
Language is like a piano; speaking is like playing the piano.

Some people write potboilers. They are the green
chess players
They couldn't
even if they tried, play the piano

Hehe, you are funny, yes you are.

2007-11-10T01:11:00.001+01:00

It's a well-known and popular fact that people are predictable creatures. Though we claim to be both creative, innovative and unique, we all tend to fall into babbling the same not-witty comments.

When you meet a friend, and this friend comes to be at a gathering only meant for couples and married people, but you know for sure he's neither the one nor the other, why then think twice before saying the half-witty comment 'Oh, where is she?' or manically grabbing the guy's hand to check for a ring? He probably haven't heard it twice or thrice, if not for the umpteenth time that day. Yes, in fact you're most likely to be the first in the line to say that exact witty comment; so therefore, if you meet a guy for the first time and his name turns out to be Odd Willy, then you can be utterly sure that there is no-one that has explained him what 'odd' and 'willy' means, so why hesitate to delight him with your definitions?

Remember, you're probably the first bright guy to come up with the joke! Please, do share with all of us! We're just waiting for you to tell!

....

I just automatically replied all questions this evening with: 'considering - engagement ring - marriage ring - suffering'

Drunks and punks, part 2

2007-11-09T12:42:00.000+01:00

During the same event as the now famous "Mat-incident”, there was this guy in the line in front of me. He looked a little calmer than the others. When it was his turn he ordered a drink. He didn’t even look that drunk to me. He waited patiently for his drink while I mixed it, and while he waited his attention was drawn to a peculiar man standing next to him.

A couple of feet to my left was this guy who had had a couple of drinks too many. He had one beer in his left hand, and another standing on the counter to his right. He had his back towards me and his elbows were on the counter as support. His ever-increasing dizziness made him sway from one side to the other, while he desperately tried to grab the bottle to his right. His project ended like you would imagine – the bottle was pushed off the counter and fell to the floor, beer spurting everywhere. This guy would of course not give up that easily and bent over to pick it up before all the beer poured out on the floor (the bottle had miraculously survived the almost four-foot drop). He actually managed to get it, but spilled half the content of the bottle he still had in his left hand. He finally got back to his initial position, elbows planted on the counter.

This whole incident must have affected my customer somehow since he managed to do what he did next. When he turned his attention back to me and his drink (which was finished by then) he handed me a neatly folded 500 kroner bill. Drinks are very expensive in Norway as some of you may know, and people need to bring a lot of money if they don’t want to use their credit-cards. By the time I had registered the sale and opened the cash-register, this oaf had staggered away with his drink. I carefully unfolded the bill to put it into the register and found another 200 kroner bill inside of it! He had just paid 700 kroner for an 85 kroner drink and just left! I put aside the balance in case he would return, but I didn’t see him again that night.

To my left the man with the two beers still in his hands was about to fall asleep, totally oblivious to what his fumbling had just caused. I smiled and continued serving my other thirsty customers.

That’s all for now. Tata…

Drunks and punks, part 1

2007-11-07T18:17:00.000+01:00

There's something about drunk people I find amusing. Well, a lot of things really, but especially one in particular: Drunks are so confident in themselves!

I've had the opportunity to observe these critters first hand, being a bartender during arrangements here at Brunstad, and they are really interesting to watch. Some of them are of course trying to constrain themselves and look as inconspicuous as possible, while the rest is doing their best to be the center of the world (at least their own little one). A lot of these suddenly outgoing guys (they're mostly men for some reason) are quiet when they're sober, and they go through some sort of transformation when they drink. And the noise they start to make rises proportionately with their intake of alcohol.

One of these men came up to the bar. He looked the bartender straight in the eyes and ordered a drink - "the strongest drink you have" sort of thing. When he got his drink, his attention was drawn to the rubber mat on the counter. It's one of those long, rubber mats that makes the glasses stay put when you're mixing, and it said "Jägermeister" in big, orange letters.
"How much for this?" he said and pointed to the mat - he seemed dead serious about it. We'd gotten this mat for free from our supplier, but the bartender in question wanted to see how far he could take this.
"It's not for sale!"
"That's bollocks - everything's for sale: How much for this?" the guy asked again.
"Okay, how much will you pay for it?" the bartender replied quickly.
"500.00 and that's my final offer!" (That's about $95 or £44.)
"Okay, then" the bartender said, "show me the money..."
And this totally canned guy hands over the money, takes the rubber mat and leaves - probably thinking he made a bargain.

That's just one story, and I have plenty more...

To be continued...!

The Eivind I hate

2007-11-06T10:38:00.001+01:00

The shaking in my right foot increased proportionately with the drama in my replications ...

— To be totally honest Eivind, I don't give a damn.
— ...
— Don't you just stand there, say something!
— I do not know what to say. I'm revolted. I'm surprised by every word you utter. Every word you say strikes me with disbelief!
— Eivind, it's about time you humble yourself! How do you dare to claim something like that?
— 'Cause I'm utterly sure!
— You are hopeless!
— That too.
— I give up.
— Yeah, you do that, but I'll never surrender! One day I'll be heard! And the world will know! And the world will wonder what just happened! And the world will say: aha!
— Whatever!
— Neighbourhood is spelled with a U, you dipstick!

Peugeot 308

2007-11-04T22:05:00.000+01:00

Gaasj, må jeg skrive på engelsk?? Nasj...

Ring-ring! Klokka er 7, lørdag morgen. Allerede før jeg har rukket å trekke mitt første åndedrag, kjenner jeg at jeg er blitt forkjølet. Uvitende om den lange dagen som venter meg, slentrer jeg meg snuvsende opp til kontoret, med Hennings løfte ”bare en times lansering av bil, og en liten Briskeby-konsert på kvelden” i tankene. Jobben min er å være KK (Kamerakontroll), som stort sett består i å stille litt opp og ned på lys og farger på kameraene som filmer i salen. Etter to timers unødvendig venting på generalprøven til lanseringen av Peugeot 308-bilen, er vi endelig i gang. Jeg har allerede rukket å drikke over en liter vann, to kopper kaffe, og noen få sjokoladebiter. Definisjonen på ”noen få” overlater jeg til dere...

Hennings løfte forsvant som morgendugg ved soloppgang da jeg fikk vite at hele produksjonen skulle gå ut på: Lansering av bil, foredragsholder som skulle holde det samme foredraget 3 – tre – ganger, og så festmiddag på kvelden – som selvfølgelig innebar musikkinnslag, taler osv med passende korte interval, slik at man akkurat ikke rakk å stikke ned i hytta eller til hus 33 for å ta seg en matbit før neste innslag var i gang igjen. Det hele ble avsluttet med en Briskeby-konsert, som jeg for øvrig anså som dagens eneste lyspunkt da jeg våknet full av gøsj og snørr og tårer i halsen, nesa, ørene, øynene, og usb-porten den morgenen. Noen andre lyspunkt ble det derimot også:

Jeg hadde inntatt sovestilling (ikke fosterstilling, men den der rett-ut-på-magen-stillingen) på gulvet på Bildekontroll-rommet, da jeg plutselig ble teipet (med elektrikerteip, ikke filmteip). Henning teipet rundt hele meg på gulvet (og det er ganske stort det), og da han var ferdig så det ut som om det hadde skjedd et drap i rommet. Var muligens det han prøvde på også, men han gjorde det i så fall i litt feil rekkefølge. Riktig rekkefølge pleier å være: 1. Drep, 2. Teip/tegn omriss av liket på gulvet, 3. Fjern liket. Man kan vel kanskje konkludere med at jeg hadde inntatt ”lik(e)stilling” på gulvet.

Kari fikk det også for seg å teipe Paradis i gangen på brua, noe som slo godt an. De eksterne teknikerne hadde bare en ting å si til vår teipaffære den dagen: ”Dere er SYYYYKE mennesker” (Positivt ment). Det sier jeg meg enig i.Vi er syke vi!

Vi satte en ny (gammel) sofa inn på kontoret – som jeg i mot mine naturlige søvnvaner klarte å sovne på. (30 min faktisk!). Da jeg våknet hadde jeg to valg: 1. Prøve å sovne igjen, 2. Åle meg langs gulvet for å prøve å skremme Line, som satt helt alene i mørket foran pcen og jobbet. Jeg valgte naturligvis alternativ 2, da jeg er full av skadefryd for tiden. Snek meg langs gulvet, stille som en mus. Utfordring, hææ? Da jeg hadde sneket meg 4 meter og hadde 20cm igjen, kommer Ingrid inn på kontoret. Line snur seg selvfølgelig, og kikker rett ned på meg som ligger på gulvet klar til grabbe tak i beina hennes og skrike VVVÆÆÆÆAA! Totalt mislykket... Men som Paulus skriver: "Jeg kommer alltid tilbake". Eller var det Sokrates, Gutenberg eller noe slik?

Han soppen som holdt foredrag tre ganger, tegnet masse tegninger på scenen som han viste til publikum. Jeg klarte å få tak i en av de tegningene. Den skal henges opp på kontoret til sopp og spe for alle foredragsholdere som stikker hodet inn på kontoret til BCC Media. Til nå har det bare vært én.

Jeg og Line fikk sjokolademousse av Eldrid! (E d forresten någen fra Stavanger så har hørt om ein El-drid?)

Etter hvert som folk ble fullere og fullere i salen (rett og slett dritings), ble vi mer og mer utålmodige på brua (rett og slett drittlei). Alle utenom Tarjei da. Han var like blid og optimist som han pleier å være. Beundringsverdig og drit-irriterendes :). Det er mulig han hadde fått seg en drink eller to, men det sier historien ingenting om. Kvelden var over for meg – trodde jeg – da Lise Karlsnes sang på det siste verset av Wide Awake (ironisk nok å avslutte med den sangen da...), men nei da. La meg ikke senere enn klokka 1, selv om det føltes ut som om dagen hadde vart i en halv evighet, eller muligens 2/5 evighet eller noe slik. Er ikke helt sikker. Tenkte som så: ”Nå skal det bli digg med en god natts søvn! Sove så lenge jeg bare vil, for en gangs skyld!”. Tok et halvt glass vin til og sovne inn på, men nei da. Sovna klokka 4. Dumme menneskekropp...

2007-11-04T14:13:00.000+01:00

I was invited to be a co-writer for the potboiler on saturday, only to be told it was going to be in english. "Crap!" ...... After some thinking I realized it migth benefit me, on a long-term basis, to be a bit better (learn that is..) at writing in english. I logged on, created a profile (wich I find a bit amusing, hopefully you will to if u now my education) and read what was allready written there. I found myself really enjoying the humor and started looking forward to this. Today I really wanted to write something.... I sat there, thinking... Picturing people, faces, jokes.. I sat there, amusing myself and started to write. I nearly finished maybe two words before I realized... : THIS BLOG IS SUPOSED TO WRITE IN ENGLIIIISH!!!!!!!!!!
"Crap!........ Again..." This is what I came up with...

C ya l8r....

Being nothing like normal

2007-11-03T22:03:00.000+01:00

Here the other day, being in need of going to Brunstad one day earlier than all the others, I saw no other option than jumping on a train. Being totally alone I found myself in need of self-amusement, and this time without any MP3 player, fancy cellular phone, travel TV, home cinema, hifi or paper clip to help me, yes, it did not take long before I felt a deep inner need to talk to someone, and because of, believe it or not, some few percent of self-respect remaining, I decided not to talk to myself loudly while people was seated around me. As we say in Norwegian (freely translated): here was the good advices extremely expensive!

Well situated on the train, with my luggage neatly stored in the seat next to me, and with my ticket safely placed in my pocket ready to be stamped, I quickly became bored as never before. At least when the nature passing by outside the window turned into being the inside of a tunnel.

Sitting alone with four chairs at my disposal I had none in my immediate vicinity, but on my left hand side this lad was seated; a chap, but not one of the worst. I estimated his age to be somewhere around 25, maybe less.

Philip aka Eivind: - Hey mate, do you have any idea when this train will arrive in Stokke? ('Stokke' pronounced with an extreme English accent)
Chap: - Hei, eh, jeg ... I mean, hello. Eh, jeg ... I don't know ... really.
Philip aka Eivind: - That's ok mate, I'll figure it out on my own. Thanks!

*silence*

Philip aka Eivind: - Eh, one more thing pal, you don't happen to know how big this Stokke is, do you? How many million people is living there?
Chap: - Hehe, oh no, you're on the wrong field now my friend, I don't think it is millions of people in Stokke ... Thousandwise of people maybe, but not millions.
Philip aka Eivind: - Oh, sorry, then I apologise for my ignorance. I am sorry.
Chap: - Oh, that is no problem. Where are you from?

15 minutes later and I had told the chap that my name was Philip, more precisely Philip Slabbert; and that I was from South Africa, more precisely Johannesburg. I had also told him by then that I was in Norway for the first time, that I couldn't understand a word Norwegian, that my mother tongue was Afrikaans, and that the reason why I was in Norway was to do some 3D animation for a movie. By then I had also figured out his English was poor, he lived in Hamar, he was educated to make furniture and that he thought Kenya was the capital of South Africa. Yes, I knew what I had to deal with ...

It is sad and disturbing that the only way to get real contact with other Norwegians is to speak English to them ... well, well.

After replying all kind of wicked questions, everything from 'why don't you got more tan' to 'how do you guys stay clean without showers', I was finding myself rather amused and started to ask some questions myself; figuring out what the Norwegian think about their own country, their language, their food and their government. I also managed to get a detailed explanation on how to make brown cheese, why the paper clip was such an amazing invention and I was offered a 'snus'; whatever that is to be called in English, but it is a disgusting thing that Norwegians put into their mouth.

The whole trip, 3 hours or more, went smoothly. Having nothing else to do I sat the whole trip and explained African traditions, gave a lection in how to barbeque properly, spoke Afrikaans in a faked phone call, explained the chap how to propose in Afrikaans according to tribe traditions, held a history lesson about Apartheid's history and fall, proclaimed South Africa as the best place in the world and I managed to convert this stupid fellow to support the local rugby team in Vanderbijlpark. Besides, I also taught the guy some made up English words and said my opinion about Norwegians, Norwegian food and everything else regarding this cold country up north ... so as you all hopefully have understood by now, I finally found an amusing way to travel in Norway; and I do advise anyone else reading this, except for chaps, to do the same thing when you have the opportunity.

... just make sure that you don't meet any friends, which I almost did; but I managed to hide behind a pencil while they passed by.

Chap: - You know, if you spoke the language you would fit right in as a Norwegian. You look just like any Norwegian boy.
Philip aka Eivind: - Oh, I get that all the time.

So long! (and thanks for all the fish)

A funny auditor - a contradiction in terms?

2007-11-03T11:03:00.000+01:00

Auditors are strange creatures. These dull, almost dusty men (and some women) who come prying and nosing about in everything we accountants do - and don't do. It is a well known myth that these people are boring to the core, and couldn't be funny even if they wanted or tried to. But if you have a sense of humour you will see that these guys actually are pretty darn hillarious... And when you discover this fact for yourself, you will be surprised as to how much fun you will be able to have (on their account mostly, but anyhow...).

Even the definition of the word auditor holds a surprise:

1. a person appointed and authorized to examine accounts and accounting records, compare the charges with the vouchers, verify balance sheet and income items, and state the result.

2. a university student registered for a course without credit and without obligation to do work assigned to the class.

3. a hearer; listener.

To be an auditor can also mean to be a listener! But to mix this with being the "examiner of accounts" is almost impossible it seems. They are so used to beeing listened to that they must have forgotten how to listen. But enough of that...

These last couple of weeks the auditors we use here at Brunstad have been visiting three days a week. I was of course to give them whatever they wanted - copies of all kinds of papers and files mostly, but also to take them to lunch. And thus the fun begins! To be able to walk these two guys down to House 33 for a meal together with the whole A-team is quite the experience! They are totally out of place, but they really make an effort to appear not to be. And to see their faces when the whole room burst into song for someone having his or her birthday, brings tears to my eyes, and I almost laugh out loud.

But we are actually really lucky here at Brunstad, because the auditors we use are very friendly and they actually understand how things work here. I have encountered many, far worse specimens of auditors that take their job way to seriously, and they are the ones who really fit the myth. But that's another story...

Tata for now :-)

Everything starts somewhere

2007-11-02T11:56:00.000+01:00

The 18th of September I received an interesting mail from dictionary.com. I get one from them every day. I read it everyday. It's the same every day, only different.

This mail, entitled "The word of the day: potboiler", didn't catch my interest in any particular way at first sight, but I must say i found the definition of the word rather amusing:

potboiler \POT-boi-lur\, noun:

A usually inferior literary or artistic work, produced quickly for the purpose of making money.

The play was a mixed blessing. Through it O'Neill latched on to a perennial source of income, but the promise of his youth was essentially squandered on a potboiler.-- Jane Scovell, Oona. Living in the Shadows

If reading and travel are two of life's most rewarding experiences, to combine them is heavenly. I don't mean sitting on a beach reading the latest potboiler, a fine form of relaxation but not exactly mind-expanding.-- Stephen Kinzer, "Traveling Companions", New York Times, April 19, 1998

Potboiler comes from the phrase "boil the pot," meaning "to provide one's livelihood."

I read it, found it interesting, tried to memorize it, failed and went back to do whatever I was doing (I probably did let the word put pride to my MSN nick for a couple of days though. I can't remember). Ignorance is bliss, so I continued living my life as before, without wasting one more thought on the word; and the word was gone for a long time ... until today.

Early this morning, me being barely awake, I was interrupted by this good old fellow. Rob among friends, Robert among friends' friends, Robert Knutsen in the official papers and Robret among the dyslexics. As smug as he is he didn't miss out on an opportunity to correct Eivind's English:

- it is 'saddle', not 'saddel', you nincompoop!
- Ok, Rob, fine, just fine ... *mumbling* you nitwit.

Anyways!

Just minutes later, after our friendship was re-established by extreme overuse of friendly smileys, Robert revealed the news: his brand new blog! As Robert's good friend, and as a writing enthusiast myself, I became no less than enthusiastic about it, and couldn't help suggesting a cooperation; and such a random man as Robert is, the answer was of course a straigh out 'yes', and tada, something new was started: a potboilery (if that is correct to say?)

A quick search in my inbox, some thinking, some discussion and some bravos later and we had a name, perfectly suited for our way of writing.

... what else can this become but a success?

No 1

2007-11-01T23:32:00.000+01:00

So, my first blog...

I've just come back from a fantastic evening with friends and I've got half an hour to kill. We had a steak dinner (which I'm proud to say I made myself) and brownies for dessert - I've found that I actually love to cook! We are not used to this kind of "gourmet meals" here on the A-team (even though the food in general is not that bad) so to be able to make something special is really rewarding. Eirik and Tarjei were of course their usual selves, just throwing jokes at everyone, both of them feeding off each others laughter until the jokes are so bad only Pippi is still laughing. But it's the way we like it, so I'm not one to complain (we are quite damaged really).

Now my pillow is calling, I have to be up at 06.30 tomorrow, the kitchen has started to remove the breakfast at 07.15 now. If you want breakfast you better be there before that or you will go hungry till noon. I'll see if I can manage to write a little bit every day now, just to flex my writing muscles. See ya... c",)