30.12.06 (category: news)
This has been a weird year for me. On the second last day of it, I must admit that it treated me gently in the beginning and the middle, only to seriously worsen towards the end. (I actually wanted to write fuck me in the ass but then I remembered there are children reading this blog.) But I'm seriously alright now, looking forward to start up new and fresh, picking up the pieces where I left them before autumn befell us.
And I'm really looking forward to tomorrow:)
Here are my New Year Resolutions for 2007 in do's and don'ts:
1) Finish my on-going novel before the end of 07
2) Seriously consider to quit smoking
3) Reach a better balance between writing/working/studying
4) Stay alive
5) Clean up this site (XHTML 1.0 + CSS2)
6) Move to a new place and finish reading World History
7) NOT spend all my money on hangovers and trouble
8) Get filthy rich on a dirty novel
9) Expand my cooking skills (beyond egg & bacon, spaghetti and pizza)
10) Stay true to myself, to art and life, philosophy, people I love, people I will come to love, to literature and love itself, but also to what changes may be in store, to follow the Way.
If you have any interesting resolutions, please share them with us in the comments below. I hope that 2006 has been good for you, that 2007 will be better, and I wish you a Happy New Year!
posted by Sigg3 @ 6:01 pm
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28.12.06 (category: music)
If you're going to Oslo opera to see the last performance tomorrow, don't read this.
Sitting at work earlier today, my mother sent me an SMS message asking me whether I'd like to see Mozart's opera Titus. A two minute notice to think about it, I shut down the computer and left work earlier than expected. Little did I know of what was in store.
This is Mozart's very last opera. As usual, I don't read the script or research before the show. I want to be surprised and judge it with open eyes. Which sometimes is a drag, if there's too much symbolism.
You can read more about the opera, La Clemenza di Tito, at wikipedia.
This particular performance at The Norwegian Opera (click here for a flash teaser with music and images) lied in the hands of relatively unknown, young singers, and a master mind in opera creativity, namely Peter Konwitschny. Reading in the folder my mother bought during half-time, I was stunned by his passion for opera and the role it has in his view. He thinks opera is a tell-tale mark of our civilization, which is coming to an end, and the importance of opera must not be forgotten. He's apparently a very controversial director, but applauded as director of the year by OpernWelt in 1995, 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2001. Not bad, mate... But does it mean anything?
After seeing this? Yes.
The opera has only two acts, but it was more than enough to make a splendid experience for the speechless audience. The first act, having some lighting difficulties in the very beginning (which I suspect was planned), was kind of dragging itself along. I'm not going to write the story of the opera, you can do that elsewhere, but since this piece have most mezzosopranos most parts were played by girls. Who did a great job, don't get me wrong, but it's always hard to believe someone to be a man when (s)he's got nice breasts. Anyway. Titus was killed, or at least I thought he was, at the end of act I. Curtain down.
Curtain up after a quick cigarette and a coffee. Rome has been put to flames, the Senate wants to know who killed the clement emperor, and after a long good-bye scene between Vitellia and Sextus, Sextus is dragged in chains to receive his judgment. At this point, someone in the audience wanted to find his place. It was the emperor! He had a seat at the front row. From "the other side" he received the praise of the people and participated in the singing. He even got Servilia to sing a few extra lines because she'd been dragged off stage before the aria finished. She was played by the enchanting Silvia Moi by the way, very likely to steal the heart of any emperor.. but I digress.
Titus can't believe his young, male friend Sextus wanted to kill him. And as Mozart writes, he'd rather change his heart than letting Rome come between him and his friend (this is after a long discussion with a bust of himself with glowing eyes). So with a little help of Konwitschny, he literally takes a knife and cuts his heart out! And a lady with a flash light runs in on the stage asking whether there's a doctor in the audience. A guy runs up from two seats in front of me: "Yes!" He comes running up on stage, and a nurse with a bag comes in from behind the curtains. They only have a mechanical, silver heart though, so for the remainder of that scene he's all robotica! But that's after the doctor has adjusted Titus with a remote control, so that he sings in the correct language.
What a brilliant shocker!
And instead of letting Sextus perform his soul-twisted song of agony, dragged between love and loyalty (hey, this is opera!) on stage, the white curtain went down and he sat down at a table with a set of cardboard boxes in front of him. In each one there was one way to kill himself, but fate wanted something else; 1) a rope - the roof on stage was naturally too high up, 2) a box of pills - they tasted too bad, 3) a gun - no bullets and 4) a razor knife - but it was too dull to slash his wrists.
You just couldn't stop laughing.
Another "surreal" element was Death, played by one in the orchestra who played the clarinet. This gave a physical impression of Vitellia's "flirting with death", and it's apparently a mark of Konwitschny. I've heard he often lets musicians play minor parts on stage. He also demands more acting from the singers, which can only be a plus. In the hands of this German director an otherwise mediocre opera was turned upside down and re-vived in new body and colour. Living up to the header of this production: Zustände wie im alten Rom. You won my applause! Excellent! Bravo!
posted by Sigg3 @ 10:35 pm
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27.12.06 (category: thoughts)
There are so many questions in life, that one's head might fall off from trying to sort them all out. Why can't I keep money cold? Why haven't I found a new place to live yet? Where is my favourite hat gone? How do you make a rabbit skin hat like the one I have to wear until I find it? Why did I choose Bluebuerry Bliss tea instead of Raspberry Rendez-vous? And why the hell is it pink?
posted by Sigg3 @ 9:49 pm
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26.12.06 (category: news)
Saturday morning I got on the bus to (OSL) Gardermoen international airport, meeting my brother and mother at the airport. My sister's in Zagreb, Croatia, and wouldn't be able to make it since she was going by bus from Lyon in France through Rome in Italy.. Don't ask.
We were going to my aunt, uncle and two cousins to celebrate christmas this year. And their two cats. One is named Nasty (or Nasti, really, meaning Shining star, as opposed to stars that don't) and the other's called the midly offensive Silk Pussy (Silkepus). I have nothing but love for creatures of the feline persuasion. They remind me of really nice women somehow.
But they should've made them with hair that doesn't stick. Or hairless altogether. I did nought today except from removing cat hair from my clothing.
..and going home by plane. Which sucks these days. Let me tell you about it.
First you get in line to check in, if there's anything you need to check in. In my case, there wasn't, I travel light and back-funded by an economically viable bank account. So I was standing there like a goof among all the other tools going somewhere for christmas, when this kind lady kindly asked me to kindly stop jerking around and get the hell out of the line since I was kind of taking up queue capacity. I didn't even know that was a word.
I got out of line feeling a lot of angry looks from people who apparently were better human beings than I, and then I proceeded to the security checkpoint. After the last cigarette.
I always have a last cigarette before I board a plane.
For all you know, that plane might go down. In a fiery ball of furious flames. If or when that happens, you're gonna be thinking; "Phew. Glad I had my last cigarette already. Bring it on, mofo!" It's the same thing with people in ye olden times who was waiting for the firing squad to shoot 'im. He was given the choice of a last cigarette. You can try and die of cancer right now, or you can put your money on the chance that all of the ten marksmen fuck up their shots.
And you're gonna need that cancer when you get to the security checkpoint.
Before you even get there, there's a guy with something like a waffle iron scanning underneath your shoes, telling you you should take of your shoes. But not here, no. What are you, an idiot? No, you have to walk to the end of the line and then you'll have to take of your shoes. Don't axe me why you have to, it has got something to do with your shoes. Dirty, little shoes. I had effin' mountain shoes too, so I was like G.I Joe standing there with rambo shoes in my hand at the end of the line.
Then I had to open my bag.
A television screen on the wall instructed me that in the summer of 2006 some British terrorists had planned to use liquid explosives to blow up several airplanes going from Heathrow, which is why they needed to put my lip balm (the manly kind, I should add), my deodorant (same thing) and my toothpaste (unisex) into a airtight, sealed little bag for my own protection.
FUCK!
If I knew my devious and evil little lip balm had planned to blow up a plane! Why, I would've bought another one instead!
A kind and gentle lip balm, perhaps. One that would sing sweet country songs about elves and horses and running rivers, like in the Irish whiskey commercials. And my deodorant! What a heartless, fundamentalist, odor removing little antiperspirant! I had suspicions about its schemes, but I never knew if they were true, or what they were about. Blowing up planes. Killing innocent people. I don't even want to talk about the burning, hateful satanism embodied in my toothpaste.
Now I was standing there in line in my knitted socks that grandma made me a long time ago, holding my bag and mountain shoes in one hand and my liquid terrorist toolkit in the other. Then it was finally my turn when they wanted my keys, my wallet and my belt. "Sir," I said, "I can understand why you want my appartment and my money, but what do you want my belt for?" He laid one of those momentarily infinite analyzing looks upon me, and said: "Kid. We don't want any hang-ins." Which was very human of him. I would've hanged myself right there in the metal detector if I could, just out of shame.
After that whole ordeal we learned that our flight had been postponed one hour, which opened up the theoretical possibility of having one more last cigarette before take-off. Theoretically. Because when you're on the inside, there's no getting out, if you don't want to be strip-searched all over again. I looked at my belt. At least the convict sentenced to death had a choice. I had a mint gum, a condom and a lip balm that wanted to kill me.
That was a summary of going there and back again.
The actual staying there was a lot cosier, and just about in sync with previous christmases we've celebrated together. On Christmas eve (24th in Norway) we get up, 
watch the Czech film Drei Hasselnüsse für Aschenbrödel starring the beautiful Libuše Šafránková (picture) who enchants the children and arouses the men. Then we went for a walk in the outskirts of Sandnes, which was more like a walk in Northern England by scene and weather, and we had a little session in church. I'm no christian myself, but it's always fun watching the growing agony in all the little children who can't stop thinking about all the presents waiting for them at home. It reminds me of 120 days in Sodom by Marquis de Sade, except it's barely an hour and all about Jesus.
On the 25th it's "not allowed" to visit other people at all, so you just hang around the house and eat good food, play games or chase the kitten around with the remote-controlled car. And today we went back home.
I'm at work right now, but I'm going out in five minutes to meet Kornelius, just to hear if he's got any idea when he think we left the night club Friday morning, and why I'd spent all my money. And on what. And where my hat disappeared. Anyway.
posted by Sigg3 @ 10:32 pm
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23.12.06 (category: news)
Breaking news! This just in!
A drunken driver flying low above a densely populated area in Canada with a pack of reindeer, was chased and shot in what developed into a wild goose chase among the chimney tops. For two of the officers from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police the 23rd became a little more tense than what they'd hoped for.
Reporter: And can you tell us about the shoot-out?
Mountie #1: Well, we'd got him pinned down by tracking his reindeer on a radar, but when we got to the house in question, the suspect was armed and dangerous, and held a family of four hostage.
Reporter: How would you describe his mental state at the time?
Mountie #1: He was definitely intoxicated, wouldn't you say? Eh?
Mountie #2: Drunk, yes. Amphetamin? Maybe.
Mountie #1: He started yelling something aboot his distaste for his current job situation, and how, and I quote, "elves had always turned him on, but no one really gives a shit what goes on on the North Pole".
Reporter: Horrific.
Mountie #2: But we got him when he tried to escape the scene by climbing up the chimney.
Reporter: Tell us about it.
Mountie #2: The Royal Canadian Mounties are excellent marksmen, ma'm.
Reporter: And the family?
Mountie #1: They've been taken care of by a team of psychiatric experts.
Reporter: What can you tell us about the reindeer?
Mountie #2: They were fierce, eh?
Mountie #1: Had to put 'em down.
Reporter: Are you fearing retaliations from animal rights movements?
Mountie #2: If the animals want to come and talk aboot rights, they're more than welcome.
Mountie #1: Our present concern is with the well-being of the family that was taken hostage, and we will naturally have to look into this alleged elf exploitation.
Reporter: Wouldn't that be union business?
Mountie #2: Vice jurisdiction.
Reporter: Thank you, officers. Back to you, Steve.
Anchor: Thanks, Hannah. Canadian press just leaked this photograph to us which was taken at the scene. We advice viewer's discretion. The graphical nature of the photo might be disturbing for some.
This blurry shot was taken with a phonecam by one of the Mounties, seconds after the fatal apprehension of the suspect, later identified as Santa himself.
posted by Sigg3 @ 11:52 pm
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20.12.06 (category: news)
* This post may contain spoilers *
Taxidermia (2006)
Seeing this was totally incidental. Me and two friends had been out for dinner, celebrating our geniuses with a plate of beef and fried potato chips swimming in bernaise, when one of us had to leave. The other two, including yours truly, were up for more coffee and more action. Since this was yesterday, a regular Tuesday, we didn't want to get drunk. We ended up going to the cinema, and among the films we could want to see was Taxidermia. It lived up to its expectations and more than that. To explicate? It is the only movie I've seen where the little girl from H.C. Andersen's fairy tale The Little-Match Seller gives a pedo handjob. In other words, this is a very dark comedy.
The movie takes us through three generations of men, each with his own life-fulfilling obsession.
The first one is the sexually frustrated Vendel, a Soviet soldier in Hungary who spends his time masturbating to mental images of his lieutenant's wife and daughters. I was intruiged by the ingenuity of this character, and the photographer has done some brilliant shots with Vendel and his candle light. His frequent seed spillage spawns a bastard child in the lieutenant's wife, whom is given the name Kálmán, born with a terrible appetite.
Kálmán's obsession is food (but you could just as well say honour and fame). He's a Hungerian champion in eating contests. This segment almost made me puke a couple of times. At the same time it was hilarous, underlining the insanity of civilization, and let's not forget, fat kids are always funny. This part also had some touching moments, and was probably the "most normal" part of the entire film. Kálmán fathers a son named Lajos.
Lajos is not obsessed with eating. His obsession is taxidermia, stuffing dead animals with sand. As a son of the now mentally insane and grossly huge Kálmán, he grows a profound love for the eternal, the beautiful and classical, which brings him to widely drastic measures to keep himself eternal. A lot of people left during this part and it's not for everyone to see. It was rated 'adult' (18 year old) and I agree with this rating. I must admit, however, that when we left the theatre I was hungry. It is recommended to those who love bizarre and dark movies. A great experience! And I congratulate on the brilliant, but down-played effects, and not to mention a great feat castingwise. There are some really convincing and strangely hugable people in this movie. They are, in their faults, so very human.
Oh, and if anyone can tell me the name of the actress playing the cashier in the third part, please do!
Having seen Thriller: A cruel picture I was obsessed for a little while with revenge movies. The next two films fall into that category and was bought exclusively because of their reputation.
Death Wish (1974)
This film wasn't merely as psychologically driven as I had been hoping for. But given the time it was made I'd say it was quite a brutal film anyway, although poorly followed through in some respects. We follow Paul Kersey, an architect for a firm stationed in New York, a city of millions where crime rates are running wild. A gang of street freaks (one played by the very young Jeff Goldblum) robs, rapes and murders Kersey's wife and daughter. The lack of emotional outlet those times, and Kersey's wish to go on with his life, brings him for a while to Texas on a land assessment. Here he's re-introduced to firearms, and is given one as a gift from the landowner. From this point on, Kersey begins his hidden life as a NY vigilante.
This movie is more action/thriller than revenge. Revenge movies from the 70's and up till today mostly builds on the social connection between the violators and the revenger. Kersey, however, has no face to pin to the murderers of his wife and rapists of his daughter. This weakens the story a bit, and you don't sympathize with the full aspect of his killing spree. But it's still good entertainment.
Straw Dogs (1971)
Without going into any of the tell-tale details, this is the most eery revenge movie I've seen. And since I saw it the first time I've had a couple of more run-throughs, and it's still eerie. Kudos to Dustin Hoffman and Susan George for their convincing play. This movie is so complicated in terms of emotional content, that you feel kind of dirty when it's over. And for a while you don't know who to sympathize with. The threatening country violence that plays the most important and at the same time invisible role in this flick, is staged by Sam Peckinpah who allegedly encouraged physical violence during and between shooting the movie. There were times where a few of the actors had genuine fear for their well-being. This is captured on screen. Compared to contemporary revenge movies like Old Boy, who's pretty straight forward once the plot is laid out, Straw Dogs is deeper and darker. It's not for the faint of heart.
And now for something completely different.
Mission: Impossible (1996)
I saw this not long after it got out on VHS. It's a great action movie, and I saw it when it was aired last weekend. I expect you all know the plot, but I want to focus on the major differences between Mission Impossible and its talentless sequels. The original comes close to the same type of action movie that we saw in the mid nineties. That is: Quality action. It's got all the nifty little things that you want (inherited from James Bond's arsenal), a satisfying dose of action, a good, intricate plot that doesn't reveal itself too soon and character interaction resembling that of Ronin. And it does not try to impress ticket money out of us, it stands in its own right, not in the right of special FX makers. Tom Cruise is good for the role, and he can act (although it's often doubted) as confirmed by his performance in Eyes Wide Shut. But seeing later MI movies is just a major disappointment. That's why I thought I'd nail it up here once and for all; good action makes for a good movie, but it requires more than whatever it is they try to fake nowadays. And it depends crucially on a good story and good actors, as demonstrated in this flick.
The other MI films (and later Cruise acting as well) simply sucks.
La Bête (1975)
The name Borowczyk (director) is often associated with off-beat cult movies oriented around sexual exploration and investigation of sexual dogma. This film, that I accidentally saw at Le Cinemateque here in Oslo one evening, is among the latter. You could say that it's an exploitation of the Beauty and the Beast cliché, or concept if you will, but the movie also tries to be a humorous undressing of our social facades.
Here be the marriage of two young people, arranged by their posh families (one French and the other American), which requires the blessing of the cardinal, while the "innocent" are either dreaming intensely of sex or doing it in the free guest rooms, closets etc.
The acting is quite good, and I did enjoy the story. It's set on the French countryside, mid-summer, and the movie sets off with several long shots of horses in copulation. From that point you've been warned of what's coming.
Forgetting the time it was produced for a moment, the quote unquote erotic scenes starring Finnish (porn) actress Sirpa Lane and a beast with an enormous, dripping phallos seem like a badly produced 80's porn flick. Except from the loud-playing baroque music, which takes them to a different level and makes it all worthwhile. Same scenes rose quite a stirr at the time they were made.
Borowczyk likes to play with symbolism, and this film is no exception. He's also famous for his brilliant casting of really, awesomely, thrillingly beautiful girls, whom spend most of their time on the silver screen in the nude. Pascale Rivault reminded me of Anapola Mushkadiz (Ana picture) and Lisbeth Hummel played her role as the nymphomaniac bride-to-be brilliantly. I loved the rose scene. Great visuals and good fun!
posted by Sigg3 @ 2:08 pm
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19.12.06 (category: links)
This is spooky. Granny's gathered her children around her late at night. Are she telling stories? But why the gun? Maybe she's sick of staying home, evening after evening, watching kids that aren't her own. Granny wants to have fun too. So she's decided to execute all of her grandchildren, and that annoying Annie doll too.
See the guy in the background? He's so afraid he doesn't even dare to come and say hello. And the parents? Where are the parents? They're out drinking and getting laid. What other than a dysfunctional family could have awoken the dark side of granny? Respect your elders. Get off my lawn.
posted by Sigg3 @ 2:24 pm
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(category: links)
Yes. Me. I was nominated for the following accomplishments:
15.12.06 (category: thoughts)
Listening to: Simple Man by Nomi
Anyway. I read in Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet that Washington planned to send US Navy Seals to extract Mulla Krekar from Oslo. Krekar is featured on the latest versions of UN's list of terrorist. They put the operation on hold in fear of ending up in a shoot out with Norwegian police.
American operations in Oslo isn't anything new. CIA agents were scouting here in 2003. The thing is, Mulla Krekar lives two blocks down from me. I've met and said hello to him several times. Sending Navy Seals to extract him sounds pretty James Bond and out of touch with reality. But I guess that's a fitting description of the American administation these days. And yes, he's a nice guy.
posted by Sigg3 @ 2:54 pm
1 comment
(category: news)
First, I nearly didn't get any sleep at all last night. I wrote some good shit before going to bed, and then I started dreaming about this girl. It was all very nice for a while, nice and sexy, but then I started arguing with her.
"You know that you aren't real? I'm just dreaming this."
She had a hard time coming to terms with that. I said it didn't matter, because in my dream I would still love her. But she wanted to be real. She insisted that she was, in fact real. Things went a bit downhill after that.
Then I dreamt, still just half-asleep, that another girl at a café was talked into filing a complaint to the police for assault and battery. I had only shaken her hand!! Wasn't my fault that her hands were sickly thin as matches. Anyway, I hadn't hurt her, but the other two guys working there just wanted my ass outta the café.
I turned off the alarm clock when it rang. I hadn't even nearly slept as much as I needed to. It rang again ten minutes later. I cursed heaven above and turned away. Then a friend of mine called. If there is one thing I really can't stand, it is being woken by a man's voice in my ear. It's really icky. I mean, you're lying there in your boxers, or nude, and some guy is talking in your ear about something you can't really understand. What's all this information? Where does it come from? I'm still in my bed, goddamnit!
Had a quick coffee with him and Kornelius at the Jazz place, and then finally I got to work. Because I had an errand downtown. I neede nail polish remover. Now, why would I need that? I'm not such a big fan of nail polish, especially not on my own fingers. I'm totally against it. But that's not the reason why I needed it either.
I'm re-installing a CPU for a colleague at work.
I need nail polish remover, one with alcohol, to remove the thermal paste.
Finding nail polish remover with alcohol was harder than I thought. Probably because I went to places like H&M and Capahl and shit. These are apparently places for the cosmetically conscious individuals of the human race.
I got in there, and had a look around. Everything was small, round, feminine and in colours from mild brown to mild pink. My eyes couldn't focus. The ceiling began to spin. I get social angst in beauty stores. There are mirrors and big eyes with long, curly eyelashes everywhere. And I'm an intruder. It's obvious. I'm not gay, and I look like something that just recently crawled up from the dirt to join the evolutionary race. So every girl in there is watching me with interest.
Who's that guy? Look at him. Looks a little lost. How cute.
The heat is on, ladies and gentlemen. I couldn't take the pressure.
I surrendered to the help of the cashier. She was insanely good looking, and very understanding of my predicament. I didn't tell her about the thermal paste, as I figured it wouldn't make much sense to her. Instead I stood there like an idiot emphasizing that I needed alcohol in my nail polish remover.
Sexy cashier: Okay.. these are what we have.
Me: Anyone with alcohol?
Sexy cashier: Let me see.. No.
Me: This is no good, it has to be alcohol.
Sexy cashier: But it removes nail polish just the same!
Me: I need alcohol in it! Sorry. Are you sure this is all you've got?
Sexy cashier: We only have non-alcoholic nail polish removers. I'm so sorry.
Me: I forgive you. Please run away with me. Sex on the beach?
Sexy cashier: You are a naughty boy, mister.
Me: Do you like it?
Sexy cashier: I'm gonna have to ask you to follow me to the changing room, sir.
Me: Eh?
Sexy cashier: You need to be punished, little man.
Okay, so it wasn't exactly like that, but you get the idea.
I ended up with one that contained Aceton, and not the kind I was looking for that's called Isypronol or something. When I finally showed up at my workplace, they had had lunch a long time ago. I hadn't even had breakfast. Heck, I hadn't even had dinner the day before! No wonder I was crazed out.
Now I'm just looking forward to getting through the day and attend at the social event of the week; big dinner, free drinks and lots of dancing with pretty girls at the annual julebord. Have a nice weekend.
posted by Sigg3 @ 2:28 pm
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14.12.06 (category: news)
My cousin, Stig-Ø a.k.a kekePower, turns 34 this evening! Congratulations!
Stig hosts a few of my side-projects, and in addition most of the bizarre imagery of this blog. He's also a good side-kick when I run into linux related problems. He's into: computers, wiki and the web, metal music, science fiction, nice and fast cars, allthewhile raising a great family. If you want to help him get his dreamcar, the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX, please see www.can-you-help-me.com. Or you can go to his Mindawn profile and download some of his music.
Congratulations!
Yeah, sorry about the bear, he insisted on those stupid dance moves. And the hat.
posted by Sigg3 @ 6:30 pm
4 comments!
(category: links)
Slashdot informs us that ESA has announced that an entire hidden landscape exists just beneath the surface of the Red Planet. (Read Story)
The picture of the day is a view of Cape St. Mary when you're standing on Cape Verde right next to the Mexican ice-cream van. That picture really raises my pulse!
I admit it looks a bit like a terragen creation, but when you think that that's a picture from the only other planet we've been to, it's really cool.
It kind of reminds me of some pictures I took in Darfur, Sudan.
For more picture in this bulk visit the mission news site.
posted by Sigg3 @ 1:19 pm
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13.12.06 (category: links)
If you read my blog regularly, you know that I'm better than you.
But if you don't, you may not, so I'll tell you right away. I'm better than you.
LOTD: Animals better than you (via Boreme)
The link of the day shows other species that are also better than you.
EDIT: By the way, if you doubted the piece of info on the Tapir, think again.
«The penis of the male tapir is very long when erect. The tapir has the one of the longest penis to body size ratios of any animal. The specimen of tapir believed to have the longest penis ever observed is currently on display at the Koenigsberg Zoo.» (source)
The tapir is better than you.
posted by Sigg3 @ 6:13 pm
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(category: computerwelt)
Being in IT support can be quite fun. More than often you learn about software flaws that the manufacturers themselves are unaware of. And sometimes you can change things. But as we all know, in 90% of the cases, the Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair (PEBKAC). It can be frustrating to be called out when you're working on something interesting, or reading Slashdot, only to find that the problem with the network cable was that it was plugged into the USB port.
What's more frustrating, however, are the times you can't find a solution.
I'm a perfectionist and I admit it. I want things to work smoothly.
Today I was called upon to fix a PowerPoint installation that didn't want to run slide shows.
The client admitted it wasn't anything important. She had friends that sent her powerpoint slideshows (virus source no. 1 these days) and they didn't show. I had talked to her previously and promised her to have a look at it when I had the time. When I got there I ran the Detect & Repair routine, which re-establishes program associations and shortcuts.
Didn't work.
I recalled an I/O error in PowerPoint that I'd had in another case, and where the solution was to delete the Office registry keys and reboot. I tried that. The keys were deleted allright, but the problem persisted. I also tried removing one of the anti-virus applications (AVG Free discontinues in February anyway), running the PP file from the harddrive (and not from temp) etc. Then, after all this ado, the truth dawned on me like a cold shower.
Her workstation is a laptop with an LCD monitor that she uses as primary monitor. But if the laptop isn't closed properly, the laptop monitor will still be registered as the primary one. And PowerPoint slideshows are mostly made to run in fullscreen, on the primary monitor. If two monitors are connected, however, the slideshow will run on the monitor that it wasn't executed from, for presentation purposes.
I adjusted her advanced power settings (When the laptop lid is closed: Do nothing), closed it properly and ran the fugly powerpoint slideshow. It had taken me the better of an hour.
It's so typical to jump to the conclusion that the problem's a lot more complicated than it really is. And afterwards, you feel like the monkey playing tech wiz.
posted by Sigg3 @ 2:31 pm
2 comments!
(category: computerwelt)
If I play more Solitaire now, I will get epilepsy.
Score is still -$467 though... Need to get up from under...
posted by Sigg3 @ 1:00 am
no comments?
11.12.06 (category: news)
It's Monday and I'm still feeling the consequences of a brilliant Saturday night.
I can't say that much about it without incriminating people, so I'm not going to; but it involved free champagne, a French couple, a German pornstar and a lot of Tom Waits. My neck is stiff as Keanu Reeves, my shoulders are hung, someone must have been dancing on my back, and then there are the tell-tale bruises. I got up pretty early today, though. Not because I'm in a great spirit, but because I just didn't get up at all Sunday. Except for making toast.
That's when I almost got killed.
I got my toaster from my mother and sister when I was moving in to the place I live, and for the entire period I have had no other breakfast than toast. Toast with salami, toast with pepperoni, toast with bell pepper ham, toast with BBQ powder and on and on times number of assorted types of sausages. The only exceptions have been them days I wake up with a 7/11 dinner on the floor, or nuke the leftover cheeseburger with fries I couldn't finish. I have a strong digestion system.
You would think that I love toast, but I don't.
I don't hate it, but it's the same deal as with anything else you do too often. It gets boring. In the end, I eat not to die from starvation, and what I eat isn't nearly as important as that I eat at all. And with all the melted cheese in a toast, it lasts longer.
So I was making myself a toast. I had exactly enough cheese for two toasts, and standing there in my playboy morning gown, I mastered the zen of kitchenry when my toaster refused to co-operate. There were no ligths in the little red nor the little green light. Bad connection.
When you're overly hung over, things like these are enough to make me cry.
Why can't the world just, for once, play on my team? Please?
I was standing there wriggling the plug when POOOFFF! a blue/yellow electric fire stood out from the bottom off it as some four thousand household volts rode off into the sunset. Luckily I didn't get to play the part of path of least resistance. It took me a split second of a second to decide what to do. As a kid we were trained for this in kindergarten; what do you do if one of your mates are lit up like a x-mas tree having stuck a fork in the outlet?
a) call a lawyer?
b) turn off the lights
c) check the temperature
d) throw water on 'im
e) disconnect from electric grid then put out fire
f) leave the premises and let someone else deal with it
If you don't know what answer's the correct one, you might not be able to respond correctly to the situation. People are killed yearly for not knowing what to do, since they all automatically do d) throw water on [whatever's burning]. Everyone knows water and electricity are like coke and burps. We've seen Jaws. But sitting on the couch or at the cinema and knowing what the people on screen should be doing, is a lot easier than being on the screen and facing a 100 feet monster shark and doing it. Doing it in, perhaps. Anyway.
You should e) disconnect from the electric grid then put out the fire.
Which I did. There was a big, black mark on the white kitchen bench. Damn. Am I going to have to pay for this? was my only thought. Then one of my co-habitants entered the scene asking what smelled so funny. It could have been the hair on my dead, burning body. She was shocked and terrified, and at the same time happy that nothing serious had happened.
"You could've been killed."
Took me a moment to let that'n sink in.
That would be the day.
«Sigg3, age 22. Loved by at least two people. Read by maybe four, maybe. Wrote books. Studied philosophy at the University of Oslo, played the drums and enjoyed exploring the adventures of life. Killed in cold blood by vicious toaster.»
You always suppose you'll go down the same way that you've lived. If you're a policeman you'll be shot in a drug bust. If you're a priest it will be in a duel with a vampire. If you're Hunter S. Thompson it'll be drugs or a sawn-off shotgun. If you're Steve Irwin it will be the tail of a stingray. It kind of makes sense, and it pays off in drama. Who would've applauded Shakespeare's play if Romeo had been killed in a horse cart accident? Or smashed to death from a falling tree they had to cut down? Accidently walking into a cage with circus lions? Crushed to death by a horny walrus? Ok. You could see that coming.
But killed by a toaster?
I guess it happens more often than we like to think. Most people like to think dying is something that only applies to someone else, like AIDS. Die? Me? You're kidding, right? But I guess it happens this way more than often. On a Sunday afternoon in a playboy morning gown, with a stiff neck and an acheing back, making myself a toast. It was such an everyday situation, that I probably wouldn't have noticed if I had died. Until I realized I was invisible, and could go through walls, talk with Whoopi Goldberg and stuff. And the economic relief, naturally. Being dead is possibly the cheapest thing you can do. But I'm not cheap. And I refuse to let a damn toaster stand between me and a happy future! For once the rest of the world was on my team.
posted by Sigg3 @ 12:04 pm
2 comments!
07.12.06 (category: weekly poll)
When I was little, we were taught that you had to sing for the food. Even in pre-school we did that, although not religious songs. I never liked it, and I still don't.
It implies that the food is listening.
I don't like that at all.
But today there are other compelling reasons not to sing out loud before stuffing yourself, and they don't include weak jokes about taxidermists.
You might have twenty minutes to spare, and you eat at McDonald's. I don't (I prefer not to finanze rainforest deforestation, thank you) but you might. Or you might have forty minutes to spare and you eat a sandwhich at Subway. It happens.
And so far I've never observed anyone kneeling down in prayer or extending arms to sing a jolly oh Lord, thanking Him for the tortured, tasteless piece of swine, embedded in sweat lettuce and smothered in grease, that they're about to eat. But that probably happens too.
But that's beside the point.
I want to know where you eat most often, when you eat out.
Poll #24: «Where do you eat out?»
Fastfood chains (McDonald's)
Pizza places (Dolly's)
Delis (Subway)
Kebab places
Oriental
Restaurants/cafés/kiosks
I don't
Please weight your choice by 'most typical place I eat out'. If there are three equal places, vote three times. Thanks:)
posted by Sigg3 @ 10:19 pm
1 comment
(category: weekly poll)
Out of the 35 participants, 87% are normal people like me. Thanks for participating!
2-5 times a year: 22%
Once a year: 62%
Every other year: 8%
I stopped going a long time ago: 5%
I see him at the supermarket: 0%
I have dentophobia: 0%
Oh, and please spare me the witty remarks on a week's relative timespan.
posted by Sigg3 @ 10:12 pm
no comments?
(category: news)
It's full moon.. I can feel hair growing from my ass..
Just one more night, Sigg3, I tell myself. One more angst-ridden night, and then it'll ALL be over! But I can't sleep. Some cats are getting it on across the street, I can hear them just fine from my bed, and then there's the strange urge to scratch myself behind the ear with my foot. I glance at the calendar on the opposite wall, and a freeze from hell extends from my back to each end-nerve throughout my body.
It is the Eve of the Exam!
*dah dah daaaaaaah!*
Damn. Can't really do them sound effects without, you know, sound...
I'm handing in my exam tomorrow! Yes! A free man! About time.. I've got it up to here with German philosophers! Today I reached that final point where you start Not Writing Any More. Instead you polish what you've got. It's the point where you face facts; if I couldn't do it up until now, then I'm sure as hell not gonna pull it through tonight.
Last night when I couldn't fall asleep either, I got the giggles. In my head a wrote an entire new script to Star Trek the Next Generation, before collapsing in laughter and drool at around five a.m. Can't wait for that normality to return sometime soon.
First there was the end of the semester. Reading for the exams. Then I got the flu. Then I got really sick. Then I got a new deadline, and here I am! The proud wreck of having had nothing but universal pragmatics on my mind for as long I can remember. Today, when I got to the café to write, I started analyzing babies in terms of formal presuppositions I thought I could observe in their behavior.
If normality doesn't return, I'll go for a nervous breakdown. After all, it's x-mas!
posted by Sigg3 @ 1:15 am
2 comments!
