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Dear Sudanese Government and Others whom it may concern,
My name is Sigg3 and I respond to your imprisonment of schoolteacher Gillian Gibbons after her class chose the name Muhammad for their mascot teddy bear. The news story caught my ear when I was trying to have a nap after a particularly good meal of spaghetti and cheese this afternoon, when my digestion process is in its most vulnerable stage. I am a student of Philosophy, I work at an international research institute, and I also write this blog.

As you are well aware mrs. Gibbons had no intention to insult the Prophet of Islam. I can appreciate your concern for sensitive public issues, but to flog a human being over a non-sympathetic interpretation of a harmless act is taking it a bit too far. Especially since the whole case is hypocritical.

Let us consider a factor you should have taken into account before you acted to save your face: Muhammad is a name. You must agree that the name Muhammad in no way resemble the concept of God or Allah, both by nature and logical extension. The Prophet is not Allah, and The Prophet was a physical man and a historical figure. If this is agreed upon, we may continue.

You never did ask yourselves what the other names were from which the students were supposed to vote, did you? What were the alternatives here? For the sake of the argument, let us assume that these were the alternatives mrs. Gibbons proposed to the children:
- Muhammad
- Ali
- Teddy
- George
- Jesus

Following the reasoning you have portrayed in this case, you will have to agree that since 'Muhammad' necessarily picks out 'Muhammad the Prophet' from all the millions of people, animals and inanimate objects the name in casu may designate; 'Ali' must necessarily pick out (for example) the Famous Boxer, 'Teddy' the late American President Roosevelt, 'George' the Seinfeld character Costanza, and 'Jesus' the purported son of God in Christian faith.

Let us further assume that the children did pick Teddy as the name of their fluffy mascot. Would you still argue that mrs. Gibbons and the children necessarily, from all the possible Teddy's in the world, meant 'Teddy Roosevelt' and that their fluffy mascot was an impersonation or rendering of the late American President and in so doing promoted North-American imperialism in your home country? Or would you maybe, just maybe, consider it a bit far-fetched?
That maybe the designations listed above were a bit arbitrary? Just a little?

In addition, you must agree that the name Muhammad is even more widespread than the name Jesus is in the catholic tradition. I live in the city of Oslo where most of my neighbours are Muslims. And in the street where I live I have got both Muhammad the Hairdresser and Muhammad the Butcher. If I were to put these two and Muhammad the Prophet in front of you, and gave you the proper introduction to each, would you really believe that they were one and the same being? Don't you think that there are Muhammads out there who really deserves to go to prison, or does a first name save them from the law?

And do you believe that mrs. Gibbons was named after the plural of Gibbon apes?

I had the honour to visit your country in 2005, and I realize that you have significantly larger issues to tackle, such as the Darfur crisis and a probable conflict over water from the Niles. I wish you great luck with both of these, and any of the other important matters you will have to handle. But if you as a governing body of Sudan keep up this kind of irrational and ignorant behaviour, that I personally believe a Great man such as the Prophet would have sneered at, then maybe you are unfit for the task and Sudan is up for a downer. And if you cannot distinguish between Muhammad the Prophet versus any other possible extension of the name, then maybe you are unqualified to interpret texts of Law, be they judicial, moral or religious.

With my Best Wishes & Sincerely, Sigg3
P.S. If you think I'm a little harsh you should stop making frustrating headlines.

EDIT December 3rd:
First she was sentenced to a milder punishment, 15 days jail time, because witnesses testified that it was the children who in fact suggested the name. It would be interesting to hear how the parents who demanded mrs. Gibbons' arrest would enjoy the prospect of their offspring being flogged.

Then tensions rose and residents of Khartoum demanded her execution.

After political pressure from the UK Mrs. Gibbons was freed from jail and handed over to the British authorities. She was quoted as saying sorry for any distress and that her parents had not, in fact, named her after the plural of gibbon ape despite one blogger's speculation.

This post is all thanks to my brother who's been having dreams about midgets the last four days, and who will take the scorn if the shit hits the fan. This idea came after a friend of his told about a midget working in their convenient store. I pondered the possibilities of shelf-stocking that it could entail, the way you could make small businesses (pun intended) more efficient through midget labour. From out of nowhere my brother remarked that the last couple of years there's been less midgets around.. "Whereas before..?" his friend asked. "They were everywhere."

When the FSM created the world He created trees, a mountain and a midget. But that was around 6,000 years ago. What about today? Are we seeing a decline in midget populations? Have they all been consumed by the Jack Ass bug? Have they gone, as it were, underground? Intriguing possibilities, friends, which is why I made the 26th Weekly Poll just now to map out the facts. 'Cause fact's what this blog's all about.

Poll #26: «When's the last time you saw a midget?»
Today
Not a week ago
1-4 weeks ago
1-4 months ago
A year ago
More than a year
It's called Little People, you asshole

So go ahead and vote, people! And remember that it's not true what they say; Good Fortune to He who Rub a Midget. Rub a midget the wrong way and you're dead. And if you think this post was somewhat racist, you're wrong again. I find midgets of all colours equally amusing. Except the blue midgets. They're scary.

I'd call this an uninteresting take on an interesting problem. I think the elevator-situation is especially trying on anti-social personalities such as myself. I tend to snarl at people, or sniff their necks to smell the fear, which always cause a bit of unease until we reach the next floor and I get the place all to myself.. And when I'm alone I look at myself in the mirrors, from all the angles, or pretend that I'm several clones of myself. The results:

When you come into a crowded elevator you..
...feel like yelling, acting out: 7%
...are afraid it will fall: 3%
...are worried about your belongings: 7%
...giggle nervously: 46%
...hum to (the elevator) music: 19%
...rub up against strangers: 0%
...think inappropriate thoughts: 7%
...try to fart: 3%
...panic!: 3%

Number of votes: 26

Thanks for participating, and thanks for being so patient about my level of updating!

Yesterday I NEVER had any breakfast because the keys to my house disappeared into a hole in the floor. That's right. I had fifty minutes to spare to both get a decent brunch and catch the subway to the University campus when my keys fell from the hanger, down onto the fire extinguisher and slid behind it. Being that I didn't hear the keys actually hitting the floor I knew there was something wrong. I pulled away the fire extinguisher.

And I was right. A shower of cold sweat (really uncomfortable) ran down my spine.
a) There is a hole in my floor, and
b) My keys are in it.

This is the point of crisis where your mind stops believing what it's witnessing. It shuts off and instead it tells you that you know what would be a great idea? To go back to bed! Especially since I had to consider these facts as well:
c) Time's an issue
d) I don't have a flashlight
e) The "level" beneath the floor is filled with debris and looks uneven. Are my keys even within human reach? Will I have to tear up the floor boards?

I almost laughed from fright, and thought that if this had been a reality show it would've seemed so setup that no one would believe it. With that in mind I fetched my new cellphone and snapped this shot for proof:



The picture turned out all right, but I was still left with a problem to solve. I asked myself: W.W.J.D? I knelt down and prayed the only prayer I know by heart: "Oh Lord, bless this thy Hand Grenade.." I opened my left eye, then my right, blinked a couple of times and whatdoyouknow! The keys were still down there. Not exactly what I'd expected from the all powerful son of God, but there's no use crying over the transubstantiated. Instead I asked myself: W.W.McG.D?


Click here to download theme song (mp3)

Right. You may laugh, but instead of feeling helpless and panicking I now felt that I had at least some control over the situation. With what little intel I'd gathered from my deep hole investigation, I conjured up the following implements of destruction:



From left to right: drink mixer, stirring fork, candlelight with tape, homemade hook-device, scissors.
Note that this picture was taken after the ordeal, and as you've probably guessed I ended up using the homemade hook-device; which was made from my longest screwdriver, a piece of twine and a paper clip. And can you believe that it only took me two tries before lo and behold! My life was saved!?





As I ran for the subway to reach my last lecture on Kant this fall, I pondered why the TV networks had put down MacGyver in lieu of crappy soap operas that only teach kids how to be obnoxious. How about learning to assess situations and do your best with whatever you have? I even remember this kid from Bergen, who saved himself from drowning in a drain pipe during a heavy rainfall by throwing one of his shoes up to street level, which he distinctly remembered from a MacGyver episode..

... then, of course, a friend of mine (mr S.) almost shocked himself to death by putting a fork into a power socket thinking he'd be really cool. It's better to burn out than to fade away, I guess, and I'd choose that anytime over being the product of worthless soap operas and "therapeutic" game shows. Have a nice weekend!

My good friend Michael Park has been hosting the official unofficial message board since 2005, for the few of us who still use the b2 blogging software on our websites. But four days ago Michael made it clear that the long-pending closure of the board has been decided for January 2008, due to the non-existing activity the last months and his own switch to Wordpress the 10th of November this year. Some of you may already know that Wordpress is the successor of b2, and is in many ways what b2 would've become (or became, even). In any case, I'm glad that he bothered to run it because the community was very much alive back in 2005, and I also completely understand why he doesn't bother running it the way things are today. Thank you! And thanks to all the participants who drove us forward after the b2 makers abandoned ship or disappeared.

Myself I've hosted the b2 Cafelog Resource Center for those who needed access to any of the source code or hacks (especially the hacks), and will continue to do so, since I have no reason to delete the files. But unless you see the need for it and want to host it yourself the message board will be taken down in January. I am not going to do it myself. It's a bit sad but it's time to face the facts.

Wordpress (and others) is better and more modular than b2 is.
I've had the dubious pleasure of setting up a Wordpress blog for someone at work @ wordpress.com, and although I was impressed at the simplicity and sense of data safety, it is way over my head in terms of use. But I'm old school/old fashioned. I started with a text-file, moved to flat file databases and ended up with b2. Ended up? Well, I will have to migrate to something else one time or another, because my PHP version will be lagging behind the rest of the world, and recently I have paused my efforts to redesign this site because I realize I will have to change the underlying cogs and wheels.

Anyway, here are the steps I [Michael] took for those of you wanting to migrate:

1. Make a copy of your b2 database, duplicate it under a different name and drop extra table/fields 
2. Install WordPress 2.1.3 and this script 
3. Run that script on your duplicated b2 database and the new WP database 
4. Install WP 2.2 and upgrade your WP database 
5. Repeat #4 with the latest version of WP 

That’s all! :)

It looks like a cumbersome process, but since Michael managed to keep all of his posts there is no reason not to do it.
I just have to find out whether Wordpress is the way I want to go:)

Many have drawn the conclusion that my blog is a useless heap of smelly poo, and that recently, it has only been about my sexual frustrations (save the late picture of Wesley Crusher). Well, I suppose that it depends what kind of theory you are bringing with you to the field and apply to your observations. If you are somewhat Freudian, most things can be tracked down to coitus, if you put in the effort. Alas a friend of mine recently discovered that "everything's about sex", and when I told her that it was probably what she was all about, she knew I was hitting on her. I guess that my food poisoning then is all tub girl-related. Serious issues.

But no. This is a very serious blog for very, very, serious people who come here to think deep thoughts. So deep, in fact, that they can feel the smell of pubic hair in 'em. And that's what a good life's about isn't it? Serious thoughts, serious as flint and bricks, innit? So serious that if you licked 'em your tongue would grow hair.
And no, the guy in the picture is not me.

Anyway, I had a dream this morning about two tall apartment buildings and I was observing two of the windows in either building from a non-existing point of view. In one of them was a pretty naked girl lying on her bed playing with her feet up against the wall, and in the other was my self lying in my bed dressed as a nurse --!

Not true. I wasn't really dressed as a nurse, just checking if you're still paying attention to my story. So I was lying over there, and she was lying over there, and we was both on our cellphones talking to each other. I asked her bluntly if she'd like me to come over and come all over her. She avoided the question by asking what I could see from my apartment. I told her that I saw her thighs, her hand fondling with her torso, and her black panties, yes, I distinctly saw the black panties. Then she told me that she wasn't wearing any.
So you see there was no sex in my dream.


My current desktop@work

As for my food poisoning, I have written down my featured feverish dreams which are way too weird to be posting up here. Instead, you can head over to my infamous scratch book which is my online notepad/waste basket at blogspot dot com. I will be posting it there as soon as I'm finished typing it. Just look for the title: Plus des temps; the joys of food on dreams OR Sunday Steampunk Dreaming. Today I've had waffles & cake, a half-erotic dream and a friend who called me to tell they were having a riot at the mental asylum where she works. Have a nice weekend!

To kill a few kittens, here's Koew's Wesley Crusher cumshot:



Thank you, thank you. Who in their right mind would approve of Wesley? Many people actually believe that the Palme d'Or 2007 winning movie about illegal abortion (previously mentioned) was inspired by the introduction of the Crusher character.

I'm still recovering from a food poisoning I must have gotten this Friday night, when after a great evening with Norwegian Tom Waits cover-band Blow we got some food from a regular hang-out. I had the nachos, which I have had before, and all was well and fine and smoochy. Until the next morning when I had a call from the good lady Fairy of Diarrhea. "I have a gift for you," she said, before she sprinkled me with the magic puke from her wand, and forced me to throw up.

During my recovery I jotted this down in my Moleskin notebook:

My guts blown up by gas like a near-bursting balloon,
and my illness ruling like a God Worm in the acid juices of decomposition.
A swimming worm, yes, also with a pair of splendid palm-like wings.
But when it swims, it's like a Chinese water-dragon leaving toxic trails across my table of physical harmony.
Sometimes it will stop, it prefers the middle of my stomach right below my bellybutton,
where it shoots out its wings to blaspheme in the temple of my body;
with a pain like spiderweb hanging by a few seconds after until subsiding into
comfortable cold.
Like a beautiful butterfly is my disease, alien to my body and therefore unfree
to terrorize the frightened villagers I picture in my feverish sleep.

My anus is still a little afraid to relax, so I'm sitting at the edge of the chair here.'

EDIT 16th of November 07:
Read the dreams I had over at my online notepad.

Staying on the subject of Literature I can brag that my English-Norwegian translation of The Zenwalk Manual was concluded this week and published Tuesday. I have proofread it and an update should be on its way.

Link of the day: Zenwalk Linux Manual or Zenwalk brukerguide

It feels good to contribute, doesn't it? For people sniffing out GNU/Linux as their new OS of choice, I recommend reading the Introduction chapter (her på norsk) which gives you a very brief summary of the history of GNU/Linux and what Open Source and Free software is all about. It's all sex & beer, baby. Have a nice weekend, folks!

The November issue of Truckin is out and, to my big surprise, I am featured with an intemperate, boring bedside tale of head spinning. Seriously. I thought Pauly had forgotten about it, so I forgot to cancel it. It's a damn shame, because now it's too late. My career's ruined. My parents are disowning me. My followers are committing mass suicide as we speak by choking on monstrous bacon burgers with cheese... Anyway, here's what Pauly writes:

Welcome to the November issue Truckin' which contain 60% Key West themed short stories. I lead off the issue with another Key West installment of Existentialist Conversations with Strippers. AlCantHang is in the lineup this month with his own soused tale of debauchery during our sojourn to Key West. And don't forget to read Change100's piece where she described a wild night at one of the Key West strip clubs. Everyone's favorite Norwegian writer, Sigge S. Amdal, is back with another stellar submission and Sean A. Donahue returns with a tender piece about family and distance.

Existentialist Conversations with Strippers: The Afternoon Shift by Pauly
The club was just the type of seedy place where you might find William Kennedy Smith or any other soused heirs to the Kennedy name, knocking back cheap scotch at 3 pm while aggressively fondling the sketchy girls with visible c-section scars and multiple fresh bruises all over their cracked-out bodies....

Lonesome Cowboy Bill by AlCantHang
My comfort zone is a dive rock club where I can chain smoke, power drink, and have my head assaulted with decibels equivalent to a jumbo jet taking off. The next step down the ladder would be the pubs and bars the exist for sole purpose of its patrons getting blitzed on various hardcore drinks. Then comes the sports bars, strip clubs, snooty yuppie bars, and hotel watering holes. Near the very bottom would generally be any place that plays country music...

Seven Minutes with Olga by Change100
Olga led me all the way to the back and sat me down. She took her top off and grabbed my hands, placing them on her very soft, very real breasts...

The Sleep Deprived Memoirs of I by Sigg3
I might as well go to sleep, I thought. And I thought about sleeping forever, the eternal sleep, and how it could feel – was it cold or was it cozy – had it not been for facts contesting life after death in terms of subjectively sensory experience...

Their Father's Love by Sean A. Donahue
Tying to explain the differences and the complaints of a failed marriage is too complicated for a four-year old to understand. I think I heard the phrase, "But why daddy?" more than I ever thought I could. But it wasn't my kids' fault...

If you loved one, two or all of these stories, why don't you forward the address of Truckin' Zine to your friends and family? The url is simply:
age tee tee pee, colon slash slash, em cee gee truckin dot blogspot dot com
This was my 21st text to be published on the Truckin' site since 2003, and if you didn't like this one, you can find all my truckin' submissions in the Archives.

Today there was a high school shooting in our neighbour country, Finland, that claimed the life of at least 7 persons including the shooter. My brother notified me after lunch today about his youtube account Sturmgeist89 and like any other curious person I headed over to see what he had to say for himself. The account was closed mere seconds after I had bashed his so-called manifesto in the user comments, but it is still available in Google cache. Too bad he never will have the chance to learn the true implications of the theories he misread. They could have saved his and his victims' lives. Understanding can save us, but it takes a man to try. It takes balls.

I discussed this incident with a friend of mine, Ari, and I was worried to hear how many incidents they have had over the years. There was a suicide bombing killing seven in 2002. In Ari's wry words: "too few things happening, so we arrange the terrorist attacks by ourselves".



I was going to rectify some of Sturmgeist89's viewpoints, taken from his quote unquote manifesto, which are supposed to justify his actions. Having read it over again however, I don't see how I am supposed to take it seriously. I take offense when people read into philosophy whatever they like from an unqualified footing. Nobody likes to hear it, but philosophy actually demands more than just being able to read. It is a strict discipline. I take offense because he advocated viewpoints from a philosophical area that he clearly does not understand. Eric (his real name) just seems to be a self-obsessed, spoiled and immature brat with no sense of responsibility.

Mark my words; Sturmgeist89 was no frei Geist and what he did only goes to show how much of a "slave-mentality" he was, how many dead Gods he hailed, before wasting his own life, and worse; wasting the life of other people with no part in his personal hysteria. Teenage frustration is not the footing of existentialist thinking. Nietzsche would have scoffed at his pathetic deeds. In his absence, allow me: *scoffs*. My condolences to those left behind.

It was a peaceful Sunday afternoon. I had done my washing and laundry chores, and declined an offer to dine with my mother and a business associate when we - that is me, and me drooges - made up our rassoodocks to go and catch the Sunday movie. You pay the ticket, wait until nine o'clock and show up for the film; the thing is that nobody knows what they're going to show. Well, the people who are going to show it naturally do, but they wouldn't tell you at gunpoint. It's usually sold out.

Being there and picking up the tickets at five thirty gave me plenty of room for dinner and whatnot beforehand. I ended up at the Original Mallick's in downtown center, presently staffed by a couple of nice Indian guys. I got the Mallick's original big bacon burger with cheese and a Fanta with ice cubes.
I went up to the second floor overlooking a street corner with plenty of traffic, with two middle-aged women as only companions. I picked up my notebook and started to scribble down thoughts in order to get them out of the way. I made note of how the two women were talking perfectly simultaneous to each other and still managing to pick up the contents. They didn't say anything particularly interesting, though.

One of the Indian guys arrived with my big bacon burger with cheese, and I put away the note book. Thing is, the burger was great, but it didn't fill me up. Right after I'd had the last piece of jolly good bacon burger goodness (with cheese) I knew in the depths of my soul that I could do with another one, same size. The prospect bothered me, and I was left undecided. I mean, a second burger? How many swine would have to offer me their lives for my satisfaction this Sunday? I ordered a coffee and had a cigarette outside. Maybe my digestion would tell me different if I waited it out.

In the meantime I wrote some serious good shit about traffic light duels and alternative endings, almost to the point of forgetting all about the movie had it not been for the wonders of cellphone technology. I was at the shitter when my brother gave a call to let me know he was going for the theater. It has half past eight already, alas, no time for a second burger.

The movie was a Romanian chick-flick about an illegal abortion in the late 80s, and how it tested the strength of a friendship between two female students from the countryside. It won the 2007 Palme d'Or in Cannes. It was a very sad experience for me, given that my citrus flavored mints disappeared somewhere between the seats twenty minutes into the movie, and I was left with no choice than to pay attention. The theater was full when the movie began but only half-full, to put it optimistically, when it was over. No wonder, because you just can't get enough political correctness. The acting and photography was very good, but the finished product was altogether boring. If you take away the current East-European romanticism and hard-line naturalism to face the facts, the pregnant girl was simply being as stupid as a block of wood. And as my brother put it: this entire movie would never have been if someone have slapped a condom on the table. Bitches be crazy.

Having the best seats ever we were physically disinclined to escape the ordeal, and so it happened we sat throughout the whole thing. When the movie was over my brother wiped a tear from his eye. Holy baloney, I thought, he had been so moved by the hardship this girls had to endure that he considered a sex-change for a sympathy vote. Or, on the other hand, it could just be tears from sitting there yawning the last thirty minutes.

As is usual we didn't feel the night was quite over. After all, it was only about eleven o'clock, and we knew that there was a jam at one of the hot jazz places, no entrance fee. Still time for a burger, I thought. I voiced my idea despite the fact that Mallick's closes at ten. My friends countered my suggestion by pointing out this fact, and so it became that the three of us headed for the jazz jam, yours truly with the burger blues.

Turned out to be a high quality jam as one set more brilliant than the other covered the time span that was expanding in opposite relation to my amount of small change. A cup of coffee soon turned into a couple of beers, and sadly I admit, no bacon burgers attached. Again I told my friends of the situation at hand, somewhere out there was a burger with my name on it, a factor so gravely missed by the laughing heartlessness of my peers. Die Gefühllosigkeit! I thought in German, and raised my fist to threaten the ceiling.

I refused to give up so easily. I appealed to my drooges' sense of justice. Listen, friends I began with lips shivering, no jazz can raise my spirit the way a burger now would do. I confined to them that given the right place and time, I'd lift out the juicy 250g cheesy goodness from the wrappings, put it neatly on a white plate and give it a hug. That's right. Just give it a little cheek, you know, no strings attached. Further on, if mood allowed it, maybe -- just maybe -- there could be a little fondling with the lettuce. Just a loving tickle.. Well By God! I exclaimed, I must be entitled to express my feelings of Passion to you, my friends!

But my good friends turned out to be degenerate demons, and I beg you not to weep when I deliver the tidings that they laughed of my predicament, my sentiment and trapped me there for the eve until light was out in all the burger joints of this town and all hope of Love denied.