| Stuff and other stuff |
[Jun. 16th, 2009|04:21 am] |
Yeah, I suck at blogging.
Life has been going on. I just got back from Edinburgh. (If I'd waited a couple of weeks, I could have taken a direct flight HAU-EDI with Ryanair; as it was, I went Haugesund-Oslo-Heathrow-Edinburgh and Edinburgh-Stockholm(!)-Oslo-Haugesund with SAS and BMI. (Why Heathrow? Shortest layover. Why Stockholm rather than Copenhagen? Two hours on a 737, rather than two hours on a turboprop.)) But anyway, lovely place, lovely people. Thanks, all you with whom I spent time - it was great!
Also, I'm losing my job. Half a year ago, Hydro Aluminium decided that since they needed to cut production anyway, they'd move forward the schedule for closing the ancient Søderberg smelter at our works. And the planned expansion "K6" would be put on ice. Long story short, I've got till the end of June, then I'm out, along with about half of the other metal tappers. Not enough seniority. We've been jerked around for half a year, and it's actually a relief to be done with it. Now, of course, they're realizing they actually need us guys, because our replacements aren't ready. So they're begging us to stay on till the end of August at least. I've been polite about it; so I haven't given the answer I would really like to, the second word of which is "off". I'm getting paid till November anyway, and can apply for another seven months' pay if I don't get a new job. Apart from the niggling detail of a job market that sucks (though Norway is better off than most countries), it's a good time to quit. Working in a huge electromagnetic field and breathing fluorides and hydrocarbons isn't very good for you in the long term, and besides, the work environment is going to hell. So being bribed to leave suits me well, really. |
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| Congratulations, Americans |
[Nov. 5th, 2008|03:11 pm] |
You have elected the guy who seems like a sane, civilised person. Maybe the US will become something to look up to again and you won't have to feel ashamed over your government and your country.
I hope the socially conservative movement shrivels up and dies, and that its apologists and enablers find decent people to hang out with instead. |
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| I'm not dead yet |
[Mar. 8th, 2008|09:39 pm] |
But my ISP's mail server is in a coma. It's been down since ...Tuesday. Had some moments when mail would trickle out of it, then disappeared again.
So if you're trying to send me mail, I haven't been getting it. But if you are, you're probably an automated mailing list and don't read LJ. Oh well. |
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| 1984 |
[Dec. 17th, 2007|06:30 pm] |
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Stuff like this is why I won't be visiting the US anytime soon. I've got good friends and not too-distant relatives there, but a visit will have to wait till the country is under civilised management. I'm not holding my breath. |
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| The Wheel of Time turned |
[Sep. 18th, 2007|02:25 am] |
Everybody should know by now what I'm referring to with that headline.
I can remember the day I got the Eye of the World. It was 20 September 1996. In two days it'll be eleven years ago. That day I was done with 12 months of compulsory military service, and on the way home I was changing planes at the old Oslo airport when I picked up this promising-looking paperback. Signed too, it was. I read that one, and then the rest of the series as soon as I could get hold of them.
I then got an internet connection, and found this brilliant curmudgeonly newsgroup called rec.arts.sf.written.robert-jordan...
The series went astray, the group lost its high traffic. But friendships remain.
Thank you, mr Rigney. |
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| Tap, tap |
[Jul. 20th, 2007|03:40 am] |
I was dog-sitting my parents' collie last week while they were in Newcastle. On the Friday night I was sitting in the sofa, with Anja the dog lying by the terrace door. Suddenly I heard a tapping sound from over by the fireplace. Tap, tap.
I couldn't figure out where the sound had come from and it had got quiet when I stomped around. So I sat down again.
Tap, tap, scrape. Mice? Tap, tap. WTF?
Then I saw it. In the stove. I only had my mobile with crappy camera, but here's a pic of our uninvited guest.
A small bat was using the stove as sleeping place!
By this time I'd got the dog outside. I tapped on the glass with a newspaper to wake the little fellow. Angry chittering ensued, then he or she took off and flew in circles around the living room. With some experimental turning off and on of lights, I got the flight path to go near the terrace door, and after five minutes of frantic flight, the beast went out.
I showed the pictures to dad when he and mum got back, and he said he'd heard some scraping sounds earlier too, so the bat must have been spending time there. |
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| Hot and cold running nose |
[Jun. 8th, 2007|06:22 pm] |
We've been having the warmest days of the year yet - well over 25 deg C, which is pretty damn hot just coming out of a somewhat chilly May month. I've been home sick from work three days now nursing a bad cold. Started with a sore throat on Tuesday, which I ascribed to the air conditioning in the vehicles I drive at work. (Going in and out when there's some 50 deg C outside the vehicle and some 25 deg C inside it, and getting cold air blown in your face - that's no good.)
Wednesday I felt bad. Clogged head. Sneezing. Nose dripping, nay pouring, a hideously blasphemous ichor. Yesterday I felt like death warmed over. Today it's Friday and I just feel bad again.
...
Oh well. I got to meet three of my dad's cousins who live in the US. They're over here to bury their mother who died rather suddenly (though she was over 80 years old, and in declining health, so it's no real shocker). Nice guys, they're hilariously stereotypical loud Norwegian-Americans and still speak the old native language pretty well. I got a standing invitation to visit them in New Jersey and California. One of these years... |
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| The glorious 25th of May. Were you there? |
[May. 25th, 2007|06:31 pm] |
No, I wasn't. It's a work of fiction, and it's set in a fictional place with a different calendar from ours.
I'm busy enough not celebrating real anniversaries in the real world. Fictional anniversaries? Give me a break.
Congrats to those people over in another cold country who are getting married, though. |
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| Music |
[Feb. 19th, 2007|07:54 pm] |
I heard a bit of this brilliant 1972 track called Hallogallo by a German band called Neu!. And I recognized it from somewhere. But where, dammit?
I managed to find a 192 kbit mp3 of the track, just by googling it. But where did I recognize it from? Oh, yes. The video linked in this post. Funny what one can remember, isn't it?
Yes, I like psychedelic music. Give me 10 minutes of neverending echoing riff with weird sounds on top, and it doesn't get better than that. |
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| (no subject) |
[Feb. 15th, 2007|03:46 am] |
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Got home yesterday, but didn't feel like posting anything just then. I had a great time visiting Edinburgh, and met a whole bunch of great people - some of which I'd met before, some of which I've been in contact with, some of which I didn't previously know at all. Thanks to all of you. |
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| Grrrr. |
[Feb. 8th, 2007|03:01 pm] |
I shouldn't have been able to post this now. I should have been in a plane crossing the North Sea.
Ryanair flight was cancelled due to snow-covered runway at Stansted. Entitlement bitch that I am, I booked SAS as early as possible, which turns out to be tomorrow, leaving 06:20.
Yeah, it cost me some money, but I don't care right now. |
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| Roy is sick and tired |
[Feb. 7th, 2007|08:04 pm] |
So I figured out I desperately need a holiday, and I could dredge up the money - well the credit card anyway (there's a hefty bonus coming in next month that'll more than cover it). And last Sunday was the final shift for three weeks.
Anyway, tomorrow I'm off. Edinburgh here I come. |
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| They're politicians - they hate our freedoms |
[Dec. 13th, 2006|08:54 pm] |
An epilogue in the great story of The War Against Terrorism
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6175427.stm
UK 'plot' terror charge dropped
A Pakistani judge has ruled there is not enough evidence to try a key suspect in an alleged airline bomb plot on terrorism charges.
[...]
But an anti-terrorism court in Rawalpindi found no evidence that he had been involved in terrorist activities or that he belonged to a terrorist organisation.
As well as forgery charges, Mr Rauf has also been charged with carrying explosives.
But his lawyer says police evidence amounts only to bottles of hydrogen peroxide found in his possession.
[...]
The Crown Prosecution Service in the UK said the dropping of charges against Mr Rauf in Pakistan would "make no difference" to the case against the men charged in Britain.
So it all fizzles out - except that you still can't have a decent amount of carryon luggage.
Sure it's due to terrorism. Our elected representatives are the terrorists - they just want a monopoly. Fucking cunts. |
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| A sensible test from OKCupid |
[Sep. 15th, 2006|07:44 pm] |
Third Way Liberal
You scored 71% Personal Liberty and 33% Economic Liberty! |
| A third way liberal believes in little to moderate government intervention on personal matters and moderate to high government intervention on economic matters. They tend to be opposed to war, police powers, victimless crimes, and what they may consider to be a corporate state or rogue capitalism. They generally support personal liberty and believes in a social safety net or welfare state. They support self-ownership and privacy. Third way liberals are essentially the "mainstream" left and left of center. |
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My test tracked 2 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:
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You scored higher than 99% on Personal |
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You scored higher than 99% on Economic |
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| (no subject) |
[Aug. 28th, 2006|08:55 pm] |
On Saturday, it was high summer and clammily, oppressively warm. It's been much to dry.
Today, it's late autumn - rainy, windy and miserably cold. It's been raining so much people have had their cellars filled with water on this island. In the Agder counties, roads have been washed out.
It was so cold I've got a fire going.
Also:
You Are 8% Healthy |
 Your diet is freakishly unhealthy. It's amazing you're still alive! Stop subsisting on white bread and candy - and consider eating a vegetable once and a while. |
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| Glasshouse |
[Jul. 19th, 2006|04:10 am] |
Just finished reading Glasshouse by Charlie Stross. It's a science-fiction story, set in the same universe as Accelerando, but farther into the post-Singularity future. It's also a subtle critique of contemporary society. The 27th century protagonist is stuck in an imperfect simulation of late 20th century life, and has to fight against the system.
This is one of the creepiest stories - if not indeed the creepiest story - I've ever read. The only things that come close are Lovecraft at his best and maybe a couple of Clive Barker's Books of Blood. All these so-called horror authors should read this book and learn how to do it properly.
Yet it's not written as a horror story. The whole effect is accomplished by having it all be so subtly wrong - the setting is an idyllic small-town environment yet a totalitarian system with all the paranoia of the old Prisoner TV-series, and parallels to both Nazism and Stalinism. It makes my skin crawl.
His best book yet. Be seeing you. |
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| A day well spent |
[Jul. 7th, 2006|02:27 am] |
Last Tuesday, me, my friend D. and his brother S. went to Kristiansand to the Quart Festival. Purpose of trip: See Tool play live.
The good bits:
Tool. Damn, but they rule as a live band.
Being at a festival, if only a short visit.
The bad bits:
Missing ferries. Kristiansand is about 3 1/2 hours drive from Stavanger, and Stavanger is one ferry trip from here.
Standing in line to get that armband thingy. Yes, we had tickets, but you need to get that armband, and it was over an hour's wait. We missed Wolfmother because of this.
Getting home at 7:30 in the morning (see ferries above) when you have to be at work at 15:00.
Sleeping two hours in the back of a BMW 3-series coupe (E36 320i) with two tall guys in the front seats. No leg space, no space at all.
This is the third time D. and me have done a day trip to that festival. I always think I miss out on a lot by going straight , but then again I think the whole week would be too much. There's a limit to how much live music and bad beer (don't get me started on the local CB pilsener) - and how little sleep - one can take. |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 17th, 2006|02:08 pm] |
Happy Constitution Day!
...well, except for you bloody foreigners, that is.
I'll be off to work now. |
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| The da Vinci Trainwreck |
[Apr. 15th, 2006|08:22 pm] |
[Slightly edited from a post I made on a Certain Mailing List]
I've been hearing stuff about how bad The da Vinci Code is,
like this post on Making Light:
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/007095.html
And now I've read it. Boy, was it bad. I was probably lucky, because
I checked out the Norwegian translation from the library, which meant
that not only didn't I waste money, but some of the most horrible prose
had probably been smoothed out in the process.
There's been much said about the book before, but I figure a warning is
in order now that the ridiculous plagiarism case is done with and the
movie is soon out.
The book gets off to a bad start. Like, in the first couple of words. In
the original, it opens with "Renowned curator". Said curator gets
gut shot, then wanders all around the Louvre before dying, so he can
make a set of riddles so ridiculously complicated that it can only be
solved by the protagonist, and only when he has the author on his side.
Now, I don't know how "renowned" the curator of the Louvre is. I can't
name the real world one. In fact, I can't name a single curator from
any museum anywhere. Yet not only is this fictional curator "renowned"
among his peers, but "renowned" enough that his policewoman
granddaughter downplays the relation, lest she be accused of milking it.
The characterization is laughable. The only one that seems to have a bit
of background, however improbable, is the albino assassin monk.
Actually, make that impossible. The man's an albino, but has normal
vision. In his youth, he got arrested in southern France, but put in
jail in Andorra.
The protagonist is equally unlikely. Professor of religious symbolism at
Harvard, but doesn't speak even conversational French. This seems rather
limiting, unless perhaps his speciality is Anglican symbolism. It
matters little after all, because all the clues and anagrams are
conveniently done in English.
These aren't cardboard characters. They're stick figures.
People who know Paris well have been critical of what happens to
geographical facts in the book, so I'll take their word for it. I've
only noticed that in this fictional London, an enormous stretched
Jaguar limousine (sic!) is able to speed through the streets on a
Saturday morning. Even though a Frenchman is driving it at that point,
it strikes me as somewhat weird.
And I haven't even touched upon Dan Brown's treatment of history, or the
astonishingly lame writing - I feel sorry for the translator - with
infodumps barely camouflaged as lame anecdotes and flashbacks. And
cliffhangers everywhere.
Oh yes, cliffhangers. At least the tension is high. The whole of what
might be euphemistically termed a plot is over in some 36 hours. It's
basically a prolonged chase scene, with the characters solving riddles
and anagrams on the run. There's a cliffhanger with every chapter break
- or more correctly a chapter break with every cliffhanger, and they're
short chapters indeed. Some places they stop in mid-sentence.
This isn't a book, it's a cartoon. A wretched cartoon. And if you were
ignorant before, you'll be misinformed after reading it. |
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