h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Thank you for the old one and a sincere
Happy New Year, Mustapha!

Feliz anna nueva!

and plenty of for 2002.

and all round!

and for Bumblebee the Wandering Norse Princess, lo, what wonderous tales of her journeys in far off foreign lands? I await with bated breath the telling of Bumblebee's Saga - could it rival the Lord of the Rings?

Tsk. You are such a jester, my dear Mustapha!
Up here in the dark North there's not much else to do than eat, drink, and tell storys round the fireplace...

I have never been so aware of how much I dislike the xmas rituals we have to do. Just in my least social period of the year, we're forced to be nice and jolly... Didn't help much that we had to spend two days in hell (mom in law)either.
But enough of that, now we're celebrating another turn around the Sun and we shall look forward to the future.
Witch, by the way consist of a nice turkey dinner with close friends. The snowclad garden is lit up by burning torches and kids go from door to door, singing and dancing. I reward them with candy, because that means good luck.
I think I'm going to get a glass of red wine, and then change into my princess clothes. (Can't walk around like Cinderella on New Years Eve) While you go to sleep. It's way past your bedtime!

It's now well and truly past my bedtime and yours. I hope you didn't suffer any ill effects from the combination of red wine and princess clothes - like your head feeling like a hollowed out

My New Year's Eve activities consisted of a meal at an Indian restaurant with friends followed by barhopping. The mild summer night was lit with the fluorescent green of newly-hired security guards patrolling downtown New Plymouth, and the gaudy blue and orange livery of police cars.

All of this authoritarian presence seeking to keep the young hoodlums out of town, allowing decent law-abiding folk to spend all their money in peace. The result seems to have been a fairly quiet New Year's Eve period, and it certainly felt quite muted in town.

So what did you get for Xmas?

I got a waffle iron from my parents. Afterwards I got a good dressing down for not visiting my grandma...
And I got a great book about the flora of Norway and the Northern Europe! I'm sure it will come in handy one day!
And a funny little orange glass to put flowers in from my daughter.

*rubs her eyes*
Tomorrow I'm going to check my eyes to see if I need glasses. There's no way around it now. I can't keep blaming the monitor, TV, cinema screen forever! So now I've got an appointment with an optician.

I meant

Funny, I got my parents a waffle maker once. Which is exactly how many times waffles were actually made with it.

The usual collection of books, albums, videos and gift certificates were exchanged in our household. My friends and co-workers did alright by me this Christmas. Most received some form of Riverlands merchandise/clothing (Riverlands is a local freezing works/abbatoir) consisting of either caps, beanies, polar fleeces or jackets. Some received an added bonus of a $5 scratch & win ticket. One of them actually won $100 - forgive me, but I'm not sure how much that is in Euros.

A friend and I have recently gotten hooked on superhero action figures. I bought him a Quick Change Superman - a basic Superman with a "Clark Kent" outer shell. It's apparently been a real hit at his place of work. He's planning on buying a Spiderman figure and has ordered Wonder Woman as well. (Though I shudder to think what will happen to her.

Meanwhile I've been stocking up on Spidey figures, getting in before the movie ones hit the stands. I also found a fairly decent Batman and I'm currently looking at some of the X-Men: Evolution series with interest.

So fear not, my soon-to-be four-eyed friend, you are not alone in the land of dom.

Waffle irons are perfect for making warm cheese sandwiches. They look a bit funny and waffley but taste good!
I got a huge, beautiful woolen blanket also, from work, but I knew about it beforehand because it was me that ordered them.
100.- NZ = € 47,07 = NOK 376.- Or there about..
(We're still using Norwegian kroner and we're still not a member of the European Union, stubborn b*****ds that we are... )

Any particular reason for that?

As an aside, NZ as usual tried to take its proximity to the International Date Line by having our Associate Finance Minister be "the first person in the world to withdraw some Euros".

On the subject of sandwiches, a new Subway sandwich franchise opened in town recently and today I sampled one of their sandwiches. I was mightily impressed, and more than just with my tastebuds. It was the simple but very satisfying experience of enjoying something as ostensibly basic as a sandwich that had been really well made.

Why we're not a member of the EU? There are several answers for that, but the main reason is that the EU is undemocratic and represents values that the Norwegian people can't relate to.
I'm putting up a link to a lecture held by Professor Kristen Nygaard, president of the Norwegian People's Movement "Nei til EU" (No to EU)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A626050
The lecture is from 1995, but as the ingress says, there's no new arguments for joining the EU today.

That great work of political analysis "Yes Minister" posited the theory that Britain only wanted to join the EU to destabilise it from within - divide and conquer.

The Professor's arguments seem fairly well thought out and reasonable - I liked his statement:

"Contrary to the Yes-supporters beliefs, opinion polls showed increased factual knowledge about EU by increasing geographical distance from the capital, Oslo. Also, a tendency to decreasing knowledge by increasing educational background was observed."

Very revealing.

The Yes-side is desperate to have a new voteing, now with the Euro and such. I don't think this is the right time though.

He, he, I read in the newspaper that the Euro- coins contains so much nikkel (sp) that people with allergy gets sick! Probably just propaganda, but there you see what level the debates are...

Today, January 8th. is Elvis Presley's birthday, my calendar tells me. He would have been...67, I think. I'm not good with birthdays. My first memory of Elvis is a show I saw on television, together with my parents sometime in the mid seventies.
I think it was one of his last shows. I remember this guy that was wearing a white overall, with sequins and large lapels. It looked too tight, and the legs looked thin under the round belly. I can't remember the colors on the stage. The show may have been sent in colors, but I don't think we had a color-TV at that time. Didn't really matter though, we who grew up with black & white sets got quite good at guessing colors. In our mind we actually converted the different shades of grey into all the colors of the rainbow.
I remember that Elvis was dressed in white, and my parents told each other how fat he had become, and how bad he looked. When the show was over he looked relieved and smiled briefly as he wiped his brow with silk scarves and through them at the audience. What did people want with sweaty scarves, I thought. Yuk.

Spare a thought then for Tom Jones and what his female fans used to throw at him.

Witch reminds me - we went and saw the film "Shallow Hal" the other day. If you haven't already seen it; don't bother!
It was pure cr*p. The theme of the film could have been said in fifteen minutes. Boring boring boring.

Don't worry - it's not high on my list of priorities. However I do admit to willingly see crap movies - that way if someone tells me its a crap movie, I I can judge for myself; and I truly appreciate the good movies I see.

I much prefer the Coens to the Farrellys anyway. Bought myself the soundtrack from O Brother, Where Art Thou last weekend - refreshingly different.

Which can't really be said for Ocean's 11 - which is wearily samey.

Nice cast though
I'm trying to find time to go and see that French film, Amelie from Montmartre. It's tax audit time so I doubt that I'm going to reach the surface before it's gone.

I went and picked up my first pair of reading-glasses yesterday. My view of life is so much better now! And I need them at w*rk so the job took the bill! Am I lucky or what?

Depends. You've just lost a perfect excuse for doing a half-a*sed job.

And are they likely to enhance your enjoyment (such as it may be) of the job?

Speaking of O11's cast, supremely talented cast member Don Cheadle is reportedly much agrieved that unlike his other young co-stars he receives no mention in the trailers. He's surely been in more top movies recently than Andy Garcia.

Ended up seeing Shallow Hal and you were right that it wasn't up to much. Farrelly formulaic.

Can't remember the last time I saw a guy with spina bifida in any movie though...

Bifida - Fido... Ah, I get it now...
How are you doing? I am almost done with with the annual balance that I've been sweating over, and in record time too!
I'm going to celebrate tonight by going to the theatre. The piece we're going to see is called "Festen" (The Celebration) and is based on the film by the Danish director Thomas Vinterberg. There's a film review by James Berardinelli that you can find by googling a bit..