stop looking at me!

Happy valentines day

2012-02-15T09:59:00.002+01:00

Posted this yesterday, but something went funny with it.

I've lost it...

2012-02-13T12:21:00.001+01:00

Remember that huge pile of candy from last night? Remember how I was all "I'm going to eat it all, muahahaha"? About an hour later, I was 1/4 into the bowl and slowly turning a shade of putrid green.
I used to be really good at stuffing my face. Good enough to wear a special crown, if I must say so myself. Not that I would. I've spent countless hours watching "what not to wear."
But last night, I was forced to admit that I have lost my imaginary crown. My poor body isn't used to sugar the way it once was. Right now I'm thinking that THIS time the lesson is going to stick. Although logically I know it'll only last until this damned sugar headache wears off.

Later that day: My headache went away and then I lost my mind and before I knew it, I had eaten more candy and now my head hurts again. I'm telling you, there is something wrong inside my brain somewhere.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

The unlearnable lesson

2012-02-12T20:17:00.001+01:00

Mister Choochoo and I had a little chat and decided that our moods could be improved upon. The best solution? SUGAR!

There is one lesson that we keep learning and then forgetting over and over again, and that is that when two people share a shopping basket and they both wander around the grocery store, stuffing things into said basket without really registering what the other person is doing, they end up with a whoooole lot more junk than they had anticipated. Even Pooch got more snacks than she'll be able to eat in an evening (although she has that nifty tactics of puking when she's stuffed to make room for more)

In my (optimistic sugar-starved) brain, we will TOTALLY be able to eat all this stuff tonight. Run to your nearest bookie and place your bets, ladies and gentlemen!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

2012-02-06T19:14:00.001+01:00

Every Monday, Mr Choochoo starts work early in the morning and doesn't get off until late at night. Given a stupidly long drive home and another early start on Tuesday, he spends Monday nights at a B&B. I spend Monday nights on the couch with my peepers glued to the boob tube. Being home all alone is much more boring than I remembered from when I lived alone. To entertain myself, I stock up on all those things you shouldn't really eat and stuff my face until I'm half a chip away from tossing my cookies. Luckily the mister always comes home before I get fat.

However, in a few weeks he needs to be away for several days for a seminar. I might have to have my jaws wired shut during that period...

In the meanwhile, I'm going to just do this:

A space-alien of my very own

2012-01-13T06:00:00.000+01:00

The other day, I discovered this little fella sitting on my desk. Mister Choochoo's been shopping again :D

For those of you who don't know what this is, it's an Adipose. They're made out of human fat. In the Dr Who television series, that is. This one is some sort of silicone and is ment to function as a stress ball. On the show, the Adipose is born when people take an made-in-space diet pill which contains 'the spark of life,' and before they know it, their body fat bounces off their bodies in the form of oh so cute and huggable Adiposes.

The downside is that the weight-conscious human dies, but you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs. besides, these little guys are much cuter than the people they bounced out of, so there...

I've never had faith in diet pills and I'm sure as hell not taking any after having seen THAT episode. However, since starting a new and healthy lifestyle, quite a bit of weight did come off and so seeing the Adipose sitting on my desk was a tiny bit disconcerting at first. You can say it functioned as more of a stress-creating ball. But I'm over that now and we're buds.

Oh, the horror!

2012-01-11T06:00:00.000+01:00

I mighthave mentioned it already, but I am a tiny little bit of a bookworm. I justfinished reading ’77 shadow street’ where the whole story took place inside aluxury apartment building where unspeakable violence happened every 38 years.

And then Irealized that my body is a bit like that.

I stillhave all my wisdom teeth. For some reason, I’m a proud of that. I mean 38% ofhumanity doesn’t develop wisdom teeth at all. And then there’s just a mess ofpeople who do develop them, but have to have them removed. So getting to keepthem all is a little bit like joining a nice(ish) club. A club where themembers chew their food with heightened efficiency. It’s certainly harder thanit is getting into the college I went to, I’ll tell you that.

¾ of saidteeth are perfectly well behaved. The fourth one is the problem… The lower lefttooth… Every three years or so, it tries moving. After a few days, it gives upand goes back to sleep, like a good little tooth, but it is pretty annoyingwhile it’s going on.

The otherday, Tooth decided to wiggle around in its seat for a bit. Every time it doesthat, I think that maybe it’s time to leave the ol’ club, but before I can getaround to making an appointment with a dentist, the tooth goes back to sleepagain. I guess there are bigger problems in the world, or something.

I would also like to do something about my monthly gift subscription to bleeding uncontrollably. I suppose that won't happen either.

Poor Ol' Pooch

2012-01-09T12:43:00.002+01:00

Ever since this blog started, about a million years ago, Pooch has been my loyal sidekick. My furry, not terribly bright, acts-before-she-thinks-and-often-doesn't-think-afterwards-either, perpetual baby. She likes to bounce and sing. At the same time. She knocks things over in very creative displays of speed and poor coordination. Usually right after she's been outside for a poo. Nothing makes Pooch more bouncy and accident-prone than a good poo.

But although she is the silliest baby in the world, she is also going on 12. In her waking moments she is as lively and daft as when she was young, but she's far less enthusiastic about getting out of bed before noon, and GOOD GRIEF does she snore... She's got a bit of an old lady turkey neck going on. When the postman knocks, she doesn't always hear. Her eyes are more grey than they used to be.

A little while back, we noticed she had a bad limp on her front leg. Remember that? Later we spotted that same limp again. Unsure what to make of it, we called the vet. He figured that it might just be a pulled muscle, but advised us to give her a pain killer. If that helped, it would indicate early stages of rheumatism.

The pill helped.

I wish Pooch came with a rewind button on her. I could start her over again. Not all the way back to puppyhood, as I value my sanity. But a few years would be nice. Although I expect we'll get a couple more good years out of her yet.

Dear God!

2011-12-18T17:20:00.001+01:00

I know that, in the past, we may not exactly have seen eye-to-eye.

I know that I have displeased you by using very bad language. And by inventing very, very bad language. It was mostly uncalled for. I'm sorry.

I also admit that it was wrong of me to fill my neighbors mail box with insulation foam that time. Even if they did use the hallway between our apartments as their own, personal trash heap and had no volume control. But hey, at least I couldn't open their gas tanks to put those ping-pong balls inside, right? It could have been worse.

And when I discovered where the neighbors hid their house key, and then buried it in the garden while they weren't home...that was definitely uncalled for. I am almost sure I would have put it back, if I could have remembered where I hid it. But, you know, stuff looks different in the dark...

I also probably shouldn't have re-wired all the computer screens in our college computer lab - so that they were all hooked up to different computers - that time I got bored between classes. It wasn't my idea! I read about it on an Internet page. I was mislead!

Despite all my obvious flaws, I hope that we can put it all behind us. After all, it's almost a new year and the perfect time for new beginnings, yes?

Now, I have never considered myself a very religious person (I'm sorry!) but maybe you could prove to me that you exist, by...say...making that ugly wind they announced for the 22nd just sort of...turn around and go away? That way, we will have a pain free sail over to Norway for the holidays without me throwing up in front of people. And in return, I will never, ever, ever touch insulation foam again!

Posted via DraftCraft app

What to do, what to do...

2011-12-16T19:01:00.001+01:00

Blogger is giving me trouble, to say the least. for the past few weeks, it has been throwing obstacles at me that have made blogging more tricky than it should be. I've been contemplating if maybe I should move to wordpress.

Whaddaya think?

Clever plan? Horrible idea? What?

Posted via DraftCraft app

Deep thoughts

2011-10-04T19:50:00.001+02:00

Me: hunni? If I suddenly became a lesbian, would you have a sex change operation?

Boy (does the my-girlfriend-just-went-crazy look): That's not something you should joke about. Especially not with your family background...

Me: It's a completely hypothetical question.

Boy: Still...

Me: I could totally not be a lesbian. Vaginas are icky. Except my own. I don't think mine's icky. From a medical point of view.

Boy (does the look again): a medical point of view...?

Me: well, it works. And I can appreciate that.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

I have cool stuff!

2011-09-16T11:24:00.001+02:00

Some might think 11 quid a bit steep for a mug, but we are talking about a mug with which you can travel through time and space. And if you don't know what I'm on about, you really need to watch more tv (dr who).

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:My tardis

GAAAAAH!

2011-09-14T11:03:00.001+02:00

Some days are cursed. Did you know that? They look like perfectly normal, everyday sort of days when you first get out of bed, but then it becomes obvious that the universe got bored sometime during the night and decided to put you on it's hit list.

The first thing I did this morning, was to open the fridge and knock over a sauce pitcher. Red wine sauce from yesterday's dinner everywhere. Even under the bloody refrigerator. The poor kitchen cloth was so gooey after that mess, I just tossed it in the sink, knowing that it would not be good for much until it had been thoroughly boiled.

Then off I went to the ladies room (although Mister keeps telling me that it's not just mine) because all that excitement will get to a girl, you know. While there, I somehow managed to knock most of my hair products off of their little shelf. They landed in the toilet bowl with a splash. Thank you for flying with Air Choochoo and all that shizzle.

"Alrighty then" I thought. "You need a big cup of coffee, is all," I said to myself. I should have known better, shouldn't I? Five minutes later, I was back in the kitchen with coffee all over my sweater. Without thinking, I grabbed the wash cloth out of the sink to wipe the worst of it off...

Yeah.

Now I'm sitting in the living room. The best thing might be to just go back to bed, hide under the duvet and wait for the storm to pass. But I'm scared to move.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

A nerd moment

2011-09-13T11:02:00.001+02:00

I was sitting in my comfy chair, looking at the rain, when a wonderful idea hopped into my head. It was an idea so fantastic, so exciting, so brilliant that I...I...well, I got cracking right away, is what I did.

I would make a reading list for the remainder of 2011. I am a bookworm of tremendous proportions. I found the perfect ipad app for my little task, and everything. After I had finished, I found myself thinking of my list all the time, with a silly little smile on my face and butterflies in my stomach. I asked Mister if it was okay for me to be a little bit in love with it. He thought it over for a few seconds, and we agreed that it was fine as long as I didn't bring it to bed.

Food Fail!

2011-08-30T10:00:00.005+02:00

Last night, I decided to make a low-carb pizza. Why would you do a silly thing like that, you ask. Mister Choochoo and I try to follow a low carb, high fat diet. For the most part, it's gone really well and I'm pretty happy with all my new energy and my stomach no longer going I'm-going-to-make-you-scream-like-a-little-b***h psycho on me.

However, for some things you need flour, dammit! Like if you're making pizza. For my low-carb version of a pizza "dough", the recipe called for a whole lot of eggs (3), cottage cheese (1 cup) and grated cheese (1 cup). Then you had to mix cottage cheese with egg yolks and beat the egg whites until they turned stiff and fluffy. This was to be gently mixed in with the cottage cheese mess, making sure to not kill the fluffiness of it all. The goo I had now made, was going to become the pizza bread.

Yeah, right!

I poured/smeared it into a wide pan and stuck it in the stove to cook for 15-20 minutes at low heat. It looked like a very large egg-white omelette. Why? Because it basically WAS a very large egg-white omelette. Should any form of omelette at any point be a part of a pizza recipe? No, it should not! To my surprise, it didn't taste much like eggs and I'm sure it would make a pretty cool breakfast thing of some sort. But as pizza bread...not so much.

You couldn't slice the thing properly to save your life. The poor "pizza" ended up on the plates in an unsightly heap after having been shovelled up there with a large spoon. I thought about taking a picture, but it was just to horrible to look at. Afterwards I spent the entire night dreaming that I was pregnant.

I am never, ever making this again. Ever.

Zzzz

2011-08-25T13:04:00.005+02:00

This picture sums up my day, so far. I managed maybe as much as an hours worth of sleep. At least I think so, because at some point during the night, I remember hovering mid-air in the kitchen, and I'm almost sure that didn't actually happen.

Gobbling down cup after cup of coffee, hoping they'll save me from myself.

Osama Bug Laden?

2011-08-24T18:24:00.000+02:00

Every once in a while, I like to enjoy a nice, cold soda. I suppose it's not just every once in a while. I suppose I'm kinda hooked on diet soda. I'm basically one step away from owning a beer helmet.

That wasn't my point, though.

Today I poured myself a glass of diet cola, went to the bathroom and when I came back, I noticed something small and black floating around in my glass. I fished it out. It was a tiny pair of wings. Just as I was staring at my find and wondering how a lone pair of wings ended up in my soda, another black lump rose to the surface of it. Then another and another. They all appeared to be bits of a fly. I also suddenly noticed a tiny, black leg on the side of the glass.

So here's my theory; a fly flew into my soda and blew itself up. Terrorism has now entered the insect world. Be very afraid!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Insert title here

2011-08-23T10:45:00.002+02:00

You know how being really tired sometimes feels a bit like being under water? I said "a bit." There's no need to call for them men with the butterfly nets. I've just spent over an hour trying to write an email. It took that long because I kept staring into space and forgetting what I was doing. I'm not even going to tell you how long this is taking me.

Last night, I had a dream that I was a fearless werewolf hunter. I had a gun, the kind with a really long nozzle, and a hang glider. That's right, a hang glider. I was having a really hard time finding a place to land the thing, so I didn't get to shoot many werewolves, but I was very dedicated to my task. Seriously, it's easier to find a parking space in the city on a Saturday. I think this dream is why I'm so tired today. Let me tell you, this sort of thing is a lot more exhausting in real life than it looks in the movies. And by real life, I mean...uhm..that I'm just going to stop talking now.

Another conversation from the car

2011-08-17T00:13:00.001+02:00

Girl: you have two really big mosquito bites on your elbow.

Boy: Don't say it! Don't make me aware of them!

Girl: what, you didn't know? How is that even possible? They're friggin' huge...

Boy: shush.

Girl: it looks like you've been bitten by a vampire with gum disease, or something...

Boy: one more word and you're riding in the back.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Home, sweet home

2011-08-11T16:54:00.001+02:00

We are back from our vacation. We were borrowing my mothers cottage in Norway, and went heavily armed with Pooch's snacks, bones and soft blankets. See, if Pooch doesn't have a nice, soft Pooch-approved place to lie down, she doesn't lie down. Ever. She just follows you around, looking pathetic, emanating a high pitched squeal that you could probably record and sell to producers of smoke alarms and such. She will do this until she's worn out, at which point she'll sorta fall over and have a short nap before she's ready to go again. Pooch is a very persistent dog. Possibly because her brain is too tiny to follow her "master plan" and consider optional courses of action at the same time.

Basically, she needs soft things to lie on and stuff in her mouth. With these things in place, she's a delightful doggie.

And then she goes to sleep like this...

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

The art of going bugshit crazy

2011-07-25T08:00:00.000+02:00

I have a new-found nemesis. Rather, lots of nemesises. Is that a word? Nemesises? Never mind, you know what I mean. What I would love to do, is kill off the entire insect population in this house. Just in our home, mind you. I fully understand the concept of an ecosystem and that if a butterfly farts in my garden, there will be a tsunami in China, or however that saying goes.

I think that snuffing out so many littles lives is justified in the face of what might happen if I don't; yours truly having a psychotic melt-down and doing something potentially dangerous. Like running naked down the street while screaming "they're crawling all over me!"

The flies are by far the most crazy-making. You have the big, fat ones. They're kinda swarthy, with bristles. If they were people, they would be the kind with shoulders and backs so hairy, they could compete with your dog when it comes to shedding on the furniture. They would proudly show off said body hair by wearing washed-out tank tops. They would also sweat a lot. These kinds of flies are loud. Like tiny chainsaws with wings. They're impossible to kill, because they never bloody land. In stead, they constantly fly around and around at ridiculous speeds, making as much noise as they can. You sort of have to give them a good knock while they're in the air and kill them while they're still dazed from the blow. Then you have the smaller ones. These aren't very loud, but ours like to travel in two's or three's and they keep trying to crawl into your coffee mug. The little bastards always know when you have your fly swatter ready, at which point they will vanish without a trace, until you've put it down.

Pooch thinks flies are terrific fun, though. To her, they're basically special toys that were invented so that she can bounce around like a maniac, trying to catch them. Although she's far more likely to injure herself or knock over furniture.

Tonight we tried to save our sanity by using bugspray. Mister walked around from room to room with a huuuge (seriously pink) can of spray. There's something very odd about a hot pink surface with insects painted all over it. Pooch followed him. She' easily entertained.

I was in the dining room when I heard him shout: "Godammit, dog! Stop trying to eat the bugs that I've just sprayed!"

Not the smartest tool in the shed, her.

My brainfart on terrorism and such

2011-07-23T16:43:00.001+02:00

By now I guess that most people have heard about the terrorist attack in Norway. I heard, myself, about an hour after it first happened. Naturally, I was as shocked as anyone else and I spent most of that evening with my eyeballs glued to the online newspapers.

I couldn't shake the feeling that I should say something semi-intelligent on the subject, being norwegian and whatnot.

The act itself - a madman butchering close to 100 innocent people - was disgusting, but in a way I've been as disgusted with things that have been said around this tragedy.

As soon as the story blew, long before anyone knew who was behind this, people started blaming the Muslims. Suddenly my Facebook newsfeed was dotted with exclamations like "throw all those bastards out of the country!" and "death to Islam!" posted by people that I had always credited with normal levels of intelligence. I'm not saying that I can't understand why many would think of religious extremists when faced with an act of terror like this, but since when is an act of hatred an acceptable excuse to spew more hatred? How do you solve a problem like terrorism by acting like a rabid little s***brat in a kindergarden fight?

Then the attacker turns out to be a blonde, blue-eyed, right-wing extremist. He looks like 1/4 of the people I went to school with. After 9/11 we sort of forgot about the "regular" nutjobs and focused all our attention on fanatical muslims. There's a lesson in this to teach us that skin colour and religion isn't a symptom of fanaticism. We can't classify it that way.

The threat of violence is always present, no matter where we go in the world. It's just something we're going to have to live with. There are potential mass-murderers, but there are also serial-killers, muggers, rapists and other creepy crawlies out there. Then there are natural disasters, poisonous snakes and people who drive like bloody lunatics. Does that mean we should spend our lives looking over our shoulder and worrying about those that come from a culture we might not understand? Does that make us any more safe? Why the hell are we so petrified of the Muslims? I'm sure I have a much better chance of falling down the stairs and breaking my neck than I do of being blown up by a jihadist.

I know a lot of people in Oslo, they're alright. One friend had just walked into a building downtown when the attack happened. The windows had all exploded, their car had been totally destroyed. They were incredibly lucky. Another friend was safe at home, outside of the city, but the force of the explosion still made their whole house shake. I can't eve imagine how much worse this could have been. But you know what? I'm not going to spend my life being afraid of what might happen. You can't function that way. We'll be heading back to Norway in a few days and we will have a lovely vacation, free of fear and worry.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

I totally needed one, I tell you!

2011-07-21T08:00:00.001+02:00

The other day, I was sitting in my comfortable chair - the one that makes my butt happy - feeling very comfortable, when suddenly a little voice inside my head shouted "I want an iPad!"

Now, I recognize Tootie when I hear it. Tootie is that silly, irresponsible (slightly psychotic) part of my brain that keeps trying to talk me into buying a hat. Luckily I also have Bergerac. That's the rational bit of my brain that keeps Tootie somewhat in check.

I sat there in my chair for a few minutes, while the inside of my head went "iPad, iPad, iPad, iPad!" I figured Bergerac would pop up any time, smacking Tootie in the mouth and putting a stop to this nonsense. That didn't happen. Because, as it turned out, Bergerac wanted an iPad too.

The next day, Mister and I drove into the city, we hit one store after another and they were all sold out. Bergerac had had some time to think things over by then, and was somewhat relieved. Tootie, on the other hand, hasn't thought anything over in it's life, and was plummeting into a deep hole of depression. It was a very strange state of mind.

I was so obsessed with my new quest, I almost forgot to pick up the book I ordered at the library, and that is not like me at all. I mean, I google "books" regularly, just so I can sit around and stare at pictures of books. They don't even have to be actual pictures. A drawing can be quite satisfactory.

In the end we found a pretty, white ipad2 that was just sitting there, waiting for me to come fetch it. You'd think the day would be saved at this point, wouldn't you? But no. After years of being a student, I am still not accustomed to having or spending money. Spending a lot of money all at once, makes me dizzy. After this purchase, my entire world was spinning around and I had to sit down for a little while. I eventually managed to give myself a migraine.

Then I used my new baby to google "books" and that made me feel much better.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Miami minus the palm trees

2011-07-19T11:45:00.001+02:00

We did and up going out of town, to luvely Blokhus. It's a bit like Miami without the palm trees. We'd ordered a transport cage for Pooch, but it didn't arrive in time. See, Pooch just loves cars. As soon as you open the car door, she'll hop right inside and sit there, trembling with excitement as she waits for the car to start moving. This will happen even if Pooch isn't your dog. You may never have met Pooch before in your life, but if you leave your car door open where she can get to it, you WILL find a wide-eyed dog happily shivering in your backseat. This is one of the reasons why I'm careful with where I let said Pooch off her leash. She usually listens to her mama, but why tempt fate? Especially with the way she sheds...

To keep her from bouncing around in the car in fits of unsurpassable joy, we have to use a leash on her. We also have a fancy doggy seatbelt harness thingy, but we can never find that when we need it. She still manages to get around a wee bit, though. We can't exactly tape her to the car seat.

Conversations from the car:

Mister: the way she's hanging off the back of my seat, is a bit like I used to climb all over the drivers seat when I was a kid.

Choochoo: so now you now how your mother felt.

Mister: except that I never slobbered all over my mother...

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

May or may not

2011-07-12T11:36:00.002+02:00

We may or may not be leaving town today, in which case I may or may not need to pack a suitcase and some food for the road trip. I may or may not need to figure out where all my various chargers and gizmos are and I may or may not need to decide on a holy-crap-I've-left-my-house reading list for my kindle. With all this indecision, I'm very grateful that I'm not being chased out of town by an angry mob, like the Frankenstein monster was when he had to leave town.

One thing is certain, though: Pooch is DEFINITELY going to the vet today to get her rabies shot updated. She'll be crazy pleased.

oh noes!

2011-07-07T22:30:00.002+02:00

I've been doing it all wrong. NOW they tell me :/ Oh dear...

Obsession: then & now

2011-06-29T19:35:00.003+02:00

When I was a kid, I would develop huge crushes on cartoon characters or a character in a book. I remember many sleepless nights in my room, pecking the pillow and pretending it was Spiderman. I don't even want to tell you about that time I read 'Gone with the wind.' I was Scarlett for six solid months. My big stuffed octopus was Rhett Butler. Spiderman Pillow watched sourly from a corner.

Then I outgrew cartoons and moved on to actors and pop-stars. At one point, I had a crush on every single member of new kids on the block. That was tricky, because I only had the one pillow and I was far too cool for stuffed animals. At the same time. I would dream up the most dramatic, exuberant scenarios about how I'd bump into them on the street, they would become completely obsessed with my ca 10-11 year old self and from that moment on, my life would be a whirlwind of happiness, bling & me being worshipped like a goddess. At no point during my fantasies did the hero go to prison for statutory rape, or anything like that.

These days, I no longer obsess over fictional characters or A-listers, but I do have that kind of a relationship with food. Like sushi, for instance. Long before I met any sushi, I knew it would be true love. And as soon as that first maki roll made it's way down my gullet, my suspicions all came true.

If I was told that I would be able to eat nothing but sushi every day, for the rest of my life, I would kiss that person right on their nosey-wosey.

But until that day comes, I have roped Mr Choochoo into taking me to a sushi restaurant this Saturday. Happy, happy, joy, joy.

It's a pie craze

2011-06-27T11:21:00.002+02:00

I have this almost abnormally strong urge to bake. My brain insists on transferring it's cake-obsession onto everything. Suddenly Mister's CD collection looks like cookies, the chairs are all cupcake shaped and the TV is basically a big brownie. If Martha Stewart and the movie "the exorcist" had a lovechild, said lovechild would be my day today.

And yes, I know that makes sense. See what this is doing to me?

Must. make. pie.

Would you like to hear something else that's scary? This was my favorite song in 92. My parents used to say that I had no taste in music. They might have been right. Who'd have thunk it? Not my 12/13 year old self, that's for sure.

Good grief

2011-06-18T12:40:00.002+02:00

You reading, mum? Hmm? Are you? Good book? Mum? Good book, mum? Pet my head? Pet my head! Mum! My head!

Hey, that smells like poopy-pants!

2011-06-17T14:16:00.003+02:00

It's summer. And when it's summer, people tend to leave their windows open so that they won't boil alive inside their houses like lobsters. In that regard, I'm no different than most people. Last week, however, it was completely impossible for us to do that.

I was sitting in the dining room when I discovered it. I was busy contemplating the attack-angle for my breakfast, when I suddenly noticed a strange sort of a smell. Actually, it wasn't anything as simple as a smell. It was more of an... odour. It was coming through the little opening in the window. So I opened the veranda door and poked my head around the corner. That's when I saw this outside one of the basement windows:

I didn't just see it, I coul smell it too. It was a sewage leak. Oh happy, happy, joy, joy. And from the stink of it, it was sewage from a small platoon of babies and elderly people afflicted by something truly horrible. It certainly wasn't OUR sewage. Our sewage would smell normal. This can't possibly have been normal sewage smell. If it was, nobody would ever want to work with the stuff.

Luckily, some people DO choose those jobs. Although their slogan proves that those fumes do damage your brain. Roughly translated, it went like this: "you sh** it out, we suck it up!"

I'm very glad I went to college.

Ain't nothing common about it!

2011-06-10T08:00:00.000+02:00

You know that thing we did where we decided to sleep in the living room to see if I was allergic to the carpet in the bedroom and if that could be what was causing my mysterious cough? That hasn't quite gone according to plan.

This was the plan: We would sleep in the living room on the fold-out couch and already on the first night my throat would feel clearer, I would be more rested and wake up happy. Kinda like this:

This is what actually happened: I woke up, noticing a strange soreness in my throat. I didn't give it any more thought, since it disappeared sometime between the time that I slipped into my robe and when I crammed a sandwich into my face. Then the coughing went rampant. The next day I woke up kind of like this:

It's the common cold. Again. Although I'm pretty sure I've caught an uncommon cold. Surely nobody has ever suffered the way I'm suffering. I'm the most miserable, most unhappy little sicko in all the world, ever.

Since I live here, Mister Chooch has no choice but to take care of me. That was my plan all along, of course. He brings me food and and he stands outside the bathroom door with a glass of water and says "poor honey" while I talk on the big porcelain phone. But he doesn't particularly want to hang out with me, because my cough is giving him a nervous breakdown. It's funny, really. I cough until I retch, and HE'S the one who looks like he's going to drop dead.

Have a video:

Pokesnores!

2011-06-06T08:00:00.000+02:00

Although this whole living-together-shizzle is going very well, I do have one complaint. Mister claims that I snore and I most certainly do not. Only rarely and it's all very dainty and ladylike, of course.

Mister, however, likes to argue with me on that point. Now he's started recording me with his iphone when he's awake and I'm snoring. He says he has four recordings. I've only heard one. I'm assuming they were taken on the four occasions that I may have snored since I moved in here. He calls them pokesnores and says he's going to catch them all.

He's lucky he's cute, really.

I thought this song fits into this post. Except for the bride-bit. That would be weird.

It’s June!

2011-06-01T08:00:00.001+02:00

June is the most popular month for weddings. It’s been that way since the 1500s. This was because people would have their annual baths in May, and still considered themselves relatively clean in June. However, they were starting to give off a certain scent, and that’s why brides would carry a bouquet of flowers to hide the smell. And that’s where the bridal bouquets come from.

Baths were just a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house got the first crack at it, then the sons and the other men. Then the women were allowed to bathe and the babies went last. By the time it was the babies turn, the water would be so filthy that it was quite possible to lose a person in there. Hence the saying: “don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.”

cough, cough

2011-05-29T15:23:00.004+02:00

last year, on September 8th, I came down with a really bad cold. I remember the date, because it was the day before we went to see Salt that my throat started to feel prickly, and I went around that whole day telling myself that I wasn't getting sick because we were going out tomorrow, so there was no way this could be a bug.

It was a bug.

Big bug.

Huuuge bug.

Possibly an extraterrestrial bug.

It's now late May, and guess what! I'm still coughing. It's not a dainty little lady-cough, either. It's the kind of cough that people develop after a lifetime of smoking 120 cigarettes a day. The kind of cough that you expect to end by seeing a pair of lungs flying through the room and splattering against the wall with a wet thud. That kind of cough.

I've spent months running back and forth between our house and the doctor's office, where I've been bled and poked and prodded. The closest I've gotten to an answer, is that although my allergy tests were all negative, it might be an allergy, after all.

Thus started the process of figuring out what the frick I may or may not be allergic to. The upstairs is carpeted, so in order to test whether I'm allergic to the carpet, we've camped out in the living room for the past couple of nights. It started off being simple enough. We only brought the most necessary things down from the bedroom. My earplugs, some battery-chargers, my book.

On day two, we dragged the great, big widescreen TV in here and plumped it down in front of the sofabed. It usually lives quite happily in the dining room. And so on and so forth. For the past few days it's been raining cats and dogs outside, but there's a rumor going around that the sun might peek back out in the next few days. I'm starting to worry that by the time that happens, we will have built ourselves the ultimate cave and will not even notice.

Did you know that back in the middle ages they built their roofs out of straw and such? You did? My, you are clever. But did you know that bugs and things would live in the straw and when it rained, they would fall down you would basically be sprinkled with creepy crawlies? And that's where the phrase "it's raining cats and dogs" comes from. It's also where canopy beds come from. See, now you've learned something today.

Mah gamer edumacation

2011-05-23T20:02:00.004+02:00

Before I met Mister, I didn't really play a lot of video-games. I'd basically been playing the sims since the first version of it came out in 2000. That's a long time ago. I remember before the sims 1 came out, I read a review of it in a magazine. I kept that magazine hidden under my mattress, the way juvenile boys might hide porn. Although I would like to point out that I didn't use it THAT way.

Nowadays I'm undergoing serious gamer-edumacation. Typical conversation in our household involve things like: "hunni, would you mind throwing a hand grenade over there?" and "nice headshot!"

I also have idiot moments. Like when I was playing Mafia II. You're supposed to be a scary mobster, and you drive around in a car and commit crime and whatnot. Mister sat next to me while I played, explaining how the cops might take notice of me if I ran a red light, and stuff like that. I was driving around like a good girl. Then at some point I had to steal a car. Next thing I knew, I was in a high-speed car chase with roadblocks being put up and people screaming and flailing as I drove past, with a tail of flashing police vehicles behind me. For some reason it didn't occur to me that this was not the time to stop at red lights. Needless to say, that didn't end very well for me.

A couple of nights ago, I had a really weird dream. Not that there's anything new about that, as you probably know. In this dream, Mister was having an argument with a gang of thugs. I was "helping" by running around behind them, cutting the thugs' Achilles heels with a pair of kitchen scissors while going "snip, snip! Snip, snip!" I'm never playing 'grand theft auto' before bed again, ever.

I dream weird

2011-05-20T08:00:00.000+02:00

Whenever I tell people about my dreams, they tend to look at me as if I've suddenly turned orange and sprouted tentacles. Apparently my dreams are weirder than other people's dreams. The one I had the other day, was a particularly strange one, even though it was very short.

In my dream, Mister Chooch and I were having dinner at some friends' house. I had a bracelet that was made of bacon. It wasn't real bacon, but it had both the look and smell going for it. Mister Chooch kept wanting to show it to our friends' daughter, because he thought she might like it. This was the most unrealistic part of the dream, by the way. This little 5 year old (?) is what you might refer to as a...uhm... well, I would hate to use the word "brat" about our friends' little angel. Let's just go with "screaming psycho hell-spawn." I doubt the mister would be eager to show the kid much of anything in real life.

But anyway, Mr Chooch wanted to show Hell-spawn my bacon bracelet. I was very worried that the greedy little snot was going to gobble it up, so I kept telling her that it wasn't real. Then she looked at me and said "that's not the important thing. What matters is whether I can sit in the back of the Cadillac and if people would call me Coltrain."

The next morning I told Mister all about my dream, and he did that eye-bulging-thing that he does when I surprise him by saying something so odd he couldn't have predicted it beforehand. I

Remember when I mentioned the itchy-worm crawling through my brain while I was sleeping? I think that might have been when it happened.

The Day My Ear Pooped

2011-05-13T11:44:00.000+02:00

Yesterday I had the dubious pleasure of having my earprofessionally rinsed. I mentioned before that my ear was itchy and driving me batsheit crazy, yes? Yes. That is why I found myself sitting in the doctors office once again, while the good doctor apparently tried to burrow into my brain with her lookey-inside-the-ear-thingy. All the while she said "hmmm" and "mhmm" a lot. I think there's a special course in med school for getting the hmm's just right.

Five minutes after that, I had a green towel draped across my shoulder, a small basin nestled under my chin and a huge metal water-filled syringe in my ear. I must admit that I found the situation to be a bit daunting. I'd only been through this once in my life before and I couldn't remember what it felt like, only that I screamed a lot and had to be held down. I think I was about four years old at that time. This time around, I wanted

to be a bit more composed.

Then there was a swooshy sound and then...well...then my ear pooped. Sometimes things are so gross that they're fascinating. I would have taken a picture if I hadn't thought that might be weird.

Afterwards I felt as if someone had smacked me upside the head with a 2x4. My balance center had not been prepared to have large amounts of wate

r shot at it from a syringe. You'd think evolution would have thought of that, but no. I still have zero hand/eye coordination, which makes life interesting. You should have seen me at the grocery store before, trying to put things into my little blue, plastic basket and missing the basket again and again. Things kept falling on the floor. It was embarrassing. I've probably earned myself a reputation as the town drunk. And I didn't even get to go to the party.

Until this dizziness has buggered off, all responsible grown-up activities are shelved. Until then, I will do this:

it's a rant!

2011-05-11T12:38:00.002+02:00

According to Yahoo, searches for "Osama bin Laden" went up by nearly 100% after U.S president Obama announced that he had been found and killed. Those numbers weren't really surprising. It was sort of 'duuh' information, really. More disturbing, the fifth most popular search was "who is Osama bin Laden?"

66% of the latter searchers were young teens. 34% didn't even have that feeble excuse. I suppose it's possible that this was a logical way to find out more about the guy, beyond 9/11. At least I hope so.

If you happen to be one of those people who conducted that last search, and what I just mentioned was not the reason for it, then I regret to inform you that you are stupid. Actually, stupid might be too mild a word. You are the poster child for birth control. No, that's also too mild... You are the nr1 reason why someone should invent a time machine. That way they could travel to the past and neuter both your parents before you were born. If I was going to say this to anyone else, I would probably have some minuscule concern of hurting their feeling. I'm relieved by the thought that you're most likely to dumb to get the insult.

Seriously, just when you think you've seen the absolute bottom of human stupidity, there's a whole stupid underground garage.

to Van Gogh or not to Van Gogh

2011-05-10T08:00:00.001+02:00

On 23 December 1888, Vincent van Gogh cut off his left ear while he was visiting a local brothel. He wrapped the severed ear in newspaper and handed it to a prostitute named Rachel, asking her to "keep this object carefully." Had Rachel been a modern-day hooker, she could have made a killing on ebay and the horisontal tango could have become just a hobby.

But anyways...

When I first heard that story, as a kid, I couldn't figure out why anyone would do such a thing. Now I think I have a pretty good idea. Itchy ears. A couple of weeks ago, I went to see the doctor because my right ear was itching so much, it was as if a small worm was trying to dig its way into my brain. The doctor gave me medicine to be dripped into my ear three times a day for one week and every once in a while, I was also supposed to rinse my ear with a small, red rubber balloon.

Don't even get me started on the bloody balloon.

Mister Chooch graciously agreed to help me with the dripping, since I kept getting medicine everywhere BUT in my ear. It's harder than it looks, you know. It's not as if you can actually see that little hole. It would have been easier if I'd been a seal or something. After a few days of that, the itch decided to creep through my brain while I was sleeping (that's my theory) and settle in my OTHER ear. Isn't that just wonderful? Now both my ears are full of meds and cotton, and I'm as deaf as a post.

Another week of this, and I'll just go ahead and van Gogh myself.

A Genuine Pooch Adventure: bounce, skip & hop

2011-05-04T09:36:00.004+02:00

You'd think that a dog who's 11th birthday is fast approaching, would want to snooze in the sun or partake in other activities that require a minimum of moving around. Not Pooch, though. Pooch likes to bounce. And skip and hop. She's more jack-rabbit than dog. The old gal makes Dorothy skipping down the yellow brick road look like a fat, lazy cow.

The other day, Wonderpooch was jumping around, when she slipped on the parquet floor and pulled whatever-dogs-have-in-stead-of-an-ankle on her front leg. Much whimpering (mostly from the dog) and limping ensued, as well as a chat with the friendly neighbourhood vet. Now her leg is all wrapped up in bandages that aren't anywhere near as cool as Dorothy's red shoes.

Mister Chooch and I decided it was best to keep her still as much as possible. This became a bigger challenge than we had thought, since ten minutes of lying still completely erased the memory of having been injured and replaced it with the urge to dance. A couple of times, Pooch would give us little heart attacks by trying to run upstairs to see if there were any good sunbeams on the landing. Eventually it became clear that the only way we could make sure that she would stay in her bed, like a good little patient, was if we sat next to it. Which we did. For several hours, until Dog decided to pack it in for the night.

Now she's feeling much better, and suddenly her main interest is napping. Stupid dog.

Attack of the Bumblebees

2011-04-25T19:57:00.003+02:00

That whole weeding impulse that I mentioned before, has gone down quite a bit. Now it's more of a guilty murmur sort of thing. I am officially procrastinating on the whole gardening thing.

And I ROCK at procrastination!

I can doze in bed until noon and still not have begun to procrastinate. I'm also really good at digressing. You could ask me a question and I can talk for an hour without actually answering it. I would be great in politics, if not for the fact that I hate to wear pantihose.

Who invented those things, anyway? The pantihose, I mean. They're horrible. No matter how much you wear them, you never get used to having them on. At least I don't. I always walk away with slight claustrophobia and a new-found sympathy for sausages.

That was first class digression, right there.

This post is really about bumblebees. You didn't see that coming, did you? It really is too bad I don't like wearing pantihose. These days we have truckloads of bumblebees buzzing around in our garden. I use them as an excuse not to do too much gardening all at once. Cause dammit, these guys are HUGE! They're not guys at all, actually. They're queens. Hence the hugeness. They're flying around, looking for little holes in walls where they can set up shop. Apparently they like to live in holes in brick houses. They hibernate in the ground during the winter, and as soon as they're all warm and toast in springtime, they start looking for a place to live.

Earlier today, I was standing in the open veranda door, looking out at the garden while doing my usual procrastination routine, when a bumblebee the size of a bloody ping-pong ball came flying towards me. It was big enough for me to give it a good kick without having to do much aiming. It went "pfbzzzzzzz!" and decided to take it's royal business elsewhere. Which is a good thing, because I'm pretty sure it could have taken me in a fight...

The story of Stalker Kitty

2011-04-18T08:00:00.003+02:00

Pooch is a sucker for a good walk. Mostly I just walk her while Mr Chooch is still at work, but sometimes we take her for a spin together. This is the story of when we took Pooch for a spin and met Stalker Kitty.

It was late one evening last fall. Mr Chooch brought an umbrella with him, in case of rain. Little did he know that on our way home, it would rain kittens. At least one kitten. A stalker kitten.

We didn’t see it at first. There aren’t a lot of lights on our street and there are plenty of trees, hedges and shrubs where small furballs can hide. I just happened to turn around as it darted out of hiding, heading straight for Pooch. It intended to introduce itself. I don’t know what kind of experiences it had previously had with canines, but they were clearly deliriously happy ones.

Every now and then Pooch meets a cat in the garden, but HER way of introducing herself involves chasing the cat into the nearest tree. A few of those cats will just turn around and look at her as she’s running towards them and she’s very unsure of how to deal with those. I had no idea how she would react to this one.

We didn’t really think that the dog would nibble the kitten, but we decided it would be best to move on before it caught up. Every now and then we would look and see Stalker Kitty running after us, staring at Pooch as if she was the worlds most shiny toy. Mr Chooch made several attempts at chasing it away. Each time it would hide in some shrubbery, but as soon as his back was turned, its little head would pop back out and it would be in hot pursuit once more. The only effect the scare tactics seemed to have, was that it no longer wanted to say hi to Mr Chooch. It was, however, dead set on saying hello to Pooch.

Pooch still hadn’t noticed that anything unusual was happening. Sometimes Pooch is kinda thick and not terribly observant. She mostly gets by on her looks.

As we walked up our driveway, the kitten was still following us. Because of it's short, little kitten legs, it never did manage to catch up to Pooch before she shot through the front door, heading for her water bowl at 100 miles pr hour. Mr Chooch then sprinted down into the basement to close the windows that we’d left open. Meanwhile I stayed outside to distract Stalker Kitty so it wouldn’t notice that there were ways into the house. It was a very friendly kitten. It smelled kinda like baby powder. I thought about stealing it, thinking it could perhaps live in the hobby room, or something, but reluctantly decided against it.

After I’d gone back inside, I watched Stalker Kitty through the window. Stalker Kitty was staring fixedly at the front door. After a few minutes a bug or something caught its attention. At that moment it completely forgot that we ever existed, as it chased whatever-it-was off into the night.

And that was the story of the very intense, yet very flaky Stalker Kitty.

Photo from BG Plus for iphone.

The year of funny urges

2011-04-13T10:33:00.004+02:00

Sometime after I moved here, aliens abducted me and implanted a personality-altering probe into my brain. Ever since I've been having these insane urges, and that's the only logical explanation I can think of.

I used to have a very high tolerance for dust bunnies and clutter. Not that I was a dirty slob, or anything. I just enjoyed the lived-in look. These days... not such a big fan. Boy actually made me promise that I would tidy up LESS, because it was messing up his system of things he was supposed to remember and such. That's the first time anyone has ever said that to me. Ever.

Afterwards I went into the bathroom, stood in front of the mirror, put my nose up against the glass and stared into my own eyes. Then I said: "mother?"

Today I woke up with the urge to weed. My brain (which consists of the logical part, bergerac, and the irrational bit, tootie) was just coming to life and Tootie was already wide awake and screaming "weeeeeeeeeeding-time!" at the top of it's lungs. That part of my brain has wonderful lung capacity.

But fate intervened:

See that dark bit in the upper left corner? That's a UFO. Okay, so it's my finger. Never claimed to be a photographer, did I?

Have a song:

Mr Immaculate Driveway

2011-04-10T17:32:00.004+02:00

One of the things that I like about living here, is the lack of neighbours. There are only four houses on our street. That and a really big field. I pretty much went off neighbours the past year before I moved here. There were very spesific reasons for this.

For example, there was the Big Orange. For those of you who are new around here, the Big Orange was my landlord who had some… issues. To put it gently. After I pretty much escaped from my apartment (due to Big Orange being crazy and all), I ended up living across the street from Mr Immaculate Driveway.

Just like Big Orange needed his lawn mowed at the exact same time every Wednesday, Mr Immaculate Driveway needed his driveway CLEAN. Every single morning, afternoon and evening he would hose it down thoroughly. This would take from 20 minutes up to an hour and gawd only knows how much water. The black concrete would glisten. He also wanted to have walls of pretty masonry lining it. This is why he decided to hire a small army of pollacks to make his dream come true. That’s what people do in the ol’ country when they want carpeting or such done cheaply; they hire pollacks. Summer is high season for these things. Usually they get what they pay for.

The Pollack army arrived at the same time as summer vacation. I don’t think there’s anything quite as grinding as the sound of masonry. After a while, those buzz-saws start to feel as if they’re physically cutting into your brain. It certainly took all the fun out of sitting out in the sun. The enormous cloud of dust that they generated also did it’s part to spoil the mood. For the first couple of weeks, they would start working at 8am and keep going until 9pm, Monday through Saturday.

At some point during the hiring process, Mr Immaculate Driveway should have asked his new staff a question along the lines of: “would any of you happen to be masons?”

The answer would have been: “Not so much.”

Mistakes were made. Lots of them. That lead to the workers to keep working until past ten in the evening. This lasted for five weeks. I’m amazed that nobody tried to kill the guy. He would have come second to Hitler in a popularity contest.

Mr Immaculate Driveway had bigger concerns. His property was covered in stone dust. His beloved driveway rapidly turned a dirty sort of grey, despite a vigorous hosing routine. At first he tried to hose it down regularly, while the pollacks were working. That didn’t work, so as soon as the lads knocked off for the evening, he resorted to giving it a cleaning unlike anything it had ever seen before. He would put the hose away once it started to get dark.

The only time during those five weeks that we had a quiet day (other than Sunday), was that Saturday when it rained. I stood in the window, hugging my cup of coffee, watching Mr I.D. He was out in the rain with an enormous red and yellow umbrella, hosing down the driveway.

Can’t say I miss him.

Picture: "hosing down" by Ellabll for deviantart.

Rubbing my spring in your wintery face!

2011-04-09T08:00:00.002+02:00

I took this picture out in the garden a couple of weeks ago. There are flowery things doing their flowery business all over the place, while trees are turning green and birds are chirping. I’m sure if I could work out what that thing is that makes those birdies want to get up at 5am and sing, I could stick it in a pill and own most of the money in the universe.

Spring arrived here for real around the end of last month. If I’d known that Denmark was a near-tropical country, I would have moved here ages ago.

This has opened my eyes to the fact that I may quite possibly be evil. When I speak to family and friends back in the ol’ country, and they talk about it being cold and snowy still, I just can’t help rubbing it in their faces. I’m sure they all hate me by now. If they don’t, then I’m sure they want to.

The battle with the Z's

2011-04-08T00:40:00.001+02:00

For as long as I can remember, I've been total sheit when it comes to sleeping like a normal person. How the hell do they do it, all those people who are off to dreamland ten minutes after their sleepy, little heads hit the pillow?

The exception to the rule is when I'm reading. I'll have my little reading light so that I won't disturb the mister, who gets along swimmingly with the sandman. It's completely impossible to keep any form of consciousness these days, once I stick my nose in a book. And the little reading light just keeps right on glowing its little brains out. After about a week it's no longer brainy enough for me to see anything. My nightstand drawer is stuffed full of dead reading lights. My side of the bed is where reading lights go to die.

When I was a kid, I though that all inanimate objects would come alive at night. Even something like a plastic screwcork had deep, complicated feelings in my world. My mother always wondered why it was so bloody hard to get me to throw anything away. I just didn't want to plummet things into depression.

If my childhood theory is correct, then I'm sure I'm an urban legend by now. Mother readinglights will tell their children to behave, or they'llend up in my nightstand drawer.

Of course, if my theory was correct, I would totally just puppy-mill the little buggers.

Maybe some day I'll get around to changing their batteries. But knowing me, probably not.

Also not helpful: I tried blogging this from my ipod while still in the comfort of my bed. Stupid ipod app posted on the wrong blog, of course. And then I had to get up and on my computer to fix the mess. Definitly awake now.

Boy/Girl moment

2011-04-07T21:37:00.001+02:00

Boy comes into bedroom at night. Girl is already in bed, reading a book.

Don’t get too excited, you pervert!

Boy: I wanted to let the dog out again, but I couldn’t find her collar.

Girl: Where’d you look for it?

Boy: The hallway, by the porch door. You know, all the places where it usually is. Couldn’t find it.

Girl: That’s cause it’s on the dog.

Boy: Oh…

2010-09-27T19:17:00.002+02:00

Sausageboobies!

When you’re hungry and you don’t have the brainjuice to magic up complicated dishes in the kitchen, then hot dogs is a simple and tasty alternative. At least that’s what Mr Chooch and I decided on the other day. We picked up a bunch of sausages and those funny French hot dog breads. But… well…. We opened the hot dog bag (they come in a bag here, they do) and saw that they weren’t sausages. They were SAUSAGEBOOBIES!

Not sure what else to say, really.

We still ate them. There are people starving in this world, after all. But we did remove the nipple ends and feed them to Pooch. She didn’t think they were creepy at all.

2010-09-20T05:00:00.001+02:00

In the autumn…

One of the things that I really appreciate about autumn – other than the pretty colors and all those usual things that people like to point out about the season – is that people start putting their damn shoes back on. Don’t get me wrong; I love sexy, strappy slingbacks as much as the next girl, but that doesn’t mean that I will necessarily enjoy the sight of your toes in them.

Some people’s feet are just WRONG. Unnatural. An affront to nature. Toes like diseased branches on dying trees. It’s not that I judge people. I wouldn’t do that (out loud). I mean, it’s not like people have effed up their feet on purpose. Not in most cases. God did that to them, or something. It’s not THEIR fault. But people do seem to have less SHAME these days then they used to. Which is really weird, considering the unrealistic modern-day body focus in the media. Maybe we all got so obsessed with out waist lines that we forgot all about our feet? Or maybe we’ve become too convinced that fresh air and sunshine is the cure for all that ails you.

Whatever the cause, the warm months of summer is full of people running around with open toe shoes and sandals, sporting feet that you would normally only see attached to elderly elephants on animal planet. And then they put on toe rings and ankle bracelets to draw attention to it. And what the h*** is up with the long, maniqured toe nails some people have going on? Claws on your feet…that ain’t pretty.

I’m not saying that my feet are perfect. But guess what I got on’em! SHOES!

Sheesh.

Here's a video that I loved when I was a kid:

2010-09-13T06:00:00.002+02:00

Is it moving? Poke it with a stick!

I woke up on Tuesday morning, throat feeling really scratchy. ”Wow,” I thought. ”I must have been snoring my head off for most of the night.” I felt sorry for Mr Chooch who has to sleep next to my impersonation of a sawmill and who still has to act as if I’m adorable in the morning. Not that I’m NOT adorable in the morning, but still… However, as the day passed, the scratchiness didn’t go away. Instead it crawled up my throat and into my nose, from where it proceeded to fill my head with cotton.

I was sickly.

Coming down with a bug is like going through the five stages of grief. Have you ever noticed that?

First there’s denial. I spent day 1 telling myself that I was NOT sick. I felt wonderful. I was the picture of health. A shining example of wellbeing. The very definition of vigor. I just had some dust in my throat or something. Probably a little speck had gotten stuck in there when I dusted the window sill the day before. I always knew dusting wasn’t good for you and I swore to never do it again.

Later that night there was anger. That's the second stage, you know. Anger. I started feeling worse. There was no denying that the little speck of dust wasn’t dust at all, but some sort of angry, evil devil-germ that had attacked me for no good reason. It wasn’t bloody fair. I didn’t deserve to be sick. I don’t go around kicking puppies or saying (horribly) bad things about people (who don’t deserve it). If I could just get my hands on whoever had stuck me with their bug… And so on and so forth.

Then there was stage three; bargaining. If only this stupid germ would go away quickly, I would exercise loads and eat healthy foods. Like oranges propped full of vitamin C. I’d even take vitamins! And I would procrastinate less. I’d use my normal, healthy energy to get stuff done rather than playing computer games or reading magazines or staring into space. I would never again throw my clothes in a pile on the floor, I’d stop spending money on things that are silly, I’d wear sensible shoes. I’d take Pooch for longer walks every single day, even when it’s raining and said Pooch doesn’t want to go outside because she hates getting wet…

The next stage is depression. Let’s just say that Mr Chooch is lucky that he spent that particular day at work, even if the copy machine did break just as he was short on lecture material. Poor Pooch wasn’t so lucky. Being stuck in a house with a whiny, blubbering snot-machine is…yes. It really is. Let’s just leave it at that.

Now I’ve accepted the fact that I’m sickly. I’ve built myself a disease-cave. As soon as Mr Chooch gets out of bed, I empty out my handbag on his side of the bed. Ipod, kindle, cellphone, tissues, nasal spray, cough medicine etc spilling everywhere. Then he fixes me breakfast (soft squishy food) and a big thermocup of tea before he goes to work. Then I just spend my day under the covers with Pooch, all my crap and my laptop computer.

Maybe I’ll try this health tip, though:

2010-09-08T15:29:00.003+02:00

Hello!

Remember me? The owner of this here blog? Need a moment to dig around in your memory cells? Is there such a thing as memory cells? Maybe not unless you’re a computer… Need a moment to dig around in your computers memory cells?

So I have moved. It’s not the first time. But it is the first time that I got to hawl my crap across an ocean. I decided to do the whole moving-thing in stages, so not to totally traumatize poor Mr Chooch with my girlyness. Men can be fragile, you know.

Stage 1, Potted plants:
Nearly completed, actually. Cause us girls, we know that windows are supposed to be pretty. And not be used as storage units. It’s the same reason why we put on mascara. Slowly but surely, over the past few weeks, I have been sticking potted plants into the windows and onto any flat (or just flatish) surface, until the clutter simply had to move because there was no room for it anymore. Clever, eh? I have also been awarded the nickname ”plant-monster”. I may make myself a badge.
Stage 2, Picture-frenzy:

Why don’t men hang pictures on the walls? Of all my male friends who have never been hitched (or had an overly domineering mother), there’s only two who have pictures on the walls. And they’re all of cars… Nudie calendars don’t count. Mr Chooch owned paintings. They were lined up along the walls. Loads of wallspace left, though.

And that’s as far as I’ve gotten. I’ve been slowed down by a bug. I am a sicky. My nose is all clogged up and my throat is trying to kill me off. Did you know that vomit can come out of your nose? I had no idea until just the other day. The things you learn… Overshare? Well, maybe.
Have another song:

2010-08-07T08:00:00.000+02:00

Leaving on a jet plane!

That’s not true. I’m leaving on a ship. A great, big floating mall type thing. I will have to buy myself something purdy while I’m there. Provided that I don’t take another motion sickness pill and spend yet another trip enveloped in unconsciousness, that is. That option is more wallet friendly but somewhat less entertaining. Note to self: buy large waterdispenser for Pooch's travel cage so that she can make believe she's a huge hamster.

So the next time you see me, I will be living in the land of danishes, lego and the little mermaid statue. And with a boy, at that. Oh my. If my kindergarden self could see me now, she’d hit me over the head with a plastic showel. Then my kindergarden self and my microbiologist self could have an argument about cooties.

I'm digressing again, aren't I? Now if you'll all excuse me, I have my I'm-going-to-be-an-immigrant-party to get set up for.

Here, have a song:

2010-08-03T15:04:00.002+02:00

Rockstar Walkies and itchy toes

Throughout her life, Pooch has fine-tuned a theory. Actually, Pooch has a wide variety of theories. Such as that if she places her head on your left knee, treats pop out of you. Or that if she throws her toys at your head, treats pop out of you. Or that if she sits and stares at you for hours without blinking, treats pop out of you.

The theory I’m refering to at the moment, is a different kind of theory. It claims that walks are more pleasurable if they involve autoasphyxiation. She’s like a small, furry David Carradine. Most doggies can be tought leash manners fairly easily, since they’re pulling to get you from A to B faster. Pooch is different, though. She pulls for the joy of pulling. Them arctic breed types can be funny that way.

I have a confession to make. I was definitly going somewhere with this, but I completely forget where. I got distracted by an itch on my big toe. No matter how much I scratch it, it won’t go away or lessen at all. This leads me to believe that it’s not really located on my toe at all, but somewhere completely different. Ever had that happen to you? You know, when you have an itch on your foot, say, and you scratch your calf and it goes away. Your calf as in your leg, not livestock. That would be taking neurology way to far.

Maybe that’s why people do the autoasphyxiation thingy and die in embarrasing situations. The pressure around their necks affects other areas of the b…. uhm…. Yeah, I decided not to wrap this up after all. I’ll just leave it hanging there.

Pun intended.

2010-07-17T20:12:00.000+02:00

The shrimp that went into the light

I was listening to one of my podcasts today. A fresh episode of The Naked Scientists. I don't know whether or not they're actually naked, but most scientists probably wouldn't look all that good naked, so that might be just as well. Anyway, I learned something new. It would seem that when we (and when I say we, I don't mean me) gobble down a prozac or something like that, it’s not all absorbed into the body. Rather, it comes out with the nr1's and the nr2's and makes it's cheerful way down the sewage system and out to sea.

Where it's eaten by crustaceans which then decide to swim out of their murky ocean depths, towards the sunlight. These are undoubtedly more interesting surroundings to an upbeat, high-on-life shrimp, but it also makes the poor bastard more likely to end it's days in the belly of a hungry fish or seabird. Scientists now fear that this sort of thing can have a profound effect on aquatic ecosystems.

I guess the upside to the story is that the crustaceans die happy.

2010-07-15T00:00:00.004+02:00

Hello conscience, my old friend!

I’m sitting here, in a very comfortable chair, watching the movie ’Julie & Julia'. It’s basically a movie about blogging. So far, anyway. And so I thought ”Hey, I have a blog.” And here I am.

How are you all? I’m fine, thank you very much for asking. Especially now that the people down the street have hawled their screaming offspring inside for the night. Back in the old days they said that a child should be seen and not heard. This one I have never seen, but I hear it each and every day. Because it screams at the top of it’s lungs. I’m not talking about the playful squeals of a frolicking toddler, I’m refering to bloodcurdling horror movie screams. Repeatedly. For several hours every day. If Pooch did that, the screamers parents would probably call the cops on me. I have played with the idea of calling the police to tell them that I believe a small child is being tortured up the street.

So one sunny Saturday morning, not too long ago, I awoke to the sound of a cheerleader being peeled alive. Or so I thought. Once my brain (Bergerac) kicked in, I realized that it was just Screamo, as usual. Then Bergerac went: ”saaay, isn’t your…uhm…chest area sore?”

For those of you who are new around here, I divide my mind into two parts. Bergerac is the sane, logical bit. Tootie is the one that’s…well, certifiably insane. Tootie pops up whenever Bergerac isn’t paying attention.

At this point in my internal conversation with myself, Tootie popped in and went: ”Chestickles!” and then had a good giggle at it’s own comedic genius. Then Bergerac sort of sighed and continued to point out that I had been a bit dizzy lately, hadn’t I? And there were other things too. Could there possibly be a chance that we were baking a Screamo of our very own, wondered Bergerac.

I was definitly awake then. I have never been a fan of children. They’re short and not terribly bright, they’re noisy, not all that clean and they make messes. A surprising amount of them have snot on their upper lips. What is up with that? Smaller people produce more goo, or what? Sure, YOUR child is excluded from that comparison, of course. YOUR child is delightful and you are a wonderful parent who would never let YOUR child run around the yard while screaming it’s head off. This post has absolutely nothing to do with you.

For the next couple of weeks, I was sure that if only my period would arrive, I would be the happiest goil in the world. And then finally, on another sunny Saturday morning, it arrived. And now I’m bloated and crabby. I’m bleeding like that peeled cheerleader I mentioned before and I have cramps. Through it all, I’m reminding myself that I’m HAPPY to have my period. Happy!

I’m the happiest goil in the world, I’m the happiest goil in the world, I’m the happiest goil in the world, I’m the…I’m….oh, eff it!

Sex with robots!

2010-06-22T21:28:00.004+02:00

koala_man: after some future breakthroughs in robotics, but before the price has gone down, there is likely to be robotic brothels

mawlipe: robot sex? that's scary.

koala_man: I know, that's what I thought. But according to my calculations, a condom of normal thickness has a dielectric strength of at least 780V. Meaning if the robot runs on mains and shorts out, you're still protected with a margin of nearly 500V

Mawlipe: .....not what I meant.

2010-06-18T14:45:00.004+02:00

Popping the ol’ cherry

Greetings, Munchkins! I have just returned from the Great Abroad where I visited Mr. Choochoo (and secretly contemplated what sort of curtains would look best when I move in there in a couple of months, nyahaha). I went by ship. I quite like ships. Especially the big ones with the nice restaurants and all the funny shops. They’re like floating malls. That way I’m usually broke –before- I get to where I’m going on vacation. Funny that, eh?

As I sat down in my seat for the return trip, I have to say I was a bit worried, though. It was a lovely, sunny day. All clear skies and happy seagulls. But then the stewardess handed me a pile of 15 (!) seasickness bags. “Just in case,” she said.

She then tried to hand another pile to the guy sitting behind me, but he waved her away, saying: “no, no, nonono! No case! No case!” in a thick, German accent.

I stared from the seasickness bags to the frolicking seagulls outside and back to the seasickness bags and wondered. The ship started moving. It did that honking thing that it does when it leaves or enters a port. I like that part. It reminds me of Miss Marple and Poirot murder mysteries. I’m not sure why. All was quiet at first. Then the ship suddenly took a giant leap forwards. Then another and another and another. Pretty soon it was rhythmically leaping forwards and rolling sideways at the same time. For a moment I made believe that I was very small and that I lived inside a mechanical bull. Like when I was a kid and I pretended to be a fairy living in a shoe, only completely different.

As luck would have it, I had taken a little pill before we left Mr Choochoo’s house that morning. The kind of little pill that wards off not only travel sickness but also your ability to remain conscious for very long at a time. I’d fallen asleep as soon as we got into the car for the two hour drive to the sea. With my mouth wide open, I might add, and most likely snoring like a wilderbeast. I woke up on a couple of occasions because my tongue was dry, but other than that I was dead to the world.

So when the ship started rocking, it wasn’t very long before I was off to dreamland again. For the entire trip I woke up a grand total of three times. The first time I noticed that that the motionsickness bags had been piling up around people’s seat. Some were running towards the exit, out on deck, looking pale as ghosts. Mr. No-Case was heaving behind me and the air was thick with the smell of affordable cleaning products. I scratched the tip of my nose and went back to sleep.

The second time I was awake long enough for the stewardess to hand me a bisquit, saying it was good for the tummy. I don’t remember much after swallowing the last bite. I must have either passed out again or had some sort of black-out, like they do in the movies. The last option probably would have required more energy than I was capable of at that time.

When I finally came to, we were back in the old country and the weather had turned friendly again. So that was my first ever actual storm at sea.

Pic: "Cherry" by gusztil32 for deviantart.

The Big Orange

2010-06-01T17:43:00.005+02:00

As you may or may not know, I recently moved into a maniacs garage. I should maybe point out that it's a garage apartment. I'm not about to bunk down on top of a pile of powertools.

The maniac is a big orange fellow. His hair and enormous beard are orange, his skin is orange, his house is orange, the garage is orange and down the road he has a great, big orange mailbox. He also drives an orange truck. If his shrill, shaky voice was a color, that would be orange too.

Since moving in two months ago, I have been out of town twice. Both times Big Orange locked himself into my flat and had a good snoop around. Seeing how this bloke was clearly...uhm...unbalanced - not to mention annoying like a hemorrhoid - from the start, I never intended to live there for very long. Therefore I have been living out of boxes.

I should also mention that Big Orange is more than a little bit of a neat freak. He will spend all day chopping firewood in the field below the house because every log has to be the exact same size. He mows the lawn every Wednesday at the exact same time. Last Wednesday he did it in the rain.

Needless to say, he found my boxes absolutely shocking. I mean, if you're using a large cardboard box as a dresser, then clearly the world is headed towards a state of dangerous anarchy and you will be sent to the burning pits of hell when you go 'join the choir invisible' as it were.

I'm sure there are choirs in hell. Or Simon Cowell will start one up when he passes on.

But I digress. My point was that Big Orange locked himself into my flat and confrontation followed.

Nobody is going to tell me whether or not I'm allowed to own cardboard boxes, so I kept up business as usual. This weekend I went out of town again and yet again curiosity got the better of Big Orange.

I read somewhere that it takes a certain bodysize in order for any creature to develop intelligence. If the body is too small, your nervous system is also too small and too simple to enable learning. No ability to learn, no intelligence. Big Red is proof that there is always an exception to every rule: sometimes really huge creatures don't have the ability to learn, either.

Not only did I still have all my boxes, plus a couple of new ones (I went amok at a flee market) but I had also cleaned some towels and then just draped them over the rack in stead of hanging them properly. He immediately tracked down my mothers adress and went over there to inform her that I was now evicted from the apartment. Which I had no objections to at all. I mean, there is only so much relaxing you can do with a crazy psycho buzzing around in your yard.

I should be settled into my new place by this weekend, and then Big Orange can explain to the police how the tenants act doesn't apply in his magical kingdom.

Welcome to the Twilight Zone

2010-05-26T22:33:00.002+02:00

It's been a hectic few weeks. Loads of new, exciting developments. Blah-blah-blah. The biggest one is probably my decision to move in with Mr Choochoo.

In all fairness, he did ask me to. It's not as if I just announced one day that he was about to be the proud co-owner of a sheitload of lamps and throwpillows. Moving in with Mr Choochoo also means moving out of the country. To Denmark, to be spesific. I'm going to tell everyone that Pooch is a great Dane. And we'll eat pastries. Or I'll eat pastries and Pooch'll watch. Or...well, the way it usually goes is that Pooch stares me down until I throw food. I'm like a food dispencer operated by telekinesis. It's magical. If you're Pooch, at least.

This momentous occasion is taking place in the middle of August. The moving. Not the pastries and the staring. Although that too. I'm digressing.

Hey, you wanna know what else will happen in the middle of August should I not be able to find a job over there before I move? I become a bonafide housewife. At least for a while. Those of you who know me, and/or have been hanging around here for a while, will appreciate just how hysterically funny that really is.

I'll have to make pies.

We'll see.

Ashes to...uhm... Britain, apparently.

2010-04-28T22:23:00.000+02:00

Who hasn't yet heard about the infamous ash cloud? No, I'm not going to tell you yet another story about a weird friend. I'm refering to the great, big cloud of ash that was created by the vulcanic eruption in Iceland.

All the experts agreed that the thing was headed our way. There were news bulletins on the latest developments several times a day. It would be here on Monday, they said. It was huge, they said. It might hover for months, they said. It was filled with glass particles, they said.

Or as my mother once put it: glass articles. I was all set to stand outside on the lawn with my arms out, hoping for new coffee cups.

Monday came and went, and there was no sign of the ash cloud. I sat in the window all day, waiting, staring at the different clouds to see if any of them looked like it might have ash in it. I did see one that looked exactly like Kermit the Frog and one that almost resembled a cow, but no enormous, hovering vulcanic cloud. Turns out the thing decided to go bother someone else.

I feel a bit cheated, to be honest. I've never seen an ash cloud. And it had been a really slow week. Oh well, maybe next time..

Nuff said

2010-03-22T21:06:00.002+01:00

The Post-Poop Euphoria

2010-02-18T18:06:00.004+01:00

A754YR3NRKMG

What exactly is the road to happiness? If you were to ask Pooch,she would tell you that it was all about doing a number two right on top of a large pile of snow.

There’s been an obscene amount of snow piling down over the past few weeks. We completely ran out of room for the stuff around Christmas time. Now it’s all about stacking it in our gardens to the best of our abilities and every garden in every neighbourhood features enormous towers of snow.

Pooch considers it the epitome of happiness to climb to the top of our tower and poop on it. The problem is, that I can’t really scale the thing myself to bag her creations. See, there’s a certain weight difference between myself and Pooch. Just a teeny tiny one. Big enough so that she can crawl around on the tower but I would most likely be swallowed like a BigMac in front of Kirstie Alley.

So there’s poop on top of snow on top of poop on top of snow. Like natures very own perverted sandwich. Won’t that be terrific when it melts? Oh, the fun we’ll have.

Also, once Pooch has…uhm…finished her little mountain expedition, she goes into what I like to call the Post-Poop Euphoria. What happens is that once she’s done her business, Pooch will experience a fit of joy that is impossible for the poor thing to contain. There’s a lot of bouncing and spinning and running at max speed involved. Ever seen a dog bounce and spin while running as fast as it can? You have? Ever seen one try to do it up a flight of stairs? It’s not pretty.

The other day I came home with a big bag of pork chops. Pooch saw them and got so excited she immediately had to go outside right there and then to poop herself. Then she was certifiably insane for about ten minutes.

Strange dog, that.

And for those of you who were wondering about the kindle last time, we did a post on e-readers over at unbound a little while ago. Here it is: http://hagelrat.blogspot.com/2010/01/e-reader-triple-threat-smackdown.html

Aaand then I had an Ally McBeal moment and felt I needed a theme song for today (plus I was bored):

P-p-philosophy

2010-01-30T06:00:00.000+01:00

Every now and then a girl needs a new toy. Something shiny and, above all, pretty. So last month I decided to buy myself the Amazon Kindle2. It only took me about 2 ½ minutes to justify why I clearly needed one. I'd become more well-read, for one. And then there's the benefit of not having to haul a massive weight of books around everytime I move. Not to mention all the trees I'd be saving. Saving trees is very politically correct, you know. I figure I'm racking up good karma to make up for all the other not-so-politically-correct stunts I may or may not have pulled already.

Not that anyone can prove anything.

I impatiently watched as the shipment bounced from America to Germany to Sweden to Coastal Bible Belt, where I am currently living. And then it arrived. But owning an ereader isn't enough in and by itself. You need to fill it with books, of course. I mean, what would you do with it otherwise? Use it as a coaster? Don't be silly!

So I started downloading a selection of my favorite books into it. Some of these books might be considered unusual reading. Like Plato's Republic. But I find it interesting. The old dude was completely off his rocker politically. I also quite like 'On crime and punishment' by Cesare Beccaria. He lived in the 1700s and had all sorts of thoughts about how punisments should fit the crime they're meant to punish, which were highly unusual in those days. They still are in some places. Like, say, Texas.

I also got myself the collected works of Edgar Allan Poe and Khalil Gibran, just for the hell of it. In addition to that, I purchased more conventional things like Stephen King, Neil Gaiman ect, ect.

Well, at any rate, Amazon chose to completely ignore my more conventional choices when it created my recommendation. It insists that I would have great joy reading the works of various long-dead greeks with names that sound like terminal illnesses. At least I should pick up a copy of The Bible, they think.

Then again, if I take them up on that and carry The Bible around in my kindle, maybe that'll make up for all the not-so-politically-correct stunts that I may or may not pull in the future.

Not that anyone'll be able to prove anything, of course.

Napoleon or whatever

2010-01-25T05:00:00.003+01:00

Added: And then, once I woke up properly, I realized that I've written Haiti half of the time and then Tahiti the other half. See, this is why I don't get up early. Sometimes I kinda feel like I should. It's a bit like having breakfast - I don't want to, really, but I feel obligated to from time to time because that's what society seems to expect. But I don't like it and it makes me do strange things. But hey, if Tahiti ever has an earthquake or makes a deal with the devil (whatever happens first), I'll just change it back to Tahiti and re-post. And I promise to never again wake up at 5am, think to myself: "Oh my, I can't sleep. What shall I do? I know! I'll blog some!" Anyways, do read. It should be perfectly safe now.

I was determined NOT to write anything about Haiti, because that’s what everyone’s been doing lately, and I want to be unique, dammit.

But I can’t seem to restrain myself any longer. By now we all know how reverend Pat Robertson has been buzzing around in the media, talking about how Haiti brought this earthquake upon themselves because back in the day they had all gotten together and made a deal with the devil. See, they wanted to get out from under the heel of the French (“Napoleon the third, or whatever.”) They all all got together and asked Satan to get the French off their backs and Satan said “Yeah, okay.” Then the Haitians revolted and kicked the French out, all because Satan believed in them.

I’m curious, though… How did they all “get together,” exactly? I mean, it’s hard enough to set up a lunch appointment with the girls. Our boss has been trying to arrange a staff meeting for weeks, with no luck what so ever. And we’re only five people working there. There’s around 200000 people in Haiti. Not sure how many they were under French occupation, but I’m pretty sure there were more then five. Did they have unusually large football stadiums back then? How did they plan this extraordinary meeting? It’s not like they could fire off a txt message to everyone saying: “Meeting with that Satan dude at the freakishly big football stadium at 8:00pm, Tuesday. Be there or be a Frenchman's pony!”

I believe in keeping an open mind when it comes to philosophy and religion and mathematics and stuff, but not to the point where your brain falls out of your head and goes rolling down the street. Just sayin’

Tuna & Thesis

2010-01-21T11:54:00.003+01:00

.I have never been a breakfast person. My stomach wakes up around noon, completely independent of when the rest of me wrangles itself out of bed. Every once in a while I do make an exception. This is mostly because I feel like I should. I've had my head piped full of “breakfast is the most important meal of the day” and stuff like that, ever since I was a kid.

The other day was a forced exception. My step-sister came over for breakfast. Technically, I suppose it was more of an early lunch, but my stomach wasn’t awake yet at any rate. I sat down at the kitchen table and started making a tuna sandwich.

“mayo…adding tuna…one, two, three slices of pickle…” I said, carefully documenting everything, not because I didn’t know how to build a tuna sandwich, but because I’m not all that accustomed to preparing breakfast and so it took a bit of concentration. I realized that I didn't have to narrate the entire birth of my sandwich, but I was on a funny sort of an auto pilot.

At some point The Step-Sister asked about The Thesis (of doom) and I gave out my standard reply, all the while intensely focused on the collection of bread, salads and whatnots on my plate. Then she and The Step-Mum chattered on for a bit, before she turned back to me and asked “are you nearing the end of it soon?”

I carefully examined my sandwich and responded: “yeah, just about done now. It just needs a bit more lettuce.”

Lesson learned: drink more coffee before breakfast.

Get out of the car!

2010-01-10T15:35:00.000+01:00

This is supposedly a true account recorded in the Police Logs of Sarasota, Florida.

A Florida lady did her shopping and, upon returning to her car, found four men in the act of leaving with her vehicle.

She dropped her shopping bags and drew her handgun, proceeding to shout at the top of her lungs: “I have a gun and I know how to use it. Get out of the car!”

The four men didn’t wait for a second threat. They got out and ran like mad.

The lady, somewhat shaken, then proceeded to load her shopping bags into the back of the car and got into the driver’s seat. She was so shaken that she could not get the key into the ignition.

She tried and tried, and then she realized why. It was for the same reason she had wondered why there was a football, a Frisbee and two 12-packs of beer in the front seat.

A few minutes later, she found her own car parked four or five spaces further down.

She loaded her bags into the car and drove to the police station to report her mistake. The sergeant to whom she told the story could not stop laughing. He pointed to the other end of the counter, where four pale men were reporting a car jacking by a mad, elderly woman described as white, less than five feet tall, glasses, curly white hair and carrying a large handgun.

No charges were filed.

Moral of the story? If you’re gonna have a senior moment, make it memorable!

Toothbrush thoughts

2010-01-03T22:55:00.000+01:00

I was sitting here in the sofa, wondering what I would do for my very first blogpost this year. Lots of people are writing about their New Year’s resolutions, I thought. Maybe I could do that? But then I’d have to come up with at least one New Year’s resolution and my brain is far too sluggish after three weeks of eating 24/7 to do that.

So I’m going to tell you about my new toothbrush.

It was a Christmas present. It came in a large box. Alright, it was a medium sized box. But it was nice and square. I like presents that are nice and square. They’re more interesting than the oddly shaped ones.

My toothbrush is a magical toothbrush.

Well…no, it’s not –really- magical, but it’s very fancy smancy. It has a control panel and a space ship. Okay, perhaps it’s not an actual spaceship, but the travel case that came with it looks slightly spaceship-ish.

Said control panel went up on the bathroom wall, where it carefully monitors my toothbrushing progress. If I do exactly as I’m told – brushing-wise – for two minutes, it will display a smiley face and all will be well with the world. The thing is, when I unwrapped it, the little face WINKED at me. It hasn’t winked since and I’m very curious as to what I have to do in order for it to do it again. I’ve done some experimenting, and I’ve arrived at the conclusion that I may have to get all dressed up, like I was when I opened the present.

Besides, it seems like an awful lot of work to get all dolled up before I brush my teeth at night in order to get a toothbrush to wink at me. I’m not that starved for attention, thank you very much. I mean, I haven’t quite given up on men yet and I haven’t even –considered- becoming a lesbian yet.

Or maybe it’s mad at me. The first night I had it, I ate cookies at night after I’d brushed my teeth. Maybe it knew. Maybe it looked inside my mouth the next morning and thought “This crumb wasn’t here last night!” Maybe I should be more careful, unless I want my head electrocuted.

I’m going to have to give this some more thought.

Once upon a time there was a lamp that smelled of sheit

2009-12-15T20:12:00.001+01:00

Because I have expensive habits that I refuse to give up, such as eating and accumulating belongings, I have taken a job in a shop by the town square. I sell lamps. Big lamps, small lamps, round lamps, square lamps, tall lamps, short lamps… I sell them all, I’m not half bad at it, if I must say so myself.

And you know I must.

However, I’ve been handed a bit of a challenge. It’s a perversion of a lamp. Sure, it looked pretty enough when it was still inside the box. On the picture it looked great. All tall and elegant and whatnot.

So we started putting the pieces together. It’s a big, fancy lamp with swirly-looking bits on it. It was a job for two people. But it didn’t take long before realisation struck that what we were building wasn’t quiiite the same thing as in the picture on the box. For one thing, OUR lamp was crooked. Actually, that’s an understatement worthy of a government cover-up. The more we built on it, the more crooked it became.

It was worse than the annual ‘is the christmas tree straight’ dialogue. Only there was no earthly way to straighten this particular Christmas tree.

There was also another odd thing about the lamp. It smelled bad. To be blunt, it smelled like…well…like something that came out of someone’s colon. That’s right, it smelled like shit. And after we’d touched it, WE smelled like shit. Not only that but after we then touched the counter, IT smelled like shit.

It had to be scrubbed down. The counter, that is. The lamp was beyond help.

Every once in a while, a customer will ask us if we have any merchandise other then what is displayed in the store. This has always struck me as a very silly question. As if we’d have a secret lamp-room hidden away in the back, the way that some bars have secret rooms for high-stake poker games. At times I have played with the idea of asking “do you know the secret handshake?” when someone offered that particular question.

Now we have the Sheit Lamp. The frightening monstrosity of glass and warped metal, hidden away in the darkest corner of the storage room. So the next time someone asks me for secret merchandise, I’ll show them that. No doubt their screams will be heard all the way across the town square.

Trials, tribulations and Santa Claus

2009-12-08T23:13:00.004+01:00

And so the madness begins… How the content of a red nose can make you doubt your own sanity:

Yesterday I had two hours free before work, so I decided to run some errands. When I say errands, I of course mean ‘mad shopping frenzy’. It started off as a perfectly respectable errand, though. I was simply going to do some Christmas shopping. But then I remembered that I could do with a pair of slippers and the snowball started rolling. Snowballs’ll do that. It’s snowball nature.

Amongst the things I bought, were a pair of very silly slippers, made to look like Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Aren’t they purdy?

After work I sat down and made a playlist of sugary sweet Christmas songs, all while wearing my new slippers. I was right in the middle of a scary Christmas-spirit attack. They usually start around 1/3^rd into December. At that point, I will turn into the Franz Mesmer of Xmas spirit.

There I was, slipping into a Bing Crosby induced holiday-trance, when something happened. I heard a voice. It was male and robotic and I was pretty sure it wasn’t coming from inside my head. “Ho, ho, ho! Merry Christmas!” The Voice said.

I sat straight in my chair, eyes wide, convinced that it had finally happened – at long last I had lost my grasp on reality.

Then my friend suddenly said “maybe it’s the shoes.”

“Nah,” I said. “They’re not that advanced.” Still, I did a quick examination of the Rudolph’s noses and surely enough, inside one of them, I found a hard knob. I gave it a little squease and it shouted “Ho, ho, ho! Meeeerry Christmas!”

It was quite a relief, let me tell you. I honestly thought I’d gone bonkers there, for a second. I was all ready to run straight to the local hospital and have them stick my head in the MRI machine. But now I can just stay in. Yay me.

Yeah, I should be too good for this. But I'm not.

2009-12-06T23:42:00.003+01:00

So have a horribly inappropriate joke:

So I'm at work yesterday and the mailclerk starts handing out letters from upper management. At this point, I'm thinking "Oh crap, how am I gonna tell my family I got laid off?" Fortunately, I'm only 30 years old. You'll understand when you read the letter.

Due to the current financial situation caused by the slowdown of economy,Management has decided to implement a scheme to put workers of 40 years of age and above on early retirement. This scheme will be known as RAPE (Retire Aged People Early).

Persons selected to be RAPED can apply to management to be eligible for theSHAFT scheme (Special Help After Forced Termination). Persons who have been RAPED and SHAFTED will be reviewed under the SCREW programme (Scheme Covering Retired Early Workers). A person may be RAPED once, SHAFTED twice and SCREWED as many times as Management deems appropriate.

Persons who have been RAPED can only get AIDS (Additional Income for Dependants & Spouse) or HERPES (Half Earnings for Retired Personnel Early Severance).
Obviously persons who have AIDS or HERPES will not be SHAFTED or SCREWED any further by Management.

Persons who are not RAPED and are staying on will receive as much SHIT (Special High Intensity Training) as possible. Management has always prided itself on the amount of SHIT it gives employees. Should you feel that you do not receive enough SHIT, please bring to the attention of your Manager. They have been trained to give you all the SHIT you can get.

Great, as if I didn't get enough shit already....

And last, but not least, here's my new favorite song (although it's likely been replaced by something else by the time you get here):

I can't brain today, I have the dumb!

2009-11-24T20:41:00.003+01:00

We all have our weaknesses, right? Superman got all distracted around kryptonite, Tony Stark got a wee bit diverted in the presence of booze and there are certain members of the church that seem to have a hard time focusing around altar boys. I get sidetracked by the world in general. It really doesn’t take much, especially when I’m supposed to be doing something grown up and responsible.

I know that I theoretically have the ability to concentrate. I never seem to lose track of my facebook applications; the potatoes growing on that little farm never spoils, that little restaurant is doing splendidly. The sims 3 can hold my attention for hours on end. I can sit through an episode of Judge Judy just fine. Actually, the latter is a strange sort of an exception. You see, I’ll plop down in front of the television and then suddenly it’s an hour later and I can’t really remember what the judge was going on about. Then again, I can’t really remember anything else that may or may not have happened around me either, so I’m assuming that I was very concentrated on the show and then became the victim of sudden amnesia, or something.

I was going to be all responsible and do some proof reading today, but I was completely unable to direct my attention onto that little Microsoft Word document. Things had to change. I immediately googled “how to concentrate”. Out of the 31 100 000 results, my favourite one was the one that stated that any mental achievement had to be preceded by total relaxation. You need to unwind before going into battle, it said.

So I decided to play the sims.

There is a certain chance that I need a new attack plan for my next battle.

pretty picture: The confused by Kylamay for deviantart. http://kylamay.deviantart.com/art/The-Confused-24558778

Tootie the Zombie Brain

2009-11-13T23:10:00.001+01:00

First off, I would like you all to know that I am typing all of this with an Irish accent. It’s just one of those days.

The other day was another one of those days. Of the zombie brain variety, not the Irish accent kind. These are the days when the sane, logical part of my brain (Bergerac) goes off somewhere, leaving the not so sane, completely illogical part of my brain (Tootie) behind the wheel, which in turn brings on the condition I call Zombie Brain.

For the most part, my chromosomes have combined beautifully (hey, if I don’t toot my own horn, who’s gonna do it for me, eh?), but Zombie Brain will be the end of me one day.

There I was, in the kitchen, fixing myself a cup of coffee. At least that’s what I would have done, had I had enough brain activity in my head to put coffee in the machine. I was watching the clear liquid fill in the pot, all the while feeling like something was a bit off. I poured it into my cup. I added sweetener, cream and stirred it with a little teaspoon. I didn’t notice my mistake until after I’d taken the first sip…

I then decided to get some work done on my nemesis: The Thesis. I turned my computer on and then Tootie decided to just switch all the systems off. It was the mother of all space-outs. Suddenly an hour had passed and I swear I had done nothing but stare into space.

Maybe I should try wearing an ice bag on my head while I work, or something.

Why I may set myself on fire just for the hell of it

2009-11-01T23:47:00.003+01:00

Those of you who have been paying attention know that I am in the final stages of mumbling obscenities at my thesis. Or as some people call it; finishing it.

Oh, I do expect you all to pay attention, by the way. There will be a pop quiz eventually.

Aanyways…

I’m working on my very last (and millionth) draft. At this point I’m so sick of the damn thing the idea of working on it makes me want to set myself on fire and run around screaming like a banshee. I blame IT for me being completely hooked on every ridiculous facebook application there is. Clearly I have to take some steps to maximise my work efficiency. So I decided to clean up my desk. As you can see from the picture below, it’s going SWIMMINGLY.

Notice that evil glow eminating from my computer screen? That, ladies and gentlemen, is The Thesis. See what I mean?

The flailing of the cellphone

2009-10-14T21:58:00.002+02:00

I have a new cellphone. It’s white and red and oh so purdy. It’s my firstest ever walkman phone. I remember my first walkman. It was pink and not a phone at all. I listened to Alice Cooper on it. The other kids liked Bonnie Tyler and A-ha. They thought I was weird, even though I listened to A-ah too. I even had a George Michael poster from his funky-sunglasses-and-leather-jacket period on my wall and every now and then I would give it a little kiss. That was before my gaydar kicked in. Then again, who had proper gaydar in the 80s, anyways?

But I digress.

There is a certain chance that I may have been weird for other reasons, of course. I suppose I might still be slightly tinged with weirdness. But normalcy is so…boring. Who notices normal people, really?

What was I talking about?

Oh, right. My new phone. I had to stuff it full of music right away, of course, and test it. There’s a little, shiny button on the side of it and music starts playing when you push it. Then, if I hold the shiny in and move the phone upwards through the air, the volume gets louder. If I move it downwards, it gets lower. If I move it to the right, it plays the next track and if I move it to the left, it plays the previous track.

How’s that for fancy-pants?

The downside is that it doesn’t really respond well to subtle movements. These days, for instance, I can be seen waiting for the bus while flailing my phone like a madwoman. But like I said: nobody notices normal people.

Have a little something from my pink walkman days:

30 going on 13

2009-10-05T13:51:00.000+02:00

Those of you who have been paying attention, may have discovered that I recently moved in with my mums (lesbians) since I’m wrapping up the last parts of my thesis (gaaah!) and have yet to find a job (moneymoneymoney).

Tonight I watched “13 going on 30,” which is a rather silly movie about a 13 year old girl who suddenly wakes up one morning to find that she’s been turned into a 30 year old woman. I’m doing that in reverse. One day I’m living the grown-up life in my own place, the next day I wake up here and it’s like I’ve reverted back to my teens. Cause your parents will never, ever stop parenting you, see. It doesn’t matter if you’re 80 and they’re 110, bedridden and can’t speak – they’ll still use handsignals to tell you that you’re not eating enough and that you should put on a jacket if you’re going outside.

One freakish fact of science or physics, or whatever, is that women who live together adopt the same cycle. If you’re sitting there, wondering what I just said, you should have paid more attention in health class, you lazy bum. Anyways, my mum had a hysterectomy ages ago, so she’s out of the running, but my step-mum turned to me the other day and said: “are we having our period soon?”

I want a job.

Now listen to the pretty song:

http://www.stumbleaudio.com/share/mevmusic/12

The day digression got the better of me

2009-10-01T19:31:00.003+02:00

As I have mentioned countless times, Pooch has a squeaky toy named Pigface and it is the love of her life. That and tinfoil. And me, of course, but Pooch’s feelings towards me go more towards total awe, really. “Oooh, you make food appear out of the kitchen wall! You are a GOD!”

In fact, Pooch’s number one purpose in life is to follow me around in the hope that I’ll make food appear out of something-or-other.

But I digress.

Unfortunately Pigface went into a box somewhere during the moving process and hasn’t been seen since. Fortunately this doesn’t seem to bring Pooch’s mood down as much as I had feared. She now loves Burger.

Actually, its called Urger. I discovered that if I asked her to fetch Burger, all I could get out was “B..” and she’d be off searching for her ball. Pooch is one of those gals who get by on her looks.

Uhm...

I have a confession to make.

I have completely forgotten where I was going with this post. Here, watch this (and notice how the singy dude keeps poking himself in the privates):

Hell, yeah!

2009-09-30T14:46:00.002+02:00

Actually, I don't like wine. Trying to get me to drink wine, would probably just piss me off more. So yeah, you're all screwed.

The great divide

2009-09-23T19:10:00.002+02:00

All my life I have believed strongly in that line between exercise and masochism that should not be crossed by yours truly, under any circumstances. Despite this belief, I have a dark past as an exercise nut. At my worst, I would work out two hours a day, every day, seven days a week and I spent more time contemplating protein sources than I care to think about.

But I got better. Or maybe I just got lazy. Yeah, I think that’s probably it. Hiking with Pooch doesn’t count as exercise. I don’t know why, but it doesn’t.

So then the step-mum suggests that we start going to the gym together. Circuit training. It started regularly enough, with work-outs a couple of times a week followed by ice cream. So far so good.

I suppose I should also mention that this gym is…odd. They periodically like to play insane music like YMCA and Bee Gees. There are different categories of people in my gym.

First, there are the rich, fat people. They will come in with their friends, STAND on the treadmill and chatter for a bit before they say “oh, my legs are so tired” and move on to the next thing, and so on and so forth. After an hour of this, they will grab their MOSS water bottles, jump into their sports cars and no doubt feel very good about themselves for having spent a whole hour working out.

Second, there are the regular people. The sane ones that go 2-3 times a week and put in a moderate effort and then go out and buy an ice cream afterwards, or something.

The third type is the gym bunny. They’re the slim, perfectly toned people who look like they’ve never eaten a snack in their lifes, and they are always there, no matter what time of the day you decide to stop by. Most likely, they were all built in secret, underground laboratories. Some of them are models, all of them are annoying.

The gym bunnies never speak to anyone other than other gym bunnies. The other two categories are just slightly smelly air to them. Personally, I’ve been planted firmly in the regular people group. Then about three weeks ago, I started to notice a…shift. Slowly but surely I began to enjoy the process of using the gym equipment to inflict pain upon myself. I suffered and I liked it. And like any drug, you eventually need to move on to bigger doses and then even bigger ones.

So there I was the other day, buring through the exercise machines at breakneck speeds. Then a gym bunny enters, looks around with empty gym bunny eyes at all the free machines, before getting on the one right next to me. At first I thought that perhaps she simply didn’t notice me there, seeing how I’m a category two dose of slightly smelly air. The thought had no sooner formed in my brain, before the gym bunny made eye contact, smiled and said “hello” and drifted into whatever thought-dimension gym bunnies go to while they’re working out.

Mommy, I’m scared…

Science and such

2009-09-16T19:56:00.004+02:00

On Friday I have a meeting with my thesis advisor to wrap up my big, fascinating research project. Now, it may not have been the most thrilling project on earth. It’s not going to fuel a Hollywood blockbuster anytime soon. The world would have to go through some fairly extreme changes for that to happen.

Then again, there are weirder science projects out there.

Like, for example, the one conducted at Wayne state- and Auburn university in 1992 which examined the effect of country music on suicide. That was odd.

Not quite as strange as “Love and sex with robots” by D. Levy at the university of Maastricht in 2007. He predicted that around 2050, the state of Massachusetts will be the first jurisdiction to legalize marriage with robots. “At first, sex with robots might be considered geeky, but once you have a story like ‘I had sex with a robot and it was great!’ appear someplace like Cosmo magazine, I’d expect many people to jump on the bandwagon,” Levy said.

Personally, there a few people I’d rather jump on than a damn robot.

Granted, that project is very odd. But there are even stranger ones out there. Like the “rectal foreign bodies: case reports and a comprehensive review of the world’s literature” by Busch and Starling in 1986. The citations include reports of, among other items: seven light bulbs; a knife sharpener; two flashlights; a wire spring; a snuff box; an oil can with potato stopper; eleven different forms of fruits, vegatables and other foodstuffs; a jeweler’s saw; a frozen pig’s tail; a tin cup; a beer glass; and one patient’s remarkable ensemble collection consisting of spectacles, a suitcase key, a tobacco pouch and a magazine.

The world has literature on rectal foreign bodies. Who knew?

Then there’s the “safe and painless manipulation of penile zipper entrapment.” I swear I’m not making any of these things up. Most of them are online, even. Then there’s “pressures produced when penguins poo – calculations on avian defecation” by Breno Meyer-Rochow and J. Gal at the international university of Bremen and Lorand Eotvos University of Hungary in 2005.

Last but not least, there’s “Farting as a defence against unspeakable dread” by Dr. M. Sidoli in Washington DC, 1998. According to it's author, "this paper describes some features of the behaviour of a severely disturbed adopted latency boy. Peter was born premature, suffered several early hospitalizations and surgical operations, and at 2 months of age was removed from his mother's care by Social Services for neglect and abandonment. When feeling endangered, Peter had developed a defensive olfactive container using his bodily smell and farts to envelop himself in a protective cloud of familiarity against the dread of falling apart, and to hold his personality together."

MY project is nothing like either one of those.

How to write a paper in college

2009-09-03T18:14:00.004+02:00

Okay, so yesterday I just sent my thesis in to my thesis advisor again, for yet another look-over, or something. Writing a college paper of any kind, is nothing like in the movies. If I was a character in a movie, I'd sit at my little desk, with my hair in a very smart ponytail with calculated fly-aways, working like a little ant. This is how it really works:

1. Sit in a straight, comfortable chair in a well lit place in front of your computer.

2. Log onto MSN and ICQ (be sure to go on away!). Check your email.

3. Read over the assignment carefully, to make certain you understand it.

4. Walk down to the vending machines and buy some chocolate to help you concentrate.

5. Check your email.

6. Call up a friend and ask if he/she wants to go to grab a coffee. Just to get settled down and ready to work.

7. When you get back to your room, sit in a straight, comfortable chair in a clean, well lit place.

8. Read over the assignment again to make absolutely certain you understand it.

9. Check your email.

10. You know, you haven't written to that kid you met at camp since fourth grade. You'd better write that letter now and get it out of the way so you can concentrate.

11. Look at your teeth in the bathroom mirror.

12. Grab some mp3z off of kazaa.

13. Check your email. ANY OF THIS SOUND FAMILIAR YET?!

14. MSN chat with one of your friends about the future. (ie summer plans).

15. Check your email.

16. Listen to your new mp3z and download some more.

17. Phone your friend on the other floor and ask if she's started writing yet. Exchange derogatory emarks about your prof, the
course, the college, the world at large.

18. Walk to the store and buy a pack of gum. You've probably run out.

19. While you've got the gum you may as well buy a magazine and read it.

20. Check your email.

21. Check the newspaper listings to make sure you aren't missing something truly worthwhile on TV.

22. Play some solitare (or age of legends!).

23. Check out bored.com.

24. Wash your hands.

25. Call up a friend to see how much they have done, probably haven't started either.

26. Look through your housemate's book of pictures from home. Ask who everyone is.

27. Sit down and do some serious thinking about your plans for the future.

28. Check to see if bored.com has been updated yet.

29. Check your email and listen to your new mp3z.

30. You should be rebooting by now, assuming that windows is crashing on schedule.

31. Read over the assignment one more time, just for heck of it.

32. Scoot your chair across the room to the window and watch the sunrise.

33. Lie face down on the floor and moan.

34. Punch the wall and break something.

35. Check your email.

36. Mumble obscenities.

37. Midnight - start hacking on the paper without stopping. 6am -paper is finished.

38. Complain to everyone that you didn't get any sleep because you had to write that stupid paper.

39. Go to class, hand in paper, and leave right away so you can take a nap.

Just how effed up do things have to get?

2009-09-02T15:02:00.002+02:00

I have a friend named Pete. Actually, his name isn’t Pete at all. It’s Albert. But I’ve decided to call him Pete in order to protect his identity. It’ll be a bit like Superman’s glasses. We all like those. Glasses make people look smarter. That’s why I wear mine. Not bumping into things is just the icing on the cake.

Aaanyways…

Pete has a dog named Little. That’s his actual name. There’s no point in trying to protect Little’s identity, because dogs don’t wear glasses. Little is an English mastiff of about 250 pounds. He does not live up to his name. There are three things that Little love most in this world; his daddy (Pete), pillow stuffing and visitors. When his beloved master leaves the house to go to work as a nightshift security guard at Really Big Company, the little darling aims all his attention towards the sofa cushions and their soft, snowy white innards.

Because of this, Clever Dogowner Pete set up a camera in his living room, so that he could keep an eye on the baby from his laptop computer. So now, although he wasn’t able to stop his Little Pumpkin from tearing the Super Recliner Sofa to pieces, he could at least witness the murder. Sure enough, when the time came go about his security guard business, Sweetie-Pie was digging in with great zest.

When he returned to his laptop 20 minutes later, the sofa looked like Einstein’s head. But what truly caught Pete’s attention, was the unkempt young man sitting in it, holding his television set in his lap. Seems that during his away-time, the house had been burgled. Little had thought “Yay! Visitors!” and it wasn’t until the fella tried to leave through the window where he entered, that the doggie smelled a rat, thus planting said visitor in what was left of the sofa and keeping him there. Being a fairly bright young man, Pete naturally called our equivalent of 911.

The operator was sad to inform Pete that nobody would be able to come by his house until later that morning, since he was the only officer working at the station that night, and he most certainly coulnd’t deal with the situation alone, because it might be dangerous. Naturally, Pete was slightly ticked off, seeing how he was supposed to go home in less than an hour and the situation might just happen to be a little dangerous for him, as well. Not to mention for Doggie-Woggie, but he didn’t say that. Finally, the policeman called a couple of off-duty officers and they took the burglar away.

Apparently, Little wasn’t all that keen to let them into the house. But I digress…

The burglar was placed in a jail cell where he gave a full confession of that night’s events. Right down to how he had taken a leak in someone’s birdbath... Eight hours later, he was released due to lack of evidence.

Insane as it sounds, this is not even an unusual story. I know two more people just in my own social circle that has experienced pretty much the same things, with a few variations to the plot here and there. Granted, we’ve just had the most serious financial crisis since the great depression, but still… Our particular corner of the world has only been slightly affected by this. It’s also one of the few bits on the globe that actually makes money – a lot of money – rather than sustaining themselves on loans. You’d think we could stick enough cops in the station to answer a 911 call. I also can’t help thinking that it must be frustrating to become a police officer and find that you’re not able to do your job. Maybe that’s why the flight of cops from the police force to private security companies, is now considered to be one of the major national problems that politicians get off on talking about. Not that sitting around in a tv studio, chatting about it while wondering if the cameras are capturing you from your good side, is helping the situation all that much.

It’s a helluva creepy though that our 911 should work a bit in the same way that Pete’s camera did. “No, we can’t really help you, but we’d be more than willing to witness you being minced up by the psychotic axe murderer, ma’am.”

Mad As Hell! Kinetic Typography from Aaron Leming on Vimeo.

A cunning plan!

2009-08-29T01:24:00.002+02:00

In the not all that remote future I will be out there, looking for employment. I've decided on a very clever course of action, should someone be foolish enough to not be dazzled by my considerable charm and decide to actually reject me:

Dear ......,

Thank you for your letter rejecting my application for employment with your firm.

I have received rejections from an unusually large number of well qualified organizations. With such a varied and promising spectrum of rejections from which to select, it is impossible for me to consider them all. After careful deliberation, then, and because a number of firms have found me more unsuitable, I regret to inform you that I am unable to accept your rejection.

Despite your company’s outstanding qualifications and previous experience in rejecting applicants, I find that your rejection does not meet with my requirements at this time. As a result, I will be starting employment with your firm on the first of the month.

Circumstances change and one can never know when new demands for rejection arise. Accordingly, I will keep your letter on file in case my requirements for rejection change.

Please do not regard this letter as a criticism of your qualifications in attempting to refuse me employment. I wish you the best of luck in rejecting future candidates.

Sincerely,

Choochoo

All you need to know

2009-08-23T22:45:00.003+02:00

Me, myself and I.

2009-08-17T15:14:00.003+02:00

Tomorrow is my birthday. I’m going to leave the exciting world of the 20-something and become a 30. I know that this is supposed to be either a big deal or something that depresses the hell out of you, but I can’t say I’ve had many feelings directed towards it. It’s going to be a regular sort of family-thing, nothing that I need to think deep thoughts about. That is, until mention of a potential birthday activity came up.

Stripaerobics.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m all for exercise and family togetherness. I have no problem with stripaerobics. I understand it's all the rage. However, if I’m going to watch the mums and the step-sibling wiggle around, burlesque style I will have to develop a second personality call Joe and become a homosexual trucker in Alaska.

So… tomorrow is my birthday. Wish me luck.

Writing in water

2009-08-13T23:37:00.002+02:00

When former astronaut Neil Armstrong returned from space, he said that “It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn't feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.”

There are moments in life when we realize that something leaves us, most likely to never return. We’ll never again be able to restore some day or period of our life. Memories only stay in the confines of our minds, where they’re inevitable altered into something they never were or maybe fade away altogether. That particular epiphany can make you feel a bit like you’re staring at Earth from outer space.

So I have come to two conclusions, as a result of this philosophising:

1) Living is a bit like writing in water.

2) Blogging is a bit like farting in space.

Today I bring you.. english mysteries

2009-08-12T23:00:00.001+02:00

Why is it that when we transport something by car, it's called a shipment, but when we transport something by ship, it's called cargo?

Why are people who ride motorcycles called bikers and people who ride bikes called cyclists?

In what other language do thay call the third hand on the clock the second hand?

In what other language do people drive in a parkway and park in a driveway?

Why does night fall but never break and day break but never fall?

Why is it called a TV set when you get only one?

Why - in this crazy language - can your nose run and your feet smell?

Sometimes you have to believe that all English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane:

If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian consume?

A writer is someone who writes, and a stinger is something that stings.

But fingers don't fing and grocers don't groce.

If the plural of tooth is teeth, shouldn't the plural of booth be beeth?

If the teacher taught, why isn't it also true that the preacher praught?

If harmless actions are the opposite of harmful actions, why are shameless and shameful behavior the same?

English is a language in which you can turn a light on and you can turn a light off and you can turn a light out, but you can't turn a light in

In which the sun comes up and goes down, but prices go up and come down.

In which your nose can simultaneously burn up and burn down and your car can slow up and slow down, in which you can fill in a form by filling out a form and in which your alarm clock goes off by going on.

English is a crazy language. What is it that when the sun or the moon or the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible?; and why when I wind up my watch, I start it, but when I wind up this essay, I shall end it?

Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet-engines

2009-08-07T00:16:00.000+02:00

My thesis was officially finished and handed in for evaluation by my thesis advisor a few days ago and I am one step closer to being a real, live grown-up with a real, live masters degree. One small step for man-kind, one giant leap for Choochoo.

On second thought, I’m so surrounded (buried) in boxes, I probably can’t even manage a small skip right now, let alone a leap, giant or otherwise.

In a few short weeks I’ll officially be a molecular biologist. Who’d have thunk it. No, seriously. I nearly flunked science in high school. I think the only reason why I didn’t was because my teacher felt sorry for me.

But I digress. Not that digressing isn’t something that happens a lot around here, and you should all be well used to this by now.

But I digress again.

When I was a kid, I was ambitious on the verge of insanity. For my sixth birthday, the only thing I really wanted was a briefcase. I was bottle-fed episodes of LA Law, I dreamt of becoming a lawyer, just like the ones on TV, and I kept that idea right up until the time came for me to start applying for colleges. That was when it finally occurred to me that an urge to wear power suits and carry a briefcase probably wasn’t the best basis for a career choice.

I then focused on the second thing on my list of obsession: forensic psychology. I’ve always had a weird fascination with the criminally insane. Not so much that I’d want to get together and drink cosmopolitans with them on a Saturday night, but I wouldn’t be opposed to prodding around inside their minds under less intimate circumstances.

The following year I went to university on a scholarship, determined to become the world’s greatest forensic psychologist. Determined right up until the point where the professor walked in on our very first lecture and said: “You will not become good psychologists if you study here.” He then continued to explain that we wouldn’t be given the option to specialize unless we chose to complete our full educations abroad and even if we wanted to become general psychologists (which I didn’t) we would still have to graduate with honors and then wait for as much as five years before we would be allowed past the first year of the study. Needless to say that was a bit of a motivation-killer. Perhaps the system has changed since then, but that was the way it was at the time.

There’s a part of me that still wants to be a criminal profiler, but I do think that viruses and such can be every bit as cool as a serial killer, in their own special way.

Oh dear, I’ve digressed again, haven’t I? I meant for this to be a post on growing up and living up to your ambitions. My point was that, although I might have fancied myself an eagle when I was a child and although I am still very much a career girl at heart, I would rather not be sucked into a jet engine.

I've learned

2009-08-04T00:45:00.000+02:00

I've learned that you cannot make someone love you. All you can do is be someone who can be loved. The rest is up to them.
I've learned that no matter how much I care, some people just don't care back.
I've learned that it takes years to build up trust and only seconds to destroy it.
I've learned that it's not what you have in your life, but who you have in your life that counts.
I've learned that you can get by on charm for about fifteen minutes, after that, you'd better know something.

I've learned that you shouldn't compare yourself to the best others can do, but to the best you can do.
I've learned that it's not what happens to people, it's what they do about it.
I've learned that no matter how thin you slice it, there are always two sides.
I've learned that you should always leave loved ones with loving words. It may be the last time you'll see them.
I've learned that you can keep going long after you think you can't.

I've learned that heroes are the people who do what has to be done when it needs to be done, regardless of the consequences.
I've learned that there are people, who love you dearly, but just don't know how to show it.
I've learned that sometimes when I'm angry I have the right to be angry but that doesn't give me the right to be cruel.
I've learned that true friendship continues to grow even over the longest distance same goes for true love.
I've learned that just because someone doesn't love you the way you want them to doesn't mean they don't love you with all they have.

I've learned that no matter how good a friend is, they're going to hurt you every once in a while and you must forgive them for that.
I've learned that it isn't always enough to be forgive by others, sometimes you have to learn to forgive yourself.
I've learned that no matter how bad your heart is broken, the world doesn't stop for your grief.
I've learned that our background and circumstances may have influenced who we are, but we are responsible for who we become.
I've learned that just because two people argue, it doesn't mean they don't love each other and just because they don't argue, it doesn't mean they do.

I've learned that sometimes you have to put the individual ahead of their actions.
I've learned that two people can look at the exact same thing and see something totally different.
I've learned that no matter the consequences, those who are honest with themselves get farther in life.
I've learned that your life can be changed in a matter of hours by people who don't even know you.
I've learned that even when you think you have no more to give, when a friend cries out to you, you will find the strength to help.

I've learned that writing, as well as talking, can ease emotional pains.
I've learned that the people you care most about in life are taken from you too soon.
I've learned that it's hard to determine where to draw the line between being nice and not hurting people's feelings and standing up for what you believe.
I've learned to love and be loved.
I've learned.

For Zan and Sanneh

2009-08-03T15:01:00.000+02:00

I've spent most of the day going through sad goodbye sorta songs to do this post. But then I settled on this. If it wasn't for this song, none of us would have met in the first place.

I'm moving to Mars next week, so if you have any boxes...

2009-08-01T18:52:00.001+02:00

Ever since I was a kid, I wanted to live on a hill with grassy fields and trees and stuff. This was a big deal to me. Hills always looked sunnier and warmer than anywhere else, even in the dead of winter when everything was dark and frigid. For the past year, I have lived on a hill. I have learned something: hills are overrated.

Nobody ever builds anything of any real importance on top of a hill. Then everyone who doesn’t live on the hill would have to climb it in order to get to whatever-it-is. Let’s face it – sivil wars have started over less than that.

I also noticed something else odd… Ever since I moved up the hill, my food budget has swelled out of all proportion and no matter how much time I spent pondering this mystery, it remained just that; a mystery. Until this morning, when I suddenly experienced a brainflash.

It’s the hill.

See, whenever I need to do anything outside the house, the something that I need to do is always below the hill. So I need to go down the hill to get there, then drag my carcass back up to get here. Clearly I need more fuel in order to pull this off. Actually, things like grocery shopping makes it worse. First I need to buy food in order to eat food so that I can make it up and down the hill, but the more weight I carry, the more fuel I’m gonna need, so then I have to buy more groceries, which leads to more weight being carried and so on and so forth. It’s an evil circle, really.

Good thing I’m moving now, before I’m faced with financial ruin…

Today's theme song:

An aaalmost serious moment!

2009-07-31T14:28:00.000+02:00

It’s been a good day, for the most part. Which feels odd. It’s been a ¤&?=#” bitch of a past few months. Hard to tell, as charming and witty as I am, I know. Hehe. One day things begin to sort themselves out – often not how you’d though. I haven’t had much headspace left over for blogging. Hopefully that’ll turn around, as well, now.

Aaanyways, brace yourself, people cause Choochoo’s back, baby!

Actually, I’m not so much back as I am hidden behind boxes. Once again, I’m moving. Now that I’m all edumacated and stuff (well, nearly) it’s time to get the hell out of Hellhole and go join civilization and search for a grown-up job. I know, it’s the end of an era, ain’t it? Just imagine all the absurdity I can spot and blog if I’m living in the city. Oooh. Once again I’m faced with the great mystery of packing: why is it, that no matter how much crap you stuff into boxes, the crap that surrounds you doesn’t seem to lessen one little bit? I think all my things come to life and sneak back into place while I’m sleeping.

I heard a song today that pretty much says it all. I thought I’d pull an Ally McBeal and make that my themesong for today while I’m packing up my stuff.

Of chips and toilets and friends and alien probes.

2009-06-10T22:18:00.001+02:00

For some reason, I have a burning desire to eat chips. Not just any chips. The extra crunchy local type that looks a bit like wax. It’s not as disgusting as it sound. Actually, that’s not true. Chips are pretty disgusting. They make your insides feel greasy after you eat them. Not to mention that I stuff myself with the crap so rarely, I inevitably end up spending the evening on the big porcelain telephone, trying very hard to make a call.

I know all of this. It makes no difference.

Since I don’t have any chips, I’ll distract myself with a random brainfart. Lately (since I ran out of chips) I’ve been contemplating the fact that I have a certain selection of friends and no idea where they came from. I can’t remember ever having met any of them. Suddenly, they were just there. Like alien implants.

Hang on… alien implants aren’t really supposed to be sudden, are they? They’re usually preluded by the presence of little green men in your bedroom, whisking your pyjama-clad, half-conscious carcass into their big and flashy, yet subtle mothership, leaving you with an inexplainable memory of not being abducted by spacemen, but of seeing an owl or something.

I did see a fox once on my way to class. Or did I? Could it be that my mysterious friends from nowhere are my very own alien implants?

Choochoo thinks about spandex and soft, fleshy areas

2009-04-01T13:21:00.001+02:00

Everybody has a mental list of things they would like to achieve in life. My mum has always wanted to see Rome. I have a friend who dreams of owning a walk-in closet filled with nothing but high-heeled shoes. His name is Joe. Personally, I would like to develop an actual superpower. I think that’s the only hope I’ll ever have of being able to pull off wearing spandex. On the other hand, I don’t really want to wear spandex, so learning how to fly or to shoot lightning bolts through my eyeballs, isn’t really a big priority, all things considered.

Among my somewhat realistic goals, is learning how to drive a car. I would also like to drive the pope-mobile, but that’s more of a random that-might-be-fun idea, which is categorized along with things like going skiing in the mountains. The rational part of my brain – which I like to call Bergerac – knows that it will most likely end with screaming, pain and an extended stay in my friendly neighbourhood hospital.

Driving classes and such are ridiculously expensive in these parts, and the powers-that-be are completely anal about letting people get into a car without knowing how to “control the vehicle and blah, blah, blah.” I always figured I could just apply the same technique to my driving that I do to my skiing: go forth at ridiculous speeds and then hope to land on a soft, fleshy area.

Pooch's brainscape

2009-03-22T22:52:00.001+01:00

Every now and then – and more and more often, unfortunately – it’s necessary for me to do my impression of a responsible adult. In my case, adulthood consists of reading research papers, writing research papers and growing gunk in petri dishes.

During these bursts of maturity, Pooch tends to get bored. So when I occasionally glance up from my Pile of Nerdy Brain-Melting-Papers, she gets excited.

And sometimes when she gets excited, she’ll spin around in circles. And sometimes, when she spins around in circles, she’ll bang her head on the wall and wobble a bit. She’s done this ever since she was a little puppy. By today, she will probably have had hundreds of blows to the head. This is probably why she’s the strangest dog I’ve ever met.

She’ll spend all day in the bathroom, staring at the laundry. Sometimes she’ll even cock her head and listen very carefully to it. She won’t eat her denta-sticks if they’re straight. I have to bend them for her. Then they’re wonderful. When we go for a walk, she has to stop in the exact same place every day to chase something that’s clearly not really there. Today she had a long grumbling exchange with her back paw, which ended with her sticking said paw in her mouth and staring into space for ten solid minutes.

I wish I could take a peek inside Pooch’s brain to see what she’s thinking. Then again, I’m not completely sure I really want to know…

Curse of the plastic bags. Or whatever.

2009-02-26T20:42:00.000+01:00

Today I had an adventure. Grocery shopping does qualify as an adventure when judged by The Hellholian Scale of Excitement. Besides, when you’re living with Pooch, who has a habit of licking things that should not be licked and developing farts that smell just like the circus, a change of air might not be such a bad idea.

There I was, puttering around between the isles, my little, blue plastic shopping basket in one hand and my shopping list in the other. Ten minutes later, I had worked up quite an impressive selection of items, some of which I needed but most of which I simply wanted. And deserved, dammit.

“Would you like a bag?” the cashiere with the dead eyes asked me, after she’d finished the laborious task of ringing up all my groceries.

“No, hidden inside the dark bowels of my coat, I have more arms than an army of octopuses and would have no problem carrying a million things home,” I thought. I didn’t say that, of course, because I am a polite and civilized sort of person. In stead I simply smiled and said “yes, please.”

So the woman yanked out a plastic bag from underneath the registery, where it lived with its family and friends inside a little cardboard box, dumped it on top of my small mountain of groceries and then she quickly got up and disappeared through the plastic doors in the back of the store, labelled “staff only!!!”

That’s right: three exclamation marks.

I’m not entirely sure what sort of math went on inside her head to make her think that said mountain was going to fit inside a single plastic bag. It is, after all, exactly as big on the inside as it appears to be from the outside. It’s a typical, run-of-the-mill plastic bag – not the bloody starship Enterprise.

The thing is, they always give you one -1- plastic bag, regardless of how much crap you’re hauling with you. If you want more, you have to specifically ask and carefully outline how many you think you’ll need. I momentarily forgot this, and ended up standing there with 80 bucks worth of groceries, a tiny plastic bag and the distinct feeling of just having screwed myself over.

I bet they all just sit in their little staff-only area, stuffing their faces with chips and watching the little surveillance screens to see how the customers try to work out this little equation. Well, I wasn’t going to be their lunch entertainment. I stole a plastic bag, I did. Hell, I stole TWO.

Thus my life of crime has started. You gonna do something about it, mate? I have a pooch with flatulence and I’m not afraid to use it.

Because we all go a little crazy sometimes…

2009-02-18T14:00:00.000+01:00

And that, in turn, may lead us to come up with… oh, I don’t know…. say, an evil plot to take over the world.

STAGE 1:

To begin my plan, I must first devour Superman, thus stealing his super-powers. This will cause the people of the world to whisper amongst themselves, overwhelmed by my arrival. Who is this criminal mastermind? Where did she come from? And how can she look so good in her wizard’s robes?

STAGE 2:

Next, I must seize control of the moon (oooh, tides!). This will all be done from my underground secret headquarters of doom, a mysterious place of unrivalled dark glory. Upon seeing this, the people of the world will wet their pants, as countless hordes of computer programmers (or one really, really clever one) will hasten to do my every bidding.

STAGE 3:

Finally, I must tauntingly wave my secret death ray, bringing about pain, suffering, - the usual. My name shall become synonymous with “dear god no,” and nobody will ever again dare make me clean my room. Everyone will bow before my mind-boggling insanity, and the world will have no choice but to give me control of the planet.

All in favour say: Nyahahahaha!

Just thought I'd mention it

2009-02-12T16:25:00.000+01:00

There's something that I love even more than lemon squares and strawberry milk. Hell, if you mixed strawberry milk and lemon squares into a big bowl and topped it with a collection of the worlds cutest puppies and kittens, it still wouldn't make it to nr. 1. That's just how it is. And here's something which makes me think of that thing:

What not to do. Unless you're bored.

2009-02-03T21:29:00.001+01:00

There are some very strange laws in the world. And when I say strange, I don’t mean strange as in a toaster sitting in a tree. I mean strange as in the combined bird trap and cat feeder.

Too lazy to feed the cat? Here is the perfect solution which will provide your cat with all the food it needs and at the same time depopulate your whole neighbourhood of those pesky robins, wrens and sparrows. The device works by enticing little song birds into a welcoming, homely, birdhouse. Once inside they step onto the pivoted stand and are ejected down the shoot into the lower section where they remain trapped until puss is ready for his lunch. You will never need to open a can of cat food again in your life.

You telling me that’s not strange?

For example, there’s a law in Alaska that says you can’t look at a moose from an airplane. In Miami, it is forbidden to imitate an animal. California law prohibits a woman from driving a car while dressed in a housecoat. Actually, there probably should be a law against wearing a housecoat in the first place, and there certainly will be, when I take over the world.

In Tennessee, a woman is not to drive a car unless a man warns approaching motorists or pedestrians by walking in front of her car. You also can’t drive a car in Tennessee while you’re sleeping. In New York, you can’t drive a car if you’re blind. But I guess hitting the road while you’re asleep is okay.

In Rochester, Michigan, the law is that anyone bathing in public must have the bathing suit inspected by a police officer. I wonder what would happen if I were to travel to Rochester, put on a bathing suit and ask a police officer to inspect it. In Kentucky, it’s the law that a person must take a bath once a year.

In Utah, birds have the right of way on any public highway. In Ohio, one must have a license to keep a bear. I wonder what the punishment is for bear-keeping without a license.

In North Carolina, it is against the law for dogs and cats to fight. In Singapore, it is illegal to chew gum. In Cleveland, Ohio, it is only illegal to chew gum in public places. Otherwise, it can be your dirty little secret. Maybe you could get down with your bad self and go to dodgy gum-dens.

I never knew the kind of pressure chickens were under, either. In Virginia, chickens cannot lay eggs before 8:00 a.m. and must be done before 4:00 p.m.

In Massachusetts, it is against the law to put tomatoes in clam chowder.

In Washington State, you can’t carry a concealed weapon that is over 6 feet in length. In San Francisco, there is an ordinance, which bans the picking up and throwing of used confetti. In the state of Colorado, a pet cat, if loose, must have a tail-light.

In California, a law created in 1925 makes it illegal to wiggle while dancing. In Utah, daylight must be visible between dancing couples. In Michigan, it is against the law for a lady to lift her skirts more than 6 inches while walking through a mud puddle. What if you stand next to the puddle with your skirt above your head? Can they get you for that? In Missouri a man must have a permit to shave. There’s also a law stating that more than 3000 sheep cannot be herded down Hollywood Blvd at any one time.

Some of these I would really like to try out.

Ghostly lumps and award-winning cuteness

2009-01-21T10:52:00.000+01:00

sThis weekend I was scratching pooch and talking to her as if she was a big baby, the way we usually spend out weekends, when I suddenly noticed a sizeable lump above her ribs. “Oh my, we’d better call the vet,” I thought. And since I can recognise brilliant thinking when I hear it, I did.

The next day Pooch was standing on that glossy, black table in the vet’s examination room, being poked and prodded, but the lump was nowhere to be found. It was a ghost-lump. Seriously, the thing had vanished faster then Michael Jackson after the sex-scandal. It’s probably out shopping for a burka as we speak.

Aaanyways.

I also found an old newspaper clipping that my mum had been saving. It’s an interview of my favourite subject: me. Allow me to share with you my fifteen minutes of fame:

- you have to be careful so it doesn’t jump in your face, says a smiling Choochoo from Hellhole, Hickville. She’s four years old, and her and the stuffed gorilla, who’s name is “Nothing”, are the worlds best friends.

- But it isn’t dangerous, is it, Choochoo, this gorilla of yours?

- Oh yes, it’s very dangerous. It eats people. And it’s very old. Nine!

- Are there more gorillas in Hellhole?
- Yes, two.

- What about bears? Are there bears here?
- Yes, on TV. And there was one up on the roof.
- What was the bear doing up on the roof?

- It ate the chimney.

- That must have been a peculiar bear. You do other things during the day, then play with your gorilla, don’t you?

- I play with rocks.
- Do you build houses with them, perhaps?

- No, I kick them. There are lots of great rocks to kick around here. And the gorilla has to eat, you know. It likes rocks. Just like the bears. All gorillas and bears like rocks. Then they become strong and fly through the air.

That article was so damn cute, it won an award, it did. Yeah, I'm adorable.

Ho, ho, frikkin ho!

2008-12-18T00:14:00.000+01:00

’Tis the season to be… well… running around like a frenzied chicken while you try to figure out who you still need to buy presents for and what the hell you should get those people. Not to mention wrapping the things and shipping them off while there’s still a snowballs chance in hell that they’ll get to where they’re going in time. I think that date passed sometime last week.

All this you have to do accompanied by the sound of cheery Christmas music and cheery Christmas lights and santas of all shapes and sizes yelling “ho, ho, ho” at you. This is the only time of the year when a man can get away with shouting that after a gal without getting pummelled by either her handbag or her boyfriend. You also have to tolerate the presence of screaming two-year, who are all out in force during the holiday season.

There was an interview in the paper the other day with a reverend something-or-other who was upset that the purpose of Christmas had gotten lost somewhere along the way. Most likely, somewhere along the way to the mall. Santa, he said, was clearly a false idol and he wanted everyone to explain to their children that Santa was a false god who made people sick and broke apart happy homes. That’s what he taught his own children when they were growing up.

I’m sure his kids could throw a tantrum to dwarf all other tantrums in the history of tantrums, both past and future, whenever you took them to the mall with all its Christmassy decorations. A few years back, my mum decided she was a lesbian and so my parents got divorced. We had several cardboard boxes of decorations.

Anyways, I’m going away. See you all next year.

Oh, I almost forgot. I’ve been tagged. I now have to pick up the book I’m currently reading, go to page 56 and jot down the fifth line. Iiiits… *drumroll*… “It wasn’t nearly as easy to dance with Charlie.”

Fascinating.

The things I put you people through...

2008-11-28T21:38:00.000+01:00

I have decided to subject you all to Norwegian comedy at it's finest. MMmmmmhm. Mostly it's because I have exams and can't be bothered to think of something brilliant to say.