So long, suckers!

This is my final post of 2006. I've got finals next week and then I'm going away, so there's tons of stuff to do. So... Merry Christmas and I'll see you all next year.

Oh, yeah... In the spirit of the season, I though't I'd give you this. I tried posting it as a video, but the tag is broken, so... Here's a link:

http://www.dagbladet.no/tv/index.html?type=fbig&clipid=1358

Did you notice how they have enough foresight to tell the idiot not to hold it with his hands?

An idle wag of the Solomonic tail

Yesterday I purchased a CD. But not just any CD. Oh no. It had the sound of New Year’s rockets on them. Around here people buy and fire their own rockets from their own backyards. Usually while drunk. Very, very drunk. Every year tons of stuff burn to the ground.

They always scare the living shit out of my dog. The rockets, that is. Personally I worry more about the neighbours, but what the hell. As soon as she hears the sound of fireworks, she shoots under the couch like a bullet, hitting the wall so hard that my depicted relatives rattle on their hooks.

It’s really quite amazing that she hasn’t given herself brain damage yet. Actually, come to think of it, she does spend a lot of time chasing and playing with bugs and little animals that clearly only exist inside her own head…


Now I’m working on gradually getting her used to the sound of New Year’s rockets. I guess we can hope that her eccentric behaviour won’t get any worse. Maybe.

From The Devil’s Dictionary:

Dog, n. A kind of additonal or subsidiary Deity designed to catch the overflow and surplus of the world’s worship. This Divine Being in some of his smaller and silkier incarnations, takes, in the affection of Woman, the place to which there is no human male aspirant. The Dog is a survival – an anachronism. He toils not, neither does he spin, yet Solomon in all his glory never lay upon the door-mat all day long, sun-soaked and fly-fed and fat, while his master worked for the means wherewith to purchase an idle wag of the Solomonic tail, seasoned with a look of tolerant recognition.
An idle wag of the Somomonic tail… Now there’s a mental image.

The pooch finds religion

I have a headache. A the-boy-who-removes-the-sword-from-my-head-shall-be-king kinda headache.

That got me to thinking about that one time at the cabin when the pooch got sick.

I’d escaped to the mum’s cabin to study for my exams. The pooch came with me, of course, since her life naturally seems bleak and meaningless without me (just like yours would, I’m sure). That, and she can’t feed herself. This also meant that once we arrived at our destination, I felt obligated to fix her up some kibble and water.

To the tiny fridge in the tiny kitchen I went. There was no running water in the cabin, and I was to plain lazy to walk down to the river and fetch some, so I filled her bowl with some of the bottled water from the refrigerator. How many dogs do you know that get the chance to drink Evian, huh? Not many, I bet. Little did I know…

The pooch drank and ate and pretty much passed out in a corner. All was peaceful. For a while.

I was deeply engulfed in the oh so fascinating world of hydrology (ironically enough) when the pooch woke up and made it clear that she wanted to go outside, by a long series of jumping and screaming her head off.

As soon as the door opened, she bolted out to the nearest bush and began making it miserable by throwing up on it like a sailor on shore-leave (or whatever they call it).

I later learned that the Evian bottle contained holy water. The kinda stuff that’s blessed by a priest. Why anyone my mum’s would keep holy water in the cabin (or why they would have holy water at all, for that matter) I have no idea.

It is, however, obvious that religion does not agree with my dog…

Ham and maturity, please

People spend their whole lives trying to be mature. Then you become mature, and have your midlife crises, where you try desperately to recapture your lost youth.

I'm still in that phase where I'm trying to be a grown-up.

A little while ago, I bought a ham. It's in my freezer right this moment. Having a ham in your freezer is definitely very grown-up.
Of course, I also bought apples simply because they were shiny. That might not be.

Sometimes I tell friends that I’d like to be an adult. And then I jump up and down, or something, just to demonstrate how eager I am to reach this goal. Most of them seems to think that I’m not, though.

Dave Cockrum, the guy who created the X-Men, died recently at the age of 63. They found him with a Batman blanket, wearing his Superman pyjamas. That’s definitely not grown-up. I wonder if he had a girlfriend? He probably didn’t have a ham in his freezer, anyway.

Richard Simmons' exploding steamer

"I swear, they take over my head"

I don't understand writers who say that their storied just write themselves because the characters take over their heads. This doesn't sound healthy to me. It actually sounds a bit... nuts.

Sure, when I write I know my character pretty well. They have their little personalities and attitudes, I know pretty much what they would and wouldn't do. But I am still master of my head. Nobody but me is commanding my little grey cells.

If this balance of power ever shifted, I'd go into therapy. If they told me to, I'd take pills. Little ones, big ones, round ones, square, pink, blue or purple ones - it wouldn't matter, I'd take them anyway. They could stick needles in me, if they thought it necessary. Considering some of the people I've written about, I might even agree to shock therapy.

If the invasion got really bad, I'd fully expect a loved one to knock me unconcious and drag me to an institution, where they could solve the problem, using whatever means necessary.

Picture "Inside" by Andrew Mason

The Devil's Dictionary

I love the devil's dictionary. It's got some very funny stuff in it. Like this:

Day, A period of twenty-four hours, mostly misspent. This period is divided into two parts, the day proper and the night, or day improper - the former devoted to sins of business, the latter concentrated on the other sort. These two kinds of social activity overlap.

Absentee, A person with an income who has had the forethought to remove himself from the sphere of exaction.

Abstainer, A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure. A total abstainer is one who abstains from everything but abstention, and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others.

I'm definitly not one of those. I obstain from very little, unless circumstances beyond my control force me to, and I don't give a damn about the large majority of people.

Belladonna, In Italian a beautiful lady; in English a deadly poison. A striking example of he essential identity of the two tongues.

Cabbage, A familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man's head.

Dawn, The time when men of reason go to bed. Certain old men prefer to rise at about that time, taking a cold bath and a long walk with an empty stomach, and otherwise mortifying the flesh. They then point with pride to these practices as the cause of their sturdy health and ripe years; the truth bein that they are hearty and old, not because of their habits, but in spite of them. The resaon we find only robust people doing this think is that it has killed all the others who have tried it.

Debauchee, One who has so earnestly pursued pleasure that he has had the misfortune to overtake it.

I want to be a debauchee when I grow up, mummy

I'm a CIA agent!

Do you remember the Furby? They were the little, furry toy which shot to fame a few years ago. They spoke furbish and could pick up on worlds and sentences that they heard.

Apparently the CIA issued a memo to their employees, saying that they weren’t allowed to bring their Furbies with them to work, because they didn’t want the toys to go blabbing about things they overheard in the office.

This made me wonder…

The words “I’m a CIA agent” have been used by idiot teens everywhere to make them seem tough. They’re also a key ingredient in heaps of action movies. To many, this simple phrase is the verbal equivalent to adjusting your crotch.
Unless, of course, you do it like Michael Jackson.

These are the same people who need a special memo to keep them from bringing their stuffed animals with them to work.

I’m not so sure I’d want to give them a gun, really.



Pic by Guillermo Ruiz de Loizaga for www.flickr.com

I took a test, I did

I'm not a ma'am, dammit!

Phonesalesmen make me crazy. They make me want to strap them to my kitchen table and dissect them alive with knitting needles.

About a year ago, I had a fit of niceness and donated some money to an organization that works against infant death syndrome, and thus placed myself firmly on their List Of Suckers.

So now they call me almost every day. It usually happens when the phone is turned off or when I can’t hear it ring, but then I can see that they’ve called, and that’s just as irritating as if I’d actually had to talk to them.

I’ve registered my number against marketing, so now all I need to do, is to tell them to leave me the hell alone, or I’ll strangle them with the telephone cord. Easies said than done…

The last time I actually spoke to one of them, he was talking so much and so fast that I couldn’t get a damn word in edgewise. Then he committed the ultimate transgression. Without any warning, the word slithered out of the telephone and into my ear.

“Ma’am”
That’s right, the little shit ma’am-ed me. I’m not a ma’am, dammit. I’m barely a lady.
I hung up. I had to. People don’t respond well to murder threats. Not even the ones who aren’t really intelligent enough to understand the concept of murder.

But they’ll call back. They always do.

Pic by Jgh Photo for www.Flickr.com

Pill surprise

One unavoidable side-effect of the holiday season, is that an unusually large junk-mountain lands on my mailbox every day. Usually this stuff never makes it past the trashcan in my driveway, but yesterday I found something that made me giggle. I giggled, of course, because deep down I’m nothing but a big brat with my head up my ass.

Anyway, it was a commercial for roseroot pills. According to the fancy looking little pamphlet, this wondrous product would help me focus on (for instance) my studies before an exam AND increase sexual arousal.

Now call me crazy if you’d like, but those two things don’t seem like something that you could combine, you know? So is it like a 50/50 thing? Say that I ordered this stuff (which I didn’t, just for the record), and say that I’m sitting in front of my very large books, completely unable to study. And say that I take one of these little miracle pills. Would I become either be absolutely focused, like a little study robot, or completely unable to concentrate?

How do you know which pill does what? Are they labelled? Is it like a pill-surprise?

*giggle*

Dresses, Liberace and Aquaman

It's the season for me driving myself crazy trying to find a dress to wear for various Christmas parties, that won't make me look like a hooker or a powder puff. Both styles are big in Hellhole, judging by the content of the (four) stores. Tagging along for my futile dress-hunt, was a good friend that we all call Toto.

Toto is, in his own words, gayer than Liberace at a trucker convention.

After an eternity of trying on one outfit more hideous than the other, I finally gave up and decided to just use my dress from last year with new accessories. “Oh, you really should,” said Toto. “That dress is dead sexy.”

I froze.

Women dress up all purty for two reasons.
1) to attract attention from men, because… Well, just because.
2) To emphasize our good bits so that we can rub it in other women’s faces (no, not like that, you pervert).
However, if Toto – who is gayer than Aquaman dressed up in a very gay, pink spandex superhero outfit – thinks that my dress is sexy, there’s obviously something terribly, horribly wrong with it.

So maybe I’ll go shopping again later this week…

Pic by eyecandyforthebrokenhearted for www.Flickr.com

Great, big ears

The Pooch has got very large ears. You couldn't sneak up on her, even if you tried really hard. Which I have. Many, many times.

Thanks to those humongous radar dishes on the top of her head, she noticed the neighbour’s cats hiding under the porch the moment she stepped into the yard to do her business this morning. Three of them, in all. As soon as they saw her, they came to the unanimous decision that they should find another place to hang out, which might not have been a bad idea.

First she chased a little, black cat until it escaped over the fence. The second one went up the apple tree, but the third... Well, the third cat was different.

As soon as the pooch had determined that cat nr. 2 was not coming down, and that she herself was not one of those rare doggies who could climb a tree, she span around, ready to see how fast the third intruder could go. It wasn't going fast at all, actually. In fact, it was sort of sauntering across the lawn, heading for a small opening under the fence. It was moving much the same way that I do, when I'm trying to remember something important that I forgot to write down (of course I did).

The pooch would not let this deter her, however. Convinced that the cat would pick up the speed once it saw her coming, she rushed towards it, ears back, tongue out and legs rotating wildly. The cat looked at her, blinked and carefully placed it's bum on the wet grass.

Doggie was confused. This wasn't how these things were supposed to work. The cats were supposed to run really, really fast and then she was meant to chase them at almost the same speed. Everybody knew that. And still, this one just sat there and stared at her. Could it be that it hadn't learned the rules? It was just a kitten, after all.

"yelp," said the pooch.

"Hiss," answered the cat.

The dog stared at it for another couple of seconds, shifting her weight from one paw to another, before she stuck her tail between her legs and escaped from this fearsome enemy.

My dog is such a sissy.

Like a little lamb to the slaughter

As I mentioned, I had an exam on Friday, which I both survived and passed (I assume). Obviously (obvious for me, anyway) this called for some sort of reward. One of the edible kind and another one of the wearable kind, I figured.

Feeling deflated and exhausted, I tottered off to the mall.
Earlier that day, I’d been so stressed out, I hadn’t even noticed that all the Christmas decorations were out all over town. Now that it was getting dark, everything was oh so shiny. I stopped dead in my tracks and stared at it, wide-eyed, thinking “Oh so shiny”. And then my stomach got bubbly and Jinglebells started playing in the back of my head. Covered in little, clear lightbulbs and with little trees decorated and placed all around, the mall was the shiniest one of them all.

Inside, it was as if Santa had exploded like some gigantic holiday piñata, spreading Christmas and cheer everywhere. I jumped on the escalator and up, up I went, straight into the glittery fun of “T’is the season, fa-la-la-la-la”, still bubbly inside and biting my bottom lip.

A little while later, I stood in front of a cash register and waited for one of the four clerks to take notice of me. I wasn’t in a hurry - I was staring down a Christmas tree.

What I didn’t realise at this point, was that there aren’t many shoppers in the stores that last hour before they close. The clerks are all terribly bored. They want to make those last sixty minutes pass by quickly, so that they can go home. And there was I, standing completely unattended, holding a sweater in my little hands.

Like a lamb to the slaughter…

All four saw me and pounced at the same time, faces full of big smiles and helpful expressions. The sweater flew out of my hands, as Nr. 1 rang it up. Nr. 2 dropped down underneath the counter, eagerly searching for a plastic bag. Nr. 3 tip-toed behind Nr. 1, ready to grab my receipt for me as soon as it chose to make an appearance, and all the while Nr. 4 made friendly comments about the weather. Four pairs of hands ensured that my sweater was folded up all pretty-like and placed in the bag, which in turn was handed to me.

When I finally got home, I didn’t have the energy to look at any of my rewards very closely. Go figure.

Pic 1 by Rameckers for www.sxc.hu

Pic 2 by Paul Keleher for www.Flickr.com

attack of the finals

Stumbling out of bed in the morning, with the realization that you're late for your final exam attacking you from all possible angles, is no fun. I didn't like it much either. My alarm hadn't gone off, and I was hideously, horribly late. At that very moment, my classmates were sitting bent over their papers, their little brains pounding away at the problems. And where was I? Running around my bathroom looking for my clothes, that's where I was.

In the end, I didn't have time to find anything to wear that matched or looked halfway sane. I would have missed the bus, and then I'd really be screwed. So I just grabbed the things closest to me - a oversized, grey sweater and snowman pajama bottoms. That's right: Snowman pajama bottoms. Through my window, I could see the bus moving steadily towards the bus stop, and I had to run for it. My hair was standing almost straight up, I was dressed like a freak, running down the street, shouting for the bus to "wait for me". In the hurry, I even forgot to put on shoes. It wasn't until I was sitting in one of the run-down seats that I realised that I was still wearing slippers...

I leaped off the bus like a deranged bullet and ran towards the college as fast as I could. Twice I fell flat on my face. Did you know that you could actually run and fall at the exact same time? You're head knows that it's heading for the concrete, but the legs don't have time to listen to that sort of pessimistic dribble, and they just keep on going. People were looking at me as if they were completely positive that I'd escaped from somewhere. In their heads, they were probably working out what they would say to the butterfly-net-men who would undoubtedly come looking for me.

Completely out of breath, soaking wet and absolutely filthy from stumbling around like I had, I finally arrived outside the auditoriom where the exam was being held. But the door was locked, and no amount of knocking or shouting could convince anyone to open it...

...And then I woke up.

The things that make me a terror bird

This post is inspired by the fact that I’m hungry and waiting for my lunch. I have a math exam tomorrow and cramming for it seems to empty my stomach faster than the most vigorous workout.

After my exam, I plan to celebrate my making myself lots of good things to eat and watching a DVD. That’s pretty much what I’m gonna have the energy for. As usual, I’ll probably be done eating before the credits roll by… And this isn’t because I eat so very little. No, it’s because I truly master the art of stuffing my face, that’s why.

An ex used to tell me that I ate like a bird. This is completely true if you take into consideration that a bird can scoff down about three times its own weight. I don’t really think that’s what he meant, though. The last time I can remember him saying this, was while we were having dinner at a friends apartment. We’d all chipped in for the food, and prepared it together, but the x-man had to work late, so he only saw the eating-part and not the shopping-part or the cooking-part.

I once worked as a kitchen assistant, and the chefs always had us try the food, to make sure that it was okay. After all, when you’re cooking something for someone else, you want to make sure that the meal is all that it can be. That it reaches its meal-potential, and all that. Unless, of course, you’re cooking for someone you really can’t stand. If so, you might be happy as long as the food places them firmly on the toilet for a while. Their own toilet, that is…

So while we were preparing the stuff, we tested it. Thoroughly. And once we had checked it once, we had to check it again, just like the song says. We figure out more or less how much food will be eaten at the table, and then we get twice as much in the store – because about half of it won’t ever make it out of the kitchen.

So that evening, x-man watched me picking my food, shook his head and said “You eat like a bird.”

Sure I do. Like the 10 ft tall, carnivorous Terror Birds that lived in South America about a million years ago.

I'll just leave you with this - the song that the monster in "Naked Space" sings:

I want to eat your face.

It could just be so yummy.

I'd like to have your face, in my tummy.

I want to eat your smile.

Your smile is so beguiling.

I could eat your smile, I'd be smiling.

I want to eat your knees!

Oh they would really please me.

So let me eat those knees, Don't you tease me!

bird picture by Procsilas for www.Flickr.com

Neverending Friday (part II)

As I mentioned, last Friday was a bit of a challenge for my good mood and sunny disposition. After I finally got my paper handed in, all I wanted to do, was go home. Unfortunately, unless I stopped by the grocery store first, I’d have to live off of raisins and old strawberry jam. And I’d probably have to fight the pooch for them, since she had just emptied her food storage the day before.

The store stood where it normally did, across the street from the station. I walked through the sliding doors. They closed behind me with a swish, and I looked longingly at the spot where my bus always stops. It wouldn’t be there for another twenty minutes. I wanted to go home.

I was very proud of myself when I managed to find all of the stuff I needed in a very short time, without my Inner Voice convincing me to “get the cookies” or “pick up that candybar”.

Heading for the checkout line, I figured I’d be out of there in no time. Until I saw the person standing in front of me, that is… A little, old lady with blue, curly hair who I hadn’t noticed earlier, since she practically disappeared behind her overstuffed cart. I wanted to get away, slither over to one of the other lines, but people started crowding me from behind. I was trapped.

The old bird started placing her items on the little conveyor belt. Slowly she bent into the cart, fumbled around for her groceries and picking them up as if someone had poured cement into her fake fur coat. Or maybe it wasn’t fake. If so, whichever animal had passed on for it, must have done so half a century ago.

Why are little, old ladies apparently allergic to plastic? No, not all kinds of plastic. Many of them seem very fond of plastic plants and plastic covers for furniture, but when it comes to the kind of plastic that you might use to… Oh, say pay for your groceries, that’s another story.

“That’ll be 416 kr.” said the cashier.

The little, old lady stared at him for a few seconds, while her little, old brain digested what he had just said. Then she dived into her purse. As she slowly placed the bills in the little, white tray in front of the cashier, she counted each one of them out loud. “Oooone, twooooooo, threeeeeeeee…”
When the turn came to the small change, she stopped again, her brain trying to recollect what it was that it had just digested.

“Did you say three?” she asked.

“No, ma’am. Sixteen,” the cashier said.

The women digested, returned to her purse and started putting the coins into the white tray, counting as she went along.
“Ooone, twooooo…. Did you say three?”

“No. Sixteen.”

Behind her, I was tip-toeing like a toddler needing to use the facilities. Through the window, I could see my bus pulling up. I wanted to go home, and I wanted to go home NOW.

By the time the old thing had relinquished her cash, and the cashier started to turn towards me, my items were already sitting on the little conveyor belt, ready to putter past the register, and I was holding my card in my raised hand, like a weapon.

Paying for my things and stuffing them into a plastic bag, probably took all of fifteen seconds, but it felt even longer than the eternity the old lady had used.

I made the bus with a minute to spare.

Old lady pic by KoAn for www.Flickr.com

I'm it again

Once again, I've been tagged. These are seven songs that I'm into right now:

1: "I'm an asshole"

By Dennis Leary. I like this song. Somewhere beneath my sweet, harmless exterior, there's an asshole just gagging to come out and make your life miserable.

2: "The greatest"

By Cat Power. I wanna be the greatest. Enough said.

3: "(I can't get no) satisfaction)"

By the Rolling Stones. The perfect song for dancing around the house like a maniac. Which I do. Often.

4: "Jumpin' Jack Flash"

More Rolling Stones. Because this song is almost as perfect for dancing around the house like a maniac as Satisfaction. Almost. Very close.

5: "You got me rocking"

By... *drumroll*.... ROLLING STONES. If you don't realise why this is a great song, you're to dumb for me to talk to anyway. So there.

6: "Are you gonna go my way?"

I've been obsessed with this song since I was thirteen years old. Never been fed up with it. Which is kinda sorta freaky, now that I think about it...

7: "Like always"

By Motorpsycho. At the moment this is my lie-on-the-floor-and-stare-at-the-ceiling-song. If you're going to lie on the floor, you need one of those. Everybody knows that.

Microphone pic by Brainloc for www.sxc.jpg

Rolling Stones pic by Cromo for www.Flickr.com

Neverending Friday

Last Friday was a very long day, of the seemingly neverending variety. Despite not having any classes that day, I went to the college. Being the lethargic creature that I am, this goes against everything I stand for. I did, however, have to hand in a paper.

I had the idea in my head that this would be a piece of cake. All I had to do, was find the professors office, knock-knock on the door, and hand it over, right? I should have known better. There’s no such thing as a piece of cake in Hellhole.

The finding-the-office-bit was easy enough. Knocking on the door went just as I had planned. But that was where Friday stopped following the script. There was no answer. I knocked again. Nothing. I waited. And then I waited some more. And a bit longer. Then I got fed up with waiting, and concluded that if the professor wouldn’t come to Mohammed, then Mohammed would come to the professor. So I went searching the halls for a tall, gangly man in his fifties (the professor, duh). The only problem was that the guy kept moving around. When they insist on having things handed to them, the least they can do is bloody hold still, don’t you think? All lecturers should have some sort of tracking device injected into their necks, so that their students could find them. Then they could just hang a few of those electronic gizmos that show their locations as a small, red dot on the wall. Like the ones they used in Alien.

I looked at my wristwatch. The bus would leave in less than an hour, and after that I’d have to wait two hours for the next one. I needed a plan.

Fifteen minutes later, I was standing in the checkout line at the store, clutching the key ingredient to my master plan: a roll of tape. Ten minutes after that, I was in the process of thoroughly sticking my paper to the professor’s office door with great enthusiasm.

And what did I see coming towards me at that very moment? A tall, gangly man in his fifties, that’s what.

Bloody typical.

Tape pic by deziner02 for www.sxc.hu

You can’t go out wearing that!

Rain, rain, rain and more rain. And after that, it’ll probably start raining again. My house is right next to a great big parking lot. Nobody ever uses it, so the clever politicians decided that there’s no point in maintaining it anymore, and it’s since been reduced to a collection of very impressive cracks and holes.

Before it started raining, it snowed for a while. Then the rain turned the snow into ice and the parking lot into a skating range, basically. A skating range with large pools built into it. As I walked across it to get to the bus stop, I tried my very best not to slip’n slide directly into one of them. I haven’t bathed in a puddle since I was a kid, and I can’t quite remember what it was about getting my pants full of muddy water that was so hysterically funny.

The morning bus was bursting with teenagers on their way to school, as usual. I don’t get that trend where guys wear pants that only cover the bottom half of their ass. And I really don’t understand wearing half-ass pants with white underwear in the rain, especially if you’re planning on doing a lot of bending over. I’m not interested in looking at either one of these guys' bums for at least another ten years, and probably not even then.

That’s not to say that I don’t have some strange things sitting in my closet, also. I have this huge belt, for instance. It’s got a bunch of gold plates on it. Someone gave it to me as a present once, and I’ve never worn it, because every time I look at it, all I can think is “heavyweight champion of the world.”

Then there was that period in the mid nineties, when I had the animal print outfits and ridiculous plateau shoes. Not to mention men’s shirts and big hats.

I’m hoping that in another ten years, I’ll be able to look back on myself without blushing from shame.

Hat pic by brndnprkns for www.Flickr.com