A friend in the states just sendt me this:

Verne might be right – at least if we are to judge from how deliriously happy I’ve been lately.

Voices on the stereo: Ten Feet of the Ground

Yay! Friday! Friday Five!

1. What does it say in the signature line of your emails?

—
‘Outside of a dog a book is a man’s best friend.
Inside a dog it’s too dark to read.’
— Groucho Marx
https://www.sandlund.net

2. Did you have a senior quote in your high school yearbook? What was it? If you haven’t graduated yet, what would you like your quote to be?
Well, we don’t have yearbooks in Norway. Nor are we ever seniors in high school, really. But we do have these cards – like business cards – that are exchanged when we’re finishing college (or whatever), and my quote on that was “En sunn sjel trives i ethvert legeme” (A healthy soul thrives in any body).

3. If you had vanity plates on your car, what would they read? If you already have them, what do they say?
Bibliophile. If I could get that to fit. Something to do with books, anyway. Not that I’m ever going to have vanity plates (or, indeed, a car).

4. Have you received any gifts with messages engraved upon them? What did the inscription say?
Not as far as I can remember. I was given a glass with my name engraved on it once, but that’s all.

5. What would you like your epitaph to be?
A long way away.

Masses of anti-Bush bumber stickers. I like this one:

I wonder if this might be the original source of that other list, too, but Ine linked to the iMDb top 250 film list, and you know I can’t resist…
Read More

The typical Internet user — far from being a geek — shuns television and actively socializes with friends, a study on surfing habits said on Wednesday.

Well, we all knew that, obviously, but it’s nice to have it “proven” in any case.

the typical Internet user is an avid reader of books and spends more time engaged in social activities than the non-user

As reported by CNN, via Melissa.

Not that I mind being called a geek, mind.

Why the f%?# did they bother to save this guy? The 22 year-old apparently jumped into the lion’s enclosure in the Buenos Aires zoo on Saturday, and only sustained light injuries as the keepers managed to hit the lion with a tranquilizer gun.

But why? Oh, I get it. There must have been a “Do not feed the animals” sign.

Worth a try, this week it’s fill in the blanks:

1. When I sing, I sound like a person who can’t really.
2. April is my favorite month of the year.
3. I’ve always wanted to improve my writing skills.
4. It’s Monday morning, and the first thing that goes through my mind is I wish it were Sunday. Or, even better, Friday.
5. My favorite day of the week is Friday because there’s a whole long weekend ahead.
6. I used to/currently collect books
7. At the end of a work day/school day, the first thing I want to do is strip. The first thing I do when I get home is strip. No, really. It’s usually followed by putting on a t-shirt and pyjama-bottoms, but this depends on the temperature and whether I have company or not.
8. I really look forward to Christmas because it’s my favorite holiday. (Well, Christmas is my favourite holiday, but at the moment I’m really looking forward to Easter – Christmas seems a long way away.)
9. When I need some down-time, I usually lie flat out on the couch with a good book.
10. I plan to travel to most places in the world someday. Ok, for the sake of the argument; the far East.

Obviously.

I found another meme, monthly this time, which might be interesting in so far as it’s been a long time since I wrote any poetry. It’s called Poetic Voices and this month’s challenge is to write a grossblank. I shall have a go, I think, but got a bit hung up on the definition of the grossblank – as written by the “inventor” and quoted on Poetic Voices:

It’s very simple: 12 lines of 12 syllables each, iambic pentameter, unrhymed, any format.

“Iambic pentameter”, of course, comes tripping off the tongue if you’ve been working with the sonnet form, but that’s not really an excuse – “penta” means “five”, “iambic” feet are two syllables long (short-long) “iambic pentameter” is therefore 2×5=10 syllables. It’s pretty basic. The form’s inventor, to give him credit, gets it right in the first attempt at the top of the page (“It’s blank verse, but with 12 syllables per line instead of ten. Twelve lines, iambic meter, unrhymed, any format” – my emphasis), the description I quote is obviously a typo, but why does Poetic Voices blithely quote it?

This little rant was brought to you by Little Voices™. Don’t mind me.

Looking for a replacement for the Monday Mission (I try to limit the weekly memes, but I’m now down to only the Friday Five which seems to me to be overdoing the limiting) I found one called Monday Madness, which suits me fine. Here are this week’s questions:

1. Do you use any slang words on a regular basis?
Probably, but not that I’m aware of, really. I sometimes catch myself saying “like” in places where one really shouldn’t. Not every, like, sentence, but nevertheless in, like, the wrong place syntactically.

2. Is there any one slang word that really bothers you when you hear others use it?
“Like” used in places where one really shouldn’t.

3. Do you have a favorite slang word?
Uhm. No. I don’t think so. I like using some of the Norwegian slang words for “cool” (“Fett”, “Konge” etc.) in an “ironic” sort of way sometimes.

4. What are your thoughts on adding slang words to the dictionary?
Since the dictionary is supposed to define the language “as is” rather than “as we’d ideally like it to be” (“we” being the academics who compile dictionaries), I think adding slang is part of the package. I also think slang needs some milage before it ought to be added, though, it certainly needs to appear in print in “permanent” publications, for example, as the only real need for defining obsolete words in a dictionary is in case people come across them when reading old printed matter (and slang is rather prone to becoming obsolete quite quickly).

In case you didn’t know, I’ll be 30 on 10 April (please feel free to buy me stuff). 30 is such a nice, round number, and besides, it’s kind of a big deal in Norway – it’s the age by which you really should be married, according to tradition. Hence I’m planning to celebrate in a big way, a bigger way than usual. Deciding on how has been a bit tricky. There are several things to consider: How much money can I afford to spend? How much money can I expect the guests to spend? How many people can participate? What would the people I most want to see enjoy doing? What would I enjoy?

The latter, for example, pretty much ruled out the “huge party at suitable venue” option, as I tend to prefer parties where it’s actually possible to talk to everyone. I considered other options, one of which was a mini-cruise from Oslo to Kiel with Colorline, but that ended up (as I’d expected) being rather too pricy. The more I deliberated, the more I felt that the ideal thing would be to find a cottage to rent somewhere within reasonable travelling distance from Oslo and with enough space for the most indispensable people.

And then I found this: Frykdalsstugan 3. Perfect in every which way. We can even go “fyrhjulsåking” (some sort of go-cart-like car thingys). And they’ve got somewhere to celebrate Saturday night where they can even provide food.

So that’s where we’re going (8-12 April). Wanna come?