A materialistic Friday Five:

1. Do you like to shop? Why or why not?
It depends fom what and when. I hate shopping for clothes, especially if I really need to find something (and especially trousers). I can spend hours (days, weeks) browsing in (second-hand) bookshops, though. I don’t like crowds and waiting, so the more busy a shop is the less likely am I to enjoy the experience. But, yes, if I can chose when and where to go shopping, I do like to shop…

2. What was the last thing you purchased?
LotR Two Towers extended edition with Gollum figurine and two cds on sale at Platekompaniet yesterday. Or, if you’re counting online shopping: The Anatomy of Bilbliomania by Holbrook Jackson – ordered through ABEBooks this morning.

3. Do you prefer shopping online or at an actual store? Why?
I prefer an actual store as long as it’s not too crowded. I shop a lot online, though, because a lot of what I want to buy is not that easy to get hold of in Oslo. A quick search online saves a lot of time and energy when you know exactly what you want. I tend to do my browsing-resulting-in-purchase in actual shops, and I don’t buy clothes/shoes online as I really need to try them on first.

4. Did you get an allowance as a child? How much was it?
Various amounts at various times. For years I got 10 kroner on Saturdays to buy sweets. Then, when I was 14 or so, my mother figured she’d teach me how to budget by giving me 500 kroner a month from which I was supposed to get my own clothes in addition to “fun” things. Which is when I developed my habit of buying clothes, especially expensive items like coats, in charity shops – leaving the rest of the money for more important things. Like books.

5. What was the last thing you regret purchasing?
Hm. Nothing very recent. I suppose I regret the couple of whisky bottles that I couldn’t carry back from Scotland and which were lost in the mail (grrrr) – but I don’t regret purchasing them so much as mailing them…

It’s past eleven! Gah!

I should have been in bed ages ago, getting my beauty sleep in preparation for tomorrow night. Right. Well, too late now.

Pity there’s so much to do, really. Got hold of the extended Two Towers (with Gollum figurine, obviously) today and what I really want to do is watch FotR extended and then TT. Since it’s already late, I might as well. I should be just about done by the time I need to leave for work in the morning.

On second thought, maybe not. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Seriously, though, I feel a marathon coming up. And it’s got to be soon, we’ve got tickets for RotK for the 20th (*jumps up and down with exitement*).

Ok, bedtime. Now.

In light of the “new” guidelines from Datatilsynet on publishing on the web, I thought I’d have another look at what I’ve actually got up here. To start with I’ve made a change to the gallery which I’ve never gotten around to implementing before – you now have to register if you want to see the pictures in anything larger than thumbnail size. Not much of an improvement in terms of publishing pictures without having asked permission first, but I like it because I like knowing who visits the site in any case.

In order to do this I have had to modify a couple of settings and add a “coppermine approved” hack or two, so I may have messed something up. So if any of you regulars can be bothered, would you please register, have a snoop around and let me know if you come across anything funny (apart from what you see in the pictures, obviously)?

I’d quite like to add a “admin must approve” to the registration process, too, but it’s not a feature of the Coppermine software and is a rather more seriously involved hack, so it might not happen any time soon.

Voice in my head: whasernames – Felice Navidad mixed with Volare

I have my ball gown out. In fact, it’s occupying much of the couch at the moment (all those tulle skirts makes it kind of bulky). Of course, I’m now trying to get the bits fixed that didn’t quite work – or weren’t quite finished – when I last wore it at Janne’s wedding. And the ball is tomorrow night, so I have to get on with it tonight, really. So why didn’t I fix it immediately after the wedding? Or maybe start a few weeks ago? Well, I’d have had to relinquish my crown as the Queen of Procrastination, wouldn’t I?

So. You’re probably all thinking “What ball?”, aren’t you? The St. Andrew’s Ball, naturally, organised by the Oslo Scottish Country Dance Group and the Caledonian Society. I have mentioned the dancing before, haven’t I? Well, whatever. Martin and I started going to the dancing Monday nights and it’s great fun. So tomorrow night I get to wear my ball gown, sit down to a three course dinner and dance the night away. And probably pass out from lack of air, as the gown is pretty tightly laced around my chest so that breathing properly is a bit difficult.

I tried the gown some time last week, getting Linda to check the length (it was really too short last time, but then I was wearing high heels – this time I’ll be in dancing shoes, and so it’s perfect. I suspect I checked the length barefeeted when sewing it) and it really makes me feel like a princess. I ought to have a tiara. Nevermind. I’ll make do with necklace and bracelet fashioned with my newly aquired (or is it discovered?) make-your-own-jewelry-from-pearls-and-wire skills.

And I will try to manage to get a picture this time. At Janne’s wedding I ended up with loads of pictures, but I wasn’t in a single one of them.

…for the Thursday Three, obviously. But then, I didn’t do last week’s, so I’ll do that instead…

1. Name three things you couldn’t live without?
Apart from oxygen and nourishment? Well, three things I’d be loathe to have to live without… Let’s see… Literature, music, and, well, Martin, obviously.

2. If you had to choose one of those things what would it be?
Chose one to live without? Martin. (Sorry, dear. Whereas I can’t imagine a life without literature or music I still remember having a life before I met you – though the memory seems to be fading. Give me a few years – actually, 50 or so would be nice – to get properly addicted and I might answer differently.)

3. Name three things you could live without?
As in things I like, but could do without I suppose? (No point in listing things like mosquitoes, is there?) Television (have done before). Chocolate (though I’d prefer not to have to). Alchohol (ditto).

Voice in my head: Sophie Ellis Bextor – Music gets the Best of Me

Poetry’s been on my mind lately, and so I’ve been adding a couple of poems to The Commonplace Book today (Frost’s Stopping by Woods, another Dickinson a Rossetti and a few more). Including one of my own. That’s right, work from my own pen. It’s finally appropriate, too, though it was written close to ten years ago. Which reminds me:

“(…) When [Jane] was only fifteen there was a gentleman at my brother Gardiner’s in town so much in love with her that my sister-in-law was sure he would make her an offer before he came away. But, however, he did not. Perhaps he thought her too young. However, he wrote some verses on her, and very pretty they were.”

“And so ended his affection,” said Elizabeth impatiently. “There has been many a one, I fancy, overcome in the same way. I wonder who first discovered the efficacy of poetry in driving away love!”

“I have been used to consider poetry as the food of love,” said Darcy.

“Of a fine, stout, healthy love it may. Everything nourishes what is strong already. But if it be only a slight, thin sort of inclination, I am convinced that one good sonnet will starve it entirely away.”

(From Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen)

I wonder whether Elizabeth might not be right, in which case I should perhaps have another go at poetry – it seems like a good test. The sonnet in The Commonplace Book was written when I was very much out of love (I wasn’t even having a crush on anyone at the time), but the last time I fancied myself in love I wrote a vilanelle, and just after finishing it, realized that though I was certain that “This is how it’s supposed to feel”, it didn’t feel like that at all. (Incidentally, it does now. I wonder where I put the darn thing. Must go through my “drawers” – i.e. old diskettes etc.)

Meanwhile, a more whimsical sample of my versification can be found between Pooh’s hums and poems on the site of one of my best friends.

You’ll notice I’m being quiet. I just don’t have all that much to say at the moment. So when I think of something to say I try to get it blogged as soon as possible, even if it’s pretty inconsequential.

Incidentally, I tried using the Norwegian version on “inconsequential” in a conversation yesterday, in order to describe something in the software as “not very important”. Unfortunately, “inkonsekvent” is not a synonym to “unimportant”, but to “inconsistent”. Which didn’t sound quite as reassuring to the customer, for some reason… I had fun trying to explain that I’d been thinking in English.

Apparently, Margareth Thatcher once said that any person over the age of thirty who found themselves using buses was a failure in life (via Vaughan). Nice. Well, I never agreed much with Maggie on anything, so why am I surprised? (Actually, I’m surprised at the sheer idiocy of the comment, the blithe overlooking of the possibility that some people might chose buses over other modes of transport – like cars, planes or taxis – from reasons other than lack of funds. But then you might have to use the e-word, of course. “Environment”, that is.)

I know there was something else I meant to say, but it’s slipped my mind again. I might get back to you.

Voice in my head: Van Morrison – Have I told You lately that I Love You

Monday Mission 3.47

1. It is a lovely 21 degrees here in Oklahoma, and since walking in from the parking lot, I can’t seem to warm up. I’ve got the coffee to my right and the space heater to the left and the non-functional central heat blowing above me. What do you do to get warm when you are very cold?
Well, a warm shower if practicable. Or hot tea (coffee, somehow, doesn’t work in the same way).

2. What is the first thing you do in the morning after you get up?
Put the kettle on for tea.

3. Do you remember the very first video game you ever played (arcade, handheld, console, etc.)? What do you remember about that experience?
Not really. I think the first game I played was a Donkey-Kong handheld game, but I’m not at all sure.

4. Do you have a good memory or do you find that you need to write things down to remember them?
I tend to remember things better if I’ve written them down – without having to check what I’ve written, that is. It also depends on how concentrated I am at the point where I get the information in the first place – I suppose that’s probably why writing it down helps, to write something down you have to actually think about it (unless you’re a stenographer, of course).

5. I am currently really getting a kick out of the Citibank Citicard commercials about Identity theft, to the point of quoting them out loud (which no one gets, I really need new some geeky-er friends). What are some of your all-time favorite television commercials?
The Tine Melk commercial with the kids and the various types of milk (“Sur”, “Lett” etc. – you have to be Norwegian to have a clue what I’m talking about) were good. Some of the Norwegian lottery (Lotto) commercials have been pretty good, too. However, if a commercial is really memorable it’s more often because it’s unintentionally funny.

6. Since Thanksgiving is this week, I felt like I just had to throw in the obligatory food question, so here goes. Do you have a favorite Thanksgiving food that is made by one person, and no one makes it better? If not, then what is your favorite food to eat at Thanksgiving? (Those who don’t celebrate Thanksgiving feel free to insert your favorite fall food)
Sorry, too tired, will skip this one (no thanksgiving here, in any case).

7. Wireless telephone companies will now let you move your cell number to another carrier, or move your land line number to your cell. Not only is this incredibly convenient, it forces cell phone companies to be more competitive. Are you planning to switch cell phone companies as a result of this new law, or possibly pit two companies against each other for a better deal?
We’ve been able to do this for some time in Norway. I’ve been meaning to change my company, actually, or at least the kind of contract I’m on, but I never seem to get around to it. I use my mobile so little that I’m only likely to save 5-10 dollars a month at most, so the incentive to go to a lot of hassle to change it really isn’t there…