My own self

Or, sort of.

As I said on nettserier, anyone want one but have other motifs in mind, just let me know, and I'll fix it.



And also, look what me and Erlend thought up!

I've finally gotten around to fiddling a bit with the options on this weblog, and the menu to the right is a bit more thought-through now. Hopefully, the list of recent comments is a nice addition that'll be appreciated.

Or, hopefully, anyway. I'm not handing out guarantees.

Is this post late, you say? Is this not in keeping with the fine standard I set last year? And what about the Prime Minister Speech Review? Didn't do that one this year, either. Nor did I do the review of the King's Speech which I wanted to do to make up for last year.

Fear not, gentle reader.


Oh, and fear not, violent readers, I hadn't forgotten you, either, I'm just favorizing my gentle one.


Anyway, fear not.


'Cause I've got me some explanations.

I was at my grandfather's this New Year's Eve and Day. So, no internet. Zap. Zilch. Nil. Nada. Splonge. Bupkiss. Bippers. I might have made up some of those words. No net, though. Net-depravement is big around those parts.

He lives in a valley so secluded you had to transport your cars there by boat 'til 1989 'cause there were no roads.

Anywho.

No net, no immediate ability to Report On My Thoughts and such. Also, I've been busy. Busybusybusy. As in the kind of state where you're, you guessed it, busy. (Good guess, by the way, were you peeking ahead?) I've had other stuff on my mind. Plus, this whole (non-)blog-thing isn't as new and fancy and interesting now as it was a year ago. Then again that's life. ("That's liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiife! That's what all the people saaaaay." That commercial has killed my taste in music)

The Prime Minister's Speech, that one I would have done a post on. Had I fracking watched it. I just caught the last five minutes. Probably a blessing in disguise, it's not like they ever say anything new. I caught the King's Speech, though, naturally, I'd be a poor sod of a monarchist if I didn't catch the one time throughout a year the King actually speaks directly to the people. But it's been so long since, now, I can't remember enough of it to comment properly. It was the same old same old with the thematic twist of the year, as usual, but I liked it. It dealt a lot with xenophobia and common decency and that kind of thing. Very humane. Sappy, but that's the point, I guess. Kudos to Harald and his speechwriter(s?).

Just for the record, though, I caught the national anthem after both speeches, and the King's song before his speech, and I rose and stood through all three. I might be a closet nationalist. I might just like the song. Or I might just think it's plain cool to revere something which is purely symbolic.

So, the year. Interesting thing, the year. It's a natural cycle. It's not man-made, like the second or the hour or the century or the millenia. There actually would be such a thing as a year even if we hadn't made up a name for it.

Sorry, I digress. I meant "the PAST year", not years in general, and by believing that was obvious, I seem to have misled myself, 'cause apparently, it wasn't. I need to stop taking everything I write literally.

So, the past year. Well, it's past. And it was a very good one. For me, anyway. They hung Saddam, though. Doesn't seem like the kind of thing you can do. I mean, he's even in the South Park-movie. He's like Cæsar; you just can't picture the guy die. Sure, he's a swine, but even so. He's like an icon. Doesn't ring right, his being dead. Like you kind of can't really believe it. It's scary, that, realizing how frail human life is even when you're the world's possibly best known genocidal maniac. If HE can die, everybody can die. He didn't lose his cool, though. Kudos to him. I'm generally opposed to execution as a form of penalty - I figure that nobody can really know what it entails without having died themselves first - and I kind of think imprisonment for life is the worse sentence anyway. Apparently, though, the Iraqi government was clear on this being to spare the people of him, not to punish him, so, that's a moot point. I just can't quite wrap my mind around his being gone. Even though the world is probably a slightly better place for it.

Other people I have never known, met or really wanted to meet have died this past year, too. The only ones of them to make an impression on me, though, were a couple of actors and the like. Right now I can only remember Sverre Holm and Peter Boyle. Thanks, guys. You've made me laugh.

So, that's the morbid section of this post. Me, I'm good. Good year. Better than good. No major bad occurancies in my immediate family, me included. Good health. Good life, rather good economy. Good getting-my-civic-service-postponed-indefinetely. Good studying. I'm regretting I didn't take an additional course in spring, 'cause one of the two I did take turned out to be far less work than I could have ever dreamed, but still. I re-took an exam in March, and improved my only post-high school grade below B, a D, to a B. One of my prouder moments, that. I had two more exams in June, one in an interesting subject where I got really lucky with the questions on the exam, and one in a dreadfully boring subject where I wrote my bachelor's assignment and somehow did extremely well without having read more than 10% of the curriculum. Summer was nice, but uneventful, maybe. Other than making my webcomic. Of which I'm rather proud, to tell the truth. Otherwise, this summer, I took a short trip with my family like we usually do in summers, and beyond that, I mainly just worked. I'm starting to tire of working where I work in vacations and weekends where I'm home. I'm starting to grow more comfortable there, yes, with the people there and the assigments there and so on, but I'm tiring of it. It's so dreadfully boring. Anyway, on to the autumn, where I took three *very* interesting courses, making for my academically most interesting term since spring 2005, and the two I've learned the results of yet turned out really well, too. January 17th will prove whether or not the third one followed suit. I have hopes. ("He's got HIIIIGH hopes. He's got. HIIIIGH hopes. He's got high apple pie in the sky hopes!" I love Goofy) If it does, it'll be pure awesomity. Personally, too, it's been a great year. I'm very lucky, I have a very easy life and no major worries, never really did have. I hope it'll last a long while yet. I've grown more social, too. This spring, I kind of regressed, I didn't share courses with anyone I know and I didn't really make much contact with the ones I knew outside my courses from before. Right before summer, though, it changed, and I made an effort to keep it up the first few weeks this fall, and voilà, it held. Suddenly, I find myself socializing almost one day or so every week. It's crazy. Nice people, too. Not a lot of people, but very nice people. Obviously. I'm way too picky to keep up seeing people I don't think are very nice. And I incresingly realize, I know a lot of very nice people online, too. You know who you are, but thank you for making my year that much better for having chatted with you and listened to me. So, great year. And in the humble beginnings of October, it got even better. Sure made me glad I don't keep this weblog in Norwegian.

I hope next year will be as good. Or possibly even better. I've signed up for some courses in Latin on top of my full-time studying history, so academically, it's suicide, but I'm hoping it will be a good year even so. This far, it's looking pretty promising.

To all of you out there reading this, happy new year. I wish you all the best. And thank you for all you've done for me in the old one. ^^ Keep flyin', people. I implore you. As does Mal.

Oh, and if any one of you tries making jokes on how late this post is, there will be fatal beatings administered.

And as usual, not having the time to do a whole lot of surfing the 'net when I'm off, so... just two links this week.


http://www.comedycentral.com/sitewide/media_player/play.jhtml?itemId=79407 Isn't it interesting how they started reporting the body-count EXACTLY the day the body-count started?

http://www.comedycentral.com/sitewide/media_player/play.jhtml?itemId=79469 Ooooh, sassy!

Yeah, yeah, I forgot to post this Sunday, give me a break, I've got two exams to study for and I'm spending like maybe four hours on it every day. That's half a work-day. *shudders* The pressure is insane. INSANE, I tell you. I'm so glad I only have this insane amounts of work to do something like two months every year year. ()


Seeing as I got à jour (see? I learn) on Colbert Report this week, and I've been studying (see above) quite a bit, so there has been little-to-no other surfing meriting linkage.

So, enjoy:

http://www.comedycentral.com/sitewide/media_player/play.jhtml?itemId=77985 Sweeet ;D

http://www.comedycentral.com/sitewide/media_player/play.jhtml?itemId=78204 Don't do it, Senator!

http://www.comedycentral.com/sitewide/media_player/play.jhtml?itemId=78206 Rumsfeld lost the election!

http://www.comedycentral.com/sitewide/media_player/play.jhtml?itemId=78275 XD JINGLE! SING-ALONG!

http://www.comedycentral.com/sitewide/media_player/play.jhtml?itemId=78379 You're confusing honesty with consistancy!

I was out shopping groceries, and lo and behold, BOTH Norwegian Spider-man titles came out today! (That never happens, as one is 13 issues per year and the other is 6 per year) In the regular title, J. Michael Straczynski keeps up the amazing work in an exciting continuation on the New Avengers Vs. Hydra-arc he began last time. Especially of note is how well he once again handles emotional scenes, and yet manages to slip in both plenty of action and lots of hillarious fun. Spidey's internal monologues and the scene with Wolverine are both precious.

In the Ultimate-title, Bendis continues his excellence, in a surprising move as [Spoilers follow] the Ultimate-version of Gwen Stacy goes the way of the dodo and the normal-continuity version of Gwen Stacy, but in a whole new context and a whole new way. This title also introduces what I'm guessing is Ultimate Carnage, and while I'm a little bit saddened if that's the case - I think Carnage is ten times the villain Venom is in normal continuity (though not ten times the character, there's a difference), and here he's just a mindless virus - the creature is really terrifying and well done. [End Spoilers]

All in all, two excellent reads, and the best excuse I've had for not reading the scheduled 60 pages of Greek Religion all day.

My excuses are now all spent, so I guess I'll be off reading then.

Somehow, I'd forgotten it being Sunday, seeing as it was my first day off in ages and stuff, I was too focused on it being my day off to realize what day of the week we were in.

Anyway,insert trumpets and other kinds of women of loose morals known for making introductory music extraordinary here, and on with the LINKS:


As I've said, busybusybusy these days, haven't even had the time to write here, so little web.surfing, too, and only three links I've stumbled upon:

http://www.youtube.com/watch_fullscreen?video_id=cYzo6NJBKco&l=223&t=OEgsToPDskIs6MaNdBkMCUZ2vhycydqo&fs=1&title=The%20Hardware%20Store
Weird Al in World of Warcraft. More or less.

http://www.comedycentral.com/sitewide/media_player/play.jhtml?itemId=71067 One had been to Chicago!!! XDXDXD

http://www.comedycentral.com/sitewide/media_player/play.jhtml?itemId=71116 Yada-yada'ing 9/11th, little beats this.

Yeah, I've posted far less than I usually do lately, and that's likely to keep up. Same with the not-being-all-that-much-on-MSN-really.


Speaking of MSN, I've got a new subnicktext: " I think life is just too short to spend your time working someplace where people don't crap their pants at the mere sight of ya." - Dr. Cox.


Speeking of Coxie, part of the reason I've been so little online is, of course, I'm home for the summer, and I've spent my days re-watching Scrubs season 3 and Firefly (that series grows shorter and shorter and better and better for every time I re-watch it ;_;), and playing the campaign on Heroes of Might and Magic V. On the easiest mode, because I'm a wimp in cyber-life, too. Finished the first campaign today, actually, so mwhahaha, done with the silly Haven-people, onwards to Infernal glory. Also, I'm the only one in the house not doing anything at the moment (apart from a few substitute-days, my grossly boring summer-job doesn't begin in another two weeks yet) so I'm usually stuck with making dinner, plus I make it a rule to visit my grandparents (who live a six minutes drive/twenty minute walk away) almost every day, and this together with entertaining younger siblings and helping out with the bare minimum of things my parents expects me to help out with takes up a bit of time, too.

So little time for mindless web-surf, MSN-chat and frolicking on my weblog.


But tonight, I'll conjur up an entry on the Notablog-conworld. Where, of course, I'll in what passes for detail around these parts explain how the Elves were to blame for the long-delayed-part of my long-delayed article.


Fucking Elves.

Today, I hand in my term-paper. It's really not due in before tomorrow before noon, but in case my computer breaks down or I oversleep or a series of other unlikely but scary scenarios, I will hand it in today seeing as it's really as finished as it is going to get, anyway.

Today, therefore, my spring-term end.

Today, my vacation starts. Well, really, I've with the exception of two hours yesterday only worked something like fifteen to twenty minutes on my studies this past half a week anyway, but still, now there won't be anything until I have to start working (*shiver*) in a week or so from now.

Today, hopefully, I'll write the first part of the follow-up-series to "Forgotten Fantasy Species". We'll see how that turns out.

Today I'll watch an episode or two of Stargate, I'll watch a re-run of Ally McBeal, and I'll spend some time on MSN.

Today I'll clean up my apartment. I'll put the books in the shelves, make the desk seem all neat again, a condition it is only in once or twice a year, I'll vacuum-clean the floor, I'll do the dishes, and maybe I'll even dust a little. Okay, that'd be going overboard. But I will do the dishes. Really.

Today, I'll read Batman Annual #25, and pity Jason Todd. Today I'll read Superman&Batman #24-25, and long for #26. Today, I'll decide to read "Crisis on Infinite Earths" and then post-pone it until tomorrow anyway. Today, I'll consider reading "Watchmen".

Today, I'll go buy a baguette in the local daily which I'll eat with dinner, which I'll make today.

Today, I'll take a shower.

Today, I'll put on Weird Al's "Ode to a Super-hero" just one more time, just because it's pretty, and I'll sing along, just because I can. "Norman Osbourne was a billionaire scientist... who never had time for his son... but then something went screwey, and before you knew he was trying to kill everyone..." And I'll use it as an incentive make up my mind on whether or not I'll re-watch Spider-men I and II as soon as I get home for the summer, or if I'll wait a little with it.

Today, I'll realize I can't just listen to one song all day, and I'll put on "A Place Called Home".

Today, I'll suddenly decide that, no, when I get home, I'll put on "A Hole on the World" instead.

Today, I'll pester every reader of my weblog with meaningless trivia of what I will be doing today.

Today, I'll get out of bed, put away my laptop and put on my clothes.

Today.

INFINITE CRISIS: Read it. Though it had the common "huge-crossover-series"-issue of being somewhat messy and having too many characters to make it a really excellent story, it was still good. The ending, however, made everything worth the bother, and parts of it is now my subnicktext on MSN.

You made a lot of mistakes. You underestimated Superman. Superboy. Me. But the biggest one? You didn't let the Joker play.

Now who's stupid?

- Lex Luthor

In other news, I've bought and read "Ultimate X-men Volume 5: Ultimate War" and "Volume 6: Return of the King", and am now officially ajour with Mark Millar's writings on the series. I think I'll wait with checking more of the series out until I've bought some other stuff, now.

Anyway, "Ultimate War" was cool. There was a problem with it - I don't really see why it was an Ultimate X-men-volume, it seemed to me it was just as much, if not more, of a "The Ultimates"-volume. Which is fine, of course, as I've said before, Millar's "The Ultimates" is pure genius, but I felt sort of cheated finding out there's in effect an entire volume of The Ultimates I'd never have read if I hadn't read Ultimate X-men too.

"Return of the King" was magnificent. As with "Ultimate War", I got plenty of Magneto, which is always the Numero Uno thing I look for in any X-men comic. The ending conversation between Magneto and Xavier in the plastic prison gave me the shivers, and I laughed out loud at the last page... I love how those two characters both cooperate and war with each other at the same time, and how they both think and function on several levels at the same time, most of them quite beyond the people around them.


Also, I've bought "Gardens of the Moon", first book in Steven Erikson's hugely praised fantasy series, and I've read the prologue and the first chapter. Seems good, I'm looking forward to getting more into this.



Non-reading-wise, I'm nearing the season-end of most the television-series I'm watching. Veronica Mars and Smallville are already done, Lost, Prision Break (dear LORD is that one exciting?!), 24 and Scrubs are all nearing their ends, and I just turned from season 4 to 5 in my watching of Stargate SG-1.

The day before yesterday I went to the cinema and watched "Mission Impossible III. It was entertaining, and at times really cool (like when she got his heart back to pumping and he immediately snapped his eyes open and in less than a tenth of a second had grabbed the nearest gun and was aiming at the open door in the other end of the room XD AWESOMEITY! (for you, Ob)) though obviously not a "great cinematic experience" or anything like that. Still, I liked it better than I and II, especially II I don't really care for all that much. 7/10, I think, though had I written this yesterday, I'd probably have said 7,5. (The first movie I give 6,5/10, the second 5,5)


School-wise, I'm studying for my exam in "Religious science 202: Hinduism" these days, as my youngest brother has his Confirmation-ceremony two days prior to my exam in that subject, and I won't be able to study very much then. I've also gotten feedback on the draft of my term-paper in another subject ("Religious science 201: Systematical religious science", blaaarhg), and it was somewhat... well... it was both positive and disappointing. Positive because the feedback was that I was onto something and that I knew how to present arguments and stuff, disappointing because I was recommended to change the structure of the assignment plus read some more articles before I finish it, which is going to take a lot more work than I'd hoped. I'll have nine days to do it after my Hinduism-exam, though, so hopefully, I'll manage.

Personal, hm, well, I'm still anti-social. I'm trying to go to the cinema with one or two of my few local friends at least once every second week or so, though, so I'm not completely shut-out of human contact. Right now I'm looking forward to going home to my parents and younger siblings on Tuesday, to celebrate Norway's national day on Wednesday and my brother's Confirmation on Sunday.

And that was the update.

So, it is the eve of the last day of my self-prolonged Easter Holiday back with my parents and my siblings. Sigh. By all means, I like it in my apartment, I look forward to again being able to plot my every second totally without regard for other people, it'll be cool not to have to have fish for dinner at least once a week again, und so weiter, but, Hel, it isn't the same as being home. Sigh. I feel good when I'm home, for no other reason than for just being here. And with the exception of my youngest brother's confirmation-ceremony, I won't be going home again before the summer holiday - and then I'll have to work, which takes like 50% of the joy out of the entire thing. Sigh.

I should be getting to bed now, I'm getting up in six hours.

Sigh.

From the library, which got one of its copies back and mailed me, the one I ordered has not arrived yet.


But anyway, I've got it, and this evening I've been able to read well over a third of it. Tomorrow I'll read the rest, and then I'll try make that damnable draft.

I still have a grim outlook on all this - I still don't know quite what I want to write about - but at least it is less grim than it was this morning! Rah-rah hoozah, gentlemen, ladies!

... is like a hundred times less interesting than religious history, and yet I have to take it if I want the history-bits. Grumble.

Anywho, the phenomenology and the comparative studies, that's actually fun. But religious sociology, that's boring. Religion and post-modernity? Sigh. Religion and politics-studies? Bo-ring. Religion and gender-studies? That's even more boring. Religious psychology? Groan.


And I have to read one thousand horribly drily written pages about all this stuff, write a four thousand-word essay on something from it, present one of the texts from the curriculum in front of a group of students, and comment on another student doing likewise with another text.

The sickening thing is, I could probably finish all of this in slightly above two weeks if I'd had the spine, self-control and discipline.