Adventures in an igloo

Aurora Borealis meets Ash

2010-04-27T10:40:00.001Z

Check it out- they always look pretty but with the additional ash effect they look spectacular.

A long overdue spring cleaning sessions begins?

2010-04-13T10:50:00.003Z

This pretty much says it all- now all we have to do is take out the trash- starting with an awful lot of parliamentarians.

One for the weekend

2010-02-12T10:32:00.001Z

I simply love this woman!
She's awesome- hope you enjoy her art as much as I do.

One day...

2010-02-11T23:18:00.002Z

In the life of an overworked, single, thirty-something woman who lives with her elderly mother and a spoiled little brat of a dog:

Morning: I'm at work in my "office" mode- trying desperately to seem highly important and super diligent. Office phone rings.
Me: Yes, B. speaking...
Elderly Mother: Dahhhhling, the pooch misses you.
Me: Erm, uhhhh, well, that's nice. Now, how can I help you? (Spoken in business-woman-like tone as co-workers are listening).
Elderly Mother: Hold on honey, I'm putting the dog on the phone. Now say something to her, she really misses you, I can see it in her puppy eyes.
Me: Errrrrr, no, not now.
Elderly Mother: Talk to her (in a tone that tells me she means business)
Me: Hello Lukka (to chiahuahua-terrier mix), er, was that enough?
Elderly Mother: Yes, darling, well, now I'm going to give her a steak.
Me: (Now shouting out in amazement- which I shouldn't have) NOOOOO, that's tonight's dinner mum! The dog CANNOT have steak. (All co-workers are laughing now and I'm blushing like crazy at this point)
Elderly Mother: But she wants steak, the baby's hungry. It's not easy looking into those sad eyes all day. She's getting steak!
Me: Fine mum, I'll pick something up at the supermarket on the way home from work. Do you fancy anything special?
Elderly Mother: Yes, steak...
Me: Fine, I guess we're all having steak today (in total defeat).

The place that...

2009-10-28T12:21:00.004Z

started (well caused is more accurate) the slow food movement and starred in movies such as Supersize Me has left the building, or country...

I suppose Mickey D's next movie, if they ever make one on my rock, will be called Downsize Me.

I'm sure gonna miss McShake and McFlurry and with this latest evil twist of the recession my hope of ever being able to walk downtown to get a double Mocha Frappuccino at Starbucks has been shattered.

Now, the only question remaing is: Since the PM, who opened our banks and other institutions that belonged to the nation to the "entrepreneurs" (reads criminals), took the first bite into a Big Mac on my rock back in '93, will he be available to also eat the last burger created by this multinational capitalist corporation this saturday?

That would be kind of sarcastic in light of recent history wouldn't it?

Oh, those summer nights

2009-07-17T12:01:00.002Z

I think I did it last night, I really created a tropical feel up here in the north, sort of.

I went to work ridiculously early so that I could go home early and enjoy the rest of the sunny summer's day.

I did a wee bit of sunbathing in the midst of hundreds of lovely smelling roses previously planted by the mother unit- and naturally read Neil Gaiman's Graveyard Book- you need something morbid when the weather's this nice you know! I actually managed to create a lovely sandal mark on the skin of my foot, so I'd better just wear those same old smelly old sandals for the remainder of the summer- this would never have happened had I been traditional and worn socks and sandals!

Did I stop at this? Hell no! I threw some shrimps on the barbie, well actually, I don't eat shrimp and the A4 box of an instant grill can hardly be called a barbeque and I bet those coals were "fixed" as well, because the darn thing could barely barbeque one sausage let alone those lovely lambchops seasoned with birch, juniper and blueberries. So, I pretty much let them hang out on the barbie for a smoky flavour, because although the instant grill couldn't barbeque worth sh*t, it sure smoked up the neighbourhood! Then I completely cheated and put the almost uncooked lambchops under the grill in my oven, where the baked potatoes were, well, baking- don't tell anyone!

The best bit of the evening was however, the cocktails!
Those strawberry daiquiris and mojitos were just fab, with fresh mint from the garden! In the Republic of Bjork every day will be Mojito day and those mortars you're supposed to use to mix the lime, mint and demerara sugar just take forever so in my land, mortars use electricity, work super fast and are called blenders! Just remember to always use more rum than the recipe says and make at least triple the amount as the sun makes one thirsty.

Cheers!

Ah, those Germans!

2009-06-09T23:43:00.003Z

If there's anything that will send me into the dreamland with a smile on my face it's a little 80s stroke of genius from my friends Thomas and Dieter. Naturally the special effects in the video are simply phenomenal!

This video actually brings back childhood memories about me getting money from my folks, taking the bus downtown and buying classic German culture magazines like Popcorn, Bravo and PopRocky (first and foremost for the stickers and posters- you wouldn't believe the immense cultural effect of stickers- very underrated indeed). I also think my marvellous German comes from "reading" such material from a very young age.

Anyway, back to the video:
Love the hair, love the clothes, love the drama, love everything!

Enjoy it all here.

Works every time!

Your kind of medicine?

2009-06-02T22:08:00.004Z

Nobody likes going to the doctor's, except for maybe the odd masochist or the ladies looking to marry one (that is a doctor, not a masochist)...

Maybe it's due to the fact that pills are boring, really boring. Who wouldn't want remedies that have got a little more flair than pills?

So, that's why I'm sharing a nice cure for backache with you lot (this one's an old Icelandic one- so naturally it can't go wrong):

One of the most efficient cures when a backache is troubling you is to make a band of hair from a virgin or an "exceptionally good" person and then tie it near the back area. However, the best cure is to simply take an "unspoilt" virgin and tie her/him firmly to your back until the ache goes away.

The only problem in this day and age is finding a virgin or an exceptionally good person...

It's officially friday...

2009-02-27T00:22:00.001Z

and I've got plans to drink at least 2 beers tomorrow, yes, my friends, two whole beers!

Due to that I'm going to share one of the ultimate party songs with you.

Enjoy!

Spice up your life?

2009-02-16T17:18:00.002Z

You really really know that recession has hit your country when you notice that the cosmetics department of your local supermarket is promoting Old Spice as the new men's cologne of choice.

Well, it's either one of those wicked side effects of the financial crisis or you have accidentally turned back the clock and it's now 1962...

Join the EU and lose your soul?

2009-02-06T15:03:00.003Z

I've always been fond of soul. I love golden oldies from the likes of Fontella Bass, James Brown and Otis Redding. Although it's apparent from my dance moves that I don't really have soul, I nontheless quite value my soul.

You can just imagine in light of this information how petrified I am when it comes to the ever louder voices on my rock that demand Iceland become a member of the Europan Union.

You see, I stumbled upon a truth that's even stranger than fiction the other day about the EU's source of power. Ever heard of Beelzebub AKA Bubbles AKA the Devil anyone?

So children here's the story according to some cute little Christians of how a Babylonian Demigod hired a bunch of architects of destruction to build a brand new "design" Tower of Babel in Strasbourg (which means "Stinky Demons in Suits" in Mordorish).

Once upon a time there was a wicked oh so wicked little Babylonian god who really wanted to unleash a league of demons with suitcases and a gigantic papertrail, erm I mean tail, upon the world.

Anyway, he got buried in the desert as time went by but never stopped being a horrid little bureaucrat under the enormous pile of sand.

So one day a German dude shows up in the Middle East and excavates some stuff and brings it back home to Berlin.

Unfortunately that stuff was the Ishtar Gate AKA the Gate to Hell and Pergamon AKA the seat of Satan. Ooooops!

So a couple of world wars later which according to my sources, the Christian web pages, were started by our Babylonian devil, he decides to finish Europe off once and for all by founding the EU and thus really bringing the end of the world to our European doorstep.

The proof to this you may ask, well, the Tower of Babel in Strasbourg AKA the new EU Parliament Building and the naked broad (Europa) on the bull (the Beast) right outside that evil place and to add insult to injury she's also hanging out in front of the European Council Building in Brussels.

Does this seem farfetched to you? Well, it does to me too, but it's just so much more entertaining than tracing the EU's history back to the dead boring European Coal and Steel Community back in 1951!

The Day the Recession hit Rock Bottom(s)...literally

2009-02-04T13:08:00.004Z

You know it's getting bad when you find yourself doing the two-step in front of the toilet paper rack at the supermarket.

I can see it in people's eyes that they're thinking: "Should I buy the nice, soft rolls or the cheap ones that were made out of lightly shredded old cardboard boxes for sure?"

Actually, I don't need to see it in their eyes as they're openly discussing the issue with strangers at the supermarket.

Toilet paper talk has become a sort of a philosophical debate among the "economically thinking" masses who amazingly still frequent the stores in the midst of our economic crisis.

You hear people rationalizing their decision to buy the nice variety on grounds of: "one of these really equals 3 of those" and "I've heard that a part of the proceeds of the nice ones go to building dog shelters, so it's really my contribution to charity, you know for the greater good".

Seriously, when decent toilet paper has evolved into a luxury item, then it's getting pretty bad.

Which reminds me, the Mother Unit called and asked me to pick up a roll of AGHHHHHH

Yeti found in the Central Bank of Iceland

2009-01-29T11:00:00.004Z

The search for the incredible snowman has been on for years and now the Yeti's seekers have finally hit paydirt.

It turns out that the Yeti has been working as a specialist in economics at the Central Bank of Iceland for the past 4 years under the pseudonym Hairy P. Lothfeld. In an exclusive interview, the incredible Yeti or da Yet Set as he likes being called, claims that he was sick and tired of roaming the snowy hills of Nepal and when the opportunity came, he took the chance at working in a 9-5 deskjob at the bank. "Nobody ever suspected nuttin' but everybody loved my beard" claims a smiling Yeti.

For months the people of Iceland have been demanding the resignation of the three directors of the Central Bank but now it seems that animals rights movements are coming to their aid. "People who trust a fictional snowman to do such a demanding job must be really good people" says Frida Flannel, official spokesperson for the AC/DC animal welfare care foundation.

The bank directors are safe for now due to these breaking news and the Yeti giggles and says: "I was thinking about putting the inflation rate up to 20% today, or who knows, maybe 30% if I'm in a good mood".

Wool from hell?

2009-01-27T16:43:00.006Z

Do you think they'll disinfect those blankets and jumpers or have some suicidal guard dogs sniff those socks for traces of anthrax?

I know, I would probably be suspicious if some people that I recently put on my most wanted terrorist list started sending wooly stuff to my country's senior citizens who are freezing to death.

...just to be nice? Hmmm, I'd probably think there was something rotten going on in that container.

Hasn't the Kirkcaldy resident Mr. G. Brown PM ever heard of the Icelandic Killer Sheep?

Courtesy of a wooden spatula and a lid of Quality Street tin...

2009-01-26T15:12:00.003Z

The Baltic States had the Singing Revolution, the Czechs had the Velvet Revolution and in the Ukraine they had the Orange Revolution.

Now, we've had our own little revolution and succeeded, which is just fab.

But, what should we call it? The abovementioned countries have such cool names for their revolutions, but all I can think of is The Wooden Spoon Revolution or even The Drumming Quality Street Lid Revolution.

Those names just sound ackward somehow.

Wait, Eureka! How about The Helvítis Fokking Fokk Revolution? This of course means literally the goddam fu**ing f**k revolution which best describes the whole situation that led to these events.

Yes, I think that's it.

And now the children of the Helvítis Fokking Fokk Revolution get to vote for some new jokers to pull the strings at Parliament. Yes, it's an opportunity for a whole new generation to mess this country up!

Orange you glad all the animals in the forest are friends now?

2009-01-23T00:14:00.003Z

No pepper spray or tear gas has been used today and no "stoned" policeman or sprayed-on protestor has been taken to the hospital either!

In addition, no fires have been lit or public property destroyed and it doesn't look like any windows have been broken in official buildings or that the same houses will need a new coat of paint, new windows or a serious wash tomorrow.

The people are still downtown protesting, clapping, singing, screaming and drumming away on kitchen appliances, but now they wear orange to show that they will not use violence and the riot police has likewise backed off and chilled a wee bit. Who knows, they might even get a chance to drop by the laundromat with their egg- and milkwashed, spat-on and alltogether beat up uniforms tonight, so that they'll look like a fresh summer's day at the protests tomorrow.

I'm very, very happy about this but at the same time I feel sorry for the window installers, painters and house washers. Those poor bastards will be idle tomorrow- and they thought they'd finally hit paydirt!

Denile pop. 63

2009-01-21T21:30:00.004Z

Are you a politician? Are you sick of the general public bitching and moaning and people in general being completely ungrateful and obnoxious towards you and all the great stuff you're doing for yourself and your friends?

If your answer is "Yes" to all these questions, Denile might be the place for you.

Denile is a calm and almost soothing place with the perfect population of 63 since 1984. Well, we've actually had some problems in the past with the lefties (pardon me, that word made me throw up in my mouth a little bit) who are always up to no good and keep demanding new elections.. AS IF!

Anyway, Denile is just the greatest place ever, like completely and totally! If you're hungry there's a mob that feeds you. It's unfortunately a rather simple diet that consists mostly of eggs and sometimes soggy tomatoes and milk if you've been distributing pepper spray between your subjects, but the mob means well.

Also, there's always a crowd around ready and willing to give your crib a complete overhaul, mostly in uneven red paint however.

We've also got plenty of stuff for the musicman in Denile and there's always a lot of cute little people jumping around outside singing and chanting some sort of ode to the government, while banging on their little drums made out of stuff from their cute little kitchens.

So come on down and enjoy the good life.

If you're not tempted by the little town of Denile pop. 63, you most certainly are in denial!

Want more? Here's an update and another one.

High Expectations

2009-01-15T17:39:00.002Z

"God, I wish the new year would bring some excitement and extraordinary things into my life" she thought to herself as she sat at the breakfast table and poured more coffee into the holy grail with one hand while plunging the spear of destiny into the half full jar of blueberry jam with the other hand without even realizing...

You want the Tooth? You can't handle the Tooth!

2008-12-30T11:29:00.003Z

The latest buzz on my rock is that due to bad overall management we now have the cheapest dentists in the Western Hemisphere.

Apparently, hordes of unfortunately teethed individuals are due to invade our shores and take up all open spaces at the dentists'.

It seems that Lady Karma has come back with a vengeance.

You see, when I was a wee lass swarms of toothless vikings hit the beaches of the Black Sea (Bulgaria to be more exact) and returned home with a third degree sunburn and a brand new set of teeth.

Even those whose teeth were just fine got a new set, just because it was so darn economically convenient.

Well now the smile is on us and the question is: can we handle the tooth?

I just don't know...

Christmas in heat

2008-12-27T20:32:00.002Z

It's that bi-annual time of the year for the dog. She's pretty jumpy and really wants to go out and meet the dog boys. The same goes for them: last night one of them waited outside for a long time while my dog cried by the door.

The Mother Unit commented that she was glad that I don't act like that when it's my time of the month.

I must say I strongly agree with the Mother Unit on that one.

Happy X-mas everyone.

Metaphorically speaking..

2008-12-19T13:36:00.002Z

Yesterday I got all poet-like and threw together all kinds of metaphors to describe the economic situation on my rock, courtesy of the banks, politicians and the greedy "entrepreneurs" (thieves) that have been allowed to milk us dry in the last years.

To stress the ridiculousness of leaving us, the general public, with the tab I commented that it would be as decadent as making chihuahuas drag santa's sleigh on Christmas Night.

Well, this morning I found the picture you see on your left on the internet...

I suppose the politicians saw the same image as that's pretty much what they intend to do, erm.. let us pay for the party we were'nt invited to, not abuse chihuahuas...

Erm, what I mean to say is that we are all a bunch of slave labour chihuahuas to those in charge on my rock..

Ah, I'm not good at the whole metaphor business;

Happy weekend anyway people :)

I read it on somenone's t-shirt that Brown was the colour of poo

2008-12-15T11:57:00.002Z

I'm not saying that i necessarily agree with what that statement implies on top of a picture of the British PM but I think that people should absolutely read this insight from the Times.

Hell's Threshold is just around the Corner

2008-12-13T14:08:00.001Z

Be prepared people, x-mas is eerily close and that means it's time to watch this.

Wishful Thinking

2008-12-09T18:53:00.003Z

Sometimes when there's a blizzard raging outside and my dog indicates that she needs to go potty, I wish she knew how to use a regular toilet.

Then again, I also wish that some men knew how to use the toilet through things like flushing and putting the toilet seat down.

The quiz that proves that quizzes are not something to rely on

2008-12-09T16:45:00.003Z

OK I like taking quizzes on the internet but the last one I took revealed that my true mental age is 6 Months Old:

"You love to get pampered, take lots of naps, and eat mashed bananas. Okay, we're only speculating on the mashed bananas.

And really, there's nothing wrong with that stuff. You love to be comfortable and close to the people you love. That stuff's all great! Just be sure to change your diaper every once in a while."

I don't think I'll be doing more quizzes online for at least 30 minutes after this or maybe I should drink loads of coffee and discuss politics and Henrik Ibsen with some adults while listening to avant garde jazz...just to prove that the quiz is wrong nananabooboo.

The Secret behind successfully reading Books

2008-12-09T00:29:00.003Z

Yes, I've discovered it after years of half and quarter finishing books.

Here's the secret:

Only read one book at a time.
Start reading at the beginning of the book (my nan did not do this, she'd skip right to the end and if it was a happy one, she'd read the book, and if it wasn't, well then she'd chuck the book).

Now, once you've started reading from the beginning just continue until you've read the very last sentence of the book.

If you follow my advice, you too know the secret behind successfully reading books.

Congratulations and enjoy this new and fascinating, not to mention fulfilling experience.

Ps. If this advice doesn't work for you- be sure that Hollywood will create an alternative for you. Just try not to fall asleep before the film's finished.

Ahhhh those long lost days of the 80's

2008-12-05T01:18:00.005Z

Some music is so bad, it's really good. Those siblings were not the Jacksons but according to the evil snake tongues on the internet, one of those wholesome pop icons had a public restroom incident- as we say on my rock: I don't sell it at a higher price than I bought it...

Nonetheless, I just love those showstopping dance moves that they got going on in the video; imagine replicating those in a club in the 21st century.

That would be sight for sore eyes in my opinion.

Not had enough? Want serious hairdos, smooth moves and the voice of an angel? Try another of my icons from the 80s, just press play and feeeeeeel the rhythm of the music of the night..?

I can't believe you "klukked" me!

2008-12-03T14:50:00.002Z

This long post is a result of the evil trigger finger of Smali (see links) so here goes:

1) Four jobs I've done in my lifetime:
Archivist
Park Ranger
Security Guard
Protestor (well some of my friends say I'm a professional in that category)

2) Four Icelandic movies I like:
Sódóma Reykjavík (the troubles of searching for a remote control...)
Dís (we've all been there, 20 something and confused)
Hrafninn flýgur (Tungur knifur- the best viking film ever)
Myrkrahöfðinginn (OK it's supposed to be very dramatic but I think it's super funny)

3) Four places I've lived:
Reykjavík
Cambridge
Montgomery
St Andrews

4)One place I would never move to:
Reyðarfjörður, pollution, an aluminium smelter and bad bad choices

5) Four places I've visited during holidays:
Selárdalur (during the best girlie trip in the world)
Madrid (winter, summer, always fun whith those crazy Spaniards hovering over you)
Washington DC (even did the "Run Forrest Run" bit)
Himmelbjerget (Denmark's highest mountain at a whopping 147 m, did I break a sweat during that hike- I don't think so!)

6) Four TV programmes I like:
Dexter (the friendly neighbourhood serial killer)
Terminator/Sarah Connor Chronicles (although I miss Arnie)
New Adventures of Old Christine (I love Julia Louis Dreyfuss)
Everything by Gordon Ramsay (He's mean and ugly and it clearly sells)

7) Four websites I check out daily:
Facebook
Zone jigsaw (gotta do 3 puzzles to get the day started)
Various blogs
Gofugyourself (to see how fugly the stars are)

8) Four foods I like:
Cheese (all kinds, but Halloumi and Brie are special favourites)
Chocolate (nowadays Lindt Tiramisu chocolate oh my god!)
Coffee (nothing like a good latte in the morning)
Clementines (because Christmas is coming)

9) Four books I've read more than once:
Actually, since I became an adult I pretty much only read each book once, but I think I would like to read Persepolis again.

10) Four places I'd rather be now:
In Egypt, sailing on the Nile on the way to the Valley of the Kings
On top of Macchu Picchu
In Tokyo buying loads of Monchichis
In my kitchen sipping a good latte

11) Four bloggers I "klukk":
None, I'm not that mean :)

Just based on my birthday...

2008-12-03T14:35:00.002Z

"You can trust your sixth sense. Life is exciting so a routine job is not your interest. You have great ideas and a fantastic imagination. You often feel tired of things and people around you.
Your Love: You can tell what's in the mind of another person just from looking into his/her eyes. You are paranoid and jealous and these are the cause of fights between you and your lover. Sometimes the thing you believe in is just your imagination."

Can you believe modern technology? This is what I got just by typing my date of birth on the internet.

I wonder what happens if I squeeze one of my socks into a computer socket?

Er war Superstar Er war so populär

2008-11-21T14:13:00.004Z

I know that Falco's been dead for years but he still lights up my life.

He made German sound über cool for a ten year old back in the day and I had such a crush on that hottie with the Austrian accent and well i know I'm far from being ten years old but I still have a huge crush on him.

My gift to you for the weekend is a Falco video- enjoy.

Whoever said that nothing good came out of Canada

2008-11-14T14:22:00.002Z

...clearly didn't know these fellas. I just wish men today took as good care of their appearance as these loverboys.

Actually I think they should do a remake of this song for the formerly prosperous and gigantic Icelandic market: How about changing the lyrics to "Everybody's unemployed for the weekend"?

Rock on Canada!

Aya sat wuguga sat ju benga sat si pata...

2008-11-10T17:50:00.003Z

This mama proved that not all the greats died at 27...

So today I listen to this in her honour (I have no idea what she's singing about but I like it anyway).

It's (not) easy being green

2008-11-08T12:57:00.004Z

On a hangover saturday when your stomach's a wee bit upset and you see big dark circles under your eyes in a greenish face when you look in the mirror, I recommend really just giving in to the green-ness and checking out some eco-friendly websites.

MSN has even gone green and it's always comforting to read about globetrotting superstars telling the rest of us to use energy saving light bulbs. I'm sure that the tail lights on their carbon breathing private jets are filled with eco bulbs (big cough).

Again I thoroughly enjoy eco quizzes like this.

Actually knock yourselves out and go fully green here. You can even enjoy yourself by reading about little green men

Ah, those green days!

Some Pointers on surviving the Recession

2008-11-07T14:05:00.002Z

Mooching:

Look up fancy art exhibition openings.
Dress up and keep your head held high as you enter the gallery/art museum.

Smile at the mayor even though you don't know her.
A really good trick is to go up to her, shake her hand and thank her for a lovely time the other day (Don't worry, she's probably really polite and meets a lot of new people on a daily basis so she won't inquire about that last time).

Now you've made sure that everybody knows that you're chums with the in-crowd so now is the time to go for what you really came for, the food and drink.
It's a really good idea to bring a really big handbag filled with plastic bottles and Tupperware. Get your glass of wine, napkin and fancy finger food and head for the loo where you immediately start filling the tupperware and plastic bottles.
Go back for seconds, thirds and fourths as needed.

Now you can head to a friend's place. Please choose the friend carefully: You want a friend who's got cable and knows how to cook. Just make sure you knock on his/her door as dinner is about to be served- that's a guaranteed invite to a lovely and most of all free meal.

After dinner, sit down in the best seat in front of the telly, grab the remote and fire away.

Remember that you've still got the snack and booze from the art show to nibble on as you enjoy free cable, just make sure you don't eat it in front of your friend as he/she might be inclined to freeload off you- you wouldn't believe the lengths some people go to in order to save a few bucks!

A Conspiracy?

2008-11-06T18:07:00.004Z

Is it possible that the English are trying to get back at us little people in the north for the Cod War by waging a brand new Bank War against us?

Could the crazy talk of a Scottish cab driver told to me sub rosa also be true: Did the Germans concoct the EU to get back at the English for the World Cup of 1966?

I wonder what other TRUE motives lie beneath all kinds of international fiascos...

A little something for the Weekend

2008-10-31T15:33:00.003Z

I recommend jump starting the weekend by listening to Mogo Jacket an 80's band that never existed. After that I recommend opening a bottle of bubbly and watching Titanic: The Party goes on .

Finally: Remember to stay away from ghouls, Michael Jackson and Central Bank managers if you are considering going out on fright night.

There are no limits for people's stupidity

2008-10-30T16:04:00.004Z

Just when I thought we had hit rock bottom I read some "genius's" blog where he thinks the solution for our economic crisis is to start hardcore commercial whaling and seal hunting...yeah, because it's not like the rest of the world doesn't hate us enough as it is!

And because it's not like the finbacks that were murdered 2 years ago are still in a huge freezer somewhere because nobody wants to buy their dead carcasses for home consumption!

I'm not even going to post the link to this idiot's blog because I think reading stuff like this joker's brainfarts actually makes people more stupid.

Somebody please create a republic for idiots far far away from the rest of us!

Happy new Winter and a Bucket full of Blood to ya!

2008-10-25T11:49:00.012Z

Today is the first day of winter on my rock and the first day of winter is always the first day of the month Gormánuður (this year October 25th- November 23rd). Supposedly it's a sign of a good winter when summer and winter freeze together and they most definately did exactly that last night. As you can see from the pictures from our garden, winter has taken a bite out of our apples and rowan berries, but I think it's an awfully pretty combination and I must say that our first apple pie ever to be made from Icelandic out doors grown apples was darn tasty!

Now on to etymology; Gormánuður means the month of slaughtering animals, pretty gory right? In fact, it seems that my fellow rockers have taken this activity or let's say the fruits of this activity quite seriously since the beginning of the recession. A wave of anti-globalism and a new-found national pride has sprung from the loins of the badly run banks and rockers now run around scratching the hell out of Game Overs I mean Range Rovers.

The return to the old times is quite fascinating for the historian in me but the other day it also left me feeling like an unpatriotic traitor whose car deserved to be scratched...

So, during the recession I, just like everyone else, have starting thinking about how to save money and one way is to eat a lot of parsnips as they are locally grown and thus environmentally friendly, cheap and healthy. I eat them raw as a snack, fried in the oven, boiled with spices and thus turned into a sort of curry and so on and so forth.

However, the other day I got a dreadful craving for aubergines (I found a really nice recipe that required one aubergine and a few button mushrooms so it's not like it was going to be super expensive). So off I went to the grocery store...Little did I know that former bankers and bankers' mums would all be there shopping.

As I stood in the line waiting to pay for the one aubergine I noticed that everyone else had the very big trolleys filled with plastic bottles containing frozen sheep's blood and enormous bags of sheep fat, offal and liver. Yup, everyone and their mum are now chilling in their kitchen, mixing blood and fat (and maybe some raisins for extra flavouring) and stuffing the messy lot into an empty pouch that used to belong to a poor sheep's digestive system. This is then boiled and eaten with parsnip stew and mashed taters. Cheap, messy, tasty and local.

A woman who looked like a former banker's mum (who had 2 full trolleys of innards and blood) looked at my aubergine and I could read from her eyes: Die bourgouisie scum! I started panicking and thought: She's going to follow me out and hit the car I'm driving (a borrowed one btw) with all the weight of her enormous and heavy trolley!

All of a sudden I realized that she wasn't giving me the evil eye because of the blasted eggplant in my hand, no, it was the other item I had just picked up at the register, something so super English that even looking at it made you think of Alistair Darling and Gordon Brown, a Toffee Crisp Bar.

Who knows, maybe I deserve my car to be trolleyed for that oversight, if only I had a car available for scratching and trolley attacks, say maybe a Bentley, an Aston Martin or a Land Rover...

The Nouveau Riche Nightmare

2008-10-22T00:46:00.003Z

The couple naturally had twins, because it was -like so totally- in fashion among the other newly rich.

As soon as the twins could hold a bow, their folks bought wee Stradivarius violins, hired a tutor and made sure that the nanny made sure the kids practised while they were at dinner parties or in St Tropez.

When the crash hit the enormous household, the tutor and the nanny were the first to go.

Unfortunately the twins were diligent little violinists; they played all day long and because the parents could no longer afford somebody to teach them how to play, they found themselves stuck in a neverending suzuki nightmare with no hope of ever hearing a tune played in tune.

A Tale of Depression or the Day the Princes turned back into Frogs

2008-10-15T11:25:00.003Z

It's funny how quickly things change in a globalized world.

It seems like it was only yesterday that you'd see a young and prosperous looking guy in an Armani suit dashing down the street way to fast and his ride was not a white steed, nope it was an enormous silver grey Range Rover. At this sight you thought to yourself: "Oh wow, he must live such an exciting life and his house is probably amazing". You'd feel a bit jealous and wonder what the hell you were thinking: "Why did I go into humanistic stuff at Uni instead of buying a shitload of stocks and bonds and that kind of stuff.

Now, you see the same guy trying to get to social services on his last drops of petrol and you think: "Oh, that poor sod, I really hope he'll be OK".

Which brings me to a little story that according to my sources happened just before the crash.

A friend of mine was out and about the other day and met an old, old friend, someone she hadn't met in ages. This guy was super handsome, wore the most amazing suit, had a lovely tan (the kind you can only get by sailing in the Caribbean on a yacht) and a million dollar smile (compliments of a very good cosmetic surgeon no doubt as she could not recall him being so well teethed on their previous encounters).

Now, females know this but male readers may not realize that many women will create a mental image of desirable men in a split second and our heroine just happens to have a vivid imagination. In the first 10 seconds of the conversation, she'd courted her prince, married him in a fairytale wedding, built a beautiful house with a white picket fence and baked a shitload of birthday cakes for their extremely talented twin girls.

Her dream was shattered by the words: "And this is my wife..."

A split second later the prince and his horrible real life wife had torched the house and impaled the poor twins on the formerly white picket fence while the frosted cakes slowly melted in the heat from the burned remains of the dreamhouse.

What a cruel world it was indeed!

Our heroine's honour was restored yet another split second later when she found out that the prince was an investment banker. She noticed the tan was getting slightly old and looked at his wife with a new-found pity. She then wished the pair all the best for the future and sighed with relief while thinking to herself: "Pheew, now that was a close call!"

Cash in the Attic

2008-10-15T11:12:00.002Z

Now's definately the time to search for cash in the attic.

Unfortunately there's a bit of a problem: I don't have an attic.

An eerie feeling is creeping upon me...

2008-10-10T15:33:00.004Z

Maybe CERN actually created a black hole the other day when they were messing about with all kinds of particles.

You know, we only have theories about black holes, but nobody's actually seen one let alone fallen into one.

However the Independent seems to have located CERN's black hole on my rock...

Creepy innit?

Ignorance is bliss

2008-10-10T14:50:00.002Z

If I was an economist my head would explode.

Red Dawn

2008-10-09T16:57:00.004Z

"In times of crisis you will find out who your real friends are"
This is a very popular phrase among various Icelandic politicians these days. The scary big brother in the east is once more about to help us out:

The Russians were the first to recognize the independence of Iceland, they traded with us when the British were being mean to us during the Cod Wars and last but not least my first car was an 1982 Lada Niva Jeep straight out of Siberia, god I miss that car!

And here's a few phrases that could come in handy on my rock in the next days:

Мой банковский счет хорош но отскочен банкы = The cheque's good but the bank bounced.

Злейший troll разрушили мой банк, можете вы пожалуйста вызвать полиций? = An evil troll destroyed my bank, can you please call the police?

Какому большому автомату Калашниковаа вы получаете бабушку!= My! That's a big Kalashnikov you've got there grandma!

You see even in times of recession, depression and War of the Austrian Succesion (OK, I just added the last one because it rhymed with the others) one can always find the time to brush up on one's Russian.

It's the end of the world as we know it...and I feel fine?

2008-09-11T16:36:00.004Z

Well there we have it, another apocalypse, another disappointment- at least for those who want the world to end (Jehova’s Witnesses have been good at this in the past and of course the Hale Bop cult back in.. ’97 was it?).

I had my doubts about those über neutral people in Switzerland with their cuckoo clocks, predicting the exact time of Judgment Day. I also saw it as a sign that the cooking show I watched the day before the big day was Ainsley’s 50 Things you should eat before you die…Which reminds me: Fresh fish #1? Are these people nuts? No way fish would be my last meal on earth, no, it would be a hot fudge sundae or a banana split or a big, big steak.

Ok, I lost it for a bit there but back on the topic: I must say that if CERN managed to kill us off by accidentally creating a black hole, well it’s the slowest working black hole ever.

I just keep thinking about the poor sods who actually thought the world was really about to end. What did they do yesterday and what did they say to friends and foes?

I bet it was similar to the people who really buy into the whole: “My father was the cousin of the former president of a country in Africa and he had millions and billions in the bank and I need your help to get the money out so if you just send me all your bank info so that I can rob you blind, then we’re in business my friend…”

We’re talking about the same kind of person who actually believes that he’s the 156,789, 234 person online and has therefore won a gazillion dollars, just send some money first and then...

The same person that after reading his junk mail shouts YES and then goes to his boss and tells him: “You can take this job and stick it where the sun don’t shine- I’m rich!”

Yup the same person that comes crawling back the next day begging for a second chance, feeling a little embarrassed, hmmm.

You gotta love this type- and who knows, maybe they’ll be right one day and then the people in the spaceship hovering over the dark side of the moon, dressed in identical blue Nike’s will be the ones laughing…

Taking environmentalism to the extremes

2008-09-03T10:11:00.006Z

You are Poison Ivy---
You would go to almost any length for the protection of the environment including manipulation and elimination.

Ha! Who am I kidding- could I ever have been any other villain than Ivy, I really really hate environmental slobs with a passion...

Who are you?

Jammin' again

2008-09-02T23:07:00.005Z

I've been giving the meaning of jammin' a lot of thought lately and just when I thought that my jammin days were numbered, at least when it comes to old style jammin' it happened..

The old lady went out and painted the town red until 7 in the morning and on another occasion I only stayed out until 1 am but managed to listen to a lot of Thai and Polish karaoke including two skinhead types crooning a heartfelt tune about Warsaw. I even grabbed the mike and sang ABBA's Dancing Queen. I'm not sure whether the audience not clapping had anything to do with my and fellow friends' poor skills as karaoke singers or whether they were just too blown away by the sheer brilliance of the performance that they forgot to clap...

Anyway, during my way too long jammin' session I did some soul searching again. Hey, I am well aware that thinking while drinking and such multi-tasking is a bad thing but I nonetheless did it.

And what was I thinking about? Clothes.

Instead of enjoying the silence or rather lack of silence I gave people the evil eye especially those toting their cigarettes in my general direction. You see I recently bought a new gold coloured trench coat, the golden apple of my eye and I just happened to be wearing it that night on the town.

So, although I did enjoy the jammin' in many ways, I was mostly very busy worrying about cigarette holes and heavily drunken people spilling their blood coloured drinks on me and my lovely new clothing item.

One oldie and far from goldie did his own sort of crooning with ever so touching and original hehemm phrases such as: "I think I'm in love and that can be dangerous for a man my age".

Instead of feeling happy about the attention my only possible response to such measures that night could have been: "Look gramps, I'm in love with my new trench coat and if you come any closer with your nearly full glass of red, I'll show you how dangerous life can be for a man your age".

And I wonder why I'm still single, strange innit?

A very short note on Hurricane Gustav

2008-09-01T19:19:00.002Z

I think it's pretty messed up to name a disaster after a Scando/Nordo when everyone knows how peaceloving, friendly and über-organized we are- what's next: Tornado Ikea?

When Jammin' changes it's meaning

2008-08-18T17:08:00.002Z

I've always liked Bob Marley- in fact I think I loved him during the summer of 1991. His song Jamming is a song that always reminds me of feelgood, well, jammin'. Now, on my rock jamming means to go out, have a little more than a few drinks and perhaps if things are going really well, one might even throw up a wee bit: you know give a little back to mother earth.

However, jamming has recently gotten a whole new meaning for me. I've literally been jamming the past few weekends. Yes, I actually made jam!

Yes, just like Little Red Riding Hood, I went out and about and picked all kinds of berries and veggies. Unfortunately there wasn't a wolf around to lead me astray so I just picked a whole bunch of berries and stuff, headed home and made blackcurrant jam, nordic currant jam and last but not least rhubarb and lemon jam. Let's not forget that I also made juice from the berries, so now I'm all stocked up on juice and jam.

As some of you know, I've recently, or let's say in the past few years, really gotten intrested in cooking and baking- but isn't it a little strange, spending my weekends crawling around on the ground and in prickly hedges looking for edible stuff?

Who knows, maybe this berry craze is derived from the bad situation the Icelandic crown is in, the last time I checked, we were pretty knee deep in bad investments- like, now's the time to really break into the fax-machine business or? Bottom line: berries are free...

Maybe, this jam making obsession is a result of me getting older- and older. Old ladies are supposed to make jam and bake cookies aren't they? Hmm, it could be an age complex thing.

In any case I'm pretty sure that it must be something psychological, because when the push comes to shove I don't even like jam or juice that much.

Ooh, did I mention that this weekend I am planning to go out and pick blueberries to make more jam?

Ah, hell- maybe this is just my sub-conscience telling me that winter's coming and it's time to move to Jamaica.

May the gods of jam, juice and jelly be with you.

Crying at the cinema Part II

2008-07-31T13:04:00.002Z

On the topic of movie experiences, and by that I'm not talking about Mel Gibson not getting into a Reykjavík bar last weekend because he was wearing sneakers, I need to, no must, share a strange thing with you: Recently, I have begun crying, like a lot, at the movies.
I think it started this spring when I went to see a really girlie movie called P.S. I love you. If you haven't seen this one, but are looking for a healthy emotional outlet, this is the one to see. A friend of mine told me that when she blindly, due to the waterfall streaming from her eyes, tried to crawl into the bathroom at the cinema, a sobbing lady walked up to her and said: They should give away free handkerchiefs with the ticket.
So, anyway, I went to see the flick and expecting a big sobfest I prepared for a great experience and packed a few kitchen towels in my handbag before embarking upon this adventure. Needless to say, I started crying about 3 minutes into the film and pretty much didn't stop for the next 1 1/2 hours. I cried when sad things happened and I cried when funny things happened.
To cut a long story short- I've been crying at the movies ever since. This has escalated and I hang my head in shame when I admit that recently ABBA made me cry.
Yes, James Bond himself sang SOS and for some reason I got somewhat emotional. OK, there weren't any tears, but my eyes did, however, water ever so lightly. The question now is:
Did I weep on the inside due to:
a) Pierce Brosnan's "talented" singing
b) Bond and Streep are so beautiful/terrible together that it makes you want to cry
or
c) I am becoming an emotional tear jerker junkie and cry over just about anything at the movies because it feels damn good.
Whatever the reason, here's a list of 10 films that make me cry:
1) The Notebook- love never dies, it's so wonderfully cheezy
2) Beaches- best friends and cancer and ahhhhhh
3) Pretty Woman- tears of joy when they finally let her shop
4) Schindler's List- the real people in the end putting stones on Oscar's grave, so emotional
5) The Mirror has two Faces- Barbra, Jeff Bridges, love, intelligence and opera
6) Titanic- what a shocker when the ship sank and cooooome baaaaaack
7) P.S. I love you- no explanation needed
8) Edward Scissorhands- Soooo sad and tragic and sweet and nooooo I start crying just by the very thought of it
9) The Corpse Bride- Same as film no. 8
10) Scuba School- The Coreys on something...I cried because the video store was closed and I couldn't return the bloody thing and get my money back, need I say more?

I'm sure I've left all the good one's out; but hey, most films make me cry these days...which reminds me, I wonder whether that NZ horror film Black Sheep about the cannibalistic killer sheep is a sad story about unhappy creatures looking for understanding in a harsh world.....will their fate make me cry?

Crying at the cinema Part I

2008-07-29T15:15:00.002Z

I love kids- kids are great. They are the cutest little rugrats and I just feel like pinching their chubby little cheeks while asking them with a silly voice: “Can I take you home and keep you, you little cutesy wootsie?” I generally think that there just aren’t enough kids to go around and I think that these little cherubs go with every occasion because they spread so much joy…

Now in an alternate universe this statement could be true and that would be a universe where Tinky Winky is the president of my rock and that purple creep Barney would be the mayor of my city.

So, I sometimes judge kids a weebit too harshly but lets face it people: when the hammer falls they fully deserve it.

I don’t hate kids if that’s what you think, no not at all. I can enjoy the company of the well-behaved and non-whiny type of kids as much as the next person. To be honest, I generally like kids, BUT, there’s a time and a place for everything and the reason for this entry is not a kid- but an inconsiderate parent.

OK, it’s the complaint corner again, so here goes:

When a movie is rated 12- that generally means that people who get paid for knowing better believe that the contents of the particular flick is not suitable for viewers under the age of twelve.

Then how come a kindergartener was sitting next to me at Indiana Jones part 4 yesterday?

What a lovely experience for me; First of all the 5-year old can’t read, so naturally and understandably the little rat kept asking the dad: “Daaaaaddy, what are they talking about?” “What about now daaaaaaaddy?” “What’s Indy saying now Daaaaaad?”

Then the blasted little bugger repeated loudly and proudly over and over again: “Daaad, I finished this level in my Indiana Jones Lego computer game!”
“That’s great kid, but I paid and arm and a leg for my goddam ticket so shut the hell up” was what I wanted to say but of course I just cursed on the inside and got more and more frustrated.

Afterwards, I realized that the kid wasn’t the one to blame, it was the dad. So if any of you have kids, please note that:
1) If the film’s rated 12 that means it’s not for toddlers.
2) If your kid doesn’t know how to read and the film’s not in the kid’s first language, tell the little creature that it’s strictly forbidden to talk at the movies in fact tell them that it's always forbidden to talk during a movie show- or else the boogey man will be waiting outside...
3) And last but not least try to remember what it was like when you still hadn’t procreated and remember that not everyone enjoys your kids’ comments- after all that’s not the bonus material you paid for.

If I want to enjoy screaming and running at the movies, I’ll buy a ticket to Bambi strikes back, not IJ4.

People: Don’t bring a knife to a gunfight…except when I'm sitting next to your annoying little offspring- because I'm too chicken to tell you what I really think...

All quiet on the Björkern front?

2008-07-28T12:46:00.003Z

After immense peer pressure, yet again, I have come to the conclusion that a post is due. To answer questions brought up by readers: No I am neither sick, depressed, derailed nor deceased.

Now that that's out of the way; why have I been so silent lately?

There are various theories going around on that topic:

1) Blogger's block: It is possible, but not likely.
2) It's been a warm summer and warm weather makes people lazy: Yeah, maybe a little bit.
3) I had a terrible accident with my hands while pruning the Mother Unit's roses rendering me unable to use a keyboard: I wish- but then again, a lot of time that could have gone towards blogging has instead gone towards using fingers and teeth to pull thorns out of injured arms.
4) I fell in love with a very bad man and when he broke my heart I chopped my fingers off- because I was upset: Nah, haven't met any bad men in a long time- and I would never chop a finger off for one of them.
5) A person that I have to interact with almost every day annoys the heck out of me causing me to chew my fingernails until it hurts, making typing very painful: Well, there might be an inch of truth hidden in there.

Oh well, I think I just have to admit it- nothing exciting has happened and I was too bloomin' lazy to share my mundane life with readers expecting accounts of the extraordinary adventures of my everyday life...

However, I have come to the conclusion that I will continue to share my world with you and that includes tales on:

Sheep hairdressers, a handbag dog, crying at the movies...a lot, downloading silly songs for laughs and then discovering a strange fascination and even admiration for the same laughable music, discovering an eerie urge to beat up an elderly lady (reads evil old bag) and last but not least totally and utterly going insane during sales and buying everything from a golden Star Trek ladies coat to silver coloured basketball shoes- even though I hate basketball.

Till later....

Geek Love

2008-04-18T17:53:00.003Z

Miraculous things happen on the bus. Well, they don't actually happen to me that much, but today I witnessed the cutest thing: geek love.
Young love is so cute, me thinks, and the young folks on the bus just touched a sentimental nerve in my ever so cold and old heart.
So, the guy had serious teenage problems skinwise, with what seemed like hundreds of shiny Rudolph-the-red-nose-raindeer pimples on his face and the girl had enormous braces on her teeth.
They were really ackward and didn't really look at each other that much- probably because they were both incredibly self-conscious and aware of the braces/pimples thing. But it was blatant by their body language that they were in the likey-stage.
In the end, after innocent teenage talks on teenage stuff, they left the bus seperately.
"Oh well" I thought to myself, "I hope they'll get over the shy teenage thingy at some point and declare their undying geek love to each other, have loads of geek babies and live happily ever after in a geek house with a geek dog."
As I giggled at their weak efforts in flirting, I undoubtedly went into some soul-searching of my own. Does the ackward and ineffective flirting stage ever end although braces and pimples vanish as age creeps upon us?
This thought brought me back to an incident not so long ago, erm, let's just say that I was way past being a teenager when this happened...
I was out on the town with a friend and wound up chatting with an acquaintance and I must say that I blatantly flirted with this person. Afterwards my friend commented: "Damn, that guy was totally flirting with you!" "Yeah" I said, "and I was totally flirting back!"
My friend's next comment was (in a terribly surprised tone, I must add): "That was you flirting?"
And, I thought I knew how to flirt, but apparently, my flirting technique came off as being sort of friendly, kind of distracted and simply not flirtish at all.
It has also happened that friends have accused me of flirting in a way too obvious manner to random individuals of the other sex. Seriously, in those instances it was the last thing on my mind.
The flirt wires are just all messed up in the mechanism I call Brain!
Wouldn't life be easier if you could just walk up to a guy you like and just say: "Hey, I think you're really cool and I would love to go out for some coffee with you, but am shit at flirting, so what do you say?"
I'm guessing that a direct approach like that would freak guys out and the Nutjob Stalker alarm would go off in their head big time.
Sigh, it sure is difficult living in a world where 50% of the population is a total enigma. On that note, I hope the geeks from the bus hook up and play D&D with their other geek friends...happily ever after ;)

The curious curse of Mr. Skelington

2008-04-02T17:44:00.002Z

"The hour grows dark" I thought to myself the other day when I heard it on the news- yes, the news, yet again- that a 10-30 year old skeleton of a woman or a teenager had been discovered in the countryside near Reykjavík.
I wondered what kind of place my rock was becoming as I followed the horrid accounts of these newfound human remains. Who had indeed murdered this innocent? Then I thought to myself: "Heck, my rock isn't that populated, I mean, we pretty much know everyone. How, can somebody just get away with killing another person and dispose of the body out in the open without anyone noticing for all these years?"
And the plot thickened even more... it soon became apparent that the skeleton was not an entire skeleton but the upper part of a skull. Again, I started thinking about the creep that had chucked a skull in the wilderness, what had he done with the rest of her? (Naturally, I decided the culprit was a man because men are more likely to kill than women...forgive me for being so sexist when it comes to crime.) So, where was the rest of the poor gal? Was the killer still keeping her in some hidden place?
Yes, I thought to myself, there sure is some nasty business going on.
The next thing I knew, the reporters had discovered that the skull came from a trailer that had been blown to kingdom come in a storm earlier this year and that the owner of the trailer had been using the skull as an ashtray for some time. However, the owner had believed that the wretched thing had been animal bones (which I still feel doesn't make it OK, you know, using such remains for a nasty habit such as smoking).
The Mother Unit was pretty upset about the whole thing, and being an Icelander and therefore extremely superstitious, she concocted a theory on the downfall of the trailer: The storm was caused by the angry spirit of the ashtray..erm excuse me, the deceased individual. So, a chain of heartfelt and angry speeches on how sick and disgusting people are was pretty much everything that the Mother Unit had to say that day.
Yes, we were utterly shocked by these sickos who have no respect for the dead and felt that they got what they deserved by losing their trailer to the storm conjured up by the pissed off ghost; a just punishment for being such filthy buggers.
Little did we know that the skull and it's origin were too close to home...
It turned out that the skull was indeed, not that of a woman or teen that died 10-30 years ago, but rather that of, as the Mother Unit has always put it, a "Danish imbecile" that my dear old grandpa had stayed up all night boiling in a pot back in the 1920's.
Way back then, gramps was a student of medicine in our then nation's capital, Copenhagen, Denmark. As the story goes he had apparently diligently dissected a pauper and when there was little left of the poor chap, he got permission to boil the meat off the head and keep the skull.
After that he brought poor old Mr. Skelington back home and used the skull for paperclips and such in his pharmacy. Skully, then wound up as a candy bowl at my uncle's house and then, through his son's unsuspecting mother in law, as an ashtray in a trailer.
If one believes in ghosts, then I guess it could be said that Mr. Skelington's spirit was pretty open-minded right till the end: "Cut me up, boil my head, use me as a container for paperclips and candy...but darn it, use me as a cigarette bud storage and I'll mess up your trailer."
After days of talking about the horrible culprit, it turned out that the primus motor in the whole fiasco was gramps...
The moral of the story is, I suppose, don't throw stones if you are living in a glass-house but just don't know it.

What's up with the news?

2008-03-06T17:08:00.003Z

I read the news the other day and must say that it seems the people on this planet are slowly but surely becoming more or less crazy. When I was a kid the news revolved around Reagan and Gorby kissing each other Soviet style while keeping one finger on the red button, you know, just in case the kiss turned sour. Now that was a proper love/hate relationship if there ever was one.

Hey, what am I saying? People have always been more or less wacko, at least according to the news. Just as I wrote this, I remembered a newspaper from circa 1938 that a friend of mine found inside the walls of her house when she diligently renovated her crib. One of the stories, as I recall, was on a couple in Hungary where the wife had become a wee bit overfriendly with a member of the opposite sex- not her husband mind you. The hubby had done the only "rational" thing in the situation and chopped her nose off, just to let her know that he wasn't A-OK with her behaviour.

To be honest, I think that a plain: "Hey, wifey, cheating ain't cool and therefore I'm divorcing you" would have been more appropriate, but according to the newspaper the wife was thrilled with being noseless. She said something like: "Yup, cheating's been a real Achilles heel for me in the past and cheating on my nose-chopping hubby ain't right. Now, I'm seriously disfigured and can't cheat on my guy anymore, so it's all good". And they lived happily ever after...

However, I started thinking about all this stuff because I was reading the newspapers the other day and saw two stories that made the wacko alarm go off.

One, was on 600,000 people in New Zealand that signed some sort of list requesting that the government allowed them to spank their kids for "educational" purposes. Really, if you have to beat up your kids to teach them how to behave, then you shouldn't have become a parent in the first place.

The other article in the newspaper that caught my attention was on a Swedish bike lover. Yes, yet again a man was caught doing unspeakable things to a lady's bike. I'm not a lawyer so I don't know what the penalty is for dating a bike, but it's interesting nonetheless.

A friend of mine asked me the other day where she could meet single men. At the time I couldn't really answer her question. Apart from the obvious places such as bars and AA meetings (which she incidentally frowned upon: You don't meet nice blokes in bars and an alcoholic in recovery just doesn't fit her profile of the perfect man) so I was totally blank. Where the hell does one meet single men?

After reading the news I think I could give her pointers on where to meet single men...at the bike shop of course!
That is, if it's not generally acknowledged that a man who's dating a Raleigh bike is "taken". But then again, wouldn't a single girl not rather stay single than date a bike enthusiast?

What a feeling- being's believing

2008-02-28T15:40:00.003Z

Well, now I've really gone and done it- time travelled through the means of my credit card.

I've always been a bit behind, for example, never caught on when other people were wearing stone and snow washed jeans and sweaters saying Rocky IV on the chest. I must say that I don't regret not having worn such garments because they were and still are disgustingly ugly. But the other day, as I decided a new era had begun in my life, I felt that I needed new clothes to match my new life.

So out I went a-shopping and I suppose I must have fallen into a time warp, because I left the mall with bags and bags of 80's inspired clothes. I didn't buy a Rocky IV sweater nor did snow washed jeans enter a shopping bag near me, but I wound up buying silver coloured carrot jeans and matching leg warmers and other stuff of the same genre. Maybe I did this because when I was grocery shopping the other day, I saw the films Flashdance and Footloose in the super cheap DVD section of the supermarket. Or maybe I'm just an uber-geek who's 20 years behind the rest of the world when it comes to clothes.

As you have seen in a previous post, I've rekindled my love affair with glam rock and this trend has now spread like the plague into all corners of my existence, I've even said hello to my very old green and blue eyeshadows (although I swore some time ago that I would never ever use them again).

This current state of things may also stem from the fact that I'm an historian and am therefore obsessed with the past. But, it is also possible that I'm not the only one obsessing with the 80s these days because I went to see the Cohen movie last night and guess what: it takes place in the 80s! I got a serious chill of happiness that ran up and down my spine when I discovered this and was even ecstatic when I realized that the main actor was the big brother from The Goonies although it was difficult to recognize him without the mullet and the BMX bike.

Let's face it people: the 80s have come back to haunt us and ain't going away- so go and dig up your old leg warmers, pointy shoes and carrot jeans and just enjoy because "in a world made of steel made of stone" life somehow seems brighter through a green eyeshadow...

A New Year

2008-02-25T15:37:00.003Z

OK, I realize that I haven't written anything here in a long time, but am very grateful for people's comments regarding my absence.
It's good to know that people care.

I was even asked whether I had eventually wound up killing the neighbours and was now serving consecutive life sentences. Well, that's not the case as the neighbours have been so incredibly quiet since that night that I wonder whether they actually wound up killing each other after a karaoke mishap. You know people have been killed for less important reasons than missing a note in a Paul Young sing-a-long.

On the subject of bad music I must say that I'm going through a really bad glam rock faze these days. It's all about AC/DC, Whitesnake, Skid Row and Def Leppard. How can you not appreciate a band where the drummer is one-handed and the band as a whole is responsible for keeping the make-up industry alive and well. I must admit that it would have been pretty cool to be a glam rock groupie, at least for one day. On the other hand, such a groupie's cosmetic bill must have been astronomical- I mean you need a lot of make up and hairspray to outshine the MEN in the band...

So anyway, the music tip of the day is: For a feel-good-feel wipe the dust off the LP's (the big black thingies that you turn around after listening to one side) and listen to classics like Youth gone Wild and Pour some Sugar on Me. Seriously, bands that can't spell their own name, somehow are appealing to me these days, I mean LEPPARD- come on people, or maybe there's some deep thought behind the name that I'm to thick to understand. So pump up the volume and enjoy.

In other news, why did Marjane Satrapi's incredible film Persepolis lose to a film named after a French veggie stew? I don't get it, but am happy for the Cohen's- or as the Mother Unit said: "It was about time that somebody did a film on old people, but why isn't there a place for old men in there dear?" Needless to say I won't be encouraging her to go see the flick as I fear it's not exactly a Hallmark/Mary Higgins Clark take on the wonders of the bridge-playing communities of the elderly in Florida, or is it- haven't seen it myself.

Actually, I haven't seen that many of these widely acclaimed Oscar films, but did manage to see Asterix and the Olympics (not nominated for a goddam thing), which was pretty cool, apart from the cameos by famous athletes; the dads at the theatre were all laughing, but I went like: "Who? Zidane who? Is that a basketball player? Why is this funny? Who are these people anyway?"

Maybe they should have asked some members of 80s glam rock bands to do cameos, at least then I would have giggled and felt that I was hip and happening with the finger on the pulse of current events...

Party time- excellent...

2007-12-19T15:28:00.000Z

Don't you just love your neighbours? I know that the Bible says to love thy neighbour as thyself, but I suppose I'm just not that Christian, at least not when it comes to my neighbours.

I've had my fair share of "special" neighbours, remember the McNasties? And lets not forget the old lady who used to knock on my door to tell me all about her continence problems- yes, that's right, she had the same bladder problem as Mrs. Emery from Little Britain. However, my old neighbour could talk about her leaky bladder for hours and hours, regardless of whether I had guests or not.

At times I would draw the blinds and pretend I wasn't there when she came a-knocking, but it's not really fair that one should have to hide in their own home from the nosy and leaky neighbours is it?

My current neighbours are in many aspects ideal; we greet each other politely when we meet, but that's it and I honestly like that. However, they have a tendency to travel, a lot. When they're away, their grown up sons throw parties.

Sometimes, they just sing a few sappy Icelandic songs from the 80s via their ever so loud karaoke machine. After the singing's over, usually around 1-2 AM they continue their partying downtown, so no complaints there.

However, sometimes they extend their partying into overtime and jump around, singing and shouting with loud music and serious bass. This can last into the morning hours, which I don't really appreciate.

Now, I think I'm pretty nice, at least most of the time, but when nearly middle-aged men keep me up all night long, without my consent, I get a wee bit annoyed, especially when it's a reacurring theme on a working day.

Last night, a bleeding tuesday mind you, I got out of bed at 3.15 AM, put my bathrobe and sneakers on (nice ensemble right?) and went upstairs to ask them politely to pipe down. "Sure no problem, so sorry, we'll stop making noise..." Right!

At 5.30 AM I felt as if Tony Hadley, the Kemp brothers and the rest of Spandau Ballet were actually in my bedroom singing "Ah ha ha ha haaaaa, I knooow this much is truuuuuuue". Now don't get me wrong, Spandau Ballet did good things back in the 80s and I personally think that Journeys to Glory from '81 is a damn good cd, but good things can go really sour in one's bedroom at 5.30 AM, and besides True was not a track on Journeys to Glory!

So, I pay my neighbours another visit and this time around I wasn't as nice as I had been during my 3.15 AM visit. They cut the music but continued speaking loudly until 10 AM, when I think they must have passed out.

All I want for Christmas is a good night's sleep and you can call me a Grinch but can you really blame me for dreaming of spending the holidays somewhere in a neighbour-free cave up in the mountains?

My scary Dreamworld

2007-12-13T14:07:00.000Z

Once again I ask the question: Why is it that I never have cute dreams with bunnies and squirrels?

The reason for this question is that I dreamed a "Heroes" dream last night...again!

Now, I seriously hate that Sylar guy, but this is the second time I dream about him. This time around I was at a dinner party with the rest of the heroes. Naturally, Sylar was there too, the bastard! He had one of those fancy digital cameras with the biggest lense I've ever seen. He used the camera to take pics of the party guests, you see the pics showed those who had superpowers all distorted. I, of course, had superpowers so that lousy bugger came after me and tried to suck the powers out of me. He failed...

Apparently, my superpower was that my superpower couldn't be sucked out of me if that makes any sense. In the dream it was quite useful, but in hindsight it isn't a very impressive superpower.

Now, I've in previous posts made cynical remarks on the Mother Unit and her obsessive behaviour when it comes to television. But now I even "watch" TV in my sleep.

Folks, this time I really think I should go out and get myself a life....

Baking without baking

2007-11-30T13:52:00.000Z

It's almost that time again, you know what I'm talking about.

Tomorrow the Christmas month begins and tomorrow almost every house in the city will be lit like a Christmas tree. Most of us northeners have a little Griswold inside of us that escapes around this time of year. Most windows will have friendly lights and the bare trees will be covered in hundreds of lights.

I usually collect a bunch of pine branches which I place on the windowsills and then I put tiny white lights inbetween the branches. This not only makes the house smell like a million bucks but also feasts the eyes.

Now this is what I felt lacked in that little Scottish town I used to live in. I never really got in the Christmas mood because it seemed that the locals absolutely lacked the essence of Griswold. There was a measly string of lights around the main shopping street but people just didn't light up their houses, which I found odd, since if anything- Scotland is even darker than my rock due to lack of that white stuff that falls from the sky here in the darkest months.

However, Christmas lighting doesn't always apply- as I discovered when my disco-loving neighbours put up their twinkling light tubes about 3 weeks ago. I also find little joy in the Spanish twinkling and Christmas tune-singing lights that have conquered the Canary Islands. Twinkling lights that sing "jingle bells" Chipmunks style are just not that tasteful people- or so I think.

But there are other ways of getting into the Christmas mood. I for one decided to celebrate the coming of the silly season and the 89th anniversary of my rock's sovereignity by baking without baking. We rock-inhabitants go cookie crazy in December, there are Sarah Bernhardt cookies, pepper cookies, butter cookies and you name it cookies. However, I tend to forget the little suckers in the oven so my cookies have in the past been "the fire department's here to see if you are OK cookies" so here's a brilliant and super easy recipe for not burning the joint down, "the kókoskúlur":

3 dl oatmeal

1 dl sugar

2 tablespoons cocoa

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract drops

2 tablespoons cold coffee

100 grammes butter (real butter)

Blend this all together, form little balls and roll in shredded coconut and then cool in the fridge.

These kókoskúlur really are a treat and so incredibly easy and quick to make.

Bon Appetit

Tip of the day

2007-11-27T12:49:00.000Z

While the mountains outside my window have snow white hats on and the day seems kind of bleak, why not light some candles and listen to the song of the day, which I have decided is Iron and Wine's "The Trapeze Swinger" from that lovely film In Good Company...

That's what I've done and believe me, this tune is good enough to be put on repeat, at least for a few rounds. If it gets tiresome, why not try another soundtrack, say Tous Les Matins de Monde, track 16, La Sonnerie de Sainte Genevieve du Mont a Paris.

Knock yourselves out via modern or medieval music- I won't guarantee that the snow will disappear but at least you'll have a cozy atmosphere in your office through candlelight and nice music to listen to while the storm outside attacks your window.

Enjoy

The secret life of the mother unit

2007-11-23T15:10:00.000Z

Don't you sometimes wonder what senior citizens are up to while the rest of us are working hard? I know I do.

Sometimes the mother unit starts talking about her friends that visit her during the day. I must say that these so-called friends are up to no good and the mother unit tells me incredible stories about them at the end of the day.

There's one who used to be a pill popper and had easy access to drugs at the hospital. She decided to clean up her act when her hubby re-fell in love with his ex, who had lost her memory and became an Amish lady. Anyway, the pill popping wife decided to do whatever it took to hold on to her man and faked a pregnacy. When it became blatantly obvious that her belly wasn't becoming bigger, as tends to happen to pregnant women, she went the whole nine yards (the distance between her house and the fertility clinic) and got pregnant for real...

The mother unit's best daytime friend has been married more times than I care to remember and has a tendency to marry within the same family. She's been married to the dad, his two sons and begot a child by the third son. In addition, she was engaged to the fourth brother, but that was OK as he was the dad's bastard son and didn't share their last name...

I must admit that the company that the mother unit keeps during the day worries me.

But then again, her friends are the product of CBS and as long as the mother unit just watches their unholy actions and doesn't replicate them I suppose I can't complain.

Oh get stuffed!

2007-11-22T13:25:00.000Z

It's the day of American stuffings. I wish all my American buddies a very happy eating day and hope that indigestion will not play a role in their festivities.

On my rock there's no thanksgiving, sadly there were no aboriginals here to mistreat when my ancestors showed up, except for possibly a few Irish monks, "papar" who are most famous for having used the 24/7 Arctic daylight to pick lice from each others' heads. We didn't have any turkeys either so thanksgiving is a non-existent holiday in these parts.

While on the subject of turkeys I must admit that when I moved to Alabama I was enjoyably surprised to see how multicultural the Southerners were and how open they were to Southern European/Asian cuisine; there were Turkish restaurants everywhere and being a fan of Middle Eastern food and such, I very much looked forward to dining exotic dishes at the "House of Turkey". Alas, there was pretty much only one dish on the menu: turkey (not from Turkey).

Yes, indeed I was a stupid foreigner!

However, now my friends and I from my needlework club (where we mostly just play cards and talk about girlie things + the occasional bad-mouthing of other women), well we've decided to do our annual club celebration American style with turkey, cranberries, sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie. I bought a big ass turkey for an insane amount of money (around 35-40 quid) and have been surfing the internet for recipes, preferably ones that don't include canned pumpkin, store bought stuffing mixes and sausage meat (as the first 2 are not sold on my rock and the third I don't eat due to many things). So, if anybody knows of a recipe that is kosher and un-canned, please let me know.

Hell, if all else fails we'll just off a few puffins and stuff them with sour sheep's testicles, burn them over a fire and chant viking tunes about pillaging and burning the English...

The Musical Psychopath

2007-11-15T12:43:00.000Z

This morning on the way to the office I was singing along with a Celine Dion song playing on the radio- pretty loudly actually. However, I did not realize this until I found myself waiting for the green light and accidentally looked to my right and saw the man in the next car giving me a strange look. Then it struck me that the car I was driving is not soundproof, especially when the window on the driver's side is partially open. I suddenly stopped singing in the middle of "Look back before you leeeeeeeaaaaaaave my liiiiiiiiiiife", switched the channels, turned down the volume on the radio -and myself and hummed quietly to RATM "F**k you I won't do what you tell me".

It sure is embarrasing when someone catches you singing Celine Dion songs early in the morning, but what can one do, I mean: I love the songs of Celine in the morning, erm that is I love the smell of napalm in the morning...or something.

Oh, to hell with it- I'm outing myself as of today as a musical psychopath: Hi, my name is Björk and I love Celine and Rage Against the Machine equally!

While I'm on the subject I would like to recommend two favourites of the musical psychopath- these days I'm listening to Jan Johansson's: Folkvisor- a fab, albeit not a super original jazz take on Swedish and Russian folksongs and then it's the alltime Bowie classic: The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust... I especially like Lady Stardust (Original Demo). If you have confidence in my musical taste, also check out Echo and the Bunnymen's golden oldie: Killing Moon-

In other news: check out my debut on kistan.is and also, has Barði found the prescription for Iceland's appaling outcome in Euro-trash-vision? This boy wonder put together a super discusting Euro-techno tune that should fit the profile of southernmore-than-Scandinavia-European taste. Seriously, this one's got it all: beef-cake guys who left their tops at home, a cute girl singing and big drums that have gone down well in post cold war Eurovision.

Enjoy!

They complete you!

2007-11-08T15:50:00.000Z

That lovely TV miracle man, Dr. Phil, seems to have implied at some point that women need to have babies (or so I've heard...I mean would I watch lousy daytime TV?!). Anyway, isn't this the purpose of our existence, you know to have babies, watch the little angels grow and then after they've had babies, we can drop dead content and at peace knowing that our legacy or at least our genepool will continue to walk the face of this earth?

I beg to differ. Sure kids are cute but why do people think that there's something wrong with you if you don't want some of your own? Questions and comments like "Use your mother-instinct" and "You'll get it and feel fulfilled when you've got little ones of your own"... If there are two people in the room, a man and a woman- both childless, and also a kid that suddenly starts crying or doing whatever kids do...why is it that the childless woman is SUPPOSED to know what to do. I mean, don't men have "father-instincts"?

Let's look a little closer into the whole having kids thing.

Step one: You bring the little buggers into the world through your hmmhmm; they show their gratitude by having enormous heads- yippee!

Step two: They puke and poo all the time, who doesn't love stinky nappies, a tonne a day for say 2-3 years?

Step three: They start walking and talking which means that they'll break stuff in your flat (who doesn't recognize the joys of cheerios in the dvd player?)and throw tantrums in shops when they don't get what they want.

Step four: The school years...one would think they turn nice at some point but no, they still break stuff, throw tantrums and now you also have to answer to the school authorities when they behave like little bastards outside your home.

Step five: Puberty...A good one. The tantrums continue and now they also start stealing money from your wallet alongside throwing parties for their likes in your house when you're not home and let's not forget five finger discounts in your booze-cabinet, while trying to cover it up by refilling your priceless bottle of whiskey with some water.

Step six: The grown up years...If you're lucky they'll ignore you altogether, never visit you etc. If you're unlucky, they'll turn the tables on you and start parenting you financially, socially, the works. If you're really unlucky they'll lock you up in death's waiting room, a "foundation for the elderly" where other people's fully grown offspring will continue to push you around, regardless of whether you use a wheelchair or not.

Now, seriously, are you going to tell me that I'm crazy to lack motherly instincts and not wanting kids, or is it perhaps that people who've fallen into the parenting trap want you to suffer too?

Oh what a night

2007-11-07T11:27:00.000Z

Last night I was kidnapped by some criminals. They took me to the airport and hid me somewhere inside duty free. There they made me solve some realistic law dilemmas, which I did with flying colours.

I managed to escape tree times and complained loudly that my kidnappers were pretty lousy at their job.

When I woke up at 8.30 and it was still dark outside and I didn't get my coffee until 10, which is very bad indeed.

I never dream about squirrels and bunnies, just vampires, carnivorous sheep and lousy kidnappers.

No wonder I'm sometimes tired in the morning!

wakey wakey lemon shakey

2007-11-01T14:26:00.000Z

I don’t know why, but this is a sentence I say every morning. Maybe it’s because the world is messed up and sour like an over-ripe lemon. How sour and sick depends on which part of the world we’re talking about, but we can pretty much find unsettling things everywhere we look. So, in a sour world we need to wake up from our slumber- hence wakey wakey etc.

I just finished reading a very disturbing book called Conversations with Americans. This book is almost 40 years old and is on a war that ended before I was even born. Why would this book make me so uneasy?

That’s simple, it’s because it’s about how war turns ordinary people into monsters and the horror of war is something that millions of people like you and me have to face every day. It’s a recurring theme that soldiers have gone crazy on the battlefield since the dawn of time but in modern warfare the battlefields are cities where innocent civilians are tortured and killed.
In the past soldiers were trained to dehumanize the “enemy”, it’s easier to commit murder if you think the victim’s not even the same species as you. In boot camps rookies didn’t get dinner unless they screamed “Kill, Kill, Kill” first. The psychology of warfare and war training is beyond my comprehension- I just see it as pure evil and I fear that not much has changed since Mark Lane interviewed US servicemen back in the sixties. We get news regularly about airplanes that supposedly had prisoners on board stopping in Iceland before they went on to a country where torture’s allowed.

I suppose many historians want to write their books on the past in order for people to actually learn from their ancestors’ mistakes. How naïve! Greed and stupid world views prevent us from ever evolving into better animals- we continue to be the greedy ape- sadly.

I grew up fearing the mushroom cloud and The Bomb. Back then, the Soviets were the enemies, now there are new enemies and new hardships.

Bottom line- before jumping on the war train, read about what war does to people that are just like you.

Peace!

Good-bye sweet Sumi

2007-10-24T15:48:00.000Z

This year has been quite a year.

It's been a year of incredible personal victories while at the same time filled with ugliness and defeats.

What else could be expected? The year started with a terrorist attack; as I was leaving Spain I witnessed the Madrid police bringing out the remains of the victims of a terrorist attack at the airport.

This summer I was trying to get home from Glasgow when another terrorist bombing happened- twice in one year; that's just unreal!

The other day, I felt the bottom had been reached in terms of the year 2007 not being my year and I commented: "Well, this surely is as bad as it can get in one year- there is no way that it could possibly get any worse."

Guess what? It got worse.

Last friday the cat was run over and killed by a speeding wanker who didn't even stop- or maybe he/she was driving so bloody fast that he/she didn't even notice the cat lying dead by the side of the road after the "collision".

This is my farewell to my departed friend Sumi. She was simply an amazing cat; When nobody was home she would lift the receiver and meow into the phone when somebody phoned. Friends and family thought it was the human occupants trying to be funny when, in fact, it was Sumi trying to say: "Dude I'm all alone here at the mo...can I take a message to the humanoids?"

In the morning she would sit on a chair at the breakfast table and eat cucumbers, you really should eat greens in the morning- even cats know that!

She would sneak into bed with her head on the pillow and her little paws on the comforter and purr gently when you were about to get into bed, you know just to say: "Hey homie, I'm lying here, try not to disturb!"

In the afternoon she would demand a boiled fillet of cod with a little bit of salt and then she'd thank you by meowing a little bit jump into your lap and pat you on the cheek with her paw and if extra happy she'd nugde your forhead with hers.

Gosh, I miss that cat- now there's no welcoming committee when I come home from the office. My paws go out to you Sumi- gonna miss ya.

My strange brain...

2007-10-24T15:38:00.000Z

Does this lady turn clockwise or counter-clockwise?

In my head she's turning clockwise which means I use the right side of the brain more, meaning that I am mostly controlled by emotions and lack logic- who would have thought?

RIGHT BRAIN FUNCTIONS:

uses feeling

"big picture" oriented

imagination

rules symbols and images

present and future philosophy & religion

can "get it" (i.e. meaning)

believes appreciates spatial perception

knows object function

fantasy based

presents possibilities

impetuous risk taking

LEFT BRAIN FUNCTIONS:

uses logic

detail oriented facts

rule words and language

present and past

math and science

can comprehend knowing

acknowledges order/pattern perception

knows object name

reality based forms strategies

practical safe

No wonder I like sci-fi and other imaginary things like talking rabbits...

Errrrr what's up doc?

2007-09-18T16:15:00.000Z

You're Watership Down!

by Richard Adams.

"Though many think of you as a bit young, even childish, you're actually incredibly deep and complex. You show people the need to rethink their assumptions, and confront them on everything from how they think to where they build their houses. You might be one of the greatest people of all time. You'd be recognized as such if you weren't always talking about talking rabbits."

Figures! I'm a naive yet deep wabbit when it comes to literature!

What about you?

Life's a box of carrots and then you turn
orange...or something- just me trying to be "how you say?" a great
people...

Video killed the Radio Star?

2007-09-06T17:32:00.000Z

... Not in my case. You better believe it, I have been on our own version of the BBC (RUV) once a week for the past 4 weeks. One more time left, meaning that after that I can begin listening to the radio again. Seriously, I'm not sure my sweet sounding voice is cut out for a career on the waves of the air- or is it airwaves? I listened once and thought I sounded like a fifteen year old girl. That's cool when you're 12, but at my age I would prefer sounding like an experienced and scholarly woman of the world... or something, like, totally y'all...Ah, hell whatever!

Anyhoo, if you'd like to judge for yourselves it's available for the next 2 weeks, here's one (just press "umhverfisspjall") and here's another one (in this case press "13.00 vítt og breitt) and you'll get the whole picture.

Over and out roger roger...whitaker

Media Family

2007-08-14T13:27:00.000Z

I feel the need to brag about my family. My lovely cousin was singing on TV last night and I just wanted to share her beautiful jazzy take on an Icelandic folk song...

Enjoy!

Thriller!

2007-07-14T18:32:00.000Z

I have just managed to scare the crap out of a friend's kid; not exactly my goal for today if you catch my drift.

So, a friend came round to my old place, where my sister now happily resides. I've been using the joint to do a little work because my office is sadly empty during the weekends- bloody lazy these independent scholars if you ask me, taking the weekends off!

Anyway, I really wanted her to check out an interview with a prospective professor at a prospective US school.

So, I decided to play "nanny" for her 5 year old son, in order to give her peace to look at the Americans.

I found some old cars for the kid and even read a book with pics on the adventures of Benoit Brisefer (Steven Strong), the world's strongest kid, or at least Belgium's strongest kid.

OK, way off course- once again!

Eventually, we went outside to look for more toys and as we have collected a home-made hero dog, I see that my old neighbour is sitting on her balcony. This old bag has bothered me since I was a kid. She has been an evil troll since at least the early sixties and used to scream at us kids and would even smear the fence that separates our gardens with a nasty lubricating oil to prevent us from taking shortcuts through her garden. The mother unit used to sigh loudly while trying to remove the grease stains from the bums of our trousers and say things like: "How can anyone be this horrible?" Needless to say, the trouser budget in our household was a big part of my parents' paycheck.

As, I was thinking of things to entertain the kid with, my mind struck gold; I decided to tell him about the evil hag next door...

Bad, bad, bad idea! I scared the crap out of the kid and I doubt that his mum was thrilled with my narrative.

This is why childless people shouldn't babysit.

The times sure have changed since I was little- then every kid's idol was Michael Jackson, whereas today parents tell their kids: " If you don't behave you little...I will call MJ and invite him over!"

I can't believe I came up with using MJ as a tool of discipline in upbringing- this just goes to show that some people (reads:s me)should not procreate and if they for some unfortunate reason do beget children- it's best to ship the offspring off to the orphanage asap!

Something's rotten in the Banana Republics of the world

2007-07-13T15:05:00.000Z

I heard the news today oh boy as the song goes. Well, actually it's the news that I have heard this week.

First of all I have to share with you a story about the latest Chinese craze: Fish being deep-fried alive. Although the Scottish cuisine consists of deep frying stuff, and if they haven't got anything to deep fry, they just deep fry their pants or simply the batter alone in clumps...

OK, way off course now, as sometimes happens to me.

So, the Chinese are now deep frying carp ALIVE! The poor animal is deep fried except for the head and then served on a plate lathered in sweet and sour sauce, gasping for air and twitching in deep fried pain while the "eater" attacks the poor thing with chopsticks.

Seriously, what is wrong with people who enjoy this type of cuisine? I mean, I like meat as much as the next person, but I make sure my meat has been treated humanely in life and fuerthermore, killed quickly before it's cooked.

But it's not just the Chinese who do evil things to their food. It is well known that people all over the world boil lobster alive. Apparently it's supposed to taste better after being tortured to death. Now, I think that people that do this should just try putting their hands into a pot filled with water and slowly bring it to boil. You know just to see how good it feels.

I am very happy to say that on my rock we sell our lobsters dead as doornails- and they haven't been boiled alive. So call me a hypocrite for eating meat, but at least I don't torture my food. Btw, the blue lobster you are looking at was born in 1980 and lives in St Andrews. You may been asking yourself why it's a blue lobster? Well, if boiled it will become red- just like your hands when you burn yourself; then you too will become red.

Which brings me to my next topic in the complaint corner: Rio Tinto.

Alcan, which has been polluting the air I breathe for years, has just been bought by Rio Tinto, the Australian aluminium giant. It's really amazing how these corporations carry on while the average Icelander goes on with his life and pretends everything is A- OK.

Rio Tinto is a corporation that is responsible for all kinds of nasty things; to name only one: they triggered a civil war in Papua New Guinea, not to mention their ever so tainted image when it comes to human rights such as upholding a sort of apartheid in the same place with different facilities for different races of people.

Now, doesn't it sound nice that Rio Tinto has become an addition to the Lets-destroy-the-nature-in-Iceland flora?

This brings me to my last point; the cops are on alert in Iceland today. Can you believe that there are foreign (translates dangerous and have no business here) protesters in Iceland this summer. These people actually care about the destruction of Europe's biggest "unspoilt" wilderness. They are thereby considered to be extremely dangerous people- some of them even have dreadlocks, which seems to be very offensive to the Iceland bourgeoisie- how dare they! Bloody foreign hippie scum!

The aluminium companies seem to be terrified of these people and are now hiring extra watchmen and women to their Isengard/Barad Dur poison spewing towers. They are encouraging women to apply for the jobs, got to keep up the politically correct images ay?

I heard a story of a woman who decided to apply for a watchdog position but when she was asked questions about her menstrual cycle (apparently very important when battling against fierce protesters?!)- well, she decided not to take the job, or so the story goes.

Not such a good week in news for me- better just continue listening to Bob Marley and hope that if we all get together "it will be alright".

It's what gets me out of bed in the morning

2007-07-10T14:18:00.000Z

Now, what would that be? It's coffee, lovely aromatic coffee with cream, I love it love it love it.

I just saw a documentary about coffee- which set off the Cliff Clavin in me.

For instance, did you know that coffee originally comes from Ethiopia, which just happens to be the country I am fixated with these days- I want to go to Addis, hang out with the rastafari, celebrate the life and death of Bob Marley, Haile Selassie and listen to my favourite band as of now The Ethiopians (which is actually an awesome ska band from Jamaica) while drinking super Ethiopian coffee.

Soon precious- soon we goes there....(shite- shouldn't have watched LOTR last night).

Ultimately, I ultimately came to the ultimate conclusion (did I say ultimate?) after viewing the coffee flick.

The great truth of it all is that French historians are big fat liars! Now, this French dude was saying that Europeans in the 17th and 18th centuries drank like 7-8 liters of wine per day. And if that's not enough, they additionally drank half a liter of strong spirits and then commenced to work a 14hour day. On top of that, the kids were drunks too! Come on, man!

Then this guy says that the French Revolution was a spawn of French coffee shops, where everybody sat down, over-dozed on java and plotted to behead wigged lads. Whereas, we all know that a volcano in Iceland started Le Revolution!

Anyhoo- just wanted to Clavinize a little and direct y'all to the website that helps you find your discover which celebrity you look like. I was not unhappy about mine.

Peace!

Northern Voices

2007-05-25T13:16:00.000Z

My office can be a strange place.

This morning I was pretty knackered after travelling half way across the country to enlighten students from Edinburgh University about my topic of interest. That actually went pretty well, although my spoken English has suffered from not being used for a looooong time.

So anyway, there I was, knackered and just feeling a bit out of this world. As I enter the Reykjavik Academy, I heard seriously weird noises, like chanting and tribal drums in the distance.

My first thought was naturally, “bloody hell- I’ve gone mad, too much work has made me absolutely bonkers!” Fortunately, I wasn’t having a mental breakdown- because sure enough there was a little fellow there from Greenland, banging his drum and singing shaman-like songs out in the hall. His singing and drum-banging woke me up good and now I am fit as a fiddle and ready for more action.

The Greenland-man (now how do we say this in English- Greenlandic, Greenlandish or Greenish?) told a story about a friend who only had 3 dogs for his sled. He apparently had a taste for fat and furry puppies and couldn’t resist the temptation when the dogs became “ripe” for barbecuing and well, threw a few pups on the barbie.

So, although the Inuit (ahhhhh- there’s the right word) certainly managed to wake me up with his mesmerizing Inuit songs- he also managed to distract me from the lecture on sex, singing and drinking in the Highland, I am supposed to have ready by next weekend.

Now all I can think of is a fire, a puppy and Heinz barbecue sauce (NB! Not really mouth-watering stuff).

Darn!

The Complaint Corner

2007-05-07T13:20:00.000Z

Complaining is good for the soul. At least that's what I think. My list is endless when it comes to politics so I'm not even going to go down that road.

However, there's one thing that bugs the hell out of me and that's when I'm watching TV and somebody enters the room when the film's almost over and starts asking annoying questions.

This happened to me this weekend- and in fact it happens most of the time. The mother unit is insufferable when it comes to TV.

So, I'm watching Elizabethtown on the Devil-Box and the film's almost over-

Enters mother-unit: "Who's that?"
Me: "Mum the film's almost over, I can't possibly tell you about the characters now, do you mind?"
Mother-unit:"That's the strangest funeral I've seen, is this how it's done in the US?"
Me: Mum, I dunno- never attended a funeral in the US- seriously, the film's almost finished."
Mother-unit: "Well people who vote for that dreadful Bush imbecile must be strange, I'm sure their funeral services are weird too!"
Me: "Yeah, yeah, mum, pleeeease stop talking and let me watch the film in peace!"
Mother-unit: "Does this take place in Virginia? I read a book on Virginia and have also been hearing about Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings...You know she was a slave and the Americans didn't acknowledge their relationship until 1998, through DNA testing. Incredible these people!"
Me: "No Mum, this one takes place in Kentucky. And what's up with your fascination with US presidents? Now, please go read a book or something and I'll holler when it's finished."

Phone calls for Mother-unit and although the phone's totally new and cordless, she decides to take the call on the couch right next to me. Endless stories about sick relatives and more than middle-aged friends behaving badly in terms of really old love interests; you know the kind of conversation you really don't want to listen to. Mother-unit hangs up the phone and continues asking about the film...just as the end credits roll across the screen.

Mother-unit: " Oh, is it finished? What a boring film- well I just came in here to say that I'm pretty tired and don't think that I'll be watching any telly tonight. Sweet dreams dahhhling!"
Me: "Gahhhhhh" (tearing hair from head).

Who ever said that watching TV was easy?

Et tu?

2007-05-03T14:53:00.000Z

Another year in my life has come and gone.
It’s pretty amazing how the years pass by and the 365 days seem to fly away faster and faster, or maybe it’s the local wind here in Reykjavík that makes all the difference.
Now I am at the same age as that little gay fellow from the Oliver Stone film was when he passed away after conquering the known world. Gosh, I’ve got to pick up the pace if I am to do such things before next year hits me. I thought similar things when I turned 27; Janis, Jimi, Kurt and the fat guy from the other Oliver Stone movie had all written their “swan-songs” when they croaked at the measly age of two and seven.
However, this is the big one…this year must be a year of greatness if I am ever to reach these heights.
Then again, I could be flying a wee bit too high to compare myself to these peeps (I’ve got the Icarus complex if there ever was such a thing). So, I think I’ll just compare myself to me and try to enjoy this age even more than I enjoyed previous years.
The first thing was to get suckered into running for congress- for the Green party mind you- I’ve always been keen on green matters such as Kermit and the Hulk (see previous post).
Hell, there’s a lot of jerks out there and some or even many of them have been elected-as can be seen in the lethal wounds of the Icelandic wilderness.
Again I say "go green" and think happy thoughts about the future…who knows, my nation might at some point stop voting for greedy and corrupt wankers who give our banks to their similarly corrupt friends and then attack our mountains and rivers with heavy machinery to make aluminium for international companies who in return make tanks and such in order to "free" the Middle East.
But then again- we might be on the brink of another 4 years of the current government’s ongoing misuse of power… fingers x-ed that the peeps on this rock will vote green!

Peace

My Eco-footprint

2007-04-24T12:59:00.000Z

I always thought that I was some sort of eco-saviour; you know the wheat-grass drinking, yoga-practising, vegetarian, hippie type- fighting to save the environment from the claws of right wing bastards who want to transform this country into a metallic grey, smoke-spewing, "the world's largest aluminium smelter"...You know, the conservatives want something out of a Saruman/Sauron wet dream thingy. Well, I don't want that kind of future- the future I dream of is green like the Incredible Hulk and Kermit...

Ok, maybe I think wheat-grass juice tastes like puke, I can't stretch worth shite (no-yoga policy) and I seriously enjoy a big fat burger once in a blue moon...but nontheless, I have spent days on end fighting the Man for the thousand year old canyons, glacial rivers, reindeer, seals, birdies and cute flowers.

Little did I know- I took that blasted eco-footprint test and guess what: it would take 4 frigging planet Earth's to sustain eco-friendly people like me!

Now I felt bewildered, betrayed and all that when I got the results, but after looking at the whole thing in perspective, I have realised what one needs to be to be eco enough for these people: the home will have to be a box with no electricity and no water, the means of transport being none whatsoever, the food will be nonexistent...this simply means that in order to be eco enough one needs to be DEAD!

So there you go:

It ain't easy being green!

It's been a long time baby!

2007-04-13T14:31:00.000Z

Incredibly I'm still on the planet. I realize that I haven't posted a single word here for almost two months but now I will try to make up for that.

So what's been keeping me away from the world of blog? Well, the answer lies in one horrid word: Dissertation.

Yes, I have submitted the bloody thing and that's all I have to say about that as Forrest Gump would put it.

As I struggle to get my life and maybe especially my social life back, I have been up to no good since I submitted.

I spent easter in a place in South Iceland, where I spoke about my topic in a church- that was pretty damn cool and the peeps there were so super duper nice, who knows, maybe I'll move there at some point.

I failed miserably at getting my social life together after that, as I spent about two days in bed watching the entire eighth series of the Simpsons. I can't decide whether I like Nelson or Chief Wiggum more...they both rock!

Hmmm, what else? I managed to get hooked on some tv shows, Heroes, American Idol and last but not least Dexter...what a charming sociopath- I seriously need to go out more!

Then I am becoming really political as my sis is the green candidate in South Iceland in the up-coming elections. I find myself thinking about the sizes of boats, the educational system and how to stop the darned heavy-industry craze in this joint. Pressing matters and these meetings and "shit" (as my transvestite hero Emily Howard would say) actually clash with my tv schedual!

Goodness, I really need to get a life! Any ideas anyone on how to break this pattern? What should I do; start dating (can't be bothered to look + live with mum which is not dating friendly), get a dog (can't afford one + living with mum who's not dog friendly), join a new age group (not really the spiritual type + too busy watching American mind-destroying material on telly with mum)?

Yes, it is a puzzle...

I'll just keep on blogging about my uber-exciting existence-

Iceland declares War on Porn

2007-02-22T15:08:00.000Z

When a Dutch internet porn conference was planned at one of Reykjavík's hotels, the vast majority of Icelanders said no thanks. The city council claimed that these "tourists" were unwelcome in Reykjavík and the mayor said that the situation 'sucked'. Today the hotel management gave in to the will of the people and shut the door on the porndogs, who needless to say were a wee bit dissapointed.

I must say that I've sometimes, in the process of this whole discussion, said that I'd rather have a conference of porndogs, as long as they are practising 'legal' pornography, than a conference of aluminium tycoons whose sole objective is to destroy the precious environment of my rock and pollute as much as they possibly can in the process.

The psyche of my fellow countrymen is sometimes beyond my comprehension; this is the second time in a few years where certain groups are declared personas non grata. The last time was when the Chinese premier visited. At that point some yoga practising peaceful demonstrators dressed in yellow were prohibited from entering the country. The peaceful protesting of Falun Gong against horrible crimes was frowned upon by local authorities; you don't want to make the guy who was in charge of cleaning up the students at Tiananmen Square upset...

That time round the Icelandic public picked up the pieces, wore yellow and pretended to practise yoga and managed to piss the premier off.

But who's going to take off their clothes in this cold weather and dance around a pole on Reykjavík's town square in the name of the civil rights of Dutch porndogs?

Ermmm, not me!

Handballistic

2007-01-25T14:29:00.000Z

Something crazy and wonderful happened on the bus yesterday. You see, normally the passengers flock to the back of the bus, where they sit either looking out the window or at the floor. However, last night there was some magical going on on bus number 13g going east... the passengers went handballistic.

There is a handball craze going on on my rock now due to the World Cup in Germany. "Our Boys" kicked French European Champion butt and then they (or WE as we like to say) half-mooned the Tunisians last night.

So anyway, the passengers on my bus all sat or stood at the front of the bus to hear the live and direct radio broadcast the bus driver had graciously tuned into (actually the passengers at the back of the bus all had their i-pod thingies tuned into the same station according to their cheering). Everyone seemed anxious to get home asap to catch the rest on the telly. Old ladies, children, business types and me all cheered and smiled while listening, it was just wonderful. I don't think the "National Soul" has been this happy since we almost won the national French footballteam while they were still the World Champions...o.k. it was a tie, but we ALMOST won!

I can't wait to get home to watch the game against Poland later today, fingers x-ed. The little nation has something to be proud of for now and "Our Boys" make my bus trips more enjoyable.

If you are not interested in checking the World Cup out, maybe you should listen to my favourite song these days...Icelandic of course..but sung in English for others to enjoy

Go Iceland!

And you thought I was weird!

2007-01-16T12:19:00.000Z

I have been under attack for years because of the Icelandic semi-pagan Christmas rituals and stories of 13 evil Santas, their cannibalistic momma Grýla and the Christmas Cat. My foreign friends have made fun of us Icelanders for our peculiarities and this has caused major mental trauma in me and my re-thinking of the meaning of Christmas.

My Spanish and Greek friends have been especially eager to ridicule our innocent and sweet, almost pixie-like Christmas characters. But boy oh boy, vengeance is mine; and a sweet one it is!

You see, I spent the holidays in the lovely city of Madrid or Madilli according to a billion Chinese people. As the Icelandic, Spanish, Greek, Argentinean, Canadian, Portuguese and what-have-you-nots were sitting around a beautifully decorated new-years table chewing on an ever so ugly monkfish, my Spanish friend started telling the others about how messed up the Icelandic Christmas was. Unfortunately this friend has gotten a wee bit confused about Icelandic myths, so she claimed something like: “Did you know that all Icelanders wear necropants over Christmas while they eat wealth-challenged youngsters and try to avoid the Christmas Cat?” O.K. it wasn’t that bad but you get my point right? #wink#.

To my amazement, the Canadian started spilling the beans on Spanish Christmas customs and I must admit that my reply could only be “and you think we’re weird?” So, I will try to put this delicately…ahhh, who am I kidding- this can’t be put delicately, so here goes: The Spanish (at least in Catalonia) have a Christmas character called the…are you ready…SHIT-LOG!

Now this needs a little bit of explaining. The Spanish put up a log (tió) in their house before Christmas and they feed it regularly (how do you feed a peace of wood?). They paint a face on the Shit-log and place a red hat on its erm head and put tiny peaces of wood under it to serve as legs. Then on Christmas Eve, they put a bag over its “arse” filled with presents. The next thing is even weirder; you see the kids gather round and beat up the shit-log and sing songs encouraging it to shit presents. Seriously people, isn’t this a tad bit weirder than Icelandic Christmas?

The Shit-log revelation made me curious, so I decided to try to dig up some dirt on the Greeks too and I discovered something that put a smile on my face: The Greeks have evil Santas too! According to my sources, the Greek Santas are even meaner than the Icelandic ones, you see they crawl down people’s fireplaces and put out the fires by pissing on them! Can you imagine how that’s going to stink up the house? These guys are really ugly and freakish and like da ladies a lot and the Greeks tend to keep black chicken to scare them away. And here’s the best part; If you have a baby on Christmas, it will turn into one of those Greek Santas because it’s sinful for women to have babies at the same time as the blessed virgin.

I will repeat this one more time just because I like to: “AND YOU THOUGHT MY CHRISTMAS WAS WEIRD!!!!!!!!”

Happy Christmas near and far

2006-12-24T14:06:00.000Z

Dear friends

I wish you all a happy Christmas and a good new year.

I always get a bit sentimental around this time of year...even the adverts from the Post office bring tears to my eyes. Must get a grip, must get a grip aaaahhhhhh!

Those of you who live in colder climates; don't forget to feed the little birdies--they are so cute and hungry out in the cold.

Love

Björkin, who'll definately have a run in with that blasted Christmas Cat this holiday season

The Christmas Craze

2006-12-05T15:41:00.000Z

So it’s almost that time of year again. Holiday madness lurks around ordinary households and the average Joes and Josephines go berserk when struggling to make ends meet. Adverts fill up the mailbox and everyone’s simply got to get new stuff or perish.

Everybody’s forgotten about that little fellow who entered the world about 2000 years ago and only wanted worldwide love—no stupid, not John Lennon! If he were alive today (which would make him seriously old, even older than Methuselah who died at a whopping 969 years) me finks he would probably go to the mall and break windows of greedy merchants.

But since there’s little chance of that happening in the near future, I just avoid the mall at Christmas time, well actually at all times but that’s another story. So while avoiding Christmas mania I choose to take walks in the still weather and winter sun and wait for winter solstice when my peeps burn a symbolic goat; yeah I know, the whole Christianity thing never really caught on here on my rock.

I also tend to watch old videos to get in the mood and here’s a list of my favourite movies:

Home Alone Little Kevin is all alone with Joe “evil” Pesci trying to get in. The little fellow screaming gahhhhhhh is so adorable and the guy who plays his dad is kinda hot.

The Santa Clause Tim Allen gets really fat after killing Old Nick. Have a fruit for god’s sake Santa!

Die Hard Bruce Willis kicks German terrorist butt in a Japanese skyscraper. “HO-HO-HO now I have a machine gun!” Major bonus: Run DMC sing a Christmas tune. This is the holiday movie to set the mood for the entire family.

National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation I call myself Clark W. Griswold when I go overboard with 10,000 Italian twinkling lights. “It’s a full-blown four alarm holiday emergency here. We’re going to press on and have the hap hap happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny fucking Kaye. And when Santa squeezes his fat wide ass down that chimney tonight, he’s going to find the jolliest bunch of assholes this side of the nuthouse.” A must see!

While You Were Sleeping OK, Sandra Bullock as a sad spinster that nobody notices…hmmm, not really. Nevertheless such a cute flick and one of my favourite actors, Bill Pullman, plays the object of Sandra’s affection.

Scrooged Bill Murray is a genius, a bleeding genius man! The scene where the props man is trying to attach antlers to a mouse is just incredible. Props man: “I can’t get the antlers glued to this little guy. We tried Crazy Glue, but it don’t work”. Bill Murray: “Did you try staples?” Hilarious stuff!

Blackadder’s Christmas Carol Blackadder gone good? There’s got to be some mistake. Very nice twist on Dickens here.

Gremlins If you’re dumb enough to feed those little furry cuties after midnight on Christmas, you will get what you deserve. I can still remember the microwave scene and the Gremlins’s Christmas carolling.

The Ref Denis Leary as a cat-pee smelling burglar taking Judy Davis and Kevin Spacey hostage; you just can’t lose. Denis later pretends to be a psychiatrist: “There’s a lot of wackos out there”. “You call your patients wackos?” “Yeah, erm, they like it.” This movie is so filled with sarcastic and black humour, what can I say, I just love it to bits.

Jingle All the Way Why is a movie with Sinbad and Arnold Schwarzenegger on my list? Well, Phil Hartman is in it and he was a comedy genius. Schwarzenegger’s line: “Puz zat cookie doooown” is also the reason why this movie made my list.

Now if I have forgotten essential movies that put one in the right mood for the silly season, don’t hesitate to comment.
And finally: PUZ ZAT COOKIE DOOOOWN!

The fifteen minutes of fame...

2006-11-29T14:31:00.000Z

I just got a phonecall from the State run radio station RUV, they wanted to interview me about my dissertation. Questions like: "Now you have been writing about this topic for a year and a half...why the heck haven't you finished yet?" and "Why has the state been supporting your silly dissertation?"

OK, so they weren't asking me these questions but rather were genuinly interested in my topic, it's HOT (and why shouldn't it be, it's a friggin' volcanic eruption--they are always hot). So they wanted me to speak on the radio about my diss, but being the perfectionist that I am, I decided that I wasn't ready for such things. I am also terrified of being ridiculed, other scholars sighing and saying: "This girl's a clueless moron who's gotten it all wrong!"

So, I missed my fifteen minutes of fame, but offered the reporter an exclusive in March 2007 when my conclusion has been completed and I actually know what I want to say...

Besides, I seriously need to get the academic terms right you know, I've been writing about this in English and just talking to the reporter guy on the phone made me stutter cuz I couldn't remember simple Icelandic words for terms like Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome..

Jeez, need to re-learn my own mother's tounge...

Plebeians of the world unite

2006-11-24T13:52:00.000Z

Long time, no write. I apologize for this my dear readers. I think it must the massive amounts of snow that have caused this period of procrastination.

I must admit that I have also been doing a wee bit of soul searching lately. You see, I have been looking for the Plebeian in me. For those who are not Icelandic this term may need explaining. On my rock we use the Roman term “Plebeian” (the short version is Plebbi) for people who are according to my English dictionary “lower middle class person, petty bourgeois”.

These individuals can be identified by the following: 1) Eerily orange skin tone from excessive tanning salon sessions or attack of the horrid tanning towels. 2) Extreme highlights in hair, like a birdie with diarrhoea had done its deed on top of the head (men). Extremely bleached hair (women). 3) Swollen body from exercising with six-pack from head to toe (men). Stick like body from the low-carb diet (women).

Alas, after looking everywhere for the Plebbi in me, I have come up empty-handed. I am just going to have to try to accept the fact that Plebeiism skipped a generation this time…
And here’s the reason for these wonderings: I was watching telly last night and stumbled upon a live broadcast from the competition “Mr. Iceland 2006”. It was seriously an overdose of Plebbiness, the young lads prancing around in skimpy shorts just looked like buff carrots to me saying things like: “Hi, I’m Óli and I come from Nowhereville and I’m HOT, vote Óli, vote Óli..”. Watching this I got a silly-shiver that wouldn’t stop running up and down my spine.

Is this what we’ve come to? In a country where the friggin’ Sagas were written, the land of vicious Vikings and the explorers who discovered America (and then lost it again). Did our ancestors eat mouldy meat, dried out fish and even their shoes and survive immense volcanic eruptions and harsh winters with their fjords filled with icebergs so that their offspring could turn orange and worship Britney and K-Fed?

I’m thinking that had our ancestors had the power of seeing into the future, they would probably all have jumped into that scorching hot crater to prevent this from happening.
I’m stunned, bewildered and betrayed…give me back the good old days with shoe eating and no orange-looking dude in sight pleeeeease.

It's getting hot in herre

2006-11-03T14:43:00.000Z

And not in a good way.

I just heard that some weather experts in the US were saying that the next three months in Iceland will be warm. You might think to yourself, well, that's good news ay? But I think it's actually horrible news; warm weather in Iceland in the wintertime simply means wind, rain and darkness whereas cold weather means no wind, sun and especially with a little snow--bright and beautiful days. With dark and rainy days I'm sure we'll all develop bloody seasonal depression and off ourselves one by one. In a country with a population of 15 (ok 300,000) that's a pretty bad thing you know.

And why is this happening? The answer lies in my favourite phrase these days, Global Warming. So, tomorrow there's a world-wide demonstration to urge world leaders to take action against climate change (in this I don't mean to shun the Kyoto agreement and open more polluting factories like the Icelandic leaders are doing).

I think the Icelandic politicians in charge should sit down and think a wee bit about their words and actions on this day. The thing is that Global Warming is a fashionable phrase these days and our leaders sure seem to use it. They say things like "We needa take action against Greenhouse gases bla bla bla". I don't know whether they realize that vegetation is super important when dealing with Global Warming, photosynthesis you know... Still, our politicians sink 57 km2 of vegetated areas, hmmm, where the hell were they during biology 101 in highschool?

Anyway, check out the link to the global climate campaign and see what's being done in your country tomorrow.

Have a good weekend

Tesco Bab(i)es

2006-10-26T15:54:00.000Z

A friend pointed it out to me that Tesco's have developed and marketed a line of educational toys for women to be (say the ages of 3-9). The flagship of their products is the Peekaboo pole Dancing Kit. The box says: "Unleash the sex kitten inside...simply extend the Peekaboo pole inside the tube, slip on the sexy tunes and away you go!" and "Soon you'll be flaunting it to the world and earning a fortune in Peekaboo Dance Dollars".

Now isn't this special? The toddlers not only learn how to dance in a sexy way but also how to use their undeveloped sexuality to earn a little dosh. Why didn't they have this when I was a kid? I used to play with boring stuff like super annoying dolls that peed and cried (no wonder I don't have any kids) and miniture ironing boards (no wonder I only shop wrinkle-free clothes).

The stuff I enjoyed the most were my Playmobil knights and Lego's although I quite often played with Barbie dolls (that was mostly about dressing the blonde bombshells in ridiculous outfits that I designed from mum's strange looking fabrics from the time she actually did some knitting). Bloody hell, my parents should have caught on at that stage and realized that I would never become Betty Homemaker.

Who knows what could have happened had there been a Tesco store in Iceland when I was a kid; you know a store with educational stuff for little women. I might have become an exotic dancer with loads of money in my knickers (or do they come off as well when strippers erm strip?).

Yeah, the ever so friendly folks at Tesco's sure want to help little girls get over silly ideas of becoming academics and such. Academics aren't the right material for swinging their bums round and round while spinning less than dressed on a pole. I mean, in which hand would one hold Foucault and how can one read him while going in circles up and down...

I'm feeling dizzy already.

Icelanders...Probably the dumbest nation in the world

2006-10-18T12:29:00.001Z

I am pretty sure that my nation is the dumbest nation in the world. It is a sad fact, I mean we have every means to be great, but we just aren’t. Looking out my window I see majestic mountains and a clear and beautiful sky above a still mirror like ocean.
Our nature is unique and one would have thought that this greedy nation would see the dollar signs in unspoilt nature, but noooooo, we have the need to destroy and then destroy some more.

Recently we sank the largest wilderness in Europe to make electricity for Alcoa. Come on, these guys need energy for their aluminium factory in East Iceland, you know to smelt bauxite and make aluminium for tanks and weapons to kill more Iraqi civilians. The bonus feature of this destruction of nature (which our former minister for the environment said “It doesn’t look that special to me”) is pollution from the factory that equals all the pollution from every single car in the country. Ain’t it cool?

The latest venture in Icelandic stupidity is whaling. Yes, starting at midnight last night commercial whaling started again. The whaling boats are at sea now, waiting for a chance to harpoon these magnificent creatures, drag them ashore, gut them, vacuum pack and ship to Japan. Good luck with finding a market for the meat, according to what I’ve heard the Japanese are having difficulty selling their own products, but what the hell, it’s our god given right to kill and sell or worst case scenario give away or throw away the dead whales!

I am pretty sure the whalers will start with the “tourist whales”. Those are the curious and human friendly finback and minke whales that swim around the whalewatching boats. The whalers will chuckle and say: “No whalewatching this time sucka, it’s harpooning time”.

According to the pro-whaling people, it’s puzzling that the Icelanders have survived the last two decades without every household fridge carrying loads of whale meat. Yes, we sure have missed the fatty meat that we have to soak in milk before cooking to prevent foul smells that just seem to cling to every item of clothing and furniture for days after a whale meat feast! In addition only 1,1 percent of the nation actually eats whale meat, hmm, yup we sure have missed it…

Pro-whalers even say that whaling is an Icelandic aboriginal hunting tradition and that we should get the same treatment as the Inuit of Greenland who hunt seal for home consumption. So what if whaling only creates a handful of jobs and we then try to force the meat on the Japanese! It’s totally the same thing man! Plus, whaling by Icelanders started in 1948, everyone can see that it’s absolutely an aboriginal right to continue commercial whaling!

I suppose I am just as stupid to expect something greater of my fellow countrymen, after all we didn’t invent the wheel until the nineteenth century…

So, what can be done about this travesty? Well, some of the UK chains have said that they will seize selling Icelandic products if Icelanders start commercial whaling again. Why not put that to the test? I know e.g. that Tesco sells Icelandic fish. I am sure chains in the US have the same policy, Let them know that you will not shop at these stores until they cut out Icelandic products. To read more about this matter go to the BBC UK website http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6059564.stm

The Icelandic nation has an inferiority complex and that breaks out in phrases like “Those foreigners in the big countries can’t tell us what to do. We will treat our natural resources as we see fit and screw the rest of the world where the clever people live!”
So what if we have the world’s strongest man (1984, 1986, 1988, 1990, 1991, 1994-1996) and the world’s prettiest women (1985, 1988, 2005), all of this is nothing compared to being undefeated long running world champions in immense stupidity. Now there’s a title for ya Iceland!

Art-land

2006-10-16T13:29:00.000Z

This wonderful peace of art by my favourite Icelandic artist Jón Stefánsson is now on the wall in my office. I meant to put something else up there but my purse said no. You see, eons and eons ago when I was a little girl growing up in Cambridge, my mum (then a bored professor's wife)had a strange little hobby. She went to cemeteries with some American professors' wives and put black and golden paper on the graves of some long dead knights and bishops. The result was eerily fascinating pictures of these tombstones, knights in full armour and ladies in medieval dresses. Yes, mums get up to strange the things when the housework seizes to be fulfilling.

Some years back I persuaded mum to hand over her ever so morbid artwork. I planned to have the pictures framed and then put on the walls of my house. When the push came to shove, I couldn't do it, I mean seriously who wants to have their walls covered in Cambridgean tombstones?

Then last week the unthinkable happened, I cleaned and rearranged my office. All of a sudden, while sitting in an Ajax smelling, shiny and just wonderful office, I noticed that something was missing...decorations. I instantly thought of my dead knights and Eureka! Although they seem morbid in a home, they would be perfect in an historian's office. Who knows, I might even become inspired to do great things on the playing field of historical research...you never know.

So off I went to the new IKEA to look for frames, but of course the Swedes only had standardized social-democratically approved frames. Never trust the Swedes!

A friend of mine then saved the day like a knightess on a shiny horse and bought me the above picture for a whopping 1000 krónur which equals around 8 quid. So, it's not an original, but it's lovely and the frame is a beauty from the 50s.

I am sure this picture made somebody happy about 50 years ago until somebody gave it to the Red Cross market from whence it came to me. I know it will make me happy and possibly inspire me too...

So enough of blogging for one day, work awaits in an upliftingly homely office!(meaning staring at the picture while eating peppercakes=ginger cookies and thinking about working...a lot)

Peace-land

2006-10-13T13:35:00.000Z

A certain Mr. Gorbachev is visiting my rock this week. This is the man responsible for the fall of the Soviet Union and for that I will never forgive him. The reason is quite simple; After the fall of the iron curtain the former USSR became way too many states and all of them desperately wanted to become western capitalist bastards like the rest of us. That alone is ok, although I despise the capitalization of the world, greed is disgusting!

Anyway, these Farawayistans all want to join the EU- again fine by me, but they have also joined the Eurovision Song Contest. Now this is really bad! This means that strange songs ruled by ethnic drums (gag) are year after year kicking butt in the Grand Prix, not cool at all. God, give us back the good old days when Swedes ruled Europe through Abba and the Herrey brothers. Where's Nicole with her anti Cold War hymn "Ein bisschen Frieden" and Bucks Fizz with their fancy matching outfits? What is the world coming to?

Yes, I blame Gorbi for all of this. He came here 20 years ago with his bottle of Stoli and ambitions toward peace and wooed the veteran cowboy Ronbo with promises of "All kinds of everything". Ronbo said "Get rid of all our nukes? No deal you baby-eating commie" (well he didn't really remember a word Gorbi said, you know the Alzheimer thing), but Gorbi still wanted peace. The Reykjavik summit of 1986 in the long run ruined Eurovision and Gorbi brought peace, which only led to the US having to find a new Evil Empire to fight. This they found in the Middle East--where the enemy didn't have the Bomb, but a lot of oil instead, yippee said the oil companies "these new kind of commies are definately evil and they also dress funny--war it is".

Gorbi ruined more things, he even ruined my dad's christmas the following year, how mean is that? I had always bought my dad a handkerchief and socks for christmas, but as a fresh-faced 12 year old under the influence of the new face of communism I decided to use my allowance to buy my dad, who I thought was a real socialist, the book Perestroika-A new dawn. Needless to say, my dad thought the book was boooooring and didn't come clean until years later when I asked him how he had liked the book. He replied "I wish you would have given me some socks and a handkerchief".

The whole idea of peace back in the Eighties was as odd as pizza with peperoni and bananas and I grew up fearing the Bomb. I remember having the same dream over and over again, where I was in the livingroom with my gran and when I looked out the window, the mushroom cloud could be seen on the horizon. Movies like "The Day After" (a nuclear war) were the topic in my elementary school. Yup those were scary days, but funnily enough in my immediate family we always thought it would be the Yanks who would drop the first bomb. They just seemed a wee bit looney to us, especially judging from the American TV programs shown on the only TV channel in the country. Gosh, if all Yanks were like that JR Ewing person, we sure were in trouble and then there was that wacky president from "Bedtime for Bonzo". A lethal combo brought to you by the USA!

Well now the Cold War's over, Ronbo's gone the way of the Dodo and so is my gran and my dad. I don't have reaccurring dreams about the Bomb anymore, no sir, now it's all about that nice bus driver who suddenly turns out to be a suicide bomber...

Gorbi baby, you got a lot to answer for...

Multi-land

2006-10-11T13:54:00.000Z

This rock keeps surprising me. This morning the bus took me to Germany... You see the stanzar sign now said Wagen Hält. Even the busdriver looked German. After a while I noticed that the poor man didn't speak a word of Icelandic but a whole lot of Polish. This became clear when somebody asked him to stop and the Wagen Hält button didn't work. He just shook his head, mumbled something in a Slavic language and kept on driving.

Actually, it seems everybody on the bus was speaking either Thai, Vietnamese or Polish. I must admit that made me feel sad, because I don't know any of these languages, so I guess the aspect of pulling somebody on the bus is out of the question...unless- yes-it will be in the unspoken language of luv. I am thinking about pitching this idea to the bus company; to hell with ads about the earth friendly bus- now it's a logo like: "I met my husband on the bus", "The socialites take the bus" or simply "Das Bus ist uber kool".

Who cares whether the bus driver stops or not, it's healthier to walk a wee bit anyway!

Btw. I wrote a little article on climate changes and fun things on a web journal if anyone's interested in doomesday predictions muahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha ('tis in Icelandic) http://hugsandi.is/article/106/loftslag-breytinganna

Back to work for me now

Helping the Icelandic Secret Service

2006-09-27T15:19:00.000Z

Historians have discovered that Iceland has had a secret service since the late forties. Apparently the conservatives founded this super secret foundation to spy on the lefties, you know just to be sure about when the reds were planning to start the socialist revolution. Incidentally, the leftist governments which have occasionally ruled this rock, were kept in the dark about this; it's not a good idea to tell the premier that some dudes were spying on his every move. How has this institution been funded you may be asking yourselves, since it's supposed to be a secret? Well, with government funding as in: one toilet for the state run wc downtown=1,000,000 crowns, one toilet brush for the ministry of foreign affairs=2,000,000 crowns etc.

I find this information most interesting and now I also wonder who are the biggest threats to this democratic country as the Soviet Union has been cut into a zillion Far-a-way-istan's. The answer is obvious; environmental activists such as myself. We are highly dangerous with our horrible herbal tea drinking habits and nasty songs about a "green" future and unpolluted rivers. I am pretty sure that the minister of justice and ecclesiastical affairs, whose world was turned around when the Cold War ended (if the bad Russkies aren't bad anymore, who am I going to play Bruce Willis Die Hard games with?), has realized this and is now using the secred police to spy on us evil greenies.

However, as I would feel a lot better knowing that government funds were spent on assisting single moms and the disabled citizens of this country, I have decided to help the minister a wee bit. So, the secret police doesn't have to tap my phone and spy on me anymore. I will write it down right here what I an enemy of the state have been doing.

Example:

Phonecalls yesterday:

1) Mom called and talked about her goldfish for about 10 minutes while I was trying to work at my office. This is not a codeword for a nasty demonstration, AKA Operation Urban Goldfish. Nope, she was really talking about her goldfish so the government seriously doesn't have to call in somebody from Stasi to decipher the conversation.

2) My friend Hildur called to tell me that she had a sinus infection and was staying in while the penicillin kicks in. This conversation was also a literal one. There was no hidden meaning and she's absolutely not taking sick days off from work to organize a coup to overthrow the government and replace them with some wheat juice drinking hippies.

Actions:

Took bus to work, did not try to convince the bus driver to join the revolution, honest!

Worked, nothing bad there.

Took bus home and cooked chicken soup. This action was highly dubious since the purpose was to freshen up the mother unit, so that she could join me downtown in a demonstration. Alas Mission Refresh Mother Unit was an absolute failure.

Went downtown to demonstrate against evil goverment and evil Bectel/Alcoa with around 15,000 other dangerous protestors. That is 5% of the population so I think the secret police should possibly hire more people to spy on all of us vandals.

Went home and watched back to back episodes of 24 before going to bed. Wondered whether our secret service was as potent as CTU and Kiefer Sutherland.

Must ask minister about this... http://bjorn.is/

A different world?

2006-09-25T13:15:00.000Z

This morning on my way to the office I all of a sudden got the funny feeling that I was in a different world, or at least in a different country. I took bus S4 and as soon as I entered I felt that something was strange about it. When I wanted to get off the bus, I pressed the normal "Stanzar" button, but it looked weird and then the sign lit up and said "Arrete Demande" or something like that.

Hmmm, was it possible that bus S4 is some sort of equipment that beams one straight to France? Do the fellowes at Icelandair know about this? But the sign on the road said Lækjargata, so I knew that this notion wasn't possible. I suppose the other answer to this puzzling mistery is that the Reykjavík bus company bought a cheap Renault bus and didn't bother to change it.

I must say this experience really caught me off guard and messed up all my normal bus paranoias. You see, I normally choose a seat on the opposite side of the bus driver to keep the balance and in that way hinder the bus from tipping over. I also get annoyed if I see a bunch of people sitting on one side of the bus while the other side remains empty. Why do these people test their fate like this? I would hate to have to say "told you so sucka, you didn't keep the balance and the bus tipped over".

The strangeness of the French bus got my so mistified that I even sat on the bus driver's side of the bus! I sure hope the bus company will soon stop using that darned French bus and go back to my usual Volvo bus.

There needs to be a certain balance in the force Luke!

The professor's back

2006-09-20T16:18:00.001Z

So, Professor Porndog's back! I spend my time looking at his shared I-Tunes and wonder whether his "interesting" files are real or not. I must admit he's got a really specified taste when it comes to the gay-old-times... However, it seems a bit surreal that I am pondering over this whole situation while listening to the incredibly entertaining song Eldorado by Goombay Dance Band, a hardcore A-lister from Hamburg. This man sings with feeling (the voice and German accent eerily remind me of Christopher Lambert on crack) about the Indians of central America under a rhythmic eighties electronic drumbeat, which sounds like a laser gun fire from a sci-fi movie. So while I try to discover Professor Porndog's real identity I leave you with the lyrics of the ever so talented Goombay Dance Band:

They came fivehundred years ago
they stole the gold of Mexico
killed the people one by one
only talking with their guns
Brave men locked on iron chains
all young mothers sold as slaves
babies crying through the night
will they ever see the light
Golden dreams of Eldorado
all have drowned in seas of pain and blood
golden dreams of Eldorado
may come true but only in your heart
Reach out your hand and you´ll be free
then we shall live in liberty
oh, will mankind ever learn
shall the whole world die and burn
Golden dreams of Eldorado
all have drowned in seas of pain and blood
golden dreams of Eldorado
may come true but only in your heart
Within the memory of man
the search for happiness has never ended
but the gates of Eden will ever be closed
for those conquitadores who are only hungry
for power and might
because the real Eldorado
isn´t made out of diamonds and gold
it´s the immortal yearning
for peace, love and understanding
in the hearts of everyone
Golden dreams of Eldorado...

We need to learn how to share

2006-09-19T12:36:00.000Z

Professor Porndog seems to be absent from this office building today. Unless he (I assume that it's a he) has learnt that his porn is accessible from all our computers and has thusly decided not to share his unhealthy fantasies with the rest of the academic world. His willingness (in the past perhaps..) to share has made me think that maybe I should share stuff with the rest of the world too (apart from the fact that I've been blogging). Unfortunately it's nothing as unique as the images Professor Porndog has submitted, no it's just what I've been listening to lately, so here goes:
Omar Bashir's "Sound of Civilization". Ever so exotic and cool.

Iron & Wine's "Woman King". I just discovered this fab band and love it, love it and love it. It's been described as Indie-Folk and I suggest everyone get a copy of their cd.

Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit". This song always reminds me of one of my favourite films "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" and when I listen to it, I imagine I was at Woodstock...

Metallica's "One". What can I say; there's a little heavy metal fan inside all of us and Lars Ulrich's drums brings mine out.

Jimi Hendrix's "Fire". I blame Magni and Rockstar Supernova for this one. Darn TV!

I assembled this list because I have been unable to share my music on the Academy's network. I honestly don't get it, is my stuff not good enough for the network? Do I have to add some pervy porn-stuff to my playlist to get published in this place? Hey, maybe I'll send an e-mail to all my colleagues here and ask the guy who's sharing his "after school specials" for some assistance. You know, I might just do that...

Peace

A porndog ruined my working day

2006-09-18T16:05:00.000Z

I think that one of my fellow scholars here at the Reykjavík Academy has sadly misunderstood the meaning of the phraze "anal-yze". Here I was working hard on a highly important topic concerning mortality in the eighteenth century when I thought to myself: "Hmm, maybe I should check out the shared files on I-Tunes to see if anyone's got some nice and mellow tunes for me to listen to while I work". Well, actually it was my desk mate who thought this, but as my world revolves around me, I had forgotten all about that when I wrote the previous sentence.

So anyway, much to our dismay, we discover that someone doesn't know enough about the privacy thingy on I-Tunes and has accidentally shared his girls-like-other-girls'-bottoms-a-tad-bit-too-much-for-our-taste videos. This has needless to say destroyed our working day and we have spent the last few hours cooking up conspiracy theories about which one of these distinguished scholars is a super-perv in hiding.

I hate it when pervs ruin my working mojo!

The new age girl in me?

2006-09-18T10:23:00.000Z

You scored as Cultural Creative. Cultural Creatives are probably the newest group to enter this realm. You are a modern thinker who tends to shy away from organized religion but still feels as if there is something greater than ourselves. You are very spiritual, even if you are not religious. Life has a meaning outside of the rational.

Existentialist

81%

Cultural Creative

81%

Postmodernist

81%

Materialist

69%

Idealist

63%

Modernist

63%

Romanticist

56%

Fundamentalist

25%

Do you want to know who you are according to a silly net-test? Go to: http://quizfarm.com/test.php?q_id=23320

Peace!

The queerness of relative X

2006-09-13T16:53:00.000Z

Who would have believed that these five pretty boys could cause a riot? I can only say that it utterly caught me by surprise. So here's the story: Last night I was preparing for yet another exciting night in the life of the soon to be middle aged spinster. I was thinking about looking up cute cats online eligible for eating me (dead) sometime in the future when I pass away unannounced and nobody checks on me for weeks... (Darn ranting again).

Anyway, I decided that a night in front of the evil box that produces pictures would be a nice change... I mean it had been a whole day since I had done something like that. I reached for the spinster’s Bible, the TV guide and immediately saw that before a double dose of a 24 rerun there was an episode of the fab five AKA queer eye for the straight guy. Oooooh, loverly I thought to myself as I rubbed my hands together in excitement. I then spoke to the relative who’s the proprietor of the evil box (let’s call this individual Relative X to protect the innocent) and suggested that we tune in on the boys.

However, relative X decided to use this opportunity to attack “the gays” and exclaim that it was certainly not ok to watch such things. According to relative X the fab five are poster-boys for gayness and bad, bad people. Under normal circumstances I would just laugh at this attitude and blame it on the generation gap between myself and relative X. Last night however, I had a bad headache and was thusly a wee bit under the weather. When relative X explained that the Gay Pride Parade was a tool to lure young minds into gayness, I sort of exploded a wee bit and the result was that I didn’t watch TV at all and left the room.

This is not the end of the story, you see my reaction to relative X’s prejudices caused further domestic disturbances… Relative X decided to confront me about my constant tendencies to defend “the gays” and ask since I had a bunch of gay friends whether some of their gayness had rubbed on to me…

This makes me think about my idol Homer Simpson who asked his son this question: He didn’t give you gay did he?

Yes it sure is a strange place we live in, I think I may tell relative X some of the stuff I’ve learned from the Simpsons such as “there’s a country called U r gay!”

Peace