Rooster

An old farmer decided it was time to get a new rooster for his hens. The current rooster was still doing an okay job, but he was getting on in years. And the farmer figured getting a new rooster couldn't hurt anything. So he buys a young cock from the local rooster emporium, and turns him loose in the barnyard.

Well, the old rooster sees the young one strutting around and he gets a little worried. 'So, they're trying to replace me, thinks the old rooster. I've got to do something about this.' He walks up to the new bird and says, "So you're the new stud in town? I bet you really think you're hot stuff, don't you? Well, I'm not ready for the chopping block yet. I'll bet I'm still the better bird. And to prove it, I challenge you to a race around that hen house over there. We'll run around it ten times and whoever finish's first gets to have all the hens for himself."

Well, the young rooster was a proud sort, and he definitely thought he was more than a match for the old guy. "You're on," said the young rooster. "And since I know I'm so great, I'll even give you a head start of half a lap. I'll still win easy," said the young rooster.

So the two roosters go over to the hen house to start the race with all the hens gathering around to watch. The race begins and all the hens start cheering the roosters on. After the first lap, the old rooster is still maintaining his lead. After the second lap, the old guy's lead has slipped a little but he's still hanging in there. Unfortunately the old rooster's lead continues to slip each time around, and by the fifth lap he's just barely in front of the young rooster.

By now the farmer has heard all the commotion. He runs into the house, gets his shotgun, and runs out to the barnyard figuring a fox or something is after his chickens. When he gets there, he sees the two roosters running around the hen house, with the old rooster still slightly in the lead. He immediately takes his shotgun, aims, fires, and blows the young rooster away.

As he walks away slowly, he says to himself . . . "Damn, that's the third gay rooster I've bought this month."

(Image from The American Rag)

In The Presence Of Magic

For various reasons I didn't think I was going to Nattjazz this year, but surprisingly enough I ended up there last night anyway. And I could sure use a break from the writing. (To be honest I had a break on Friday as well, and that was kind of magic too...) Anyway, attending NattJazz one have to be a bit careful, as there are several shows starting at the same time. And making decisions isn't what I'm best at. But we settled for Karl Seglem, and only seconds into the concert we know we'd made the right choice.

It was absolutely magical; five vary talented musicians playing in perfect disharmony. And it was easy to see that they truly enjoyed what they were doing, laughing and smiling as they were. (So was I, by the way.)

Karl himself plays the tenor sax, but also the Norwegian ram's horn! On his website you can read that "His music ranges across the entire spectrum from folk to free form, and is inspired by everything from the world beat to the Nordic landscape." But to my belief, his music is beyond that. I have listened to my share of music, and very often I can detect certain phrases and sections, and sort of pinpoint them geographically. Like "there was a Balkan influence" and "there I could hear an African beat". What Karl accomplishes is a unique expression of effortlessness, despite it's extreme complexity. The sound is so natural, that I have a feeling that this is not jazz nor world music nor contemporary folk, it's universal, it's just music. And those percussionist, what can I say? There were beats that made me leave the planet for a while...

Some people are stuck to the chair, while others, well...

This is what Stefan Holm is doing for warming up! And I read that he yesterday broke his personal best using the scissors technique. He jumped 2.11 m!!! Really can't picture him having any trouble getting out of bed in the morning...

Otherwise this talented Swede (people like him make me proud I'm Swedish) holds a personal best of 2.40 m! That's not bad, and I won't be surprised if he one day snitches Sotomayor's world record from 1993.

Slightly Optimistisc

I feel it would be downright stupid, to jinx this by saying I'm confident my assignment will be finished in time and to my satisfactory. But I do feel a little bit more optimistic today, having written nearly half of the acquired amount. Almost there then, aren't I? I might even have time for a little break; I'm planning a little date on Friday after my meeting with my tutor. Just what I need, someone telling me I'll be fine, and maybe a little kissing...

But no, I didn't mean I'd kiss my tutor. That too would be downright stupid.

Today's Quote

A scientist knows more & more about less & less till he knows everything about nothing while a philosopher knows less & less about more & more till he knows nothing about everything.

If this is true, what about a philosophical scientist then?

Just Testing Out Jamendo...

The music could be anything, but this was the one that brought me to Jamendo in the first place. It was featured in a game made by Grolsch! Now that's clever marketing; I can really imagine myself enjoying one of those now. And I believe my writing would improve as well...

Just For Laughs

Blogging now makes it evident that I'm not all that dedicated to what I'm supposed to be doing. But I'm a slow starter, it's still early...

Just wanted to share with you, a story I found somewhere out there:

The children were lined up in the cafeteria of a Catholic elementary school for lunch. At the head of the table was a large pile of apples. The nun made a note, and posted on the apple tray: "Take only ONE. God is watching" Moving further along the lunch line, at the other end of the table was a large pile of chocolate chip cookies. A child had written a note, "Take all you want. God is watching the apples."

Cutty Sark

This morning while catching up on the news I noticed that Cutty Sark had been caught by fire. Sad and tragic I think, and I wanted to say something about it. Therefore I went to Wikipedia for some quick information about the the ship, but there I also found that someone has been spending all day editing the entry just because of the fire. Isn't that remarkable! That's how the web work - just as rapid as a blazing fire...

Too Late... Or Very Early?

It's A Jungle Out There

Once I thought we had almost every Disney movie there was, but boy am I gettin' outdated! There's not much use for old VHS now, is it? So today I ordered one from Play.com that I truly believe is a "Bear Necessity"...

Review:

One of the most popular Disney films ever, The Jungle Book is a song-filled celebration of friendship, fun and adventure set in a lush and colourful world. Inspired by Rudyard Kipling's"Mowgli" stories, Disney's 19th animated masterpiece was the last animated feature that had Walt Disney's personal touch.

The jubilant adventure begins when Mowgli, a little boy raised by wolves, is urged by his friend Bagheera, a wise old panther, to seek safety in the man-village. Feeling very much at home in the jungle, Mowgli resists and runs off. Much to Bagherra's dismay, Mowgli meets a new friend with a happy-go-lucky- philosophy of life- Baloo the bear, a lovable " jungle bum." Together, the three buddies find the journey back to civilization anything but civilized! They encounter a crazy orangutan, the hypnotic and sly snake Kaa and the menacing Shere Khan!

For Those With A Special Interest...

clipped from ordnett.no Norsk Riksmålsordbok  om rørlig (adj.) Bøyningsformer: 1 litt. , mest foreld. a som har lett for å bevege sig; rask, lettvint: b bevegelig; livlig; virksom: 2 a (om gjenstand, eiendom) som kan beveges, fjernes fra stedet; flyttbar: b som ikke er bundet i et foretagende ; jf. binde 5 a som en straks kan disponere over : jf. likvid 1 b

The Wonders Of The Web

I'm trying something new out here, "Clipmarks". With just a few clicks I can post anything I find on the web in an instant. And I'll add the comments, not from my blogaccount, but from within a browser add-on.
I can see the danger in the speed here; it might actually be so fast that I'll forget to be critical. Something which I usually try to be...

clipped from clipmarks.com

Masquerade

There was a costume ball, and a woman arrived naked. The doorman stopped her and asked "Who do you represent?". "Adam" she replied. "But you don't have a d***!". "No, but I'll probably get one..."

Hearts & Automobiles

It may sound very "important" and like I know what I'm doing, when I tell you about board meetings, budgets and book keeping, but it's only some volunteer work I do for my son's basketball team. In fact all members of the board are volunteers; parents from the club.

Anyway, I went to such a meeting yesterday, this time we decided to keep it at our chairman's house. More relaxed, and she'd made fantastic blueberry muffins for our coffee (after all she is American, so she should know how to make muffins...). We managed to work through a lot, where the main focus stayed on the website, which desperately needs some structuring, and the financial situation. That latter part was my responsibility and I felt like a cheap mum telling them that "No, you can't buy that, we don't have any money left". All in all it went well, and the conclusion was that we need a more steady income. Especially now since the government finally is getting monopoly over the vending machines, and we don't have such a strong culture for sponsoring in this country.

We were about 7 or 8 leaving at the same time, and everyone by car. Our secretary arrived last so she had no problem getting her car out. I pointed to the little spot she'd managed to squeeze her vehicle into, and said "Sometimes it's good to have a small car!" and she replied "And that's how my life is - small car, small flat, small income...". "But your heart is big!" I told her back, and she smiled.

We were in "posh country" surrounded by huge, dark colored, fancy cars like BMW, Audi and Volvo. The houses were big, and I'm sure their owner's salaries too. I've been there myself, but I can't say I miss it really. It wouldn't be fair to claim that all these people are heartless social climbers, but for myself I do feel "nicer" after my life turned "small".

But can I please have just one more Swedish car before I die, without my heart turning to stone? (I "grew up" in a car like the one in the picture...)

Anxiety Attack

I'm a little uneasy these days, and hopefully it's nothing but the old familiar feeling of panic regarding exams and papers. This morning though I've been restless and shaky as well, and following that been doing some strange things like vacuum cleaning and dusting!

One of the odd things too, was that I wanted to listen to some music, but couldn't settle for anything really. Everything seemed wrong, and the music I wanted to listen to I didn't have. Then in the middle of my collection Rocky Horror Picture Show emerged, and I've been playing it all morning. Haven't listened to it for years now, but maybe I was reminded about it since I watched The Wall - Live in Berlin on DVD the other day (thank you for the loan, O!), and there Tim Curry sang in the role of the Prosecutor in "The Trial".

So while listening to Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon, Meatloaf and the rest I've been busy cleaning the house. Not meticulously, more at random I would say, but still, and I did find some surprises. Like under the pile of clutter on the table in the hallway. Nothing alarming, just a tablecloth that hasn't been visible for a while. And just that the color was red.

Talking about clutter. I guess I'm not the only one having too much of it, but sometimes we just stop seeing it. I've figured out that clutter must have a growth rate approximating that of a malignant bacteria population. And I guess the cure is the same. Keep the infected area clean!

I'm still a bit anxious, but at least my surroundings have improved. And now I probably should take a healthy walk in the woods, and get some fresh air... Love the woods, maybe I'll meet Pan...

The Power Of Making A Point

Monday morning, and I'm back at the Institute of Marine Research. I finished my practice period two weeks ago, but they must have thought I wasn't all that bad to have around, since they offered me to sit here to work on my assignment. And the first thing I was met with was a hug, a "nice to see you" and a very nice surprise.

To sum up our practice periods everyone was supposed to give an oral presentation. Our class had around 20 members and my presentation was right at the end, and for every student up there delivering their goods it became more and more obvious that my thing was going to be rather different. You see, they had all emphasized on the word oral, and none of them did nothing but talk. Well, a few connected to the internet and displayed the main page of their place of work, and the style and manner in wich they did their presentations varied, but still - just talk.

So what did I do? (And here I must stress that I didn't sit there with a smug face feeling better 'cause I had "done more". On the contrary, I felt a little uncomfortable, afraid that I would be judged as a pretentious overachiever.) I had made a PowerPoint presentation, making use of the institute's own template. I have actually never worked with PowerPoint before, but if you know one user interface you pretty much know them all, so it was all great fun putting it together. I'm sure though that I broke more than one rule of making the perfect presentation; too many slides, too much animation and maybe even too much text on one or too slides. And if all 20 students had been using modern technology I think we'd been exhausted, but since I was the only one I somehow got away with it. Although I didn't feel like I did, always beeing too conscious...

And this leads us back to the "surprise". 'Cause the "nice too se you" was followed by "and I heard you gave a fantastic presentation!". "Heh?" I replied. Surprised, to say the least. But one of our lecturers used to work here, as head of the info department. That I knew, but I didn't know how much contact he still had with them. And he tattled...

It's always nice to get positive feedback, especially when you expect it the least.

(IKEA) Surprise

About a year ago I bought a new shelf unit. "Träby" from IKEA; made from ash (veneer) with a brushed surface for that "genuine wooden feel". According to the information sheet next to the display, it would also be possible to get glass shelves and doors for the unit, which for me was a point for actually buying this furniture. But despite the fact they didn't carry those glass items at the time, I still went ahead and bought the rest. Rather stupid, it turned out.

Someone told me that generally it's not wise to buy things at IKEA piece by piece, you'll never know if they'll ever going to stock what you need. If you're buying - make sure you'll get everything, if not - don't buy! In general that is, 'cause after a year of asking every time I went to my local IKEA, and getting a "no - I can't even see it in our system" and then finally surrender in disappointment, realizing that the unit never would be finished, then - there it was today! I was as happy as I'd won the lottery.

This was only material goods, so in the end it won't have that much to do with my state of wellbeing, but there might be a small lesson?

The moment you think you'll never find what your looking for it might just be there, right in front of you. You just have to recognize it when you see it.

PS. Nevertheless I must admit I like IKEA, being Swedish and all it's almost part of my culture. And mind you, I did jump down from my first kiddies wardrobe way back in the early 70's!

You're Just Too Good To Be True

This song is 40 years old, and it has probably been covered in every thinkable way. And a few more. It has also been used films on more than one occasion. Wikipedia can tell you a lot more about "Cant take my eyes off of you", but here follows a small selection from YouTube:

First the original with Frank Valli. Only the music though, the actual movie has nothing to do with the song itself. "Standard" YouTube method so to speak...



Next is a upbeat disco version. Say no more...



Are you ready for Japanese Idol? (Or whatever this is)



In the movie Conspiracy Theory Julia Roberts sings along to Lauryn Hill's cover of the song while Mel Gibson watches her through binoculars from a taxi cab. Here we'll see the original scene from the movie, while the cover is Morten Harket's. Odd really, but just the sort of thing you'd find on YouTube.



And can you possibly imagine what a Japanese boy band can do to the piece?




At last you can see what a poor soul with a crush on soap star Josh Casaubon (or rather his character Hugh Hughes in One Life to Live) has put together - Lauryn Hill's earlier mentioned cover version together with clips from the show.




Shirley Bassey made a quite acceptable cover in 1976, but for that one you have to visit YouTube directly. My guess though, is that you probably had enough already. Especially if you endured both the disco and the Japanese Idol versions...

For The Umpteenth Time - On Blogging

Am I here or not?

When I first started out this blog quite a few people who knew me (or thought they did) were rather surprised by me, and what I was writing about, not to mention my style of writing. I "chose" to be very open, and I have been warned more than once that it might not be such a good idea to reveal so much of myself. Well, to me, this blog has been very self centered and often served merely as a safety valve to let out steam. And it has worked too, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be standing so "upright" as I am now if it hadn't been for my writing here. Some have asked me if I really have to publish my thoughts to web, why not just write and save it on the hard disk? I think, writing publicly keeps me on my toes, it makes me concentrate more. And to be honest, I do feel good when someone recognize what I'm doing...

Anyhow, one of my "guardians" used to call me (at least in the beginning of my blogging career), every time I shared a little too much of my sadness and frustrations here in the blog. I told her than that she needn't to worry until I "went missing", that as long as I was writing I was fine. It's when I'm not writing I'm really depressed. Again I feel I have to correct myself, you see, judging by my poor attendance on the blog I should be locked up in a secure environment! This time though, it hasn't so much to do with being busy writing my assignment (although that is exactly what I should be doing...), but more with me being busy living. And how wonderful isn't that!

I'm pretty sure I'll write more, either here or somewhere else, but right now? Too much going on, don't have time to sit down. And when I do I rather play around with PhotoShop, I'm confident that I'll someday have use for knowing how to turn pictures into a preset brush!!!