Dooooaaadooooaaa: part XLVII

Fire alarm. What else is new?

- I'll tell you what else is new. -

Last time the alarm went off I went downstairs, checked where the "fire" was and waited for the firemen to show up. When they did, they waited a bit, then asked - very loudly, and very angrily - "aren't there anyone responsible here?". One guy stepped up and said "I am". I assumed he lived in the apartment where the "fire" started, and that he, for some reason, didn't walk up to the firemen right away, and instead waiting a couple minutes.

The next thing that happened was one of the firemen started yelling at this guy. He was shouting; how could he not tell them right away, what was happening, how were they supposed to know? The person responsible should come right up and tell them. "But I...." was all I heard from the other guy.

I realized by then it was not the time for me to declare that I was the elected representative for the apartment building, that I should be told what's going on. I went back upstairs and after 20 minutes the alarm stopped.


So today, when the alarm went off, I went outside to look for smoke. When I didn't see anything, I went downstairs. I saw the alarm was set off by one of my neighbours and went back upstairs. On my way there, the sad girl in the wheelchair asked what was going on. I told her I was going to check on it. When I got to the door, knocking a few times, a guy I see all the time, who I thought lived on the 3rd or 4th floor came over, telling me he lived there.

I asked if he knew what it was, he said just cooking, with a bit of smoke. I went back downstairs, making sure to tell the girl it was just cooking. The firemen came, I told them what was going on. They asked if I knew for sure (no, I'm just making an educated guess.... which I would be quite qualified to do by now). I told them I'd just talked to the guy who lived in the apartment (which I can't quite understand since I know for a fact that it's another guy (who looks like a lot like this guy) who lives there).

They told us to stay downstairs for a while. Then they tried to stop the alarm, but it kept going for twenty minutes. One fireman came back downstairs and told us we could go back upstairs ("just someone cooking... guess this isn't too uncommon, eh? heheh"). And we all went back to our rooms. Nothing scary. Never anything scary. Except the one time I wasn't home.


Just an ordinary Monday evening. I'm glad it's not like when we first moved in though - this was a three-times-a-week occurrence.

Weird crime in Bergen

Stole 15 jackets

While the residents were in the appartment, thieves sneaked in and stole 15 jackets from the hallway.

The theft was to have occured on Nygårdshøyden tonight.

Several of the jackets are supposed to have been expensive, and three of them have a total value of 12.000NOK (2300USD).

Police does not yet know who is behind the theft.

bt.no

I think the most expensive object I own is my laptop. Four years ago my parents paid my brother 5.000NOK (1.000USD) for it and gave it to me. Then again, its value today is close to zero.

The most expensive piece of clothing I own is a pair of pants from a few years ago that cost 600NOK (120USD) and which I don't wear anymore as they were worn out years ago.

The most expensive object of current value I have is probably... my camera... but again, it's 5 years old and the value is next to nothing. So I guess my my external hard drive (a MyBook). Two weeks old, worth about 900NOK (580USD). The most expensive piece of clothing must be a pair of shoes - about 400NOK (80USD).

What I'm trying to get at here, apart from the fact that I sound either very poor or very cheap, is: who the hell wears 4000 kroner (800 dollar) jackets and manages to lose 15 of them?!?

Email from Uni / Student Council

TOMORROW - Friday May 30th - our dear Martha in the Social Sciences canteen celebrates her 50th birthday.

The Student Council wishes to honour Martha on behalf of the social science students - and we hope YOU want to show up if you're still in Bergen.

SHOW UP
outside SS at 12 tomorow.

- To join us honour Martha.

The Student Council will bring a gift - if anyone wants to bring a cake or anything else you are more than welcome to do so.



I'm so glad they send out things like this to remind us what's really important. Exams? Hah! Who cares - most of us won't find proper jobs for a decade anyway (that's provided we've finished studying by then).

Happy b'day Martha - don't know who you are but apparently the others love you!

Being way too honest

Once upon a time I knew a guy. I told him about another guy I'd met, and how we'd spent sometime together before he said we probably shouldn't see each other again. I knew that would happen, but the fact that it happened the very next time I saw him, the first time after I'd slept with him for the first time - with anyone for the first time - it did seem a bit.... fuzzy. That's the best way I can explain it.

The guy called me a week later and said "oh hey... guess what... I want to see you." Just like that. "Goodbye, we should never meet again", then "I want to see you again". What did I do? "I said "We've already said goodbye and... That's it. The end." He said "Errr...ok!" And hung up the phone.


Now, I told this other guy the story and his reaction was "what, you felt pleasure telling the guy no? Why would you do that?" - and it's true, it felt good. It felt very good to say no. To know he wanted to see me, that, perhaps, he regretted his decision. Probably (ie. definitely) just cuz he wanted sex, but still - I got the last word. I didn't want to see him again. I wasn't bitter and I wasn't mad... It was just.... "on a dit adieu" - we've said goodbye.

But it's always followed me, that comment. "You felt pleasure in saying that." And it's true. I did. I do. And I don't think that's too bad a thing to do. Still... the comment has always stuck. And it hurt. Why couldn't someone I care about see that I neededto get over him? When someone treats you badly, you don't just pretend nothing ever happened. At least I sure as hell don't.

But... Do I want to build my life around hurting other people? Do I want to be the kind of person who takes pleasure in other people's misfortune? Don't I want to find joy and happiness in what makes me happy at the time - rather than what makes me smirk at others in the future?'

As my sister's MSN status said a few days ago:
"Never regret something that once made you smile."

And that guy sure made me smile. But so did the other one, who critisized me for my reaction to the first.


The first guy I only knew for a few weeks, but I experienced a lot of firsts with him.

The second guy.... although I never really knew him, we talked for six months, met once, then he disappeared. If there's every any bitter in me, it's because of that. But he taught me things, probably without knowing. He made me want to be a better person.

And I realized that someone who gets to you physically is so much easier to get over than someone who gets to you mentally. Someone who can get under my skin, someone I look forward to talking to all day, waiting for hours every night.... then realize he's never coming back. I'd truly never felt that kind of pain before. And it'll never go away. It will forever be a part of who I am. How can I ever claim to be looking for the truth in life, when I can't even find out the truth about what happend in my own life?


I've never felt either that physical or mental attraction to anyone else since I met those two guys. How wonderful would it be to one day find both those qualities.... well.... both those way of attraction, to me (very subjective), someone I could be attracted to physically as well as mentally. Someone who makes me want to be a better person. Who makes me question my own statements and decisions, yet in the end make me feel good about myself and what I'm doing.

I do believe my decision was right - when someone hurts me, I don't go crawling back. I don't crawl. I'm probably too proud and pretend-confident for my own good. So if you do something to me I don't like, don't just expect a second chance. You'll have to earn it.


And if you know me, you'll know exactly how to do that.

I've got chat!

Found this today, it's called a "Google Talk chatback badge", and it will let me talk to talk to you when you're on here (or rather, allow you to talk to me).

Not sure if I'll keep it but I thought I'd try it out.

Don't be shy, just say hi if you see me online :)

We've got summer clouds!

Tengaged

This is me on tengaged.com, which is supposed to be like online Big Brother. With avatars.

10 people, 7 days. Give points, talk, and each day one person is voted off. I haven't tried Tengaged (aka. The Stupidest Online Game Ever according to one Norwegian web page) yet, and I'm not sure I will as:

1) it seems a little stupid,
2) it would take a lot of time, and
3) I've never been good at ass kissing and manipulation


But I just had to make an avatar! Ain't she cute?

Kjell Kristian Rike

12.07.1944 - 19.05.2008

One of Norway's two best sports commentators passed away today. Whether you watch skiing, or other sports, or nothing at all, if you're Norwegian - you've still heard his voice hundreds of times. The Olympics, World Championships, and biathlon during winter was not as much fun if a certain two guys, Kjell Kristian Rike and Jon Herwig Carlsen, weren't commentating.

There are some voices that strike you, and this is one of them. That deep, grandfatherly voice weighed up perfectly with Carlsen's sometimes childish optimism - "they will win, they're only two minutes behind with one kilometer to go!", countered with "well, we'll see..". Last winter they didn't commentate the regular skiing and it somehow wasn't that interesting. It took me a few minutes each time to find out why it wasn't fun, what was missing. It was those two guys, and somehow it wasn't the same. I found myself migrating to biathlon instead.

Personally, what I'm feeling right now is "Noooooo! I'll never want to watch winter sports again! What's the point?" It's like a big part of it has just disappeared. I grew up hearing his voice when the tv was on during weekends, before I was old enough to know what it was all about. It was like the 'pings' during the Saturday football matches from England - whenever I hear those sounds, it takes me right back. I'm three years old again, on the floor playing while my dad is watching tv. Waiting for the evening to come, so I can watch cartoons and eat my candy.

I'll truly miss his voice, and the energy between those two partners. I have a feeling next winter won't be the same.

Salmon Sausages

Norwegian company Mills have just launced salmon sausages. They also make salmon burgers and a couple other things. 65% of the contents are actually salmon, which makes me wonder what the remaining 35% are....

Now... my being a sucker for whatever is new, tastes good and is seemingly good for you, I just had to try these things out.

The sausages are supposed to taste just like regular sausages. Just like the burgers are supposed to taste like regular burgers. According to my boyfriend, they actually do taste like regular sausages. According to me, they smell like:


"Not necessarily samon, but fish smell as in "now we've been out rowing in a tiny boat for four hours wearing our wellies and getting soaked. We've caught some big fish and now it's around midnight, we're going home to cook fish and 'fresh liver'.""


In other words, salmon sausages might smell slightly odd to you, but to me they smell like summers when I was a kid. It really is true that there is nothing that takes you back as much as smell. Whether it is flowers, the ocean... or, for me, the smell of freshly caught fish.

Fact or Fiction: Corporate Clouds

A US entrepreneur has come up with a way to create foam clouds shaped like corporate logos that will float up to 20,000ft into the air.

The 4ft shapes, made from tiny soapy bubbles filled with helium, can travel for 30 miles before evaporating into thin air, reports the Daily Telegraph.

Francisco Guerra, whose company, Snowmasters Inc, makes machines that churn out fake snow for Hollywood films, is the man behind "Flogos".

He has developed a machine which can manipulate the bubbles into any shape and pump them into the sky at a rate of one every 15 seconds.

The concept has already attracted attention from The Walt Disney Co and Mr Guerra has been commissioned to send clouds shaped like Mickey Mouse into the sky above Disney World in Florida.

Mr Guerra said: "Flogos are a revolutionary way to market products, services and events. It's a shock factor when you look up and there's a logo over your head.

"They will fly for miles, they are durable so they last a while. The secret is our formulation and equipment. We're able to keep the cloud together for a long time."

He insists the Flogos are environmentally safe because they are made from just water, air, helium and a soapy agent.

ananova.com

Yeah that soapy agent sounds real environmentally friendly... This is, in fact, a fact. They do make, and sell, soapy flying logos.

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