By now you should’ve somehow realized that I’m not so good at doing this.

I don’t believe that anybody really misses me writing here, but I do love writing, I’ve just gotten lazy.

Backbeat the word was on the street that I’ve let many things distract me lately.

I’m sure you’ve heard it all before but I don’t care, I’m saying it anyway.

I don’t believe that anybody feels the way I do about this blog.

And all the roads we have to walk along are winding

And all the lights that lead us there are blinding

There are many things that I would

Like to say to you

But I don’t know how

Maybe

You’re gonna be the one who saves me ?

And after all

You’re my wonderwall


Sorry ’bout that. But I do love writing, and I have let mindlessly surfing on the ‘webs distract me from reading (books, I mean) and writing (other stuff than forum posts, I mean). I have to fix this. Some day.

The way the main characters start kissing when one of them really should GO GO GO YOU HAVE ONLY SECONDS IDIOT THIS IS NOT A ROMANTIC COMEDY YOU’RE THEIR ONLY HOPE STOP BEING ICKY! ARRRRRGH.

The way a really bad person does something really redeeming…and then dies.

The way science is a big part of the movie but still very very wrong (mutating neutrinos, wooo)!

The way only the men are counted in when someone says “hey guys, you should really look at this”. The women are left caring for their children/hair/boobs or something. When ALL of them Really should “look at this”.

The way the crazy guy really was right all the time. AND he has a plan. That plan isn’t escaping or living, but it is a plan.

The way BIG STUFF crashes down, cities just disappear in the ground, the white house is taken by a flood… It’s beautiful!

The way a car (i.e a voice driven Bentley) can withstand so much more crashing/catastrophes than an air plane, if just the right people are in the car.

It’s heart warming, really.

Yes, I’ve just been at the movies to see 2012. I’m sorry if you feel this post should have a spoiler warning, but come on…it’s a disaster movie, it’s pretty predictable!

In the words of Devin Townsend: It’s just entertainment, folks!

So, right now I’m listening to a so-called “super group”. Transatlantic.
Lots of people find Transatlantic a bit boring or bland, I kind of thought that about their second cd (Bridge across forever) as well. That is, until I gave it another shot, on a long bus ride, and found myself almost crying by the beauty of it.

“There – walking into walls
Piercing through the pain
Here we are”

So yeah, now I’m a Fangirl, I guess. But how could I withstand this band project with the members that it has?

The members and why I love them:

Roine Stolt: The brain and muscle (that’s my words, not theirs) behind The Flower Kings. I don’t love that band, and that’s because of the vocals. Roine’s vocals. But I’ve gotten used to it. It does help that on some of their CDs, Daniel Gildenlöw sings a little bit. Gives me a break. Anyway, Roines musicianship is undoubtedly very good. I liked him much better when I got to see them live at Blæst.

Story: When we were waiting to get in to Blæst, I was blocking the whole entrance door. Some guy said “ursäkta” (Probably spelled that wrong. It’s Swedish for “excuse me”) and I moved so he could slip by. Husband said to me something like “you saw who that was, right”? And I went blank.
Why should I recognize some random Swedish guy? …oh.
So that’s how I blocked the way for Roine Stolt and didn’t even recognize him.

I didn’t say it was an exiting story!

Neal Morse: ex- Spock’s Beard. He went solo after God told him to (basically). He has continued with prog, but the lyrics are really God-focused now. He does church tours, and so I’ve seen him live three times. He does one Transatlantic song live:

“Hey you on the brink
Waiting to fall
To become human surplus
The movie’s still shooting
You might still get the roll
And man it’s all just a circus”

I love Spock’s Beard, I like his solo stuff (I’m just a bit ambivalent, heh. It’s all good, but not all of it fully tickles my ears) and I admire his guts.
He’s why there haven’t been a Transatlantic cd since 2001.

Story: When I first heard Spock’s Beard it was a friend who told me I needed to listen to this brand-new album, Snow, and shoved it in my hands. So I borrowed it a couple of weeks. Devoured it. Read the lyrics so many times I think I still know most of them. And I read the name Neal Morse in the booklet, the guy who wrote most of the lyrics.
And then I had a thought. “He needs your prayers. Big transition. He’s on the edge of something. Pray for him”.
So I did. I had no idea what was happening to him, but hey, it couldn’t hurt!
About a year later the friend I borrowed that cd from told me he’d heard Neal Morse quit Spock’s Beard. Even later I read about the fans of Spock’s Beard’s fury about this. (Somewhere in between here I became a fan) Even later than that I heard Neal himself talking about that time and how difficult that was.
I haven’t told him I prayed for him back then. I’ve wanted to every time he’s been in Trondheim, but I haven’t. Maybe I should just find some contact info and send him to this post, heh.

Yes I know I’m weird thankyouverymuch.

Mike Portnoy: Drummer of Dream Theater. My gateway to drugs prog. No, I’m not a big fan of their latest efforts, people have different tastes and all that.
But I still remember sitting in front of the computer (an old compaq presario) the summer of ‘99, downloading (Shame On Me!) Learning To Live and Metropolis pt.1 because a friend told me to.
The metropolis download never finished, so I only had until “The third arrives”. Didn’t get to hear “Before the leaves have fallen”, which now is my favorite part of the song.
Learning To Live was so freaking long! I mean, 11 minutes!
It turned my musical life around.. (and I did buy all of their CDs after that)

Story: I met my Husband because of Dream Theater. The Norwegian Fan Club Forum. Concert in Oslo 2005. Pre-show fan club meeting.

Wow, that’s a short story.

Pete Trewavas: Marillion. I love some of their stuff. Their newer stuff I find boring. I still named my new MacBook after their vocalist. Steve Hogart, H for short. Husband reacted when I told him I was gonna call it Steve. “How many people do you think have named their Macs “Steve”? I thought “now why would they name their macs after Steve HogaOooh I’m stupid”.

Story: Well, my little brainburp when I named my mac is a story. Fun fact about Pete: He jumps. Up
and
down.
And
up
and
down.
At the stage, I mean, while he’s playing bass. What’s not to love about a guy like that?
Also, he’s an excellent bassist.

Remember I said Neal was why there haven’t been a Transatlantic cd since 2001? Well, he has never said “never again” (as far as I know anyway), but as he has followed the path he feels God put before him, I guess he felt God said no, not now…not now…
Finally, God said yes. And wonders of wonders, with how busy all of these guys in this band is, they managed to find time to do it shortly after.

In the words of Mike Portnoy about how Neal finally said “ok, I’ll do another one”:
Thank you, God.

Their new record – The Whirlwind – is coming soon. It’s a good time to be a fangirl.

Disclaimers:
All facts that that are incorrect is because of my air-headedness.
My opinion of music is just that: Opinions.
All spelling errors are because I wrote all this on my iPhone, without the advantage of the red squiggly lines.

september 2009: As my husband’s blag/site got completely borked and he moved to tumblr, the video isn’t there anymore. But it’s stillhere

Everything must be out from here, and everything must have been cleaned/scrubbed/disinfected by wednesday morning. No problem, right? I even started packing on Sunday.

Yeah, about that… My back didn’t like that. Sudden pain, doctor’s appointment the very next day, sick leave and inflammation pills. What great timing!

So now I’m bored half to death. I’m usually good at sitting around doing nothing all day, but it’s not that fun when I have to. Also I’m freaking out looking at all the stuff that has to be packed and thinking about how we’re going to get everything moved and washed when I can’t carry stuff (well, maybe I can carry pillows) and I definitely can’t scrub any floors. Bah.

But still, I feel that it’s going to work out… Weird, but everything else around this moving has worked out very well.

So I guess there’s nothing I should worry about, and nothing I should do except making some more coffee and figure out what I’m going to listen to next.

And tomorrow maybe I can manage to go all the way down town without my back being a mess the rest of the day? That would be a great step ahead.

Customer is next in line, puts down his basket full of easter stuff and says “Man, I’m looking forward to christmas!”
Me: *confused**scans*
Him: Aren’t those christmas chickens cute?! (Points to some easter decorations he’s buying)
Me: (Catching on) Oh yeah, they’ll look great beside the christmas tree! *bags*
Him: And some people complain that shops are starting too early selling christmas things. :P
Me: *tells him total*
Him: *gives money*
Me: Goodbye, merry christmas!
Him: And Hanukkah! Don’t forget Hanukkah!
Me: *lol*

- A living room with room for TWO sofas, those who’ve visited us where we’ve lived so far will understand why that’s such a big deal.

- One HUGE bedroom, at least for our standards.

- Another bedroom that will be a library/fish/guest room.

- A separate toilet room, the toilet has a lid with cow spots -my mother, and Arne’s mother both think this was a sign, heh.

- A bathroom. Doesn’t look great, but it’s big enough, and nothing wrong with it.

- Dish washer. This should almost be the first point, since it’s kind of a big deal :D We could never buy a place now where we’d have to redo the kitchen to get place for a dish washer.

- Lots of closet space in the kitchen.

Moving in (and out from here) march 30th. *flails arms*. I’m really really exited and exhausted, and we haven’t started packing yet! But it will be good.

Also, april 8th, my best friend Tine is coming to visit :D (So we’ll have to have at least the guest room, living room and kitchen up and going by then :P ) I haven’t seen her since july. Shame on me.

So life is good.

Oh, and if anyone wants to buy us a laundry basket, trash cans, or shower (I know just the one I want), that would be greaaaat.
Then we can worry about the “bigger” stuff like a refrigerator and washing machine ;)

- We went to visit my sister-in-law, Kristine, who’s been living in Caloundra for half a year now.

- My other sister-in-law, Ragnhild was there when we came and left earlier than us.

- My father-in-law traveled with us to Australia, and left again the same day as Ragnhild.

- Everyone is so polite there, I got quite used to that so when we came home to Norway and a man bumped into my back without saying “sorry”, I was taken by surprise.

- They sure love their air conditioning over there! Yes, it was nice ’cause EVERYWHERE was hot, but I got sick because of it. And then I got well again.

- Kangaroos everywhere :D And they’re fluffier than they look like in pictures.

- Koalas are even nicer.

- But the thing we saw most of was lizards. I got so sick of lizards that you’re not getting a pic of them.

- Cairns was very wet.

Behind the fence, on the left there, is a pool. You just can’t see it because EVERYWHERE WAS WET! (This is the place we stayed in Cairns, btw. The Asylum! Fitting.)

We left a day before we had planned, and that was good, because all the roads out got blocked and they got 250mm of rain the day after we left.

- We still went diving and snorkling, though!

- We went to Australia Zoo. That was so awesome. Loved the coffee there.

- We visited Brisbane. Nice enough city, but nothing special. Except for their botanical “garden”. That was really nice!

- We rented a car a weekend and had some day trips. In a random small city, that has it own cheese factory but we still can’t remember the name of it, we found an awesome playground.

Arne and his sisters had fun:

So did Leif Olav (Yes, this is really my father-in-law!)

I had fun as well but I didn’t look good on those pictures so you won’t get any. HAH!

- Kristine bought a kite

- Arne and I borrowed a car and drove around for 5 days after the others left.

We did lots of other stuff as well, but you’re getting so much pictures now that this post seems waaay to long already ;)

Also, if it looks like I’m wearing the same shorts on all of these pictures, you’re right. This is just a coincidence. I did not wear the same pair of shorts for three weeks.

Anyway, about this guy I was giving the stern retail worker look to:
He was standing in my kitchen. At 9 AM. A bit confused, this fellow, as he apparently had enough brainpower to understand that this place, my kitchen, was not Rosenborg flat bread bakery.
Bravo, I said. No, I didn’t. He started the conversation by saying “I was going to rosenborg flat bread bakery”. “that’s not here”, I replied, and waved my hand in the direction of our neighbours, rosenborg flat bread bakery.

“The place with the signs on their window” I continued, as it seemed like the small hint of GET OUT in my voice didn’t quite get through.

“but they have two entrances”, he tried. Now my look changed to the I-can’t-believe-how-stupid-you-are-look as I said “that’s right… it’s still not here.”

He said sorry, and I almost forgave him. But then I changed my mind and just waved him out.

As Rene Engström (maker of Anders Loves Maria (some NSFW drawings)) would say: bläääh.

What makes people think that the place with no signs anywhere, two peoples name on the mailbox and the doorbell is a flat bread bakery? Especially when our neighbour, the flat bread bakery, has a huge window and two doors marked with just these words…

What made me so angry wasn’t just this guys stupidity though, it was the fact that this is the second time someone has done that. The first time it happened it was 8:30 AM and some guy was looking for the dry cleaner… (he was even more wrong than the second guy!) That time I just got so befuddled that I didn’t know what to say so I played the meek, nice little girl who showed him the right way to go. And that guy didn’t even say sorry!

/rant

Anyway, music! Husband was “pimping” some music to a friend yesterday, and just wanted to mention a band out in the great interspacewebthingy: The Ocean Collective. Post metal with really hard parts, and wonderful mellower parts. Precambrian is a concept album about, well, the pre-Cambrian days or something deep like that :P It’s totally way up on the awesome-scale! Look for the ocean on wikipedia and then go buy something of them!

And this is a picture of me in my panda hat a cold morning.
Tomorrow it’s platemesse (record fair?) time. :D