Why Do You Get All The Love In The World?

New TV in house, I've been doing a bit of catching up on my movie watching lately. Well, come to think of it I've mostly been watching movies I'd already seen, but still. New ones include Hancock (at the movies), which was actually not half bad. Rather entertaining and at times I laughed out loud. Pretty Aussie girl's role was interesting enough to numb the knowledge of it being a Will Smith flick. (Theron is off course South African, not Australian. Sorry about that.)

The Fountain (on DVD) was a lot of weirdness, but quite beautiful visually. Not sure I liked it, as the storyline was rather poorly put together, but I've had it for a while and it was about time I got to watch it. Stranger Than Fiction (also on DVD), on the other hand, was an enjoyable affair. Unusually well cast, and although the end is to some extent easy to foresee the plot as a whole is good and quite funny. The main character is an ordinary office rat with an extraordinary love for numbers who suddenly realizes he's the main character in a work of fiction.

Today I'm going to the movies to see Fireflies In The Garden, also this with a rather strong castlist, so I have high hopes. Last day of the month tomorrow, stress levels are (as usual) soaring through the roof. Am struggling a bit with my schedules at the moment, as I have a bit too many things going on at the same time. Would be nice to be able to be in several places at the same time!

Butter Butter! Bunnies In Your Pants!

The below was uploaded to JD by Scott, and I found it so hilarious I had to steal it for my blog. I guess it's funniest if you know enough Finnish to know some of the expressions behind the insane sentences :D

"Many years ago, I was sent the below. It is Finnish directly translated to English, although I think I had it with the original Finnish back then."

Scene: Two men at a table waiting for their dates

A: How plenty is the bell?
B: It lacks but a few minutes of eight.
A: Aren't the girls becoming visible already?
B: Shall we be having long ones as we're expecting?
A: I don't want to be in my heads when they come.
B: Virgin! Virgin! (Waitress enters)
W: What is coming to you?
B: Two long ones and food list.
W: (giving drinks) Be good, be good. Is it getting to be another?
A: No thanks.
W: Are you costing together or different?
A: Different. Moment, moment. I feel I've got Matthew in my pouch.
B: Don't care. I'll cost.
A: Thanks.
B: It won't last (pays waitress).
A: No. So, through the northern lands.
B: Through the northern lands.

Girls enter - D and E. The men stand up and everyone says "Healthy".

A: No so. What is audible?
E: (shivering) I'm all iced. It's freezing outside. I'm all at the chicken flesh.
D: Sorry we're late. We had bunnies in our pants.
A: Butter butter! Bunnies in your pants!
E: Don't rip your footbal shorts. We made it root and root.
B: Virgin! Virgin! Where's the foodlist?
W: I'm not a virgin. I'm a boymangirl.
B: Butter that. Give pardon, give pardon. Two long ones still.
W: Be good, be good.
D: She feels like having a potato. Isn't it so?
A: Do you have hunger?
E: No, I've already got crumbs under my breast.
D: There's a hard hunger on me. What's on the foodlist?
A: Let's see. A beginning it can be sister sausage soup.
D: Sister sausage soup! Butter brothers!
B: How about a blow on the ear?
E: Blow on the ear! Go and ski up a spruce tree!
A: Well, there's also dropbread, liverbox, a poor knight for afterfood.
D: Don't know. This shows from interesting.
E: What?
D: Fishcock and elk balls!

If My Star Should Fall

Here's a nice piece of Eastern European music trivia for you:
Latvian band Brainstorm finished third in the 2000 Eurovision finals with the song My Star. I loved it. In Latvian they're called Prāta Vētra, two words I haven't the slightest of how to pronounce, so I'll stick with the English translation. They are apparently quite big in Latvia, but as this is a rather small country we're talking about the record sales are off course limited. I've had some problems getting hold of their records as they're not even easily accessible on amazon without paying a fortune, so I'm hoping this autumn's Baltic travels will bring me closer to what I'm looking for.

Listen to My Star and just be happy. It's not humanly possible to listen to this and not get a bit of everything's-gonna-be-allright going on. In fact, if you don't fall in love I dare you to listen to it with me once and I promise I'll make you want to dance around in the summer rain :)



Oh, and note the heartbreakingly adorable singer. There's just something about that Latvian "Will it get me laid if I tell you I kind of want to off myself?" look.

They have more nice songs, if you're into the synthpop scene you might want to check out Online, you can find it... online.

In Her Room

So... I mentioned I had bought a TV, right? Well, today they delivered it and it's HUGE! 42'' sounds much more manageable when it's not sitting in your living room! Am actually a bit terrified by the size of it, but I guess movie watching will take on a different format from now on which will be a welcome change from the miniature black box I've used the last two years (thank you, Miia :).

Am trying to figure out how to spend my holidays for the coming year or so. Really want to go to Peru, and have previously talked this over with Lotta. Might be difficult to go through with, though. The alternative might be going somewhere over Christmas and New Year's, as this gives me a bit more time to play with. New Guinea, maybe? Also, I'll need time to do at least one US road trip next year, and that's bound to tie up some weeks. And whatever happened to Romania? I even have a small hope that my chances of having European road trip company might be looking up.

Today I am going home to cook dinner and watch a movie. Garden State, I believe. Fun and good times for all :)

Pretty When You're Faithful

I never was much for Rossdale's (1 very sexy Rolling Stone cover) escapades, although I must admit the man, back when he fronted Bush, was sex personified, if in a slighly more sleezy way than the man himself, Trent Reznor (3 Rolling Stone covers, not so sexy but it's still Trent Reznor). I wonder if he ever slept with Manson (Reznor, that is, not Rossdale). Do I really want to know? Probably not. I read a blog post that likened him, back in his Perfect Drug days, to Severus Snape as played by Alan Rickman in the Harry Potter movies. Funny :)

So, you ask, why this sudden return to That Which Is Trent? I never was much of a NINie back when that term still made any sense, but I wonder how much of the current me he is responsible for. Did I pick my music because of what I was becoming, or did I become what I did because of the music I picked? Surely there are thousands of influences, but how much of me boils down to what I've been listening to?

I do believe that no action is triggered by music, you can't blame lyrics or performers for your own actions. But surely, if music is as big a part of ones environment as it is of mine, it must color us in some ways? Songs I love do have the power to drag me up and down in equal measures, and I would lie if I said I've never used lyrics to achieve goals. Is God in the music? Would God then also be in Trent? Oh, the implications, someone call the pope!

"Burn the witches!", right?

Celebrated Miia's and Alistair's birthdays last night, and am a tad on the tired side today. Splendid evening with loads of excellent people. Next week I have Thursday and Friday off, and am probably going away somewhere. Doesn't matter how busy I am at work, I have very good private life karma right now :)

There's Beauty In The Breakdown

I've been too busy living to do much blogging lately, but here's a short update:

The end of July came and went and almost killed everything called motivation in me. With August the workload has thankfully eased up a bit, so I'm hoping it'll stay this way.

No books read, still working on both Auster and Sartre and not really getting anywhere with either one as I haven't even picked them up in weeks. Music wise I'm being a busy bee, and have twenty-something titles waiting for me in Norway for the next time I go there. Also bought a huge tv and a new camera, just to make sure I have even more stuff to do rather than blogging :)

Still loving the knitting, and in addition to more advanced socks I've cast on my first ever sweater. Not going particularly well so far, but I'm hoping that Deb will work her magic and put it right tomorrow. I've seen The Happening and The Dark Knight in the movies. Shyamalan's movie scared me a few times, and was in general a bit too gross for me to like it. Didn't help that the acting, dialogue and general screenplay sucked bigtime. The Dark Knight was good, it is very, very dark compared to the earlier Batman movies, and all involved put up a good performance. Am not even close to agreeing with the "best movie ever" stamp it has received, though. I mean, it's still just a marvel comic turned movie. It marked the return of JD Movie Nights after summer, and this week Hancock is on the programme.

What else? I've been ocean swimming, IKEA shopping, furniture assembling, almost mushroom picking (chickened out due to rain), liquid chocolate drinking, graveyard wandering, lemon chicken eating, pasta cooking, beer drinking, photo watching (Miia & Willem are back from Thailand) and in general laughing a lot and loving life. Oh, and I've decided to finally give Finnish an honest try. Can't be all that hard once you have your motivation sorted out, right? :)

I just read through the CD insert of Snow Patrol's Eyes Open and discovered that my long time hero Ken Stringfellow appears on piano on my favorite track on the record; Warmer Climate. As always, I love the connections :)

Maybe it's the warmer climate,
maybe I'm the smarter primate.
Maybe it's the beer I'm drinking,
maybe I've stopped over-thinking.
Snow Patrol - Warmer Climate (Eyes Open, 2006)