Lost

Finally something really truly great to look forward in the world of television: Lost is back on Norwegian screens this evening - I can hardly wait! I think this is the best series I've seen since Twin Peaks!

I've got a floor!

As many of you know by now I'm moving out of Oslo and back to Solör at Christmas. The reason for this is that I've been made redundant from the Defence from January 2006, and I'm going to England to do a Master's degree in the fall of 2006 - and before that I should probably save some money. This, I decided about 1 1/2 years ago, is easier done in Solör than in Oslo. So, I asked my parents if they would be so kind as to build me a flat in their basement if I paid them some money to do this. My father has been planning to do something about the basement since the house was built in 1978, so I thought this was an excellent oportunity for them to actually get this done, and at the same time also get some of the costs financed as well. And they agreed! My father is now very busy building this "studio" for me, and this weekend the pinewood floor was finished! By the next time I get home I might actually have walls as well!!!

Another thing on this topic: it really seemed like good idea to move out of Oslo back to Solör when the plan was made, now that I've only got 2 more months left in Oslo, I'm not so sure that it's such a good idea any more. Things in my life has changed since then that suddenly makes it a lot more interesting to be staying in Oslo.... I still principally mean that it's easier to save money in Solör than in Oslo though - simply because nothing ever happens in Solör, so there's nothing there on which I can spend any money!!! and of course, Oslo is only a 3 hours busride away, it's not like I'll never be able to visit Oslo again.... This is what I keep telling myself, over and over and over again....

The quiz at Belfry..

For those of you how've been wondering about this: NO there was no question about the new Norwegian ministers on last Thursday's quiz at Belfry - there was however a 2 point question where you had to list 7 of the 8 main characters in "Beverly Hills 90210" and I got all 8 of them right!!! Not really sure if this is something I should be bragging about though.....

My friend who came with me to the quiz knew stuff like who's the author who's real name is John David Moore Cornwall (John Le Carre) and who ruled Cuba before Castro (Batista) - I'm so happy that I could contribute with my truly usefull knowledge as well....

Magic

I woke up yesterday morning in Solör and while I was sleeping the whole world had gone white! There was something like 10 cm of snow outside when I got out of bed. I know by the time spring gets here I'll be fed up with snow - but yesterday, I just sat staring at the whiteness, and still more of it coming down, marvelling at how amazing it really is - how much the world changes. The first snow of every winter truly makes me feel like a child again - it's almost magical!

Revealing how little I have actually seen...

Theres a guy, John Scalzi, who's written a book called The rough guide to sci-fi movies, it's my friend Arne who's discovered this and challenged me on the so called sci-fi Canon that Scalzi talks about, which is the 50 most significant sci-fi movies in the history of film. Below is the list of the films, and those in bold are the ones I've seen:

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension!
Akira
Alien
Aliens
Alphaville
Back to the Future
Blade Runner
Brazil
Bride of Frankenstein
Brother From Another Planet
A Clockwork Orange
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Contact
The Damned
Destination Moon
The Day The Earth Stood Still
Delicatessen
Escape From New York
ET: The Extraterrestrial
Flash Gordon: Space Soldiers (serial)
The Fly (1985 version)
Forbidden Planet
Ghost in the Shell
Gojira/Godzilla
The Incredibles
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956 version)
Jurassic Park
Mad Max 2/The Road Warrior
The Matrix
Metropolis
On the Beach
Planet of the Apes (1968 version)
Robocop
Sleeper
Solaris (1972 version)
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
The Stepford Wives
Superman
Terminator 2: Judgement Day
The Thing From Another World
Things to Come
Tron
12 Monkeys
28 Days Later
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
2001: A Space Odyssey
La Voyage Dans la Lune
War of the Worlds (1953 version)

This really reveals how little I have seen, at least compared to Arne who's seen all but one....I must admit though, that since some of these movies aren't exactly from last year, I might have seen some of them in my teens, when I used to watch a lot of movies at Arne's place, but don't remember the title of them - and then I guess it doesn't count. "The Damned", "Escape from New York" and "Metropolis" seems to ring a bell, but as I can't at all recall what they're about I might not have seen them after all... so I haven't marked them in the list! And "Alien" scared the living daylights out of me when I saw it when it was new, haven't seen it since, just remember the feeling of being completely terrified - and that's the reason why I haven't seen any of the other Aliens movies! (Opps - perhaps I said to much...!)

And I guess this is the part where I pass on the challenge to everybody, but in particular to Ross.

Decisions...

Another weekend is here. I packed my bag and brought to work this morning, because I might be going to Solör this afternoon. The reason why I say "I might" is that I'm not yet 100% decided. I don't really feel the need to go to Solör this weekend, but as I know that things will keep me in Oslo next weekend (things being that my cousins daughter Tiril is celebrating her birthday next Sunday - I am her Godmother, and I want to be there!) I do at the same time feel that I probably should head home to Solör for the weekend. I'm also thinking that as I was out partying with my friends last Saturday, I might have a hard time finding people who want to do something this weekend - which might mean that come Saturday night I might once more find that I'm watching TV being deadly bored and just waiting for the world to end so that at least something exciting might happen....!

So, my bag is packed but I'm still not sure what to do, hopefully by 2 o'clock I will have been able to make up my mind. Hmmm - all this thinking just to decide where I'll be staying for the next couple of days!!! Guess I'm lucky that this is actually the biggest problem in my life right now....

Quiznight at Belfry

For the 3rd Thursday in a row me and a friend of mine are going back for the quiznight at Belfry. Even though we're not very good at this, we still have a lot of fun. And it must be added that we did improve ourselves a lot from the first time till the next - hopefully this progress will continue tonight.

It's not possible to prepare yourself much for quiznight, but what I have discovered is that there are at least some questions about things that have come up in the media the last week - so today I'm thinking that there might be a question about the new government of Norway - and who's the minister of what departement. As a member of the trade union, and one who has argues loudly for the change of government I would feel "totally humiliated" if there was such a question and I couldn't answer it - so now I've been memorizing all the names of all the new ministers.

Anyone else who's got kind of a quiet day at work.....?

Never heard of her!

The new minister of Defence is Anne-Grete Strøm-Erichsen, I must admit I've never heard of her ever before - a completely new name to me.

I've googled her though, because I am of course curious about this person that's going to be our new "Boss". I found her CV on one of the Labour parties pages, and from what I can tell she's never worked for the Defence or had anything to do with the defence at all. This makes me a little bit sceptical, because I think that the ministers should have some knowledge of the area of which they are the minister. But hey, we've been so extremely unhappy with the minister we've had for the last 4 years, and she actually had a background from the Defence - so it can hardly get any worse than the last 4 years have been. And at least Strøm-Erichsen has the correct political background and will hopefully be easier to get into a dialogue with than the previous minister.

The weekend

So, I know I sort of promised I'd try to publish, well, something on this blogsite during the weekend - and obviously that didn't happen. It might have something to do with the fact that I went out on Saturday evening and met up with some friends. We had lots of fun - so much fun that when Sunday finally came I needed not only one, but two attempts to manage to get out of bed because I was suddenly aware of the speed with which the world is spinning...... Yesterday ended up being one of those truly lazy days where I never got any further than to my favourite chair watching whatever was on TV. So this is at least partly the reason why I've been so quiet in my writings this weekend....

Anxiously awaiting the result.....

Today Jens Stoltenberg will be asked by the King to form Norway's new government. At 1015 am the list of the new ministers will be announced, and here at the civil cervants union we're anxiously awaiting the result; who'll be the new minister of Defence?

Sorry

...that it's been so quiet on this blogger site for such a long time now. I spent last weekend in Solör and it was so quiet there too that I didn't really feel the need to write anything - this week has been so awfully hectic at work that I just haven't been able to find any energy when I got back from work in the evening to write anything then either. However, now that the weekend is finally here again, and I have survived this hell-week of meetings at work, I'll hopefully find time to write some stuff in the coming days.

My big plans for the weekend is to pop over to Outland after work today, and buy "Knife of dreams", the 11th book in "The Wheel of time"-series by Robert Jordan - and I'm guessing at least some of this weekend will also be spent reading the book!

To vain for my own good?

So I've been out and bought new shoes, not only that, these are shoes that've got high heels. Well, all is realive, I'm not usually the kind of person to wear heels at all, mostly I wear sneakers or trainers or whatever they're called, because as I walk to work and back every day (about 2 hours walk total) I prefer to wear sensible shoes that don't hurt my feet. For some reason, wearing sneakers isn't as "mentally comfortable" when I'm going out for beers with friends or something similar - then I want something that looks.. nicer. Today I bought shoes with about 5 cm heels, which isn't that much really, as I see girls walking around with what must be 15 cm of heels, but to me - I'm pretty sure that it's enough to make my feet hurt like hell while I try to get used to wearing them. I was thinking this when I tried them in the shop, I was thinking this when I paid for them - and I'm still thinking that now that I'm back at the office, just having put on the shoes while I'm sitting by my desk. They don't feel half bad at the moment, but of course, at some point I will probably have to try to walk more than 3 metres in them as well and my bet is that that will be a totally different story.

It's a typical female problem this one, isn't it? I don't think I ever hear guys complaining about their shoes, or see any guys who seem to hurt whilst walking. Some might argue that the only reason women wear shoes with high heels in the first place is because men like it - I don't really think it is that simple. When I dress up to go out with friends I certainly want to look my best, don't all? And I just know that I'm mentally more comfortable if I wear something with heels than if I don't, physically, well, as you probably understand, that's a totally different story!!! So I know I wear heels because it makes me happier about my appearance, not just because I want men to notice me - if high heels are all they're after I'd rather they didn't notice me at all - it just feels more dressed up.

Well, I'm a stubborn person and I've got my mind set on getting used to these shoes - so I guess it remains to be seen if I'll manage or if I'll find that I've once more been to vain for my own good - and bought another couple of shoes to ad to the ever growing collection of shoes that I was very optimistic when buying but have never really used after that!

Reading

Since I finished reading the last book in the Dark Tower series I haven't really been reading anything, well, that is, except for my own manuscript where I'm starting to have at least a vague idea about how to attack the problem of shortening it before I send it back to the publisher.

Now however it looks like something I've been waiting for finally is here: the next book in the "Wheel of time" series by Robert Jordan. Book no 11 is the second to last book in this series, and is called "Knife of dreams", it will be released next Thursday, the 11th of October. I'm really looking forward to it, let's just hope I won't be as dissappointed in this one as I was in the Dark Tower when that one finally got here.

Moving my "writings"

So, there was a slight problem with the place I originally published my short-stories; my father had forgotten that he'd let his company use his website for their webpages, so when I uploaded my stuff, their dissappeared. I've fixed that now. And you'll now find my stuff here:

Lena M Bakke

It's been rather quiet here the last couple of days, because I've been out of town on a meeting with the trade union and haven't had time to write.

I have now gotten my application papers to Winchester university. With the application I also have to send a short-story, parts of a novel or some poems to prove that I can actually write anything at all. I am planning to use my short-story called "Click", but would really like to know what those of you how've read it think about it - so please feel free to comment. If I am actually serious about becoming a writer I'll have to be able to handle bad critique as well.

Considering how dreadfully boring my last weekend was I'm happy to say that I'm actually heading out tonight, to have at least a couple of beers with friends.