(dramatic pause for general disbelief and snickering at my expense)

This will be a long term project but I have already outline the broad strokes of the plot and jotted down a very rough draft of the first two chapters. Now some might think (at least those of you who read my blog) “How on gods green/blue earth can he write a book when the blog is all but dead ?” And I would agree with that, I have not updated or written anything here, not because I didn’t want to. But because I didn’t see the point. I usually just wrote what I had done recently and such, and there seemed little point in doing that.

Now that I have a project to comment on, I think it might be different.

My head is always thinking “what if this and that” when it comes to just about everything to personal experience and historical events. How things might have turned out… and I have decided to try and put that to use when writing my book. Rather than using this energy, if you will, to think out what would have happened if I said this rather than that.. what if Stalin had a pet ferret would he still be a communist or would he still be looking for his keys and socks ? Who knows…

I currently have about 7-8 pages of notes, ideas and random gibberish written down so I think this is something I can do. And on my way home from work I had another idea that I think would be good story. So while I outline and generally fiddle about with the book I have also decided to write a short story. Flexing my vocabulary a bit before diving in to the deep end as it where.

So there it is, a published aspiration from me, will wonders never cease.

But talk, and writing about such things, is cheap… if not followed up by action. So much like those who post picture of their bodies to motivate themselves to continue to workout. I will give myself a deadline when it comes to the short story. Which will be mid-May… that is to say the 20th at the latest… whatever I have or have not written by then will be published here. So that you few readers can comment, mock, ridicule or praise my writing and storytelling prowess …

Before I started doing so I didn’t think I’d be such a long list. But I surprised myself. However the idiom says “the clothes make the man” perhaps one can in the same manner judge my mind, brain, intellect or personality by the books I have currently loaded up on ? feel free to speculate and comment. I will not be offended.

• Dresden files by Jim Butcher (all 10 books, read)
• Codex Alera series by Jim Butcher (read)
• Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (read)
• Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clark (not read yet)
• Little Brother by Cory Doctorow (read and recommended)
• When SysAdmins Ruled the World by Cory Doctorow (short story, read, recommended)
• Nightside series by Simon R. Green (all books to date, read, somewhat recommended)
• The Red Tree by Caitlin R. Kiernan (started not completed, recommended so far)
• The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli (read, classic, recommended)
• CCNA Official Exam Certification Library (CCNA Exam 640-802) (not read, on todo list)
• Crito by Plato (not read but on todo list)
• Grey Walker by Kat Richardson (not started on)
• The Problems of Philosophy by Bertrand Russell (not read)
• Burnout: the mystery of Space Shuttle STS-281 by Stephanie Osborn (not started on)
• A Dark Matter by Peter Straub (currently reading – not recommended so far)
• Wireless by Charles Stross (read, recommended)
• The Jennifer Morgue by Charles Stross (read, somewhat recommended)
• Saturn’s Children by Charles Stross (started on, so far recommended)
• Halting State by Charles Stross (read, recommended)
• The Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross (read, recommended)
• Accelerando by Charles Stross (read, somewhat recommended)
• The Art of War by Sun Tzu, Lionel Giles trans. (read)
• Nightlife by Rob Thurman (read, recommended)
• Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu, Jonathan Star trans. (on todo list)
• Candide by Voltaire (not read, on todo list)
• Starfish by Peter Watts (not read)
• Right Ho, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse (read, recommended)
• My Man jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse (read, recommended)

Well for me this book starts off nice enough – an author due to events beyond his control gets a flashback to his part past. Then the backdrop gets painted as we are introduced to the gallery of characters. And in due course the protagonist of the story. All well and good.

The problem is that there is a mixture of names used for each character; I have no other way of explaining it. I have no trouble with nicknames being used in literary works. And by itself it would be no great failing of the story, what my primary issue is, and the reason I think that I will lose interest in this book is: story progression…

There is a mixture of flashbacks, dreams and retelling of stories as the “in book author” has been retold of others since he was the outsider. All these elements are intertwined and on top of this there is a need to describe things in detail; to great a detail and unnecessarily so. It takes the focus of the story.

Now some details must be described, some atmosphere must be built up in any good story. but several pages to describe how to get to a destination and subsequent details to describe it and the characters opinions, feelings and misgivings about it tends to put me off. It may be my attention span not having the length required for this particular book.

But I have read books which I have enjoyed which I think can disprove that it is my attention span who is at fault here. It is far more likely that my impatience with the story emanates from my “not liking it”-ness, personal taste, preference, call it what you will.

Whatever you call it, IT seems to make me dread picking up my Kindle to read this. However stubborn as I am in these matters I will read through this book, and if I by then should have come to a different opinion I will do another write-up as a mea culpa.

Yesh it has been a while to say the least…

Many things has happened since last, I can´t even remember the last entry (and I am too lazy to look it up)

a short list: I have started exercising, same job, new appartment, same city…

and yes.. that´s it… I make no promises on when the next update will be, but I figure I´ll start posting results and training session details here.. for public scorn

However I suspect I have a new love / hate relationship coming my way. I recently ordered the international version of Amazon’s Kindle2. I read up on the subject, while I have my reservations on closed systems/standards such as the Kindle e-book format the practicallity of it  seemed to outweigh my concerns. I have the same concerns over the iPod  / iTunes lock-in, but practicallity and ease of use is unmatched by any other solution and untill someone does it better or at least comes near it, I will consider it a necessary evil in my everyday digital life.

What I discovered before ordering it:

*Magazine / Newspaper subscriptions will not include pictures
*Will not be able to subscibe to blogs

What I suspected before ordering it:
*would not allow web browsing, such as Wikipedia and WikiTravel

What I discovered after ordering it:

It does not come with a country specific power adapter plug, US only. (adapter is OK, but need a plug converter, see comments)

Now I can live without pictures in my newspapers, and even magazines even though as they say “A picture is worth a thousand words.” It is a trade off, I subscibed to “The International Herald Tribune” paper edition, and even when I chose the “bundle 3 editions together” option  for delivery it was expensive. So for 19.90USD a pictureless edition is not a deal breaker for me.

Magazines are in my view more visual than newspapers… Pictures can be more essential here. However I do not read to many of them and even if I did The “no color images” would probably be a big a let down as the utter lack of them.

Browsing Wikipedia and WikiTravel however would be very practical, and it was a big dissapointment to learn that this would not be available on the international editions of the Kindle. But still being a gadget geek, I went ahead and ordered it.

But today I read on several tech-news sites that the Kindle will ship with US power adapters and international buyers/users will have to buy their own US-to-whatever adapter.

Dear Amazon

You are now pushing your luck, you strip away functionality that has made the Kindle the equivalent a killer application on the US e-book market, You make no effort to mention the limitations on pictureless newspaper and magazine subscriptions, in a byline you mention that there is no surfing available.

The only killer function left is the Whispernet delivery system that eliminates the need to connect it to a computer to deliver books and newspaper issues. But frankly that only gives you so much wiggle room to play with, and you have exceeded that by a mile in this case.

I understand the reason behind the no-picture issue it is probably the same as the no-browsing issue; data transfer fees from AT&T’s international roaming partners. Pictures requires more bandwith and thus incurs a higher distribution cost. Why not give us the option, a cheap text only edition and a slightly higher “full content” version ?

I will still buy your Kindle, but it is a far less superior product than it could have been, than it actually has the capability of being.  And this will leave at least this customer with a sour taste in his mouth that could have been avioded.

I hope that these features available to your US customers will be available to us international users as well.
We have after all been patiently awaited the arrival of the Kindle and watched with envy to those who could use it at it’s full potential.

Don’t keep us in the dark still, now that we actually can buy it. And please start shipping it with the appropriate poweradapters quickly.

Signed

An already less-than happy customer.

On a side note:

Now why do I still buy this, the Kindle does not ship internationally before the 21.Oct. ?
Because other e-book readers lacks these features as well, and they do not have to potential to enable them at a later date. The Kindle has these features available on a hardware level, they just need to be made available as a service. So I’m crossing my fingers.

There are two things this time, the first beeing the band Katzenjammer and their album “Le Pop.” This album is addictive, the happy-go-lucky sound and lyrics would probably even make Count Dracula tap his foot to the beat.

My favorite tracks are “A bar in Amsterdam”, “To the sea” and the title track “Le Pop”

I would also recomment watching this video. If you are not the slightest bit happier after watching it than you where before, then you my friend are one cold turkey and should probably contact your local mafia to see if they have a job opportunity for you.

It has been less than three weeks since I discovered them, I have listened to their album countless times and it is still as uplifting as it was the first time. This is not your average happy-go-lucky album where you listen to it a few times and archive it. Only to have it collect dust for a few years and then suddenly it makes a surprise entrance at a party. This album will listened to (at least by me) time and time again. It is the kind of music you want to share with your friends, and if they don’t like it you would possibly considering having them committed to a mental institution.

It should be obvious by now that I have become a fan of this band, so instead of me ranting on about it go listen.
It is available on Spotify and iTunes Music Store and probably elsewhere as well.

(If you need a spotify invite just send me a tweet @sindrealmost)

I have also bought tickets to their concert in Bergen in December and have a good feeling that my expectations will be met and then some.

The second thing I want to write about will be posted in a seperate post after this,  so chronologically speaking (or writing) you should have read that one already; the one about the Amazon Kindle.

This is a true story, and yes it is about me. I posted a challenge on Twitter and a friend of mine responded. The result is this story.

Soundtrack: Ani DiFranco – Untouchable Face

Back to the story; as I said unlucky in cards, lucky in love. The first time I remember hearing this proverb was in the movie “While You Were Sleeping” a romantic comedy/drama from 1995, now this is just one of the many movies wherein the girl gets the boy or any variation of such a scenario.

There are those who say there is one out there for everyone; this is for me like saying that there is a winning lottery ticket out there. There may be, but the odds are stacked heavily against this happening. This is at least my experience.

My first crush was at age 10-ish I think, and was probably more a result of peer pressure than anything else, and the concept of being in love and the complications it bring was far from my mind.

Since then I have had my share of crushes, of falling in love, falling out of love. This will eventually happen to all of us. This is both a blessing and a curse. As I am sure you have discovered for yourselves already.

I was walking around, minding my own business. I started humming a tune (which one I don’t remember.) I was walking fast, steadily… I had a goal, a purpose. I was headed somewhere specific, this was the day. I was hopeful, my nerves feeling like I’d had 2 pints of coffee transfused directly in to my bloodstream, the neurons in my brain where firing off at random intervals, uneasy about the decisions they had been apart of making. They where ahead of me, they knew, but I was blissfully ignorant.

I was closing in; I stopped for a brief moment. Collecting my thoughts, running through all possible outcomes of the conversation that was about to take place. Like one of those TV-shows where you see politicians duke it out, I was going through every possible outcome, every possible response. I made my choice; I went up to the counter and ordered a double mocha, found my usual table and sat down. Yes today was going to be the day, the mocha did its job, I was more alert. Unsure of this was a good thing or not, I went outside to light up the days first cigarette. Lucky’s are my poison of choice, quite ironical really.

I went about the day as usual, the routine calmed me down. I was still on edge and walking on clouds at the same time. I closed the office door behind me, headed outside. It had started raining, not a big surprise in this city. I lit up another cigarette, covering under a small roof, seeking protection from the cold rain along with the others who I am sure thought just as I did. “Why don’t I quit ?”

I finished my cigarette. Inside it was dry and warm, but I was oblivious to all of this. I am reminded of an experiment wherein a group of people where asked to count the number of times a ball was passed between a group of people, and not one of then noticed the man in a gorilla suit walking across the screen. I was now that group of people trying to count the number of times the ball passed. An elephant, or an entire zoo could have walked past and I would still be focused on the person sitting there, carefully scanning the room with her eyes, while one hand casually played with her hair.

At this moment I was strangely relaxed, the game was set now to throw the dice. Maybe it was the feeling of that this was inevitable that caused me to behave like myself, and not like the jabbering monkey I had feared I would turn out to become.

I sat down and we struck up a conversation. The usual subjects, ones that seldom leads to any surprises. Now the problem with telling someone that your are head-over heels in love with them, needs an angle. It needs more than an angle; it needs to build up over time.  Subtle hints needs to be delivered, a mutual unspoken understanding agreed upon. I had tried this. It seemed that either I was too subtle or my subtle actions, hints, carefully thought out replies was being misunderstood. It had in any case left me where I was now. Hopeful, walking on clouds.. and at the same time I was horrified at the possibilities, I had been here before I knew what could happen.

The choice was clear; my fear was clawing at my heart. Was it better not to know for certain ? If I did nothing now, there was always tomorrow and there was still the hope, the uncertainty I could still dream, still walk on those imaginary clouds, letting my heart jump for a second every time I saw her.

My fear grew, my courage failing, everything happening all at once, still talking to her, looking at her. Before I knew the evening ended. I walked her to the bus stop, still talking about what a great evening it had been. I smiled and agreed. The dice was firmly placed in my palms, I already knew that they would stay there. But I still tried to convince myself that the next sentence, the next word, the next second that would be it. The bus made a screeching halt, covering the wall of the bus shed with a wall of water. As we parted I gave her a hug and in what seemed an eternity she kissed me on the cheek.

But I still had tomorrow, I could still imagine….

The End…or is it..

Well this is the story, upon reading through it is seems a bit cliche, but this is what happened. It is not a cry for help, or “I need to be felt sorry for story.” It is a story, it reflects on the my feelings at that time, what happened after, when this was who she was. These are questions I will not answer, for obvious reasons

So there it is, the story in answer to a challenge…

oh, and please comment on what you think of my writing……

In the past few days I have rediscovered my joy of reading books, and actually enjoying listening to music again.

By this I mean more than just listening to random tracks on my iPhone, but also paying attention to the music and alle the details in the artists work. I have been so used to just having music on in the background or listening to it on the bus to and from work, without actually listening. If this makes any sense to you, well done give yourself a pat on the back…

Current rediscoveries: Ani DiFranco, Indigo Girls, Tegan & Sara and Mazzy Star

Recommended listening from these fine artists:

Ani Difranco – Cradle and All and the album “Live at Babeville”

Indigo Girls – Become You, Yield and their cover of Mrs. Robinson

Current new discoveries:

Sia -

Now they say you shouldn’t judge a book by it’s cover, but that is what I did with this album.

The cover art and title made me buy this album, and it was good, very good.. I took a chance with iTunes Music Store’s recommendations and bought it without even “previewing” it on Spotify. The title of the album was:

Sia - Some people have REAL problems (album art)

It just looked so whimsical and fun that I had to buy it, and the lyrics are quite amusing. Some make little or no sense. But you get the feeling that it was supposed to be like that, and you just enjoy the song (particularly “Academia“) and with an album title like this, how could I resist.

Her vocals are very dominant on most of the tracks with all the instruments playing second fiddle so to speak. Pardon the deadbeat joke there, it was to obvious to leave out. I recommend this album without any reservations. However if whimsical and lighthearted music is not something you generally enjoy you might reconsider.

Other discoveries:

Erin McKeown -

The entire album “We Will Become Like Birds” but especially the song Aspera. And from the album Grand I recommend   Slung-lo and The Taste of You. Now if you really want to stalk me, my last.fm profile will show you what I have listened to recently.

On a completely different matter, if you are like me and are using last.fm and Spotify, you might want to take a look at this:

Last.fm Spotify Search – Script that adds a wee green note icon next to tracks, albums and artists on Last.fm’s website. To use, install Greasemonkey then add the script. You can then click the note icon to search in Spotify. I find this one really useful, it saves on typing and binds Last.fm and Spotify together nicely (Full article here.)

There are similar “plugins” for those who use Safari as well, I will update with details when I find that link (or I might end up writing my own how-to)

Since I’ve put a fair few Spotify links in this article I will also put some Spotify invites here (on a first come first serve basis), if you try them and they don’t work, odds are someone beat you to it. The invites listen below:

1. c27E3jifiZp4ff4S this one is used, and without even leaving a comment of thanks…..

2. jN72Nkby7cBXTNnb

3. PmHi5PVuxtYZeXUd

When I overheard this I instinctively looked up from my book and tried to come up with a description or translation myself. I failed, even The Oxford Dictionary of English and its accompanying thesaurus was of little help. So resources at hand where then reduced to asking the inhabitants of Twitter. A few seconds after my tweeting-question I got a few suggestions. But first I will quote what I wrote yesterday while trying without help to describe these rather strange Norwegian words and their meaning.

Rølp is the behavioral traits of a hick that become overly prominent whilst he or she is drunk, however this state is not generally restricted to hicks, it can also apply to more urbanized people as it were…..

I should have added that rølp is also used to describe certain situations, but this particularity escaped me in my moment of mental gymnastics. What I did contemplate on was the word hick (or pl. hicks) after again consulting the Oxford Dictionary of English (hereafter called Odie) this is what I found:

Informal, chiefly N. Amer. a person who lives in the country, regarded as being unintelligent or parochial: [as modifier] she puts on a hick accent.

Chiefly Northern-American… this might imply that not everyone has a conception of what a “hick” is. I drifted of for a bit I thought of a mysterious person asking:

“What the heck is a hick?”

A sharp laughter for someone brought me back and I figured anyone wondering what a “hick” is could either look it up or be left wandering about it.

As all this transpired in my head small radio waves was flying through the air looking for their intended target. They found their target as a muffled beep from my mobile phone escaped from under the scattered items on the table. Two moleskin notebooks, a headset and the book I was reading before the events I am now recounting transpired. The muffled beeps where trying to tell me that a response had been received on Twitter.

karinargh@sindrealmost uhh harry kan kanskje ‘oversettes’ til chav i noen sammenhenger vaffal? rølp, uh, debauchery! …

KristineKaizer@sindrealmost chav og corny?

So there seemed to be a consensus on “chav” for the Norwegian adjective use of “harry”

Odie agreed, chav it said was an informal noun of British origin, derogatory a young lower-class person typified by brash and loutish behaviour and the wearing of (real or imitation) designer clothes.

This sees to be as close to a one-word translation as I could hope. I had thus used the last thirty or forty minutes to expand my English vocabulary by one word. However I think it was a good one, the other one rølp still eludes me neither debauchery nor corny seems to cover the extensive meaning of the Norwegian word rølp.

After thinking about this for a while, I sighed and returned to the world of T.S. Spivet and his great train ride from Montana to Washington D.C. in a winnebago named Valero (the winnebago was transported by train.) And before I knew, my pint was empty the sun had set, replaced by a dark sky and rain… I took it as a sign to seek out the warm comforts of my bed.

If you have a clever thought on how to describe or translate “rølp” in English please leave a comment or send me a tweet (@sindrealmost)

Now why on gods green earth

Fraser Island by Michael Dawes

would I need to start planning this early ? you might ask, well my plan is to go to Australia and hike around Fraser Island (the great walk) and visit some friends. Now it has been a long while since I have done anything that can be remotely described as hiking/camping. The basics such as what equiment is needed and how to use it I’m sure will be fine. But the physical stuff of – you know – actually walking around for 7-8 days with a big backpack is something else.

How far have I’ve gotten in my planning, well I have done some research on visas’ needed and if I need immunizations and such like. And what else I might want to to while in Australia. I have not set a date, nor ordered any for of tickets yet, a bit to early for that I feel.

I also want to (if time allows) do some diving, the great barrier reef is tempting and this gets me to another point I need to get certified for diving. I am itching to go already, this might have something to do with the general lack of any serious travel in the past 2-3 years.

So I am browsing websites, reading lonely planet guidebooks and looking at pictures on flickr and everything else that can be done without actually going there (yet)

If my budget allowes I’d also like to travel to South Africa (mainly to do the bungiee jump of the bloukrans bridge, but that is a low low low priority.)

So if nothing else I have something to write about, my continued planning of said trip, my expectations and hopes (and then I can write about how those matched up when I actually have been there)