Saturday 29 May 2010

Faded rainbows

I had plans for this weekend! Well, not grand plans, no travelling, nothing huge. Just a couple of things to get me out of the apartment. Meet up with a few friends maybe. Unfortunately, the rain is here. And it's being really annoying. Completely clear skies quickly hidden behind dark thunderclouds followed by torrential rain. All within a half hour. And then repeat :|.
Oh well. I'm not too bothered. As is usual on weekends immediately preceding a trip offshore. It's good to chill out, get some sleep. Who knows what's waiting back on the boat. Just hope it isn't too much drama.

I can't believe I still haven't got my wallet back. Yes, very impressed with the police here, not so much with the postal system. I'll not go into the amount of unnecessary trouble that's happened over that. It's depressing.

Was quite impressed with Iron Man 2 :). Can't say the same thing about Clash of the Titans though :P. I mean, really? A Perseus you almost expect to go "G'day mate"? It was so bad, it was hilarious :|. Do not waste money on this. Prince of Persia, on the other hand, I quite liked! Yes, I have been watching a lot of movies this week :).

Ah, and now the rain stops, after I've had dinner /:).

Currently: bored
Listening to: Kina Grannis - Message from your heart

Tuesday 25 May 2010

Blink blink

It's been raining a bit. Last night the wind blew my bedroom window open and splattered a few drops on my otherwise unremarkable long weekend.Finally watched Martian Child. And a ton of other movies I'd been meaning to watch for the last few months, years etc. John Cusack is awesome. And I like the movie. Incidentally, has anyone ever seen a John Cusack movie without Joan Cusack in it? I'm sure there are a few, but couldn't be many :). Oh wait! There was Serendipity. But that was crap anyway. Good soundtrack though.

Still need to go see IM2 in the theatre. Maybe tonight. It was raining the last time I exited the theatre. I put my phone and cash (still no wallet) in my jacket, took it off, folded it up tightly and tucked it under my arm. Then walked out from under cover. The others seemed to think it was a stupid idea, I have no idea why...

The Serendipity soundtrack reminds me, I finally got a hold of most of Nick Drake's stuff. I find it extremely hard to believe the music's early '70s. Somehow. Sounds a lot more contemporary than that. Maybe that's why it didn't really get popular till a decade or more afterwards. I so wish all these people wouldn't go and kill themselves in their twenties. Sad life it must be. Then again, who am I to judge?

Oh, and my post Regina Spektor and The Weepies object of musical fascination is now Kina Grannis. Right, that's enough nothing for now.

Currently: a little bored.. a little restless.. WTF to go
Listening to: Kina Grannis - Disturbia (Rihanna cover)

Wednesday 19 May 2010

Deja vu, the good kind

I sometimes wonder how it works at all :). Believe me when I say that I'm about the laziest person in the world. If you just let me be... A bag of owed MnM's will testify to that :P. Yet somehow, there we were, way out in the middle of nowhere (well, somewhere on the outskirts of Oslo) looking for an elusive go-karting track in pretty much broad daylight at 9pm!
Well, we found it, and the whole thing amounted to about 3 hours of travelling for 9 minutes of 'track' time :D. And then first thing Saturday morning, five somewhat bleary eyed people got on a flight at Gardermoen and promptly dozed off as the plane took off for Prague!And as soon as we'd made our way to the heart of Old Town, it all started coming back to me :). It helped, of course, to know my way around. I only needed the occasional look at the map to know which way to go, unlike the last time :D.I don't think I'll bother with details.... or maybe I will :). Well, of course we went down to Old Town square, and up to the top of the Town Hall tower. Unfortunately though, most of the square was taken up with this huge rock concert stage. Or at least something that looked and sounded like one. Oddest of places for a rock concert, but hey, that's what it's like in Prague, people queue up for a look at a skyline hundreds of years old, and they also get some heavy metal to go with the view :).We did look at some places I'd missed out on the last time around. And a lot of walking along the river Vltava. Tourists, locals, young folk dressing up for the imminent zombie parade, it was all a happy mess. And through it all there was the imposing profile of the castle and the cathedral looming over the horizon.All you need to do in Prague is walk around. So that's what we did. And while at it, we even managed to pack in an opera performance on the stairs of the National Theatre, and an interesting black light theatre production called Cats in Prague. The former was genuinely impressive. The latter, well, I'll just leave it at interesting :P.While in Prague I had to drag the others to the top of Petrin tower, for the majestic view of the entire city, with the river snaking its way under the many bridges. This time around though, I didn't stay for sunset :).One of the things I was really happy to be able to do was find my way back to the Vrtbovska garden! Last time we'd more or less stumbled into this terraced garden that is practically in the middle of the city, yet secluded and hidden away. The gardens and statues were as I'd remembered them. Just the colours were different :). And from the top we could look out to the hustle and bustle all around from within a little bubble of peace and quiet.When we finally made our way onto the Charles Bridge, I was happy to see that the parts that had been under wraps for renovation the last time were all open. Unfortunately, other parts of the bridge were now fenced off! I guess at least in two trips I managed to see all of it uncovered :). And this time I checked if we could go up the tower on the Old Town side of the bridge, and we could!! So we did :D.
I suppose the only thing not too great about the weekend was the weather. For the most part it was overcast and a bit chilly. But then again, at least it never rained! All in all it was a brilliant trip. I managed to stick entirely to various forms of goulash for the meals :D. And this time around, I didn't miss out on the green fairy :P. Scary stuff, that!
It was a bit of a full circle when we ended up nursing one of our ranks (who was feeling rather overwhelmed by the flaming shots of the previous night) in the shaded park at Namesti Miru. It was the same square where we'd started off our trip through the city last time :).Now if only I can get through the rest of this week. It's always a hard awakening after these getaways to paradise :-< Currently: waiting for I don't know what
Listening to: The Weepies - Happiness

Thursday 13 May 2010

Found!!

So apparently miracles do happen! Beyond all hope, I found out yesterday, that my long lost (well, okay, not that long, but still) wallet has in fact, been found!!! Okay, so it was found within a couple of days after I lost it, back in March, it just took the police a couple of months to find my email address in an extremely convoluted fashion! Norwegian police totally rock :D.

Nonetheless, it is totally awesome news!! I do have a new license and card, but all the other stuff that I hadn't gotten around to replacing yet, or couldn't replace, will be most welcome :). Only thing is, it'll take a while to get the thing back. This time of the year is littered with public holidays, and the officer who got in touch with me has gone on a week's vacation. So it's at least another 10 days of waiting. Oh and the lady was kind enough to ask me if it was okay to take some of the money from my wallet to pay for postage :D.

Right, so yes, I'm back in Asker. And although there's no snow, there was still a 35 degree temperature drop for me compared to Cal, but nothing one can't get used to in a couple of minutes :).

And there's already plans for the weekend. Concrete plans! Booked tickets and acco last night. I'll be heading back to Prague for another look!!! Maybe the Karluv Most will not have the annoying construction scaffoldings this time :D.

Currently: ecstatic!!
Listening to: Regina Spektor - Wallet

Monday 10 May 2010

Star's End

I wish there was less waiting in life. I mean, honestly, how much time do we spend waiting? I dunno, but it's a lot!! Anyway, I was a little surprised to find I'd not unpacked the bottom half of my backpack, my only piece of luggage, at all this time :(. Why is that sad? Not sure, but it is.
Seeing how I'd managed to finish most of Forward the Foundation over the weekend I figured may as well finish it off today so I can carry all three Foundation books with me this time. I mean the original three. I decided to read the books in strictly chronological order this time. While that gives away some of the plot of the later books, seeing how I've read it all before, I figure that wont really matter much.

Does it appear to anyone that there's a pretty clear segmentation in the series? If you look at Prelude and Forward.. then the oldest three books, and finally Foundation's Edge and Foundation and Earth. I suppose that has something to with the order in which they were written. Especially Forward the Foundation. The end is a pretty major downer. But thankfully, in this case, I have five books of full on adventure to go :). And if I remember correctly, Foundation and Earth ends on something of a hopeful note, so there's that.

Still need to get that latest Nick Hornby. Can't believe I didn't managed a single trip to the book store under the escalator this time!

Currently: packed up..
Listening to: Train - Counting airplanes

Saturday 8 May 2010

Broken clay

And there it goes, my break, over. And while I'm not heading back to the boat, I will be heading back to work come Monday night. I definitely like my office-first way of spending the break better :|. At least I had enough time to finally sort through the massive amount of music I've collected in the last six months or so. And the photographs from the last three.

I must say the short trip down to Asansol proved to be unexpectedly successful. A brand new driver's license materialised in my hands within a single day! And I don't mean a temporary chit, it was the proper printed card!! Anyone with any concept of the monumental bureaucratic mess that is the WB State Transportation Department, would realise that this is nothing short of a miracle. Anyway, this now means that I can drive again :).The other part of the trip, to Shantiniketan, wasn't so awesome. It was necessary though. I've heard it said that we should remember one who has passed away by the way (s)he had lived. Sometimes that inadvertently turns into dismantling a lifetime. Taking it apart piece by piece. Thing is, there's never any guarantee that you'd be able to put it back together right. Chances are you wont.

Creations are a reflection of the soul, they say. Indistinct reflections in a scratched and dirty mirror, they should add. You could read anything in those images. No matter how large a profusion of reflections, you might never end up with a clear view of even a part of the mind, let alone the whole.I stared at twisted lips and craning necks for three whole days and came away no wiser. I also twisted and mangled the last barely finished creation of once familiar hands. I couldn't help it. It was soft, the clay gave in my hands before I could do anything about it.

I cant help feeling a twinge of guilt at that.

Currently: nowhere
Listening to: Regina Spektor - Human of the year