Yes, I know you're really looking forward to my world famous "Best & Worst of 2005" feature, but while you await The Big Day, I'm going to advertise another well-known website's awards for this year, namely Gamespot's own prestigious honours list. I would like to mention a few favourites of mine that won awards, so if you would like to read the whole thing on their site please stop reading this post right now.

First, there was the Best Adventure award, which went to a favourite of mine this year, Fahrenheit (AKA Indigo Prophecy in the US). I would have been very surprised (and probably dismissed the whole "best of" list as a scam) if Civilization IV hadn't won the Best Strategy award; these past 15 years have been wonderful to Sid Meier's franchise! It also won the PC Game of the Year award, which is a great achievement, I think, since there were rather a lot of brilliant games released during 2005. God of War, not a typically Ingaroo-y game, won the overall Playstation 2 Game award, and deservedly so (even though I haven't made it past the first ten minutes yet).

If you want to, the Readers' Choice Awards just opened for voting, and the winners will be announced during the third week of January.

Current track: Queen - The Invisible Man

Labels: gaming, lists

Once again it turns out to be very difficult to keep up with current socialist views, as one has to spend quite a lot of time researching who trades with whom, who supports whom etc. I took a short cut today and visited one of the many "Boycott Israel" sites out there, only to find that Nestlé are major contributors to the Israeli economy. How does a chocolate- and coffee-loving individual like myself manage to live without?

Hmm, I wonder if they carry the Max Havelaar brand here?

Current track: The Dust Brothers - Psycho Boy Jack

Labels: current affairs

If you don't live in the UK and can access any of the normal British news channels (Sky News, for instance), you really should watch the headlines. I just couldn't resist commenting upon it again (sorry if I'm offending anyone, but it does sound ridiculous to a Norwegian). They call it "severe weather" and tell us that Kent, who's the most suffering county, apparently, may see up to 12 cm of snow! Oooh! The north should expect "freezing weather, even down to seven or eight degrees Celsius". Ahem. The trains have stopped and cars keep skidding off the road. My winter coat was commented upon by a lady at the grocer's earlier today; she seemed jealous of me because it looked "perfect for this kind of weather". Personally, I think it's too warm, but it's all down to what you're used to.

Current track: Marilyn Monroe - My Heart Belongs to Daddy

Labels: humour, personal

I'm sorry, but I may have to sound a little bit condescending right now. The Brits are cute. Really. The main news today is that there has been a snowfall this morning, even reaching six inches in places! The best comment came on the ITV News when they said they were working "day and night to keep the roads open". I'm seriously laughing my head off.

On the other hand, today may be a rollercoaster ride of emotions as I was watching the "Best Eurosong Ever" show earlier and basically had tears in my eyes through most of the show. I'm way too emotional. Early menopause? I'm beginning to wonder... Anyway, the winner (no one beats ABBA) was the right one, and I'm celebrating by playing all their songs in one go (well, those I have, that is). My neighbours may start complaining soon.

I had a very nice yuletide celebration; good food, nice presents (I got both of the Norwegian "family" films Kamilla & Tyven and no one asked me why I wanted them), and I got to see large parts of my family, so I'm very satisfied. It's good to back in London, though. Apparently, I entertained my whole family, especially two of my cousins, with stories about this wretched country, and possibly made them into more of a patriot than they already are.

Telly over there leaves quite a lot to be desired, though, when you are getting used to the (rather annoyingly) enormous supply from the British channels. To think that Christmas used to be my favourite telly time of the year! Of course, back then we didn't even have a VCR, so the films they used to show were awesome (one year they showed Monty Python's The Meaning of Life and I was in heaven). However, they started showing Bleak House, one week after it completed on BBC1, the day before I left, and this is very good news, especially for my parents who are great fans of everything related to BBC drama. "Shake me up, Judy!" Eww...

I have to come back to the Eurosong programme I watched earlier today. I have to comment on the fact that I think the Brits, who are so bloody cynical and think Eurosong is a great laugh and yet compete every year, should look upon Norway as they big heroes. After all, Norway has come last more than any country and that's probably something the Brits should be aiming for, since they always claim to hate the show so much (yet they have become number two 15 times out of 50 and won five times...who's fooling whom? Bad losers, I say. And Terry Wogan, bless him, may have something to do with it.)

Current track: ABBA - Chiquitita (told you I was listening through their songs)

Labels: Christmas, dennis storhøi, film, Monty Python, music, Norway, party, TV

I know, a little bit too early, but I'll be too busy in a few hours' time to even think of updating my blog (especially since I won't be able to log on for a while). So Merry Christmas, everyone, hope you have a good one!

Current track: The Beatles - A Day in the Life

Labels: Christmas, personal

It's difficult not to wish all the worst to people like these.

Current track: Jo Brand singing in Paul O'Grady's panto

Labels: current affairs

I'm starting to panic about Christmas gifts. I have bought only a few and there's lots more to go. I think I have a couple more nailed down but I haven't bought them yet. I keep using my Mastercard, and I hate that. Have no other option, though. Hmm... Must remember to react sooner next year. The thing is, I haven't really got into the Christmas mood these past few years. I've been too busy or stressed out to realise it was creeping up on me. I may decorate the place this year, but I think I'll need some help to even be arsed about it. For me it's all about the telly this year; lots of Christmas specials to be watched and then relax for a bit longer. As if I haven't been relaxing for way too long already.

We went to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire again today, or Harry Otter, as we've now dubbed it, after a well-spotted typo at the local cinema. It's a great film, I must say. Both the second and the third films were rather boring to see twice in a row, and the third one I haven't even been bothered about watching on DVD yet, even though I've had it since its release date, but the fourth one is truly brilliant. I actually had goosebumps and tears in my eyes when the Quidditch arena was revealed. And my favourite Hogwarts teacher (since I read the first book, mind!) is in a very funny study scene, so I'm pleased.

And then Peter Serafinowicz was a guest at this year's final episode of Have I Got News for You (hosted by Joan Collins), which was a nice surprise. I must say it's a bit difficult to be a fan of his when he doesn't appear in much at all. Story of my life as a fan, I'm afraid. Should be used to it by now, though.

This weekend I have been finishing the campaign in Age of Empires III and struggling with the career mode in SWAT 4. So much, in fact, that I eventually ended up playing Civilization IV just to "relax".

I am also currently totally hung up on the song Sleep by Texas. Funny thing, this Texas fascination I have, because I've never been a fan and I still don't consider myself one, and yet I love lots of their songs. It's weird, really.

Current track: Nothing. Not even "Sleep".

Labels: Alan Rickman, Christmas, film, gaming, music, personal, peter serafinowicz, TV

...as you may have realised by now. But when someone at work mistakenly points out that the sentence I have just typed should say "follow up", not "full up", and the rest of the sentence says "until Christmas", I must say I get a bit miffed. Especially when coming from someone whose spelling I've already seen; I don't feel too bad about my English, actually, and it is improving every day. My oral English, however...ay caramba! I usually shut up, really, because I want everything to be perfect before I involve other people. Not going to happen, by the way. Which is really annoying. I will, because of my age, always have an accent. Argh! Anyway, this bloke at work speaks the most outrageously ridiculous Norwegian-accented English which embarrasses me. But he keeps talking to everyone and he's made lots of acquaintances there. I, on the other hand, keeps mumbling and only speak to other if I really, really have to. LOL! His accent is amazing, though. I didn't think anyone from our generation would speak like that, and definitely not if they'd already spent three years in English-speaking countries. (For Norwegians' reference: Think Thor Heyerdahl. See? Bet you Fredrik Skavlan's English sounds like James Bond's to you now!)

I'm going to moan a bit about British banking again. It's crap.

There, I said it. No, but seriously, I don't understand how they get away with it. Probably because the customers don't have anything to compare it with. You have to see my bank's Online banking service - click here. I think I agree with my flatmate when she tried to sum up the level of technology they use for everything over here: 'It's like they had a surge of computer technology when it started popping up in the seventies, and then it just sort of stayed in that decade'. I think it's slightly exaggerated, because they clearly have discovered the Internet and HTML...but only just. This online banking service I'm talking about, for instance -- you can do just about nothing with it. At least nothing compared to what I'm used to. And the security is sort of iffy. They're also making a big deal of the new chip and PIN cards over here now. To be honest with you, I've seen loads of people paying for goods with their credit or debit cards, and not a single person using cheques, so I guess it's the banks that can't keep up. Or it's because I live in a big city where people tend to embrace new things quicker.

OK, moaning over for now.

I just have to mention Space Cadets. Before the ultimate and probably highly nervewracking LIVE episode tonight, I must say that we've been watching the whole show feeling both emotional, happy and guilty. Emotional because we've kind of put ourselves in their shoes when they've gone into 'space', or 'a simulator in Ipswich', as the rest of us have called it, happy because it's been a lot of fun, and guilty because we're actually watching the show. I feel so sorry for them and I have very mixed feelings about seeing the live show tonight, when they're going to reveal the whole hoax. It's been a brilliant idea put to life, though. Very impressive what they've done, and I think it's much more about the crew behind the hoax than the unlucky contestants. I mean, swapping everything in an old US military base with their Russian counterparts just so that they wouldn't realise they were still in England? One of my favourite parts was the flight, though. The plane, I mean, when they flew for three and a half hours, taking lots of large turns and eventually ending up just a short ride away from where they started. And they were all amazed that they were in Russia, and how cold it was ('this must be Russia, it's so cold'), when in fact they were in Suffolk, slightly more south from where they began their trip. Our minds really make us believe the strangest things.

Current track: The Raveonettes - Beat City

Labels: linguistics, personal, technology, TV

I just have to say that I think the new Depeche Mode album is great. I only listen to it when I do the washing up, so I haven't heard the last few songs very much, but the first track is a brilliant start and then it just keeps going. One of the songs really annoy me, though, because when I listen to it using a headset it sounds out of key but on the stereo it sounds fine...ish. The problem is that the first thing I did when I got the CD was to rip it (yeah, so what) and then listen to the album on my headset, so even when I listen to the CD on the sitting room stereo (not that I have more than one stereo, just a 'fancy' way of telling you where it's situated) I can still hear the out of key bits.

Or perhaps my hearing is skewed.

I also learnt today that apparently it's bad luck to walk past someone tying their laces. I'm not sure if it only applies to winter shoe laces and on carpeted stairs, but this guy at work stopped right next to me today as I was in the process of fiddling with my shoes (because I am actually three years old and still don't know how to make knots), saying something in the neighbourhood of 'oh, I don't need any bad luck today', so I said 'is that it...ok, I'll just pretend they're fine and wait till you've gone'. Why on earth would I go out of my way (literally) to accomodate some stranger's superstitious whim?

Also in this edition: Congratulations to Daniel Auteuil on his getting the European Film Award for Best Actor! I'm looking forward to the film. Then again, I'm looking forward to any film of his, because there are lots that I haven't seen, since most French-speaking films aren't released over here. Not with subtitles, anyway, and I have to admit my French lacks something...or most things, to be precise. I think I can say a complete (clean) sentence if it would involve a knife, a hat and a heart. Of course, I wouldn't need to speak the language to understand a film (I mean, I've seen several Danish films without being able to utter much in that language).

Ooh, speaking of which, I heard this Icelandic guy today talking about how Norwegian sounded old-fashioned to them. I almost fell off my chair, because we consider Danish to sound old and Icelandic to sound ancient. I guess it all depends on what you're used to.

Have I mentioned Bleak House yet? Well, it's a great series. The Beeb really knows how to make period dramas. Of course, the Beeb knows how to make most things TV related (including some bad telly as well, let's face it, after more than seventy years in the TV business there's bound to be a few misses, too), but Bleak House has been a real treat these last few weeks. Super talent, modern filming, brilliant script, wonderful costumes, great make-up and then of course Dickens. A must-buy on DVD.

Current track: Cliff Richard & The Young Ones - Living Doll

Labels: award shows, daniel auteuil, film, linguistics, music, personal, TV

Two girls killed by train. One of the girls flew a hundred yards through the air after the impact. That's got to hurt. Poor family and friends.

Current track: Nothing.

Labels: current affairs

So, all you lucky bastards/sad twits who got your hands on an Xbox 360 today -- is it as good as they claim it to be? Or is it even better? I think maybe I'd like to have one, but I won't buy one for at least a year. First of all, the price will drop. Second of all, we all know that there tends to be rather a lot of bugs with the first few firmware versions (some never arrive at an acceptable level). Third of all, many of these games will be available on the PC. And fourth of all, I've kind of set my mind on Nintendo's next offer, actually, especially due to the compatibility with older games, something which is essential to my eclectic taste. The fact that Nintendo works closely with Square Enix, who make what I consider to be exceptionally brilliant role-playing games, sways me rather thoroughly towards that part of the gaming arena during the next year. I know a certain Gamecube game that I would buy the second I had the "Revolution" in my possession.

And I still feel most loyal to the PlayStation, so when their third wonder appears in the shops, I may see some trouble ahead, financially.

I will tell you about the last two film premieres I went to, I'm just trying to find the note on which I wrote the names of those I had seen...

Current track: Barenaked Ladies - Another Postcard

Labels: gaming

And here is another film I'm very much looking forward to. I have been for the past three months, and there are still two months to go. Patience, my friends, is everything.

I don't know what compelled me to suddenly start looking for old friends and acquaintances on the net. The strange and/or wonderful thing is that I could hardly remember any names. The names I did remember quite surprised me. For instance, my old dance partner (he apparently is a lawyer now and was partly educated at Harvard) and a couple of girls from my class in primary school, simply because they shared the same first name.

Hardly anyone I know are mentioned on the web.

Then again, neither am I! *winks*

Current track: Roll Deep - The Avenue

Labels: david strathairn, film, personal

First of all: Yum.

Then, finally, I have my own bank account. The funny thing is that it was "dead easy" (not compared to Norwegian banking, though) once I could actually prove that I have a job. Even a silly temp job like I have now. Well, maybe it's not that silly, and I do really like it, even though I have to get up before anyone notices a new day has begun. It could have helped my situation not to go to the local branch (where they asked me to come back some other day to actually get an appointment -- customer service isn't high on their agenda, apparently), of course, so now I have a completely different branch for the rest of my life...which is kind of stupid, since it's somewhere I'm highly unlikely to go to very often in the future, but who cares.

The funniest thing is that they gave me a lot of cheques. I can't believe they still use cheques here. It's so uncommon where I come from I even had to read the instructions to find out how to write one! The night before I got the cheque book I dreamt I went around writing cheques to everyone I met. Not quite sure if it was supposed to be a nightmare or not.

My personal banker, which she will be known as from now on, spent about 15-20 minutes scrutinising my passport, though, and on several occasions I was getting nervous and thinking maybe they wouldn't let me have a bank account because they didn't know how to tell a real passport from a fake one. After all, I did get the passport straight from my local police station in Oslo, and I don't really think they'd give out fake passports. When she told the verifying bank teller on the other end of the phone that 'it has a white mark that looks like Tippex...' I thought 'great, this is where I get arrested for having a fake passport'. It didn't happen, though. Turned out the "Tippex" was perfectly legit and even quite a sophisticated little piece of security measure.

I'm not going to get a credit card for a while, though (and why do they keep saying "credit card" when they actually mean "credit or debit card"? Confusing people. My biggest problem was when by personal banker ended the session with saying 'well, I don't know how they do banking in Norway...' and I wanted to say 'a lot easier than here, that's for sure, and with something called "modern technology"!' I didn't, though. I thought offending my personal banker before she'd actually sent the application would be fatal for my credit rating. But seriously, Norway is way, WAY ahead on so many levels, the British should feel ashamed of their general snottiness when it comes to "the continent".

OK, so the weekend has arrived and I am planning on doing very little. Perhaps we'll go and see a film or two; I saw the trailer for The Exorcism of Emily Rose today and wanted to see that one (also because it has Tom Wilkinson in it, which I didn't know or had forgotten), and of course we may have to see HP4 again. Bother. ;-)

Current track: Covenant - We Stand Alone

Labels: dreams, film, marton csokas, personal, technology, tom wilkinson