The Golden Compass

The Golden Compass (imdb link) - now here's a movie I can't wait to watch!

My sister just reminded me it's coming out soon, I watched a trailer some months ago and decided it was a "must see". Can't wait!
:-)

Official website: www.goldencompassmovie.com
Why not take the test and find out which your daemon will be?

They're still there

I didn't imagine them, they're still there, the miniature road signs. :-) I spotted them again when I dropped off dad at the airport yesterday. They're really tiny but there. On the side of the motorway, not far from where we live. I didn't have the camera with me. I will have to remember to bring it next time I head that way... :-)

King Arthur

I watched "King Arthur" (imdb link) while feeding our son the other day. I recorded it off the TV the night before and gosh, am I glad I did!

What a good movie! I swear, this is what I have been waiting for with this story - none of that emotional f*ked up stuff that's so present in so many other versions of this story. The characters in this film were all rather simple, straight and naturally - heroic.

Me like.

The film makes out to be a "true" version of the legendary story, where Arthur, the knights and Guinevere are heroic and "clean cut" characters who do what they can to defend their homeland from the dreaded invading Saxons. Even Merlin is de-dramatised, there is no magic present in the entire movie, which could've been a let down for a fantasy buff like me but instead it turns out to be the opposite! :-)
It's beautiful, with just enough violence and justified anger to satisfy. And off course I got to giggle a bit at the Saxon war cry "slakta fienden!" (slaughter the enemy), in broken Swedish. Stellan Skarsgård plays the Saxon war chief.

Again, it won't make it to history as a "one of a kind" type of film, but I really enjoyed it for it's honesty and for the fact that they hadn't spared any bucks on the props. So it's a well made, good looking adventure movie.

	Clive Owen	...	Arthur
	Ioan Gruffudd	...	Lancelot
	Mads Mikkelsen	...	Tristan
	Joel Edgerton	...	Gawain
	Hugh Dancy	...	Galahad
	Ray Stevenson	...	Dagonet
	Keira Knightley	...	Guinevere
	Stephen Dillane	...	Merlin
	Stellan Skarsgård	...	Cerdic
	Til Schweiger	...	Cynric

Go watch :-)

Ding 62!

:-)

Couldn't help myself, had to slay a few burning legion orcs with my undead warrior to reach that infamous ding... Have since spent a while running round the place, finding new flight points in Outland (Shattrath City, Swamprat Post and Falcon Watch). All exciting stuff.

Now I have to go find a warrior trainer to learn some new skills for this level.

Blades of Glory

"Blades of Glory" (imdb link) kept us entertained tonight. Much more so than I expected. :-)

I have a feeling that any movie with Will Ferrell is a bit over the top in every aspect, but in this case it worked. It's fun, reminding me of "Dodgeball" but with less heart.

Two male superstar figure skaters get in a cat-fight at a price ceremony and get banned from ever competing in figure skating again. They resolve it by using a loop hole in the rules allowing them to skate as a couple (Go gay and lesbian rights! :-D Why don't we see more of this in real figure skating?).

It's no true 'underdog' rather film, more a bundled up goof show, with some style. I still have issues with Jon Heder's jaw/tooth combination - but never the less, it all worked for me.

Lamb roast

1.200 kg roast, rubbed carefully in "Himalaya Kangaroo Salt" (he he, funny name, I know, contains mixed herbs and spices with salt, with a certain tang of lime) and rosemary, braised in iron pan with butter and garlic. Add 5 dl water and roast in the oven with a cut up yellow onion until 65 degrees (center temp), regularly ladle the water/gravy over the roast during the hour or so it takes to roast. Add a couple of grams of butter (50-100 g) to the pot before removing the roast from the oven, to make a delicious base for a sauce. Potatoes roasted with olive oil until surface crispy and golden. Pumpkin, sweet potato and carrots roasted with (a tiny bit of) olive oil and salt in oven until soft.

Served with salad and preferably a nice red wine but hey, no wine for me, so we had water and cordial with our meal instead. Thank you mum and S for keeping off the red stuff for me! ;-)

Yum.

Christmas time has begun...

:-)

Mum helped us get the Christmas curtains ready and hung in the kitchen, yay! The livingroom has to settle for a summer/winter change, no need for Christmas curtains in there I reckon. The kitchen now also has two sets of curtains to change between, Christmas and "the rest of the year".

It's so nice to not have to think about at least that part of everything, making and hanging curtains. Now all I need to do is sprinkle the place with ornaments of all shapes and colours and get the place as Christmassy as possible come the first of December. :-)
I'm actually really looking forward to it, it's our first Christmas in our own house. :-)

Miniature road signs

I was driving back from the airport after dropping off mum who's been visiting for the week when I noticed small, miniature road signs on the side of the road.
On poles, round, exact copies of the regular ones, only much smaller and a little bit closer together than usual. First a small round one saying "110", then one saying "Roadwork" with a small warning light on top, then one saying "30" then lastly another one saying "110".

Rather cute.

But what do they mean?

Is it just somebody practicing to place the regular sign posts out? Or is it signs for really small roadworks? Or signs for really small road workers? Or, signs for really small traffic on the side of the road? :-)
I have no clue. They were cute none the less. Had I had a camera on standby when passing them I would've captured some form of picture proof for fun. :-)

The Good Girl

Mum and I watched "The Good Girl" tonight (imdb link), with Jennifer Aniston, John C Reilly and Jake Gyllenhaal. I want to specially also mention Zooey Deschanel who spiced up every single part of the movie she was in. :-) She and possibly a few others of the supporting acts did a terrific job and without them the film would not have kept me watching it through to the end.

[SPOILER follows]
A dreary dreadful story about a woman who lacks every ounce of energy to do something about her life (which we are made to understand she doesn't like) and has a husband who's taking drugs every day after work. She escapes reality in the arms of a teenager (he comes across like one) who has some serious mental issues and the maturity level of a pubertal (egotistic) seventeen year old. She tries to avoid exposure by having sex with her husband's best friend (good thinking there) and ends up pregnant (by either of the two non-husbands), married to the same man and even more miserable, with a dead lover and a weirded out husband's best friend and all her colleagues knowing all about her messed up life.
Totally depressive.

If you have other movies to watch, or something more meaningful to do - don't bother watching this one.

But then again, watch it - if you want to know why it's never a good idea to have an affair. I like the fact that her new boy-lover is totally insane and it's made quite clear he's never going to make her life better in any way. Only she can do that, but the movie's not about that.
Blech! I don't even know what the movie is supposed to be about. Perhaps nothing more than what meets the eye?

Superbad

We also watched the movie "Superbad" yesterday (imdb link), an entirely different film on an ENTIRELY different theme than "The Man from Earth" (albeit almost as timeless...). :-D

Good fun, though at times a bit much. But it had heart and a lot of good laughs so it was worth watching. It could possibly be embarrassing at times, but I'm old enough to not find these things embarrassing any longer... ;-)

Good acting all around by the five young actors, and I suppose good acting by the ones (just a few years older) playing the two policemen (Seth Rogen and Bill Hader, also in "Knocked up") but I can't help feeling that I would've enjoyed the movie just as much even if that bit wasn't in there. The cops felt like an addition poured into the script just for a laugh and a chance at some more dorky slapstick humor. But then again, it kept the story rolling (screeching tires!), so it was not too out of place.

The language was rather rough, even for a hardened Swede. But the story's rather sweet. :-)
I do recommend watching it for laughs and bitter sweet memories of our teens (although I think you have to be American to have ever had to live through the particulars of this story). :-)

The Man from Earth

We watched "The man from earth" yesterday (imdb link), a low budget, dialog based movie with a brilliant storyline.

An "Upper Paleolithic" man has by a freak of nature survived until modern times. The story touches on what he would've seen and learned etc.

From imdb: "An impromptu goodbye party for Professor John Oldman becomes a mysterious interrogation after the retiring scholar reveals to his colleagues he is an immortal who has walked the earth for 14,000 years. Acclaimed Sci-Fi writer Jerome Bixby conceived this story back in the early 1960's. It would come to be his last great work, finally completing it on his deathbed in April of 1998."

I really like the story. 14 000 years is a long time, a lot of things have happened... It's a shame it was such a low budget production with rather poor acting work by some (some more than others) and to make things worse the sound was quite bad in the copy we watched, but it was still worth watching! :-)

The theme brought my thoughts to the film K-Pax, which had a few more dollars poured into it, but has the same base structure. :-)

Go watch.

Two bubbles from 62

Incredibly enough (to me) I got to play the undead warrior some this weekend, it was fun for a change. Have not spent that much time on her lately. It's a different technique to playing a hunter to be sure. But quite doable even with one hand (other hand holding baby in place at breast). :-)

Good fun, I am less scared by the mobs roaming around Outlands now, than I was last time I played that character. :-D There are some pretty fierce helboars there... (you should see them running after you when you accidentally start an aggro-train going to or from someplace!). :-D

Lone shark, loan shark...

A rather tired Sunday morning got my mind slipping and me giggling when reading an article about a lone shark attacking surfers and kayakers in Byron Bay, Australia (Sydney Morning Herald). I tell ya, don't borrow money from loan sharks in Australia, they'll come and knock you off your surf board and bite your ankle... 8-D

Picture test

I found this test in a blog called "www.eidenberg.se" (Swedish) and it can be traced back to a Mats Strandberg. Both of these fine people would like you to link back to them with your result if you do the test. :-) I wouldn't mind a link to your results in my comments either! ;-)
RULES: Please answer the 12 questions, not in words but perform a picture search at Google for your answer. Use the FIRST useful image it finds. Use it as "answer".

1. Which year were you born?
   
2. How do you define your sexual orientation?
   
3. Which is your best quality as a lover?
   
4. Which is your worst quality as a lover?
5. What do you look for in a partner?
6. Who was your first secret childhood crush (first name)?
   
7. Which profession is the sexiest in your opinion?
   
   
8. Which famous person is the hottest?
   
   
9. What turns you off?
   
   
10. Who did you have your first real relationship with (first name)?
    
11. Which body part, except the mouth, do you like to kiss the most on a partner?
    
    
12. On-screen lovers (movie or TV) that you like?
    

Test your randomness

http://randomness.redirectme.net/?

Just enogh fun for a slow Saturday morn... :-)

It snowed again last night, yay! :-) It was a real blizzard and today everything is white. :-) The sun is shining and it is a lovely day. :-)

Last link for the night

How neat is this blog: http://godisbloggen.se/ (in Swedish)
A blog dedicated to candy. :-D

JellyBelly recipes

Official recipe page

...and it's not difficult to make out that I am suffering from the pre-stages of candy withdrawal symptoms... X-)

Found more JellyBelly hotspots

• Fest i stan (funny name for a shop, then again it seemed like a fairly odd shop) at Bondegatan 5a, Stockholm.

• "Daglivs Vi" (regular grocery shop) at Fridhemsplan, Stockholm.

• Gray's American Stores, which unfortunately shut shop and moved away from Gamla Stan (Stockholm), so I don't quite know where to find them any more. Their webpage states somewhere by the water quite far outside the city center.

Success!

There is one listed distributor of JellyBellys in Sweden:
Thingamajig AB at Regeringsgatan 88 in Stockholm. Guess where I'm going shopping on the first of January?? :-D

JellyBellys

I just finished the last of the JellyBelly jelly beans we bought in Edinburgh. :-( BOHOOO!
I have been saving them (actually mostly forgot them in the kitchen cupboard, but hey, it worked), and thought I'd have them as company this fine evening (S is downstairs playing Civilization with the boys).

I just can't believe I haven't stumbled on these beans anywhere in Sweden! They must be the best tasting candy in the world! :-D It's almost impossible to pick a favorite, but the one on the picture above is a candidate "lemon lime". Toasted marshmallow and top banana are also quite delicious. The weirdest thing with these beans is that they taste so much. They taste what they're supposed to and claim to taste, like "buttered popcorn" for instance. Real yucky but still, it tastes exactly that! :-D I get a definite "Harry Potter" feeling when eating JellyBellys, thinking of "Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans" except these ones all taste OK... :-D The only thing I have tasted that comes even remotely close to these beans are the Norwegian "seigmen" S introduced, they too have a very rich and pleasant taste.

JellyBelly official webpage

Official 50 flavor guide

I must make that my mission, to find a reseller of JellyBellys in Sweden, preferably in Stockholm. :-)

...and this idea rhymes SO badly with the fact that S and I agreed we'd have no more candy before Christmas! X-)

Oldest blogger? :-)

How cool isn't this blog? :-)


A mis 95 años / 95 years old blogger
(http://amis95.blogspot.com/)

Unfortunately my Spanish isn't good enough to read the Spanish bits (which would include the blog in its entirety, heh). But the whole phenomena of a lady of that generation getting online and starting to blog is just fantastic.

I once exchanged letters with my nan for a short while, I imagine this must be something as cool as that. To get to know the person behind the "grandmother". :-)

Newspaper article (in Swedish): http://www.dn.se/DNet/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=148&a=712895

And I have a crying baby boy to pay attention to NOW. Must run!

LOTR in WoW speak

Nice description http://www.boingboing.net/2005/10/17/lotrworld-of-warcraf.html

Incredibly funny if you're that way inclined...

Screenshots from the new patch

The patch is due next Wednesday. I can't help it, but I really like the art of Warcraft. It's childish, but oh so fantasy-fantastic. It attracts the fairy tale side of my imagination, like a really well drawn cartoon. :-)

Ding 44!

Believe it or not, an entire morning of Warcraft have passed. :-) The dranei hunter got to run around Feralas, Feathermoon Stronghold and finished off the remaining bubbles to level 44. Need to get to Darnassus to get some training for this new level. :-)

Don't know if I am to thank S, who is spending his final few "new father's days" at home today and tomorrow for this, or if it was just a matter of a lucky coincidence where our son actually slept nice and quiet two hours after his morning meal. Either way, I am happy.

The son is down again, after two hours of feeding and less than happy awake time (belly-ache I believe). So now it's time for me to have some lunch, and maybe some more Warcraft as dessert. :-)

Crazy recruitment site

My god, I thought I had seen it all... :-D
I received an emailed job ad, from a recruitment agency I regularly receive emailed job ads from - "Child loving house maid". I say WAT!?? :-D Have they gone mad???

I'm pretty sure my profile says "IT Manager" in various different ways.
X-)

Fantastic photos!

Australian Weather Calendar 2008

The Bureau of Meteorology's not-for-profit calendar.

Addicted

How do you know if you do 'too much' of anything?

I turned on the telly just now and caught the tail end of a program discussing addictive behavior, addiction to online poker/games in particular. Apart from the program host there was a mother of a teenage online poker addict who tragically committed suicide, an ex-poker addict and an ex-warcraft addict. They spoke about the importance of laying down rules, limiting the time allowance for games early on.
That's all well and fine (albeit not an easy task) for children and young teenagers. But what about people my age?

We play warcraft a lot. I mean, really a lot. But the times I've recognised that it's too much are very very few. Even when we've prioritised gaming before food. But still. How do you tell, yourself? Someone else could probably look at my gaming habits and tell me whether it's too much or not, but I am unable to.

It may be easier to tell if it were online poker you were addicted to. At least because of the financial impact it would have. But I suppose the core of any addiction is denial. So it wouldn't be obvious to you even if you didn't have enough money left to pay your bills.
Are all addictions bad for you?

Things are QUITE different now though, with the marvel of a newborn son making us giddy with all sorts emotions and completely engulfed in all the parental fun he offers. Not to mention too tired to turn on the computer some evenings.
8-)

I'll have to keep an eye out and monitor my gaming habits, just to see if I can spot an addiction if it's there.

Anyways, after just having spent well over an hour, with tears flowing, reading the page dedicated to the memory of the boy who committed suicide I must link to it:
http://www.christiansellergren.se/text1_1.html
They think the debts and the state his life had turned into after playing too much poker online contributed to his decision to end his life. But as with anything as horrible as this, it's impossible to know for sure.
:-(

Grill is gone! :-(

I read in the newspaper this morning that one of my favorite restaurants has been burned down last night. It is simply terrible. :-( I still dream about the absolutely delicious meal I had there, and the fabulous decor, the ambiance... Darnit!
I hope they rebuild it in time for me to come out and have dinner there again (in a year or so).

Here's where I posted about the food there: http://teapotsbrewing.blogspot.com/2006/12/grill-wow.html
Newspaper link (DN): http://www.dn.se/DNet/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=1298&a=712414

First snow!

Almost forgot, we got the first snow this weekend - yay! :-)

Information spread

First linked to by S, then someone at work passed it around the office, a few weeks later I received the link in an email from an Australian buddy and now finally a month or so later the link is written about in my favorite daily newspaper. :-D

Amazing and amusing how these things spread around the internet.

DN's article: http://www.dn.se/DNet/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=1058&a=712276
The original YouTube link: http://youtube.com/watch?v=vhi5F3_cPj0
What was it all about? Well... the lady who threw up on live television. 8-)

Now all I need is an email from dad with the same link, he's generally at the tail end of anything funny that circulates the internet, bless him. :-D