Ok, so “true or false” and “truth or dare” isn’t quite the same thing. Nevermind.

1. I often wake up before my alarm clock goes off.
False. I don’t often wake up before the alarm goes off. It happens, though.

2. I love to drive; in any kind of weather!
False. I hate driving. Which is why I can’t (seeing as I don’t have a license). I love riding in cars, though – and yes, in any kind of weather as long as the driver is comfortable.

3. I’d rather have to worry about staying warm than staying cool.
True. Ish. I don’t take too well to really high temperatures, mainly because I tend to have problems sleeping. On the other hand I’m not exactly thrilled at the current Well-Below-Zero-Degrees-Centigrade temperatures we’re having at the moment, but I guess I do prefer it to +20 at night (at least as long as I live in a place with no possibility of a proper airing out).

4. I wish I lived in another state.
False. I’m quite happy living in Oslo at the moment. I wish Scotland were nearer Oslo, but I don’t feel like moving just now.

5. Multi-tasking is what I do best!
True. Insofar as that I rarely do just one thing at a time.

6. Flying is the only way to go!
False. I like flying but I also like cars, trains and boats. You might conclude I like travelling…

7. Budgeting my money is one of my downfalls.
True. Though shouldn’t that be “Not budgeting…” because surely that’s the problem?

8. I wish there was 8 days in the week!
True. Provided the 8th day was part of the weekend and not the working week. I could do with more weekends.

9. I get at least 7 hours of sleep a night.
False. I try to get at least 7 hours of sleep a night, but I am rarely successful. If I have at least 6 I can function, anything less than that tends to affect my ability to think.

10. I’m a night owl.
False. I would be if I didn’t have to get up for work every morning – I have to stick to something like a regular rhythm or I won’t get to sleep at all. My natural inclination is to stay up fairly late and sleep in, though.

Well. Not really. Quite the opposite, in fact.

But despite having no time to spare, really, I am playing with the possibilities for actual content – in addition to the gallery – over at sandlund.no. What I’m planning at the moment is to use Moveable Type to publish notes relating to the ingestible pleasures of life. There will be tasting notes for whisky – and for champagne, calvados, cognac and even chocolate. There will be descriptions of pubs, cafés and restaurants “all over the world” (read: the places I visit). There will be reports of occasions where food and drink were consumed. There will be recipes. There will be links to other sites of interest.

And all, naturally, internally and externally linked appropriately (and on occasion eccentrically) through the wonderful medium of hypertext.

I say will be. At the moment the basic file structure is in place and I’ve created the appropriate blogs in MT. I have exported and imported the recipes I have already collected. I also have a vague idea of what I want the site to look like. Now all I need to do is sit down and create the actual design, using css and web standards to the best of my ability, and then fill the “blogs” with content.

Oh, and think of a name. That’s the difficult part, of course. “The Good Life”? Descriptive, perhaps, but bland. My creativity has called in sick. Honour and… – well, honour anyway – to whoever comes up with a good suggestion.

A friend in the states just sendt me this:

Verne might be right – at least if we are to judge from how deliriously happy I’ve been lately.

Voices on the stereo: Ten Feet of the Ground

Yay! Friday! Friday Five!

1. What does it say in the signature line of your emails?

—
‘Outside of a dog a book is a man’s best friend.
Inside a dog it’s too dark to read.’
— Groucho Marx
http://www.sandlund.net

2. Did you have a senior quote in your high school yearbook? What was it? If you haven’t graduated yet, what would you like your quote to be?
Well, we don’t have yearbooks in Norway. Nor are we ever seniors in high school, really. But we do have these cards – like business cards – that are exchanged when we’re finishing college (or whatever), and my quote on that was “En sunn sjel trives i ethvert legeme” (A healthy soul thrives in any body).

3. If you had vanity plates on your car, what would they read? If you already have them, what do they say?
Bibliophile. If I could get that to fit. Something to do with books, anyway. Not that I’m ever going to have vanity plates (or, indeed, a car).

4. Have you received any gifts with messages engraved upon them? What did the inscription say?
Not as far as I can remember. I was given a glass with my name engraved on it once, but that’s all.

5. What would you like your epitaph to be?
A long way away.

Masses of anti-Bush bumber stickers. I like this one:

I wonder if this might be the original source of that other list, too, but Ine linked to the iMDb top 250 film list, and you know I can’t resist…
Read More

The typical Internet user — far from being a geek — shuns television and actively socializes with friends, a study on surfing habits said on Wednesday.

Well, we all knew that, obviously, but it’s nice to have it “proven” in any case.

the typical Internet user is an avid reader of books and spends more time engaged in social activities than the non-user

As reported by CNN, via Melissa.

Not that I mind being called a geek, mind.

Why the f%?# did they bother to save this guy? The 22 year-old apparently jumped into the lion’s enclosure in the Buenos Aires zoo on Saturday, and only sustained light injuries as the keepers managed to hit the lion with a tranquilizer gun.

But why? Oh, I get it. There must have been a “Do not feed the animals” sign.

Worth a try, this week it’s fill in the blanks:

1. When I sing, I sound like a person who can’t really.
2. April is my favorite month of the year.
3. I’ve always wanted to improve my writing skills.
4. It’s Monday morning, and the first thing that goes through my mind is I wish it were Sunday. Or, even better, Friday.
5. My favorite day of the week is Friday because there’s a whole long weekend ahead.
6. I used to/currently collect books
7. At the end of a work day/school day, the first thing I want to do is strip. The first thing I do when I get home is strip. No, really. It’s usually followed by putting on a t-shirt and pyjama-bottoms, but this depends on the temperature and whether I have company or not.
8. I really look forward to Christmas because it’s my favorite holiday. (Well, Christmas is my favourite holiday, but at the moment I’m really looking forward to Easter – Christmas seems a long way away.)
9. When I need some down-time, I usually lie flat out on the couch with a good book.
10. I plan to travel to most places in the world someday. Ok, for the sake of the argument; the far East.

Obviously.

I found another meme, monthly this time, which might be interesting in so far as it’s been a long time since I wrote any poetry. It’s called Poetic Voices and this month’s challenge is to write a grossblank. I shall have a go, I think, but got a bit hung up on the definition of the grossblank – as written by the “inventor” and quoted on Poetic Voices:

It’s very simple: 12 lines of 12 syllables each, iambic pentameter, unrhymed, any format.

“Iambic pentameter”, of course, comes tripping off the tongue if you’ve been working with the sonnet form, but that’s not really an excuse – “penta” means “five”, “iambic” feet are two syllables long (short-long) “iambic pentameter” is therefore 2×5=10 syllables. It’s pretty basic. The form’s inventor, to give him credit, gets it right in the first attempt at the top of the page (“It’s blank verse, but with 12 syllables per line instead of ten. Twelve lines, iambic meter, unrhymed, any format” – my emphasis), the description I quote is obviously a typo, but why does Poetic Voices blithely quote it?

This little rant was brought to you by Little Voices™. Don’t mind me.