I found the right drawer. And it was actually physical rather than digital – I had to get to the back of the cupboard to find my advent star and there, too, was a sheet of paper tucked away in a folder labelled “Dikt” (i.e. Poems). Reading through it again I find it’s better than I remembered it to be.

We’ve had a bit of a troll on the nmwl pages since yesterday. Well, when I say “a bit of a troll” what I really mean is a troll, but a fairly toothless and not very scary one. It looked like it might get ugly for a while, but then the troll seems to have thought better of it.

In the meantime, the hullaballoo made me go looking for ip-tracing tools and I found this page. Their domain dossier gives me all the information I need and correctly located my ip from home which a few of the others I’ve tried have located as “Sweden” (which is disconcerting. When did we get annexed? Why has no one told me?).

I have no idea who’s the source of this, but I laughed…

It’s Buy Nothing Day today. Oops. Seems I’ve already goofed up on that one. Does second-hand items count?

Voice in my head: Michael Wiehe – Vi låter oss inte besegra

A materialistic Friday Five:

1. Do you like to shop? Why or why not?
It depends fom what and when. I hate shopping for clothes, especially if I really need to find something (and especially trousers). I can spend hours (days, weeks) browsing in (second-hand) bookshops, though. I don’t like crowds and waiting, so the more busy a shop is the less likely am I to enjoy the experience. But, yes, if I can chose when and where to go shopping, I do like to shop…

2. What was the last thing you purchased?
LotR Two Towers extended edition with Gollum figurine and two cds on sale at Platekompaniet yesterday. Or, if you’re counting online shopping: The Anatomy of Bilbliomania by Holbrook Jackson – ordered through ABEBooks this morning.

3. Do you prefer shopping online or at an actual store? Why?
I prefer an actual store as long as it’s not too crowded. I shop a lot online, though, because a lot of what I want to buy is not that easy to get hold of in Oslo. A quick search online saves a lot of time and energy when you know exactly what you want. I tend to do my browsing-resulting-in-purchase in actual shops, and I don’t buy clothes/shoes online as I really need to try them on first.

4. Did you get an allowance as a child? How much was it?
Various amounts at various times. For years I got 10 kroner on Saturdays to buy sweets. Then, when I was 14 or so, my mother figured she’d teach me how to budget by giving me 500 kroner a month from which I was supposed to get my own clothes in addition to “fun” things. Which is when I developed my habit of buying clothes, especially expensive items like coats, in charity shops – leaving the rest of the money for more important things. Like books.

5. What was the last thing you regret purchasing?
Hm. Nothing very recent. I suppose I regret the couple of whisky bottles that I couldn’t carry back from Scotland and which were lost in the mail (grrrr) – but I don’t regret purchasing them so much as mailing them…

It’s past eleven! Gah!

I should have been in bed ages ago, getting my beauty sleep in preparation for tomorrow night. Right. Well, too late now.

Pity there’s so much to do, really. Got hold of the extended Two Towers (with Gollum figurine, obviously) today and what I really want to do is watch FotR extended and then TT. Since it’s already late, I might as well. I should be just about done by the time I need to leave for work in the morning.

On second thought, maybe not. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Seriously, though, I feel a marathon coming up. And it’s got to be soon, we’ve got tickets for RotK for the 20th (*jumps up and down with exitement*).

Ok, bedtime. Now.

In light of the “new” guidelines from Datatilsynet on publishing on the web, I thought I’d have another look at what I’ve actually got up here. To start with I’ve made a change to the gallery which I’ve never gotten around to implementing before – you now have to register if you want to see the pictures in anything larger than thumbnail size. Not much of an improvement in terms of publishing pictures without having asked permission first, but I like it because I like knowing who visits the site in any case.

In order to do this I have had to modify a couple of settings and add a “coppermine approved” hack or two, so I may have messed something up. So if any of you regulars can be bothered, would you please register, have a snoop around and let me know if you come across anything funny (apart from what you see in the pictures, obviously)?

I’d quite like to add a “admin must approve” to the registration process, too, but it’s not a feature of the Coppermine software and is a rather more seriously involved hack, so it might not happen any time soon.

Voice in my head: whasernames – Felice Navidad mixed with Volare

I have my ball gown out. In fact, it’s occupying much of the couch at the moment (all those tulle skirts makes it kind of bulky). Of course, I’m now trying to get the bits fixed that didn’t quite work – or weren’t quite finished – when I last wore it at J’s wedding. And the ball is tomorrow night, so I have to get on with it tonight, really. So why didn’t I fix it immediately after the wedding? Or maybe start a few weeks ago? Well, I’d have had to relinquish my crown as the Queen of Procrastination, wouldn’t I?

So. You’re probably all thinking “What ball?”, aren’t you? The St. Andrew’s Ball, naturally, organised by the Oslo Scottish Country Dance Group and the Caledonian Society. I have mentioned the dancing before, haven’t I? Well, whatever. M and I started going to the dancing Monday nights and it’s great fun. So tomorrow night I get to wear my ball gown, sit down to a three course dinner and dance the night away. And probably pass out from lack of air, as the gown is pretty tightly laced around my chest so that breathing properly is a bit difficult.

I tried the gown some time last week, getting L to check the length (it was really too short last time, but then I was wearing high heels – this time I’ll be in dancing shoes, and so it’s perfect. I suspect I checked the length barefeeted when sewing it) and it really makes me feel like a princess. I ought to have a tiara. Nevermind. I’ll make do with necklace and bracelet fashioned with my newly aquired (or is it discovered?) make-your-own-jewelry-from-pearls-and-wire skills.

And I will try to manage to get a picture this time. At J’s wedding I ended up with loads of pictures, but I wasn’t in a single one of them.

…for the Thursday Three, obviously. But then, I didn’t do last week’s, so I’ll do that instead…

1. Name three things you couldn’t live without?
Apart from oxygen and nourishment? Well, three things I’d be loathe to have to live without… Let’s see… Literature, music, and, well, M, obviously.

2. If you had to choose one of those things what would it be?
Chose one to live without? M. (Sorry, dear. Whereas I can’t imagine a life without literature or music I still remember having a life before I met you – though the memory seems to be fading. Give me a few years – actually, 50 or so would be nice – to get properly addicted and I might answer differently.)

3. Name three things you could live without?
As in things I like, but could do without I suppose? (No point in listing things like mosquitoes, is there?) Television (have done before). Chocolate (though I’d prefer not to have to). Alchohol (ditto).

Voice in my head: Sophie Ellis Bextor – Music gets the Best of Me