Recently, in a galaxy far too close for comfort

The average child count per Norwegian couple is 1,7.

The average child count per drug addict Norwegian couple ("couple" obviously not meaning "this one guy and this one girl") is 3,8.

3,8!

In other words, drug addicts, who are not in any way capable of taking care of children, breed like rabbits on caffeine.

Drug addicts are naturally not good at contraception. They have better things to spend their money on than condoms and non-narcotic pills, and they're not very good at remembering to take the pill every day anyway. Still, that they're addicts doesn't mean they completely lose natural urges, or that they don't fall in love, so of course they have sex.

No contraception means lots of children.

Lots of children without parents able and willing to take care of them. Lots of children in foster homes. Lots of children with various physical damage caused by the mother's drug abuse during the pregnancy. Lots of children with various mental damage thanks to being taken away from and given back to addict parents as their addiction waxes and wanes.


I'm sufficiently nazi to think it's a brilliant idea to force contraceptive implants on addicted women. I see absolutely no reason why they should be allowed to procreate until they've managed to stay clean for, say, five years. Drag them in from the street and chuck in the implants, rid society of a huge problem and drastically reduce the amount of children with no-good parents.


And don't try to argue that drug addicts can get well. That's pure fiction in 99 % of the cases. Don't go get a baby with an addicted guy and imagine you can "change him" and make him a good father. You can't, and you'll be a single mum. Don't even try to tell me that addiction is a disease. Hell yes, it is, it's pretty much incurable, but why the fuck should we let the patients breed?


So, what brought this on?

The fact that a woman I used to know recently went back to the drugs after a few years off, gave up her kid to a foster home, and now she's pregnant again. Way to fucking go, bint.

Last night, there was so much noise outside it was impossible to sleep.

Now, if I had already fallen asleep by the time the manner-challenged started their nachspiels, chances are I wouldn't have woken up. As it happens, I hadn't. I don't know what time it was when I finally caved and stuffed my ears full of dubious matter. As in natural wax ear plugs. Probably after five in the morning.

What I do know, is that I got far too little sleep, and what I got came post-plugging. I managed a bit more this afternoon, but there was no way I could go to the beach as planned. Too bad headache, too much risk of falling dead asleep in the sun.

I think the worst of the noise came from the house on the corner on our street, making it impossible to bang on the wall in order to make it known that the party sounds are not appreciated. We were not up to getting dressed and going out to yell at drunken people in the middle of the night (or early in the morning, as it were). The sad part is that they played bloody good music, but there are situations where I'm more in favour of listening to Violent Femmes and Johnny Cash.

What minuscule fragments of good will I had melted away like ice cubes in a towering inferno when they put on Coldplay.

Furthermore, people passing on the street seemed angrier than usual. Could be the heat winding them up. They were yelling and cursing, glass was broken, and I was jolted out of my near-sleep over and over again by what sounded like not-so-harmless fisticuffs.

I don't mind a bit of noise. I wouldn't have been able to live in a big city if I did. What I do mind is aggravated, drunk, unpredictable people. I also mind a whole fucking lot people who seem oblivious of the fact that their neighbours live closer than fifteen kilometres.

As I type, some fuckers are apparently warming up to tonight's revels. This lot doesn't even have a semblance of taste in music. Ack.

They've switched to Dumdum Boys. I feel marginally better.


ETA: Is that a Crazy Frog version of We Are The Champions I hear?! Oh for crying out fucking loud, these wankers don't deserve to live! Not to mention that Dumdum Boys don't deserve listeners like this!

Regent's Park, February 3rd 2006 Demonstration against Jyllandsposten cartoons. Photo: EPA

"Freedom of expression go to hell"?!

Stupidity reaches new heights here. The fine specimen of idiot who's carrying that slogan, is demonstrating in Regent's Park, London. He should think long and hard about how it's only due to fucking freedom of expression he's allowed to be where he is, doing what he's doing.

As to the rest of the whole sorry cartoon mess, cheers to Muslims who don't attack other countries' territory (yeah, I'm still pissed off about the Norwegian embassy in Syria), who don't whip themselves with metal chains in order to reach an endomorphine frenzy, who don't peddle hate (still pissed off at the Danish imams too, who conveniently added some pictures to the report they were handing out about the Jyllandsposten cartoons) and who try their damndest to calm things down again. Tip o'the hat to the Palestinian organisations in Norway, who urge their members to raise the Norwegian flag outside their houses this weekend, to show that they too are Norwegians and are appalled by the actions of their moronic brothers-in-faith.

And exactly how am I supposed to attend a festival whilst being this ridiculously ill?

Granted, I don't have to hit the loo every ten minutes anymore, and I haven't been feverish since Sunday, and the absolutely consuming pain is gone, but my energy level hasn't been this low since the infamous Three Week Flu episode in 1994.

I'll just sit around near selected stages, trying to catch at least some of the bands I wanted to see. Thank all possible gods that Thursday will be easy, I'll leave the park after seeing Dinosaur Jr. I will certainly not stick around to see bloody Turbonegro, unless I'm extremely well paid to do so. Rubbish.

But there will be no seeing Flying Edward at Parkteatret for me tonight, I'm afraid. I might manage to hobble two blocks to Verkstedet and see The Vineyards. Maybe.


And I absofuckinglutely have to see that Alexander Hacke film at Øyakino.

I watched a truly disturbing documentary on TV yesterday. Actually, bf was zapping (argh) and all of a sudden I found myself staring at one incredibly inbred American wearing enormous spectacles and a Confederate flag bandana, stating that he wasn't as dumb as everybody thinks.

Hooked. Went slightly ballistic when bf tried to zap on. Exit bf. Very little blinking going on for quite a while.

Allow me to quote IMDb: In 1995 Director Steve James (Hoop Dreams) returned to rural Southern Illinois to reconnect with Stevie Fielding, a troubled young boy he had been an 'Advocate Big Brother' to ten years earlier. He began a film, a search, to discover not only what had happened to Stevie over the past ten years but to understand the forces that had shaped his entire life. Part way through the filming, Stevie is arrested and charged with a serious crime that tears his family apart. What was to be a modest profile turns into a intimate four and half year chronicle of Stevie, his broken family, the criminal justice system and the filmmaker himself, as they all struggle with what Stevie has done and who he has become.

The film "Stevie" features retarded (for real) girlfriend, bible-toting abusive mother, bottle blonde sister, possibly retarded friend of girlfriend, plenty references to violence and sexual abuse, Aryan Brotherhood and of course Stevie himself, the epitome of all that is wrong with mankind - from American cover versions of the Macarena (*shudder*) to badly veiled hints of taking someone with him when going down for his crime.

He raped an 8 year old girl, by the way.

Everybody knew that he did it. His girlfriend knew. His family knew. His so-called friends knew. Although some of them attempted to make themselves believe him innocent until proven guilty, they all knew.

When the film ended I was near vomiting. I have rarely seen such a frightening display of all that is wrong in this world - where a boy is abused, sexually and otherwise, and continues the pattern when growing up himself. It was damn troubling.

But I was absolutely unable to feel sympathy with this guy. I can't bring myself to think that such a vile being is not a waste of space. I don't care if he's had a tragic childhood, I can see nothing good in someone who almost never washes, can't do a day's work without getting in trouble, can't treat anyone civilly, is ignorant and violent. White trash.

So what I learned, or rather had confirmed, is that I'm an elitist bitch. I see no reason for beings such as Stevie Fielding to exist. I accept that a history of being treated badly can explain his antisocial behaviour, but I fail to see that his childhood can excuse it.

And this was a very good documentary, I think, because it didn't ask for sympathy. No excuses, no attempts at excusing Stevie's crime or the director's sense of failure in his relationship to Stevie. At one point, James actually asks the local AB leader for help when Stevie is going to prison, which goes to show that James certainly isn't afraid to show his own weakness as well as his subject's.


Still, I feel guilty for being an elitist. And I get angry for feeling guilty for being an elitist.

Mercy is not a sentiment I know particularly well, except on principle.

Today I went to buy a suitcase.

Sounds very mundane and uncomplicated, right? Think again.

The shop girl gently led me away from the not so robust steel-frame-and-textile thingies I was sceptically peering at and pointed me in the direction of a dull grey plastic suitcase. It was tremendously ugly. Still, it seemed resistant to Romanian airport handling and other misfortunes that might befall it, it had several nifty partitions and pockets, it was the right size and it wasn't particularly expensive.

My only problem with it was that as suitcase vs. luggage band goes, it was camouflaged. Grey. Come on. 9 of 10 travellers have grey plastic suitcases.

So while I was thinking it over, weighing ugliness and camouflage against otherwise perfectly suited to my needs, I noticed a suitcase of the exact same model - only lime green. It sounds revolting, I know, but I instantly fell in love with it. The price was exactly the same and all. Naturally I pointed at it and told the shop girl that I wanted that one.

Whaddya know, Shop Bimbo objected.

For some reason, the only explanation I can think of is that she gets some bonus for selling the grey suitcases, she was very much opposed to my buying the lime green one. She actually argued with me. Inexplicably, she insisted that the two suitcases were not alike at all, when anyone able to read the little booklet attached to the handle could tell that they were identical.

Then she actually pointed to the zip lock on the lime green one and stated that the grey one was much better because it had a real lock instead of a zip lock. This was a blatant lie, the grey one, being identical to the lime green one, had a fucking zip lock too!

This odd salesperson encounter lasted quite a while, 15-20 minutes perhaps. Finally I convinced her that there was no way in hell she was going to manage to sell me a grey suitcase I didn't want instead of a lime green one I very much wanted. She deigned to accept my money, ignored my trying to buy a new wallet AND a new shoulder bag as well and appeared to want to get rid of me as soon as humanly possible.

I'm unable to figure out what that was all about.

I work at a university. There are about 800 people working at my faculty. These days, half of us are changing offices inbetween ourselves, which means everybody packing and getting the hell out, moving people coming in and reshuffling the office cabal and then we will be given new keys and try to find our new offices, all within two weeks when the faculty is basically switched off.

Unfortunately, the 400 people this affects are expected to work as usual.

I had the good sense to perfectly time a week's vacation, hence avoiding much of the hoo-ha, but I've spent this week hunting for telephones, computers, available meeting rooms for job interviews, borrowable offices and my mail.

It appears that since I went missing the first week of The Great Moving Monstrosity I am now deemed unworthy of the few vacant offices my co-workers have been using. They all seem to think they have more right to said offices than me, and I have actually been thrown out three times in three days. Thanks a fucking bundle.

I can't sleep.

Not only is it damn hot and stuffy, but the natives are restless. Our street is usually quiet at night, but for some reason the hordes have decided that this night is perfect for standing around outside our bedroom window, yelling. Or driving extremely loud vehicles up and down - please note that this is a one way street.

So here I am, it's 1.27 am and I'm wide awake and pissed off.

And despite the cretins filling up the street, I have that late night when everybody else is asleep feeling of being completely alone in the world. It's not a feeling I particularly enjoy.

I don't mind being alone, I actually rather like it, but there's something vaguely unsettling about being awake when you're supposed to be sleeping. Like the whole world population suddenly died and left you, but not to fulfill your daydreams of going into all the shops and take whatever you like because you're the last person on earth, more like you're just going to sit around in your living room for the rest of your solitary life and wonder why the hell you were spared.

Still, the grunts and squeals from the street proves that at least the intellectually challenged are still around.

In an attempt to amuse myself a bit while being the last person on earth, I've revisited the Mark Lanegan fanforum, which is a nice, amusing fanforum (completely unlike the abusive imbecile-riddled Tears forum, I might add), and where there often are bootlegs to download (but not now) and cute discussions about pony farms and meth side effects. And an utterly endearing 213 (!) page thread about what's your favourite word.
Plus, I just found a link to the Profanisaurus there, and this is officially among my favouritest web sites now. My enjoying this site could however be induced by lack of sleep, gods know that does terrible things to my sense of humour. Fnarr fnarr, to employ a Profanisaurus term.

And now I can, like, totally not find the logout clickee in that forum, like.


Found it.

And it's now 2.19 and I desperately need sleep. Sounds like the morons decided they do too, it's a lot more quiet.

It could mean that I actually am the last person on earth now.

Our brand new (second hand...) monitor keeled over and died an hour ago.

I had to get the old monitor, which collapses every twenty minutes and then needs an hour of rest before it will work for a bit again, out and plug that in instead. In doing so, I got dusty, sweaty, hurt my knee and just about smashed the dead monitor to pieces, and I got hoarse from screaming curses.

Allow me to scream a bit more: GODFUCKINGAWFUL PIECE OF SHIT MONITOR!


OK, calmer now.

Incidentally, yesterday I ordered a brand new shiny lovely laptop, which in a few days' time will replace the ratty tired old piece of junk computer I'm now using, which gets memory overload when I rip more than four CD's in one go. I must be psychic.

Welcome to day 3 of The Magnificent Headaches!

Today we are going to discuss why I all of a sudden have developed a headache problem. Having little guys mining in my skull used to be a rare event, and painkillers were rarely needed, but the last month or so I've been having them around far too often for comfort. I'm getting a bit worried.

I have some prescription painkillers to take when my back is making attempts on my life. These pills are meant for migraine, it says so on the box. They didn't do shit for my headache on Tuesday, however. I really don't know anything about headaches and migraines, but I assume that migraine medication is useless for ordinary headaches, and that what I have are the latter. Not that I can call them "ordinary" with a straight face.

Possible reasons for headache problem:
- Work-related stress
Hardly. Unless what I'm experiencing is a reaction to the stress last autumn.
- Too little caffeine
Very possible. I haven't been drinking nearly as much Coke as I used to. Have upped my intake of strong black tea now.
- New mp3 player, loud music on the ear all the time
Didn't affect me before. Am I growing old?
- Too little sleep
Slept well last night. My head still hurts. Maybe it will be better after a few more nights of sufficient sleep. Preferably without the unlovely nightmares.

Must go get some more tea.


Update, 16:07 local time.
Yay, my back has started to ache.