In a far away sofa...

In lack of things to post about, I'll just post this vid about my aquarium inhabitants. Everyone, or in the shrimps' case, their representatives, are in the vid except for the tigersnails, Wesenlund and Harald Jordfreser. I don't know where they were hiding when I was filming.



Helga, Eva and Berlin - Applesnails.
Kviting - Guppy.
Rolf - Zebrasnail.
Grey shrimps - Amanoshrimps.
Black and white shrimps - Beeshrimps / Black Crystal Shrimps.


In less than a week, a new filtration pump that I've installed will be finished producing the good bacteria it needs, and when it is, I will rip out the built-in system. It's been annoying me for the last time.

I forced myself up early this morning because it's the last day of Easter break. I've been getting up at around noon every day for the past week, so if I hadn't gotten up this early (and I'm going to bed early as well), I wouldn't be able to get up tomorrow. Blah, I'm getting dead tired of school.

Hope you're happy now, Chris. ;)

I didn't get a chance to write about this yesterday because of all the awesomeness that happened.

It was Line's 18th birthday yesterday, and I have been working on the perfect gift for a week. What I did was this:
- I gathered together 18 random things (examples: wooden ladel, tomato puré, candle, movie, book, a teletubbie plushie, candy, lighter).
- I locked myself in the bathroom with the lights completely off and with the 18 things and my videocamera.
- I acted out that I had suddenly awoken there and had to survive for 18 days, and every day I found one of the 18 things. I filmed a video journal.
- I packed all the 18 things in a big box, edited the video journal and made a dvd.
- Gave it to her yesterday, ordering her to see the dvd first.

She loved it. Told me it was the best gift she had ever received :)
So yesterday after school I walked all the way to her house to get some exercise (about a 70 minute walk). When she had watched the dvd and opened the gifts, she, I, her two sisters and her mom went bowling. At first I was obviously loosing (haven't played for 8 or 9 years), and Line's youngest sister (10) was winning, but the final score was this:

1. place: Line's mom
2. Me
3. Line's youngest sister
4. Line
5. Line's other sister

Wohoo :D The next time I'll knock their socks off.

We also played another game there, in which I won over Line ;)

This blog has suffered serious neglect, and it's about time it was updated. Last time it was a short post containing some quotes from Farscape. That was sometime in February before the Winter break if I'm not mistaken. Well, a lot has happened since then. If I were to write it all it would take all day, so I'll name the key events:
Line and I have spent like 50 % of our time together, and it's just awesome to be with her. During this time we've been to the movies a couple of times, had ice cream at a café we love a couple of times a week, every week, had movie nights, been at the aquarium and just hung out in town. We also constantly play minesweeper on msn, and I totally own her! The score at writing moment is 41 - 35 to me.
Frodo the Guppy died not long ago. Turns out he got whatever the other one died of, so I had to put him down. There's a new guppy taking it's place now, with a white tail and fins, blue body and a yellow head. I named him Kviting.
I finally got the Tigersnails that I ordered like six weeks ago!
 
They have of course gotten names as is the fashion with me. The one in the front is called Wesenlund, and the one in the back, Harald Jordfreser. Don't ask.

I'm expecting a new filter for the aquarium in the mail today, so I'll finally get rid of that awful built-in system in my tank. I think it's the root to all the leaking problems I've had since it first started acting up (it's happened three times since the last update). I think more people have had the same problems, because they've started selling this aquarium without the built-in system. I have big plans now that it'll be gone. It'll take about two weeks for the new filter to be ready if I use some sponge from the old one, so I'll have two weeks to plan what it will look like. I'm gonna remove everything that's not wielded onto it, either replace or thoroughly rinse the gravel, and either decorate it with rocks, new roots or do something with the old root. Time will tell. Sketches will probably be up soon :)

I've fallen completely in love with Periophthalmus Barbarus (I think the English name is Atlantic Mudskipper). I really really want one, but I know there's no room in my tank... I'm definetly going to get one or two when I get my own place (next summer, yay!). Here's a site with some pictures: http://akvaforum.no/profile.cfm?id=11389&tab=3

I think I'll end this post here, because I'm hungry and it's only 10 minutes left off lunch recess.

Looking through quotes from Farscape. Crais/Stark dialogues are awesome xD

Crais: (blinded) What can you see?
Stark: Damage, damage, damage.
Crais: Whatever would I do without your verbal gift?
Stark: Oh, you want more words? Well, the conduits are damaged, bulkhead's damaged, the external sensors are damaged too. There's nothing that is not damaged!
Crais: Least of all you.
Stark: I can see.
Crais: If only you could think.

---

Stark: OK that does it! Get down on your knees, face the wall!
Crais: I am not getting on my knees!
Stark: GET DOWN!
Crais: You told Rygel you'd be calm!
Stark: I AM CALM!!! YOU GET DOWN NOW!!!

---

Sikozu: You ate only three solar days ago! How inefficient is your body?!
Chiana: How edible is yours?

---

Noranti: Rygel, have you tried this?
Rygel: Oh, another delicacy! What’s it called?
Noranti: It’s called… cop-porn.

---

Aeryn: How are you doing, Noranti?
Noranti: Preparing mayla spores takes time. (she spits into her hand) And spit.
Aeryn: We never have enough time.
Noranti: I don't have enough spit.

---

Noranti: Who's Stark?
Rygel: Another lunatic with the wrong number of eyes.

---

Stark: What about me?
Aeryn: How best can you help?
Stark: I can stay out of your way.
Aeryn: Excellent.

So yesterday I skipped school because I got like only 4 hours of sleep or something. That's usually not a problem, but I felt awful when I woke up. Like, really awful. My eyes felt like they were going to pop out and I had this strange nauseatic feeling, yet I wasn't feeling sick. Meh. Didn't get much sleep tonight either. I fell asleep not long after I went to bed, but I woke at 5 am or earlier. But I'm struggling through this schoolday anyway. Lucky me I never fall asleep in public :) Am planning to take a walk or something in the snow today to tire myself out a little. Maybe I'll sleep better. Am also going to check if they've gotten some new snails at the pet store. They said they'd order some more Tiger- and Zebrasnails last time I was there, and they might have ordered more in the same shipment. *is excited*

I've just had an oral presentation of the documentary project. I only spoke for 10 minutes (we had to speak for 20), but the teacher said I covered it all, so I hope I did okay. The film is shit, so...

I haven't felt this inspired to write something for some time, so I think I'm gonna continue a bit on chapter 5 of Verd. Never started any of those other ideas. I think I'm gonna scrap the newest one. There's another bright idea forming, though.

I've discovered this awesomely beautiful song with an equally awesome video:

Oren Lavie - Her Morning Elegance

Turns out Line can't after all, so I'll have nothing to do today unless enough snow comes for me to go out and make something. I baked chocolate muffins yesterday, so maybe I'll bake something today as well.

I've just finished putting together the clips for the documentary! Yay. Now I'm going to fix the brightness and contrast of most of the clips and then I'm done, I think.

Snow! Omg, snow! I've been wanting snow for the past week, and now it comes! The minus is that it's incredibly cold and windy, which sort of ruins the mood, but if it calms down soon it won't be that bad. I think I'm going to make a snow Balrog. Or something similar at least. Perhaps a dragon. Well, it all depends on how much snow God has decided to bless us with. I'm hoping for a TON 8D
*dances*
Today's gonna be a good day methinks. It's Wednesday, the day were everyone who has got a "practical job" is out and the remaining (6-9) is at school trying to get assignments. The teacher who's supposed to be here to keep an eye on us is sick, not here, so we can do about whatever we want. The headmistress was here not long ago checking who was attending today, and now we have like half the day until she comes again. I'm gonna try to finish editing the documentary for the project were having, and then I'm gonna watch some old Farscape episodes with Stark in them.
I was originally going out to town with Line later today, but she had too much homework. Therefor I talked her into letting me come home to her's and help her with the homework, then we'll go out afterwards. I had planned to bring my camera and take som light painting pictures in town, but if the weather stays like it is now, I don't think I will.

I've had this major inspiration for photographing lately. On Monday I discovered light painting, which is basically putting the camera on a very long shutterspeed (say, 15 seconds) and then run around in front of it with a flashlight. You get a lot of interesting results:





I also tried out filling a bowl with sodawater and dropping cherry tomatos in it:



And while experimenting with taking multiple pictures in succession without blitz, I got this as one of the many great results:




I've finally uploaded the pictures of Rolf the Zebrasnail and the Applesnails Eva and Berlin:


Rolf


Eva and Berlin. I don't really know who's who yet, because I haven't found any apparent differences in their shells. Working on it though.

Oh, and I've also managed to get a pic that shows the colour of Frodo:


(click for larger)

It's lunch right now, and I'm enjoying my strawberry müsli yoghurt while writing this entry. We've just had Norwegian and are going to have English in 15 minutes (at the time of writing). Earlier today I watched an old episode of Farscape called The Hidden Memory. Stark's (Paul Goddard) behaviour in that episode gave me tons of muse. Then in Norwegian, when I was writing an analysis on a text, I listened to music, three new songs I've discovered. I got even more muse. Combined with the topic of one of the two texts I had to chose from (I chose the other one, but still), the melting of the North Pole, an idea formed in my head. An idea for a story. I'm thinking about putting Verd in pause and start this one. I get ideas for stories all the time, but this one was like "WHAM!" right in my face, and I can't ignore it. It might not turn out a full length novel, like I'm planning with Verd, but perhaps a short story, or a children's book (depends on if I'm going for the darker or more "fantasy" approach to it).
Speaking of children's books: I've had this idea for a story titled The Marzipan King in my head since before Christmas. I'm thinking about executing that one too. But what do to, what to do? Finish Verd and let the other ideas slip? Start the newest idea, end up neglecting Verd and The Marzipan King? Actually, now that I'm writing, I'm slowly convincing myself to start The Marzipan King, write the ideas for the newest one on a piece of paper (love hiding ideas under my bed) and put Verd on pause. I'll probably end up writing two of them or all three simultaneously anyway... [/rambling]

I'm off for English now, tata.

Listening to: Empire of the Sun - Walk on a Dream
                        Paramore - Decode
                        Polarkreis 18 - Allein Allein

I forgot to upload the pictures of my TWO NEW ADORABLE PURPLE APPLESNAILS (!!!) yesterday, but I'll write about them anyway.
They're both female and I've named then Eva and Berlin. They're from a breeder in Trondheim who has (from what I've heard and seen) the prettiest and best-quality snails on akvaforum.no. I couldn't agree more with them. I've never seen applesnails with such shiny smooth shells before. The colour is just fantastic.

On Wednesday, Line asked me if I had any plans for the say after school. I said no and we agreed to go and have icecream at a Café Opus (they have awesome icecream). Well, the icecream went straight to our heads, and we got really hyper. I emptied her wallet and spread it's contents all over the table, and then put it all back in and (quote) "gave it a fresh new look". Then her cellphone ran out of juice and this is what happened:

A lot of people were staring then, so we cleaned up after ourselves and left. We must have looked like drunks walking there, laughing at everything and bumping into eachother, but it was only a sugar rush. Man, it was fun :D We're going out again later today to have icecream. I wonder what'll happen then...

I think I hit my nose with the back of my hand while I sleep. Yesterday morning I wake up with an aching hand and an aching nose, and today, a bruise has formed on the back of my hand. This is a matter that needs further investigation. Any volunteering to watch me sleep? x)

One of the guppies died Saturday night. He had been incredibly thin when I bought him. The other one too, but both of them ate, and only the one living now gained weight (can you say that when talking about fish as tiny as guppies?). He had been looking awful throughout the day, and when I went to bed at 3 am *ahem*, he was just floating around, lifeless. It was sad, and I'm sick and tired of everything dying now. Hopefully the last remaining one will live for a good time. I don't think I'm gonna buy him a buddy as he might get infected by some new disease. Because of him being alone now, I decided to give him a good and proper name. Everyone say hello to Frodo!

*insert picture here*
(sorry, haven't got one. Guppies are so darn hard to photograph...)


I have fallen completely head over heels in love with Farscape. I can't stop watching it, and when I'm not watching it, I'm constantly thinking about it. It's such a fantastic show! Too bad there's only four seasons and a movie. I've almost finished season three, so there's not much left...
Stark is such an amazing character:



His introduction to the series:

Wilhelm, the last of my applesnails died on Tuesday, which confirms my theory of a snail-desease. I miss the snails. The tank looks so empty without them... I started out with three black guppies. Then I got 5 amano shrimps. Then two more. And not long after those two, I got my first applesnail, Adolf. Then Wilhelm. Then Maria's tank leaked, so I got her's, Ribbentrop. Now, all three original guppies are dead, all snails and one of the shrimps. I remain with the two new blue-purpleish guppies and 6 shrimps. In not long, a snailbreeder is going to sell my two purple applesnails, and I can't wait :D Hopefully, all remains of the probable disease will be gone.

Now, to the reason why I haven't updated much lately.
On Friday I didn't manage to go to school because of the classical flu-symptoms; aching limbs, dizzyness, no lust for food (that didn't sound right...), slight nausea, fatigue etc. That lasted till Sunday night, but I decided to stay home Monday and Tuesday as well so that I'd recover properly. Wednesday I went to school because we don't do much on Wednesday, but it only lasted half the day before it all came back to me and I had to leave during lunchbreak. Luckily I got a doctor's appointment the same day, the only free one for the rest of the week. He checked me up and I obviously had some kind of flu along with a slight cold. On the doctor's note he wrote airway-infection. He gave me legal time off from school out the week, so now I'm home relaxing. BUT, it's gotten worse. Much, much worse. My throat is bugging the (excuse the language) hell out of me, my nose runs like the Niagra Falls and I feel really tired all the time.
Right now I've just cooked myself some porridge and am going to enjoy it while watching my newfound passion: Farscape.
Yotz.

Rules
Post 6-10 things you do on a daily basis, link to the person who tagged you, and tag 5 other people.  You must tag at least one person that you don't know!

I'm gonna write about the schooldays, 'cause my weekends/holidays are completely different from the average schoolday.

   1.  Brush my teeth.
   2.  Hurry to reach one of the three buses that goes past my school.
   3.  I sneeze 2-3 times a day (have no idea why, but it's really annoying. Especially if it happens right after I've applied mascara).
   4.  I spent approx. 6-7 hours or more on the internet every day because there's nothing else to do at school when I've finished what I've been ordered to do.
   5.  I play and cuddle with my cats.
   6.  I think about LotR in some way or the other ("I wonder where my Bilbo action figure have gone", "Legolas is hot", "You shall not pass!")
   7.  I feed the fish (the snail(s) and shrimps only get food once or twice a week).
   8.  I hug my mom (love hugging her ^^).
   9.  I watch a movie or a tv-show.
  10.  I roleplay in some way; can be anything from imagening myself as someone else when I walk to the bus station, or actually roleplaying online.

I have no blog-friends (except the one who tagged me), so I tag no one. If you should accidentally stumble upon my blog: I tag you!



The clock is 08:22 am as I'm writing this sentence, and I haven't left for school today because one of the New Year illnesses have reached me. When the temperature switches from 9 degrees (celcius) one day to 0 degrees the next and then 11 degrees the day after that, people tend to get ill. I think I have a fever and it feels like someone's stuffed my sinuses full of wall-isolation. Also, my nose is swollen. It's not visible, so how do I know? My nosepiercing is pushing against the inside wall of my nostril, and it's not very comfortable. I think we'll be getting the documentary film project today, but I'll just have to look it up on the school's website. I'm most likely gonna make one on indoor cats. It has to be maximum 5 minutes, so I'll try to make the awesomest documentary ever, in the meaning of sound and visual. I doubt other people than me would find a 5 minute documentary on indoor cats fascinating.
And that just made me realise: I'm the only one of my friends who actually have cats. Line had one two years ago, and C lost her's to a hit-and-run a few months ago. Now it's only me. Too bad actually. The only footage I'll have is of my own cats and my dad's pal's cats who we are going to watch while he's on a vacation.

Anyhoo...
Look what arrived in my mailbox yesterday!!!

(click the image for larger)
*drools* Mine, my own... My precioussss...
The Ark of Truth is a movie that continues where the Stargate SG-1 series ended and ties up loose ends and such, while Continuum is a whole new feature film 8D And note the golden sticker: "hours of extras". Omg, yes!
So this evening dad'll be working late, so us girls (mom, my sister and I) will be having taco and watching The Ark of Truth. It'll be awesome!

Since one of the three black guppies died not long before Christmas, the remaining two had been fighting. About a week ago, around New Year's Eve, one of them got in control and really started harassing the other one. He's now just lying still at the bottom behind the root trying to stay out of sight. He wants to eat, but doesn't dare. I'm afraid he might die soon of the stress.
Therefor, in an attempt to divide the bully's anger, I bought two new beautiful midnight-blue-with-a-hint-of-purple-and-with-white/silver/green-upper-bodies guppies. Everything seemed to go according to plan during the first hour. The bully only seemed curious. But then things went wrong. He started biting and chasing them all over, and eventually, they were crammed in corners and didn't dare surface.
I then had to make the horrible descicion: I had to put the bully down. I've never done that before. The best method is to boil up some water and then drop the fish in it. It'll die as soon as it hits the boiling water's surface. This is only recommended for tiny fish, though, as the larger the fish is, the longer it takes. I did so, and it was horrible. It died at once, yes, but I felt like a murderer T_T

Oh, well. The first time is the hardest. I'll just have to get used to it as I'm going to have to do a lot of this in the future when I start up with larger aquariums with more fish.

And now the two newcomers are frolicking in the water, and it looks like their going to have it great in there. I really hope the black bullied one will recover as well. It'll be sad if he dies...

Would someone give me a hard and proper kick in the butt?!? I went outside without gloves again. Well, it was 9 degrees warmer again today, but the wind was extremely cold, and my fingers nearly fell off again...

I swear, I'm never NEVER ever going out while it's winter without gloves, ever again. I didn't bring 'em yesterday, and I ended up barely being able to move my fingers for several hours after getting inside. Today I thought (despite the fact that I knew it was 7 degrees colder than yesterday), "hey, can't be that bad", and ran outside without gloves again. GREAT MISTAKE. I now, 2 hours after getting inside, have this really weird feeling in my hands that doesn't seem to cease, and my wrists and fingers hurt when I move them. I hope this is no serious permanent damage.

Today was another boring day. All schooldays this year have been extremely boring. Even though Cathinke came over to join me at school today, it was boring. Wednesdays are the days that the class attend their "practical works" and those who haven't got any stay at school. That's me and six others. The teacher didn't show up today before not long before we got to leave, so we watched movies on the big screen. Cathinke came near the middle of the day, and we discusses the layout for the website I'm going to make for her, surfed the web and drew some. About half an hour before we left, we got really bored and just sat there. Cathinke threw pencils at me and I doodled on her drawing. When we packed our stuff, I stole her cellphone and sent a message reading "Pupp" (boob) to eight or nine people in her phonebook without her noticing. Suddenly confused messages were sent back to her, and I don't think I've ever seen people laugh as hard as she did when she found out what I had done. I think people know me, because one of the people I sent the message to called her and asked if it was my doing.

After that we went down to town and met the two lovely swans that resides in "Brosundet" below the city bridge. We bought a very cheap bread and fed them and had a generally good time (though my fingers almost fell off from the cold).

... looks just drop dead sexy in this freshly released image from the upcoming Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince!

http://www.veritaserum.com/movies/movie6/images/hbp0805.jpg

In other news: I keep sneezing and sneezing and I can't stop it.

This is going to be one long post.

Sorry for the extreme delay. Once Christmas Eve came, all want to blog disappeared. Christmas was great. I started the day by waking up at 7.30 to watch the final episode of the children's advent calendar tv-show called "Jul i Blåfjell" together with my mom. It's a miracle I managed to pay attention to what was happening, because I hadn't slept much that night so I sat there, wrapped in my quilt, half sleeping, croaking like a toad and looking like something that had just spawned from a particularly nasty swamp. A real imprint of beauty. Anyway, after that I realised that what I had planned to see, didn't start until 11 am, so after having freshened up, eaten and properly woken I watched one of my favourite episodes of Stargate Sg-1 and played some online games. At 11 am, the first of the two traditional Christmas movies started. I only watched the first one, Three Nuts for Cinderella (directly translated from Norwegian), because the other one isn't that good. I simply looove that movie. After it had finished I watched some Disney Christmas shows. By now you've probably understood that in Norway, tv is a big part of Christmas traditions. Good ol' Norway.
5 o'clock: Christmas dinner! Pork rib with two types of "medister" sausages, gravy, a special kind of potatoes, some nasty cabbage stuff that mom and dad likes and delicious Burn. I really wanted "pinnekjøtt" or turkey, cause I've grown kind of tired of the traditional dinner, but I was out-voted. Right after that we put the presents under the tree. Usually you do that when you get them, but the cats love the strings and bons, so leaving the presents unguarded is out of the question. In Norway we open the presents on Christmas Eve. Click the images for larger.




Our Christmas tree.


Ruslebiffen trying out his gift from Maria. It's incredible how a box can be that much fun...


This year's loot: A jacket, money, a necklace, Guild Wars - Eye of the North, the Kaptein Sabeltann movie, a gift certificate, Season 1 of Stargate SG-1, a sudoku-thingy, and the wtf gifts: a book on the history of Philosphy, a weird doll/pouch thingy and on the hanger there was some sort of night-gown, but it was three sizes too small for me, so my mom took it and kept it for some absurd reason.


I love it :D the purple spot is just the pen mark from trying to figure out were to put it. I'm not sure if I should tell my grandmother that this is what the money I got from her went into.

Now I have two piercings.
On the day I did this I also bought a root that I've been drooling over since before Christmas, and a plant for the aquarium. I redecorated it on New Year's Eve, and now I think it looks awesome. It looks much more like a root under water or something now. I just need to wait for the plants to get a hold on the root so that I can remove the white rock, and for the moss to grow onto the heater. Then it'll be perfect.


(Poor quality pic, sorry)

The snails and shrimps absolutely love it. The snails spent hours exploring and chewing on everything. They also found out that they can use the bubbles in the background as a launching ramp. They "slide" into the bubblestream and are blasted away. They float about for half a minute and then they sink to the ground and repeat the process. The shrimps immediately started picking on the new plants, cleaning them and making them look nice.
The fish on the other hand doesn't care.

I only have two snails now, Maria's and Wilhelm. Adolf died not long ago... R.I.P.


The only thing remaining then is to wish all a belayed Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year :D